Category: Resilient Gardener …

In the Garden …

Now, after fourteen years in our garden, I have challenged myself to photograph 100 different flowers, in the year, and all grown there. It is always evolving, and each design and plant has to offer something to support our son, helping to ease his pain and calm his fears. You can see more details on my Flickr account here.

Snowdrops. One of the first flowers to appear in the garden. Often so resilient that they force their way through the fallen snow, but this year we have had relentless, torrential rain, so they sit on a muddy lawn at the foot of our trees and along an embankment. Still shining brightly in the dim light and attracting our son’s attention, encouraging him to go outdoors and investigate these bright white globes.

Hellebore Niger. (Christmas Rose) is another low level, bright white flower which blesses our garden with its appearance in November and lasts well into February before the flowers start fading.

Each year, I dig these up and divide the clumps for replanting and creating a border edging a pathway. They enjoy being situated beneath the shady canopy of a Crab Apple and a Tai Haku cherry tree, protecting the foliage from the increasingly intense summer sun.

Viburnum tinus. An explosion of mini pink-white flowers that cover the bush from the bottom to (in our case) head height.

This plant allows our son to view its intricate detail, no matter whether he views it on his feet or sitting in his wheelchair.

Once the little flowers pass, they are replaced by black berries which attract birds to the garden, providing further opportunities of interest and photo opportunities for our son on his Garden Safari.

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Seasonal change …

Do you remember the days. The days before health & Safety decided that playing conkers was unsafe.

We would scour the trees and the ground beneath them for the spiky shells containing those beautiful brown centres that as children we knew that after soaking them in vinegar and then warming them in an oven, would harden them. We could then drill a fine hole in them, and thread a piece of string through the centre. With careful aim, we could become champions.

Today, we save our knuckles from the inevitable pain, and instead, we collect them and polish them and use them decoratively around our home.

And of course, we use them to pile in the corners of each room to deter the invasion of spiders. All of whom have decided to come indoors now the temperature is falling.

I don’t think it works!

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Sometimes, magic happens …

The garden is a sanctuary for me. It always offers something that requires attention, drawing my mind away from a crisis. It provides aspects I can use to help Marc overcome his rage and pain.

Watching your son be overwhelmed by the ferocity of a seizure is heartbreaking. If only I could reach into his mind and take it out, putting it in my own to endure instead of him. All I can do is stand in the garden and scream into the wind and rain, letting them wash away my tears of frustration and anger caused by my feeling of helplessness.

And yet, when his pain passes, it is replaced by a rage so intense that his self-awareness recalls what has just happened. Pleading with me to make it stop, but not understanding why I cannot. The garden waits patiently for me to realise what it has quietly delivered, and only it knows the secret and magic of what it has given.

In this instance, a single rose bloom—a colour that Marc finds soothing, putting him at ease as his tensions fade away. This rose was one he and I propagated together, cutting the stem and placing it in a pot to root. We waited two or more years, and honestly, we had forgotten about it, keeping it in its pot and pushing it to the back of our neglected garden—two years, maybe three, with nothing happening. Then, on this day when his pain was so intense and there was nowhere else to turn, his keen eyes noticed the colour. His mind sharpened, his tears, and mine, dried up, and curiosity took hold of his heart.

Bringing the pot forward, we looked, we touched, we breathed in the fragrance.

We smiled!

A moment in time …

Two steps forward… It’s a cliché, but on the one hand, I am pleased to have started on the garden’s restoration and alterations, along with a four-legged helper who insists on marking every stepping stone! However, my time is constantly interrupted by Marc’s nearby cry.

I so wish the pendulum of his life would swing in the opposite direction, giving him a moment’s respite from his pain and anxieties, but the occasional smile we see from him is a deception. The harsh reality halts the pendulum’s swing completely, and my need to be by his side, supporting him, feels endless.

This was a project I had hoped to include Marc in, even if he sat down in his wheelchair, he could scatter grass seed and sprinkle water over it, but his mood and health prevented it.

Life has become very isolating, even the feedback on my book, though exciting beyond words to receive, and I thank everyone who has taken the time to do so. My wife and I have had the dreaded conversation about Marc’s overall well-being and declining health, and what it might signify.

Nobody in medicine will engage in that debate with us, but their warnings of fatality continue to rattle uninvited in our minds.

We carry on as best we can. The restoration may take longer. I had even considered hiring a gardener to do it for me, but while there is hope that I can involve Marc as I once did, and wrote about, I will wait and give him time to regain his enthusiasm to join me.

Once again, I apologise to everyone here for my absence and lack of engagement. I will do what I can, when I can, and I thank you for your patience, your encouragement, and your friendship.

In Marc’s Garden …

The Geranium Rozanne, is a perennial flower with such a delicate shade of blue.

Our garden has been created around such colours as this flower as a basis for our sensory approach of gardening to support our son.

Plagued with autism based anxieties and epilepsy generated pain, the blue, if I capture his limited imagination properly, can help calm his fears, and when we sit outside in the light, falling rain, I can take his mind off the pain he feels and accept the lightly falling rain on his face by encouraging him to look up into the sky with me as it falls, just as it covers this flower, so it covers our faces too.

The garden has been, and continues to be instrumental is supporting him through his complex health conditions. the blue of the geranium is a welcome sight this month as it appears in the borders and encourages our son to step over the threshold to look closer.

A welcome to Spring …

After a long darkly troubling year, and a dreary Winter, the garden offers a bright and cheerful reminder that everything is going to be okay.

Snowdrops force their way through, unaffected by the deluge of rain we have had, storms, snow and very neglected maintenance by myself. Beautiful bright and white. Further meanderings around the garden reveal Crocus, Flowering Quince, miniature Iris, Primulas and the swelling buds of statement Camelias.

Yes indeed, everything is going to be okay.

Tears of colour …

As autumnal feelings grip us. A chill wind and cold rain embrace us each time we step over the threshold. Leaves changing colour and eventually fall to the ground like tears.

For many, autumn, or fall, is a season that is looked forward to with its striking colours and sounds of crisp leaves crunching underfoot.

Each moment and aspect of the garden offers a chance of sensory stimulation. Maybe even a lesson or two, helping us understand the world just a little more. The is nowhere better than the magic of a secret garden once you know where, and how to look.

Perspective …

To see life from a different perspective allows you to see the beauty that is all around, all the time.

Stars in the sky do not disappear just because the sun comes out. They are still there shining brightly, just out of sight.

As we face many challenges, as many others do, it is easy to lose sight of that which lifts the spirit and comforts the soul.

For me, I learned to look into the reflections in the garden ponds. It reveals a perspective easily forgotten.

The Hunted …

Our Parson Terrier was so preoccupied by something she had found under the ornamental grasses and Daphne. No doubt it was something wild going about its business and now a dog’s wet nose was thrust into it and worrying the life out of it no doubt.

Throughout the garden I accept the beasties and bugs as a natural and welcome addition to the garden. The abundance we have living throughout does confirm the health of the garden, even if some of the flowers and shrubs do seem to be struggling. That is more to do with the consequences of climate change and the incredibly wet, and then incredibly dry conditions that is taking its toll on these plants that prefer the traditional season cycle.

Our dog is standing like a terrier stands. Her front half out of sight deep in the leaves and only her bottom sticking out and her tail wagging vigorously.

I suspect a frog. There was a time when we were overrun with slugs and snails. Over the years however, we have attracted frogs and toads and even newts. The slug is a delicacy of the frogs and toads and for the last 3 or 4 years, I have allowed the slugs to go untreated. This shift in control allowed the frogs and toads to have a ready food supply and now, there is a balance which I am happy to accept. Snails are being controlled by the birds. Empty shells are a sign that blackbirds and thrushes have been picking the meat out of the shells and leaving them discarded in a strangely created pile in one area, as if it is a waste bin. The empty shells crush up nicely and are ideal to mix with eggs shells and plastic free tea bags to add into the soil as a conditioner.

We have raptors in the area. Hawks, Owls, and others that feed on field mice and even rats as well as the frogs and toads. A Heron visits both gardens and local ponds in search of its food source. Even our smaller visiting birds are prey to the Sparrow Hawk as it flies through the gardens. Gnats, lacewing, and midges are devoured by the night-time visiting Pipistrelle bats. Around 3,000 are eaten each night. Going in search of what our dog is worrying, I crouch down in the bushes where it is half hidden and find her nose is nudging a frog. Not attempting to eat it, but encouraging it to move, I reached in and cupping my hands around it, pulled it away and out of harms way. I am happy for most wildlife to eat and be eaten in the natural order of things, but our domesticated dog is not part of that order and so a rescue was appropriate. There will be other frogs and other confrontations like this, but today, my rescue was the right thing to do, and this frog was released into some long grass away from harm to decide on what it wants to do.