in full bloom

slow and steady feels pretty good

It’s Sunday morning, and sweet birdsong is drifting on the cool breeze that’s rippling through the garden, leading the feathery green leafage and budding flowers of spring in a soft, swaying dance that would soothe any soul who sat here.

Today, it’s me who sits here, immersed in the lush explosion of our spring garden which, after two years of solid work, is really coming away now, giving all the romantic, tumbling, untamed floral vibes we’ve been working towards. It’s a funny thing actually, thinking about what it takes to create a garden that looks so uncreated. The Millhouse demands a rambling secret garden that befits her swoony, historic magic and we’ve been only too happy step right in and begin, a romantic country existence being the very thing we’ve both craved for decades.

But a garden, like many of the best things in life (and perhaps anything in life?) doesn’t happen overnight. This is a difficult concept for someone like me to grasp - I don’t secretly (and if I’m honest, a little smugly) think of myself as balls-to-the-wall-Rachel for nothing. I’m a bird who gets things done, has a vision and sees it through, adjusting and flowing along the way of course, but with a general hunger for a nice chunky project that I can consume myself with and deliver to deadline. Well. A garden will cure you of that. In fact, it will cure you of something that you didn’t know needed curing, and do that curing in the most gentle, beautiful and nurturing manner that will leave you standing in wonder and thinking long and hard about the benefits of slowing down and making space for things to evolve in their own time.

To create a rambling, untamed, wildly floriferous cottage garden that’s alive with bees and butterflies and birds, there’s actually a lot you need to think about, a lot you need to do, and almost nothing you can control. You can’t demand a plant to be ten feet tall in its first year, even if that’s what you so desperately want. You have to give it time, nurture it gently, and take small, incremental actions that set the stage for a magnificent performance in a year or two’s time. You have to nourish it with regular suppings of the food that really feeds it, and wrap it snugly in a nice blanket of mulch so it can snuggle in and rest on days when it’s too cold, or too hot. You have to give it long, luxurious soaks in clear and nourishing water, and most importantly, you have to wait.

You have to allow the plant to be who it is, develop in its own way in its own time, whilst helping it along by giving it all you can to support it. You have to step back, take your foot off the gas, think in seasons and years, not days, and trust that the plant will step into its own when it’s ready.

And if you do, if you accept and sink into the beautiful slow evolution of the natural cycles of growth, then, when the time is right, something magical happens. One day you turn around and you look at your garden and you think my god, where did that come from? All that abundance and fullness and life that you’ve been craving is suddenly there, so powerfully and with such floral force your eyes can hardly take it.

Barren banks of the worst soil have become tumbling rivers of soft mauve, palest lemon-yellow and a snappy little dash of chartreuse. Straggly clumps of invasive suckering trees have become big, bountiful floral borders thick with flowers and foliage and bees. And a ratty, forgotten patch of black bark, weed mat and couch grass (IYKYK) is now feeding you, quite literally, and you get to stroll out into the soft indigo dusk of evening in and fill a basket with the vegetables and fruit you’ve nourished, and they will now nourish you.

And the only way to get to here is time, patience, and ongoing incremental steps towards a bigger goal. There are many more steps ahead (you better believe I’m nowhere near done) but my pace is so different now. I know there’s no point in trying to force quick results because they’re just not possible (and perhaps not advisable either). I’m becoming a little slower, a little more steady, a little more flexible and accepting of a timeframe that gives a gentle snort at any deadline I might nattily pop in a project plan.

As my garden teaches me to relax and flow with a pace that’s bigger than I am, I find myself more willing to adopt the same approach in other areas of life too. There’s less forcing, less pressure and a greater understanding that small actions over time lead to good places. Also, gentleness is nice. And beyond the flowers, the wallabies, the birds, the sweet scented air and the bees, beyond the beauty that fills my heart so full that I think I can’t take it (but I can), is the greatest gift of all: the knowledge that slow and steady feels pretty good, and there is no race.

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PS If you’d like to follow along with all the happenings in the garden, come and hang with me on Instagram. There’s flowers, wallabies and bees on offer over there, especially in my stories, so come and join the fun 💞

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