My garden is one of the great loves of my life and embodies an expression of what is possible when you love and engage with a project with complete presence. All my life, I have been a girl who loves flowers. I have always dreamed of having a garden full of hundreds or thousands of flowers. In the last couple of years, during my long-COVID recovery, I created such a garden. 

To me, flowers are love shining. To have flowers in my life is to have God, really. 

To me, every single flower is a living being, an individual expression of light and light creations, and beauty. They are all precious! I started this garden on a completely barren, rural block. Here she is pre-flora and fauna:

However, to my delight, I saw immediately what was possible. There were five fruit trees already on the property. Two were completely dead, but the other three were hanging on, and with attention and loving tending, now thrive. The arborist who advised me early on said there was no point in keeping them, yet with care they now gift me baskets of stone fruit, peaches and nectarines all summer long.

The garden I started with was filled with long-term neglected soil treated with pesticides and herbicides. Over these years, here I have regenerated the soil with compost, both homemade and purchased. I have mulched and put down seaweed. I have added organic nutrients and gradually built up the soil to plant this garden you see here in these photographs. 

This garden is only 18 months old. It has been a daily labor of love. Tending and caring, but also spending time watching and observing the plants, how they work together, what they need, and the messages that they may be sending for particular kinds of care through their signals. Co-creating this wonderland has also required a level of “nerding out” with gardening books, visits to other open gardens for inspiration, and learning how to care for each of the types of plants that find their way to my plot. I will never stop being overwhelmed by the unique needs of every species. It can be a lot!

My garden style is ‘maximal’. It means fitting as many plants as possible in every space! There is literally nowhere currently where you could insert another plant since those that have been planted have thrived so abundantly that all the sunlight space has been taken!

In some ways, the ones that bring me most joy are the ones grown from tiny seeds which I tend through winter in a little plastic greenhouse till the frosts pass and they get to go into the earth. Putting that seed into the punnet, then witnessing it send out its earliest shoots, first tiny leaves, gradually strengthening the stem, never fails to move and amaze me. So much tending is required for the promise of a patch of bounty. I love caring for things, whether my chickens, my clients, my plants, my pup, or now my bees! 🐝

It is more fulfilling and sacred, more meaningful than I ever imagined. It nourishes and feeds me in every way. If you ever want to know where I am, you will most often find me out there in the garden with a cup of matcha communing with the plants.

Welcome to my garden! Enjoy the photos taken by the lovely Verity Edgecombe! Let me know your thoughts and perhaps some of your garden stories, too. We’d love to read them in the comments section below ⤵️

Excited to hear your thoughts and comments from these happy, good vibes sent to your screens today 😍