Are you an owner or a caretaker? Or both? How do you see your relationship with the land that you work. Are you “just” a custodian or do you take full ownership. This is a question that I often ponder as I spend time in my garden. Will it ever, truly, be mine?
When we first moved in to our home, just under eleven years ago, I did not feel that it was. I felt like I was in somebody else’s garden. And I was. Every stone, every plant, every tree, every colour was a choice that had been made by somebody else. A man named John. And what wonderful choices they were. It was a garden that I fell in love with as soon as I saw it and it is a love affair that has continued and deepened to this day. But to begin with, at least, it was not mine. It belonged to him.
I knew that I loved it, but as with any new relationship, I knew very little about it. From where the sun fell at different moments in the day, to which trees cast shadows, from how to identify the many plants that were new to me, to the seemingly simple task of understanding how to grow my own veggies and flowers, there was so much to learn. It was love at first sight though, so I knew I would do everything in my power to get it right. I spent the next few years learning as much as I could to preserve the beauty of the garden that I had fallen so madly in love with, sometimes getting it right and sometimes spectacularly wrong, but always trying again to make it work, both for myself and for John’s memory.
Little by little, I also began making small changes, choices that were “mine” for the space. Over time, I began to see the garden as something that was connected to me, just as much as it was connected to those who had gone before. I was learning all the time and that knowledge was giving the garden new life as it grew with our growing family. Just this year, we have introduced growing beds for my two little boys to make their own and I can already see that passion and love for the garden passing to them too.
And as with any garden or growing space, whether you are able to enjoy it for a year or two or for a lifetime, and whatever that journey and relationship entails, you will always learn and grow as much from tending that space as it will grow and thrive under your care and stewardship. And whilst our beautiful garden is now starting to feel more like “mine”, I am only too aware that we are all just passing through and that our time in these magical growing spaces is but finite. My relationship and connection with this space is so important to me, but I am well aware that the space will go on, in some form or other, when I am no longer here to care for it. It could be said then, that the land we tend is never truly “ours”. We are merely caretakers until it is time to pass the baton. However, I feel differently now. I know that the choices I have made and the choices of those who have gone before me have shaped the garden that I know and love. John put down his trowel and his spade many years ago now, but the magic of the garden he created, lives on. And, I will take care of that magic now, until it is time for someone else to take up the trowel.
