The Garden at Moorfield Journal: 35
One for the 'Doers' out there! 20.10.2023
Dear Readers,
Welcome to another Moorfield Journal entry on this sunny Friday in Central Victoria, on Dja Dja Wurrung Country, especially to so many of you who have joined us in the last week or so. My goodness, we have been blown away by the number of you turning up here. I hope wherever you are it is as glorious as the day has been here, full of Spring’s special brand of magic, new blooms and birdsong, golden light and the air full of tiny insects aglow. Thank you, as always, everyone one of you, for being here, your support means so much to us, it truly does. There is not a single day that goes by when I am not completely humbled and extremely grateful for your commitment to reading our story and taking time out of your busy lives to do so. So thank you, welcome and have a great weekend. We hope you enjoy the read. Pip, Hugo and family xo
I have lost the trunks of the young orchard to the grass but in the dusk it looks more a magical meadow, than an overgrown mess. The sense of urgency that peaks when I first look at it, subsides and instead a silent sigh escapes from my lips, my shoulders drop and my eyes water. It is beautiful and so very alive, the air a ballet of graceful minutiae lit as if on stage, in a show just for me and anyone else who happens by.
I wish I could leave it, all that long grass and swishing of immature seed heads. I would if the trees were older but they need their space now and less competition, and we need less opportunites to roll ankles in hidden divets not yet filled of which we know there are many, and less opportunities to surprise any reptile visitors who like the long grass once it dries. Our little one too light on her feet still, for them to feel her coming, and leave.
We have been in the whirlwind of overcommitment to family and friends and in our distraction the garden has gone on without us. When I stroll back out into it that first day we wake to a house of only us and nowhere to be, pulled from the pit of my stomach as I feel I am, out to it, craving it like a thirst, it welcomes me and says, look what you’ve missed, look how I’ve grown in your absence, despite it.
I am suddenly stood amongst the parterre of the Rose Garden and once bare stems planted only a year earlier, now make me feel enclosed. I feel a little burst of joy into my blood vessels making my feet tingle. Deep green waxy leaves amass and lock out the light below, making worlds for small things to hide and I know they will be here soon, the small things, that flutter and fly and flit, that crawl in complete silence over the surfaces of things, some are already here but soon, soon it’ll be a city of small things.
They, the small things, will make all the difference in a garden, if you’ve built something they can stay in for all seasons, and we have, though there is always more to be done, it begins to look the picture I’d made up in my mind when none of it was here and these spaces, a dream. When I imagined the mornings I would wake to a diverse ecosystem that would eventually need me less and less.
Just as I think it, I spot my ‘Constance Spry’, an old world rose and parent of many, it’s new growth a lumpy lime green of aphid infestation and while I am busy wishing all my perennials would hurry up and grow and attract what needs to come to manage these little nemeses, I see the cavalry has arrived already. I could almost clap them on. Half a dozen ladybugs race up stems and a handful of hoverflies mount an aerial attack.
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