The mindful gardener Tips for creating a ‘sense of moment’ – and taking time to revel in it!
As we gravitate towards plants that flower long and hard, let’s not forget those that ground us in the moment with their fragrance, fragility or fleetingness, writes MICHAEL McCOY
One of the great unsung powers of gardens is their ability to have one foot in the distant past and one foot in the present and precious moment. Gardens can hold the permanent and the transient – the eternal and the ephemeral – in perfect balance, and equally honour both. They are capable of calling us to relax into the long, slow rhythms of the seasons while insisting that we also pay attention to the very second in which we currently stand. In this they are among the greatest nurturers of mindfulness.
As a garden designer, sometimes I have had to design planting that changes as little as possible throughout the seasons, and the years, for the sake of minimising maintenance. But as a home gardener, I want change. As garden lovers, we all crave gardens that regularly grab our attention, startle us out of complacency, and refuse to be considered as simple background greenery to our lives.
So let’s plant in a way that calls attention to the moment. Here are a few ideas how.
fragile & fleeting
There’s something powerful about flowers that you know aren’t going to be around for long. They oblige you, if you’re going to grow them at all, to go out of your way to pay attention while they’re happening.
Individual poppy flowers are, perhaps, the most inherently fragile of the annuals we regularly grow. They unfold and unfurl their crepe-paper blooms early in the morning, and hold them, in quivering, exquisite perfection, for only a day or two. Fortunately, they’re constantly producing new blooms, but that short-lived cycle gives them a rare poignancy. A few small pockets of them (which is much more powerful, curiously, than one big bed) echoing around your garden will lure you outside again and again. Some strategically placed ornamental pots of them would have the same effect. Other annuals can follow them, as all carry a degree of this short-term magic, if not to quite the same extent as the captivatingly fleeting poppy.
Bulbs also have this power and, if well suited to your climate, the advantage of not having to be replanted each year.
They predictably and reassuringly mark the change in the season, and the passing show will woo you out into the garden over and over. On sunny days in late winter, I am forever dashing out to visit the crocuses in bloom. Within weeks, all evidence of them is gone until the same time next year.
There are a number of plants that demand a close encounter, calling us out of the distractions of the day and into a honed focus on the moment. Hellebores are a great example, their hanging heads hiding several of their charms in the form of internal spotting, doubling and surprising colour. Curious home gardeners flip up their flowers to peer inside. It’s a bit like a floral lucky dip, and highly addictive.
up close & personal
Galanthophiles (snowdrop lovers) find themselves practising the same habit, constantly, and very gently, lifting the
blooms to see if there’s any unusual green spotting, or doubling, which will then have them either protecting and propagating the plant (if it’s theirs), or begging for a bulb offset (if it’s not). When you’re looking into the heart of a snowdrop, you’re not thinking of anything else.
It’s not, of course, all about the visuals. There are many plants that either require you to lean in close to sniff, or that organise things in a way that you can’t resist such an action. Roses are a classic case in point. Some of us may be passive sniffers, but most can’t help but crouch, lean, bend or arch in order to bury our noses for a really good olfactory draught of perfume. And it’s nearly always with our eyes closed, because in that moment, we want to minimise all visual distraction.
Of course there are other plants that you won’t smell unless you get up close. The snowdrops that insist on floral inspection are also worth sniffing. Some are quite heavily honey-scented, but you never know which until you’re right down among them. The same goes for lily-of-the-valley. In many a garden worldwide, where I wouldn’t think to pick a flower, I’ve had no option but to perfect the perfume-chasing push-up. If it’s dry enough, you can, of course, lie on your tummy. (While you’re down there, take a look around... gardens look surprisingly and delightfully different from a prostrate position!)
following the elusive trail
And then there are those wonderful plants with humble or near-invisible flowers that pump out scent in such a way as to stop you in your tracks, then have you darting about from one corner of the garden to another in an attempt to locate the source.
I remember sniffing my way through a garden in Lucca, Italy, which was literally awash with a perfume I couldn’t tie down. I traced it to an orange-flowered form of
Osmanthus fragrans, and upon my return home, planted a few to relive – for a few weeks in autumn – that experience.
Many Elaeagnus species are known for their perfume-pumping power, but those seriously unexciting variegated forms, such as Elaeagnus pungens, tend to be grown as tough, bulletproof evergreens. Deep among the leaves, however, they hide very discreet flowers that leak a little scent on still, warm days, which make you wonder for years, as I did, where that autumn scent arose from, near the back door of my childhood home.
Such effects don’t have to be years in the planning or growing. The tiny, modest annual night-scented stock will exude the most intoxicatingly exotic scent after sundown, within a few weeks of sowing.
All these sensory experiences call you to attention for just a moment. But every one of those moments is precious. Every one needs savouring. And they’re well worth cultivating.