ohiPPo's backyard: December 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Ambling Around

"A lot of one's pleasure in a garden comes from just ambling around in it, without any special purpose." Anna Pavord, The Curious Gardener

Wouldn't a blue garden be a mystical place to visit? As I have just learnt, there is indeed a Blue Garden in Lotusland, a 37-acre estate and botanic garden situated in the foothills of Montecito to the east of the city of Santa Barbara.

From 1941 until 1984, Lotusland belonged to Madame Ganna Walska.

What a legacy!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Safety First

Two families who live nearby and whose raised voices are either directed at their rambunctious children (I know the names of two boys now even though I have not actually been told their names by the parents) or at their barky dog (again, I know his name very well by now) have been away these couple of days.

Unknowing to them, their absence is an advance Christmas gift of audio space (if there is such a thing) to me. But alas, soon they will return. So am getting myself this signage for Christmas:

Alexander Graham Bell

"Part of the reason we garden and vist gardens is to escape: from ugliness to beauty, from tension to tranquility, from noise to peace. The mobile phone is changing all that." Anna Pavord, The Curious Gardener

I cannot agree more with Anna Pavord.

Whilst gardening, my two pet peeves are first, having to watch the clock, and second, being bound to attend to a ringing mobile phone or house phone. I fail to understand why one has to make oneself available at anytime simply because one has a phone.

Isn't the point of the phone to allow ourselves the option of being contactable when one wants and chooses so to be?

Why is there an expectation that the person on the other side of the phone must pick up its call immediately (or immediately soon after) when the phone rings?

Surely one is entitled to the freedom of engaging in other matters (less pressing as they may seem to you)?

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

From "The Curious Gardener" by Anna Pavord

Picked up this kindle book after having read a brief review of it on The New York Times.

"... I also realised how completely I had missed the point as a child. Gardening was not necessarily about an end result. The doing was what mattered."

"Optimisim is an essential tool in the gardener's kit. Much more important than a strimmer. And quieter."

"I don't feel I have to burrow around in my subconscious for reasons to garden. Fortunately, nobody else seems to feel the need either. Psychologists and psychiatrists leave us alone with our happy mania. My own theory about this (you have to have a theory in the psych-business) is that the act of gardening itself is what keeps you out fo the hands of the shrinks in the first place."

"Gardens are shaped essentially by soil and climate. The gardener contributes a signature scratched on the surface of the contours. The only signatures likely to last are those made by gardeners who work with rather than against the prevailing conditions."

"The real point of a garden is to increase the value of our lives. It gives us the best chance we have of fitting ourselves back into a world that cities make us forget. A garden locks you into the slow inevitable rolling out of the seasons, cycles of growth and decay, the lengthening of days and shortening of shadows."

"A garden gives pleasure, instils calm, grafts patience into your soul. Gardening slows you down, masks worries, puts them in proportion. A garden teaches you to be observant and how to look at things. You become less inclined to leap to quick conclusions. Or to jump on the latest bandwagon. A garden hones your senses. You can hear the sound of dampness creaking through the soil and smell it hovering in different guises over the compost heap. In a garden, you never feel lonely."

"Take time to admire the way a seedling pushes through the earth, its back humped into a croquet hoop with the effort. Even if it's a seedling of a weed like groundsel, it's still a miracle of tenacity and endurance. Grow something from seed yourself. If it's something useful - basil, coriander, rocket - so much the better. Plant a tree. Train a clematis."

"The point of gardening is the doing of it, not having got it done. It's the process that matters, through it is of course directed towards an end result."

- Anna Pavord, "The Curious Gardener"