We’re gearing up for another studio/home exhibition
of artwork. While my husband, the artist, organises
his studio I attempt to garden our garden which is more like a forest. Set amongst a two-story studio and a
centenarian house on a quarter acre block are approximately thirty trees, (many
soaring high above us), and countless shrubs. It’s a tight fit and sometimes I
don’t know where the forest ends and the house starts.
At times, it’s romantic. At times, it’s hard work.
I mean, have you ever tried to garden a forest? Bizarrely, I have, for years now, and the
wanting to give-up factor can get pretty high. I might have chucked it in, but
the forest would soon become a fire hazard, and who wants a bush fire in their
back yard? So I garden, sweep and rake
leaves day in, day out. I pick up branches;
break them up with my bare hands. Piles
of composting leaf litter are scattered around the yard like gigantic ant nests.
The pay-off is that visitors are charmed by our
idyllic retreat set in suburbia. They think it’s wonderfully romantic, that it
reminds them of Pemberton or Margaret River — why you can almost hear the surf.
We planted this forest almost thirty years ago, and
it has given us much, trees are the ox of the world. They absorb carbon from
birth; they give shelter and shade and provide fruit and flowers. Then even in
death they provide fuel.
I yawn.
Tired. But then as I look out, sunlight flickering through the trees and
spilling onto leaves moving in an early sea breeze, I’m invigorated. Our work
and living environment is sublime. Trees also give spiritual sustenance. They
remind us that the soul needs more space than the body.
