I stumbled upon the quote, ‘The secret garden bloomed and bloomed, and every morning revealed new miracles.” It is from the beloved book ‘The Secret Garden’ by Frances Burnett Hodges, and I recall that this story is about healing. A garden left abandoned and forgotten for a decade, just like the little orphan Mary herself, is brought back to life with love and care. With the help of a robin, Mary discovers the key and slowly begins to interact with the seasons, the dirt, and the flowers – and both she, and the garden are beautifully transformed.
I loved this quote, because gardening has healed me too, and I feel like we are healing each other. Every morning, when I walk to the back of my garden to let my chickens out to roam and forage, I always stop to marvel at something new and beautiful that seems to have appeared overnight, every day a new surprise. It does feel like a secret place, away from the world, where I can let my imagination wander.
I have big dreams for my secret garden this season, and want to try my luck at growing flowers from seed, to fill out any little gaps in the garden beds. I have names for each an every one, there’s the moon garden, the faerie garden that I planted for my birthday last year, and... a new rose goddess garden centered around a stunning bird bath.
It’s all a bit wild and weedy in my garden and my excuse is the incredible amount of rain we’ve had these past few months. La Nina is in its third consecutive year here in Australia. And I must say, the weather has really challenged my co-creative gardening skills. I do love a good cosy rainy day, but I am itching to get out in the garden and get to work. I guess this weather is just another life lesson taught to me by nature. You can only do your best, and that’s always good enough.
Co-creative gardening is where you work with all the forces of nature and the plant spirits, working together rather than imposing your will. It’s not neat and tidy, it’s rambling and shifting, like a conversation, thanking the plants for all that they provide, and asking them what they need in return. I always talk to my plants, giving them tender words of encouragement and explaining what is going on and where and why I’ve planted them. I also play them classical music, especially when transplanting, to help settle them into their new home. I often place crystals in their pots, and when I’ve planted something new, I sit with it for a moment, and with one hand on my heart and one over the plant, close my eyes and visualise sending them love and joy, picturing them growing beautiful and strong and leafy and blooming, season after season.
At the end of Djilba season, just after the equinox, is just about the right time to harvest the last of the winter greens, and prepare the beds for the season’s crop. In the last episode, I talked a little about colour magic, and how simply reading the colour of a plant is a simple way to reveal it’s healing or magical properties. Purple is associated with the crown chakra, the portal to other dimensions and higher states of consciousness. When you see this colour in a fruit or vegetable, you know it’s high in anthocyanins, which are known to improve vision and have neuro-protective effects. I love it when modern science figures out an ancient kind of magic that pagans have intutively known for centuries, don’t you?
I’m so pleased that the purple kohlabi, kale and cauliflower all did so well this year, even with so much neglect, and I’m going to use them to make fritters with kale pesto (and share the recipe with everyone on Patreon!)
All of my brassicas are going to seed now, and the bees are loving it. Some might say I’ve made a mistake in planting too many varieties together, and letting them all flower at once, as this means they will likely cross pollinate and create strange and not so productive hybrids... but I’m happy experimenting and practicing an intuitive gardening style. I feel like this is more magical and special. This way, I’m creating my own unique little ecosystem, complete with weeds and beneficial insects, and letting the plants surprise me. After all, its a secret garden, and its designed to reveal new miracles.
But, in order to create a truly magical cottage garden – one that attracts beautiful birds, butterflies and bees... and, of course, faeries – one needs to grow more than just herbs and vegetables. Flowers are of course, essential to the secret garden of my dreams. And this year, I’ve collected some really exciting varieties of flower seeds.
Now, being an artist, I have a loose colour palette in mind for each of my garden zones – It feels like painting a Monet, dabbing pastels and jewel tones across my garden canvas, hopefully creating a dreamlike harmony, and an enchanted place that I will want to spend my summer days in, reading books and drinking iced tea, chatting to the faeries and chasing butterflies.
When it comes to planting seeds in seedling trays, I think there’s something quite meditative about little repetitive tasks. And of course, being outside in the fresh air, and working with soil, is so healing. I often feel that gardening is a metaphor for life, and I ponder the quote; ‘the seed never sees the flower’. I find it so profound to think that, in the passage of time, this tiny seed, will never know the magnificence that it will one day become. It makes me think of my younger self, little Nancy, and I wish she could see the woman we have become, all of the beautiful art we’ve made and the home and garden I know she’d love.
So, I hope you will join in the fun with me as I plan out my garden, harvest some veggies, sow seeds for an enchanted faerie wonderland, and paint a few pages for my upcoming book, ‘Wild Faerie Magick’.