Debra Manskey

I read someone’s comment on a local Facebook gardening page this morning about patience – and how they hope they’ll develop it as they start their new garden. It got me thinking about how terribly out of touch I can be in my own life with the art of waiting.

I don’t think gardens are never “finished” in the same way that, for example, a piece of writing is. Yes, it requires dedication and a lot of hard work and there are choices made throughout the process, it is edited and polished and pondered over but there is an end point when it is released into the world.

Gardens aren’t really like that.

Those of you who know me will fully understand, I’m not the most patient person in the universe, but over the years I’ve learnt how to wait. Yes, there is a difference! And I’ve realised there’s a rhythm to that waiting and I’ve managed to learn a few of the steps 😀

It’s really just the same as being a musician. As I tell all my students, the day you feel you’ve “finished” learning any instrument is the day you should stop doing it. It takes a particular kind of determination and discipline to stick with it. There are triumphs and disasters – but if the foundations are solid and the drive is there all things are possible. And after 50 years of making music, I’m living proof it’s a lifetime journey.

I have a food garden, an urban farm with chickens and breeding rabbits for meat. It’s full of fruit trees, some permanent fruit and vegetable plantings that give it structure and beds of seasonal plantings. The one concession I’ve made to this are a few of my favourite Australian native plants that attract birds and insects (particularly bees), that are mostly in a particularly shady and cold section of the yard and the occasional “visitor” from nearby gardens, like the poppy below (which I will be pulling out before it sets seed!) Yet, there is always something in flower to look at, admire and enjoy while waiting for the garden to grow.

Gardens are like us, they are always being edited, upgraded and polished, evolving and changing with the seasons – always a work in progress.

Wherever you are, enjoy the supermoon and take time to dance with the rhythm of your world ❤