Garden

An interest in gardens came to me young; childhood expeditions at my grandparents’, then watching my father work an abandoned farm and patch of first-growth stumps into his own magic place.

My husband and I have owned five homes in Vancouver and for each we made a garden.  Two were renovations of old houses and their scabby yards; we were challenged with giant hollies and obscenely overgrown coniferous shrubs, all planted in the wrong spots and full of black branches and spiders.  The other three were homes we built, and had the joy and stresses of designing fresh new gardens.

Each of the five taught us and revealed secrets.  We watched all of them for years, which was a luxury, because we saw what they wanted to do and how our mistakes and successes could grow.  I have never missed a house after moving from it, but I have missed the gardens, and had many sneaky plans about going back to them in the dark and digging out my favourite bits.

 On long rainy days or early summer mornings, sitting in a window, I learned how the garden is integral to sense of home, from the journey through it to the entry, and from the interior; viewing, noticing, listening.  And I knew viscerally and then learned through practice that the house and garden want to be close.  The house wants to nestle and the garden wants to peep in the windows, display what it’s doing, what little wonders it has to show.

 A nestled house is firmly planted and sits in contrast to the garden - a shepherd with dynamism brushing her legs.  Seasons, weather; cold and warm, reaching green and settling browns, colour and bare branches, heavy, still shade and whipping chill.  The house is stable and watching, the garden fleet and whimsy. Home and its comforts - warmth, shelter, enclosure, are amplified; the garden is earth and the wild.

 The house wants places to show you the garden; places to linger.  Entrances became important to us and steps leading up to the front door evolved, with deeper treads and shallower risers.  They became wide – places to sit with tea on a sunny morning or to rest on during bouts of weeding or bulb planting.  We realized how perfunctory most steps are – just a means to get to the door - sharp and abrupt and transient.  Ours were lingering and contemplative and comfortable - they became a place.

 I cherish little changes - buds forming and honey bees and fresh tips emerging from the soil, and realized that when inside and wanting to enjoy these tiny pleasures I needed to be close, or the plants needed to be close to me.  Recklessly we placed a lacy Amelanchier in our front garden so that within a few seasons the branch tips would touch the window, and tiny, almost daily gifts are received. Before the blossoms the petals show between arching sepals.  Chickadees hunt for tiny insects, cast hurried sidelong glances, fearing the big eyes through the glass.  Sunny days in spring and autumn the low sun casts shadows of branches and leaves; shifting in breeze the patterns move like silent childhood films.  Our front window, a low, deep silled casement, became a place. With a rumpled sofa and warm throw we sit with the cats, mesmerized and attentive, watching all the visitors as they hop and and peck and drone.

 The garden is a source and reminder of life and invites us to take pleasure.  Cuttings and blooms, herbs and vegetables are harvest, and delighting in their scent and taste and presence brings the garden inside, unifying the out with in.  Warming by a fire after chill raking or smelling beets as they roast; scouring soil from under fingernails and knocking mud from boots are rituals and acts of service to our patches and balms for our busy progress.

Marion’s House

My grandmother Marion Ross had a house nestled in a magic garden.  The property was three acres, and the house had been built right in the center, to afford long and elegant vistas from each room.  Her husband, my Grandfather Rod, was like a sprite; impish, jolly, his hands always in the earth, plucking or seeding, bringing baskets and pails of berries and potatoes in for the proper midday meal.

The house had been designed by an architect, and although it was humble in size it had a perfect balance of scale and light; mystery and welcome.  The kitchen was steamy, pots burbling with fresh picked produce.  The porcelain sink was always full -  carrots, their green tops hanging over the counter edge, soil clinging to the orange dashes.  In the spring and summer; always flowers, from the garden; scented roses, lilac, zinnias.

All meals were eaten at the end of the kitchen, in a corner window overlooking lawns and beech trees, fringed in crocuses and erythronium.  The table had a jar of silver tea spoons and many newspapers spread over its surface, quickly gathered and folded when a meal was presented.  The children were squeezed in at the end of the table, close to the clouded windows and cool from the glass.  The narrow space required that you turned sideways and inched your way along, very careful not to knock little treasures off the low deep windowsills.  We always said a prayer before the meal and there were many bowls and utensils, and much passing and please could you-ing. 

The living room was long and low, with paned windows almost to the floor.  It was quiet and always, there was a clock ticking.  A big worn leather chair sat angled so you could read from the window light.

The intimate wing of the house was reached by a long hall.  I so distinctly remember slowly slipping along the floor in my stocking feet, the wood floor creaking with my steps.  Light from my uncle’s room lit the air and motes hung suspended.  There was no colour, just light and soft luminous walls, and wood.  My room was on the North side of the house, and had a single bed with cool sheets and many heavy blankets.  Easing my feet down, from the safety of my warm nightgown, to the full length, took ages; the warmth spread so slowly.

The house was filled with treasures – vessels and vases and little boxes and ceramics and books and art.  These items held the whole story of their lives.  I was never scolded in my exploration.  I opened and poked and unfolded all the mysteries. 

The house had such simple comforts; the open fire, the low protective roof, carpets and sweaters to fend off chill, plentiful and frequent tea served in softly clattering cups.  It was just enough of a shelter to make you feel a great appreciation for what it was providing – the blowing wet outside was there, just beyond the glass.  The windows did not stop the world from coming in.  Through them was draft and scent and the sound of wind in huge firs, and birds, and rain.  The fragile separation from the outside made the golden light and the fire warmth all the more delicious.

This house, now gone; the land built upon and lost, has always been my inspiration.  For me, my childhood memories are the most settled – deep and well anchored, providers of creativity and dreams.