The field...the field of flowers
Part one!
Yep…part one, cos I have a funny feeling I’m not likely to get anywhere near the pretty part in this post! Even in the recounting, as I find is the case with most things in life, patience will be required! Once upon a time I had little of that virtue so encouraged in young life (although I can’t have been all that bad as I remember so often being called Miss Determination by my parents - which I believe had something to do with a particular face I’d pull when tasked with some activity to master; so I don’t give in without at least trying!). I wonder if that old-fashioned ditty, repeated with regularity to me by my maternal grandmother is as oft repeated these days? ‘Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can, seldom in a woman, never in a man’.
As ever, I’m simply longing to gallop into recounting the pretty part about the Field! Just as I was longing to see a fully fledged garden at the beginning of that process all those years ago, fast forward 30 years and I felt no different when it came to making the Field. Except…that along the way I have learned some patience at least, and have by now, truly come to appreciate each step the journey takes. I have no doubt it’s gardening that’s taught me this quality, alongside a raft of other truths, some of which will become clear, if not below, then surely as we continue on together.
As with any concept, the Field began with the tantalising seed of an idea…the merest hint of possibility: one that was thrilling long before it was anywhere near fully formed. In the latest iteration, it came in tandem with the Botanical Waters. I mulled the idea over, dwelt and pondered…the pros, the cons, the nutting out, the reality, the problem solving and list making; followed by a string of actions that all along, held a sense of suspended gratification so full of hope, that each and every step encouraged another.
But as ever, I’m ahead of myself. So let’s pick up where last week’s ‘On botanical water’ post petered out with ‘if only I had a Field of Flowers’…
In fact, the Field of Flowers idea was such an old one, harking back to the year we moved to Glenmore…the year we found ourselves living here with a baby, a cold tap, a single electric ring on which to cook…perched in a not-quite-right stone dwelling, floating in a sea of dry mud. We hadn’t intended any of it. But here we were. “If we’re going to stay” Larry had said, “we’ll need to find a way for it to support us”. Yep.
If I go rifling back through some cupboards, it wouldn’t take long to unearth the lists I made, sitting at the old pine table, Clemmie on my lap (she never slept…neither of my girls ever slept during the day - that one thing a young mother craves - just for a moment, to enable her to get stuff done). Not that I should have been surprised - I know I didn’t sleep either - my poor Mum - in the end she gave up suggesting I ‘be a good girl and go to sleep’ and instead put a box of ribbons at the foot of my cot which kept me happily occupied for hours on end as I’d arrange them every which way over the side of my enclosure!
But those lists I made! One very early idea was for a flower, or given how dry the climate seemed to be, a lavender farm. How I love seeing cultivated land! Not that I don’t love wild landscape, but I admit to being heavily drawn to cultivation - a well laid out market garden is my idea of splendour (not mono-cropping) but I just love seeing ordered productivity - of growing for purpose. It was not long after that I called Woollahra-based florist Susan Avery on a whim (from whom before this radical move to Glenmore, I would buy a huge weekly bunch of flowers each Friday afternoon) to ask if she might buy some bunches of lavender from me. Although I wasn’t yet ‘gardening’ - we were still in repair mode, I had planted out a dozen or so plants of L. dentata under the Persian Lilac down by the very unrestored Dairy, and they were in full flush. Susan said yes. I somehow managed to coax Clemmie to be occupied (or maybe I gave her to Larry!) while I picked and picked and picked; cut all the stems to exacting length, bundled them with string, plunged them into water and early next morning, drove them to Sydney. For an entire afternoon’s work, I earned $25.00. It was a good experiment and sent me straight back to the drawing board!
There’s another old saying that goes something like ‘stick to your knitting!’. We engaged a local builder, pulled the Barn apart, leaving the eight supporting posts in place; numbered the ironbark slabs, poured a concrete floor and put her back together…in a way to make her strong, sealed and vermin-proof. We were long overdue to see family and friends in Europe, so combined that purpose with a buying trip - French markets etc…(you know - the stuff that’s all over instagram these days!) and the following year, I launched Mickey Robertson Design from the Barn in the middle of the non-existent garden. The ‘wish’ lists I’d made went out the window - if I was ever to bring anything listed on them to fruition…I’d need to earn my way towards bringing them about. (Up ‘til Clemmie’s birth and our subsequent decanting to Glenmore, The Robertson Arrowsmith Partnership had flourished in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs with my dear ex-business partner Paul Arrowsmith).
You might say…I never looked back. Before I knew it I was road-tripping all over the countryside: Beach, Town, Country was the byline I hatched and I seemed to be constantly on the move. As a result, we moved back to Sydney for two years, taking back the little cottage we’d rented out so we could both better establish our careers and then…took the huge decision to sell that little house and move to Glenmore full time. It was the only way we could make Glenmore fully habitable, to fully commit to making a garden…and to give Clemmie (soon to be Bonnie as well) the kind of childhood I had only dreamed of. Still I cooked on that single electric ring…but things were looking hopeful, if very, very scary!
So…the Field idea was about thirty years old, by the time it had its second coming! But by then, I had years of real gardening alongside lore and knowledge under my belt. Though I’d not yet created a Field of Flowers!
First of course, I needed to persuade Larry to my cause. Initially, I hatched a plan for something very basic - that I thought would require minimal upheaval, resound with absolute simplicity and be easy for visitors to access. I was worried at committing to likely costs as well as to creating a whole lot more work for myself, so I guess I had one foot in, one foot out. Was I completely committed? Larry didn’t like my suggestion for that particular spot and made another, with which I couldn’t have agreed more…I’d already paced it out, my heart had skipped a beat, but I knew, just knew that on that side of the property it would be impossible - strewn as it is with sandstone ‘floaters’ (ie large boulders). I’ve mentioned a few times during the posts where their presence has interfered with the garden layout and they’re the reason for all kinds of mis-happen planting here! But as is so often the way with Larry, he wouldn’t let it go. If I was hell-bent on the Field, that would be the best place for it. I knew he was right, and dreamed of it being so but oh dear…what had I started? (Stone aside, I knew that space required a bigger concept than my other suggestion..this really would call for a much more serious commitment).
But back to the stone…I couldn’t see exactly where it lay, covered as the whole was in long grass - even when Larry slashed it in tandem with the other paddocks. Col Fergusson, who has helped so much over the years beyond the garden boundary, was coming to do some tractor work. ”Let’s ask Col to scrape off the top soil while he’s here” suggested Larry. Already I was horrified at what I’d unleashed. The entire garden here has been made on ‘no dig’ principles…I’ve written at length about it: ‘no dig’ has been our practice ever since I first had the opportunity to dig.
But it was true…if we were to do this, we needed to see exactly what lay under the vegetation. When Col was done, we had a huge mound of top soil (that quickly got smothered in grass and weed) and a very ugly bare earth situation. But the rocks were exposed and for now, I had to put my soil concerns behind. This was just a temporary situation, I reminded myself.
For the first time ever, my trusty old string line was unravelled to its entire length! I plotted the rocks on paper and devised a plan: if we made the rows as I plotted, leaving gaps where the rocks were…I could work around them. I might not get all the plants I wanted, my rows wouldn’t be continuous, but broken (which could make for some interest); and/or if we mounded earth high enough, we might just get away with it.
I was resigned and just needed Col to come back - this was too big a job to do by hand. But Col was busy elsewhere, and Larry had another urgent job in the paddocks requiring attention. Enter Aaron Daly (who has also helped a lot here over the years, following in his father’s footsteps). It was very early one morning, that Aaron stood in the middle of that ugly space and said “Mickey…I’ll just dig ‘em out”. “What do you mean, dig them out”? says me. I mean, they’re huge? We’d certainly never dug any out before and I really had no concept of how thick they might be - it had just never occurred to me to contemplate digging gigantic boulders out of the earth! My head was doing cartwheels: I don’t need to dig them out, I’ve made a plan to account for them / sure it would be easier if they weren’t there / but they are / can’t Aaron just do as I asked and put mounds of soil into the rows I’ve marked out? I had an appointment…I had to leave…I was running late…
This is the scene I returned to! Going round and round in my head was…be careful what you wish for!
But then, the next day, this! Not quite flat as a pancake but…
Oh my golly gee whizz…now Aaron was unstoppable..I’d barely had time to digest it all…
The Field was materialising before my very eyes! But my head was still giddy and although a lot…and I mean a lot of manual labour lay ahead, the bones were appearing at a rate of knots!
Three rows in and our mountain of topsoil (during the intervening months we’d covered it with a plastic tarp which did a good job of solarising the weeds) was going the distance but now I was panicking….no rock in the ground meant the mounded rows needn’t be so high…were we wasting topsoil? But there was no going back…
While all this was going on, honestly? My concern…was all about our precious soil. It’s no surprise that during my gardening years, I’ve read and learned and absorbed a good deal about SOIL. To the point where it’s been a long time since I’ve thought I’m watering or feeding plants when I carry out my annual ornamental garden nurture routine or regular watering sequence…I’ve long been feeding and nourishing the soil. It’s in the last decade or so that like most of us who have our hands in that rich, dark beautiful stuff, I’ve learned a great deal more - not just about microbial activity and invisible to the naked eye threads…like lines of active communication networks and connection that keep soil together as a whole, healthy, pulsating eco-system. In my eyes, we’d just broken every rule in the soil book. So whilst part of me was excited, the other just felt sick.
On that score, I’d already planned for when the rows were made (rock or no) and ordered in a good amount of compost to layer immediately over the soil once it was in place and also ‘forest fines’ to use on the paths between.
Once Aaron left…I got to work…
And the instant I’d got every last square centimetre covered in compost…barrowing more in by hand and eventually raking it out…
It was time to roll out the hessian! Huge bolts…and the weight of them! With Thalia on one side of each bolt and me on the other, we gallumphed them over and over and over ‘til they unwrapped the length of each row. Then we laid the lengths over the compost and weighed down each long hessian sheet with bricks to keep them in position.
In doing this, my aim was to bind our precious soil that had faced so much interference, as best I could: to hold it in place, protect it and give it a chance to knit back together. Of course I realised it would take time, and require plant roots too, to activate any likely repair, but now it was in place, nothing need ever disturb it again.
We began with four rows. Then took a deep breath. Aaron had had no time for more and the final two rows remained on my wish list. I’d already bitten off a great deal more than I could deal with and Larry needed to move some eyesores (this whole area was, up ‘til this point, out of sight, out of mind) out of the way and Larry also needed to rethink his tractor access to the paddocks if I was to have my last two rows, so completion was still a way off. We also now had an unintended mountain of huge rocks…the consequence of one spontaneous conversation! It took time to figure out what to do with them…and I’ll tell you about them another day, but they’re all still here - not one pebble has ever left Glenmore!
But back to my panic over the height of the rows…did I really need for the soil in the rows to be so high? At the beginning I fretted over that so much, but by the time Aaron had made the first row it was already kind of too late. In the end…the height has been the Field’s saving grace - with the subsequent years of flooding rains, had we not had the height of soil (or initial binding of hessian) the entire Field - plants and soil, would have simply washed away, set as this space is, on the lowest side of the garden. As it is, the rows now slow down the rate of water flow in torrential rain…and now they’re settled, they’re not going anywhere.
As you might imagine, I began to survey the scene with increasing regularity! As well as constantly weeding and wondering how we could better deal with the edges…there was still so much work ahead. But, I couldn’t quite believe what we’d done…and that I now had this incredible blank canvas, this stuff of dreams before me. What must happen next was entirely up to me. I’d already done my homework and ordered the roses (we’ll come back to that part next time) which I expected would arrive the following winter. I hadn’t really planned to plant anything before them…the roses, I’d figured, were the main event. But there I was in January, with the hessian settling in and seemingly keeping everything in place, when an idea lodged. There was no reason I couldn’t plant…I just hadn’t intended to…quite yet. I had a host of rose scented geraniums that hadn’t sold during the previous year’s activities and I could see that by now, they were in no condition to hand on to anyone. Why don’t I just plant one row? I can always pull them out / if they’re not planted they’re heading for the compost / wouldn’t an experimental row be fun? / maybe even be good for the soil to have something growing in it sooner than later. It wasn’t difficult to talk myself into it!
(My intention had been for the first four rows to be roses, with the aromatics in row five and indigenous aromatics in row six…which is exactly how it is planted today)).
Not for the last time, I spent a happy hour or two crawling along the top of a row with a pair of scissors, a trowel and a bucket of wire U-pins. Cut, plant, pin the hessian back together, repeat.
As I’d temporarily planted one row, why not experiment with another? To be honest, I’d only planned to include lavender in the aromatic row…with the best intention in the world, I don’t have time to distill rows of lavender. Oh but just imagine a whole row of dazzling purple stems and there was an empty row begging to be planted! So on the spur of the moment I ordered seedlings - enough for one row of L.angustifolia and another of Grosso. With romantic visions dancing in my head on the one hand…and knowing the sooner I got roots growing the better, on the other, I wasn’t entirely convinced this wasn’t a stupid idea.
Cut, plant…pin. By the end of January I had three rows of plants in (even if perhaps, they were only temporary…there’s that impatient streak!). I cannot begin to explain how excited I was! I was surprised at the rate they all grew through the autumn…while there was no good reason why they shouldn’t have, the whole thing still seemed so preposterous!
In mid-winter, the bulk of David Austin roses arrived…destined for row three.
Crawl, cut, dig hole, water, position rose, backfill, water, pin. Repeat!
Then with spring almost upon us…at last my order of beauties from Ross Roses arrived…as desperate to get into the ground as my soil was to have their roots bind it together!
The scissors were out again! I’d got rather used to crawling along the rows by now! So each bare-rooted rose too, was planted (good hole dug, compost in the bottom, water, little mound of soil on which to place the rose, allowing their roots to spread over and down…then backfilled, watered) and the hessian pegged again to each side.
And by late spring? They were off and away…tender shoots giving way to first flowers - each one greeted with a gasp of delight. But this…was only the beginning!
I’ll save the rest for part two, but leave you with one last thought. In the lead-up to all this activity, I’d spent a couple of days with a very dear friend. Rare. I hadn’t talked to anyone about the Field…except Larry (and Clemmie and Bonnie of course). The idea of the Field had been building up for such a very, very long time. We had one of those really grounding, open and honest conversations, where I found myself saying “it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back…but you know…if I don’t do it, this is the thing I’d regret”. “You know you have to do it then, don’t you?” she said. And she knew I would.
I promise part two will be pretty!
‘Til tomorrow’s normal weekly post!
Mickey x
ps Part two might be a couple of weeks off…but it will come!
You know it all only too well Pip! :)))) Mxx
What a great feat! And those Lavenders came on a treat together with the roses. Looking forward to Part 2