The Lost Skill of Gardening .. At My Rose Garden

Sometimes, as I plan my work in the garden, I have to fight off the concept that the work I do has no real value.  Certainly, there is a lack of monetary value for the amount of time and effort, let alone real cost, involved in creating a large country garden from scratch out of a paddock.

And, sometimes, I think I should find a real job, despite their lack in this regional area, rather than continue.  Or so it sometimes seems.  Especially when people ask that ubiquitous question, 'And what do you do'?  As a former academic and researcher, I now hear myself say, "I grow heirloom roses, and I run therapeutic workshops".  

The responses to my 'occupation' vary slightly, but always there's a slight pause followed by a dismissive, "Oh, that must be nice!", or,  "My grandmother, elderly aunt/cousin grew roses".

This comment often precedes a brain picking session along the lines of, "I have this rose plant and it looks like this, but I don't know it's name.  Can you tell me"?  or, "My rose/lemon tree/tomato plant has yellow leaves/black spots/no flowers" and I'm asked to diagnose the problem and offer a solution on the spot!

Of course, I'm always polite.  But these responses make me ponder the 'less than' value we as a westernised society place on  gardening and horticulture generally.  Unless, of course, I then talk about the economic value of what I do, as in selling the roses as cut flowers, creating wedding flowers, using the roses and herbs I grow in the rose balms and soaps I make, or using the rose gardens as a therapeutic space for workshops.  

If I then talk about my real passions; of creating beauty in this harsh world, of educating about the benefits of engaging with the natural environment for our wellbeing, of using natural products in our every-day items rather than destroying large tracts of precious forest for monocrops such as palm oil, responses are often mixed, but rarely enthusiastic.  

Unfortunately, the often muted response I receive is not because my 'passion' makes people feel uncomfortable.  Rather, I am very often greeted with a complete wall of silence, a closing off and a lack of curiosity about our natural world.  As someone who is able to hold the attention of university students, I have realised it is not my delivery that is the problem, but the topic!

Where is the wonder at the beauty and complexities of the natural world that my grandparents expressed?  The curiosity to learn and understand more deeply that I remember hearing discussed by adults as a small child at my grandfather's knee appears to be absent in today's conversations?  

We still have so much to learn about the natural environment.  If we look at it purely from the perspective of benefiting humans, there are more medicines to be found, more mysteries to be unlocked, more beauty to be discovered, more species to find, new super-foods to discover and sadly, more and more habitats to protect.  

And so I believe that as skills such as gardening and our understanding of the natural world are being relegated to the 'not needed' list, our need for these very skills and knowledge is becoming more urgent.  If we do not know how to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers as families and individuals, what cost to our communities?  Is our apathy creating a greater reliance on factory foods and yes, even flowers with their large scale systems that minimise diversity and increased use of pesticides and other pollutants; a reliance that will ultimately cost us the natural environments that we have yet to realise are priceless?  

As I ponder our westernised apathy toward gardening and a certain devaluing of it as a worthwhile pursuit, I recall the wise words of our own Rosarian, Susan Irvine, author of several wonderful books on growing roses in an Australian climate;

"To be a full-time gardener in one's own garden is one of the richest and most rewarding of occupations.  But it must not be entered upon lightly .. first one has to cast aside the prevailing ethic that regards activity undertaken for financial gain as the only kind to be taken seriously.  The rewards from the garden are rich beyond all measure - but none of them are monetary."

While I don't believe we need to be 'full-time gardeners' to reap the benefits, I do think that even basic gardening skills and understandings of natural systems is key to our health and wellbeing.

And I think there is a greater value than pure economics at stake here; clean air, vibrant soils alive with microscopic life, fresh unpolluted water and our ability to till the earth to grow nutritious food and beautiful flowers that feed the bees and other insect life, that create diversity and in turn feed us!  

Come on now, let's take up the challenge 

and get back to gardening as our grandparents did!

A Gardening Legacy .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

Like everyday life, the challenges of gardening can sometimes be overwhelming. At times, the ever present chores that form part of creating and then maintaining a garden appear to over-ride the joys. And when drought comes, or storms, or a myriad of other problems, gardening seems an uphill battle, until I spy the next rose bloom, or find the first snowdrop of Spring pushing through!

Yet, as someone who grew up surrounded by a wonderland of natural bush in a family of gardeners, the choice to stop cultivating plants and create a garden is not an option.   My grandmother grew carnations and sold them at market to supplement the family income.  I had not known this snippet of information as my Grandma had died long before I was born. My 80 year old aunt (her eldest daughter) happened to mention this fact in one of our precious chats.  So now my imaginings of Grandma include an image of her bending over beds of carnations and breathing in their unique perfume as she worked.  In the 1930's carnations grown for the cut flower market still had fragrance, which added to the joy of their frilled beauty.

I also have memories of my Grandpa (by then re-married to my much loved step-grandmother) growing a rampant wisteria across his front fence and my childhood bewilderment that these bunches of purple did not produce grapes to eat!  And to add to this vision of colour, Grandpa's front lawn was studded with colourful freesias every Spring.  A wonder for a small child to behold!  Large shrubs of azaleas bordered this wonderland, providing a perfect hiding place from which to peep out at the world.

It's little wonder then, that for me the need to garden and create vistas of beauty with flowers, shrubs and trees is as innate as breathing.   And it was this desire that was the impetus to years of study and doctoral research into the innate connection we feel for the natural environment.

Not that I recognised this impetus to study as coming from my family lineage of gardeners at first. Gardening had always been relegated to the borders of life; seen as pleasant but fairly unimportant in the bigger scheme of things.  There were much more important things to be seen to; education, earning an income, getting married, having babies, getting a mortgage, building a home, and all the details of a busy life.

Of course, life gets in the way of plans!  With a small, very sick child to care for suddenly the world shrank as his illness took precedence over other details. And gardening activities that had been pushed into the borders of our lives became important again.  Suddenly it seemed a good idea to grow herbs and vegetables that were organic and nourishing.  And gardening became an intermittent relief from the anxiety of looking after a very sick child, helping to calm my worried mother's mind.

As I gained more and more knowledge about  growing herbs and vegetables, my interest in heirloom gardening deepened.  I developed a love of heirloom herbs, their history and use which led to my love of heirloom roses and their place in history.

And through all this, I began to connect the sense of well-being I experienced with the therapeutic benefits of gardening.  So began my career in designing and developing therapeutic programs for disabled adults, conducting doctoral research into the benefits for female inmates, drug addicts and other disenfranchised groups.

Little did I fully appreciate then that the legacy of my grandparents, one of whom I never met, has shaped my love of the natural environment.  And it all began with a small garden filled with greenery, flowers and perfume and tended with love so that a small granddaughter could run and play and glory in its beauty.

A legacy worth leaving, don't you think!

The healing benefits of nature .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

Taking time to stop and 'smell the roses' seems to be such an ancient concept in today's filtered virtual world. Our global worlds are filled to overflowing with news and posts and information and tweets and fleeting images; all while we are doing, travelling or being somewhere else.  

In Australia, we are blessed with natural environments even in our cities and suburbs that are rich with life; clear skies unblemished by plumes of smog; birds that nest and live out their lives in our city parks; the sound of birdsong in the early morning and evenings; trees of all shapes and sizes that shelter and shade in our hot summers; grass that green our roadside verges; sea and rivers and streams that dissect and border our communities and strips of natural bushland that embellish our suburbs.  

We are truly blessed to have this abundance of natural riches, particularly on the edges of this diverse and great island.  Yet it is so easy to be caught up in the tedium and minutiae of the everyday interspersed with virtual images and short sound grabs of news from across the globe.  Our minds are tired and our bodies are tense and we can't wait until the weekend where we catch our breath before we do the same again.

Yet .. I wonder what our worlds would look like if we paused every now and then and on-purpose took notice of the natural world around us; that birdsong; the blue sky; the sound of water running; the shimmer of sunlight on wet leaves after rain; the greenness of the park; the smell of freshly mown grass ..  

and take a brief reprieve from the fast and furious.  Seeing green is medicine for our minds where tension is relieved and our thinking is allowed to rest.  

Nature has a wonderful way of resting our minds which in turn brings a sense of peace and calmness. Observing nature has been shown to help our minds rest from cycles of anxious thoughts, and even looking at trees through a window can help us heal.



There are so many simple things that we can include in our every day.  Stopping to breath in the fresh scent of trees and shrubs in our parks.  And even noticing the different scents, like the sharp freshness of our lemon-scented gum trees.  Even walking barefoot across the lawn helps to bring a sense of well-being to our bodies.  Touching a tree trunk as we walk past it on the foot path reminds us that we are part of the natural environment.  Planting a small pot on our balcony with fresh herbs helps us reconnect with nature, especially when we get to pick a sprig for our dinner.  And stopping to smell that rose billowing over the fence we walk past every day gives our minds a much needed rest.  

Each of these are easy to do and wonderful to teach our children so that their little minds can also feel that sense of peace and rest.  And connecting with nature helps our children develop and grow healthy and strong. 

Simple little things that we are all designed intrinsically to do, which is why we feel better when we incorporate these into our daily lives.  

And it's free and fun!  Try it and see for yourself!!

Planning for Climate Change in 2017 .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

This year, I decided to set myself the task of planning a few clear goals that would focus and bring clarity to 2017.  The idea was to limit the number of goals so I could actually accomplish more!  That is, with less goals in place, I would be able to focus more energy on 2 or 3 goals that I could actually implement. A key goal is to educate about the benefits of enjoying nature's beauty and its importance for our health and wellbeing.   

Previously, I have often resorted to the scatter-gun approach.  This meant I still achieved a lot, but with a great deal more stress.  So, clear and achievable goals was the ultimate goal!

Great idea!  On paper, that is!  Somehow, though even in its infancy, this year is beginning to look decidedly more complicated than I had planned!  The weather has turned very, very hot even for an Australian summer in Queensland and my priorities have been set aside for the time being!

Suddenly, the garden is gasping for water and the expected sub-tropical downfalls of summer have not materialised.  So my key focus has changed from creating wonderful programs for 2017 that I have had in mind .. to keeping our precious heirloom roses alive!

We have done reasonably well to keep the roses going so far by pumping water from our dam to irrigate the rose gardens. But this summer of 2016/17 has continued mercilessly on with very little rain to ease the unusually high temperatures.  Typically, by this stage in summer we are coping with torrential rain from cyclones in the tropics.  And the dam is filled to the brim again and the water tanks start overflowing.

Not this summer.  Some old-timer farmers from around here say the rain will come, and it will be torrential! I am so hoping they are correct, but without the damaging floods that can be typical of many of these downpours.

Meanwhile, the eastern parts of Australia are continuing to cope with unusually high temperatures, breaking any previous records!  And I wonder if this is going to be the new 'normal' as a result of global warming. And if this is so, how do we cope with these heightened increased temperatures in summer in a country where water is a relatively scarce resource?  It seems evident that we need to develop some adaptive strategies that will enable us to continue to grow and cultivate beauty, without using all our water resources.

Perhaps, it is about gardening more sustainably, using practices that have until recently been scoffed at as too costly and low yielding.   Simple measures, like retaining more trees on our properties, and growing hedges as windbreaks so that drying winds don't strip the moisture from our crops and garden plants. Trees also help to shade and shelter buildings from the sun so that we rely less on air-conditioners during heat waves.  Minimising the use of artificial fertilisers and toxic sprays, so that tiered eco-systems can develop and provide not only layers of shelter, but habitat for wildlife that also help us with pest control.   Other simple measures, like building up the soil with humus from our own compost will help the soil retain moisture for longer.

In our own gardens, we are growing more trees, and retaining blue gums and other indigenous species on the perimeters of the gardens, as well as hedges of tea trees and callistemon. We learnt to mulch heavily, particularly in readiness for the hot weather and to reduce moisture loss from the soil.  

We also researched which heirloom roses to grow in our sub-tropical climate. Heirloom roses are generally tough survivors that have been known to live through tough seasons.  So we planted heirloom roses that suit a hot climate, like the Tea and China roses and the Hybrid Musks as well as species roses.  And our roses are under planted with hardy herbs that cope with harsh conditions, while providing some pest control as well.

Despite all this, we have made plenty of mistakes, such as not mulching early or heavily enough to cope with the harsh conditions of this summer.  Hopefully, the old-timers' predictions are correct and we will get the much needed rain. Meanwhile, we need to learn the lessons of climate change and adapt our systems to cope.  And so, serendipitously, my original goal for 2017 of educating is still in place, although with a clearer focus .. 

After all, we can't live on this earth without plants, 

and gardens are one of life's joys.