“Like playing with coloured pencils”

All love comes from nature. At a deep level we know this; in moments when we are looking at the power of the ocean, a beautiful sunset or waves of wind moving through paddocks of grass or hearing the sounds of small birds flitting through shrubs. This powerful connection we have to nature is like coming home.

If we can quiet the mind and connect we can feel it flow through our bodies. We are all one. We are all connected. We all know this. This is what we are longing for.

Our gardens, and the act of gardening, can connect us to who we are. Fascinated by memory and childhood experiences, and how they shape and inform us, I love to listen to people’s stories and weave them into their gardens to connect and get closer to who they are and what is most important to them.

Guided by nature

Nature has the capacity to heal, to take us into joy and bliss but also back into dark memories, to feel and heal them. As children, gardens and nature often provided safety when the world became overwhelming. Where did you go when you were sad? For many it was up into a tree or into a bush or to the beach or down to a creek; to a place where birds and wildlife are alive and doing what they do. An experience in nature or in a garden can provide refuge; the sights, scents and sounds, as well as the visual cues are powerfully evocative, reminding us of who we are and valuing our own personal story. We are all born perfect and it is only our conditioning that prevents us from living to our highest potential.

Prior to colonisation, Indigenous cultures had no concept of money. Imagine a world without money, where absolutely everything emanated from the ground. Nature was mother and provided everything. These cultures deeply loved, respected and cared for country first and foremost, and made meaning out of everything.

Bill Gammage, in his book The Biggest Estate on Earth, talks about how the early colonisers commented again and again that, when they arrived, the land looked like a park with areas of verdant grasslands, systems of pathways, open woodlands and abundant birdlife and animals. This was not by accident. First Nations Peoples cared for the land through complex systems of management including the use of fire as a tool.

Our stories connect

In our garden in Flinders in Victoria, I asked my husband, “What plants make your heart sing and give you the most joy?” (We had separated for six years and were reconnecting as a family again with our two boys.) To my surprise, he said, “Bees on flowers!”

When he was a young boy in boarding school he was given a beehive and a vegetable garden, so productive gardens and beekeeping connected him back to that time. I had no idea, as we had both been working in revegetation for most of our careers.

I asked myself the same question and the answer was walking barefoot on sand during summers at Merricks Beach and being in native grasslands, especially at eye level. This, I think, was from my seven-year-old self playing hide and seek in the grasses on Murray Downs Station in the Northern Territory. Playing with the Aboriginal children was an incredibly connecting experience. It moved something very deeply in my heart and gave me so much clarity about what was important; nature and relationships.

Our garden is different to any other garden we have created, partly due to the rich, volcanic and water-retentive soil, wind and coastal exposure. We were influenced by the movie, ‘The Five Seasons’ about Piet Ouldof ’s garden in Holland. Our garden is about using plants we love, but also about movement, contrast and colour. It is a garden for experimenting with plants that wouldn’t normally be placed next to each other, looking instead at plant traits. I only pick the soft colours I love and try to blur and blend them with natives and exotics. It’s like playing with coloured pencils.

It is also a garden for our boys, who have different interests. Our oldest son worked as a gardener at Heronswood and has his own beautifully curated courtyard and flower garden, and our youngest son is interested in dwarf conifers and bonsai, which are mixed with natives, so it’s pretty quirky.

Our garden is where we go to nourish ourselves, to work and quieten the mind, to be creative, to collect eggs, fruit and vegetables, and harvest honey. It has been hugely healing for us. It is where our hearts feel open and it brings us so much joy.

Written by Jo Ferguson, garden marker, Jo Ferguson Garden Design.

Photography: @willsalterphotography