🎵If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day till eternity passes away 🎵
My (very) late mother used to remark how rapidly time passes as we age and I certainly know what she meant. But even when I was younger, I could see how our perception of time changes. When we are seven, a year is a seventh of our lifetime which seems a remarkably long time. When we are seventy – not quite yet in my case but looming ever closer – a year is but a seventieth of our time spent so far on earth. And time does indeed seem to pass at an alarming rate.
I find it almost beyond comprehension that we are coming to the end of the third year of the pandemic that turned our world inside out. Three years? Already? Three years in March in this country since the then deputy prime minister issued an alarming warning to New Zealanders abroad to get home now while they still could. It sounded overly dramatic at the time but within just a few days, borders started closing and flights ceased.
Thank goodness for the garden which is our anchor and our refuge.
It was thinking about those who want to freeze time in the garden that brought Jim Croce’s song to my mind. I must have said it before, but I will say again: gardening is a process not a product that can be frozen in time. I fully understand that it is not everybody’s cup of tea. There are many things in life that are of little interest to me. Activities like golf, going to the gym or All Blacks rugby bypass me entirely. I am not a fan of mosaics and I very rarely go to the movies. I garden almost every day. I don’t garden with a view to reaching the final goal of getting the place looking exactly how I want it and expecting it to remain like that. If that is a personal goal, take up interior design instead, is my advice. It is easier to stage a scene and freeze it in time indoors.
But there are moments in time when I look at the garden – sometimes a full scene or vista and sometimes just a close-up of a small section – and I sigh with joy. ‘Ah,’ I think, ‘that is just perfect.’ It is a physical reaction when I feel my heart is singing.
Those are times I would save in a bottle if I could. All I can do is to save them in my memory or sometimes capture the moment on camera to remind me later. Those moments are the gardener’s adrenaline, in a low-key sort of way. We know that the scene will change – very rapidly if it is dependent on a particular quality of light, a couple of weeks if it is dependent on recent garden maintenance, more slowly if it is a case of a composition of plants that works brilliantly for part of the season.
Gardening could be likened to a journey with no set destination but plenty to see along the way. If you are goal-oriented, you may be better to take up golf. Or mosaic-making.
May your gardening year have moments of utter magic, joy and contentment that you, too, wish you could bottle and save.
Postscript: We once, and only once, visited a garden that on the day we went was as close to perfection as we have ever seen. It was a private garden in the Cotswolds, UK, and it remains fresh in our memory years later. https://jury.co.nz/2017/07/31/a-perfect-garden/
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 
I love the photo of the Miscanthus, it looks like a burst of silver fireworks going off.
Your Scadoxus multiflorus ssp katherinae display is stunning, they obviously love that spot. I planted 3 pots (wider than deep) with x5 bulbs each beneath a large Totora, because at $10 dollars a bulb I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose any. I have plenty of leaves but no sign of flowers, not enough light perhaps?
If in shade, they need high shade so there is still plenty of light. Depending on how long you have had them, it may pay to shift them to an area with more light. Yours may be too dry if still in pits? Ours have naturalized over the years and gently seed down.
Happy New Year Abbie and thanks for your lovely posts which I enjoy each week. Please keep them coming,Diana JonesSent from my Galaxy
Thank you Diana, and may 2023 go well for you.
Thanks for sharing a few of your moments, I often feel the same, especially when a light breeze sends waves of motion through the uncut grass of the wilder ends of the yard. That and a full bloom magnolia isn’t too bad either! All the best for 2023
Those “That’s just perfect” moments are a great joy but especially so, I think, because we didn’t actually work towards creating the moment but that it came upon us – yes, by dint of our work and effort – but not really by design. We worked away and it happened! A happy moment.
Best wishes for the New Year, continued garden and many happy moments.
And very best wishes to you and Mrs Paddy. Stay warm.
Yes, gardening is so much about hope and savouring the present moments of natures beauty. I take lots of photos at times, especially when something like the seed packet of mixed coloured canterbury bells produced an amazing display of the prettiest soft pink. A couple of those photographs will remain and bring pleasure again at a time when the plant has succumbed to its natural time frame. Thanks again for sharing with us.
Just wanted to thank you for the articles that you write. They resonate with our garden experience and we find much pleasure in reading them each week. After reading this weeks article I was reminded of this chalk board that we display in our own garden when we have groups visiting. Thank you for your dedication in writing every week, that’s no small task but please know that it’s appreciated Larraine Bilbie
Sent from my iPad
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The photo didn’t show but thank you so much for your kind words.
The quote we use us “no two gardens are the same and no two days are the same in one garden” Hugh Johnson