These are shots taken from around Ballarat and from within my home, also in Ballarat. They're pertinent here, I feel, because they point to an aesthetic that guides my gardening and is embodied in my gardening, as well as it guides everything I do, or like to do, and is embodied within these, I hope to say.
I say this while near at hand and at ear someone or some more than one is or are using a whipper snipper and a lawn mower.
I refrain from using machinery wherever possible, believing that machinery somehow injures the world.
Many will disagree, saying that such is the way of the world. But I will dig my heels in. I like it quiet. I like that a garden opens itself to whoever wants to be there, that it's not to be approached as if it were in need of militant control.
Well, yeah, militancy may be required when dealing with prickly customers. But does militancy need to be employed as a final solution? A garden is about
breathing, about
space, about
feeling unrestrained, yet
safe. The whipper-snipperers and mowers are continuing. I sit at my desk dazed and Zara is concerned, to say the least.
What's it all about, that we have to employ machinery, of the loud and ruthless variety, in those spaces we regard, or as I regard, as refuges? I'd prefer it if they hadn't been invented. Oh, yes, I'm being unrealistic. But is something more real just because it's more insistent? I will never believe so.
It's getting semi-quiet, in the aftermath. Some of the unheard birds are starting to be heard again. Zara's waiting to be taken outside for walkies.
In my home, here, as much as in my garden, I like to let nature take its course. There's something about machinery I find unnatural. The piece of bark, above, I found recently, took its tree a hundred or two years to make, without machinery. It happened without loud noise, without intrusion, unquickly. So what's got into everybody that only machinery will make things happen? And why does everything have to happen quickly? We've been around long enough to know that time takes forever.
Everyone must have a lawn, and a lawn must be mown, and people hate gardening, so much work, would rather have paving. Strange people.
ReplyDeleteWe'll be strimming briefly, until we can clear the remnant of lawn. I'm guilty of using a chipper - but I prefer to keep our prunings in the garden as mulch. And we'll need LOTS of own mulch to restore our surroundings to garden and biodiversity friendly. Longing to return to peaces and quiet!
Thanks Diana. I sort of hated lawns as a boy, when my Dad would get out on a Sunday, angrily, and have a go at keeping us normal. I reckon grasses can be allowed to grow unless there's a real reason to have flat green. It's come to be the time, I hope, when human control can be relaxed.
DeleteYour own garden seems to me to be a place of inviting well-being, so I hope, my friend, it stays that way for you, indefinitely.
i hear and largely agree with you...working with teenagers who seem to LIKE IT LOUD constantly shocks me!
ReplyDeleteVelma, I like loudness myself sometimes, but what gets me is that it's now seen as a resolution or as a necessity, and more than that, as essential. Does quietness ever get the same plug? Does quietness ever get any glory? Does someone anywhere feel that quietness is worth knowing of its own account?
Deletewe have that utter quiet when we hike in the mountains. Waiting until nature conservation allows to walk again after the fires.
DeleteDiana, mountains are beautiful places for quiet. Even, that is, when they're burned, as often happens here. I'm glad to know you're getting out there, into the mountains, to live a little more closely to your life. I would love to traverse those mountains you have there. They seem wonderful.
DeleteHere is to peace ! This garden of mine is surrounded by noise, but peace can still come from within. I love your photographs.
ReplyDeleteThank you Paul. I know you're at a place that's challenging. We have to keep going, we who believe that peace is worthwhile. Without my gardening I'd be dead.
DeleteOh how I agree with you. But sometimes I suspect I'm just too lazy to manage machinery, hauling it out, checking it out, learning how to work it, finding I can't, asking someone, finding their answer incomprehensible - it's just so stressful, reduces me to an irritable powder. But I see huge gardens need some of it at least, I just know whose side I'm on.
ReplyDeleteJane, to cope with enormous gardens, I'm sure machinery has to be used. I don't mind that. I don't mind machinery anywhere, where it's beneficial. My problem's been that machinery is utilised overmuch, at any time and any old how.
DeleteMy problem is that playing with machinery has become more important than gardening. The garden has become a stage-set for the machinery. The garden, gardens, are under threat of becoming inconsequential. The machine rules. I don't believe that.
Peace and quiet, broken only by the sounds of birds ... that's what I crave too. Sometimes - often, in the suburbs - it's hard to achieve.
ReplyDeleteAnywhere it can be hard now Sue! But it's worth cultivating or allowing, isn't it, peace and quiet? I'm still adjusting to all of Ballarat's noises!
DeleteNicely said.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Matthew. Thanks for visiting.
DeleteIts been too long... Nice to be back to catch up
ReplyDeleteYes, John, thank you for saying so. It's been a while since I was seriously blogging. Friendships here mean much to me.
DeleteDear Faisal, the thing that I hate most is the (totally unnecessary) loud noise of blowers blowing leaves. Sweeping and raking are such pleasant relaxing activities, and these people will never experience it. And I worry about what it's like for the birds when it's so noisy. I'm so pleased you feel at home in Ballarat, those buildings are very solid and attractive and go well with the contents of your home.
ReplyDeleteDear Sue, I didn't know how different Ballarat could be to Melbourne, though no-one would assume so. It's raw, genteel, rough as guts, kind, ugly and handsome. I hope the tourist board isn't reading this! For me, the whole notion of the garden is destroyed when it becomes a product. If, in the production of that product, any means whatever are considered valid, something's wrong. A garden isn't simply a product; it's a process. And as such, all the life within it needs to be treated with respect. Or else what is the garden for? All my love to you.
Deleteso well put (as usual). xx
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