Hearing voices

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Dear Monty,

I have always heard voices in my heart and head.
This statement may be an indication of just how insane I am or alternatively perhaps it's sanity which is really insanity ?

Stay with me Monty because it was your recommendation to sit and enjoy the garden on last weeks GW that got me thinking, we seldom stop long enough to hear what is being said by our gardens.




I have joined a Facebook group called :www.facebook.com/friendlygardeners and have been heartened by the number of gardeners both young and older who get a sense of joy and peace from their gardens. Having been involved in a debate about the future of gardening, I am less concerned now. I admit that there are different levels of garden appreciation, styles and experience - but whichever level we are at, it is possible to literally breathe the peace of a garden deep into our souls - now that is joy - a joy that comes from tuning out of noise to hear the voice of peace.


Pleasing accidents
Voices include the songs of birds and trees - yes trees have a musical voice according to their kind - they sometimes whisper in a breeze when in full leaf, or rattle or even roar like an angry sea in a storm. Conifers nearby can sometimes roar or moan a melancholic moan.

Just now a flock of chuckling jackdaws tumbled out of the blue sky - a gaggle gang - a community of chucklers.

Can a garden be jubilant ? Can a field - or an allotment ? Yes.
You can hear the music and see the poetry in them if we have eyes and ears to see and listen.

Jubilant pants and plants

Combinations of plants sometimes accidental, sometimes by our plans create a harmony like a beautiful polyphony. I have no space for a prairie or meadow but just lawn grasses and 'weeds' left to grow tall in sculpted clumps or quaking grass planted in with other plants their heads dancing - are enough to help me join in the singing.

Dancing


' Consider all the works thy hand hath made'

The whole earth sings - even if mostly drowned out by our noise.

This coal tip garden cloistered from the world is made over the top of old mine workings, there is a steep gully to the left of the garden which was once a tram road for the horse drawn coal drams. Those voices have long gone, and only the coal waste, fossil plants and small anthracite pieces in the soil remain as whispers of the past. The coal tip which rises up from the front of this old band room is now covered in scruffy woodland and eroded paths. I used to struggle with this place and its industrial past but now I am beginning to appreciate the voice of this hard worked landscape.


Rusty railway bridge over the Tawe

Diamond anthracite

Old garden tool tree


It is good to hear a voice other than my own.




Paul

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