T
he scent hit me as soon as my
husband, Bryan, opened the car
door. I’d been in hospital too
long, surrounded by the smells
of air conditioning, antiseptic and plastic
hot-food covers. Suddenly, the air was not
just fresh, but fi lled with all the perfumes
of a garden – soil and mulch, leaves and
grass – and, yes, each one had its own
scent. It wasn’t rose season, when the
air here is like a perfume counter. The
fragrant wintersweet hadn’t yet bloomed,
nor had the ‘Erlicheer’ daffodils. Gardens
don’t need strong perfumes to smell
good. They simply do. We humans
evolved with soil and growing things
around us. I found I was breathing deeply
instead of trying to block out odours.
There were the garden sounds, too.
Not just the absence of alarms and the
20 TV sets along the corridor, but the
almost subliminal ones that breeze among
the branches, and the birdsong that’s so
wonderfully irregular, you need to turn
all your senses on to hear them, instead
of trying to block out sound and smell.
A garden makes you present in the
moment. So much of modern life needs
to be shut out. But sit yourself in the
garden in the winter sunlight, or the
dappled leaf shade in summer, and
simply be, watching lizards sunbake or
bowerbirdsstealthecumquats,andall
yoursensescomealiveagain.
Skinisasense,too,onewemostly
forgetwhenwe’reindoors,unlesswe’rein a draught. But in the garden, your skin
feels warmth or the tickle of a cold breeze- and even howling gales, thunderstorms
or heatwaves (which is why we have a
house as well as a garden).
Light is different in the garden, too.
Indoors, it’s either light or dark, whereas
gardens are dappled, their colours
changing from dawn to midday to dusk.
The next garden joy I experienced
was food. An apple pie that tastes of
preservatives is not like an apple plucked
from the tree in your garden; one carefully
saved, in a re-usable calico bag, from
the parrots and possums until it reaches
perfect ripeness. Those who don’t eat
homemade food may be so used to
preservatives, they no longer notice them,
but the preservative fl avour is still there.
You need a garden to make ‘bottom of
the garden’ soup – a vegetable soup made
with whatever is in abundance. I suddenly
craved plain, freshly dug spuds, scrubbed
and baked in their jackets.
And there were the fl owers. Yes, I loved
every fl orist box... but I love even more
the single, slightly frosted rose or the
camellia edged with bird footprints that
Bryan brings in. Every day something
different will bloom as the season
progresses – nerines today, tomorrow
camellias, and next week a different
varietyofcamellia.
ButasIliehereforawhileyet,in
aroomwithtwowallsofwindows,
watchingapairofhormone-demented
lyrebirdschaseeachotherunderthe
lemontrees,listeningtotheowlthat
percheseachnightinthepeartree
only2m(andawall)behindmybed,
somethingmoreprofoundishappening.
Thetreesarebarenow.Theautumn
leavesliepiledasmulch.ButasIwatch,
daybyday,thebranchtipschangecolour
frombrowntogreenorred.Inacouple
ofmonths,greenshootswillappear,then
leaveswillgrow,thefruitwillswelland,
possibly,probably,mybodywilldothe
same,regeneratingaswell.
Thisisthegreatestgiftofanygarden.
Toeverythingthereisaseason,atime
tosow,atimetoharvest,atimetowait,
atimetosimplywatchthegardenand
feelithealthesoul–andthebody.
Iamhuman,andhumanscreated
gardenstoincludetheflowers,fruit,
scents,dappledlightandgrassyglades
welovebest.Happinessisagarden. GA
PHOTO
ALAMY
GARDENINGAUSTRALIA SEPTEMBER 2019 69
AT HOME WITH JACKIE
In a couple of months,
green shoots will
appear, then leaves
will grow, the fruit will
swell and, possibly,
probably, my body
will do the same,
regenerating as well.