When you're running a skincare business as well as teaching and giving treatments time seems very precious. I love my garden but I realised a couple of years ago just how important it is to keep it all very low maintenance. I seemed to spend half my life weeding and cutting grass. I've come up with what I think is a brilliant idea - I noticed that moss grows everywhere up here and it's just so rich and green I absolutely love it, so I decided to turn a good chunk of my garden into a moss garden. It surpresses weeds and unlike grass you don't have to cut it. It's probably not every body's cup of tea but i've become less fussy about 'cups of tea' since I noticed how much pressure I was putting on myself to have it all perfect - no thanks I'd rather have fun and enjoy my garden.
So I remembered reading in National Geographic that the moss garden was really revered in Japan and I decided to go for a Zen style. Its still a work in progress but I want it to be a place of peace and serenity - rich and tactile, I want it to feed the soul and please the senses.
This stone with the hole is from my great uncles farm in Shantonath. We used to go camping there in the summer when I was a kid and I have very fond memories of the place. My uncle Joe lived with his brother and two sisters.Uncle Willie had cerebral palsy, an amazing man, he knew everything about wild flowers and herbs. My aunt Kate was blind and made the best brown soda bread I'd ever tasted. They used to call me their wee butterfly which I quite liked. It was a big old house with a walled garden which I called the secret garden - a magical place there were big floppy roses and a statue of a women in what I imagined used to be a fountain beside stables where I watched the goats being milked.
A few years ago my Uncle Joe died and when I went to the funeral we visited the secret garden and I spotted the stone with the hole. I asked if I could have it as a reminder of the old place. When I was creating my zen garden I wanted it to be the vocal point so every time I saw it, those summer memories of walking through dewy grass and stomping on puff ball mushrooms and being called as pretty as a butterfly would warm my very soul.
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