It’s somewhere around about a few months ago that I was supposed to do one big whopper of a post highlighting all of the great things I did over the last 12 months. A review of my year that was 2013 so to speak. I didn’t. And I’m not going to do one of them. Not this year. No apparent reason. I just couldn’t be arsed. Not, not arsed. I just don’t feel like it. The damn things take three days or so to write anyway.
And maybe that’s partly the reason or the main catalyst for this post. Because this rolling online diary, or web log if you will, of Donegan Landscaping has changed over the years. Years ? It’s on the go since about mid 2007 and now holds around a gizillion [not a real number] posts.
And I’ve had some queries in questioning what it used to be and what it has become. Mainly those questions came via this article, published in this months Horticulture Connected.
Either or, I never had a plan in that department. I still don’t. It was always written in my spare time. A hobby, if you will. Being that I make gardens as a profession.
When last year my garden blog went up for one of the Best Blog categories, I simply stopped writing. A good blogger would have posted more, or done something; at the very least. You know, to at least try, if not try to win the damn thing. And yes my decision to pause or cease was intentional. But I had to ask myself [not really…. but you get what I’m saying] why, on Gods earth would I want to win an award for blogging; when it is gardens I make. Moreso it is gardens that I love making. And I have awards for that. Awards for the design and the building of gardens that is. Too many, some might say.
And, unless my mood changes, I’m not too sure I want to build gardens at a cost to myself of a random 5 figure sum for the sake of medals anymore. Like a heart beat of course I’d go back and do it in the morning. But they honestly require a sense of The Machiavellian and The Medici and the benefactors, or sponsors as they are now known. And in reference to the gardens I made only, I never chose the simplex path when it came to that road.
Either or I have stood on the podiums, plural. That, a statement that can never change.
So what next. ? I honestly don’t know. I say I don’t, I do. But it has to all come back to matters of the heart. Like watching Jerry Maguire. And you either get that or you don’t. And now I’m thinking of that film Big with Tom Hanks. And for me my heart and my sometimes slightly funny head combined, very simply [cliché alert:] want to create spaces that are more beautiful. And though it may sound a little laddish of me to use the expression, I really do get a kick when a garden I made very simply turns me on, so to speak.
I enjoy the fact that I wake up in the middle of the night with a creative solution. More, I love that I have those moments. On the other hand, I hate it when I can’t sleep because although the end result garden may look good in my head, it doesn’t entirely do it for me, if you get me.
And it should. It should feel right. Like your first beau or falling in love or your first kiss and sometimes there is no logic. But you know it’s all good. Like a sideways heel clicking Fred Astair. Or Teenage Kick by The undertones. Or whatever makes you smile the mostest. And that* is how [at the very least me making a or…] your garden should, make you [me] feel.
Behind the scenes, is very different. My brain has of course got a square root button. To equationalise the creative if you will. But imagine an equation for wanting to so very passionately kiss someone ? Knowing that* equation as a by the way changes everything. It almost makes it pointless.
Back to it, and to answer the original question. What did happen this landscaping blog ? To borrow a line from The Commitments, I’m fucked if I know Terry.
See you at Clare Garden Festival.
