It's what I do

I should tell you more about the garden I work in, call it Upton Madjit; no not really; I'm not going to give you the real name as discretion is essential and respectful for although I may have reservations about my employers, they are and I need them to remain that. Like most of these places it has a history, periods of activity and change and long stretches of neglect. Like a microcosm of life it could generally have been done better. Much of the good is lost, the crap seldom succumbs but can support the magically unintended where nature extends a tendril into our consciousness, the spark of recognition a momentary gateway into a world too pure and rarefied to stay long but like the first high, always calling, siren song to leave the mundane and soar amongst the clouds of possibility. Each garden has a 'Genius loci', a unique state of being; seldom tangible this organising principle is the thread that flows through time, a coherence or resonance, a standing wave that draws unto itself. Complete destruction of this level of organisation is possible and is frequently attempted by designers but fortunately due either to lack of skill, understanding, money or commitment it is seldom successful and the genius reasserts itself. As a Mouldewaper I have a commitment to what already is in a place, to the manifestation of the Genius. I shape and shift, I perpetuate rather than curate ( yes I loathe the National Trust whilst giving thanks for it's existence) I create in a dynamic conversation with the life of the place rather than smother the natural rhythm. I am Mouldewaper. The soil here is dry and poor over limestone, seldom more than a couple of foot to brash and as a hilltop garden, drought is a constant. When I arrived at this formerly well planted but not well tended garden the soil was concrete in summer and claggy in winter with a 2 week window for planting in spring. Since our seasons have now gone haywire and we move from wet cold to dry heat in less than a fortnight improving the soil is numero uno. This fits with my organic roots where one feeds the soil rather than the plant but it is slow work. In woodland it is assumed that it takes about a century to build an inch of topsoil. In a decade we have built about 6 inches of topsoil in the 5000 sq m of garden borders that we have. As the old saying goes 'if you'll be wanting to go there, you'd be best not starting from here' so it is with an established garden and all it's problems. Impoverished soil, shallow beds and pernicious weed with trees, shrubs and lawns that prevent radical treatment. How to get to the ideal of weed free and fertile beds growing the choice plants in breathtaking arrangements to demonstrate your mastery of life. Lots of money and disturbance to impose the designers will upon the wayward landscape is the usual way. Poison the weeds, fertilise the soil and buy in lots of plants after the builders have trashed and buried anything that isn't in the plan. The risk of disturbing the delicate balance of the place is large; of burying it for a generation.... real. Mostly of course the Genius will not have been perceived consciously by owner or designer, it may have drawn the new owners to the place or they may not care and are just looking for the designer label. The alternative is not so sexy or quick, it doesn't come with a designer label. It is to work with the land, to intuit the nature of the place and to set about improving, shaping and strengthening what is, so that it may become an expression of the life present there. Mulch isn't sexy but its what happens in woodland, it is the engine that drives growth and diversity, a living mat of microbial activity, the skin of the earth through which it breathes. Why then do most gardeners worship bare soil, the flayed hide of the earth, as if it were only the plants that they had interred that were worthy of life. It is an expression of control and it goes to the heart of why we garden.