This is The Ever Changing Garden
Well, here we are! I have wanted to do this for a good long while. “This” doesn’t specifically mean start a substack, but instead, translates to “create a place where I can share ideas, thoughts, actions, etc with more people than my inner self and my romantic partner (Antony, in case it comes up again)”.
For now, we are called The Ever Changing Garden. I hope this title ends up being able to encompass everything I’d like to discuss here, so, let’s see.
The Ever Changing Garden is a concept that has been teased in my family since I was a kid. My mom, an avid and successful gardener, has ensured every one of her homes is surrounded by lush and interesting gardens. Not one of these gardens has remained static throughout its life (in addition to the obvious growth element). Plants move, swap, divide, get gifted, scooch, etc. My childhood memories are filled with weekends and summers digging up and transplanting all sizes of plants. My dad eventually commented that my mom should have a TV show “The Ever Changing Garden,” whose tagline would be “remember that plant we moved yesterday? well, today, we are moving it again!!”
This light teasing was correct, though, and also it turns out, the garden management method of constantly moving things to “better” spots, changing your mind, is hereditary. In the time since these early 90’s memories, I have grown up (lol), earned degrees in journalism and landscape architecture, and lived and worked as a landscape architect in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. At my home, which is, at the moment, in Chamonix, France, my gardening efforts while perhaps not as successful, do come by their changing nature honestly.
All of this is to say, what IS this substack about? A bit about gardening exploits. A bit about professional garden design exploits (where NDA allowed). A bit about household DIY (as it turns out this category also suffers from the ever-changing tendency). Basically, I would like the opportunity to share what I do, and why I do it, with a willing audience, and create discussion from there. Quite literally nothing I share here will be perfect, life is about learning, and we are learning on the job.
Therefore, today, at my house where I live now as an adult, and on this substack, I ask you to remember that plant we moved yesterday. Because today, we are moving it again.
