THE ICON OF MY GARDEN

I have always said that the bridge across the overflow of Freddie’s dam is the icon of my garden. It forms the focal point of the view from The House that Jack Built, which for ten years was my permanent home, and my holiday home the ten years before that. I miss the bridge, or more precisely the way in which the early morning light plays on the whole composition day after day as it rises behind the house.

Each day is different, each season has its beauty.

Sometimes it is the afternoon light that I notice, as in this shot with its high summer greens.

It is a year since I moved up to the big house, where much of the garden is also  of my composing, and living with it on a daily basis, I’ve come to appreciate the subtleties of this view – but I still miss my bridge…

When I heard that the theme for this month’s photo competition at Gardening Gone Wild  was the genius loci, the sense of place, of a garden, it was inevitable that the bridge would be  the focus of my sifting through the archives, looking for my entry.

Besides which, I have long wanted to blog about the bridge… Yet, in searching through my archives – a bit of a hit and miss affair, for my computers have needed to be  reformatted this week and my external drive for photographs is on the blink, and I really don’t have the time to indulge anyway – I saw several photos that made me wonder if the bridge should indeed be the theme. But the bridge it is.

Several qualities define the many photos. They reflect the seasons, or the quality of the light, or the reflective quality of water.

Few of them contain strong structural shapes other than the bridge.

Some zoom right in on the bridge, or even just parts of it.

Others are photostitched panoramas which cover an impossibly wide angle in trying to capture the moment.

There are scenes from inside the house…

…and even scenes without the bridge

Yes – as in without the bridge… this scene from the mid-nineties is positively naked!

Light, colour and reflection are definitely the key triggers that make me reach for my camera. But which of the many images captures the genius loci – and why? Is it this dramatic autumn shot, as warm sunlight on hot colours meets subzero blue light on frosted grey foliage?

Is it the beauty of autumn with its unbelievably rich colours that really captures the spirit of my garden?

Or is it in the stark geometry of the winter garden that the true beauty lies? Does the removal of all colour in fact bring forth the truth – the opposite of an autumn view?

Is the power of a summer storm more telling than a wispy dawn?

The big picture or the telling detail?

And finally it is the telling detail which wins the day. Not the framing of the bridge by the white hydrangeas. Nor the touch of colour from the beautiful indigenous pink River Lily, Schizostylis coccinea. It is the breath of wind which stirs the perfect calm of the reflection, the reminder that the exquisite counterview is the sum of a series of random events in nature, and that the truest beauty in a garden is never the work of a human hand, and never lasts for long.

This last shot, one I have treasured for years, captures the genius loci, the spirit of my garden, like no other. It is not chocolate boxy, or even pretty. It is above all serene and expansive. Which is how I’d like to think of my garden. This then is my entry into the competition at Gardening Gone Wild. You can see all the entries here and learn more about this month’s competion here.