From Farm to New Garden:
Dahlias, Art and a Sense of Peace
I wasn't feeling up to writing last night — I usually write to you on Saturday evenings. In the midst of a spring cleanse, a release, with instructions rest and take it easy. I wonder what that means? Maybe digging new spots for roses was a bit too much—I’ve decided to wait a few days before planting the rest of them, and the countless other pots of new flower babies. This morning I felt much better, like myself again. It’s taken many months to feel like I am back in my body, that the energetic tether to the gardens I cherished is becoming muted.
This morning the plum tree was singing with bees, as I moved tomatoes from the sunroom to the greenhouse. Far too many of them, some exotic from China, Japan, Russia alongside seeds saved from the farm. Tomato starts were followed by dahlia babies, suffice to say there is an abundance of them and I’m not exactly sure where they will all go yet….shhhhhh. I delight in knowing the gardens will be beautiful and filled with beauty, bees, birds and butterflies. Dahlias are a bit like baseball cards or hockey cards where you keep a catalogue, carefully making note of additions or deletions. I’m often asked if I have a favourite—how could I? It would be like trying to choose a favourite child. You love them all equally, but in different ways and for different reasons.
Today working in the sun with my hands in the soil and tubers waiting to be unpacked—I thought of the flower farms and growers who sent them from, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia and how hard they work. I thought how I really do belong to the flowers. To all of them. Every flower is like an energetic whisper. Even the weeds.
Before Alchemy Farm flowers were like background music you hear in an elevator, always present. After ten years of caring for them at the farm, they have become integrated into the fabric of who I am. As tedious as 900+ dahlia plants became, the love of working with them remains. The soft prayers, rituals of encouragement, the greeting of old friends upon hearing their name. Writing each tag, codified with initials that correspond to the Master List. They anchor me in the present, they will blossom alongside me in this new garden.
Today for the first time I feel a deep sense of peace with the move. I'm grateful the farm called in such good caretakers. The farm is becoming a beautiful dream that was filled with magic, a sense of place, a sense of purpose growing flowers and plants to create habitat for other beings. The farm is now someone else's dream.
Now I’m meeting new plants as they emerge from the depths into spring. Plants new to me. Rhododendrons and azalea with colours hidden, along with a Japanese lilac tree, Oakleaf hydrangea, Sargeant’s hydrangea, Algerian ivy, fragrant vines, euphorbia and more, all revealing their secrets. It makes my heart happy to know that the previous owner was a plantswoman too.
I place my hand on the huge mulberry tree, covered in moss, arms branching outwards in balance, and ask it to send a dream if it needs anything. Have you had that happen? You forgot to water a plant and wake up or are jolted into the present when you realize it? Scientists are now finding that plants can communicate with us. They send energetic screams when they are in distress. Thankfully, Robin has the irrigation under control—10 years of experience at the farm with a much more complicated system, we were blessed that the irrigation system is already in place here. Today I feel a deep sense of gratitude for this beautiful new and different home.
I feel grateful for the new-to-me studio where I’ve begun to return to my art practice. What is slowly emerging is — Memories of Alchemy Farm, layered landscapes from those years of deep immersion. I’ve also been putting together a set of 4 Alchemy Flower Oracle art prints for spring. It feels right that they are here with me now, witnesses to this new chapter. The farm lives on in the work, just as it lives on in the dahlias being unpacked, in the seeds saved, and the peace of finding a new way.
In my online shop you'll find Field Notes: Art for the Bees — a limited edition set of 4 signed fine art prints from the Alchemy Flower Oracle. Just in time for Mother's Day, I've also added four signed botanical fine art prints, each one an arrangement grown and wildcrafted at Alchemy Farm. Fine art prints are made in my studio, signed and include free shipping in North America. The Memories of Alchemy Farm landscape prints and originals are coming soon.
A message from the Alchemy Flower Oracle
Queen Anne’s Lace: Sanctuary
Each flower, each Being, is a stitch in the tapestry of Life. Work with the Earth, and all her Beings, to create your own sanctuary.
The Alchemy Flower Oracle is my own deck with messages from 48 flowers from nature, find it here.