Outside my window as I write this is a small patch of grass – maybe 2 metres by 1 – where I have let the grass grow longer to see what else might appear. There’s some dove’s foot cranesbill with its little purple flowers, there are some daisies and dandelions, and a few Timothy and meadow grasses. It’s nothing spectacular, but in the sunshine it’s nature in microcosm.
Clik here to view.
Thinking about nature on a small scale, and focusing on the little details – I feel this is one good way nature can boost wellbeing day by day. It’s easy to walk on by and overlook the small things – but it’s taking a moment just to stop and wonder that adds something to the day.
Recently I’ve heard about two new books which celebrate the small and the particular in different ways. One is “Understorey” by Anna Chapman Parker, about the writer’s year-long quest to record and draw all the weeds she sees. As someone ever on the lookout for another creative challenge, I like the idea of illustrating the weeds, not just noticing them. It’s also interesting how Anna Chapman Parker explores her search’s impact on wellbeing, lessening her migraines and giving a feeling of calm and hope. Weeds may be less striking and colourful than garden flowers, easily overlooked or trampled underfoot, and unwelcome in our gardens and driveways. But even as I clear ivy-leaved toadflax from my driveway, I still admire its delicate lilac flowers and creeping stems.
The other book is “Hedgelands” by Christopher Hart, an exploration of hedges and their importance as an ecosystem. Hedges might not seem so small or particular. They cover hundreds of thousands of miles of countryside after all, even though that figure has declined enormously. But every single hedge is individual after all. The book considers how hedges have changed down the years and the different plants that can form a hedge. All this spurs me to look more closely at any and every hedge that I see. It might be my own hawthorn and leyland hedges as I tidy them through the summer. Or it might be the hedges I see as I walk around, on the edges of gardens and fields. Just looking at them, identifying what plants grow there, hoping to see any of the birds or insects which depend on hedgerows. Seeing something like the first dog roses in summer is a small thing , but it can open up a moment out of the daily round to look and to be. I stopped on a verge the other day to look at a dog rose, to count its petals and see its yellow stamens. A passing driver probably wondered what on earth I was doing, but who cares?
The hedge is a world all its own – imagine how vast to an ant, a beetle, a shrew, a dunnock. Think about that, and let our world recede, just for a moment.
