The very non-trivial nature of small and beautiful things

Rare fruit trees, another year older and a single pot of spring bulbs

I turned 35 yesterday. Which, incidentally, is also my excuse for sending this email to you on a Tuesday instead of a Monday. I was busy eating waffles and getting overexcited by the gifts my husband bought me (a custard apple tree! A blue java banana! And something called a ‘Seed of Paradise’ plant, which produces seeds with the spiciness of pepper and notes of ginger and citrus. It’s native to West Africa, is closely related to turmeric, cardamom and ginger, and was used as a substitute for pepper in the Middle Ages). Luke found it via a local rare fruit tree seller, whose website (primalfruits.com.au) boasts the most eclectic mixture of exotic plants I have ever encountered. You can visit the nursery by appointment if you want to check out everything on offer, which I am hoping to do later this week as an extra birthday gift to myself.

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Another gift I gave myself is a subscription to the Substack thank you, ok. It’s the most soothing thing I’ve read all year - basically a distillation of things that are beautiful, big and small; compilations of little moments worth appreciating. It makes me want to make my life more beautiful in tiny ways. It makes me want to do things that, at first, sound totally trivial - toasting my oats before I cook them into porridge, setting out my breakfast on the wooden tray my mum did up for me, making sure I always drink my tea from my one favourite mug, lighting a candle, opening the doors and windows to let in the morning air, bothering to make the bed.

A birthday snack - miniature watermelons my husband bought us ($3 each and you can eat the whole thing in a single sitting) spread thickly with double cream. The plate is by Kaki studio - one of my favourite local ceramicists - and a perfect example of something small and beautiful.

These are all the little things I let slip when I feel busy or overstretched. But I’m starting to think that life with a young family might always feel busy and overstretched. And maybe the most comforting, simplest way to deal with having very little time or opportunity for the big indulgences is to sneak tiny, micro-indulgences into every little crack in the day. It makes me want to throw out all my threadbare socks and buy really soft socks, so that when I pull them on I remember that I’m alive. It makes me want to grow so many daffodils that I don’t feel guilty about cutting a stack of them this spring and piling them into a vase. It makes me want to drink truly hot tea with my eyes closed.

In the garden, there are tiny instances of beauty every day. Right now the Carnaby’s black cockatoos are pillaging our pecan tree for nuts. I love it. They howl from the branches of the tree, snipping off sprigs and leaves with their dinosaur beaks, raining heavy pecans down on the garden below like tiny green bombs. Our neighbours hate this time of year (they complain the nuts get in their pool), but I love it. I love that no one tells the birds when to visit; they’re not invited, they just come. I love that they are the surest sign autumn has arrived, just like the cabbage white butterflies arrive on the first warm day of spring. I love that they don’t care about my schedule, that their lives and rhythms have nothing at all to do with me. I love that they don’t care about anything I do, and that every year they turn our garden into total chaos, then leave. One year I will harvest the fallen nuts and cook a pecan pie.

A little posy of autumn blooms on our bathroom windowsill. Miscanthus grass heads, Shasta daisies (big white blooms), Jerusalem artichokes (yellow), NY asters (tiny white blooms), society garlic (little purple stars), salvias (dark purple spikes) .

I have been putting the finishing touches on my new book - a digital guide to every flower I grow in our garden, when everything flowers, and how to combine the plants for flowers in every season. I love it, and it’s making me look at our garden with fresh eyes. Right now the New York asters are blooming, the Jerusalem artichokes are 6ft tall and covered in bright yellow flowers, the roses have had a second flush, my Miscanthus grasses have exploded into feathery golden blooms and, despite my neglect, the autumn crocuses are out and very beautiful.

I tend to forget what blooms and when, so this is really a book I’ve written for myself - a reminder to be more conscious of growing plants that flower at different times beside each other, so that every corner of the garden always has interest. I’ve noticed that our passionfruit marigolds (which will burst into fiery orange bloom around May, but for now are plain and bare) are the perfect planting companion for Jerusalem artichokes, which bring the same pop of yellow/orange to the garden through early autumn, before fading away and falling back into the ground (at this point, you can harvest their roots to cook with - they taste like potatoes crossed with artichokes and are very good roasted and topped with grated Manchego cheese).

Passionfruit marigolds in bloom at our wedding (October), photographed by Michelle Troop. They bloom from May through to November and their leaves smell like lollies.

For now, though, there is one important thing I want to remind you to do: plant spring bulbs.

This is a topic I’ve already filled two newsletters with, and I’ll link them below. The reason I think you should plant spring bulbs fits quite perfectly with my resolution to find more beauty in small moments. Whether your garden is big or small, established or just starting, I truly believe one of the best things you can do is to plant a single pot of spring bulbs. You can manage it with very little time commitment - your kids can even help you do it. Your bulbs need almost no love from you and will burst through the ground in the depths of winter, when everything seems depressing and colourless. They offer some of the first colour and fragrance of spring (many will bloom before winter has even finished), and when they’re done you can essentially ignore them until the next year. But beyond that, they are simply beautiful and filled with hope.

Daffodils from a few springs ago, popping out in a bed of ranunculi, daisies and violas.

If you do just one thing this autumn, plant a pot of spring bulbs (if you do two things this autumn, plant a pot of spring bulbs and sow some sweet pea seeds). It’s hard to guarantee much in life, but I feel no qualms about unabashedly, vehemently guaranteeing you that you will not regret planting a pot of spring bulbs, and you will be terribly, joyfully surprised by just how much pleasure they bring you. Go for daffodils or jonquils - they’re the easiest. I’m going to be planting a whole table full of little miniature daffodils, grape hyacinths and jonquils in pots over the next few weeks and will send photos when I do.

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Thank you for reading! See you next time for more Lo fi life!

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