The garden is trying to talk to me, and sometimes I can understand. It tells me that shadow loving plants will grow, a small forest, moss means moisture, moisture means snails. Lot of snails. It’s like digging in another time as Derek Jarman writes. I am digging in the remnants of projects from others, dumping of materials, intentions. In a way, the garden is an inquiry between past and present landscapes, and the soil becomes a medium for this exchange of information.

I am reminded of another quote by the French landscape architect Gilles Clément: “to care for and cultivate a plot of land, a capable gardener must observe in order to act and work with, rather than against, the natural ecosystem of the garden.” But what is the natural ecosystem of a garden, when it is a place that has been drastically interfered with, and has almost become a sort of third nature ?

As you try to mend an ecosystem, you are simultaneously disturbing it and perhaps I am thinking that disturbance to some degree, can also be constructive.