Apparently.
🙂
I get asked a lot “what is it about what I do that I love; or why I adore what I do.
I’m going to answer pictorially as apparently that makes for better blog posts and interest or potential engagement… 😉
(So the experts on these matters tell graduating middle aged men…)
/checks for sarcasm font
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Potting and Seed sowing Studio.
One of my favourite places, spaces and pastimes, Sowing and potting up stock.
Headphones on, music of choice flowing into my own private and personal space while I try and create or craft thousands of little gems or miracles of life into existence.
Or trying to grow the next generations of carbon filters and life givers to the planet, trees by their hundreds hopefully.
You can see a few packets of seeds on the shelves awaiting their turn to get bathed in soil and water so they can emerge back to life.
As well as all the other toys and paraphernalia I have around when doing my thing and increasing the stock at my disposal or to dabble with a new variety be that either native, imported or highly exotic.I Grow what is at hand and takes my fancy, or what a seed seller has and I decide to give it a try.
Shadow my Dog, on “Guard duty” while I spend more hours in the Potting studio.
Shadow is a huge reason I do what I do and in fact why I started the company so love my life and day in and out that it comes with and because of.
Shadow is rarely found more than a few hundred meters away from me at any given moment.
Though does have a tendency to bolt if something moves fast and catches his eye. He is high energy and fawns for fuss and attention and unashamedly socially engineers people or groups to draw someone to play “Fetch” with him.
His passion to please overwhelms all; if you are so kind as to pick up the ball or toy he offers or you find and wish to play with him using. He gets on well with most other dogs, though as any real owner will tell you, no dog is 100% safe with all dogs. Shadow generally has a playful if energetic nature. He likes a tussle and a good round of sniffing and initiating playful behaviour through pawing and engagement behaviour. All of which can be seen by his keen tail motion and puppy like excited reaction. Shadow will play happy submissive to much junior or smaller dogs if they are playful and gentle enough. Shadow has a good tolerance for puppy nonsense and will play along till a puppy or other dog nips or bites beyond playful levels and Shadow has given a clear audible warning that is enough to show all around a line has just been crossed and play will now please stop. He will then retire to me and await correction of behaviours or to be lead elsewhere where there is less conflict or chance of it. His “Unsure so adopting and defensive stance” is indicated by a small furry mohawk of his shoulder blade/ruff area that is visible and elevated when he is afraid or worried of an incoming animal or person and or vehicles.
I need every day to be take my dog to work day, so I built a job and lifestyle so that I can do just that.
I tried to work in a “normal” job and it didn’t work so well for him or myself to be fair. So this business was the answer to the mutual problems and benefits that came with the extra effort of us being the boss.
Shadow is part of my everyday life and is with me most of the day, everyday.
So I love my job because it allows him the lifestyle he needs; and I require to provide it.
He also loves what I do and getting to visit all the glorious garden spaces we are invited into and he is allowed to play in while we visit.
Beyond what most of you who know me or Shadow or someone through the company or myself personally.
My mainly public facing is with private clients of Shadow of the Gardener.
So most of you see me working in your garden spaces or when you see me by chance socially.
You see my love and care for your garden spaces which is why I find and keep the clients who find me and allow me the pleasure and trust to look after a personal garden space and area of their home.
I am mostly thought of as other peoples gardener, and not in my own right with my own.
This is mainly due to not technically having my own garden mind you. I have rented space elsewhere from home for that.
So this is why I mention what follows and show the pictures of it.
As it isn’t seen often but is sometimes mentioned or discussed with clients and friends. A large part of my love and adoration of gardening and the surrounding aspects of it. Being a plantsman is a large part of my personal interest and pleasure in what I do.
Yes, I do mostly focus on my love and potentially bankrupting passionate interest for Bonsai.
Yet my eye and tastes spread much further and farther in gene and genus than just small trees kept in pots or the legion of small saplings and seedlings destined to become Bonsai by my hands in the Decades to come.
It’s not just Bonsai that make my passion for this area grow and bloom.
Flowers through to veg, cacti through to bog dwelling insect and small mammal eating plants.
If it catches my eye and I think I can grow it or someone wants it and I think I can grow it.
I do.
& I enjoy seeing the process. Love it in fact. Hours spent sowing and growing, pricking out, potting on, upgrading soil, mixing soils and substrates. Concocting and mixing, toiling and poking. Prodding and cajoling.
Then…
Sowing, heating, lighting, watering, feeding; nurturing nature.
Watching it develop and grow.
Pop from the shell or casing.
Come into its own.
One of potentially billions.
Casting up leafs to act as solar sails and feed off the light and energy.
Yet from my hands.
Then out into the world.
Destined for my own personal growing and private sanctuary space. Or perhaps grown for a client who wanted something specific or unique. Even maybe for local sale or internet. I’m proud of every one I sow, germinate and propagate into maturity and see it through to it’s first seeding and regrowth or repopulation through the seed it has sown in its life cycle.
This is where my love for this job and the company it represents came from.
Watching these moments and looking forward to seeing the fruit of this plant or tree later in life and knowing I played a part in it and it’s surroundings for the future.
A huge part of what makes me smile while working hard engaged in this company and what I do on the clock that you perhaps see yourself, but also what I do after I am “Off the clock” and working in my own time. These are simply some of those moments with a little additional commentary to answer a question I get asked and show a little of the things perhaps mentioned previously.
Plus a few pictures outside the sowing Studio shots where the seeds go to await propagation and my small indoor grow room.
I hope you enjoy?
SOTG Sowing Studio and Seed propagation Gallery May 2019.
Views, thoughts and comments welcome, as are likes or shares.
Thanks.
S.
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