Edible landscapes outside, beautiful 'life-scapes' inside. Patrick and Dawn's inner Sydney House

Strolling around my new neighbourhood in Ananndale, Sydney, I got stopped in my tracks.
A blue-and-green edible garden, created with love and fun.
I had to meet the creators.

Dawn, with a new baby in her arms came to the door and let me in, with her blue eyes sparkling.

Front Garden

What did I see?
Shopping baskets that fill themselves with produce - you just have to wait for it to grow.

Table and Chair
No gorgeous edible garden happens, unless there is a table and chair, a hands-reach away.

A edible garden is part of you, your love and attention and spirit keep it in existence.
Its not like a room you furnish with plants, then leave.

Without you, its soon gone.

Broom. 

Every successful balcony garden has a broom a hands reach away.
Without it, the downward spiral of neglect sets in. 

In all my years of photos, a faithful little sweeper guards every beautiful balcony garden.

Beautiful Interior - families of things

Dawn and Patrick's kitchen, with guard-flowers.

Inside, the beauty and order continued.

I had just knocked on the door of a new mother of two, at dinner time, on a weekday. 

Yet the house was beautiful. 

I wish every harried mother could be taught this:

Don't force yourself into make things tidy. 

'Tidy' takes endless, hard work. its boring, and can't be sustained.

Willpower is a non-renewable resouce, you have to use it sparingly.

Instead, give yourself permission to make things beautiful.

Arranging things into color-coordinated "life-scapes' is actually playing, not 'tidying'.

Dawn and Patrick just filled their home with 'families' of objects, arranged like stilllifes, like landscapes.
You can tell there is no forced tidying.
They set up their life so that when they find a stray item, it gets irresistibly put back with its family, and everyone is happy.

Bottle-scapes

Toy-scapes

Dummy-scapes

Pre-dinner table-scapes

And even Nappy-scapes

Looking up, here is a colored paper-fall

Just paper and thread, but look how the colors grow out of each other, as they do in natural rainbows. 

Order and wildness, in just the right amounts, right places.

Back garden 

It turns out that Patrick once studied Landscape Architecture, and still does select little design jobs, community-style gardens, in his spare time.

So,what makes this garden lovely?

The rythym of circles dotted about, like dancing - squeezy buckets, round painted logs

The way living things and other objects speak the same language, colorwise. They commune.

 

The way even the produce, the edible borage flowers, match the squeezy buckets

The absence of unnecessary boarders or straight lines

The playful surprises, and how nothing is alone

Things are allowed to flock

And the way eager strangers are allowed in, to delight in it all.

Thank-you Dawn and Patrick, you guys are a blessing xx