Hey there, Autumn!

Or perhaps I should say Fall now that I’m back in the U.S. Still, it doesn’t quite feel like Autumn yet, and I’ve always been skeptical about pinning the seasons to a hard date. The colour of the leaves and the chill in the morning air are far more faithful harbingers of Fall. Perhaps as climate change continues to tug at the timing of the seasons, calendars will have to adjust, or give up altogether, and we’ll rely instead on our noses and eyes to sense the change.

For now, however, there is an earsplitting party soundtrack outside my window to mark the “arrival” of Autumn: the angry buzz of leaf blowers and the drone of a lawnmower.

The well-armed landscaping crew started their morning in the nondescript garden of our rented house. We hurried past them, the girls dashing to the car with laces untied and mascara tubes in hand. In the car, relegated to the backseat so at least one girl could use the flip-down mirror, I lamented the loss of the carpet of fallen leaves that were being vacuumed off the dry soil that is so badly in need of a rich mulch. But my family had other things on their minds. Algebra tests, sore throats, the peril of a social faux pas in their new American schools.

“Why don’t you tell them to stop?” croaked my youngest, echoing a phrase I have often said to her in different circumstances. Would the landscaping team accept my suggestions? Would the landlord approve? I wondered aloud. But this morning there wasn’t enough time to stop and engage with this hit squad of garden tidiness.  We would have been late for school.

So instead, as our ridiculous beast of a car chugged along the tree-lined roads, I shared another morsel of nature-blindness that had been worrying me over my morning coffee. My swipe through Facebook Marketplace (three months in and we are still sleeping on the floor and eating off a borrowed card table) was stalled when I encountered a post calling on Washington and Oregon residents to turn off lights over the weekend to protect migrating birds.

How amazing, and how unfortunate since I was, as usual, late to this news. I would have peered up at the narrow slice of dark sky above our heavily wooded yard to see if I could catch a cloud of birds, hear the flap of thousands of wings.

To see if others shared my excitement, I scrolled to the comments. Instead of awe, I found:
“This is fake.”
“Birds don’t fly at night.”
“Are we expected to drive home at night with headlights off?”
“Do you expect me to believe turning my little porch light off will make a difference?”
“Everyone knows birds navigate by magnetic fields and will ignore the lights.”

At first I wondered if it was a sarcastic humour-fest. There were a few funny comments involving bird poop. Surely, I thought, they don’t really believe this? Perhaps I was missing the joke. But the comments went on and on, and the chance of these being jokes grew slim.

I was surprised that people questioned the scientific integrity of the post and saddened that so many were unwilling to make such a small and short-lived adjustment to protect beautiful migratory birds.

Most of us are more removed from the natural world than ever before, so I can understand the gaps in knowledge. Unless you happen to stumble across the right article or overhear a chatty gardener in a coffee queue, it’s easy to miss the remarkable discoveries scientists are making. And yes, sometimes I too wonder whether switching off one little porch light makes much difference when hulking office buildings blaze through the night. But I like to think small changes stack up. Even a single porch light left off saves a few disoriented moths, a cog in the ecological wheel as important pollinators for glorious night-scented flowers and crunchy midnight snacks for bats (who, incidentally, don’t appreciate floodlights either).

Over the past two years I’ve dived deeply into the world of gardening, earning certificates in horticulture and garden design, while also working for a handful of private clients in the UK. Though my love of green spaces has been baked into me since childhood, I’ve learned so much more about the intersection of gardening, ecology, and the power we hold to nurture biodiversity.

I grew up in the British countryside, surrounded by fields, woodlands, and farms. From our back door we could follow footpaths trodden for thousands of years, leading to woodlands glowing with carpets of bluebells in spring or rustling with crunchy brown leaves in autumn. I spent hours creeping through tunnels in hedgerows with friends, taking turns to untangle our hair from hazel branches or brambles.

Later, the mountains and wildness of the Pacific Northwest lured me away from a too-boozy life in London. In Seattle, with my husband and young daughters, I transformed our tiny square of city grass into a lush, natives-only sanctuary. In 2020, when the skies reopened after the first Covid lockdown, we fled Seattle and returned to my childhood village. I was tired of the noise: the drunks shouting obscenities on the corner, the weekly fender-benders on the busy street, the helicopters circling for hours above sluggish I-5 traffic.

But now we are back and living on Bainbridge Island.

I have mixed feelings. I miss my parents and the friends we made. I miss the gentle countryside and the gardens I was entrusted to nurture. I miss the comfort of understanding humour and subtext, of catching the undertones of conversation, the banter at the side of my daughter’s football matches. The politics here terrifies me. The apathy terrifies me more. Cultural references fly over my head. Brady Bunch who? Yet the vast wilderness, with its ecosystems ranging from alpine summits to dripping temperate rainforest, is jaw-droppingly beautiful.

So I’ve replaced hedgehogs with coyotes, oaks with cedars. I’m looking forward to lacing up my hiking boots or clicking into skis to escape into the mountains.

Gardening scratches that same itch. It connects me to the land, reignites my awe of life, leaves me physically exhausted, rosy-cheeked, and filled with fresh air. Living in the city, whether London or Seattle, I felt divorced from the seasons’ rhythms, the world’s heartbeat. To reorient myself, I sought weekend escapes: train rides north from London to my aunt in the Lake District, where we battled sideways rain, ice, and gales to knock off mountain peaks; escapes from Seattle into the Cascades, backpacking pre-kids or sharing cozy cabins (and hot tubs) with friends.

Where will my journey now lead? To start with, you’ll find me volunteering in some beautiful local gardens. I promise to share more photos and thoughts. I hope to continue nurturing biologically rich, beautiful garden spaces, starting with my own. My goal is to blend science with design, seasoned with kindness, playfulness, and respect for each other and this amazing world we’re lucky to inhabit.

Most importantly, I’ll keep learning, gleaning knowledge from those far ahead of me on this path. One day, I hope I’ll inspire others and share what I’ve gathered and leave a little slice of this planet healthier than I found it.

Please do reach out if you have questions or thoughts. I’d love to meet you, learn from you, and to talk plants, gardens, and wildlife.