A couple of months, that’s all this took…
These photographs (in the New Forest, Hampshire) were all taken within the same short stretch of time. The prints haven’t aged gracefully. We’ve scanned them as faithfully as we can, but the fading suits them (they feel like a proper archive now.)
That’s me in the first image, standing in a bog on felled bamboo. It had been a pond before, a very old one. The garden already knew what it was supposed to be. I was just helping it get back there. Working on a big restoration project like this always looks like destruction first.
Then comes the water. Still murky.
And then foxgloves at the bank. Ferns in foreground, irises at the water’s edge. Water trickling down from a higher pond. Trees and shrubs greening up everywhere. Within a few months the pond stopped looking made and started looking found.
Bee Lilyjones.
