August held the best and hardest things all at once

This month brought one of the loveliest surprises I have had through the garden and one of the hardest moments in my life away from it. Seeing the garden featured in a magazine was one of those things I never would have imagined when I first started trying to make something of this space, and I felt incredibly grateful for it.

There were also some very ordinary, happy August moments I wanted to hold onto – filling a vintage watering can with dahlias, thinking about local flower shows, and trying to make space for family celebrations. And then, all at once, life shifted. My mum died at the end of the month, and the garden became one of the places where everything felt both sharper and a little easier to carry.