Before the World Wakes Up | Marcus Bergin's Garden Notebook
Marcus Bergin reflects on the quiet beauty of arriving in a garden before the world wakes up and the simple moments that make every morning different.
REFLECTIONS
Marcus Bergin
5/8/20242 min read
Before the World Wakes Up
Some of my favourite moments in the garden happen before the day's conversations begin, while the world is still finding its feet.
There are mornings when I arrive at a customer's garden before the day has really begun.
The roads have been quiet, the air still carries a little of the night's coolness, and the garden is almost completely still. The house lights are off, curtains remain closed, and, for a few precious minutes, it feels as though I've borrowed the garden before anyone else has had a chance to step into it.
Those moments never last for long.
A kettle boils somewhere inside the house. A neighbour starts their car. A dog barks a few gardens away. Before long, the familiar rhythm of the day begins.
But for those first few minutes, it's just me and the garden.
I've always liked that.
Perhaps it's because gardens reveal a different side of themselves early in the morning. Dew hangs on the lawn, catching the first hint of sunlight. Cobwebs appear where they seemed invisible the evening before, each one decorated with tiny droplets that sparkle for only a short while before disappearing.
If you're not there early enough, you never see them.
The birds are usually the first to let me know I'm not alone. A robin often appears within minutes, watching from a nearby fence before deciding whether I'm worth following. Blackbirds seem to have their own morning routine, busily searching for worms as if they've already got a list of jobs to finish before breakfast.
I've often wondered whether they recognise me.
Not me as Marcus, of course, but as someone who turns over soil and uncovers breakfast.
It's a nice thought.
Those early starts have become one of the unexpected pleasures of my work. Years ago, I probably wouldn't have appreciated them in quite the same way. I would have been thinking about the jobs ahead, the miles to drive or whether I'd remembered everything in the back of the van.
Experience has a way of changing what you notice.
Now, I find myself looking upwards as often as I look down. I notice how the light changes from one week to the next. I notice when the swifts arrive overhead in spring and when the first leaves begin to drift onto the lawn in autumn.
They're small things.
Easy things to miss.
But they're also the moments that remind me why I chose a career that keeps me outdoors.
People sometimes ask whether I ever get tired of gardening after doing it for so many years.
The honest answer is no.
Not because every day is exciting.
Not because every job is different.
But because no two mornings are ever quite the same.
One morning brings mist hanging over the grass.
Another brings the scent of freshly opened roses carried on a gentle breeze.
Another begins with rain tapping softly on leaves before the clouds quietly move on.
The work may be familiar.
The garden never is.
As I close the gate at the end of the day, those early hours have usually been replaced by the sound of children playing, lawnmowers in neighbouring gardens and people making the most of the evening sunshine.
The garden has woken up.
Life has returned.
And tomorrow morning, somewhere else, another garden will be waiting quietly for the day to begin all over again.
Marcus
