There was something about this conversation with Tim Pilgrim that made me think about creative work differently.
Tim is a gardener and garden designer based in Castlemaine, and much of his work involves creating gardens that are intended to develop over years rather than look finished on the day they are planted.
Which means he has to let go.
He can choose the plants and design the spaces. He can think carefully about how a garden will look in ten years. But then the weather arrives. Plants behave differently. Things self-sow. Something unexpected takes over. A plant dies. A garden becomes home to birds, lizards and other creatures.
And Tim has to respond.
I loved the way he described this because it feels so familiar to me as a creative person.
We can have an idea of what we’re making. We can plan. We can work hard. But eventually the work itself becomes part of the process. We notice something we hadn’t expected. We realise something needs to be removed. We discover that the original idea isn’t quite right anymore.
Maybe creativity isn’t about getting everything right at the beginning.
Maybe it’s about learning how to pay attention.
That is what stayed with me from this conversation. Tim talks about observation, adaptation and leaving room for what we can’t control, and although we’re talking about gardens, the ideas apply to almost any creative practice.
I hope you enjoy this one.
How Tim found his way into gardening almost by accident
Why he thinks gardening is an artistic practice
How he creates focused blocks of time for design work
The process he uses to turn a client’s ideas into a garden
Why the first ideas are often worth recording
What happens when a garden doesn’t develop as planned
How climate, plants and wildlife have changed the way he thinks about design
Why Tim believes you should garden before you design
One of the things I loved about this conversation was Tim’s willingness to let the garden remain unfinished. Not unfinished in the sense of incomplete, but unfinished in the sense that it is always becoming something else.
He designs with intention. He thinks about what a garden might look like in ten years. He makes decisions about structure, planting and movement. But once the garden is planted, he doesn’t get to control all of the variables.
The plants have something to say.
The weather has something to say.
The seasons have something to say.
And the wildlife that moves into the garden has something to say too.
There was something quite freeing about that idea.
I think we can put enormous pressure on ourselves as creatives to know exactly what we’re doing before we begin. We want the plan. We want to know what the finished thing will look like. We want to know whether we’re doing it properly.
But perhaps some creative work needs room to grow.
We might begin with an intention rather than a fixed outcome. We might make the first decisions and then pay attention to what happens next.
And perhaps some of the most interesting parts of our work arrive through those unexpected moments, the things we didn’t plan for and couldn’t have predicted.
Tim talked about the ‘happy accidents’ that happen in a garden. I think there are happy accidents in all of our creative work and the trick is noticing them and being willing to let them change the plan.
Until next time, keep building your own creative momentum.
x Meg
Instagram: t.p_gardens
Website: https://www.tpgardens.com.au/
Book: Wild by Design
This podcast is a labour of love, and I’m grateful to be able to create these conversations for writers and other creatives. If this episode gave you something to think about, encouraged your own creative practice, or simply made your day a little brighter, you’re welcome to support the podcast with a one-off tip. Every contribution helps me keep these conversations coming, without adding another subscription to your life.
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Want to revisit something Tim said or read the conversation at your own pace?
I’m always looking to feature Australian creatives from all disciplines, including writers, artists, performers, jewellers, dancers, musicians, gardeners and makers.
If you’d like to share how and why you do your creative work, I’d love to hear from you.
A special thank you to Yvonne Morton for the beautiful music that accompanies each episode. You can find Yvonne on Bandcamp and Instagram.
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