This is part 7 of my journal-style stories in which I recount my current life with a young woman, Zoe, who has come to live with me in my southern New Zealand city.

Zoe and I are exploring our imaginations together, having discovered a connection through our mutual love of writing. However, the main creative task at hand is that of clearing my old, unloved garden and establishing one that is easier to look after as I advance into my older years. 

When young Zoe first arrived, our discussion was focused on how I imagined my garden could be improved, with Zoe toiling as the labourer. As we get to know each other better, her role as a "creative director" is coming to the fore. She knows much more about plants than I do. I know more than she does in other aspects of life. On the highway of life we must learn how to accommodate other road users; we must learn how to merge safely. Zoe’s metaphoric truck takes up a lot of space. It’s loaded with some rubbish from the past she needs to dump (a bit like my garden).

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Creativity comes in many forms of expressions. Sometimes it occurs as a physical act of making something by following a plan with itemised instructions. Truly creative people are guided by the inspiration of their imagination. Writers and artists fit this category (unless they are regurgitating others’ thoughts and images), and now I realise I can broaden that concept to include gardeners. Born gardeners will already know this as a fact. 

In an attempt to educate me into the joys of this pastime, Zoe has been explaining gardening in painting terms that I can visualise myself: using texture, line, form, perspective, and colour to create a living masterpiece. These apply to our choice of plants and where we place them in my garden. Also important in the choosing is my personal preference. Zoe wants to know which plants I like, and why.

I want plants that birds like. I like colour, especially purple. I prefer a rambling garden to a neatly manicured one. I need hardy, self sufficient plants that will look after themselves – survival of the fittest rules my back yard. I do not like thorny or spiky plants. I love succulents but not cacti. Roses are for other people’s gardens – I will appreciate their scent from over the fence. Along the fence, it would be nice to have a creeper of clematis or jasmine, but not ivy. Zoe and I are struggling with clearing the rampant jungle of matted ivy strands that are presently choking my garden. 

Another aspect of the pleasure principle kicks in to my conversations with Zoe. What elements should we combine to reflect the things I enjoy? Zoe has been keeping this in mind when we talk about my love of walking beside rivers with mossy rocks, and hiking on rocky hillsides.

Zoe is a self-starter. She has lift-off and is now rocketing around my back yard. Literally. One of the features Zoe has recommended is a rock garden for the newly-acquired succulents. To facilitate this, we have driven out to the river a couple of times to collect the makings. I pick up patterned pebbles and smooth stones by the riverside; fittingly, Zoe hauls boulders, the more irregularly-shaped the better. Our personalities are often revealed unconsciously.

I also love walking by the seaside, so we have been out there a couple of times as well. We brought back bucketloads of small shells to use as a filler feature for the new path, and also collected a few pieces of driftwood that had been weathered into interesting shapes and textures.

We have both been aware that when collecting these rocks and shells we must first check whether something is already living there. If so, it stays put. We have no wish to destroy another creature’s home just to make our own a better one. “Leave no stone unturned” has damaging ramifications in the natural world.

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We inadvertently destroyed a small creature’s home late yesterday afternoon, but Zoe and I have made amends. Clearing the tangle of undergrowth back to bare earth frightened a young hedgehog out into the open. It was looking somewhat dazed and disoriented, so Zoe scooped it up with her gloved hands while I went to get my wire cat cage for a temporary home until we can put the hedgehog back safely somewhere else in the garden. I gathered fallen autumn leaves for bedding that it could burrow into and soaked some cat food nibbles in water for its dinner, while Zoe found a live snail for the little fellow to eat.

He seems quite relaxed this morning, with a tummyful of cat food. The snail is not so relaxed – I caught sight of it sprinting out the door. Hedgehogs are not picky eaters; they have a wide-ranging diet and are useful in the garden, munching their way through insects, slugs and snails.

Zoe has made a home for our hedgehog, now named Piggy, out of an upturned plastic ice cream tub with an access doorway cut into one side. She placed it in a quiet corner of the garden and covered it over with fallen leaves and sticks so Piggy feels safe as the winter hibernation period approaches.

You may have noticed that reference to ‘our’ hedgehog has changed from ‘it’ to ‘he’ to ‘Piggy’. We like to think he appreciates our efforts, but there’s no guarantee he'll want to live where we'd like him to live. We've also imposed a gender; ‘he’ might in fact be a ‘she’.    

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Zoe is settling in, perhaps tentatively putting down roots herself in this good earth that now surrounds her. Will she be an annual or a perennial? Is she deciduous or an evergreen? In a different environment, with her forthright opinions and prodigious energy, she has the potential to be a prickly invasive species. At home here, my relationship with her is bearing fruit.