Catherine Morland
Shitty Harvest, 2023
I am an artist/gardener and it’s really interesting how gardeners manage failure differently from artists. I think everybody understands how failure is hugely important but as artists we are not brilliant about sharing these disappointments. Admitting failure is not common. Whereas gardeners are very good at reassuring each other when things go wrong. There is so much frustration with growing, it’s fun to compare disaster stories. I joined a Facebook page called Shitty Harvest. It’s got 60,000 members and it’s hilarious, non-achievements are shared and given the spotlight they deserve. Perhaps artists should do this more.
This hyacinth hardly flowered at all before it started wilting. I’m not sure why. I was trying out a process called ‘forcing’ where you trick spring bulbs into blooming early by storing them in a cold dark room for several months before bringing them into the warm. I watched lovingly for months, first the tiny roots appeared heading down toward the water below, then the vase filled with the swirling tendrils. Once the green shoot burst through the top of the bulb, I thought I was on a home run but sadly the flower only grew to a quarter of its full size, it started to wilt and that was that.