As Open House celebrates its second year of being, 10 Trees steps into its first.

The moment you pass through the gate into 10 Trees is the moment you discover its magic.

It’s hard to describe on paper - a mix of wild corners, tended beauty, wide open skies and heady vistas. And, as you look more closely, you see the robin arrive to say hello. A butterfly dances you a path amongst the sea of waving grasses and crosses paths with a kestrel, skimming across a froth of tree blossom. All the while, without you even being conscious of it, your body has been absorbing the smell of the mycelium, feeling the pulsing beat of sap rising, hearing the hum of life all around and regulating with the earth.

Welcome to your wild home, whole being.

10 Trees is named after the ten matriarch sycamores that ring the garden, but they are just one part of a vast and intricate community of trees that create a myriad of little pockets and corners right across the garden. From the meandering paths under fruit and nut boughs in the orchard, to the tiny fairy ring of birch trees, to the walnut trees of the main lawn - these seem to have been designed to hold human beings in both safety and delight. 

And you human beings, you have come. Following your instinct and your noses, you have sought out the garden as a place to find connection - with the earth, the trees, the skies - and also with each other, and yourselves. 

The garden has welcomed all of you - exactly as you are, on any given day.

It has allowed you to to take what you need - a cup of apple juice, breath of fresh air, a moment to get out of your head, a feeling of being part of something bigger. And you have given in return, whatever it was you could - a bag of sheep wool, a rosemary plant, your time. 

And, as you all gave, the garden re-peopled itself and blossomed.

A kitchen garden, replete with juicy vegetables, sprawled in one corner. A magnificent dead hedge popped up (‘like a barn raising’ someone said). Raised beds for a community tree nursery. The bones of a willow dome. A compost heap. A crop circle with log seating. 

After a year of emergence, we are starting to understand better the gifts that 10 Trees can share.

It’s a place where we can all connect with the more-than-human world, sense the inhale and exhale of the seasons, find a slower pace that resonates with our bodies and step over the threshold into our own inner world. In discovering and shaping this together, we start to build a home for collective care and reciprocity, and remember what it means to really belong to a place. 

We’ll be weaving a tapestry of experiences this year that honour the gifts the garden has to offer. We can’t wait to invite you to connect with this magic.