大象传媒

Heligan鈥檚 massive abundance of British vegetables, soft fruit and cut flowers and Eden鈥檚 global gardens speak of plenty. They make real our dependence on the natural world and plants in particular, and this is something that stirs feelings of contentment that have roots thousands of years old, from when we were hunter gatherers.

I have a theory that Heligan and Eden are two sides of the same coin. Where Eden holds the promise of transformation from Ugly Duckling to听Swan, Heligan represents another fairy tale, The Sleeping Beauty.

Both have their roots in longing and redemption. Gardens are not simple matters of beauty: they represent for many of us the only agency we have upon the world, bending it to our desire. With the passing of the seasons听the theatre of life and death plays out in front of us, but always, while we breathe, there is the hope of another season!

A year ago I read an extraordinary book 鈥溾�� by Robert Pogue Harrison, Professor of Italian at Stanford University.

In it, he talks of paradise 鈥� Eden. He says that it is interesting that Eve actually wanted to leave Paradise, as did Odysseus, who, offered a life on Circe鈥檚 enchanted Island, still preferred to leave for the barren lands of Ithaca. Harrison makes the point that for us humans paradise has to be fleeting, a moment.

The garden is a metaphor for those moments. When leaning on a spade the garden is perfection. The moment has great joy and yet a little sadness at the knowledge that only further toil will keep it so. Paradise without the effort is worthless as it doesn鈥檛 hold the mirror up at the part we play.

It makes you think. Gardens are so often sold to us as听lifestyle choices. How wrong this is: gardening and gardens are far more important than that.

So鈥ur birthdays throw up memories of the great achievements, the wonderful plants, the concerts, the millions of guests that we have welcomed.

They throw up too the bitter-sweet memories of听 friends and colleagues who have passed along the way, but, most of all they bring you back to that haunting phrase, 鈥渙nly the imagination can lead you to meaning鈥�.

For me, the meaning is clear: we are reminded that we are part of nature and not apart from it, that for all our vanities we each have our time and our season: and, if we do not strive, we have no hope of reaching paradise, not even for a moment.

Dutch-born entrepreneur and former rock music producer听Sir Tim Smit is co-founder of the iconic Eden Project, built in a former听china clay听quarry听near St Austell in Cornwall and world-famous for its massive tropical biomes. He also 'discovered' and restored the nearby Lost Gardens of Heligan.