In a valley nestled at the foothills of the Snowy Mountains in southern New South Wales, Trisha Dixon lives a life deeply entwined with nature. Her days are filled with writing, photographing, cycling, and leading adventurous tours across the globe. Yet, it’s her rambling wild garden that serves as her sanctuary and creative inspiration.
Together with her daughter-in-law, Sahra Tohow Dixon, Trisha co-founded Le Sac, a thoughtfully designed garden belt with pouches for essentials like secateurs and a phone. The product reflects their shared philosophy, combining practicality with the beauty and joy of living close to nature.
In this piece, Trisha shares her reflections on the grounding power of gardening, the beauty of nature-inspired creativity, and the profound impact that connecting with the earth can have on our well-being. She invites us to embrace the therapeutic magic of gardens, whether vast or small, and to cultivate a life enriched by nature’s endless inspiration.
Written by Trisha Dixon
The Magic of Petrichor: Nature’s Invitation After the Rain
It has rained overnight. That rich damp earth fragrance is drawing me out. Petrichor is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. The term is constructed from Greek words petra, meaning stone, and ichor, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology.
The birds too are busy. They are my friends in the garden. The damp soil means it’s a snack for the birds to pull out any worms, and easy for me to remove any rogue weeds or move plants around.
With secateurs in my indispensable gardening belt, Le Sac, it’s grounding just to walk through the garden, deadheading as I go or snipping a bunch of flowers for the kitchen table. Nothing brightens up the house more than freshly picked jugs and vases of flowers.
Gardens and flowers evoke feelings. There is such a subconscious therapeutic application of nature, and we draw incredible energy and strength from its beauty.
See anyone walking along the street carrying a huge bouquet of flowers. People stop, comment, smile and somehow, spirits are lifted. Walk through any hospital corridor, and those rooms looking like a florist shop with flowers everywhere instantly lift the spirit.
Inspiring the Next Generation Through Nature
Give a child the chance to grow sunflowers, watering and watching them grow from seedlings into plants waving over their heads, there is the absolute joy when brilliant sunshine yellow flowers as big as balloons are the reward. The waiting and watching is part of the fun – and the anticipation.
While visiting a writer friend in France I was captivated by a sweetly fragrant sandpit she had made for her children. Around the base of the smallish round sandpit, she had propped up large dead limbs from trees to form a type of wigwam, and at the base of these she had planted sweetpea seeds. Visiting when they were in full flower, I was blown away by the overwhelming fragrance and beauty of such a simple idea brought into practice.
Here in my wild garden on the edge of a stream with huge old elms that have naturalised over the nearly 200 years since a home was built here, my daily gym is to walk down through that favourite part of my garden and pick up any limbs that have fallen, and either placing them into a pile for winter fire pit lunches or with the children, create fun wigwams that are their introduction to sculpture and a place to hide in or take their teddies or bunnies on a secret picnic.
Nature’s Remedy: Cultivating Joy, Strength, and Connection
Last year I had friends staying for a week making ephemeral sculptures, visiting from far and wide, it was like spending a grown-up week of preschool. In the wild garden they created a huge birds nest from small fallen twigs, and a hanging foliage ball constructed of a small circle of chicken wire in the middle with a chain to hang up.
Then, with secateurs in and out of their Le Sac garden belts, they went through the garden cutting long branches that they stuck into the ball and when finished, it was at least 5-6 times its size. We hung it from the limb of an elm tree over the stream at the bottom of the wild garden, and it looked amazing. The laughter, the chat, the creativity, the exercise, and the absolute joy of being out in the garden was extraordinary.
I have had the great pleasure of getting to know the UK psychotherapist Sue Stuart-Smith who has written a bestselling book called The Well Gardened Mind, the inspirational and authoritative book on mental health and physical labour showing us how vital gardening can be as an escape for the brain.
Sue writes about the meeting of two creative energies – human creativity and nature’s creativity. ‘It is a place of overlap and bridges the gap between the dreams in our head and ground under our feet.’
Drawing strength from the beauty of nature, Sue writes about the transformation of her grandfather who, returning from POW camp at the end of the Second World War was so malnourished he was given three months to live. It was his immersing himself in gardening that healed not only his body but his brain too.
A Life Enriched by Green Spaces
We don’t need vast gardens to nurture – it may be the joy of growing pots of culinary herbs or being part of a community garden, interacting with others in the joy of gardening.
For me it is central to how I live and makes for an incredibly positive outlook. Each day I strap on my Le Sac garden belt, pop my mobile in one pocket and with secateurs in the other, head out into the garden. it is a ritual that is addictive. If I’m in the city, I do the same, with keys taking the place of secateurs, and I wander through the local park and community gardens.
Shop Le Sac gardening belts to inspire your own time in nature, and follow Trish & Sahra’s gardening journeys on Instagram.
This article includes affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. These commissions help support our work at no additional cost to you. We only recommend products or services that align with our values and that we believe will provide value to our readers. While we recommend products and services we genuinely believe in, we do not guarantee their quality or suitability.
