Observe
Listen first. Name what is happening, what is at risk, who is affected, and what the person hopes the work will make possible.
A human-scale method
Begin with the problem, not the archive transfer.
The method moves from listening to a small, reviewable return. It protects the original material, preserves uncertainty, and grows only when the person sees value in continuing.
The cycle
Six acts of stewardship.
The sequence is deliberate, but not mechanical. A Garden returns to earlier stages whenever new context changes what can responsibly be understood.
Gather
Bring together only what the first task requires: stories, records, objects, photographs, places, works, and existing systems.
Understand
Distinguish evidence, memory, interpretation, missing context, contradiction, relationship, and recurring pattern.
Protect
Set privacy, consent, access, third-party, and publication boundaries before preparing anything for broader use.
Shape
Return the material in a usable form: a portrait, atlas, timeline, path, collection, registry, visual story, or governed archive.
Continue
Review, correct, preserve revisions, and decide whether the Garden remains private, grows, pauses, or becomes a selective public release.
Three first questions
Enough structure to begin well.
What must not be lost?
Name the person, knowledge, relationship, place, work, or context that matters most—and why.
Who is involved?
Who holds knowledge, makes decisions, offers care, appears in the record, or may be affected?
What would a useful first return be?
What would help most now? The first form should be small, real, and reviewable.
What comes back first
A result people can hold, read, correct, or use.
The first return is not a promise of total completion. It proves the method, creates shared language, and gives the person something valuable before more material is requested.
A Garden portrait
A clear view of the people, places, works, periods, and questions that define the subject.
A guided story
A readable path through one meaningful period, object, relationship, project, or environment.
A visual atlas
A map of artifacts, collections, locations, influences, and relationships that were previously scattered.
A continuity plan
A practical account of what exists, what is at risk, what remains private, and what should happen next.
Participation
The person does not have to become the operator.
A Garden can begin through an ordinary conversation, a walk through a place, a box of records, a table of objects, a handwritten account, or a trusted family member. The Institute can carry the technical burden behind the scenes.
Conversation
Speak in your own words. Nothing needs to be pre-organised.
Walk-through
Explain a garden, workshop, room, collection, or meaningful place as you move through it.
Paper and objects
Work with ledgers, photographs, letters, artworks, clippings, and physical records.
Assisted review
Receive a plain-language first return and decide what is right, missing, private, or wrong.
Responsible intelligence
AI assists. It does not become the author of the life.
AI can help search, compare, transcribe, organise, detect gaps, and propose relationships across large bodies of material. Every substantive result must remain attributable, reviewable, and clearly separated from original evidence.
The Garden may interpret knowledge, but it may never silently become the owner of knowledge.
When AI is unavailable, the Garden must still support direct reading, search, timelines, paths, source access, and human tending. The method is not dependent on a chatbot.
Begin with one useful return.
No complete archive, technical system, or public commitment is required.