The brief was a tree-of-life kept vertical and symmetrical, but flowered, with birds as its real fruit. We gave it one ochre trunk in seed-rows climbing into a balanced crown of magenta roundel blossoms and emerald leaf-rows, and then perched six birds through the branches — each a different jewel colour so the eye hops from one to the next. At the roots, two resting deer ground the composition, dot-flecked and calm, the way a tree of life always anchors the forest below it. The discipline is keeping it medium-light: a flowering crown with breathing forest-green between the boughs, not a wall of pattern. The birds carry the life; the clean ground lets you count them.