It’s been almost a year since I last wrote on these pages – life has a horrible habit of getting in the way and the past 12 months have been rather a rollercoaster, to say the least. Anyone who reads my other blog may know that my father passed away after a long struggle with dementia in January, so my time was taken up with increasing care responsibilities and hospital visits until then and then coming to terms with grief and sorting out the estate ever since. It has felt like a long haul, but things are slowly returning to normal and finally I feel I have time to start writing for myself again.
Rather fittingly, gardening has provided huge solace in the past few months, just as it did when Mum passed away 14 months earlier. Revisiting old haunts like RHS Wisley or National Trust properties such as Wakehurst Place and Standen or Sheffield Park has been hugely cathartic, tied up as they are with memories of visiting them over the years with my parents and when my boys were small.
I had to drive to Leatherhead to register my father’s death in late January (who knew that you had to register a death in the county of death? Surrey in Dad’s case as he was in Redhill Hospital, not Sussex where they lived, further adding to relatives’ burden at such a difficult time). I decided to go on to Wisley, 15 minutes further down the road, a garden Mum and Dad adored, so a fitting place to visit on that of all days. And always lovely to see the bare bones of a garden at that time of year. The hamamelis were out in full bloom and smelled heavenly; the long-tailed tits clearly thought so too! I even bought a couple of small trees from Wisley’s well-stocked garden centre with a garden voucher my sister had given me for Christmas: Amelanchier Ballerina and Cercis canadensis Merlot – my father would have approved!
Tending my own garden is another way of communing with my parents, strange though that may seem. As I’m sure I’ve said before, that sense of mindfulness you get when gardening is just what you need at times of sorrow, especially when gardening was a joy I shared with my parents – and one they’d probably inspired in the first place, as I recall in my post after Mum’s death in 2021. So many of the plants I have in my garden were cuttings from their gardens or gifts from them; Dad could never resist buying plants when we visited gardens or garden centres and many of mine were ones he insisted on buying for me.
Back on a rare sunny day in February, it was a delight to see snowdrop Sam Arnott out in force, heralding the arrival of spring. It brought back memories of a bitterly cold visit to Hadlow College’s snowdrop day some years earlier, when Dad had treated me to a pot of those very same bulbs, now divided many times and spread around my garden (and back to theirs!). Dad’s clivias in my conservatory (unheated this year due to energy costs!) had not one but three flower spikes this spring – a sign of Dad working his magic from beyond the grave perhaps? And my conservatory also plays host to two beautiful Bird of Paradise plants (Strelitzia) that Dad originally grew from seed from a holiday in Tenerife in 1988! They have been divided many times over the years and mine are due another division this year as the roots are threatening to break the pot – time to get the saw out, I think. I still have the original label with Dad’s handwritten notes about when it was split/repotted, although sadly I’ve neglected to update it in more recent times. So many happy memories…
Dad also helped with many garden projects over the years, both in my marital homes, when he got stuck in physically, clearing beds and hacking down rhododendron ponticum in our big woodland garden in Scotland, and then in the 2-acre garden we moved to in Sussex 20 years ago, before my then husband left just three months later. I was so grateful for my parents’ support and gardening help at that time, especially in a garden of that size! They were in their 70s by then but loved working in the garden with me – all that therapeutic chopping and hacking!
When I got divorced and downsized to a smaller house and garden two years down the line, they were always there for me. Dad in particular was hugely helpful doing a lot of the more physical stuff. I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty in the garden, but DIY is not one of my fortes and Dad, who originally trained as a joiner before his national service, put up a greenhouse (in the larger marital home – I only wish I had room for one now!) and a shed at the allotment, installed water butts, trellising and generally did all the things I couldn’t. He was such a perfectionist, but that became a problem in the latter years, when he became increasingly frustrated with his growing immobility and inability to do things the way he would have liked. He still enjoyed feeling useful though, so I tried to save little jobs for him that he could do sitting down – although he frequently forgot himself in his enthusiasm to help and we had to make sure we kept a close eye on him in case he fell!
In late autumn last year, before Dad passed away, I’d been taking stock and decided I needed to address the problem of the left side of my front garden, which had been badly affected by the drought conditions last summer. Despite being on the north side of my house, this area gets a lot of sun in summer and the problem is exacerbated by the fact that the site slopes, with next-door’s garden on a lower level. My neighbours also have a beautiful, mature cherry tree that sends out root suckers, as cherries are wont to do, and takes up a lot of water, as does my apple tree, on my side of the boundary fence. In a normal year, this wouldn’t be a problem, but the trend towards global warming has meant that the shrubs in the existing bed were struggling to cope and frazzled to a crisp last summer, with temperatures well in the 30s. That bed had also become infested with creeping potentilla and was a nightmare to weed.
I’d had a couple of quotes from landscapers last November to make two large raised beds and replace the scorched lawn with gravel, with the aim of creating a more Mediterranean planting vibe, with plants that can withstand drought. I’d duly chosen the one I preferred, with the arrangement that they’d get in touch when they had availability this spring. Sure enough, they contacted me just before Easter to say they could come in mid-April – what a transformation!
They did a great job, very efficiently, over two days, removing the weeds and what remained of the lawn, lining the whole area with weedproof membrane and filling the new, super sturdy timber beds with good quality topsoil, plus edging the existing apple tree bed with old bricks to finish it off. In the messy middle stages, I did start to wonder what I’d done, but once the gravel and soil went in, I was thrilled with the results!
Unfortunately, I then had to wait a while before I could plant them up – firstly, to let the soil settle, and then because I’d ordered two new roses by mail order. Once they arrived, the growers’ instructions were to leave them in their pots for 2-3 weeks as they’d only recently been transplanted. Fair enough. In the meantime, I had plenty of time to decide what I wanted and to plan my shopping expeditions to local nurseries – always the best bit of any new design to my mind.
Finally, in late May, I was able to plant up my new beds, with plants from a variety of local (and not-so-local) nurseries, my mail-order roses from Jones Roses in Cheshire, divisions from my garden (and my parents’ garden), gifts from friends and relocated seedlings and cuttings. I moved the existing golden philadelphus, hydrangea and azalea to the shady side of the garden, where they seem to be thriving. My favourite, oh-so-fragrant Gertrude Jekyll rose was replanted nearer to the apple tree, next to the longer raised bed, where it is doing remarkably well considering how vigorously I hacked it back and root-pruned it to squeeze it into the biggest pot I had before planting once the beds were in situ! Roses are surprisingly tough…
Here’s my plant list, in case anyone is interested:
Main bed:
Rose Koko Loko
Rose Mokarosa
Hibiscus Purple Ruffles (on its last chance – it hasn’t done well elsewhere in the garden!)
Salvias Amistad, Black & Blue, Dyson’s Crimson, Nachtvlinder and Pink Friesland
Echinacea Lustre (grown from seed at the allotment last year)
Hemerocallis Trahlyta (deep purple, spider form – from my parents’ garden)
Aster turbinellum
Aster Mönch
Geraniums Patricia, Rozanne and Ann Folkard (my divisions)
Euphorbia Baby Charm
Euphorbia cornigera Goldener Turm
Phlox divaricata Chattahoochee
Penstemon Amelia Jane (cuttings)
Astrantia major Claret
Eryngium zabelli Jos Eijking
Sedum Purple Emperor (cutting from a fellow allotment plotholder)
Aquilegia (gold foliage, originally from seed and self-sown elsewhere in the garden)
Verbena bonariensis (from a friend whose garden they self-seed in prolifically)
Anthemis cupaniana (cutting)
Phlox subulata McDaniel’s Cushion (had to get this as my maiden name is Daniel!)
Aubrietia
Nepeta
Smaller bed:
Rose Eye of the Tiger
Hemerocallis Siloam Showgirl (from my parents originally)
Miscanthus Adagio
Penstemon Cherry Red
Astrantia major Ruby Wedding
Aubrietia
Phlox Emerald Cushion
My most successful nursery raids were to Coton Manor in Northamptonshire (when visiting a friend at the end of April; if only I’d driven rather than going by train, I’d have bought a lot more! As it was, I gingerly transported them back in a cardboard wine carrier!), Great Dixter Nursery in Northiam, East Sussex and Marchant’s Hardy Plants in Laughton, East Sussex. Garden centres were extremely expensive and provided far fewer pickings in terms of the specific plants I wanted. Staverton Nursery near Ringmer, also in East Sussex, was an honourable exception – they had a range of more unusual specimens at very good prices, despite being a conventional garden centre. As a rule, I’d much rather buy two or three smaller plants of the varieties I want from specialist nurseries as they establish much more quickly and romp away to fill the space, providing a more natural look in the process.
I’ve also included annuals (Cosmos Rubenza and Nicotiana Lime Green) this first summer in case the planting needs bulking up, but actually I’m thrilled with the results just two months in. I also included some of the plump-looking tulip bulbs from last year’s containers (Palmyra, Van Eijk and Silk Road), so am hoping they’ll take up the baton next spring. Even drought-resistant plants need watering in their first year to get established, of course, but so far, so good – and we’ve already got a hosepipe ban here in the South East after a few weeks of hot, dry weather in June.
My one regret is that Mum and Dad aren’t here to appreciate my revitalised front garden. Not a day goes by that I don’t want to call them and tell them about some particularly pleasing colour combination or new bloom. I know they’ll be looking down and giving it all their seal of approval though – and they’ll be as proud of my new creation as I am. They taught me my craft in the first place, after all.
Rhubarb & Raspberries 