The Garden

The momentum to lockdown had been building but I continued making up the weekend wedding flowers. News of the cancellation arrived early evening, the bouquets and some of the tables were finished. The buckets of flowers for the arch sat by the door, ready to be packed into the van in the morning.

The month that followed was the longest break away from work that I’d had for years. The small city garden which we had always loved took on new and momentous meaning. If it wasn’t raining, we were in it. Not gardening at first, but reading, making calls, sleeping, talking. We would chat to our German neighbour over the fence as she planned her post-Brexit return to Berlin. Remy would sunbathe on a large floor cushion we dragged outside for him.

We moved into this house in 2011 and one of the first things we did was disassemble the two trampolines that the previous owners left languishing and gave them away. Paddy then felled a pair of oppressive conifers that loomed over the house and garden like monoliths. The fences were replaced so our beloved lurcher Remy could roam freely, and the first iteration of the garden emerged. A lawn, a few plants around the edge, and raised beds in the most shaded part of the side garden. So began the learning curve. Our vegetable garden was a sad chapter with no real victories but did help us learn about the right plant in the right place.

Years later we accepted that the side garden, under the shade of cherry and crab apple trees, would make a better home for ferns, euphorbias, Japanese Parthenocissus, spring bulbs, and a water bowl.  It’s now the most cool, peaceful part of the garden in hot summers.

During lockdown we really worked. I put together flowers and plants that Paddy delivered all over the North East. I worked hard enough that I bought the greenhouse I had coveted for years. A small black greenhouse that sits on a tiny footprint of decking.

Just before Valentine’s Day 2021, I stepped into the garden to feed the birds and slipped on ice. By the afternoon I was having an out of body experience in the RVI, staring at the x-ray image on a screen of my ankle being repaired with metalwork in real time. Screws going into bone and plate.

By March I was used to the crutches. Paddy built the raised beds, took out the lawn and my mum came to help. I balanced on a crutch, filling buckets from the gravel delivery on the street, as she and Paddy ferried it down to the garden. By the end of the day the beds were built and in place, the gravel was just about level, the compost was in and the dog had taken up residence sleeping on one of the earth-filled beds.

I’ve loved this garden for the last four years but things have to keep moving. I wanted to grow flowers for cutting and although there have been hits and misses, I raised many seeds and cut many flowers. But now I want a different garden, with more plants and height, maybe another tree. so this Spring the beds will be gifted to mum and we’ll be creating something new.