At the bottom of our garden, in a shady north-east facing corner, is a deck. It was built by the previous owner and cleverly incorporates an old cherry tree, which actually grows up through the middle of it. This year the tree produced lots of really tasty cherries – the lovely warm weather we had in June must have helped… Read more →
Category: My Garden
Gardens as memory keepers
This is me, aged 3, in a friend’s garden in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1981. You’ll probably see a similar scene if you visit me in my garden now. I lived in Kenya until I was nearly 14. It was a pretty idyllic childhood in many ways, and I have lots of memories of playing outside. I remember squeezing snapdragons so… Read more →
Up The Garage Wall (Part 1)
Everyone has a part of their garden that drives them up the wall (forgive the pun). For some time, I have been searching for a way to disguise this mock stone, garage wall. Whenever I look out of the kitchen window, I think how lovely my garden is, and what a shame that this grim, grey thing has to be in… Read more →
How to renovate a border
In my last post, I mentioned that I wanted to renovate the border in front of my living room window. The fact is, we have quite literally no money to spend on the garden at the moment, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. The border in question is at the front of the house. It was one… Read more →
Gardening is therapy
To quote my gardening hero Monty Don*, writing in August’s Gardeners’ World magazine: “Working with plants and dealing with the rhythms of the seasons is powerful medicine.” Monty, like me, is prone to depression. I suffered very badly in the years following the birth of my son, and have only this year started feeling more like myself again, whatever that… Read more →
The Good Life
One of the most thrilling moments of our first summer in this garden was our first harvest. It was a crop of cute ball carrots that were given to us as plug plants by my father-in-law. My just-three year old daughter had the pleasure of pulling them out of the ground, seeing their orange heads peep through the crumbly brown… Read more →
Beginning gardening
Three and half years ago, me, my husband, my two year old daughter and my still crawling baby boy, packed up, left London and moved to Norwich. I wasn’t really a gardener then. We had come from a two-bed, ground floor flat with a shared courtyard and lawn, near a busy high road. I did have some special plants in pots: an… Read more →