Garden News

by Maggi Stamp

Ah, the freedom I didn’t know I had! With my best friend, Ann, I would take the salt cellar from the kitchen and head for either my dad’s veg patch or hers and sit in our own miniature jungle. Concealed by the pea sticks or the sprout stalks, depending on the time of year, we would feast on the crunchy, sweet young sprouts, or the peas – and the pods – or carrots, pulled, wiped on our skirts and consumed with much delight and concentration.

A touch of salt and the taste of the earth upon them, there was nothing as delectable as those peas, carrots still slightly scented by the summer soil, or sprouts warmed by the waning October sun, just before the frosts signalled to my father that they were ready to be picked.

The fruit, too, didn’t escape our greedy eye for a tasty morsel. In turn we applied our ‘quality control methods’ to currants – red, white and black, gooseberries, strawberries and raspberries, occasionally with a discreet bowl of sugar for dipping fruit into.

During holidays we would spend hours in our gardens hunting particular insects, butterflies or birds, admiring and sometimes picking flowers, or lying on our backs on the grass, watching, letting our minds wander and fantasies transport us.

We were free to wander further afield, into woods and across fields. We built camps in spinneys and copses, returning to them for many weeks, carrying a bottle of Corona or lemon squash, a few biscuits and maybe an old curtain or scrap of carpet with which to complete our furnishing. Aged 9 or 10, we would cycle several miles to Bucklebury ford to cool our feet in the River Pang as it meandered down to the Thames at Pangbourne.

And what did that childhood leave in its wake? Now I live in London and my garden is a small courtyard packed full of my favourite plants and shrubs. At the first sniff freshly turned soil, of honeysuckle, elderflowers, philadelphus or dog roses I am in heaven. I long to have somewhere larger to prune, dig, weed, plant and harvest. It is in my soul.

My father, born in 1911, began life as a gardener to a landed gentleman in Wiltshire. His knowledge of cultivating and tilling the land was immense, his pay risible. Yet all his long life he maintained a large garden of his own and even in retirement was sharing plants, cuttings and the fruits of his labours with his village neighbours as well as still toiling for the estate owners in their own gardens. It cannot be ignored for long, this compulsion to work with the land, to persuade plants to grow and care for one’s home plot.

The work my father did was hard and backbreaking. He worked outside in all weathers and there was no option to put anything off until the weather eased. If the big house wanted sprouts picked or root vegetables dug up the fact that the ground was frozen or plants covered in frost and ice was no excuse. Double-digging heavy water-sodden clay soil had to be done at a particular time and on time. A gardener’s hands were calloused and chapped, often cracked to bleeding with the weight of work. In so many places, the gardeners were seldom acknowledged by the occupants of the big house and were expected to work out of view, whenever possible. Gardener’s accommodation was a tied cottage and to lose your job was to lose your home at the same time with no help or leeway to find alternative housing.

Thinking of all the labour-saving devices we have to hand in our gardens, I wonder if present day professional gardeners in the large gardens are as proudly hefted to the land as my father and his companions.

There is certainly an encouraging movement of people finding their way back to gardening; and still more discovering the pleasures and rewards for the first time. There is a plethora of gardening programmes on TV and magazines on the shelves of newsagents. The knowledge that was second nature to my dad and handed down to my brothers and myself, is being made available through the media to young home owners and older folk with new, long awaited leisure time. New generations are watching the phases of the moon to plant new crops, checking the weather to plan watering or frost protection, poring over seed catalogues and delighting in a wander around garden centres and stately homes for inspiration.

The very essence of the country garden was brought back to me recently by one man, his garden and his wonderful book Akenfield, a beautiful observation of the life of a Suffolk village during the 1960s, describing how methods, etiquette and traditions evolved, through the reminiscences and descriptions given to him by villagers of all ages.

The author and poet Ronald Blythe, an old friend of my husband, is now in his youthful eighties and has lived in Suffolk and Essex all his life. We visited him this spring at his unspoiled 17th century cottage, deep in the heart of the East Anglian countryside.

We approached down a narrow lane bordered by bluebells and primroses. The lane passes his cottage garden, open and unfenced; walkers can fully appreciate the form and contours of wandering paths, rambling shrubs, perennials and bulbs. No straight lines here, just a lovingly tended area of the valley, following the natural contours and obstacles of the terrain. This is a true rural garden. The planting fits into the land, the flower beds gently slope down towards the valley bottom and vegetables have a level area close to a spring.

Even Digby, our accompanying dog, an urban mutt, felt no need to wander further than the paths around the flowerbeds and vegetable patch. He stretched out in the sunlight and simply watched. Just as I used to as a girl. Being there is all one needs to feels peaceful and restored. To have the opportunity to cultivate one’s own patch brings the bonus of fulfilment.

I continue to anticipate with child-like excitement, the time when I too will have the opportunity to garden more fully once again. Let’s hope it is while I’m still fit enough to dig, weed and prune.

 

laterlife interest

The above article is part of the features section of laterlife.com called laterlife interest. laterlife interest contains a variety of articles of interest for visitors to laterlife.com written by a number of experienced and new journalists.

It includes both one off articles and also associated regular columns of a more specialist nature such as Healthwise, Talkback, Gardener's Diary, and a beauty section called Looking good in later life.

There's also 'It could be you' by Maggi Stamp laterlife's counsellor on human relationships. 

Also don't forget to take a look at our regular IT question and answer section called YoucandoIT by IT trainer and author Jackie Sherman.

To view the latest articles click on laterlife interest or to view indexes to previous articles click on laterlife interest index. To search for articles about a certain topic, use the site search feature at the top of the navigation.