My children grew up in Oban Road. At one end the street turned a 90o corner past the entrance to their school into Perth Road. At the other end, a T-junction with Paynton Road. Both Paynton Road and Perth Road led down onto the Battle Road. Because Paynton Road offered a direct link between the A21 and the A2100, and turning into either Perth Road or Oban Road only detoured a longer route to the same destination, the through traffic all favoured Paynton Road, leaving Oban Road in peace and serenity except at 8.45 and 3.15 when it was absolute bedlam (school entrance).
Mr Bishop lived in Paynton Road, but in the corner house, so
the whole side of his property ran along Oban Road though his house fronted
onto Paynton Road.
The houses in these three roads were small Victorian terraced
villas with long narrow gardens at the back and tiny plots for a few flowers at
the front. Our garden (this was before we got the puppies!!) was a wonderful labour of love. An access road running along the back had
been closed off years ago by someone annexing a section of it for their own
garden, and a wild apple tree grew in the remaining patch of no-mans-land it
left at the end of our garden by the time we moved in. The apple tree blew down in the hurricane of ’87
but kept on growing, wonderful for little children to scramble there and
play. We made our bonfires there
too. The actual garden, about 20ft wide
and 120ft long, we subdivided into four square sections. The idea was to allow our children to feel
independent and adventurous while keeping them safe. The first square, nearest the house, had
their toys and Wendy House and sandpit, the next a bowl shape paved with stone
and bordered with flowers – I wanted it to look like a ruined palace or a
pavement in Katmandu. The third section
just had grass and hedges – a cool green space.
Past the shed and the compost heap, under the arching ceanothus we had
trained over the path, the intrepid explorer came to the strawberry patch and
the pond, edged with snowberry and flowering currant and home to a multitude of
frogs. The children had their Art Shed up
there – a conservatory shed with a big window variously used for playing,
painting and making, or just for storage at times. Then finally on to the bonfire
patch and the apple tree.
A hedge surrounded the whole garden – but not an ordinary
hedge. We had very little money, so we
hardly ever paid for plants – only a couple of new polyanthuses to add to the
collection each spring. Our hedge, all
240ft of it, was made up entirely of cuttings and plants we had been given by
friends and family. It had beech,
forsythia, honeysuckle, conifer, hawthorn, blackberry, lavateria, box, hibiscus, privet,
wild rose – everything you could possibly imagine. Dotted about in the garden we had a tree
grown from a hedging beech (so it crowned out early and didn’t get too big for
its setting) in a small elevated bed encased by a curving stone wall in the
Katmandu bit, two silver birches growing side by side flanked by low-growing
box shrubs in the division between Katmandu and the Cool Green Space, and a
plum tree.
As we worked on it over the fourteen years we lived there,
it grew into the most magical, leafy paradise, dappled with shade, fragrant and
soft. I loved that garden.
In the last couple of years we lived there, as the children
grew out of their Wendy House and sand pit, we built a deck and what I thought
of as a Tea House, under the spreading bough of the beech tree, with a door
towards the main house and a door towards the Katmandu section. The doors were glazed and the roof had
skylights, so the tea house caught and held the light as well as letting the
breezes through and the scents of the grasses, the flowers and leaves.
It was all so beautiful.
Then, going towards Silverhill meant walking the length of
Mr Bishop’s garden, and delighting in peeping over the wall. His garden was like a microcosm of Old
England. He tended it lovingly but
somehow managed to let it look left to be, a patch of peace. Honeysuckle ran the length of his wall, spilling
over the top to perfume the whole street.
Twisty, gnarled old apple trees bent their loving branches into a cool
shade over the grass and bluebells, the Queen Anne’s Lace and primroses, the
violets and roses that grew along the low wall (about 3ft high) that bordered
the whole garden. It was a breath of
heaven. In the twilight as the day came
down to dusk, badgers and foxes wandered there – as they also did in our
garden.
Well, Mr Bishop was very old, and when he died the house was
sold to a young couple who had a family and a car. They pulled up the plants and the apple trees
to build a garage on the end third of the garden and cement in play structures and
a barbeque on the two thirds close to the house, leaving a patch of cut grass
and some small herbaceous plants in flower borders along the edge.
I was sad to see it go.
Then we moved away for me to become a school chaplain up in Kent. The family who moved into our house grubbed
out the entire hedge and kept their freezer in the tea house. They tore up the Iceberg rose and the
lavender from the front garden and all the little flowers, preferring shale and
spiky palms.
But you start again, don’t you? You can’t help being yourself, and you always
just start again.
This morning I sat outside in the garden we have planted
here – the roses and the honeysuckle, the apple trees and pear trees, the
cherry tree. I looked at the sage and the
lavender, the ceanothus, the silver birches and the vegetable patch. I wandered down to Hebe’s wilderness area
sown with wildflowers, edged with hawthorn and Bridesblossom. I looked at the scatterings of daisies and
speedwell, the Creeping Jenny among the bean plants, the Self Heal and larger
Plaintain, the Honesty that has established around the crab-apple tree, the
borage and primroses that grow among the lush grass under the trees at the
bottom of the garden near the leaf-mould heap and the bonfire.
And, taking in the cool green fragrance and the loveliness
of herbs and trees, the wonder of the greening of England in the maytime, I
remembered Mr Bishop and his garden that I had loved so very much, and I
thought, you know it never really dies.
You think you’ve lost it and you grieve, your heart breaks. But like a half-forgotten tune, a few lost
notes here and there in the dawning, it starts up again.
“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold
and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
“And they heard the voice
of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”
---------------------------------------------------
After long thought it has occurred to us that so long as we
are still human-shaped, going in and out in all the right places, and the
clothes that always did fit us do fit us still – well, we probably don’t need
the bathroom scales.
7 comments:
I like gardens to be as you described, an eclectic mix of beauty. We have lilacs, forsythia, and a few shrubs I do not know the name of, most were started from starts given to us, or salvaged, they make a great hedge with a mix of lovely blossoms. My flower gardens is just a random mix of various things I have planted over the years, it is so easy to take care of as the flowers are so well established there is little room for weeds. The humming birds and butterflies love it. I much prefer a free form garden rather than a regimented one, but each to their own :)
Bean
Ember,
What a beautiful post; Your closing thoughts have caused me to grow somewhat misty-eyed. Indeed, one can still hear His voice in the garden, in the cool of the day...to stand in the back garden of the little city townhouse at sunset, listening to the birds come home to roost in the trees round about, to scent the mineral chill of the breeze telling of far away snow many hundreds of kilometers to the south and to pick herbs for dinner as I let the words of the early evening office ascend, reveals to me He who lay the foundations of the earth, despite plans and even cherrished dreams gone awry as systems change and beaurocrats alter the position of goalposts...My Redeemer liveth, and perhaps His plans for me are not my plans for me, but He shows me His presence, His ever faithful presence if I will but listen.
Blessings,
Sara.
Hey Bean, hey Sara :0) - people who love their gardens and understand the mystery of growing things, the freedom of life. xx
Congrats! You have a beautiful blog and I enjoy reading your posts. Your kitty picture is adorable.
:0) Thanks, friend!
I have been reading your posts now for 2 years - they often sustain , restore and lift me.I love my family , peace and an uncomplicated way of life . Following your words and comments helps me to realise that it's ok to be me and to follow a different path of simplicity , prayer and creativity .thank you
Pankhurst
:0) Thank you, friend - that's so good to hear!
Post a Comment