Sample chapter from A Gardener's Year
DANGER! DO NOT ENTER! So read the sign at the entrance to a half-acre patch of wasteland near my childhood home. The sign, erected by the owner of the local estate, was designed to deter trespassers, fly-tippers and adventurous schoolchildren from entering the area. It failed on all three counts. There was a well-trodden path across the site, a rusty old washing machine and fridge freezer discarded in the middle, and the six-foot high nettles that covered the ground were riddled with tunnels from endless games of hide-and-seek. I was one of the children who saw the overgrown and scrubby wilderness as an adventure playground. Sure, there was an open well and a deep brick-lined hole to be wary of, and lots of broken glass and unsteady rubble that caused frequent cuts and bruises. But they just added to the adrenaline and riskiness of being there. It was one of those places that presented endless opportunities for exploration and discovery. But then, as we kids grew up (and the younger children seemed less interested in doing anything outdoors), the forbidden area grew quiet and more heavily overgrown. It became lost beneath its own vegetation.
Eight years later, when enduring the lung burn of a school cross-country run, I found myself once again hiding amongst the nettles of the site. My classmates limped, wheezed and wobbled past, while I caught my breath and planned a detour to the bus stop. It was a clever move. Not because I could arrive at the finish line a clear ten minutes ahead of everyone else (and secure a place on the rostrum with the athletic – and somewhat ‘forwardly-cushioned’ – sports mistress) but because it altered my perception of my childhood playground.
I was only eight years old when I’d last been there. But now, aged sixteen (and having been a ‘professional’ gardener for five years) I began to notice different things. More specifically, I began to question things. Why, for example, was there a well in the middle of an overgrown patch of land? What was the big brick-lined hole in its centre? Why was there so much rubble? And why were nettles growing thicker and taller here than elsewhere?
As my classmates ran from view, I stood up and began to properly explore the area. I found a pile of rubble, and followed it in a clockwise direction. It formed a complete rectangle surrounding the hole in the ground. To its right was the old well. I walked over to it and peered down the shaft, seeing my reflection some thirty feet down. (Whatever would have happened if my friends or I had fallen down there?) True to the notice, this area really was dangerous. And it was obvious that a building once stood here. A cottage of some description, with a cellar and its own water supply. I struggled to guess the age of the building, but from the thin handmade bricks and lime mortar, I estimated it to be well over a hundred years old. And from the accumulation of rubbish, extent of the weed growth, and size of the ash and elders growing up through the rubble, I calculated it to have been ruined for at least fifty years.
Hmm. A half-acre plot of land; a ruined cottage. What about the garden? Did one ever exist? And, more importantly, did any of it remain? I decided to return at the weekend, to take a proper look.
Saturday arrived and I cycled to the site of the old cottage. I’d brought a garden fork, a rake and a long-handled slasher with me. Being the gardener of the village, nobody would question my activities; they’d just assume that I’d been employed to tidy up the site. So I began clearing the nettles (and brambles, and elder, and dog rose, and grasses) from the area. Soon I could see the bones of a garden. The tangled remains of an apple and damson orchard grew at the far end of the site; to its right was an old vegetable garden (I could tell this from the sprawling carpet of horseradish and mint); alongside the rubble was a mound of box shrubs, assumedly either an old parterre or herb garden; in front of the cottage was mostly grass, honesty, and dog roses – possibly a lawn and border, and site of an old archway; to the left of the cottage was a hummock of soil, most likely an old compost heap; behind it grew the tallest nettles. I flattened them with the rake and exposed the soil. Sure enough, it was dark and charred: the site of a bonfire. I worked my way in a grid-like fashion across the site, pushing my fork into the ground every three feet, noting where the soil was soft and where it was hard, gritty or stiff. I drew a mental picture of location of borders, paving, gravel pathways, and lawns. The layout of the garden was surprisingly formal, with only straight lines to the paths and borders. This hinted at a garden with 1940s influence, when practicality and productiveness were (in my limited understanding) more important than sweeping design statements or relaxed use of space. So perhaps it hadn’t been ruined for as long as I thought?
I imagined the gardener who once worked this soil. Was he or she an enthusiastic gardener? I’d say so by the size of the compost heap, though I’d have expected a skilled gardener to have returned the goodness to the borders and vegetable garden. So maybe they had to vacate the site prematurely? He or she was someone who made their land work for them. The entire site was cultivated and yet this green-fingered enthusiast still had time (and patience) to restrain the perpetual expansion of horseradish and mint. But it wasn’t enough for me. I needed to know more about the gardener.
Where to start? I could have visited the library in search of electoral records or old photos; spoken to local residents or approached the estate owners. But gardening is a personal thing. Plants speak to us, and we to them. And a garden, in any state, contains clues that a gardener can most easily read. (Think of the structure of a hedge, for example. You can tell by the forking of the branches at what height and approximate frequency the hedge was cut.) Where then in this abandoned garden should I start to look? Where would tell me the most about the gardener who worked here? It was obvious: I would explore the compost heap and its immediate surroundings. This is the heart of a garden, where the cycle of life is most evident.
I set to work digging over the compost heap, and found nothing but soil and nettle roots. Then I began forking over the area at the rear of the pile, near to the bonfire area. I hit the jackpot. There, at the base of a hawthorn hedge, were the remains of a digging fork and hoe. Proper tools for someone not afraid of hard work. I dug deeper, bringing up pieces of shattered pottery and dozens of broken clay smoking pipes. And then, as I stood up and stretched my back, I noticed something unusual in the hedge. There, wedged within the fused branches of a hawthorn, was the curved blade of a pruning knife. Next to it was a blackened and moss-covered clay pipe, fully intact and placed as if ready to smoke. I felt my hands grip the garden fork and energy warm my muscles. Was this gardener here with me in spirit? Was he readying me to return his garden to its former glory? I glanced again at the pruning knife and clay pipe. They were at rest, remnants of what was. I felt like I was digging up a grave. For the first time ever, I felt uncomfortable in this place. My actions, of clearing the site and revealing its past, had not brought this garden back to life. Far from it. I realised that the garden had evolved into what it was meant to be: a playground for many, where children laughed and adults walked contentedly. All those formal lines had gone, buried beneath leafy informality; somewhere that made people smile and – regardless of warning signs – invited them in. That was the garden’s great success, something that is so difficult to replicate. As Lawrence Halprin wrote, “The great challenge for the garden designer is not to make the garden look natural, but to make the garden so that the people in it will feel natural.”
I gathered my tools, and walked away from the cottage garden, knowing that no amount of horticultural skill on my part could make the garden any better than it had looked earlier in the day, before I’d begun stripping it of its magic.