I have been away from my garden for most of this week, a hundred miles away in the Cotswolds, emptying my parents’ house out in readiness for the new folk to take possession. Since the house has been vacant, it’s their things and the fabric of the property that have been getting all the attention while the garden – thin and long both before and behind – has been left pretty much to its own devices, with the exception of the attention paid to the lawn by kind neighbours from time to time. There’s a point at which a ‘light-touch’ approach borders upon neglect, a description we manage to swerve by virtue of the fact that the garden seems pretty happy about the state of affairs. It’s flourishing, full of life, soundtrack of bees and wood pigeons and a carpet of lush, green grass, nettles, dandelions, green alkanet, ground ivy and self heal, dotted about beneath the apple blossom with primroses and cow parsley.
My folks weren’t gardeners; Da couldn’t see much in his later years, and Ma rarely engaged in much more than a light potter, but they loved having a garden. She in particular would stand for hours looking out of the kitchen window, watching the birds, and the breeze in the trees. They came here in search of quietude (her word), and I like to think they found it on this long thin plot, in a yellow stone house, not far from the source of the river that flows on to widen, bisect and define the city that played such a part in all of our lives.
But for all its self sufficiency, I know the garden will have missed them in its way. The soil doesn’t need us, often seems to do so much better in the absence of our destructive habits, but there’s something that happens when we meet head on with the rest of the natural world and work together to create something that neither one of us would have been able to make on our own. That’s the magic you find in a garden, a spell that’s been growing weaker here for the best part of two years. It’s almost time to rekindle that spark, and the thought of the new owners arriving with a new energy and a new enthusiasm for what can be grown in this soil somehow makes leaving easier.
It’s always hard to say goodbye to a garden, and I’ve had more than my share of farewells as clients have moved house, and spaces I’ve tended for years have come under the care of someone new. This is a garden I’ve never really been allowed to tend, having always been beckoned eagerly up the path and into the bustling family chaos inside. But these past eighteen months or so since the house has been empty, the garden here has offered a soothing kind of continuity when so much else has felt so abruptly cut short. And for that, I will always be grateful.
Ah, thanks Tammy. You know, I'm actually quite excited to think of the new folk moving in and the love they'll bring to this place. It certainly deserves it. One more visit to go 🥹
What a wonderful read. I really love the line where light touch neglect - it feels less like we are imposing