The Garden

My father is and my grandparents are/were keen gardeners. Both sets of grandparents, having gardened in their respective (long established) gardens, created new gardens in their retirement. I'd like to create a new garden, ideally starting before I retire, but need to find somewhere I believe I can live for long enough to make the exercise worthwhile.


I hope that my Edinburgh garden, while undoubtedly suburban both in location and scale, is not in terms of approach. It is not a tidy, well thought out space, but rather a gradually developing mass of plants round a square patch of grass - lawn would be to flatter it. It has fruit trees and vegetables; we have planted new trees marking significant occasions or received as presents; it has a very smart bench (currently undercoat orange, but soon to be elegant white again), out of keeping urns, a wire sculpture of a pheasant (my 40th birthday present), a swing, a Wendy House and various compost sources, including a wormery. It fulfils a variety of functions: a place to play; a place to garden; a place to sit in the sun; a place to entertain (in our tent if necessary); a place to practice golf/casting; a place to dry washing! It has two peaks, April when it comes to life with blossom, daffodils, tulips and new growth and June when, in the late evening, it becomes an almost beautiful place in which you can't see the weeds for the plants and delphiniums, self seeded poppies and sweet peas provide a show of colour which, while not passing for order, might seem meant.