You have heard it said that flowers only flourish rightly in the garden of someone that loves them.
– John Ruskin
Gardening and having gardens is a quintessential and important way of English & British life.
This is generally known throughout the world.
Sadly ‘is’ may become ‘was’, as younger generations look for other pastimes. Nowadays youngsters to young adults are more likely to create ‘cyber gardens’ on their PC, Tablet, smart phone etc if part of a game and sadly rarely or never experience the feel of earth and help grow plants.
Being slightly north of middle age now, I have fond childhood and young adult memories of digging the soil in our family home back garden, planting seeds & bulbs, watching the plants grow, ripen and then harvesting from the bounteous vegetable garden created by my Mum & Dad. We grew all varieties of vegetables and some fruit-growing in our garden from 1960 to early 1980s.
I remember in the early 1970s, the wonderful aromas produced by our variety of home-grown vegetables when ready to harvest by Mum, Dad & I.
We grew cabbages, cauliflower, lettuce, Brussel sprouts, onions, spring onions, radishes, potatoes, runner beans, mint and peas. We also grew rhubarb, gooseberry, and blackberry plants.
After my parents passed away, I was not so much a keen gardener, but kept it in reasonable condition.
Our back garden is quite large about 80 ft long 20 or so feet wide, our friendly Taiwanese neighbours have an even bigger garden and like gardening too.
About 50 years ago, the old chap named Nathan who lived there before them, along with his daughter, son-in- law and young children had created a wonderful garden. He was gardening 8+ hours a day seven days a week. He grew many varieties of flowers, vegetables and bushes with little hidden paths. It was magical for us children/friends to play in when he was not being grumpy at our intrusion into his green kingdom.
He also built an amazing shed out of all types of wood and creosoted. It was located at the end the garden near our garden fence. It contained many tools for gardening DIY etc. I
It was his den, to sometimes get away and find some peace & quiet from his young noisy family!
After he passed away and his family had moved away, the workmen clearing the shed found hidden, a well oiled and wrapped working Lee Enfield WW2 rifle!
Our neighbour’s garden has had the benefit of keen gardeners for about 70 years.
Another childhood friend/neighbour lived across the road from us and their home also has a large well tended garden.
When we played in his garden in the 1960s, it had a WW2 air raid ( Anderson) shelter completes with wooden bunk beds for four people; it was a great play den! The shelter was under a tall mound of earth with a small rockery & plants surrounding it & on top. With age, it became unsafe and was demolished and the ground flattened to become a lawn & flower bed.
A WW2 Anderson air raid shelter in a back garden
The British Garden
Today My Beautiful as a rose Jean & I are growing more in our garden, including tomatoes, apples, strawberries, blackberries and will get large pots/troughs to grow more varieties of vegetables etc! Our small apple tree is doing OK this year. We enjoy seeing our flower plants bloom.
This year has been exceptional for plants, due to a mild winter last year and a healthy combination of sun and rain early this year. Our roses and other garden flowers have been bountiful & beautiful with so many blooms.