wretched girl can’t seem to stand the heat. You and Marcus will stay here as we planned and I’ve rung Annabel and asked her to come and join us. That will cheer you up.’ Susan pushed the door open. ‘At least we won’t have Matilda moping about.’ The door swung on its hinge and she was gone.
Dressed in a blue cotton frock and matching shoes, Matty walked down the passage and witnessed a strange sight: Daisy sitting up in an empty bath with a mud-streaked face crying into her flannel.
HARRY
Late summer’s the time for a little dead-heading and snoozing in a deck-chair over Pimm’s – and at my age I should be doing precisely that but I don’t. (Have you noticed how people like the old to act their age, particularly the young?) Non-gardeners (‘Are there any?’ asks Thomas in a resigned tone) might imagine that the gardener relaxes in high summer and enjoys the fruit of his brooding, whittling and labours instead of dreaming of autumn and the whiff of bonfire. Something urges me on: the knowledge that I do not have much time left and a reluctance to waste it.
I look at my arms with their slackening flesh and I cannot imagine that it was these, brown and muscled in those days, that clutched the handlebars of the Harley-Davidson as I roared up the drive of Hinton Dysart, dressed head to foot in leather, to tell my parents that I had been suspended from Oxford for climbing into college after hours once too often.
(That, my friends, was a long time ago, and a long journey ago and I don’t feel the experience was wasted. I went off to France instead and learnt about life.)
There is an old Chinese curse: may your dreams come true. In their way mine have, but I don’t feel cursed. I feel complete, absorbed in the work I like best.
For example, I have conducted a little survey of the most popular plants in the nursery and the results are interesting. Top – of course – is lavender, and why not? Second is Euonymus, ‘Emerald ‘n Gold’, perfect ground cover, weed-smothering and eye catching. Third is the choisya ‘Sundance’ with its bright yellow leaves and scented blossoms. Fourth is Potentilla ‘Red Ace’. Fifth Spirea ‘Goldflame’. Sixth is a newcomer. Lavatera ‘Barnsley’.
Beautiful, heat-loving candy pink flowers designed by nature to sway in the summer breeze...
Talking of summer, I have been delighted by the results of my latest experiment. Last year I pirated a dry, south-facing bed outside the walled garden and set about re-creating the maquis in Hinton Dysart. It is an awkward, dry, scrubby place and I don’t think the guardians minded too much. I planted lavenders and Jerusalem sage, the autumn flowering snowdrop, Galanthus corcyrensis which likes to bake in the summer, drought-loving irises and my much loved grey and white Convolvulus cneorum. A word of warning, maquis plants grow leggy in a soft, damp climate and require hard pruning in the spring, but that is small outlay of effort for such rewards.
On warm evenings I wander up to inspect the bed and smell the thyme – and I am reminded of my youth, of my time in Provence and, of course, Thomas, who I met there.
A last thought. Gardeners are a strange breed – and there are a lot of them – garrulous, obsessive, as competitive as industrial warlords and always have been. Like the gardener in Shakespeare’s Richard II, they perceive the world in terms of the garden. The Alpha and the Omega. I know I do. So did my mother. Here we are — young, middle-aged, plump, bony, badly dressed, overdressed, rich and poor, clever or not – circled together in the communality of a shared passion which excludes others.
From my position at the till, I watch visitors walk the grounds: through the wisteria tunnel, across the circular lawn down to the special garden where they linger, only to be drawn back to the walled rose garden. Quivering with delight, snoopy, inquisitive, acquisitive, eager to learn, some with concealed plastic bags.
Dressed in a blue cotton frock and matching shoes, Matty walked down the passage and witnessed a strange sight: Daisy sitting up in an empty bath with a mud-streaked face crying into her flannel.
HARRY
Late summer’s the time for a little dead-heading and snoozing in a deck-chair over Pimm’s – and at my age I should be doing precisely that but I don’t. (Have you noticed how people like the old to act their age, particularly the young?) Non-gardeners (‘Are there any?’ asks Thomas in a resigned tone) might imagine that the gardener relaxes in high summer and enjoys the fruit of his brooding, whittling and labours instead of dreaming of autumn and the whiff of bonfire. Something urges me on: the knowledge that I do not have much time left and a reluctance to waste it.
I look at my arms with their slackening flesh and I cannot imagine that it was these, brown and muscled in those days, that clutched the handlebars of the Harley-Davidson as I roared up the drive of Hinton Dysart, dressed head to foot in leather, to tell my parents that I had been suspended from Oxford for climbing into college after hours once too often.
(That, my friends, was a long time ago, and a long journey ago and I don’t feel the experience was wasted. I went off to France instead and learnt about life.)
There is an old Chinese curse: may your dreams come true. In their way mine have, but I don’t feel cursed. I feel complete, absorbed in the work I like best.
For example, I have conducted a little survey of the most popular plants in the nursery and the results are interesting. Top – of course – is lavender, and why not? Second is Euonymus, ‘Emerald ‘n Gold’, perfect ground cover, weed-smothering and eye catching. Third is the choisya ‘Sundance’ with its bright yellow leaves and scented blossoms. Fourth is Potentilla ‘Red Ace’. Fifth Spirea ‘Goldflame’. Sixth is a newcomer. Lavatera ‘Barnsley’.
Beautiful, heat-loving candy pink flowers designed by nature to sway in the summer breeze...
Talking of summer, I have been delighted by the results of my latest experiment. Last year I pirated a dry, south-facing bed outside the walled garden and set about re-creating the maquis in Hinton Dysart. It is an awkward, dry, scrubby place and I don’t think the guardians minded too much. I planted lavenders and Jerusalem sage, the autumn flowering snowdrop, Galanthus corcyrensis which likes to bake in the summer, drought-loving irises and my much loved grey and white Convolvulus cneorum. A word of warning, maquis plants grow leggy in a soft, damp climate and require hard pruning in the spring, but that is small outlay of effort for such rewards.
On warm evenings I wander up to inspect the bed and smell the thyme – and I am reminded of my youth, of my time in Provence and, of course, Thomas, who I met there.
A last thought. Gardeners are a strange breed – and there are a lot of them – garrulous, obsessive, as competitive as industrial warlords and always have been. Like the gardener in Shakespeare’s Richard II, they perceive the world in terms of the garden. The Alpha and the Omega. I know I do. So did my mother. Here we are — young, middle-aged, plump, bony, badly dressed, overdressed, rich and poor, clever or not – circled together in the communality of a shared passion which excludes others.
From my position at the till, I watch visitors walk the grounds: through the wisteria tunnel, across the circular lawn down to the special garden where they linger, only to be drawn back to the walled rose garden. Quivering with delight, snoopy, inquisitive, acquisitive, eager to learn, some with concealed plastic bags.
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