Roots

In my life I've been lucky enough to enjoy having an outside space which many struggle with in our increasingly tight homes. My family were also very much garden dwellers, enjoying their green-spaces in warm summer evenings with some low music. I always felt very comfortable in this space.

As I've grown in the last ten years I have gained a profound respect for nature. Living in a metropolitan area and specifically in a home without a garden, I appreciate it now more than ever.

Some like to think of our connection to plants as a symbiosis, but in reality is a total dependency. They are, after all, responsible for: the air we breathe, the food we eat, the medicines that make us feel better, influencing our moods, marking milestones in our lives and storing precious memories.

Plants are to be revered and feared, protected and celebrated.

My journey into becoming fascinated with plants started I was a young lad living in Barking & Dagenham.

Truly my biggest inspiration at that time and the person I looked up to the most for her garden was my grandmother Edna.

My Nan loved her garden and would spend every moment that she could in it. The maturity of the trees and shrubs in her garden created a feel of total tranquillity and a haven for birds. To sit in it was to experience an escapism which I'm yet to feel anywhere else. It felt magical.

The space wasn't big at all, typical of any suburban back garden but it had a cathedral-like quality to it. The soaring evergreen trees created a forest-like height to the garden.

Of course I only knew it as a mature garden but when they moved into the house in the 1970's it was a new space with a tidy lawn, neat beds for some marigolds and dahlias, and a bit of space for runner beans.

Grandad's conifer

A tree planted by my Grandfather, who I sadly never got to meet, still to this day dwarves the house as it has matured over the last 45-50 years*. I felt that this tree brought my Nan great comfort in that something which her husband had introduced to the garden had continued to flourish the way it has. It's presence in the garden reminding her of him everyday.

*This is a lovely thought but also a lesson in what trees are suitable and definitely not suitable for your space, but we will come back to that another day.

I have very strong and fond memories of watching her pace the length of her garden, cigarette in hand, straightening shrubs up and moving apparatus to protect the most vulnerable young plants from the cats.

I began assisting my Nan in maintaining her garden most weekends from an age I can't quite pinpoint but let's say around aged 10. This was my introduction to gardening. With each weekend I'd learn something new be it about a new plant or maintaining an older one, when to prune and when not to, soil structure, insects good and bad - you name it.

The reason I suggested the garden had magical properties, was because of its - quite frankly, ramshackle nature. It was the equivalent of stumbling into an old shop full of curiosities, the type of place you can't help but explore and uncover secrets.

Certain plants seemed to thrive in places where there was no good reason for them to do so. Varieties you may never have seen before anywhere stuffed into odd containers, former buckets. A huge PVC water tank overflowed with rambling roses, scaling several improvised trellis.

My Nan's garden was the essence of what good gardening is. Done totally for enjoyment - no rules followed or standards upheld, plants could just be. I felt that the plants responded to this.

We sadly lost Edna back in 2012. When her house was organised after her death, we came across letters which she had written for her family. In the letter addressed to me, she had thanked me for all of the time we spent together tending her garden and being her companion. I could tell that her garden enriched her life and sharing that with her grandson was very important to her.

Edna

When my thoughts land upon her, now and then I will search her address on Google just to look at that tree, reminding me of the time we had together and how much she gave me and erupt in a huge, childlike grin.

This is why gardening is important to me - to pursue happiness and creating fond memories, creating, sowing, pruning, watering, re-potting, digging over and harvesting along the way.

My aspirations for this blog are to share this process with you and hopefully also help you realise some of this happiness in your own space.