We Made a Garden

The Garden

The garden that went with the house was divided at the back into two tiny gardens, with walls and small plots of grass. We supposed that these went back to the time when the house had been two cottages.

In addition to the walls dividing the two little gardens at the back another wall divided us from the barton, and beneath all these walls someone had amused himself by making banks and sticking in stones vertically, like almonds on a trifle. We imagined the idea was a nice ready-made rock garden for us to play with. The first thing we did, when we really set out minds to the garden, was to remove all the walls and stones and pile them up for future use. They were quite a problem, those piles of stones, as they were moved from place to place as we dealt with the ground where they were piled. I could not see how we should ever use them all.

The high wall that screened us from the road was finished in typical Somerset style with stones set upright, one tall and then one short. I have never discovered the reason for these jagged walls and I don't think they are at all attractive. I asked my local builder and all he could suggest was that it made a nice finish. I can think of more attractive ways of solving the problem without such a lavish use of big stones.

There was great scope for planting between the stones and Walter suggested I could get busy on the top of the wall while we decided what to do with the rest of the garden. So I bought a few easy rock plants and sowed seed of valerian and alyssum, aubrietia and arabis to clothe those jagged rocks. The great heaps of stones were at that time right up against the wall and I had to clamber up them each time I planted anything, and later when I wanted to water my little family. The watering was usually done after dinner, and those were the days when one donned a long dress and satin slippers for this social occasion - which one didn't have to cook. I can't think how I avoided turning an ankle as I had to clutch my skirt with one hand and use the other for the watering can while the stones rocked and tipped under my weight.

By degrees, of course, we got rid of all the stones. We gave away cartloads to anyone who would fetch them, mostly farmers who tipped them near farm gates to defeat the Somersetshire mud. We used up the best of them ourselves in time. We little realized in those days that as our schemes progressed we should buy far more than we ever had in the beginning.

Since those days I have had all the upright stones removed from the tops of our walls, and flat stones laid horizontally instead. I always thought the uneven finish very ugly and in times of stress when I have been casting round for more stones to finish some enterprise I have grudged so many large and even stones doing no good at all. Gone are all the little treasures from the top of the wall; instead clematises clamber about and climbing roses are trained over the top of the wall so that the world outside can enjoy the blooms as well. The rock plants, or descendants of them, are now growing in the wall itself. By tucking them into every available crack and crevice I can bring the wall to life long before the plants get going in the border below. Great cascades of white and lavender, yellow and pink prevent the wall from looking cold and bare in the early spring.

Having torn down all our little walls and obstructions so that we could visualize what the place looked like without them, our next job was to clear the barton - the yard in front of the outbuildings and between us and the orchard.

That job would have frightened most people, but not Walter. Anyone who knows anything about farming can imagine the piles of iron and rubbish that had accumulated during the years. We had bought the outbuildings, barton and orchard from a chicken farmer, so in addition to the farming legacies we had all the relics of the chicken era as well. And to add interest there were old beds, rusty oil stoves, ancient corsets, pots, pans, tins and china, bottles and glass jars, and some big lumps of stone which may at one time have been used for crushing grain.

A bonfire burned in the middle of that desolation for many weeks, until one day Walter announced that the time had come to level the ground for a proper drive into the malthouse, which we used as a garage. I was told I must find another place to burn the barrowloads of weeds and muck I collected every day. I can remember arguing, without result, that the place where the bonfire burned could be left while the rest of the barton was tackled. I think Walter was very wise in being so firm with me. The only way to get jobs done is to be ruthless and definite.

There was no rubbish collection in those days, which was undoubtedly the reason for the horrible collection of stuff we found. Small things, such as china, glass and tins, were collected by us in barrowloads and as a short cut Walter had holes dug in odd places and the stuff tipped into them. In the course of time, as I have put more land into cultivation I have run into quite a number of these caches, and have decided that it really does not pay to take short cuts. Luckily we now have a regular salvage collection and having retrieved the grisly mementoes they are banished for good and all.

Between the barton and orchard were two walls, and Walter suggested we could make quite attractive rock gardens against them and thus add colour and interest to the barton. It was only after I had given my enthusiastic agreement that I discovered he wanted some way of disposing of the bigger rubbish that couldn't be buried. So all the old oil stoves, bits of bedsteads, lumps of iron and rolls of wire netting were distributed against the walls, and the rest of the job was handed over to me.

Luckily we had a garden boy working for us then and he was allowed to help me cover the hardware with earth, and between us we ransacked the heaps of stones for the nicest looking specimens. Neither of us had ever done anything of the sort before but we constructed what we thought were two very fine gardens.

Soon after this visitors appeared one day. One of them was an expert gardener and she didn't get further than the first rock garden. I thought she was filled with admiration for our handiwork and was waiting for the applause. But I discovered she was trying to get up her courage to tell me that all the stones were put in at the wrong angle. Instead of tipping slightly inwards to make a good pocket of soil which would hold the rain, mine had an outward tilt so that the first really heavy shower would see a lot of the soil washed away and the water would run off what was left.

The stones had to remain as they were for several months, a monument to my ignorance, but one happy day a cousin with a genius for gardening visited us and remade the gardens for me. Although there is a distinct downward slope towards the gate he placed the stones to give the effect of level strata of outcrop, something I could never have dreamed of and have never ceased to admire. From the house the effect is a luxurious display of rock plants growing out of the wall.

I had very few real rock plants to begin with, and those that I had were very small, so the first season I kept up a succession of colourful effects with annuals. I do not know whether the soil was particularly good or as a beginner I took more trouble and followed instructions implicitly, or perhaps I was just lucky. Certainly I have never again grown such superlative Phlox Drummondii, dwarf antirrhinums, mignonette, zinnias, clarkia, godetia and candytuft, to mention only a few. For once, and once only, I achieved displays that really looked like the pictures on the packet, and I thought that it was all just too easy.

Not being an orthodox gardener I do not even now restrict myself to rock plants on these gardens, although I have quite a lot of them there. I like something a little more generous, so there are hyssops and ceratostigma, trailing potentillas and penstemon and, to give body a few dwarf shrubs, and against the wall such things as Veronica Haageana, coronilla, Salvia Grahamii* and S. Greggii*, and fabiana.

It was Walter's idea to lay some flat stones in front of each of the rock gardens. He thought it would look more generous than having the gravel right up to the stones. To begin with they were only flat stones, but very soon I started planting between them and tried a few Dresden China daisies that had been given to me. The little daisies were an immediate success, because they enjoyed the cool root run between the stones, and I think found the ground that had been used for chickens produced a very rich diet. They increased so rapidly that it wasn't long before I had every crevice filled with them, and in the spring when they were in full bloom the effect was very good.

Walter never showed much enthusiasm for the smaller plants I cherished so lovingly but the daisies were an exception. He wanted them everywhere, bands on either side of the path, and later when we planted flowering trees I was asked to encircle them with daisies.

I am afraid the manurial legacy from the chickens must have disappeared long ago but the daisies continue to thrive, and I think it is because I divide them so frequently. I give away hundreds every year and I meet them in the gardens of all my friends. There is only one thing to remember when dealing with these little daisies and that is to make sure the birds don't uproot all the newly planted divisions. Nothing excites their curiosity or cupidity more, unless it is shallots. If I am doing a large area I find it saves a lot of time and casualties if I cotton them until...