Letters to garden makers

 Dear reader, My garden is becoming more and more untidy as the years roll on, and as my energy wanes. I feel this most acutely since retiring on a small pension and living within our means. It doesn't help that at this time of year Instagram and Book of the Face is full of really beautiful images of tulip filled and very tidy gardens. Do you sense a kind of jealousy creeping in ? Ok, I have a chip on my shoulder. But then we also read a lot about not being too tidy in the garden for the benefit of wild things. It is very hard to resist the urge to tidy. It must be a deeply entrenched human need? I've wanted to take down the rotting pergola and shed for a very long time, but every year something happens that means we can't spend on what is secondary in terms of priorities. I used the first warm dry day for some time to venture down and inspect what remains of this end of the garden, and this involved tidying and clearing up the detritus. I actually derived pleasure from thi

  I have been making both a garden and artwork here in Ystalyfera since 2001, but have lived in this valley since 1991. Its industrial past, the hardship of the lives once lived here, and the physical presence of the hills and mountains have all seeped into my consciousness. Some time back I read about the poetry and life of John Clare, the 19th century poet from rural Northamptonshire, and identified with his working class life and the struggle he had watching industrialisation change and destroy his beloved countryside.  I have been intending to make an artwork as an offering to all who struggle with our capacity for destruction, and have made a piece called  'A Garden for John Clare' based on my garden and the landscape it sits in and filled with signs and signifiers. The finished piece. Plaster cast, watercolour, photograph and raw clay on wood panel 50x50cm A fellow artist asked whether I had ever watched the film about Clare made by Andrew Kotting in 2015, about his escap

 Dear garden maker, I'm sorry it has been so long, I've been trying out retirement and making more art. Life throws up many unexpected things, though to be honest we probably should expect them. I realise how much we wish to avoid the not so nice aspects of being human. I know I try and avoid the messy stuff. A bit like presenting our gardens, or lives, or art on social media, it is mostly upbeat and appears successful. But real life is far from perfect. Perhaps this is why I like weedy gardens. Over tidy gardens make me feel uncomfortable. I am beginning to appreciate our native plants/weeds, simply because they want to grow and thrive, which has to be a good thing. So I have encouraged knapweed, hemp agrimony, self heal, sanguisorba, helleborine orchids, marsh orchids and others, and the results have a wild beauty and robustness. They survive on the thinnest of soils over coal waste. But it is a garden, and so it gets edited. I believe that's what gardening is essentially

Dear reader, I know I have dealt with this subject before, but then we have to deal with it every year, it is reality for everything that exists in the universe. The garden in context - behind that cypress The garden is in its decaying cycle, a vital part of being. I feel challenged because like many of us, I don't want to let it happen, and spend lots of time trying to prevent it ! This year though the garden has tipped deeper into the decay cycle, a bit like my ageing body. The challenge comes because as garden makers we are meant to keep up appearances, to be tidy, to be pretty in decay.  The 'arbour' is held up by clematis montana alone ! The shed is collapsing. Owl's perch has rotted. And I like a fool thought, yes let's open again for the NGS next year. Then I thought, no I can't, this space is just too untidy, too scruffy, too decayed. But I step back and think what does it matter ? This is my reality, it exists and I see beauty in it. I simply don't

Dear reader, I've been immersed in gardens this last couple of weekends. Immersed in thought, reflection, a kind of listening to the deeper things. I sits here and thinks Last weekend I was at Aberglasney Gardens in Carmarthenshire taking advantage of an opportunity to show some artwork mixed in with the Welsh Orchid Society's Annual Orchid Festival. It was a chance to briefly experience the gardens before the visitors arrived, which is a privilege and a treat, and it also gives a kind of breathing space to hear what the garden is trying to say. Art by me Orchids Beautiful botanical art by  pollyoleary.co.uk I walked around the inside of the walls of the walled garden designed by Penelope Hobhouse, where she has incorporated a walkway which separates you from the central axis and allows you to traverse the perimeter where you can stop and view the central space from different viewpoints. It is contemplative and mirrors the parapet walkway of the cloister garden which was create