Letters to garden makers

Dear Monty, Good to hear that you are returning to our screens, I cannot imagine what it is like to have someone film my garden, I would be so ashamed. Did you see Andrew Marr with David Hockney last night ? This man has painted and drawn the same area over and over for the last 8 years in different light, seasons and weather and bold enough to do so because he can see the beauty in the changes...amazing and inspiring. He spoke of the hand and poetry in painting, and I believe the same applies to gardens. Paintings and gardens are like windows on the soul of the artist/gardener. Hockney's paintings enhance the experience of living. Living can be hard and painful as well as joyful. At one point in the film he said that ultimately we are all alone, for me this is true because we cannot hold on to loved ones forever...it is a deeply sad statement, because I remember the joy of his then controversial painting 'we two boys together clinging' I just loved that painting whe

Dear Monty, I have actually had a day in the garden. New soil in the planters, weevil grubs squashed, and worms fed to the chickens. I love my garden (sometimes). I love being in it - planning in it in a random way - much like the way I develop a painting or drawing. It sort of grows from ideas - it has a sort of starting point, but it is not a design, it is not Alan Titchmarsh, all groomed and smooth with tidy borders - it's more fluid than that - so I'm not sure it can be called a garden. But of course that is nonsense, any plot of ground can be called a garden by its inhabitants - even if it has no design. This love I have comes from my dad who has always grown things. He had a plot where he grew vegetables in lines and built his own lean-to greenhouse out of old window frames. We had views from it looking out over Swansea Bay from the docks to Mumbles. I used to 'help' plant the broad bean seeds and the runner beans, and burn things on a bonfire in an old tin

19/2/12 Dear Monty, Seeds wait to be planted and my need for attention knows no bounds. Mark our 'vicar' goes to Niger for 10 days while I go to work in Ystalyfera (jealous) Tonight I was astonished by the HD pictures of paintings by Lucian Freud on iPlayer. The detail of the paint texture was stunning, the flesh, blood, sinew and hair, the pattern and depth of field. His paintings are intense, as was his stare. He painted bodies of flesh, souls trapped in fleshly bodies. He saw the contradictions of our life the pleasure and pain of it. The pleasure of sex the pain of birth, we suffer in this flesh, we grow old. The experience of life is rich, beautiful and painful. Yesterday walking on the mountains was a rich experience - the light reflecting off the water bouncing around on grasses and trees, even roads shone like silver. The cold air in our lungs, the water flowing beneath our booted feet, and Toff running free as a whippet should. Treasure for the memory when leg

Dear Monty, Two days and two films. 17/2/12 Seeds have come. I have been angry for no justifiable reason. I am a sinner. To get the accumulated stuff of the day out of my head I watch two films. Film 1 is about poverty and desperation in the borderlands of Northern USA...its about 'dishonesty and crime' but love wins. Film 2 is inspiring, it is about 2 little girls brought up in a city apartment by their mum, they go to a city school, have city values, moulded by the environment they live in. Then comes change, they have to leave mum to stay with an aunt in the semi rural suburbs, left without schooling they have to fend for themselves. They are finally moved again, this time to the remote countryside to live with grandma who has holes in her shoes, a happy contented woman living off the land with 'enough' food, 'enough' warmth and 'enough' skill to make dough, gather food, wash clothes and look after the grandchildren teaching them new life les

Dear Montague , Have you been reading the debate on the thinkingardens website about the revamp of the RHS judgement process ? I have, but am too ignorant of the RHS and of 'show gardens' to be able to offer any constructive criticism. I have noticed however, that you seem to have a healthy suspicion of 'show gardens' and you have been conspicuous in your absence in the coverage of Chelsea by the BBC. Just who are gardens for ? The garden that came with this strange little box of a building - is my garden, its current state of horticultural imperfection is a reflection of me. Now if I was to learn more about horticulture and design and apply that knowledge to my garden would the result be 'better' and who would it be 'better' for ? ( I can hear you reply...you you fool !) Listen, I have every weed imaginable in the grass - so if I had a perfect lawn would I be happy ? No I would become obsessed every time I saw a 'weed' reappear. It has tak

11th Day of Feb, Bright Saturday - frozen dog pee on grass, dead plants and loads of chicken shit. A beautiful day. I have a volcano of a pimple on my forehead...I am 51 not 14 ! Why is this happening ? Vanity vanity all is vanity. Love, jealousy and Verdi is on radio 3. I am alive. Cup of tea with dog and Exodus on my lap....thinking gardens. Monty life is life - each day is living, it has its own light and colour - even the frozen dog pee on the grass. Isn't it amazing how gardens recover from this seeming desolation, how nature always overcomes? The now desolate coal tip with its rubbish strewn, churned up ground will also recover - there will be luxurious growth - the rosebay willow herb will again form great purple drifts. This unpromising frozen patch will become abundant. I write this to bring cheer to your heart. Hope is enough. Paul.

Dear Monty, I know that my letters can seem insincere, but there is a lot of my heart in them. I tell you the truth that I am ordinary. I say this with confidence having read the last paragraph of The Bad Tempered Gardener by Anne Wareham. Listen to this.... 'We wander the earth as restless tourists, searching for who knows what, full of puritanical injunctions about everything but with nothing in the place of a true moral ground. And all that contradiction and tension is here in my garden, expressed in it, experienced in it and never giving peace.' I identify with that statement. On Thursday I was bombarded by a man selling what seemed to be a 'better' system of driving up the 'quality' of the service we provide to those with chronic chest problems in our surgery. Everything in this life is about betterment, better gardens, better cars, better houses, better lives...which is OK except life, soul life - the quality of actually living with all its risks, its