Letters to garden makers

Dear Monty, Pests, prophecy and communion. 30/5/12  Almost the end of the month of May - a beautiful and eventful month. A prophet has no real home, but a garden comes near to it somehow. I visited The Veddw yesterday. I was struck by the warmth of Charles and Anne. They are an intriguing couple and the garden is an expression of them, it is in a kind of tension between wilderness and formality - it has wild woodland which opens out on to the sculpted hollow within which the house sits. For some reason - I am not sure why - it reminds me of Portmeirion - echos of it perhaps in the sculptural elements like the buzzards and the dove. Somewhere I have seen a photograph of Rowan Williams...you know the hairy Archbishop of Canterbury - with an audience seated below the borders. So it has this theatrical feel, a performance space. It is definitely a photographers garden (my snaps don't do it justice) There are so many vistas with the light bouncing off horizontal, vertical and ...

Monty, Gardens, statistics and singing. I have been resting my tired brain, tired from all the inputting of information into the machine. 20/5/12  Dawn chorus of woodpidgeon, raven, chiffchaff, pheasant and cuckoo - a song before sunrise. Today I read that King David was stirred up to do a census of his fighting men. It seems he lost his ability to trust and needed to count in order to have evidence of strength. We still love counting, love evidence, our whole political system is based on numbers, statistics, strategies, reports and enquiries. We spend a lot of time money and energy compiling them. There is no rest for those who need to count. I walked up Carn Ingli again, a song without words. The landscape resonates with the melody, the curve of hills, valley and bay below. A 360 degree song. The landscape carved by the hand of God using water, wind, ice, flood and fault to sculpt this land which is still being made. I in a brief moment in the vastness of time brea...

Monty, I am sentimental. Communing with angels, enjoying ferns and walking the dog. 'The lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.' 16/5/12 Speaking about the sacking of the Liverpool FC manager, a reporter said that in today's world 'success is more important than sentiment'. Sentiment is frowned upon as something weak and wet, it holds no weight - it is just about 'feelings' - as though feelings are only for the feeble minded - yet we all have them do we not? This makes me so angry! Sentiment is belief, faith, trust, confidence - dependence on, a reliance. How has it got turned into something not worth giving notice to? We only listen to success now. This is why some of us (including myself) look for it everywhere. Facebook users admit to exaggerating their profiles in order to have an air of success. Once achieved, we have to keep ourselves successful with all of the effort that entails. Now I am not saying that ...

Dearest Monty, Watched the Malvern GW last night, and I am now convinced that you are a genuine bloke, and that your love of gardening is a true love. Why is it so hard to be happy just being a quiet soul ? Step out of Twitter or Facebook or blogger and what do you see ? I got so excited last week when James A Sinclair 'followed' me...how sad is that !? In the real world of my Ystalyfera garden today, I redefined the path edges by cutting the grass with a pair of scissors, and have the blisters to prove it. I replaced the turf by the first pot on the 'lawn', I brought out the seedlings to harden them off. Then I just suddenly realised how fortunate I am to have a garden, I don't need to be a medal winner or horticulturally perfect, I can just marvel at new leaves in the sunshine. I did marvel at James' hat last night. As a card that a friend recently bought me says...'if you want to be happy forever take up gardening'. Goodnight  Monty...

Monty I am making this up as I go along.                                          I do this with the garden, I just get ideas, let them stew a bit then have a go. The weeds are coming on a treat, the washing blows artfully on the washing line and the potting shed/greenhouse does indeed look like a crime scene. My father and father-in-law would both be horrified by my lack of cleanliness and care. Profanity, I always thought that profanity was all about being foul mouthed...yet again I show how much I have to learn. Profanity means making common something that is essentially holy and deeply spiritual. I am profane. I realise there is something mysterious about profanity. David the Old Testament man marked out by God as leader of Israel in place of poor Saul, took the showbread from...