Letters to garden makers

I write this on the day of the first frost of the year - a white veil, a frosted curtain laid over grass and shrubs. Shostakovich is on Radio 3 and Iran and Iraq are split and moved. The earth groaning in anticipation of change. The earth does not shift here - well not for many years. I remember my wardrobe waking me one morning by performing a percussion against the bedroom wall back in the early 1980's. I rethink purpose - what is the motivation for living and breathing on such a day? I pray and filter out my conspicuous faults through my visible breath in the crisp air - and the awareness of another realm - found for example in a patch of golden light or in the exquisite beauty of a yellow hawthorn leaf on the background of dark leaf litter - I shed my old skin and am renewed again in this garden of delights. Paul.

Dear Monty, I have decided that it is probably about the right time to sign off from writing letters to you. As the light fades and the leaves leave the trees and the brief period of dormancy begins. Saying goodbye to you is easier when it is in tandem with the season. I end my letters to you not in a melancholy way but as a celebration of light - the light both natural and existential. I have come on a journey these past few years and writing to you about the garden has helped me enormously. I identified with your struggles and your connection to the soil - the sheer effort involved in making a garden can be vitally restorative on many levels - both physically and certainly mentally as you and many others have proved. I remember my first letter to you being very tongue in cheek - mocking your pretentiousness in calling a section of your garden 'the jewel garden' not realising at the time the connection both you and Sarah had to the fashion industry and the craft o...

Dear Monty, I received my copy of 'Down to Earth' this week - it has a very blue cover which matches my laptop. I have to admit to being a little disappointed by it - especially after listening to your introductory talk to bloggers on a rooftop in London. I perhaps expected more of the philosophical reasons for making a garden than a book on how and when and what to do according to the seasons. Nevertheless I do need to be reminded of the practicalities - and when you do bring insights into the why of garden making, it made me smile - a kind of spiritual recognition. I believe we grow into a garden over time - we get a feel for it and start to carve it and build it according to an inward response to the place. I often wonder what I would make of a new space. It must be a real challenge for designers to come up with a design that they will not be able to tweak over the years. I love the incidental - how light makes su...

Dear Monty, Here I am sitting in the thinking room thinking of blight. Yesterday I had found a new place to sit in the garden - sitting gives me time to think - no digital devices just me and the leafy loamy smells of autumn. By sitting and contemplating the shapes trees and shrubs are making, a kind of subliminal desire to cut or prune seeps into my mind and up I get and cut a branch from a potted beech. I then look at the box rectangle that divides the right hand beds and notice dying circles on the top surface as though a corrosive substance had been poured from above - blight - my box has succumbed to blight. Now I will have to think about replacing that shape with alternative plants, it is what it is. I think about the cotoneaster that has formed a similar shape by the garden gate - it will take time and this is the frustration of it - it was time that brought the box to the peak of formly fruition ! Today though all negative thoughts are wiped clean ...

Dear Monty, Sometimes I am tempted to enter the world of the blogosphere and apply to the www.gardenmediaguild.co.uk  blogger awards ! I still have this drive to seek approval. But I have resisted the temptation and just sing my songs to the ether. I in no way believe I have anything new to say - or anything which is beyond anyone else's ken. Or anything that you ; or many others may say in a much more articulate way. In fact I am in awe of the creativity displayed on the www. But writing in my journal and translating it into letters to you somehow helps. I suppose I seek connection with like minds. I read a sobering article in the Saturday Guardian by Robert Macfarlane where he discusses how important naming nature is in order to appreciate it and that we continue to do so from generation to generation. The book he has written in conjunction with the artist/illustrator Jackie Morris aims to add to the impetus to inform young and old minds alike, lest...

Dear Monty, Woodland glade ? I keep losing the sun due to the gigantic firs of the 'big house'. This time of year the trees block the sun until 10.30 am. The robin sings territorial songs which are more noticeable in these last few days. I also hear the mistle thrush and the terrible din of the beautiful jay. Today is a muddle day. My head is still spinning due to slow drug withdrawal. 3 weeks off antidepressants. Some days the world spins in a giddy uneven way - then others I hardly notice any symptoms. Today is spinning slowly, very slowly. The sun strikes the paper I am writing on as the earth does its daily circuit - spinning with my head - circles and orbs. Values - do I care about anyone other than myself ? I tend to people's wounds both physical and emotional - but do I care ?  Do I pour myself out for my neighbour ? I saw a red kite adjusting its tail and wings in order to circle slowly over the Ystalyfera rooftops, this after dropping off my draw...

Dear Monty Don , I address you again in the vain hope you still read my letters. I must admit that they may be getting a little repetitive, so I understand if you have tuned out. Autumn is here in the little cloister garden, and with this season comes reflection and the end of the summer festivals. 9/08/17 A fox calls out in the dark outside the Band Hall - probably in the park - it sounds like a frightened child, a strange sound but one that reminds me of the seasons change. Arcadia - a vision of harmony between man and landscape - can we all have a slice of Arcadia ? I prefer a tension between Arcadia and Palladian, between form and wilderness. 10/08/17 Today I feel like I'm an actor in a film about my own life - I feel detached from the reality of it. 13/10/17 Do we all walk tightropes every day ? I walk a tightrope between good and evil - the tightrope is in my mind - it can cause me to wobble and lean one way or the other and I feel in constant danger of...

Dear Monty, Sue Beesley of Bluebell Cottage Garden recently posted a comment on Facebook which pointed to the fact that when Gardener's World visits large gardens it is generally to show admiration but when visiting small gardens it is to give advice. It got me thinking - is this because generally small gardens are less interesting ? It is much harder to create interest in a smaller space, and I am beginning to think that I really do need to up my horticultural knowledge to improve my patch. In the meantime I have decided to try and make the Coal -Tip Cloister Garden more interesting by moving things around and playing with the structure. I happened upon some steel trellis for sale in the small back lane in Hay on Wye , it was an impulsive buy because the ecclesiastical shapes the steel rods have been fashioned into fitted the theme of a cloister garden. I moved the trellis and the iron bench around the garden to try and find a balance between practicality a...

Dear Monty, Do you ever feel living life is a bit like being on a rolling sea ? Today is a misty wet dull day of drooping foliage in the garden unlike last Wednesday which was bright warm and dry. The garden , the weather and my spirit seem inextricably linked somehow. One thing I am acutely aware of is the riches involved in being a garden 'owner'. I put owner in brackets because we really only inhabit and alter these spaces for such a brief time. What follows is a diary recording of the sunny day that was 11/7/17. A brief window of blue sky - waiting for the grass to dry. I see the wren mouse-like creep between the shrubs and it brings a sense of unbridled joy to my turbulent heart. Turbulent with waves of self doubt. A beetle I have never seen before - a dub nosed rounded beetle with a carapace like velvet - brown and  iridescent alternately as it moves. It appears to be soft and downy - but is as hard backed as any beetle. I try to photograph it with my i...

Dear Monty, Moor Rig I have lost count of how many letters I have written to you. I have changed a lot in the intervening years, and so has my garden and how I now see it. We all know that gardens are in a constant state of flux. I have just read Anne Wareham's post on her website veddw.com  where she has posted photographs from the same window over a year, and it is great to see that waxing and waning, growing and changing, a reflection of our own lives. coal tip cloister This year my small garden has reached a level of maturity, and the cloistered effect I was after has become more obvious. The new beds have filled out remarkably quickly but now give more solidity to the space and provide alternative viewpoints which were sorely needed. I still have doubts about how good a garden it is - but then I have doubts about all kinds of things, whether I'm really an artist, whether I am a good example to others etc etc. I have just returned f...