Letters to garden makers

Dear Monty, This is my 40th letter to you...maybe I will stop here? This one is about peaks, storms in gardening teacups, wearing tights and coming over all ecclesiastical...it is going to be a long one, so make a cup of tea first before you read. 21/6/12 The long wet dark day of mid summer - tomorrow to Scotland and Saturday walking up Ben Nevis in rain then on to Cumbria and finally Snowdon. 23/6/12 In Mallaig after driving through a short night sitting in the foetal position over the rear wheel arch of our minibus. We arrived at 3am and camped out in the fisherman's mission opposite the port, with its berthed ferry and fishing fleet surrounded by the hills. I tried to sleep to the sound of seagulls and snoring...I love the sound of seagulls. We climbed up Ben Nevis in the rain as predicted, passing hundreds of people - a continuous stream of humanity mirroring the gushing streams tumbling down the mountain into the valley below. Slipping and tripping people wearing lea...

Dear Monty, Fantasy, anxiety and a sense of place. The sun sets on my fantasy...the garden is not finished - there is more to do, we have to keep moving forward -  seeing new challenges - broadening our horizons - enlarging our borders. I have been doing a lot of walking and meditating in preparation for walking up and down 3 mountains. I need to get fit in order to die with dignity! I have always loved being in the landscape, which is why I paint and draw it. Eleanor Flaherty www.eleanorflaherty.co.uk  artist, filmmaker, photographer and qualified mountain guide took some photographs of my third rate fresco's which I share with you here. These are pictures of places with associations for me which are deep and personal.                                      I...

Dear Monty, Madmen and storms. 6/6/12 Back to work as Paul the nurse. Yesterday this madman had all his paintings photographed professionally for the first time. What happens next ? Madmen deliver profound messages, perhaps 'madness' is closer to the truth of what we all are than is 'sanity' ? What I see in artists, poets, writers, musicians/composers and yes, gardeners, is that often there is an edge to them - they see beyond the obvious - there is a soul connection to their lives - perhaps even a spiritual dimension to their vision. This is why they are akin in my mad mind to prophets or seers. There is a depth and sense of revelation to life, which sadly has its downside when that life is sometimes flat and hard as iron. I have been thinking of gardens more as an expressive art form recently, this has been spurred on by visiting The Veddw and by reading more and more bloggery on gardens. ( Interesting blog post today by Noel Kingsbury on German gardens ...

Dear Monty , Just a brief bank holiday ramble before the return to the real world. Despite all of the excitement of gardens, pots and Monty Don, of butterflies and pesticides and the sun bursting out from cloud....I feel flat. Elijah the Old Testament prophet after seeing amazing things from the hand of God, retired to sit under a shrub and said 'I've had enough !' This is the problem when exciting things happen, they are invariably followed by the mundane, and the flattening of other peoples opinions. Oh well washing the green algae off the windows and sowing seed should anchor me, certainly returning to work and serving the public should. Even the sound of the chickens noisily laying eggs acts as an anchor. The whisper after drama that is what Elijah needed, he had seen the drama but his soul needed the intimacy of the whisper. By the way I am coming to hear you talk about your latest book at the Hay Festival, don't worry I won't mob you. Paul

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 ...