Letters to garden makers

Dear Monty, We had very mixed weekend weather during the NGS opening of the Coal Tip Garden. Thank you for all those who visited and supported Rhos y Bedw too, the support and encouragement was amazing. You missed out Monty ! As much as we would like to think that gardens, our bodies and our buildings remain for ever - we all know about the fading and falling away ! I had to post a 'CAUTION' sign on the old pergola near the shed which has been falling down for a number of years. The shed houses some gardening tools - and my mower but has always been in my fantastic mind - a summer studio. The potential is there but the flesh is weak. I did once make a large fresco panel in that shed which has been sitting on a beautiful conservatory wall of a friend for some years, but that was about it. Since then the roof has begun to sag and the rain now gets in - in short it is a ruin. During the open garden weekend I had some really interesting chats with fello...

Dear Monty, This time of year the owners of garden businesses and the media are attacking our senses with shows and merchandise, and I end up suffering from overload and stress that I need more to my garden to justify even calling it a garden. I can't help thinking that I have made a mistake by opening my garden - because it is just really a weedy green clearing a controlled wilderness with one or two flowery things, a dog, a couple of chickens and the occasional grandchild or two. Oh yes and lots of washing on the line. I visited two 'proper' gardens last weekend, Dyffryn House Gardens near Cardiff, and an NGS opening of the Glanusk Estate Gardens near Crickhowell. They are both large gardens - landscapes really. Dyffryn in particular is made to be seen from the long vista in front of the house, and the grand scale gives a sense of awe, but seeing these places close up I realise that weeds and diseases are ubiquitous and not only that, they are pres...

Todays news brings a mixture of sadness, deep sorrow and tiredness. How can such acts of violence ever bring peace or order ? I cannot understand it.

Monty, The sculpted figures by www.ospreystudios.org  have a conversation on this May morning. This moment in the Coal Tip Cloister Garden with iridescent beetle, blackbirds and a pointy dog is close to perfection to me. Fresh green in the morning light - it is best seen from the kitchen terrace - and from the pergola in evening light. So we learnt on GW last night that you have been influenced by Penelope Hobhouse and by Italian gardens. I in turn have been influenced by Italian gardens and the great romantic garden of The Veddw in Monmouthshire. As I have discussed in one of my early letters to you I was also influenced by the long vistas of Versailles which seemed to stick in my formative brain - I had never seen such a garden before, my experience of gardens had been small back gardens, rockeries and municipal parks. I suppose that is why I feel so privileged to have even this modest space - space enough to create an illusion of an Italia...

 Dear Monty, Tracery in the early morning light A network of breaking buds Nature's reward. A song thrush pierces the air Soft green leaves cascade from the beech buds. The blackbird sits motionless in its nest Beak skywards Alert. Humanity wakes and thunders in the distance. These hills could be Judean hills This garden the garden tomb The light around the sculpted woman An angel appearing to Mary. But this is Ystalyfera The voices of a garden speak louder than words. Paul.

Dear Monty, It seems I am almost as well known as you - well perhaps not. As you know Monty I have been writing to you for some years now and it seems that a few other people are reading my correspondence. I will be opening the garden under the www.ngs.org.uk  and the editor of our local paper picked up that fact from the 'Yellow Book' and also read the blog. So the long and short  (mainly short) of it is that a telephone interview took place and a photographer was dispatched. The most painful part of the process was the photographer - he posed me with shears and secateurs in the most unnatural poses, and trying to smile for such a grumpy person as myself was a challenge - so I ended up looking like an elderly demented rabbit. I'm not sure if during your filmed and photographed life you have ever been asked to hold your stomach in - but there I was trying to smile whilst straining the few abdominal muscles I have hidden under the rolls. The garden is not loo...

Dear Monty, I have begun to clear the debris of Winter and the new borders have been planted. Spring is like a lit fuse, everything is building up to an explosion. Isn't it strange that we forget what the garden looks like when in its fullness ? Every year though there are changes, plants have moved about - found their own preferred place - and then there are the plants that have matured and formed larger clumps. I have been resisting the temptation to be too tidy, because this would preclude the plants wishes to grow where they prefer. It is a struggle though to get the balance right. I am trying to make a garden that has its own sense of place - and have been reading visiting and learning about what makes such a garden. Sometimes I think I am being pretentious - but then I think of such places as Derek Jarman's garden and am suddenly reinvigorated to keep trying. I'm looking forward to May and the explosion. Paul.