Critically and catastrophically ill last year, it seemed unlikely that I would survive, then that I’d ever return home, and when I did, that I’d ever have the strength to pick up a trowel again.
I’ve loved gardening for many years, though I’ve been acutely aware of others’ excellence and experience and my seemingly relative paucity of knowledge.
But, having lain in hospital for 64 days unable to see anything green, I longed for my garden like little else.
Except, of course, it wasn’t my garden. Only three months before I became ill, I’d moved house, leaving my much-loved old garden to the ravages of the future.
The new house had a breathtaking view. In fact, it would be accurate to say that I bought the view, and the house came with it. But the garden that lay between the two was a conundrum.
It had some beautiful plants – notably roses – but was incoherent. A tumbledown shed blocked the view, as did a dead tree. Another tree stood just 3ft from the house. The route to the shed was made more hazardous, particularly in the dark, by the presence of a pond. The washing line was strung between the house and the shed, so hanging out washing could also be treacherous. I found myself asking ‘why?’ a lot.
The garden could be a beautiful link between the ancient little cottage and the stunning view, but it wasn’t. My post-hospital brain couldn’t work out how to achieve the change, and I knew absolutely that I could not affect that change, as I could barely reach down to tie my boot laces, let alone dig.
Time passed.
Then I took the plunge and recruited the help of both a local designer and a local landscaper.
But I felt wretched about it. Illness meant that I was not creating my own garden but had to ask for help, the constant state I had been in for 18 months.
I told myself that being in the garden would be a pleasure, that I could enjoy the view, that it would be the finishing touch to the house, that having narrowly avoided dying, I should enjoy living. I didn’t really believe myself.
Then we started work on the garden, first digging out existing plants and putting them in nursey beds or finding them new homes. Then the landscapers came. There was a sea of mud peppered with machines. The cat was wide-eyed. Then we planted, and suddenly it was done, the cat skipping over the fence into the view beyond and lying on the new turf in the garden by way of celebration.
At this point I realised two things that made me see the spend on the garden in a different light.
First, this garden would never have existed in its new form without the serious illness. If I’d remained well, I’d have tinkered about with it, buying three of this and five of that, and would never have been entirely happy with it. It would have remained a bit of a mess, only my mess, not someone else’s.
Instead, out of illness came something new, unexpected, unthought and special. This is so profound that I can only look at it out of the corner of my eye, or I might weep.
So, to the second thing, it was worth spending the money. There’s something hired-wired in many of us that considers spending money on a garden an absolute frippery. But we think nothing of spending money on our houses. Well, not nothing, but we are far more willing to do it.
My old house was a Victorian terrace in a county town. Slowly the Victorian terraces around all got gentrified. People added vast, open-plan extensions with bi-fold doors onto the steady old houses. They all looked like something out of a magazine.
It always mystified me. People who like extensions and bi-fold doors have often explained to me why they are excellent. Quietly, I consider them a fad, or the latest way to keep up with the Jones’. But whatever your view, they are certainly a way of spending money on your home.
But there are as many ways to spend money on your home as there are people. And that’s why my money has been spent on the garden. There will never be bi-fold doors to get to it, unless someone else puts them in after my death, but the garden is a thing of loveliness that will be a joy forever.
For details contact: www.rachelspurgeongardens.com and stickley-landscapes.co.uk