A letter to the garden: April 2020

Dear Garden,

Gosh so much has changed since I last wrote to you.  I have not written to you since December and I could not have imagined what would be happening in the world at that point.  But, here we are and we have to get through this and this does mean that I am leaning on you harder than I think I have ever before.  You have seen me through some dark times in my personal life and now I need you to keep doing so.

I currently work from home and this has meant a tweak to the front garden.  I now have a bird feeder I can see through the kitchen window as I work.  This has brought me immense pleasure.  As I write I have just been watching a Robin and a Long Tailed Tit bicker for the seed feeder whilst a Great Tit was on the peanuts.  Simple things such as this bring joy at the moment. (Rule #32 Enjoy the little things).

The period of working from home has thankfully coincided with the evenings getting longer.  Not having a long drive home every evening has meant I can spend a happy hour or so in the garden in the evening.  I am grateful for this down-time and it has given me the opportunity to think about how the garden looks at the moment.

I have done very little sowing so far this year, I will get around to it, promise, but I have been tidying and making space.  Plus we are not quite through the frost zone yet. The Coal Bunker Border was a forest of invasive alliums and spanish bluebells which have met their match at last.  I am not kidding myself that I have beaten them, but now they will get weeded more assiduously and not allowed to retake a foothold.  I think the mild Winter encouraged them more than ever.

I have also been removing that grass, Carex Pendula, that surrounds the pond, but surrounds the pond too well.  Yes, it is something that someone else planted back when the garden was young and I am left counting the cost.  It has been quite a challenge to remove it.

Such a challenge that one of the garden forks gave up.  Thankfully I had a spare in the shed.  A couple of the large plants defeated me and I could not dig them out.  So I attacked them with the brush cutter.  I am not sure if I was tidying them up or wreaking revenge, I think a good dose of both.

So, dear garden, we will get through this, we will get to a new normality and all will be well again albeit a different well.  I now have more space to play with again and lots of ideas for things I will do.

Best wishes and stay safe

Your loving gardener.