Starting All Over Again Is Exciting
Country Life UK|May 30, 2018

Starting All Over Again Is Exciting

Mary Keen
Starting All Over Again Is Exciting

IN July last year, we downsized to a garden that is twice as long and twice as wide as a tennis court, with an allotment and a half where we grow things to eat and flowers to cut. We also have an enclosed courtyard outside the kitchen, with room for a table to eat on sunny days. Starting again is exciting: starting small really concentrates the mind.

My priority has always been atmosphere. At first, a rectangle bounded by other gardens seemed hardly the place from which to conjure all absorbing surroundings, but, as soon as massive laurels, a Lawson cypress and a paved barbecue terrace at the top end of the plot had been banished and the tidy lawn had changed into soft meadowy grass, the garden started to feel more promising.

I knew I wanted an orchard, masses of bulbs and flowers in grass, a few beds for favourite summer plants, some winter flowers and a greenhouse, but, in small gardens, too much is too much, so restraint has been key.

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