Well … make yourself a cuppa and I’ll rattle out a quick description
🙂
Bridport, famous for making nets and rope since a King’s charter in the
14th? century, has cute looking ancient buildings and gardens that are
characteristically long … and I mean long!
The reason? So that networkers down the centuries could stretch out huge
fishing nets hundreds of feet long while they manufactured or repaired
them by hand.
This has resulted in Bridport having several areas within the town known
as ‘Rope Walks’, being the ancient locations of that industry.
My little cottage, (and garden), is a remnant, a left over of that
industry and, while in the heart of the town centre, it has this magical
heritage and character starting with an enclosed ancient alleyway, (or
rope walk), that feeds off from the main street. (In the summer,
holidaymakers stop and look or take photos of that alleyway because …
well … because the darkness of the alley is juxtaposed by the
glorious, briilliantly colourful image of light and flowers and distance
that reveals itself to the eyes at the end of it.
From the hight street, you can look down my passageway and see, first a
glimpse of light, then focussing, see the explosion of flowers revealed
through an open door … Hanging baskets suspended from my outhouses and
then a 4ft high Meadowland Mix of flowers exploding from the rockery on
the left … then your eye gets just a glimpse of the Georgian red brick
and natural stone enclosed ‘end wall’ … a further 160 ft away at the
far, far bottom of the garden. (It was formally an ancient workshop but
that is where I built my Zen garden).
I get a young hippy fella playing all sorts of 60’s, 70’s and 80’s cover
music cross legged at the end of the passage on the street in the
summer. His music floats down the hallway and into the cottage of a
Saturday market day in summer.
Anyway … the real reason I describe it as my 1940’s garden is becasue,
when I moved in two years ago, just about all of the 160ft garden was
overgrown, really overgrown … with thorne bushes 6ft high … and next
door, still standing at the time, was a 1940’s Nissan hut, (Google
“Nissan Hut”), an arched building with a curved tin roof also completely
enclosed by brambles – a relic of the second world war).
When the brambles were all excavated from my garden, I found ornaments,
garden tools, machinery and assorted stuff, all dating from that period
… plus an 18th century metal toy described as ‘Trojan Charioteer’,
entirely complete with two horses, the trojan soldier and his chariot
with spoked wheels!
So … that alone ‘qualifies’ me to passionately describe my garden as a
1940’s garden.
There is another layer though.
The fact that me and a neighbour,Bob, together tend to what others say
is a rare thing these days. ie A completely genuine and authentic
‘vegatable garden’ of the kind you do actually see in older properties,
that is true, BUT … most folk these days live in modest, modern homes
with typically small gardens that don’t lend themselves to 40ft of
potato plants, six or seven rows deep … or rows of beans on canes or
legions of lettuce, carrots or cabbages.
Oh Crikey. I might as well ‘cut and paste’ something I wrote about the
garden already, just to complete the picture.
Here it comes! 🙂
“Last year, I made the garden a nesting box, secured it to an ivy coated
derelict wall at the end of my garden, (facing south), about 8ft up and
left the round entrance hole blocked to enable the box to weather in for
a year.
Last month, I uncovered the entrance and anticipate I’ll get some
interest from breeding blue or yellow tits this year.
Landscaping the area below the box, an area about 25ft wide by 20 ft
long, I introduced shingle, boulders and an 8ft pew, (bench), making
sure I didn’t disturb the ground where I saw a slow worm last year so I
expect to have it making an appearance also.
That part of the garden, (my Zen garden), is now a very calm,
contemplation area where I can crack open a beer with friends and female
company of a summer’s evening.
Further up the garden, near my shed, I have introduced a pagoda affair
to provide a natural break in the whole garden. I have sited several
climbers in this area, Honeysuckle and Clematis and also secured trellis
to the side of the shed so that it will spread and eventually produce a
wall of foliage and flowers. Below and behind this area, the normal,
bumpy and unkempt lawn will stay the same but above it, I have created a
new lawn that I have made as flat as a snooker table. Using the finest,
suitable grass seed, this area will eventually have a couple of sun
loungers on it, being situated just perfect to look up the garden, past
my vegetable plots and towards the actual cottage and the eastern side
of the property.
Another new feature I am trying this year are a half dozen hanging
towers. “Flower Tower” (TM). They are like high rise hanging baskets
with a depth of about 18″ each and should explode with colour and
flowers once the bedding plants I got from Lidl take hold. I’m using
Lobelia, (Deep blue flowers), Impatiens, (A pinky red variety), Agertum,
(Tiny mauve petals), Begonia, (Big pink flower petals), some yellow,
orange and gold Tagetes and some amazing, blood red Salvia flowers to
provide some drama.
Old favourites like Meadowland mix and Summer flower mix have already
been sown down one side of the rockery near the house, simply by
scattering them where they are intended to grow – and grow they will –
to a height of 3 – 4ft. An explosion of colour and variety that will
ensure that bees and butterflies can call by to collect their pollen.
I am also experimenting with various garden herbs, some peppers,
cucumbers and water melon, something I have not grown before.
In the last couple of weeks, a mate gave me a wooden box with over 200
various packets of seed. There is EVERYTHING you could amagine in that
box so I’ve greated other areas to grow lettuce, carrot, onions, well.
You name it!
I have one neighbour and we share much of the vegetable plot area.
Consequently, to the amazement of visitors and customers, when I beckon
them down the garden exitedly in response to their expressed amazement,
we have to walk past rows of proud, tall potato plants, beans on canes
that look like Native American tents, Sweet William blloms also crawling
up poles, canes of peas, legions of onions and the odd exotic fruit or
root vegetable crawling about nearby.
Such gardens are images of the past these days because few folk have
either the space or time to do this sort of thing traditionally. Me?
I’ve a young novice at 54 and anyway, my vast garden. (Well long at
150ft though thin at about 20ft), does the fruit and veg thing, the
social space to play and relax thing AND has other areas, shed, patio,
walled seat, conservatory … to ensure anyone is entertained, intrigued
or absorbed no matter who they are!”
There … Got the picture, Lemony? 🙂
You know that sense of peace and stillness and in tune-ness we can feel
when way, way out in the wilds of nature?
Well, as I can hear right this moment, right this second … a pair of
nesting blackbirds are trilling and singing away like crazy … and
delivering me the same sense of calm and peacefulness … right here and
right now.
Ah well. Thanks for being lovely … being diplomatic about our age
thing.
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