Garden Gratitude

My appreciation for access to a beautiful garden

This time of year I believe is the most beautiful in our garden. All the blooms start bursting open and there are splashes of colour everywhere. We have a massive lilac bush that flowers around this time each year, fruit trees, cherry tree and lots of Conifers. Rose bushes and hundreds of bluebells, right here! Tulips and globe hyacinths. Star of Jerusalem and lavender. Honeysuckle and wild strawberries. Bay leaf bush and currant bush. St Johns Wort and Quince trees and blackberry bushes. Laburnum and other blossom trees and so many more. All of this was pre-planted, and we enjoy the benefits of the seasonal blooms, we literally didn’t need to touch the garden, just maintain it (which is not an insignificant amount of work!) and it would be beautiful. But we do make little tweaks here and there.

It’s like a country garden. The very first time that Amanda’s parents visited in 2019, her mum said that it was so beautiful, that we could be in the countryside (we live of the edge of a town) and she was right! It’s so beautifully planned out, planted and tended, that it would be hard to find elsewhere. It’s literally the most beautiful garden I have ever had the pleasure of residing with. We were so lucky to get this property (it’s in a sought after area and we did have to go all in and pay over asking price in a bidding war, but we got it!!)

It is such a blessing to have such a pretty and thriving garden to look at and be in, when I am often limited and can’t leave my home for significant periods at a time due to illness. I routinely go several weeks not travelling further than my garden, and I do start to negatively feel that the longer I am unable to get out. The longest was six weeks and it was extremely hard of going no further than the garden. Usually on good weeks we get out once, twice, sometimes even three times! But I need a lot of recovery time when that’s happening.

Our garden (and home) is literally second hand. The bungalow was built in the 1930s and a family bought it once it was ready for sale, we understand from the 1939 Register that the husband was a professional gardener, so the garden got off to a very good start! They lived here until they were very old and the garden became too big to manage - it was very bigger then, 1/4 acre!! The then grown up son of the original family bought the bungalow so his mother could downsize. His name was William and he lived here and raised his family until he was very old. About 20 years ago when he was getting older he sold a big chunk of the garden to fund remodelling the property. Making the garden much easier to manage in terms of size.

We bought the bungalow a year after William’s death from his daughter, the granddaughter of the original owner and thus it had been in one family from the 1930s until it was ours in 2019. The bungalow has a welcoming and happy feel to it and the garden has been treasured. It would have been incredible to still have the full garden, but the property would have been out of our price range had that been the case. So win win. It would have also been too big to manage but in 2019 we might not have thought so (pre so much illness for both of us, thankfully the garden doesn’t fall apart following a little neglect from life adversity).

Being outside is good for us, I have come to love and appreciate this all the more over the course of my lifetime, seeing nature is good for us, being in nature is good for us. Not just our bodies but our minds, our spirits. We have a little covered porch just outside our kitchen door, so even if it’s pouring with rain, if I can stand then I can get outside and get some fresh air. I have been taken this week by how lucky our view is, we have a lovely view of the garden from the lounge/dining room and conservatory (all on one side) and from the kitchen. When we first viewed our home, on the bank holiday weekend in May in 2019, I cried when we walked into the kitchen and saw the view. It was that special, that close to what I was dreaming of. I have lived in the country, and had plain rolling pasture outside my window, and I have lived in various places around England with no view but plain unloved gardens. To have this is special. Whenever we think we might need to move (because mortgage interest rates are off the charts and we could live much more frugally if we moved out of East Anglia) it’s always the garden that pulls at our hearts. A home can be recreated anywhere, but not a garden that’s been over 80 years in the making. The garden and the neighbours here are great too! Our mortgage renews in a few months time, which could lead to another increase in our monthly payments, and a decision will need to be made, hopefully it will be easy to stay here.

If you have access to a garden, treasure it, spend time with it, enjoy it. I know that fresh air and being amongst plants helps ground and centre me, it helps us sleep, it raises our blood oxygen levels. A garden is a constant, that is there, no matter what is going on in our lives or with our health, it's something solid and dependable. We need it more than it needs us.

Lindsey x