What a Wonderful World

It's a Wonderful World.

The freedom of being able to write about what you want seems great, until you sit down to start! I ended up spending a good few weeks thinking about it, jumping from one thing to another, then one conversation with Mrs Frost and there it is, sorted. Not that she knew she was helping, but hey-ho away we go.

We have just been in Southern Ireland for a few days, staying with a friend who has an amazing garden in Kells Bay. Billy the owner calls it the wild west and it really does have that feel about it. The garden is located on the Atlantic Coast with the Gulf Stream helping create a microclimate in the bay, which holds the best collection of tree ferns I have ever seen in Europe! You really do feel as if you have been transported to maybe another time; you feel that connection to the past. Some place!

But more about that another time. I had an amazing couple of days with Mrs Frost exploring the wider landscape and coastline with her taking me down every track that caught her eye, which to be fair still after an awful lot of years still puts a smile on my face, well most of the time !!

Anyway at the end of one of the mentioned tracks were dinosaur footprints. The Atlantic was rolling in, rain falling and wind was blowing a hooly and as strange as this may sound to some people, it felt amazing, a little mind-blowing really. Anyway as we walked back to the car my dear lady said to me "doesn’t it make you feel small",  “and alive” I said. A smile was shared and we climbed the hill back to the car. That small exchange just triggered something which led me to thinking about the small story we all get to tell, the part we get to play and the memories we create along the way, what the hell has this got to do with gardening? Well that story of mine is deeply embedded in the landscape. Anyway, that might sound a little deep and this may well sound like some sort of personal statement, but bear with me and hopefully all will become clear after the rain has cleared!!

Life in the Frost household has not been without its moments in the last few years, which has led to me sitting down with someone that seems to understand a lot more about my own head than I ever had! Which was an amazing thing, as all in all led to the Frost family changing a lot of things in our day-to-day life.

During this time, I have done a lot of soul searching, understanding what drives me, the things I care about, people that I’m drawn to, the things that inspire me, and where did this sort of moral compass that I seem to live by come from? (yes, I do have morals before anyone pipes up!) and on top of all that, where did this love of plants come from? Well, a lot of that has gone into a book that comes out next year if you're interested (of course).

Anyway, back to the garden….well where did it all start.

Tidy Nan and Grandad plus Scruffy Nan and Grandpa. The aforementioned had a small classic 70s garden, rectangular lawn with a washing line running alongside the concrete path which led to a small greenhouse full of Alicante tomatoes, that smelt amazing. Then just outside the back gate just up the lane, the allotment! The place of wonder where I dropped my first potato in a hole and grew a marrow. I would spend hours with my Grandad talking football and learning how to grow. Funny really, on a Saturday morning we would happy potter, then Nan would arrive with lunch and a flask of tea after which my old Grandad would send Nan back with a basket of vegetables which she would then spend the afternoon boiling to death! Bless him, he must have been heartbroken when he sat down for tea as it all tasted the same.

Great memories, then just up the road in the Lea-Valley was a suburban wilderness that Scruffy Nan called a ‘garden’. This place was about freedom, we were near feral to be honest from sunrise to sunset, yuccas growing out of weeds, Belfast sinks made into aquatic worlds and the whole garden carrying the scent of lemon balm, I still love that smell.

Then my old man who, let's put it this way, was a little too reliant on a pint! Over the years we did not always see eye to eye but this man understood the craft of landscaping and not necessarily in the most orthodox way passed that on to me.

When I was 15, he decided to move us all to North Devon which to some may sound great but for me, it was a nightmare, well apart from the North Devon landscape, surfing and sea fishing. That change of school was followed by me leaving school and home at 16 which aligned with an apprenticeship on the North Devon Parks Department and the safe hands of Jim and George, and my first footsteps into professional horticulture. A wonderful time studying the craft of gardening that is something that has burned ever since, I loved it. On top of the horticulture these two also introduced me to bacon and laver (seaweed) sandwiches. Great men!

Looking back, these people laid the foundations for what was to follow. At 21 years old, somehow I got a job with the late Geoff Hamilton which probably was the making of me, not just because of who he was but what he cared about. You imagine, I walked in there over 30 years ago and this man was peat-free, organic, talked of the damage we were doing and still are doing to our landscape. The power of not only having your hands in the soil but also the key to gardening was that very soil. To be fair, I was like a sponge, those years were so formative for me, he turned on the lights and set me on the path that I have happily wandered ever since.

I think a lot about those people and even more so over the last few years, I miss them all in one way or another. But why the backstory? It has made me realise that plants have never not been part of my life and it does feel like the timing of Scribehound has fallen perfectly for me. What do I mean? Well, I’m at an age where I have lived a little and I suppose gardened a while! In all honesty, I don't really want to write about the practical side of gardening (well I will if I get paid), I do that in other places.

Over the last few years, it has really brought to the fore what I get from gardening on lots of levels, the people I have met and the places I have been, plants I have fallen in love with which does feel like one affair after the other. These are the things I would like to share a little more with you over the coming months.

The first thing to look at is how gardening has changed from the days with Tidy and Scruffy Nan, these people had just come out of the war, they grew because they had to.  Jim and George and then Geoff. Well in all honesty, for the last thirty years it feels like the world has been catching up with Geoff. We have all seen so much spoken about the banning of peat. Well I have never really used peat since the days of Geoff.

Not just the way we garden but the way we design or I think should, for me so much has changed, partly driven by environmental change and pests and diseases. When I trained in design so much was said about less is more, bigger drifts, monocultures etc. Can we do that anymore? I don’t think so. Those times with Jim and George were about control, everything needed to look spot-on and tidy!! If it did not play ball it would be sprayed, can we do that anymore? No I don’t think so! I know a lot of people are not on board with this, I have not 100% convinced Mrs Frost yet!

Over those years we seem to have taken so much and not always returned, what can I get from the garden rather than what can I do for the garden. I may be a romantic old fool, but it's the stuff I care about. For me, gardening is being mindful of what you’re creating – and for whom. Even back then, Geoff was talking about environmental issues and emphasised that whatever size plot we’ve got, we can all do things to play a valuable part in the bigger picture. How do we create with the diversity we need, providing a safe haven not only for us but for wildlife too.

For me, gardening is not just about doing; it's about feeling connected to the elements. Over the years, I have grown to understand that it's the place I go to make sense of things.

So hopefully that gives a little sense of what's to follow, if you fancy it of course.