Now, we are fully-fledged and paid-up members of the Rhydlewis Gardening Club, people drop in and see us, wave and hoot as they pass us by, and generally keep an eye on our garden from a distance.
‘I see you’ve taken down some trees,’ they all said (one after the other), when went to Norwood Gardens for an evening out. I hadn’t thought before...because the trees behind our house are gone, we can see out, right over the beautiful landscape. But it also means people can see in...and the back of the house is the most unsightly area of our garden, full of stones and boulders, a wrecked base for an old extension, uneven and unmown grass and a tarped pile of logs.
Norwood House, 15 minutes away from Rhos Hill, was an interesting place. Only 6 acres in length, it was bought a few years ago by a man who was head gardener at a much bigger house and gardens in the south. He built a gravel path the entire length (700 feet), and from this central walkway, created many varied microgardens. This makes a visit there very interesting for people who have smaller plots, because he’s developed, and is developing, a series of ideas and inspirations for the gardener, who can directly use his landscaping and planting schemes. Each garden had a colour or sculptural theme and I loved the way a person could gain individual inspiration and ideas.
It’s always very nice to visit the huge gardens for a day, but 10 acres of rhododendrons can hardly be a copied in a 30ft town garden.
The owner, Crispin, was a man after our own heart; nothing goes to waste. He uses the rocks he digs from the soil (know how that feels!) to build retaining walls and keeps the smaller pebbles to line paths. He carved old pallet boards and used them for fencing. He saved the turves he raised to make flowerbeds and turned them into raised banks to section some of the gardens and in one case to form a little hill as part of a garden’s design. He even found a length of marine rope, ten metres long and as thick as his wrist, on a beach, hauling it home in his car and using it to create wonderful undulating effect along a boundary.
This is exactly what we plan to do ourselves (to the beach! to the beach!). Our pile of stones from the polytunnel dig is massive, and now I’m collecting stones from the second bed, which is still in the process of development, but I’ve already got some more lettuce seedling in. (We are living on lettuce. We shall soon grow white fluffy tails). I’m separating these stones in buckets; tiny and middle sized stay in the buckets ready to become the path inside the polytunnel; larger ones go on the pile ready for Joe’s dry stone wall.
We have so much wood, we’ll never want for pea sticks or bean poles or rustic trellis. The big, flat discs from the trunks might make attractive flowerbed retainers. The fencing that ran along the middle of the field can be used to retain the hens when we get them, and their posts were commandeered for Joe’s steps. We’re making our own bank to prevent run-off etc from Gino’s field, using the turves of grass we slice off. We’ve become proficient in getting them off leaving as much soil as possible and sometimes manage to take away huge pieces, up to 2½ feet square. As we move them, they feel like animal pelts...the fur of the land.
This autumn, we’ll take our first cuttings to propagate, and collect the seed heads. And I’ve already tried my first go at taking mistletoe seeds from my own plant on the mountain ash in Fanshawe Road and rubbing them into the tiny cuts on the bark of our ash trees. You never know.
Afterwards, we ate in the local pub, and we particularly met Lyn and Len, who have just retired from running an open garden themselves, concentrating on plants from abroad. They’ve now retired and moved to the Preseli hills, quite near the dolman – we’re see their house at the next meeting. There wasn’t much they didn’t know about plants and gardening, which made us both feel like complete beginners, but, although there is a wealth of knowledge inside the club, there are also people like us, some with a bit of land, some with only a cottage garden, but all keen to work outside in the glorious Welsh air where the red kites call.
So, yes, we’re paid-up members now, and cemented this fact by winning the raffle. We never win raffles! And honestly, the two china mugs will come in really handy.
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