Reminiscing…

Although my garden really has put on a show, this spring and summer, no matter how hard I try there is still a remarkable lack of bees, butterflies, ladybirds, grasshoppers, etc etc etc.

It’s quite sad really and it’s made me reminisce, rather a lot!

My thoughts go back to when I lived in this area, when I was young. The garden was always full of every pollinator you could think of. The range of butterflies was amazing! We would sit on the grass, surrounded by grasshoppers. The constant hum of bees was ever present. It was all there to be seen… and heard. It’s how we learned so much about the natural world. 

From the age of 7 until 12, I lived in a bungalow, in a small road. At the end of the road was a long, tall hedge and through a hole in that hedge was a magical place…a circular common, completely surrounded by trees. And lo and behold, opposite that hole in the hedge, on the other side of the common, was another gap through which to climb…and hey presto, a second common, more open but beautiful. Sadly, I don’t have any photos of the common…just my memories. But we were so lucky.

Here’s my mum, mowing the front lawn with a Qualcast mower…remember those? My dad took this one with him wherever we lived! ( He took the mower too! 😂😂😂) 

You can see the bank of trees that surrounded the common, in the distance.

Just before we moved from this bungalow, the local council, in its wisdom (and boy has it done some very dumb things in its time!) gave planning permission to build further bungalows on those commons.

I cried. We all did. But then I guess that even our own bungalow had been built on similar land. Anyway, we were off to pastures new…

I was now 12 years old. We moved again, not too far away, to the house above… and this time, our garden backed on to beautiful woodland. All we had to do was jump over the back fence and there was our playground! My dad would do paper chases all over this woodland and we’d count to 100 and then scamper along after him! 

I can honestly say that my childhood was very simple but fun.  And I usually had an ‘I spy’ book tucked into my pocket…wild flowers or birds or trees or insects etc.

We knew all about the seasons simply because of where we lived and how we went about our lives; we were certainly outside children, making our own amusement, which cost nothing, money wise!

Here I am, above, in that lovely garden, aged 14.

And from an early age, as you can see, I loved flowers…

Both my mum and dad loved gardening and so it was inevitable that once I had my own garden, I’d love it too. 

Starting with a pocket handkerchief sized garden, I plied my trade. Each garden after that brought new ideas, different planting, different soil, new challenges, etc. Yet, I’ve loved every one of them. Six gardens in total and apart from garden number one, the rest have had a greenhouse. I’d be lost without one. 

The sixth garden, will no doubt be our last. It’s well stocked with some interesting trees and shrubs and it’s obvious that someone spent a lot of time planning the lay out. It has character! I like that!

And a stunning Tree Fern…

But as I said at the start, it is lacking the pollinators and that grieves me. 

However, I did smile today when I was greeted by…

GIGGLES! Giggles is one of my favourite roses and it has just come into bloom in my garden and I love it!