How an English Garden Grows: April 2008 Archives

It's been a sullen, grey day and the many seeds I planted on Monday are still hiding away in the earth. The mint plant that I potted and set out in the greenhouse is flourishing, though.

I quickly learned one quick difference between English and American gardening--the wearing of Wellies. Wellington boots are tall and rubbery, in order to keep out the mud, I presume. It's so much easier to slip into my Wellies (well, OK, into my housemate Julia's Wellies) at the garden door than it is putting on tennis shoes (trainers, they call them here) that are bound to get filthy and that need to be scraped before re-entering the house.

I love wearing the pink Wellies!

Yesterday I posted about my new garden. Today the story continues...

As I stepped into the greenhouse, feet crunching on piles of brown leaves that had fallen through the holes over the last decade, I imagined myself back on the North Shore, where I did home and garden writing as a Pioneer Press reporter between 2003-2007.

"It's like discovering a Jens Jensen garden," I thought dramatically, scooping up leaves (and more than a few snails--the bane of English gardeners--who had taken refuge in them). "I can almost see myself on one of those palatial yet neglected Lake Forest estates, finding a little garden shed filled with rusting but still usable supplies."

Or, of course, I could pretend to be Mary Lennox, the child from "The Secret Garden" who finds a once-loved garden that's been long abandoned to the ravages of time.

I knew such romantic fantasies were frivolous, indeed, but that's what a lifetime of reading about dreamy, spirited heroines like Anne of Green Gables and Jo March will do to a girl! Soon I was very busy clearing out the leaves, picking bits of broken glass out of dirt and emptying pots of dank water, but a delightful sense of mystery and discovery remained.

Troy and Timmy, the Pasture House cats, were very happy that someone was in this quiet corner of the garden at last, and came purring into the greenhouse to visit and "help" me. Timmy even curled up on the shelf to keep a close eye on all events (and just in case I spontaneously decided to serve them their tea out in the garden, no doubt).

Like many women, I grew up loving the children's novel "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett (and the 1993 Broadway musical version) but it wasn't until I became an adult that I really began to resonate with the themes of renewal and new life that spring into the hitherto wintry life of young Mary.

I was pleased to find "The Secret Garden" on the shelves of the 200-year-old house I am currently sharing with the English family that has invited me into their home for this year. (This family consists of husband and wife and three young adult children, two of whom still live at home and are about my age). As I read the story once again, I wondered at the huge amount of work that Mary and her friends Dickon and Colin put into reviving the walled garden high on the moors. Is English garden so different from American gardening?

I am delighted to report that I am about to find out.

Troy the cat suns himself before the side door of my English home, as daffodils brighten the foot of a cherry tree about to spring into blossom.