The Summer Garden 2023

 The Summer Garden 

In 1989 when I bought the house in St Peter’s Grove, London, I was very fortunate that its garden space had not been developed by any one at all.

It consisted simply of a surround of mixed London stock brick walls, some 6 foot high (a small walled garden of 4 by 16 paces) with a ground surface of concrete paving slabs (flagstones) covering the surface entirely - accept for a small strip of earth at one side.

The development of a garden consisting of almost all flower pots took place slowly over years and still seems to be changed annually.

The two main features that make the garden so  special are a cedarwood shed (actually an eight sided part-glazed summer house for two) and a grape vine arbour archway from wall to wall framing the shed or garden - the arbour being designed in perspective when seen from the house.The cedarwood shed was bought cheaply at a garden centre near Andover because its door had been broken off by the wind and not replaced. It arrived, on site in bits on a truck, driven by a real country lad/handyman. Together we assembled and levelled it at the bottom of the garden where it has been standing since as a haven for Margreet and myself. We use it as a shelter from the elements and a drinking/dining space. As such it is occupied almost every day in the spring, summer and autumn. In it we read, listen to music, talk, drink and eat, admiring through the arch of vines the colour of grapes, flowers and their attendant greenery.

The garden is divided by a peninsular of dry brickwork construction rising from the flagstones to culminate at its top in a large birdbath. On its way up from ground level are brick shelves for pots of flowers, having no theme or colour design - just bright colours of any kind punctuated by white geraniums.

Its bricks consist of London stocks, night storage heater bricks, but mainly occhiolino (those ancient Roman hypocaust bricks designed for heat conducting and still made in Italy).  Ridged and hollow tubed, they join with local bricks to form delightful patterns in the construction.

Dotted around this haphazardly arranged brickwork are a lemon tree, lots of geraniums, petunias, impatience,  new guineas and much more. At ground level are herbs, like sage, tarragon and mint. 

From the peninsula almost to the house is a bamboo construction that we call the piano, because it looks a bit like the strings of a grand piano. Over this we grow runner beans that we either keep for seed, use in stews, or eat whole with butter and garlic when they are about 4 inches long. 

The only other edible crop consists of new potatoes grown in buckets of soil

`Perhaps it was because BBC2 once made a successful Gardeners’ World programme of my Tangley country garden that they came to make another of my small London garden. 

The most pleasing aspect of these programmes was that I was contacted after them by past acquaintances who thought that I had been killed in the war.  

Ron and Pat Wyatt saw the Gardeners' World Programme, got in touch with the BBC, and then contacted us.  

From then on Margreet and I were part of their yearly Christmas reunions.  Sadly that has now ended, for one

by one the old bunch "left the Circuit".  It seems I'm still the last one standing. Long may it last.