Moving back to the UK from South America in March 1981, we began the search for a house not too far outside Birmingham (where I started a lectureship in plant biology at the university). Quite quickly we identified a three bedroom house, built in 1975, in the market town of Bromsgrove in north Worcestershire, 13 miles south of the university campus, moving in at the beginning of July.
While the previous owners had made a start to creating a garden, little had been accomplished, apart from planting a weeping willow tree and some spiny berberis bushes, and constructing a lean-to glasshouse from old window frames at the bottom of the garden.
Over the next 39 years Steph worked hard to make a beautiful garden, albeit with a break of 19 years between 1991 and 2010 when we lived in the Philippines and only had the opportunity to work on the garden during our home leave each year, six to eight weeks in the summer months. Click on the image below to open a higher resolution version.
Very early on we removed the weeping willow, and replaced it with a Himalayan birch (which, by 2017, had become too tall so we had it felled), added a fishpond, and a rockery, as well as expanding the flower beds all round. A free-standing glasshouse replaced the lean-to, and where that had once stood, Steph developed a small vegetable plot, mixed with ornamentals, foxgloves being a common self-seeded addition.
The rest of the garden (at the rear of the house) was a lawn whose care (if you can call it that) was in my hands, mowing the grass every couple of weeks or so. While we’d been in the Philippines we had a gardener come once a month, from Spring to early Autumn, to mow the grass both front and rear of the house.
On the front there was a small lawn and a couple of flower beds, one of them running the length of the drive. In Spring this would have a stunning display of golden daffodils, and yellow and red tulips. Neighbors always commented on how nice they looked as you entered Davenport Drive. And a vigorous Clematis montana over the kitchen window.
Steph liked to plant lots of flowering perennials and among our favorites were the promiscuous columbines, which freely hybridised and gave us a whole range of flower colors and sizes.
After we returned from the Philippines on my retirement in 2010, Steph really threw herself into rediscovering her garden. So it was with a tinge of sadness that we left that garden behind, on 30 September 2020, when we moved north to Newcastle upon Tyne. We weren’t sure what sort of property we would find to move into, nor the state of its garden.
In the event, we bought a new-build house (built in 2018), and moved in at the beginning of March 2021. Moving house at the height of the pandemic was both stressful and remarkable. And loaded on to the removal van were several crates of plants that Steph had propagated from seeds or cuttings from her old garden. So, as she planned her new garden, she had this legacy of Bromsgrove favorites to fall back on in some measure.
The garden at our new home was a blank canvas, just rectangles of grass front and back, no flower beds at all, except for a row of privet bushes on the front. How totally uninspiring, yet a serious challenge.
By April, Steph had finalised a design for the garden at the rear. We took out the privet on the front and dug flower beds along one side and under the bay window.
We’d quickly discovered that the soil was very heavy indeed, so we contracted the heavy digging to a local firm.
Even though we had a layer of top soil added all round, on reflection we should have added more organic matter and worked it in, as well as some sharp grit to increase drainage. The garden does flood close to the house when we get heavy or persistent rain. But that has added to the challenge of learning what plants we can and cannot grow successfully.
Steph was keen to get many of her plants in the ground, and by June 2021, the flower beds were beginning to take shape.
By August-September, things were beginning to look much better, and we’d had the first butterflies appear.
In February 2022 we planted a crab apple, var. Evereste, which did flower that season, and a year later was well and truly established and producing bright orange fruits.
Now in August 2023, many of the plants are well-established, and for several months the garden has given us great pleasure. Steph is certainly pleased with how the garden has developed, although there’s so much more to do. It’s a work in progress.
Another fine feature is the auricula theater that I made for Steph and in which we had a great display of these wonderful primulas earlier this year.
But one aspect that has given us perhaps the greatest pleasure has been the significant increase in biodiversity. Many of our neighbors are not keen gardeners, and have replaced what lawn they had with artificial grass. Nor have they planted flowers to attract pollinating insects.
In contrast, our garden is a hive of insect activity. I’ve seen at least six species of bees, and many other pollinators that I am unable to identify.
Butterflies (although not so frequent visitors to the garden) have included red admiral, peacock, little tortoiseshell, small white, and comma.
As for birds, we have a family of pied wagtails that regularly visits us throughout the year. But so far, the garden hasn’t attracted as many different species as I’d hoped for. We’re somewhat reluctant to put out bird feeders, worried that spilt food might attract rodents into the garden. But we have seen goldfinches, a mistle thrush on one occasion, and more recently, linnets a couple of times. These photos are courtesy of Northamptonshire photographer Barry Boswell.
In summer the sky is full of house martins that nest on neighbors’ houses, but sadly I’ve only seen one swift this year. Starlings are common and often land in a small flock on the lawn, as do the occasional wood pigeons. Herring gulls and magpies call to us from surrounding roofs.
Anyway, as I mentioned, the garden is a work in progress, and although I actually do very little in the garden (gardening is not my thing) I really appreciate all the effort that Steph has taken to create a thing of beauty.
Before leaving Bromsgrove, Steph had collected seeds from most of her favorite plants, or taken cuttings. So we brought them in half a dozen crates full of small pots, and carefully nurtured them through our first northeast winter.
A balanced diet . . . 