Bramble Torre 1982-2018
What a strange year it has been: March gave us snow…… in Devon! April followed with bitter north winds and plummeting night time temperatures tempered with occasional bursts of uplifting sun. Now at last May slowly warms us. The valley is exploding into colour, everything coming out at once, all rushing to catch up. Birds are shouting as they build their nests, chickens have gone feral, wandering nonchalantly through fields oblivious to the danger of becoming Reynard’s tea. Donkeys canter off delinquently across Sunday Orchard kicking their heels and eeyoring delightedly. Lambs are getting tubby feeding greedily on lush new grass, suddenly greening up at last.
At last, at last everything seems to be catching up. As a strange cold, wet spring edges us towards summer I find myself looking anxiously at the garden. In a few weeks’ time we will be opening for our tenth year in aid of the National Garden Scheme Nursing Charities. What will still be in flower, I wonder, looking at the chaotic cacophony of colour this strange year has already yielded; what will June bring?
Pausing for a few moments between liberating pelargoniums from the greenhouse at last and bravely planting out beans and dahlias, praying the while that all frost is indeed behind us, I found some old photographs: a sharp reminder of how things were when we arrived in the valley in 1982. How the garden has evolved over the years.
First, of course, we mended the house, next it was time for garden restoration. As we cleared and dug, chopped and cleared, the basic structure, long forgotten, began to re-emerge. Someone at some time had cherished it. But, by the time we arrived it had been unloved for many years. Farming had taken precedence.
As we worked, down fell the derelict old green houses, broken glass threatening to chop off our heads. Down came the great tin tractor shed, in went the pond, out went the fencing made of gas stove and corrugated tin. In went banks of shrubs, out went broken outhouses and bindweed and dead trees. In went roses and camellias, beech hedges. Up popped swathes of bulbs and wild flowers. Stifled for years beneath the undergrowth, they took their chance to break free at last.
Slowly, slowly a garden began to return once more to the valley. As we worked so a framework seemed to appear. We tried to follow its pattern. We planted trees, built retaining walls, levelled lawns, restored the barns and made a vegetable garden. Over the years it has evolved, grown and matured.
One day, some ten years ago now, the Devon County Organiser of National Garden Scheme came to tea with a friend of mine. She suggested we might like to open the garden for charity. But “Weed, weed, weed” she said and I’ve been weeding ever since…
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