The first winter here I extended the farmer’s vegetable garden and the only square of cultivated ground in the lee of the milking barn. The following summer, our first summer of new wonder, we began the great experiment to see what the land was made of. We planted a kitchen garden, as there is nothing like vegetables and annual flowers to tell you what does well within a growing season. With space on my hands for the first time and not the vicarious space of a client’s garden, I dissected the new plot into additional rectangles to begin a trial of plants for the garden, which was then in my mind’s eye but now, ten years later, overwrites these first cultivations. 

Whilst I was gathering my thoughts and with ground to spare, four areas were sown with Pictorial Meadow mixes so that I could test them for myself and witness their day to day evolution. I’d used them before to provide a show where we were staggering the development of a garden or for a fast and easy fix in an area where we needed an economical solution. But there is nothing like growing at close quarters and witnessing the evolution of a garden on a daily basis and under your own control. Developed originally by Nigel Dunnett who this year sowed the Superbloom at the Tower of London, the panels were each different in mood and their raipid development taught me a lot in that first summer of discovery. The red orach toppling in one mix showed us the heartiness of the soil and the need to keep it lean in our blustery exposed position. The Shirley poppies, that still come up in the garden today are the offspring of these early years of pioneering and live on as a memory.