Since the burgeoning of last May, the water in the ditch has been all but invisible, shrouded for the growing season, but never quietened. Our first cutbacks start with these banks, revealing them in sections and working closely with what grows there. We cleared a swathe in September to plant another thousand snakeshead fritillaries and moved on in early November to put the winter hats on the gunnera ahead of the first frosts. We paused and went back in during December in the areas where we know the snowdrops would soon be nosing, revealing the constancy of the water, section by section until we completed its silvery line.
The ditch is the first place to awaken as winter passes to spring and the lifeline provided by the water sustains and shapes the life that thrives there. Though it is an extension of the garden in terms of the feeling, it is way beyond what we could manage if we were to try and garden it. It also feels inappropriate to override the habitat on these wet slopes, so I work with the natural vegetation and the only significant work we do is the annual cutback. Adding bulbs, splitting primroses and keeping the sturdy perennials such as the Inula, Telekia and the Persicaria polymorpha from being overwhelmed until they are established are targeted extras.
By the end of January, so that we are still ahead of the early risers, we aim to strim the length of the ditch. We have been adding Tenby daffodil (Narcissus obvallaris) to the top, in combination with the Cornus mas and paler Narcissus pseudonarcissus, on the lower slopes where the ground drains more freely. We have slowly divided the primroses, which were originally in hiding under a thicket of bramble that protected them from the grazing, and spread them through the banks. The cutback has proven to work a little like the newly opened ground of a coppice in rotation. The primroses have loved the light and proliferated as have the seedlings of the narcissus, which seize the open conditions ahead of summer growth throwing them into shadow.
The cutback is a bittersweet moment, for we know the winter cover to be both beautiful and also an important habitat, so it is limited to the banks where I am gently intervening, and we let the long growth run up and away onto the flanks of The Tump. I’ve found the clearances have kept in check the brambles and woody growth that want to reclaim the ditch. They have also promoted the native perennial vegetation, which has been outcompeted where the woodland has overshadowed the stream at the bottom. When the bulbs fade, they are followed by campion, ragged robin, wild angelica and swathes of creamy meadowsweet.
I walked the length of the ditch with my great friend Frances just recently, having exited the gate at the edge of the still standing garden and crossing the track to the gate that gives way to the velvety contours at its top. When we were making Home Farm together all those years ago, we would take a monthly meander to share thoughts about the process and observations for betterment. The walk and the talk is altogether different to the doing and head down of actual tending and it was good to see the land again through another trusted pair of eyes.
We talked about my ambition to further the hug of the snowdrops. We noted the handover of the primroses that neatly segue as the snowdrops dim and the beginning of the yellows. In the acid yellow of the cornus and the gold of the Tenby daffodil and the complete failure of two thousand or so winter aconites that I had planned and hoped for, but which refused to take to the ground. As we descended, we passed by the wettest hollows where, before we fenced the ditch, the cattle previously came down to water and made a quagmire that has proven to be the perfect spot for marsh marigolds. The young plants I put in a decade ago are now sizeable and beginning to seed and I am seeing how they travel. A slow but sure movement from mud to mud and never out of it to where the grass takes over.
Pulling back and looking again with refreshed eyes I could begin to see how the chapters I’d imagined along the way are beginning to connect. The walkway through the gunnera offering its invitation into their world beneath the big crack willow. In the skip and the stagger of the Salix purpurea ‘Nancy Saunders’ that have made the ditch feel inhabited and given it a rhythm of light and shadow. We noted the silver catkins of the dark-stemmed Salix daphnoides ‘Aglaia’, which I had also planted around the pond at Home Farm over thirty years ago. We discussed the connections between a garden from our past and one that is very much in the here and now and the pleasure taken in these ongoing plants and conversations.
I had not taken Frances down to the pond at this time of the year since it was made. We looked up and admired the line of the fence and its interludes of gates and their invitations. I explained how we’d massaged the contours of the ground around the pond so that it sits well in the hollow and we pondered how important it is to take time when you are working with the land. To get to know which way to go when you are making a decision, to be informed by the land and to listen to what it has to tell you.
Where we have left the pond margins deliberately long for the cover they provide for first life, we found that there were already frogs and toads teeming in the weeds and starting the next generation. We stood where I want to make a small building overlooking the pond, facing due east for the sunrise over the water. Somewhere to observe the comings and goings of the pond and its life. We imagined and looked back up the hill and to this place in the making. Every year better for the time we put into it and for the time we allow it to simply be itself.
Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 17 February 2024
