The Accidental Gardener

My small garden has come a long way. This little plot of land known as 'the back yard' at one time offered little except a place to hang the washing or lean an old bicycle. In fact the back garden was once a concrete square used solely to park the previous owner's sailing boat.

Looking back at the garden's slow evolution, it is still hard to believe that nothing was planned on paper, it all happened rather piecemeal. Trial and error was the order of the day as far as learning the art of gardening was concerned. I soon discovered the rather sharp drainage and hungry nature of the soil. This sandy, acid soil was easy to work but in desperate need of organic material and lots of it.

Now over 20 years later it has survived several major droughts, one or two severe winters and many mini hurricanes. It has also in a small way achieved a little fame too.

The fame started when a friend suggested I opened it up to the public through the National Gardens Scheme of England and Wales. My initial reaction to this idea was disbelief that anyone could conceivably be interested. How wrong I was!

My garden first appeared in the famous 'Yellow Book' in 1992. Since then it has had television crews crawling all over it, seen newspaper photographers shivering in the early morning chill whilst erecting camera tripods, and received many curious members of the gardening public. It even has a guest book where visitors can record their impressions of the garden and try to demand their money back.

This fame also extends to my cat Sophie, who through these articles, the garden web site and the many visitors to the garden, has developed her own fan club.

Wildlife was the inspiration for the garden and over the years over 30 species of birds and 14 species of butterflies have been recorded within the garden's boundaries. I think I can safely say that my original idea of a wildlife garden did succeed in the end. The highlights included a few rarer birds like the Sparrowhawk that suddenly flew to perch on the Prunus tree one afternoon. It also provided a reliable resting, feeding and nesting station for more familiar birds like Blackbirds, Blue Tits, Wrens and Robins.

My gardening skills were certainly learned 'on the hoof', really the only way to learn the nuts and bolts

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