In December 2008, we moved from the UK’s damp and cool northwest to Dubai. Not long prior to this I had decided I wanted to change direction completely and become a gardener, following a voluntary apprenticeship (of sorts) at #arleyhall . My dreams of herbaceous perennials and trugs brimming with veg seemed about to evaporate in the Gulf’s scorching summer temperatures. A decade later, and I look at the potager I created in our Barsha carport (one large bed and many, many pots) and reflect that never again will it be so incredibly easy to grow tomatoes, basil, sunflowers and sweet potatoes, let alone the more glamorous occupants such as papaya and plantains.
2019 brings new challenges and huge excitement, with the few acres of this blog’s title on a southwest sloping site near Leominster. An expanse of Herefordshire red clay, currently covered in moss (mainly), grass, some eclectic legacy planting, and some very fine, mature deciduous trees including one of the largest lime trees (#tiliacordata)I have ever seen. From this neglected space we plan to make borders and beds, orchards and arbours. March 2019 saw us arrive here and there is no shortage of early season flowers - snowdrops, hellebores, daffodils, narcissi, primroses - and the giant lime is now encircled with violets and celandine.
There is a dauntingly huge amount to be done here, but it feels invigorating to be back gardening on British soil. When #MontyDon arrived at #Longmeadow it was a field: if we can achieve a tiny percentage here of what he has wrought there, I will be happy. It was freezing when we moved in here, but still that old compulsion simply to get out and do something - anything - outside was still there. And now, in April, as the ground starts to dry out and I think my back will break digging the red soil of this most beautiful of counties, I still can’t wait to get out there each day that I am here.
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