My First Garden

It’s Chelsea week so how could I not go all horticultural on you! Gardening is becoming such a big part of my life and today I invite you on a trip down memory lane with me as I look back on the story of my first garden.

Growing up my Dad was a self-employed builder and so my brother and I spent many a weekend playing on building sites as he and my Mum worked overtime striving to make houses that would appeal to the market. Of course they wanted the sale, but Dad also believed that an Englishman’s home was his castle. He didn’t cut corners. He built houses with skill, care and attention to detail, because creating a place which the end user would be proud to call home mattered to him.

As a child, it was impossible to ignore this theme of “home”. I was inevitably more aware of the built environment around me than most kids my age. By 11 years old I had decided I wanted to become an architect and I was impatient to make a home of my own.

Once I left school I saved and saved for a deposit and at 26 years old it finally happened! I bought a tired Victorian end-terrace house just a few villages away from where I had grown up and I was immediately excited to bring it into the 21st Century and make it my own. This first home also came with a first garden. What took me completely by surprise was the extent to which this modest outdoor space captured my imagination and became the happy place I shared with my first Spaniel baby.

My first garden was a north-facing space of around 6 x 5m. Once the house itself began to take shape, I turned my attention to this outdoor space. Thinking it was important to have a useable parking bay attached to the house, I took half of this and laid a concreted stone runway on which I could fit my 1998 MGF. I turfed the gaps in between, which was ridiculous as that meant I had to buy and store a lawnmower to cut around 6sqM of grass!

To the left of this “lawn” was a timber fence beneath which I planted a super narrow border; just enough to squeeze in some climbing roses, which I know are still going strong to this day!

On the other half I made a U-shaped bed which was, again, hopelessly narrow! It was wide enough to grow strawberries, bulbs and other bits and pieces which would do alright on the lighter side. On the shaded brick wall which separated me from my neighbour, I had inherited an established Clematis ‘Nelly Moser’ which was wildly successful and covered the wall with an incredible display of blousey pink flowers in early Summer.

In order to grow peppers and chillies (or should I say one pepper and one chilli!) I needed a glasshouse. My darling Dad built me a gorgeous shelved cold frame, which sat at the end of the garden on the south-facing wall and allowed me to try some tumbling tomatoes and over-winter a handful of tender plants.

There was a tiny front garden too. I chose to lawn this too, so I could haul my little lawnmower all the way over the stoned side path to mow the 2sqM at the front of the house too! There was a bit more method in the front, or at least a colour palette of creams and pinks. I bought a David Austin Rose ‘William & Catherine’ to mark the year I bought my first house, which also happened to be the year of the Royal wedding.

The limited space did not deter me from having a go. I’d buy plants every chance I could, with zero plan or strategy. I wanted to try growing everything, but my narrow beds could only accommodate one or two of each plant. So I'd have one broccoli, one campanula, one verbena and one geum. And when the beds filled up, these plants spilled out into pots.

I nurtured this garden obsessively. Each season I tweaked and tinkered with it and spent a small fortune on various experiments, most of which failed. Tragically most plants failed due to gardener error! Nevertheless I persevered and every now and again I’d have some wins! This was my time to make all the horticultural mistakes and begin to learn a little. At the height of summer I might be out in the garden until 10pm, just tinkering. It was in that garden that my fingers turned green.

It's lovely looking back on this time when my passion for growing and nurturing plants was ignited. What was your first garden like?

If you’ve enjoyed my horticultural ramble down memory lane, then next week I’ll be sharing the story of a very different garden we created for RHS Chelsea exactly five years ago… do pop back for that one!