After I read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, I wanted to be Mary Lennox, living in England and finding her secret garden.

I’m not Mary – nowadays I’m quite plump with longish white hair which could be described as ‘like candy floss’, and I am not a young girl, but I do have a garden. It’s not a secret and I do hardly any work in it as I have lost my youthful stamina. (I could try to get it back but I’m not sure I have the energy!)

When I was in my late 30s I had my first ‘garden’. It, too, was no secret. I have written about it in an earlier post (which you can find if you scroll back quite far). That was my introduction to digging, weeding, and growing some of my own food and, I loved it!

In the East Malling house I mentioned yesterday, we had quite a large plot of land which was mostly given over to large clumps of weeds. Julian and I worked really hard and tamed it so that we had a plot for growing Swiss chard, French beans and tomatoes. That work was in the first couple of years and in the following years we spent time on first one bit, then another until, after about six years we had the whole back garden pretty well under control.

We had some gorgeous shrub roses which we were given by my in-laws, Ralph and Angela, and the roses were put in along the long side of the plot next to the farm track leading to other homes and, eventually, to the Fife’s farm. Sandy and Jim Fife who owned the farm, grew wonderful crops of strawberries and raspberries – and most likely, other crops that I knew nothing about. Every year when the berries were ripe, they ran a Pick Your Own business and I would walk up the path to do my best and always came home with too much fruit!

After twelve years we moved to Wateringbury where we bought a very interesting old house, part Victorian and part 16th century. The house came with the most beautiful garden and, for three years, we enjoyed the incredible space, the old trees, the ponds, and the solitude of our garden but, life happened and we needed to find a workshop for Julian’s new enterprise!

We bought the premises of an old pub in West Malling which was directly across the High Street from Market Cross Cottage where I lived before I met Julian. (Stories about Market Cross are in earlier posts.)

I had no garden at Rose and Crown Antiques but I did have window boxes along the first floor windows. I watered my boxes every morning via a contraption that we set up which had thin tubing which I attached to the kitchen tap each morning. I had to remember to turn it off so that pedestrians walking to the library or the charity shops weren’t drenched!

After seven plus years, we retired! We moved to the seaside and bought a nice house with a garden. It’s not a ‘secret’ garden, though. We’ve had many barbecues in it with neighbours and friends and a few days when painting friends of Julian’s have come to sit, chat and paint.

As I said at the beginning of my post, I don’t do much work in the garden, nowadays, but, from around this time of year until late autumn, I use the conservatory we built on the back of the house in 2019, so am inside but also in the garden! And, at Christmas time, when family members are here, we use the conservatory as a big living and dining room, heating it for those few days.

So, I’m not Mary Lennox and I have never had a secret garden but I quite like being Candy Lovegrove and enjoying our back garden!