Growing from Seed
The first plant I grew from seed (when I rediscovered gardening in my mid-twenties) was borage. I was recovering from a episode of psychosis, living at my Mum’s house and generally trying to get my life on track. I had also started a course in Medicinal Horticulture that was to make a profound impact on the course my life took as I am still gardening 15 years later.
There is a metaphor here because planting a seed of knowledge is like sowing plant seeds in the garden. If you nurture them they will grow and flower and set seed themselves but if you don’t they can wither and die. I firmly believe that our knowledge of the natural world is vital to our survival and you only have to look at the way the world is going to see that that must be the case.
Anyway, at the time it was quite a revelation to me that a tiny seed planted by me could grow into such a beautiful plant as I was at a particularly low ebb at that point. When you look closely at the natural world it is full of such revelations but we rarely look hard enough to see them in their full glory. Another example of this is the way perennials die back to their roots to protect themselves from the cold so that in summer they are present in their full glory but in winter are no-where to be seen- an incredible contrast surely?
Daily inspections of the borage seedlings followed as they grew on my windowsill. Seemingly they grew whilst I was asleep! They were eventually planted out in my neighbour’s garden and flowered beautifully- a joy to the bees that were drawn to them and those of us who could watch this magical symbiotic relationship at work in those special days of the English midsummer when the sun shone and the days went on and on.
The Socialist Gardener
I remember my father recounting a conversation he had with our gardener in Norfolk in the 90s. Apparently whilst my father cleared the stones from the field our gardener stood watching him and whilst he did this went into some detail about how he would like wealth re-distributed from the rich to the poor( and probably work distributed the other way). It was certainly a slightly ironic conversation and I’ve often wondered if there is a gardener out there (probably called Jeremy!) who spends half his time lecturing his clients about the Socialist ideal and the other half at rallies protesting for workers rights when his own work ethic leaves something to be desired.
As a side note to this the other conversation my father repeated to me about gardening was about a woman he had met , of a certain age, who had asked him if he would come round to her house to trim her hedges. It was obviously a euphemism used by country woman of a certain age to invite gentleman callers round for a bit of no-strings fun. The fact was that my father made it clear he had no interest in her and even if he had the last thing he would have done is gone round to trim her hedges( he probably would have brought round a bottle of bubbles!)
The Twelve Saints of Norfolk
When I was on my walk through Suffolk the last leg was from Southwold to Homersfield through the villages known as The Saints. This is because it has about 12 different parish churches which are attached to different Saints but are all in a small area. It was a charmingly rural and empty part of Suffolk to walk through with many of the traditional Suffolk pink houses surrounded by small moats filled with yellow flag and meadowsweet. Presumably this is because this was border country on the River Waveney which separates Norfolk and Suffolk and so these moats provided some protection from smugglers!
I was later told that this area was nicknamed ‘The Bermuda Triangle of Suffolk’ because of the frequency with which outsiders got lost here. Ironically, it was perhaps the easiest part of my walk as the footpaths were straighter and the main roads less common. It was also nice to see the surprised looks on local anglers’ faces as I rambled past their fishing lake( I was probably the most interesting thing they saw that day!).
The most famous church there is Illkeshall St Andrew which has one of the few remaining wheels of fortune still visible on its walls( the other is in Rochester Cathedral, Kent).Before the Reformation the interior of churches were covered with wall paintings in the Catholic taste but the Puritans felt any colour that was used in worshipping ‘Our Lord’ was completely wrong so painted over many wall paintings with whitewash. Luckily the one at this church survived.
‘The Wheel of Fortune’ was a common subject to be painted on medieval church walls and was used to illustrate the importance of humility when subjected to the will of God e.g one day you could be wealthy and powerful and the next poor and insignificant. Anyway, it struck a cord with my own Christian beliefs and is a very beautiful painting as well.
But the church in the Saints that I have the most fondness for I came across quite by chance and have been unable to find again( I don’t even know its name despite various internet searches). This is because it is hidden from the road but quite accessible by the footpath. The churchyard was strewn with hybridized primroses of many shades and the light and dust fell gently from the clear windows inside the church in a way peculiarly unique to Suffolk. The sun was shining brilliantly that day and I felt truly free as I wandered into these churches that time and people seem to have forgotten despite some invisible hand paying for the church to be maintained. It did make me think of John Betjeman’s poem about the Evangelical poor church mouse and the decaying atmosphere of the church it lived in.
I realize that as a developed country rural life has changed hugely in the last century but it would be nice to think that some pockets of rural England will remain in my beloved East Anglia so that the villages don’t all become semi-suburban as they are in large parts of the Cotswolds.
A gardener out of this world 