In our new series #GMinyourgarden, we’re peeking over the fence into gardens across the country to explore their places in our lives today. Not large, designer-led spaces, but small-scale personal gardens lovingly nurtured by their creators (and which nurture them right back!).
This week, our Head Gardener Matt Collins shares a rare look at his own garden in Hampshire:
“The garden at home is small yet oddly long; a bit of a channel. Moving in two years ago, what we inherited was predominantly lawn, which I’ve gradually etched away at for flowers.
The intent was to get as far as I could for free, or on the cheap: plants propagated from division, cuttings, seeds and sneaky snippings; manure from a local smallholding; a cold-frame constructed from unearthed rubble, trees as birthday presents… It’s taking longer than I hoped to cover the encircling fences with climbers, however bit by bit the herbage gathers pace.
Owing to its slight size, this is more a garden of ‘details’ than of soothing, stylish repetitions(!), and under ‘details’ file the toy cars, discarded sticks and creative interventions contributed by our young children, and the mismatched flowers that are forever going to seed quicker than I can tend them.
But I feel very fortunate in having a space in which to nurture whimsical plantings — plants gifted by friends, spotted on a trip abroad or snaffled impulsively from a seed-head somewhere; that, for me, was always the draw of a small garden of my own.”