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Who let those children in ?!
I was told that it was not possible to grow anything in
the ground.
It was poisoned and very heavy clay. Full of slugs and snails and pests
and disease.
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The first year I was busy and not much happened on my poor neglected
piece of land.
Apart from a sea of buttercups.
The second year I planted nasturtiums - I knew enough
to know they like poor soil. Did they !
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They stretched 8 feet in each direction. By the end of
the
season the grass was buried beneath a sea of orange and red
flowers.
And the following year the buttercups were all gone.
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Encouraged by my power to discover the unknown, I
started planting !
I'd never had a garden before but had helped my Dad a
little (when I was little) 20 years previously.
I borrowed some books from him.
And got some plants from a friend's Mum.
Those early pioneers are still here 17 years later and
flourishing !
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Getting a little bushier year by year... But very
little that I planted one Spring would survive the following Winter.
Lack of expertise and pretty poor resources in the
early years meant slow progress... I wish I'd had this website !
....
(...which is why I'm putting all this up here on the
Internet now I guess )
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Still.. those nasturtiums seem to be helping the
soil
but they're not growing so big anymore. Hmm, something must
be
changing.
But the Pear Trees are growing... will they
survive the Winter ???
And the sedums (tall white, pictured right) and
the
marigolds (left) seem to like it here... and those little pink dianthus
on the right... after years of love they all died... bar one! 17 years
later it's still with me and pictured at the top of this page
!
And see that silvery ground cover on the left at
the bottom ? Look how small that was 2 photographs ago !
It's happening ... stick with it.
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But gradually more lives than dies and even in
the
Winter it was starting to look like things were moving forwards
... and upwards.
I'd
read a bit here and a bit there but basically I started to
allow the
garden to lead me... To this day I say the Garden Made Me Do It !
... if something liked growing
there, leave
it ! If it died, it died. It was tough love in my
Garden -
sink or swim !!
So I let the Garden make the
decisions...
And so one year Spring really sprung !
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And then ... one colourful Summer ...
Every year before that had been hard - everything
died... start
over again.. what again ? Not again... OK once more dear friends .. and
finally ... starting to look quite nice.. I'm starting to feel a bit
proud...
Friends are starting to notice...
Purple and red and pink and yellow ! The Magic had
started.... the charm, the spell... in Latin, karmen means both charm
and spell. I guess because they are the same thing.
Since that Summer the Garden loses little each year and
gains much ...
and grows ..
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and grows...
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I learned a few things along the way and if you want to
make paradise
out of a rubbish tip and you don't know where to start I offer a few
tips, a few inventions and a step-by-step guide....
I decided a long tme ago that I couldn't change the
World ..
but I've since settled very comfortably into the idea that I could
change MY world ...
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