The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,48
going to sell, but I might eventually have room to make a display of facsimiles of the plan and letters, and perhaps some antique garden implements,’ he said. ‘There’s an old outbuilding adjoining the other side of the wall from the shop, so it might be possible to knock through into that to create the space. But that’ll have to be later.’
‘You’ve got a shop?’
‘The other end of the ticket office. It’s not ready yet, though. We’ll have to get a shift on with it, because Easter’s at the end of next week.’
He turned back to the plan on the wall and said, ‘So, that’s how the garden came about. The circular layout is unusual for the time, though not unique.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought, and I noticed it wasn’t flat, either – it seems to rise towards the middle.’
‘Only a bit, but the mid-level planting in the central beds makes it look higher. It slopes down slightly to a little sunken round herb garden in the middle, with an old sundial.’
His fingers traced the outlines of the quartered mid-level beds. ‘We’re trying to plant these up mainly with things that would have been there before, but this one at the lower end of the garden was the area flattened and used for vegetable growing during the war. It’s just an overgrown mess at the moment and I haven’t quite decided what to do with it.’
‘And then there are two more tall beds beyond it, at the bottom of the garden, matching the ones at this end?’ I guessed.
‘Yes, and low beds on either side of the central circle.’
‘I think I’ll grasp the layout a lot better when I actually walk around it,’ I hinted, but first he insisted on showing me, with printed transparent overlays, the later tweaks and changes that generations of Graces had made to the original.
‘And I’ve added a couple of new features of my own,’ he said, indicating the right-hand corner at the further end of the garden with one long finger. ‘This is a boggy area where a spring rises, so I’m turning it into a wetland habitat with a wooden walkway … and in the corner opposite is the Poison Garden.’
‘Poison Garden?’ I echoed.
‘You’ll see – come on, I’ll give you a guided tour all to yourself. It’ll be good practice for when we open.’
We took the wide gravel path between two beds of trees and large shrubs towards the heart of the garden, crossing the circular path on the way. I had to admit, it all made much more sense, now I’d seen the plan.
‘Last year I began by restoring all the original paths and a few later ones that led to seating areas among the mid-level herb beds … or what will be the mid-level herb beds, when I’ve finished replanting them.’
‘You’ve made a good start,’ I said as we walked down the gentle slope to a shallow, sunken garden.
‘Hyssop, herb of grace, valerian, common Solomon’s seal, chamomile, feverfew …’ he said, like an incantation. ‘So many herbs, so little time!’
The small herb garden right in the middle looked in good order, though, with brick paths radiating out from the sundial.
‘The pointer on that sundial is a sailing ship – that’s unusual,’ I said. ‘It looks very old.’
‘It is, and the ship is a galleon.’ He looked down at the herbs, all low-growing kinds, like thyme, mint and marjoram, and said: ‘Luckily, Gertie likes this small herb garden so she’s kept it in good order … and James has maintained and renewed the dwarf lavender hedges around the side beds, even if he’s ignored the overgrown beds themselves! Really, those two are a law unto themselves.’
‘You said they were part time – what hours do they work now?’
‘I pay them from twelve till four at the moment … but they appear and disappear at will, any time between about ten and five. That’ll have to change a bit when we open to the public, though.’
I expect Ned, being tall, had a view out of the sunken garden in all directions, but I could see only the lower end, the great segment of hummocky grass and weeds that Ned had mentioned.
‘That’s where you said they put the vegetable plot during the war, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. According to some old photos, they were in long, narrow beds with grass paths between,’ Ned said. ‘I’ve wondered about keeping that layout, though with something other than vegetables in the beds, of course.’