The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,99
the one in the lavender garden, the stems twined around the railings: survival of the twistiest.
It was twisting round some of the nearest roses, too, but once I’d pruned those enough to get at it, I soon had it cut back to size. The flowers would be pretty, and the bees would like them, though they’d be permanently drunk on lavender and roses once everything started to bloom.
Charlie came to fetch me for a late lunch and we all ate sociably together in the Potting Shed, Ned and Charlie perching on one of the workbenches and me on an upturned wooden crate. Gertie had brought enough food for ten people as usual, but it seemed that Charlie had the sort of appetite that could hoover up any amount of sandwiches and rib-sticking lardy cake.
She said to him approvingly that he was a proper lad.
After the last of the treacly tea was drunk, plans were made for what was left of the afternoon.
Steve went off to clean up the Village Hut after the onslaught of that morning’s mother and toddler session and Gert and Charlie intended digging in the last of the plant consignment. James was waiting for the undercoat to dry on the metal parts of the old garden barrow and said he was going round with the latest batch of refurbished metal plant tags and replacing the temporary plastic ones with them.
‘Busy, busy, busy,’ Ned said. ‘And I’m off to Great Mumming to pick out half a dozen tree-sized pots at Terrapotter. It’s a fascinating place, Marnie, and I’d suggest you came with me, but Lex – my friend who owns it – isn’t there today and anyway, a good look round would take too long.’
‘I’d need to be back in time to check the River Walk, anyway,’ I said regretfully. ‘I’d love to see it when there’s more time, though.’
‘Lex learned how to make those really huge terracotta pots abroad, after he left college, mostly in Greece,’ Ned said. ‘A friend helps him. It’s a two-man job for the whoppers.’
‘I should think it is,’ I said.
‘You’d like Lex. He’s just married a portrait painter called Meg Harkness. Myfy says she’s brilliant, but I haven’t met her yet. I haven’t been socializing that much outside the valley since I came back.’
‘Will they have what you want in stock, or make them specially?’ asked Charlie, interested.
‘I rang Lex the other day and he said he had some that I might like in the storeroom – they make straight reproductions of early pots, and also ones that are in traditional shapes, but with a very untraditional twist. I quite fancy the idea of those in the Grace Garden – old and new combined in one pot.’
I wished more than ever that I could go and see Terrapotter, but duty called. I got off my box, my bottom probably neatly patterned by the slats. ‘I’ll get back to my roses. At this rate, we should be able to let the visitors loose in there in another couple of days.’
As I pruned, snipped and raked, I found myself singing an old song that Aunt Em often warbled as she worked in the World Garden at the Château du Monde, her own particular pet project. I think it was called ‘An English Country Garden’ and was all about the various kinds of flowers you’d once have found there. I couldn’t remember all the words – I’d google it later …
‘Hollyhocks and something else, something else and—’
I was still singing when Ned returned, though by then I had stopped work and was regarding my handiwork complacently: the rose beds in front of the walls were entirely pruned, the soil raked over, a tilted edging tile straightened and a hole dug, ready for a replacement rose. All it needed now (other than the mulch) were the original name tags putting back, and I expected the Name Tag Fairy would be along as soon as he’d finished them.
‘Ah, my little songbird is still here,’ said Ned, breaking into my reverie.
‘Are you back already?’ I demanded, surprised.
‘It’s gone four,’ he pointed out. ‘This all looks great. Are you still keeping that list of roses we need to source where they’ve given up the ghost?’
‘Of course I am. I’ve got about half a dozen. There might be more later, but I want to give some of the ropy-looking ones a chance to bounce back. Roses are amazingly resilient sometimes.’
Then suddenly, what he’d said about the time struck me and