All That You Can’t Leave Behind

Well, the big move happened just over three weeks ago. We just got our internet connection at the new house five days ago. I managed to have a moment to sit down, a few minutes ago.

It’s been a roller coaster of stress, strain, delight, shock, despair, happiness, contentment and above all, realisation. Realisation of just how much work there is to do on the house in terms of countless little repairs and major additions. A realisation of just how much work there is to do in the garden. Apart from a few trees and shrubs, it is a blank canvas, a very big blank canvas.

Before I show you the new garden (in a new post), it was with no small amount of sadness that I had to leave the old one behind. I do have lots and lots of pictures, but no amount of them is going to recreate the wonderful intimate personal paradise I had managed to make for myself in five years.

On the very last day, which was miserable and wet, I just had time to take a few shaky shots of the garden.

It really was a miserable day and the garden looks miserable too. If you’re familiar with my garden, you’ll notice the two large rose arches and their associated roses are missing from the picture. They’re here with us now, the roses heeled unceremoniously into holey buckets and the arches laying on the new patio, waiting patiently for my attention. Unfortunately, the daffodils couldn’t come with us and we have only a small handful – probably less than ten – of them here. That will change in good time.

The larger shrubs have remained too, including my favourites such as the skimmia and the spirea, which put on spectacular spring shows. They are too large and established to uproot and it wouldn’t be easy transporting shrubs of that size. It wouldn’t be kind on the new owners too to leave great big blank spaces of soil where plants once were. Hopefully they’ll discover how beautiful those shrubs are, even if they do look like bunches of dead twigs in the winter.

 Several of the plants in the garden were lifted or divided and have come with us. As they were uprooted and temporarily put into pots, they were staged here on the patio. You can still see the rings of soil where the pots once stood. The little plastic greenhouse and other staging has also made the move but the green wall of maturing black bamboo has remained and will hopefully continue to provide a calm green rustling oasis for the new owners.

 A wonderful specimen acer (bright red stems) also had to remain, as well as the ornamental current and choisya, being too large and established to move. The bird feeders have also remained and we hope the new owners will continue to provide the birds that flock to the garden with both food and water.

This was an incredibly warm and inviting home with an equally beautiful and abundant garden. The patio doors in the background once had the table and pair of chairs that you can see in the header image at the top of the page. I spent a great deal of time sitting there looking out at the garden and imagining new borders, plants and schemes for the season. Interestingly, the new house also has a set of patio doors that similarly look out onto the garden. While almost everything has changed, there are some habits that will continue.

As I close the chapter on this part of our lives, it is now for the new owners to make what they will of their new home and their new garden, just as it is for us to make a new home and new garden where we are now.