Taking a break from arduous life and death decisions, we were delighted to invite our first non-familial visitors over in the afternoon. Nigel and his wife Cheryle are old friends I originally met through the annual birding fest that is the Rutland Birdfair. Nige, although he is far too modest to admit it, is one of Britain’s finest birders and has probably forgotten more about our feathered friends than I will ever know, whilst Cheryle, who claims to be a birding widow, also happens to be much more interested and knowledgeable than she lets on. Much more pertinent to this book, they are also the most wonderful gardeners and Christina and I were both keen to try and emulate elements of what they had managed to achieve in their own gorgeous Sussex garden over the last decade.
Arriving with a house-warming present in the form of a basket of native primroses, we were secretly hoping that rather than coming up with specific suggestions as to what we could put where, they would think it more useful to not allow us to become daunted by the enormous amount of work ahead of us but instead to be encouraging and supportive of our vision … and they didn’t disappoint.
The party of four almost instantly split, so while Cheryle and Christina wandered around the garden excitedly chattering away about building flower-rich herbaceous borders, Nigel and I scrambled around the wooded bank, indulging in one of every birder’s favourite games: guessing which birds we could expect to record in the garden over the next year. Kingfishers, grey wagtails and bullfinches were all excitedly discussed in turn as I proudly took Nigel on the first proper guided tour of our soon to be back-garden nature reserve. Our guests couldn’t have been better first visitors as they faithfully dished out encouraging words and inspiration in huge dollops.
Being a couple that have to work for a living, it would not be until the following weekend that we would have any opportunity to get stuck into our urgent ‘to-do’ list, as the evenings were still far too dark to carry out anything meaningful outside after work. However, during this downtime Christina was also able to put her artistic bent to good use by drawing a few basic sketches of the current layout of the garden in her notebook. Onto this plan we were then able to insert potential locations for the various wildlife-friendly features we planned to install later in the year. This enabled us, for example, to trial on paper the best places to dig the herbaceous borders and the pond – two essential components of any self-respecting wildlife garden, and features that would also be added to our garden, hopefully sooner rather than later!
The weekend duly arrived, with a promise of cold and clear weather, or, in other words, perfect conditions for our first practical day in the garden. Initially, prior to bowsaws and loppers being wielded, I wanted to ensure that sufficient numbers of ‘before’ photos were taken. These would then ensure that people visiting our beautiful swan of a garden would not only be able to marvel at the end product, but also be able to appreciate the full transformation from original ugly duckling too!
Keen to ensure her secateurs saw some action immediately, Christina decided to begin work on our postage-stamp-sized front garden. Having already agreed that tackling both gardens in the first year would have been a bridge too far, we had decided that the much bigger job of the back garden would take priority. There were, however, simple measures that could be carried out in the front to make it look more presentable. So while I snapped away, Christina set to heavily pruning a couple of long-neglected roses and re-training a tired-looking Japanese quince.
When I came round to the front I found Christina armed with secateurs and slowly disappearing behind a pile of severed branches. ‘It’s going to look a lot worse before it gets better’ was her pre-prepared answer to my tremulous question asking why she had really needed to remove so much. Pointing out that she had consulted none other than the mighty Bob Flowerdew, who had written a book on pruning which I had given to her for Christmas some six weeks earlier, I had to concede that on this occasion she knew better than me what she was doing.
Tidying up after Christina is a technique at which admittedly I have had much practice over the last six years, and so while she stood back to admire her handiwork it was left to me to ferry her brash through to the designated dumping zone – a dark corner of the garden behind the garage. This done, I was then keen to encourage her to put those massacring skills to good use in the back garden – we still had a ‘to-do’ list as long as my arm!
We had decided that, wherever possible, the wooded bank should mostly consist of native species, with the only exceptions being those ornamental aliens that had significant wildlife value. This meant that the two small confers, a leylandii cypress (my least favourite garden plant by some distance, for obvious reasons) and a stunted variegated male holly bush, were soon made short change of as I felled them with a bowsaw and Christina lopped the offending articles into more portable pieces. We then combined forces to drag the material over the fence and across to the dumping pile, which was now assuming ever-larger proportions. After all the talking and planning it felt great to at last get physical and stuck in, and the work was made even more enjoyable by the fact that the weather was so cold. As we grafted away whilst building up a sweat in the process we could see our own breath condensing in the cold air right in front of us.
Christina truly had the bit between her teeth, and, having seen off the aliens in a frenzy of lopping, wanted to turn her attentions to the ash tree in the centre of the bank, which she thought made the area look dark and dingy. Having already agreed that the rowan should be removed, to say I was incredibly reluctant to remove another mature native tree would have been an understatement. As the conversation tipped over from a robust difference of opinion into raised voices and then a full-blown argument, the crux became clear. Put simply, the subtext of the disagreement was about nothing less than the future direction of the garden; with Christina in one corner wanting primarily a garden while I wanted it to go down the Nature Reserve route.
The main battle line was going to be the wooded bank, with Christina maintaining it was too messy, and so by removing more vegetation and tidying it up, this would create more light in a dark corner of the garden. I countered that of course woodlands were often a bit dark and messy by their very nature, and therefore it would be better for the wildlife if the bank were to remain largely wild and woolly. I then hammered home my point by arguing that removing the ash tree would break a vital link in the chain, meaning that the continued canopy cover across the bottom of the garden would disappear. This would have the knock-on effect of denying lots of shy woodland birds and mammals the wildlife corridor they needed to move between the gardens. Building up another head of steam, I pointed out that in no way were we in any position to safely remove a mature tree with the tools and experience we had, so it would have to stay. But ever the conciliator, I offered as a compromise my promise that the more formal part of the garden, closer to the house, would be much more manicured and tidy.
While I would define my relationship with Christina as one consisting of reasonably regular arguments, we do make up soon after, and we were both in the act of apologising when interrupted by the sound of Lorraine’s voice next door, keen to hear how our first practical morning in the garden was going.
Pleased that our neighbours wanted to take such an interest in our plot, we filled them in on our rationale behind removing the aliens in order both to give more space to the (more cherished) native species and to attempt to open up the woodland a touch more to enable better views of the brook. On hearing the water mentioned, Lorraine’s eyes twinkled as she declared how her and Andy had always coveted our river frontage, and then surprised us by revealing that they had previously entertained the idea of trying to purchase the bottom of our garden after Mr Gregory had moved out. Privately of course both Christina and I had ‘too