It is twenty years to the day since we moved into our house. Friday 13th, an easy date to remember. It was a busy week, the week we moved. We were at the top of a chain about four houses long, so it's a miracle that it ever happened. Somebody in the chain wanted accelerated completion, so we had a week from exchange to completion, seven days in which to find a removal firm and pack up all our belongings. The Systems Administrator was fired on the day that we exchanged contracts, and my brother's wedding was two days later. We decided it would put a damper on the proceedings to tell my parents that the SA was without job at the precise moment that our mortgage was about to more than double, and the SA remained mute as my uncle held forth at the reception about the uncertainty of City employment.
The City had such a hire and fire mentality that there was no shame in being sacked. Indeed, I'm not entirely confident that I knew anyone working in a front office capacity who hadn't been, at some point in their career. In the end it proved a great move for the SA, whose next job introduced him to the future boss, great friend, and cricketing companion, under whose auspices the SA ceased to be an investment manager and shifted to the middle office, with generally satisfactory results.
The move was unexpectedly painless. Friday 13th August 1993 was a bright, sunny day. The little one-van removal firm we managed to find who were free at a week's notice proved competent, nothing was broken apart from one house plant, and they were obliging about carrying boxes to the right rooms. We had a lot of books even then, so there was some heavy lifting, but they were delighted to be able to back their van right up to the double doors leading into the downstairs sitting room. I was impressed at how they knew, among the chaos of boxes, exactly where the one had gone containing the cans of beer bought for their benefit. After they'd left we stood in our new, incredibly shabby house, gazing out through the huge curtainless windows at the view, and the mixture of bad turf and ploughed ground that was going to be our garden, and were very happy.
They could not back the van right up to the doors now, because the grass turning circle has become a gravel garden, and there is a pond in front of the double doors, besides all the plants, and a breakwater built out of timber recycled from actual coastal defences. We have an awful lot more books as well, compared to twenty years ago. In fact, when I think of what a palaver it is going to be moving out, I rather hope we manage to die first, leaving other people to sort it.
The garden after twenty years is a real garden. I look at it sometimes, and am faintly astonished that everything in it was conceived of, constructed and planted by us, apart from the bad turf, and some of that has been moved. Some of the first shrubs to be planted are now magnificent specimens, some reached their natural span in far less than two decades and are no more, others succumbed to cold, drought, waterlogging, rabbits, or disease. There are some good bits of design, mostly the Systems Administrator's, and some glaring errors of layout. I wish I had known twenty years ago what I know now, but of course it has taken me those years of trial and error, reading and study to reach the point I'm at now, and in another couple of decades I'll regret how ignorant I still was in my fifties.
Flowering highlights of the garden on the 13th August 2013 include: A fine stand of Crocosmia 'Lucifer'. A lot of Verbena bonariensis. A large Yucca flaccida 'Ivory' in full bloom. Finally, at the third attempt, a Romneya coulteri with several stems bearing white poppy-like flowers. Two flourishing Zauschneria californica, a 'Dublin' and a 'Western Hills'. A good Hydrangea aspera 'Mauvette', though I must trim the boundary willow which has yet again dropped down in front of it. A Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle', whose flowers I feel should be larger, but at least it has not flopped over this year. A Hydrangea paniculata, which is supposed to be 'Limelight', though I am not entirely sure that it is, growing back strongly and blooming well after hard pruning in March. Hydrangea paniculata 'Vanille Fraise', crammed into a slightly too small and too dry spot, but flowering valiantly. The pale straw coloured, floating heads of Stipa gigantea, the giant oat grass. Lots of Agapanthus, which has seeded around the gravel in the Italian garden, and this year is joined by the first ever flower on my potted 'Queen Mum', a giant dome of white flowers shaded blue at the base. Dahlias. In the conservatory a recently repotted Hoya has started flowering for the first time, extraordinary pendant clusters of fleshy pink flowers that scarcely seem real.
There are some good leaves too. Leaves are with you for far longer than most flowers, so we have Japanese maples, the giant leaves of stooled Paulownia, ferns, the aromatic stems of rosemary, the silvery, twisted branches of the olive, purple Cotinus, the yellow stemmed bamboo now confined within a circle of galvanised lawn edging, plus the clipped forms of the topiary yew and domes of box, done freehand and slightly wonky. There's some good bark too, three different species of birch, and the cinnamon brown trunk of Arbutus x andrachnoides, gamely leafing up again after yet another cold winter.
The collection of sculptures and garden ornaments has grown over the years, to the point where some areas of the garden couldn't accommodate any more without starting to look cluttered. I'm quite proud of some of my cobble detailing in the paths, and the Systems Administrator's mark II decking in red cedar is as neat as a professional job.
I'm pleased with it. It would be better if it were less weedy, and not infested with horsetail, and if we'd allowed for somewhere for loose loads of mulch and manure to be dumped, and thought more carefully about where to put the greenouse, but it has character, a feeling of energy, barely suppressed chaos, and playfulness. Not bad for the first twenty years.
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