Gardens seem to grow imperceptibly, but when we look back we are amazed at how much has changed. Make sure you enjoy that journey, says Monty
Longmeadow most days since 1992 and especially since I got my first digital camera in April 1999. All these pictures are filed by date and I use them to remind myself of details like when we planted something and what was growing alongside it. Going back over 30 years of the garden is not always easy. I often think the garden looks better in the past than it does now, but the truth is that it is a fallacy to think that a garden should get better and better as a natural progression. Having gardened on the same plot for 33 years now I realise that all gardens go through various cycles and inevitably obey the laws of gravity – what goes up must come down.
These cycles are, I would suggest, three-, seven- and 12-year. Most of us will be familiar with the three-year one, whereby you can take a piece of waste ground or bare grass and turn it into a garden full of life and colour. The lawn will be regularly mown and it can be highly productive with vegetables, herbs and some fruit. It will not be mature but it will be fully operational. The seven-year cycle is one of maturity of most things except trees. Small trees have reached a size that works within the context of a border or small garden, most hedges, even yew, can attain their final height and width within seven years, most shrubs are at their peak and most people will find it difficult to age the garden accurately. It feels established, albeit with the potential to get bigger and better. This is really the point of delusion, the stage when you can fall into the trap of thinking that all progress in a garden is upwards and onwards.
At 12 years, gardens are, in my experience, at their peak. This inevitably means that without editing, cutting back, replacing and renewing, things will gradually get worse. Look back over 12 years’ worth of pictures and inevitably you realise just how much things have grown and changed – which you are barely aware of when you live with something day by day.
And now we have reached Easter, which is the biggest weekend for the horticultural trade and for many gardeners the start of the gardening year, the first time when they have the opportunity to go out into – fingers crossed – some spring sunshine and start to prepare and plant and garden creatively.
The earliest timing of a modern Easter was in 1818 when it fell on 22 March – and that w
