A couple weeks ago, I swung past the old flat. It’s been a little over two years ago now that my beloved garden there was destroyed for six months of building works, the first and most traumatic incident with the landlord that winter which compelled us to leave. I have been back a few times since we moved, with varying emotions. In the cold months I found the emptiness of the garden gnawingly sad; in the summer, I shouted with victory that the self-seeded verbena bonariensis had romped through the margins. This time, I did a double-take: both my old garden and the neighbour’s (also owned by that landlord) had been filled with decking, sequestered by a wooden fence.
This is beautifully written and echos my experience. Thank you for expressing the importance of talking about it because I too feel guilty about the weight of my grief and felt it was somehow wrong to talk about it when I have been so fortunate to end up with gardening space that is exponentially larger than the last. But like we’ve shared, it’s not a one-to-one replacement. The relationship was deeper than I ever imagined possible, and like you I still revisit those plants and pathways in my mind and mourn the loss, even as I build new relationships and create new pathways to walk here.
Thanks so much for this very thought provoking essay. It really struck a chord as I have twice had the experience of a garden I made being reduced to sterile, bare earth (one an allotment I had kept for nearly 20 years with many fruit trees and bushes) the other more recently a larger garden which was obliterated to make an extension (even quite large trees grubbed up) when we had to move house. It can seem a small thing with all the suffering that is going on right now and I haven't really talked about it. I think about the small birds who ate the amelanchier berries or the frog that lived on the allotment. I walk around it in my head and sometimes dream about it too. Making a new garden is a good way of making it better but I still feel sad for all the ripped out plants. I am just glad I transported all the worms in my compost bin to my neighbour's garden before I left. It's good to read your work and I look forward to reading more.
This is beautifully written and echos my experience. Thank you for expressing the importance of talking about it because I too feel guilty about the weight of my grief and felt it was somehow wrong to talk about it when I have been so fortunate to end up with gardening space that is exponentially larger than the last. But like we’ve shared, it’s not a one-to-one replacement. The relationship was deeper than I ever imagined possible, and like you I still revisit those plants and pathways in my mind and mourn the loss, even as I build new relationships and create new pathways to walk here.
Thanks so much for this very thought provoking essay. It really struck a chord as I have twice had the experience of a garden I made being reduced to sterile, bare earth (one an allotment I had kept for nearly 20 years with many fruit trees and bushes) the other more recently a larger garden which was obliterated to make an extension (even quite large trees grubbed up) when we had to move house. It can seem a small thing with all the suffering that is going on right now and I haven't really talked about it. I think about the small birds who ate the amelanchier berries or the frog that lived on the allotment. I walk around it in my head and sometimes dream about it too. Making a new garden is a good way of making it better but I still feel sad for all the ripped out plants. I am just glad I transported all the worms in my compost bin to my neighbour's garden before I left. It's good to read your work and I look forward to reading more.
Meg your ability to so beautifully draw these parallels is so needed. Also loved the word 'wimble-hole', bought a smile to my face 😊
Charlotte thank you, that means so much!