When public gardens were allowed to open, it was glorious to finally get out of the house and visit an historical walled garden! Clouds and some wind gusts didn’t make brilliant weather, but it worked fine for our first outing in seventeen weeks.

Dianthus and delphinium dressed in wonderfully outrageous colours. Some plants I’d only seen in magazines and TV—the blue violet prickly globes of echinops, looking like they’d flown in from another planet, and tall spires of yellow mullein.  Others, such as the towering broad-leafed plants bearing large frilly, daisy-like flowers were new to me, but an internet search doesn’t locate them. The stately hollyhocks reminded me of my long-ago friend Ann, who taught me to cook with herbs (pronounced with a hard “h,” the British way)—and how to preserve them. Her garden always grew hollyhocks. These hollyhocks stood tall in dignified colours of deep red and a red deeper still—almost black.

I love being surrounded by a garden—up to my eyes, even above my head. Regimented rows around my ankles can be pretty but I love the exuberance of height.

The centre of the walled garden was filled with geometric-shaped beds of roses in many colour varieties—my grandmother would have loved it. I had to bend low to smell the lovelies, but the fragrance rewarded me. During lockdown, fragrance has encouraged me in new ways.

The gardener told us that it’s hard to keep staff or volunteers—they start with a romantic notion of being surrounded by beauty then leave when they have to weed every day. Beauty takes work, but with the right heart, it’s joyful work.

What’s your favourite English garden? Which flowers do you love to grow?