Looking for inspiration in all the write places

I’VE just returned from a few days in the Lake District where I visited Dove Cottage, home of Worsdworth who eulogised about daffodils, and Hill Top Farm, the place where Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit escaped the clutches of gardener Mr Mcgregor.

In both places the spirit of the authors was still tangible and you could sense how much they loved both cultivated flowers and the natural world around them.

Writers have always had a lot to say about gardens, perhaps because most of them work from home where, stuck for a chapter heading or pithy phrase, they can turn their hand to a spot of weeding and sowing to help overcome writer’s block.

I’ve done it myself, pulling on my wellies as a deadline approaches, then returning to the keyboard, muddy but invigorated, ready to dash off the 500 words that just an hour earlier refused to form themselves into coherent sentences.

Between books, children’s author Roald Dahl devoted himself almost entirely to his garden and Sir Walter Scott was as passionate about the flowers he grow at Abbotsford, in the Borders, as he was about his wonderful library.

Plants seep into books in strange and exciting ways. The whomping willow and dangerous mandrakes that inhabit the Harry Potter books have their roots in folklore, where some plants were believed to have magical qualities.

Dorothy’s slumbers in the poppy fields were an unfavourable comment on the United State’s government in the era when The Wizard Of Oz was penned.

Gardens have been the setting for many classic children’s books, perhaps

because they are the first places kids can escape from their parents and enjoy a sense of freedom.

Writing is a sedentary occupation, so gardening provides an alternative to those long hours spent at a desk. After a full day at the keyboard you may have nothing to show for your work. That is never the case in the garden where, even when progress is slow, it is possible to stand back and admire your efforts.

Some writers, like Vita Sackville-west, become more famous for their flowers than for their literary works. Vita’s poetry was nothing to write home about, but at Sissinghurst in Kent she created a garden that has become recognised as a masterpiece.

And it is truly epic, a tour-de-force of design and detailed planting that has become the template for countless other gardens around the world.

I’ve long thought of starting a collection of plants with literary connections, so I’ve begun with the same wild daffodils that inspired Wordsworth and I’m also growing radishes, but just like Mr Mcgregor, I’m keeping a watch for hungry rabbits.