What I’ve learned after a decade at
Confidence comes when you garden the way you want, says Ruth
In this issue we celebrate Amateur Gardening’s 140th anniversary, a significant milestone considering that just a few months back the future of the world’s oldest weekly publication was hanging in the balance. I also have an anniversary with AG, as I have now been writing in its pages for ten years - and what a life-changing decade it has proved to be!
Joining AG coincided with the family’s move to our current house, which has a good sized garden that we revamped from scratch, giving me a blankish slate on which to hone my gardening know-how. We replaced a massive, dying leylandii hedge with native trees and wild roses that the birds love, grubbed up several overplanted shrubs to make space and let in more light, and we planted a few fruit trees and built raised beds for edibles.
It’s a little rough around the edges, which suits us, though it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The lawns aren’t mowed in summer, we leave patches of weeds for pollinators and prefer to use the garden for pottering and enjoyment rather than meticulously creating a pristine plot with neatly-trimmed bushes and buzz-cut lawns.
The work we put in when we started creating a wildlife-friendly, low-maintenance garden is paying off now as it matures. I love being out there, clearing my head with a spot of weeding or a batch of sowing, feeling the satisfaction that comes with the annual reappearance of perennials, watching starlings teach their garrulous fledglings how to score some nuts from the feeders, spotting the year’s first brimstone butterfly dancing across the grass.
We have seen a decade of massive change in horticulture, not least thanks to the pandemic that got the whole world gardening, and the proposed ban on peat composts that has caused consternation among gardeners and environmentalists alike. But gardening is much as it was 140 years ago when AG came into being, an individualistic pastime that has no set template, that benefits and feeds (often literally) body, mind and soul - and long may it stay that way.