A FRESH INNINGS ON THE CRICKET PITCH

The Cricket Pitch is the culmination of the path that runs right through the middle of the garden like a nave (below), transforming from a flower-filled meadow in spring to mown grass with formal topiary in late summer

and autumn. For years this area was a carefully tended lawn where my sons and I played cricket. The name has stuck but now the grass is allowed to grow long and no cricket ball has been bowled there for 20 years, although plenty of tennis balls have been chased by ball-obsessed golden retrievers. My children grew uninterested in sport, I hurt my shoulder so could not bowl and the cricket net became a barrier against pigeons eating the cabbages.

We planted crocuses, wild daffodils and snake’s head fritillaries into the grass, followed by Camassia leichtlinii and tulips, and in a few years it was transformed from the strip of highly tended cricket wicket to become a long, thin meadow filled with flowers.