Moving house is a bag of mixed emotions. There’s the anticipation of a fresh start, the lure of unfamiliar surroundings, and a chance to make your mark on a new home.

But if you loved your previous place and, like me, spent time and money shaping and nurturing it, moving is a bittersweet experience. And while you can pack up your belongings, taking the garden with you is not so easy.

In many ways, I’m a victim of my own success. In my efforts to create a beautiful garden on a Northern slope, I gave my plants an environment in which they thrived and put down roots. Lots of roots. Digging up shrubs and small trees proved impossible and so I left them behind, hopeful that the new owner would take pleasure in cherry blossom, dogwood and red robins.

Looking on the bright side (not easy with British weather), there are established plants in my new garden. While much of the back is laid to lawn (I have ambitious plans for that), now that spring has sprung, the garden is shooting back to life.

Perhaps most impressive is a white hellebore, its frilly leaves a triumph of nature. My plant identification app tells me this is a Lenten Rose, but I suspect it has a more complicated genus. Also poking through the soil is a raft of Muscari, their blue grape-like flowers begging to be adored. They sit cheek by jowl with a host of golden daffodils, the unmistakable clarion call of warmer weather.

Also budding into life is a series of roses, including one which I’m pretty sure is a rambler. However, with nothing to ramble along or up, it has made its own way, slouching on its side and pushing out branches against all odds. I commend its initiative.

A couple of buddleias, at least three hydrangeas, a variegated laurel and a lavender are also making their presence known. At some point, someone loved this garden, making sure to plant species which would establish themselves and come back year after year. To know that, to witness that, makes me happy.

I hope that I can do this garden justice. Yes, I want to change things, not least digging up the lawn and bringing height and colour to a relatively boring central space. There are pockets of loveliness waiting to burst into full-throttled life, but a garden dominated by lawn doesn’t exactly make the heart sing.

But I will retain the flora already here. The spring bulbs, roses, and hardy perennials are safe in my hands. And while I miss my old garden, and the blood, sweat and tears that went into keeping plants alive on an exposed hill, I look forward to a more clement environment, albeit still in the dark and true and tender North.

Words and photos by Helen Nugent, Editor of Northern Soul

 

A version of this article first appeared in Catena