About

I first started my path into the garden when I fell off a horse back in March 2015. I broke my collarbone and damaged my back, and I was incapacitated for a few weeks, right as spring was getting underway. I loved sitting out in my mum's garden in the spring sun while I was getting better. When I was finally able to venture out with her a few weeks later, we bought a few plants I could pot up. I started with a few pots and window boxes, some plants, some bare-root roses.

I found that being out in nature, touching the soil, planting things and watching them grow, watching all the flora and fauna it brought, gave me a huge amount of happiness. It was a healing process. Since then, I've always dabbled in spring, potting up and bringing colour back into the garden every year.

When I moved into the coach house, the garden was just a shaded laneway with no sun. We extended it out so we could reinstate the proper garden that had once been there. I had two beds along the back fence and two small ones I wanted rose bushes in. I bought two David Austin roses, a beautiful yellow Arthur Bell with the most gorgeous scent, and a traditional red. I filled the beds with annuals, some worked, some didn't, and wildflowers crept in and took over in the best way.

In 2023, Storm Barra brought down a giant oak tree that hit the house, crushed the garden, and destroyed the fence and furniture. Getting tradespeople and insurance sorted took a long time, and we were left in limbo with the garden for a while. Storms have played havoc with things we've fixed since, and I still feel a quiet anxiety every time that season comes around.

In 2024 and into 2025, my father's health declined a great deal, and it was an incredibly difficult and distressing time for both of us. I was caring for him in his own house, alongside my own work, and eventually he needed a level of care that my sister and I couldn't give him in his apartment. I needed somewhere to put all of that, it was a very hard time. So that February, I started the garden completely from scratch. I bought two greenhouses from Aldi, stripped back the flower beds and made more, planted seeds, bought perennials, found bulbs wherever I could get a good deal. Every spare evening, every weekend, whenever I needed to step away from everything else, I was out there.

It became a form of therapy. Watching something I'd planted grow, watching the wildlife it brought in, gave me a peace I couldn't find anywhere else during that time. I watched Gardeners' World, followed Monty Don and every plant account I could find, and fell down the rabbit hole properly. That was the first year I built something that actually looked like a garden. My father passed away not long after. I threw myself into the garden to cope with the grief, and I'm still navigating parts of that, in truth. Grief is such a personal thing, and I didn't really understand it until it arrived at my own door. The garden has been my place of solace ever since and it’s carried me through one of the darkest periods of my life. I don't think I could have gotten through this time without it.

It helps my mind, my body, my soul. It's a bug I've caught, and I don't think it's ever going to leave me. Me and my little patch, I think we're in this for good.