The Irony of Life: How I Lost My Garden, and How I’m Taking One Small Corner Back
There’s a strange irony to my life that I keep circling back to. I’ve had gardens my entire life — real ones, tiny ones, borrowed ones, rented ones, stony ones, patio ones. I can remember being ten years old, kneeling in the rocky ground of Whitley, trying to grow my first carrot. The soil was full of flint, the ground was stubborn, and the carrot was… well, let’s just say it was more determination than vegetable. But I was proud of it. I grew something. I made something happen.
I helped neighbors with their gardens, getting paid a £1 at a young age. I dug up Roman coins in the soil, buried glass. I learned the rhythm of seasons before I learned the rhythm of adulthood (CoPilot adding texture, rhythm I like it). Gardens were always my place — my quiet, my joy, my little patch of control in a world that rarely made sense, true as a child.
Every home I lived in had a garden that matched the size of my life at the time. A small flat with a small patio. A medium house with a medium garden. Rushbrook Road — the immaculate one. Inside and outside matched; the garden was an extension of the house, and the house was an extension of me. I used every inch of that space. It was a post stamp paradise, and I made it beautiful.
Then life got bigger. The houses got bigger. The responsibilities got bigger. And the garden… disappeared.
Not literally — but in the way that matters. The bigger the house, the more housework. The more housework, the less garden. The more life demanded, the less I had left to give to the soil. And then my back went. And then Sweden happened — patios and pots again, rented spaces with no time for gardening, not mine to-do so.
And then we moved here. The “final house.” The one that was supposed to be the place before the downsize, the place where I’d finally have my cottage style garden — lavender, roses, a corner of shade, a corner of sun. A place to sit. A place to breathe.
I tried. I planted. And everything I planted got mowed down.
The roses. The lavender. The little bushes. Even the rhododendron I’d always wanted.
Gone in one sweep of the lawnmower.
And now? Now I have a garden full of rats, thistles, overgrown bushes and trees. A garden where it’s hard to tell weed from plant, chaos from growth. A garden that mirrors the house — too big, too much, too heavy, too expensive, too exhausting.
It’s a metaphor I didn’t ask for. The smaller my life was, the more garden I had. The more I gained, the more I lost. And at 53, I find myself with no garden at all — not really. Not one I can manage, its full of thorn bushes, I took my hand off the pulse, and they won. Its not one I can bend back into the shape of the life I imagined, overwelmed.
But here’s the twist. The tiniest twist. The kind that matters.
Because Rich didn’t cut the lawn early this year, the daisies grew. Knee high. Wild. Defiant. Beautiful, head bobbing in proud glory. It's not pink and blue jobs here but a lawn mower from another life that's heavy temperamental needs petrol and hard to work.
And for the first time in years, I took something back. A corner. Just a corner. But a corner that sparks joy.
I grew a wild daisy from seed. I kept it alive. I made something happen again. A wild Bee garden and its finally thriving......
I can’t reclaim the whole garden. I can’t undo the years or the exhaustion or the overwhelm. But I can make a bug hotel. I can keep a patch of daisies. I can take one step at a time.
Maybe that’s the real metaphor. Not the loss — but the corner. The tiny piece of life I can still shape with my own hands.
And for now, that’s enough.
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