Garden Update

The Rose Garden

Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo.… Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage.

M.R.James

 I have long been a fan of the writing of M. R James, and so when I recently discovered an audiobook compilation of all thirty-four of his ghost stories I downloaded it in an instant. At eighteen hours long, it has been my companion for several weeks now, and I have enjoyed immensely the immersion in cursed stately homes, haunted whistles, twisting shrouds that stalk the landscape, pagan rituals and, I was pleased to learn, a surprising number of gardens. The stories of M.R James are almost all inextricably tied to the landscapes they take as settings, and the way he describes gardens speaks of somebody with a horticultural fluency – here is somebody who has shoved open a rusted gate and ‘inconvenienced’ a stand of nettles, or pushed his way into an overgrown yew maze with all ‘the dankness and darkness, and smell of crushed goosegrass’.

The gardens of his stories are overgrown, antiquarian, often hostile, and as stage sets are indubitably as central to the story as any main character. One such story is The Rose Garden, in which the owners of a large country estate entreat their gardener to remove what they assume is an old summerhouse, and are subjected to terrifying events replayed from the memory of the earth itself. It’s testament to these powerful and addictive short stories that I approached the recent removal of an old rose garden in - of all things - a maze of sorts, with not a small amount of trepidation. I circumvented this by inviting a brilliant group of trainees from the WFGA, who I’m pleased to report are hitherto un-haunted, to come and take part in a skills day. It was a huge success, and the group made short work of clearing an unloved area of the garden to reveal nothing more dastardly than dry shade which we’ll deal with by planting the following:

Athyrium filix-femina

Dryopteris affinis

Dryopteris goldieana

Dryopteris wallichiana

Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae

Luzula nivea

Melica uniflora f. albida

Polystichum aculeatum

Polystichum munitum

What’s left of December will be eaten up by more border clearance, grape pruning, and bulb planting. This year I’ve decided to top the tulip pots with wallflowers (‘Bowles’s Mauve’ and ‘Constant Cheer’), which are new to me, but I’m looking forward to their spicy scent and rich colours. As this is my last update of 2025, I’ll wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I’ll be here until the Friday before the big day, and will be walking to my car with a glance over my shoulder to avoid bringing home any supernatural interlopers, because after all such things do happen.

 Kate