Over the past couple of weeks I have spent an awful lot of hours in the garden, weeding, planting and filling it with future delights. Not my garden, I hasten to add… mine is both very green and very untidy, having been invaded by the homeless house sparrows who used to live in next door’s ivy. When the rampant robe was removed last autumn, the colony was obliged to seek alternative accommodation and apparently my honeysuckle hedge was ideal.
Now this is all very well, and I am delighted to have them… and Ani, of course, finds them a constant source of joy to stalk and bounce at. They tease her, she bounces… they tease her some more. The only trouble is that now they have nests in my honeysuckle, the climbing roses there are ten feet high and I daren’t disturb the birds and their eggs to cut the lot back. My garden, therefore, will have to wait and I will simply watch the fledglings grow instead of flowers this spring.
Not that I am short of flowers. A wander round my son’s garden in the early morning sun is beauty enough as it bursts into exuberance. Splashes of light and colour vie with each other for prominence. This is no formal planting… the garden itself is all angles and ordered lines, built to be a haven, wholly accessible to my son, even back then when there seemed little hope of him getting around it on his own two feet without support. Oddly, it was the garden that drew him to try and I will not easily forget going down one morning to find he had taken himself down to the far end of the garden to sunbathe…
So the planting is as informal as I can get it, with rambling roses spilling through the beds and swathes of flowers festooning the squared edges of the pond. At this time of year, however, it is the smaller plants that come into their own, each flower a geometric miracle of nature, brought to glowing life by the iridescence of beetles, the buzzing of insects and the fairy wings of butterflies.
In two of the beds are bird feeders, each one better stocked than my larder, though I am not partial to mealworms myself, the robins that are nesting there do seem to appreciate them and have become both fearless and inquisitive as we spend time in the garden.
A wren is a regular visitor, the starlings come in every few minutes, and over the course of the day there seems to be every variety of finch in the area, along with the thrushes, blackbirds and the resident pigeons.
My son is fortunate in the location of his home. When he was looking for a place to buy the address would have put him off immediately…one of those streets that seem to acquire a bad reputation … but the dilapidated bungalow had too many possibilities not to at least give it a look. The place was in need of gutting and almost starting from scratch to make it fit his needs, and the garden seemed a dank, dark place.
On the other hand, five minutes from the centre of town, the house stands behind the other houses on the road, so far back that few would know it was there and surrounded by the canopies of trees filled with song. The street itself is a long one and at this end is filled with small, cottagey homes and good neighbours.
Eight months of work, all day, every day, and the place was transformed, inside and out, to the ideal bachelor pad with every imaginable bit of technology and a low maintenance, accessible garden filled with light, life and perfume.
Four years on and the wood has mellowed, the roses and bushes have grown and gaps had appeared in the planting. You have no idea how many plants you can carry in one small car till you have been shopping with my son. Now, however, as he plants his garden and feeds his birds, my son can see spring come to life as the seasons turn and look out on an urban oasis of colour and light.
This morning the buds on the fremontedenron look almost ready to burst, there are buds on the roses growing over the fence and the clematis will soon be a riot of pink festooning the trellis. The yellow bells of the sophora form a backdrop to the smiling pansies and gaiety of the newly planted dahliettas… and the sun is shining.Spring has definitely sprung 🙂
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
Gorgeous! I love photographing flowers as well!
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I love my camera…especially on days like today 🙂
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Thank you and your son for.sharing your beautiful garden !
I’ve been away for a couple of weeks and am really wondering what’s happening back in my own garden. So it was just lovely to get your garden report.
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Well, I know you are a fair bit north of me, so perhaps not quite so far along yet, though a friend in Fife has her garden in full bloom 🙂
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Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
Some wonderful images of beautiful flowers and plants that must be a delight to wander amongst. Sue Vincent is my guest this Sunday on Defining Moments and I hope that you will pop in and find out more about this very talented and delightful writer.
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How wonderful for your son and you!! Looks great!!
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Thanks, Ellen. I love his garden 🙂
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Oh I do love a good flower garden! Sounds and looks like you’ve made Nick a little piece of heaven 🙂
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It is a perfect garden for its purpose, and beautiful too 🙂
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Obviously your time has been well spent Sue judging by the brilliant pictures. A gardener, a writer and a photographer too.You’re a gem.
xxx Massive Hugs xxx
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I cook too 😉
Thanks, David. Hugs xxx
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How beautiful, Sue! Seems like your son has come to appreciate the gifts of nature as perhaps he might not have before his life took this unexpected turn. And the flowers… wow! Are they all in his garden? Simply stunning! Must be a wonderful place to sunbathe!
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He already has a suntan, Ali. 🙂
Yes, they are all from his garden, and you are right; one of the gifts from his story is that he can now see the beauty around him and experience it more fully than ever before.
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Wow, you are further advanced than South London that’s for sure! Great piccies as usual, Sue
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I’m just 40 miles north west of London, so you can’t be far behind 🙂
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What a lovely, lovely post. It was a joy to read and to look at! 🙂
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Thanks, Carol. The flowers just lifted the morning 🙂
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If the flowers, and your mom-ness, are any indication-your son’s home is amazing.
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It is 🙂 We designed it around him… and it works.
Quite apart from the fact it seems to have every functional gadget he could find 🙂
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I know it cannot possibly make up for what he’s gone through. But I hope it does provide him with the comfort and serenity it appears to have. It does indeed look like I thought it would…..amazing! Thank you for sharing this!!! ❤
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He still sees the balance as positive, as it wakened him to life and living in a way he did not know before.
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Gorgeous Sue! I’m going back to the UK next week. Not sure I’ll have much left in the garden but we’ll try again…:)
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Mine is desperate for sorting… but not while the sparrows are nesting 🙂
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What a stunning Garden. I, too, have been flat out and must stop ripping down ivy because of nesting birds. I’m glad it is a place of pleasure for your son.
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He has some beautiful things in there 🙂
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Beautiful and so colorful! What is the green plant with red centers? It looks like a type of spurge.
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It is… a Euphorbia X Martinii. Really striking and when the dew is on it those red centres sparkle like rubies 🙂
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Sounds wonderful! Just looked it up…Too bad my planting zone is too cold for it, otherwise it’d be on my list!
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That’s a shame. I love the euphorbias… nature’s sculptures.
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There are a couple that grow well here, but this one is just a tad too tender. I’ll just have to admire it from afar. 🙂
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🙂 This one was a new one on me. I hope it keeps thriving here 🙂
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A warming story how your son acquired this house and all the lovely flowers you’ve tended and photographed. I love all the flowers, especially the blue ones, and of course the yellow, which always makes me smile. ❤ ❤
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Yellow just brings the sun into the garden, doesn’t it? 🙂 The blues look wonderful against them too.
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Yes and yes. Blue is such a surreal color for a flower to me. I’m always struck dumb when I come upon blue in the garden.
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The rtue blues, yes, I agree.. the softer ones, those not so much. But then… you get a forest full of bluebells and the perfume of heaven…:)
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At your mention the perfume of heaven, I want to mention a friend and I just finished talking about the loss of smell and how terrible that must be. So much to miss.
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I would hate to lose that too. Though I wouldn’t miss wet dog, I have to say…
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Wet dog is off the table. ❤
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Unless there is cheese when she is on the table if I’m not looking… 😉
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😀 😀 I know what you mean. I have a bad cat who’s always sniffing for food on my counters although well fed.
A bit of a misunderstanding about my previous comment. I call it ‘lost in translation’.
Wet dog is off the table meant 1) we’ll exclude that smell, 2) we won’t consider that. 😀
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Ani just works on the principle that what’s mine is hers. 🙂
I know.. I just have a dreadful, twisted sense of humour sometimes… 😉
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That’s okay. 😀 😀 😀
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❤ 🙂
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Your flowers are beautiful. We have the first daffodils and if it stops raining, pictures of them tomorrow. My garden is a mess, but the flowers are coming up anyway. They are so optimistic.
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Nature doesn’t seem to mind dead grass and unpruned bushes, so why should we? 🙂
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Reblogged this on oshriradhekrishnabole.
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I was just about to ask about the green plant, when Eliza beat me to it. Stunning photographs, Sue, of a really beautiful garden.
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Thank you 🙂 It is looking gorgeous this morning 🙂
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Reblogged this on Anita & Jaye Dawes.
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How fortunate your son is to have a place like that for his home. It sounds like a real riot of color. 🙂
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It is a beautiful home and garden, Suzanne.
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A true garden of earthly delights!
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Gorgeous, isn’t it ? I left him sunbathing earlier…
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