Page 76 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘More of those stands with ropes hung between them, then?’ I suggested.
‘Good idea – we’ve got plenty of them. In fact, we could rope off the whole corner, from the end of my office to the other side of the Potting Shed door, because none of that is open to the public. We can add the potted plants to pretty it up later.’
The job Ned wanted me to do first was to put in more of the water-loving plants around the waterfall and in the bed on the far side of the stream above it.
When I’d run out of things to plant, Gertie, who was passing, roped me in to help her with the small central herb garden. She’d brought out some she’d been growing on and my task was to put them in the beds as directed: three kinds of thyme and several of mint, though we’d have to keep an eye on that, to make sure it didn’t try to take over the whole garden.
It certainly seemed to be all hands on deck that morning, for when I finally made my escape, even Steve had arrived, presumably having opened up the monastic ruins and the convenient conveniences, and was doing a little desultory hoeing and weeding along the borders,where the first fresh weeds of the year were sticking their green fingers through the loam. Mind you, in the opinion of most gardeners, many of the things we were actually nurturing here were weeds – but then, as they say, a weed is just a plant in the wrong place.
I said as much later to Ned in the rose garden, when he came to see how I was doing.
‘Elf told me last year that the best nettles for brewing her beer came from either side of the wall at the end of Gert’s vegetable patch, so I told her I’d leave them there for her to pick. I should have some around the place anyway, even though I don’t want them in the actual garden, because they do have some medicinal qualities.’
‘I’ve heard of nettle tea,’ I said, ‘though I’m not sure what it does for you.’
‘I’m starting to think I should have kept that rhubarb in the vegetable garden too, because whatever Gert is feeding it on, it’s getting ginormous.’
It was easy to guess what was making it grow so much, because Gert had several ripe and fruity-smelling compost heaps at various stages, which she lavished with loving care.
‘I could put in some different kinds of lavender,’ Ned mused. ‘That has lots of uses too, including protecting against the plague.’
‘Do you get a lot of that in Jericho’s End?’
‘No, and the Black Death missed us out entirely,’ he said. ‘I’d better go back and see how Charlie’s doing. We finished with the signboards and I left him in the barn, unpacking the pieces of the gazebo. We’re not putting it up yet; I just needed to be sure it was all there.’
That sounded like more hours of harmless fun later on.
I returned to my endless rose pruning, trying to finish off the small top part of the garden.
The paths were nicely cleared, the roses neatly pruned of dead wood and leggy, unwanted suckers. I just needed to do a little more, then clean the beds so they could be fed and mulched.
There was a honeysuckle hidden behind the rose in the top corner,perhaps seeded from the one in the lavender garden, the stems twined around the railings: survival of the twistiest.
It was twisting round some of the nearest roses, too, but once I’d pruned those enough to get at it, I soon had it cut back to size. The flowers would be pretty, and the bees would like them, though they’d be permanently drunk on lavender and roses once everything started to bloom.
Charlie came to fetch me for a late lunch and we all ate sociably together in the Potting Shed, Ned and Charlie perching on one of the workbenches and me on an upturned wooden crate. Gertie had brought enough food for ten people as usual, but it seemed that Charlie had the sort of appetite that could hoover up any amount of sandwiches and rib-sticking lardy cake.
She said to him approvingly that he was a proper lad.
After the last of the treacly tea was drunk, plans were made for what was left of the afternoon.
Steve went off to clean up the Village Hut after the onslaught of that morning’s mother and toddler session and Gert and Charlie intended digging in the last of the plant consignment. James was waiting for the undercoat to dry on the metal parts of the old garden barrow and said he was going round with the latest batch of refurbished metal plant tags and replacing the temporary plastic ones with them.
‘Busy, busy, busy,’ Ned said. ‘And I’m off to Great Mumming to pick out half a dozen tree-sized pots at Terrapotter. It’s a fascinating place, Marnie, and I’d suggest you came with me, but Lex – my friend who owns it – isn’t there today and anyway, a good look round would take too long.’
‘I’d need to be back in time to check the River Walk, anyway,’ I said regretfully. ‘I’d love to see it when there’s more time, though.’
‘Lex learned how to make those really huge terracotta pots abroad, after he left college, mostly in Greece,’ Ned said. ‘A friend helps him. It’s a two-man job for the whoppers.’
‘I should think it is,’ I said.
‘You’d like Lex. He’s just married a portrait painter called Meg Harkness. Myfy says she’s brilliant, but I haven’t met her yet. I haven’t been socializing that much outside the valley since I came back.’
‘Will they have what you want in stock, or make them specially?’ asked Charlie, interested.
‘I rang Lex the other day and he said he had some that I might like in the storeroom – they make straight reproductions of early pots, and also ones that are in traditional shapes, but with averyuntraditional twist. I quite fancy the idea of those in the Grace Garden – old and new combined in one pot.’
I wished more than ever that I could go and see Terrapotter, but duty called. I got off my box, my bottom probably neatly patterned by the slats. ‘I’ll get back to my roses. At this rate, we should be able to let the visitors loose in there in another couple of days.’
