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The obvious thing to do
was to become a botanist. I couldn't leave my collection, so
read botany at nearby Reading University, then went up to Edinburgh
to do a PhD, on the genus Muscari. In between looking at chromosomes,
I managed a marvellously educative collecting trip to Greece,
where I found out a bit about life, but not much about grape
hyacinths. Classical taxonomy being
in decline, I went to Liverpool University to look at yet more
chromosomes. That was something of a disaster, and I managed
to get a job back in my beloved Edinburgh. My new post
was as a taxonomist studying vegetable varieties. This was not
especially interesting, and gardening somehow took over. I began
restoring an urban Georgian garden (and its house), wrote a book
on Georgian Gardens, sold the house, dumped the job, and bought
a lovely but ruinous 17th century village house on the shores
of the Firth of Forth at Belhaven. My then partner James and I slowly
got the garden built and the house restored, and we began selling
plants from our rapidly increasing collection. This soon became
a nursery called Plants from the Past. We managed to buy an adjoining
walled garden, complete with enchanting ruined 18th century summerhouse,
and we began to create terraces and a parterre planted with flowers
of about 1700. I wrote more books and began columns for various
newspapers. After fifteen years, and with huge regret, we sold
both house and land, and the garden no longer exists. I now currently garden in a tiny 18th century patch in a Borders village; the garden still has paths, seat, sundial and urns from the 1790's, and James and I added pools, and lots of new plants and plantings. He's now a psychotherapist working in Edinburgh and Glasgow. I am still writing about gardens and gardening, photographing, and doing some advisory and design work. I also garden with Alec in a pretty little garden in London, and something very nice in Lincolnshire - see my blog for pictures |
