A walk through Veddw Garden.

I’ve often wanted to know how a non gardener experiences the garden at Veddw. I know about gardeners: they wonder what the plants are, they wonder who does the work, and how, and they admire the weeds.

So, to discover a different view, I invited a friend to walk the garden and give her responses on the way. Alison agreed and recorded her visit. We were out, she walked alone.

It made a huge recording, so we have divided it up into manageable parts and this is the first. You can take a virtual walk round the garden eventually – find out what it’s really like.

If you want to hear Alison, here is the recording of this first walk:

And here is the transcript, starting just a couple of sentences after the begining of the recording, with pictures to show where she is.

The 12th of August 2021.

Alison

I’ve never really navigated the garden with a map before and I suspect there’s all sorts of things here that I had absolutely no idea about. So I’m going to use a mixture of the map and my instinct and see where that takes me. It’s raining by the way, so I’ll keep the map in its cover.

This is, I think, one of the great things – that you come around this little corridor of bushes and into this extraordinary view.

Which you really just need to stand and gawp at for a minute, because: well, obviously over to the left, there’s a view I know well, very beautiful.

But, looking straight ahead the striking thing is the extraordinary shapes. This is what you first think: Wow. This is, this is not just some random collection of plants. There’s something really interesting going on here. And that’s really nice.

The columns over the far side: I hadn’t really noticed before….I’d been aware of the box, the square areas and the humpy ones, if you like. But I hadn’t really taken in the columns before and now I’m thinking that they’re putting me in mind of the empty column in Trafalgar Square. I’m starting to wonder what you might put on top of one, one day.

Lots of different shapes and textures and colours. The colours are mostly at this point quite muted. Various pinks and some dark reds over there, but in the foreground is this fantastic scarlet colour. I’m sure I should know what this is. (Anne: Crocosmia ‘Lucifer) I know Mike knows what it is because he’s told me before but I can’t remember. But there’s wonderful red slightly spiky flower. And that’s really nice to come into because I’m a great one for bright colours, primary colours. And so my eyes are always drawn to that.

Now what usually happens at this point when I come in, is, I think, how do I get down there? And I’m never quite sure which way to go. I can see three paths in front of me. And what I usually do is take the middle one down or the fork to the left. So what I’m going to do today is take the right-hand one, because I don’t usually do that.

Just looking around me. There’s chicken wire around some plants, which suggests to me they’re newly planted, and I shouldn’t tread on them. Rabbit droppings. (Anne – no, deer droppings! ) Oh, you’ve got rabbits. So have we. So I’m coming down to a wavy hedge and little path up there to the left and I think I should have to walk up there just because I can. It kind of looks like I’m walking into some marsh because of the reedy type grass up ahead which is probably not reed at all. I don’t know what it is, some kind of grass and it’s really lovely because up here now, I’m next to a menhir now, I feel really very enclosed. It’s quite secret. I really like that.

There’s no way I’m going to be able to tell you where I am at any point by naming anything, because I’m just rubbish at that. So, I will just sort of, describe. I’m walking downhill and I’ve just come to the first wavy hedge and I just love the wavy hedge because I know that that is quite a pain to keep like that, because you’ve got to reach quite high and know what you’re trying to achieve. You haven’t done any peacocks or ostriches or hippopotamuses or anything, it’s just waves but no, they’re really nice. I’m not going to complain about that.

So now I’ve got to decide whether to go straight on or go to the left and this is one of the perplexing things about your garden – is you’ve got lots of choices and so I’m always worried I’m going to miss something if I take the wrong turning.

I want you to say, go here, here, here and here, go in this direction, it’ll take you to everything and then I would know I’d done it. But on the other hand, I also like to choose. So I’m just a pain really.

I’m in this little area. Oh, wow. This is sort of what have I got here? This is a little square of garden. In the background, there’s lots of smallish leaved, well middle-sized leaved flowers with leaves with white flowers on the top. And then there’s this kind of bed of what almost like lilies. So, immediately thinking maybe there’s water underneath though I’m sure there isn’t. There are no flowers on them. I wonder if they ever have flowers or not, because they do look remarkably like water lilies to me. And what then looks like a bit of horse chestnut growing up the middle.

I’m just wandering through – all this has got very narrow, I have to push through all the plants to get through here. And I’ve come into a sort of enclosure with some wooden frames with bars. So now it feels like I’ve come into the zoo somehow. There’s something that mustn’t get out and it says the Disaster Zone number one, but I don’t know what that means. Is it on the list? (Anne: it’s because this garden has failed three times)

No, no it isn’t. So I’m not quite sure why that’s the Disaster Zone. Nothing else seems to be labelled. A couple of chairs, nice to see. An interesting globey thing at the end. So I’m trying to think … whoops, oh, there’s a step there. I didn’t notice that. Ow! And bees everywhere. Fantastic, so many bees.

I’m not quite sure why these things are caged. I suppose it’s to stop them creeping all over the path. They look like playpens. Like you put children into playpens. And yeah, they look slightly annoyed about it. But I see that one has actually crept its way out. Something with very complicated pointy leaves and pink flowers has decided that it’s going to grow on the outside of the playpen. So that’s good. A bit of Independence there.

I’m coming back out of them, watching those steps there, I didn’t notice those steps. I was too busy looking around. And come back to the lilies. And that’s the end of that. I don’t seem to be able to go any further that way, so that I’ve done that bit now, that’s good. So now I’m going to go.

I can’t read this map I’m looking at. I don’t know where I am. Where do I start – Car Park. Okay good. So I’ve just gone. Where have I gone? I don’t know where I’ve gone. No. No, I’ll be able to find where I am when I get to the pool. I’ll be able to navigate myself there, but I don’t know where I’ve just been. I’m rubbish with maps.

Okay, so I’m now walking down one of the corridors between two bits of high hedge. And yeah, like now I when I look up to my left I can see the lovely Veddw Vedw Veddow Fedw seat.

I love that idea. I just love the way that you’ve got these different spellings and you show that it’s going in different directions, you know. It’s not like it’s started as one thing and ended up consolidating as something else. You can see that this place really doesn’t know what it’s called.

So I’m going to turn down to my right now. So I’ve got my back to that bench. And I’ve come into another area with some fencing in a nice long black bench that I could sit on, but I won’t because it’s raining. I thought it was going to be nice today. I did check the weather forecast.

Oh, and this is I love this part. There is a long toilet brushy kind of plant thing which has got loads of types of waspy bee things that are….there’s one that’s really long and thin, I s’pose but it’s a kind of wasp and there’s a bumblebee and there’s a, one that looks more like a honeybee. Oh, it’s wonderful seeing all these different kinds of insects on it. They were obviously having a lovely time.

I’m going to carry on down here. There was just a single pink petunia like plant. I don’t know if it is a petunia or not, but it’s kind of shaped like that. (Anne: oh??) And yeah, that’s really pretty and I’ve come out now, where am I? Right, now I’m in a corridor and up to my right is a kind of a cut-out bird of prey. I’m going to walk up and say hello to that.

End of first walk. Here it is on the garden plan:

More to come, in a while.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to check me out on Garden Rant.