IT'S IN THE DETAIL

Photo: This fungi is growing in an area no larger than an egg box. Its proportions are perfect and an inspiration to any garden design.

My mower is still in for repair. I don’t mind so much as it’s given me an opportunity to just sit in the garden without thinking that I should be working (although the hedges do need trimming back).

I’ve decided to make good use of the sunshine and not content with the rather uncomfortable garden chairs, I have dragged a full sized mattress outside and plonked it down on decking and added a few large fluffy pillows. It’s being in bed and getting a suntan at the same time….bliss. Now I can look up into the sky watching the clouds roll by and totally ignore the hedges and anything else that is deciding to let it’s hair down and run wild.

RUNNING WILD
Talking of running wild, my lads break my blissful avoidance by jumping on top of me and letting me know of some bright red fungi that’s popped up overnight in the undergrowth. As comfortable as I am, I can’t miss an opportunity for taking a few pictures, so I drag myself up out of bed and grab the camera.

Children have a knack of finding things that as adults we are overlook. Children tend to know every inch of their garden and beyond. As a youngster I had a very exciting playground as our garden backed onto an old disused sand quarry. Everything was there to keep a lad interested all year. In summer we would build rafts on the small lakes that appeared in the hollows, one so deep that there was a rumour about it being bottomless. There were sheer sandstone cliff faces where you could climb, carve your name in and jump off and land on the soft slopes below. Hidden to most people was a disused train tunnel that stretched for half a mile underground and took you to another part of the quarry. This was magical when walking through the darkness to the distant light, you felt as though you were being taken to another world. It was our Narnia wardrobe. We didn’t notice the rats. I spent most of my spare time in the quarry and knew every square centimetre, from where the frogs were in the summer to the best places to sledge when the snow came in winter. Luckily for her, my mum knew nothing about my escapades.

FUNGI
We are at the fungi. It’s very impressive. I take a couple of snaps and look around for more; it’s the right time of year after all. In a dead tree base I see some really small white toadstools. They are tiny and the whole micro climate they are in is no bigger than an egg carton, but looking at it close up it could be a contender for the best designed garden at Chelsea or Bloom. Everything is perfect; all of the small plants have found their ideal growing places. I take the picture and put a red rowan berry in it to get a feeling of size and perspective. In doing so though I ruined the effect. I meddled with nature. All you can see is the berry out of proportion. I take it out and leave the perfect design as I found it.



DETAIL
Noticing small details like this is a real treat. When we have small children visiting and they are bored and restless, Julie will take them outside where they immediately drop all whining. Younglings (as my eldest son calls them) will always find something to fascinate them. A ladybird to look at, buttercups to hold under their chins to see if they like butter, making daisy chains or sucking the nectar out of fuchsia flowers. They can spot beetles at twenty paces and find all the best hiding places. It doesn’t take much to capture a child’s imagination; being outside is enough. There is so much drama and beauty in a garden. The spider’s webs have been so beautiful in these misty mornings. As I stop to admire one, I notice a spider spinning her web. A damselfly interrupts her work getting trapped in the sticky threads. An epic battle ensues and just when the spider defeats the fly, seemingly winning her breakfast, another spider from a nearby web, who had been biding her time, moves in and does battle ending up victorious.

SMALL TREASURES
A back yard can have as many treasures as a big garden. A window box with parsley to munch, dandelions coming up through a crack in the concrete, little red spiders running along a sunny wall. We often add a few playthings to a garden to encourage children out. A football is a standard for boys but again as an adult we don’t really know what will capture the imagination. Think of Christmas when a child would rather play with the box the present came in. A bucket full of water and a few sticks and stones or piece of chalk to mark out a hopscotch game is often enough for a child to lose themselves in play.

One thing’s for sure, whether the grass is long or short, whether the hedges are neat and tidy, children won’t see work to do; they will see adventure.