I was told by three different doctors that I’d had a stroke. I knew I hadn’t, but they told me I should go home and rest for three days. I came home and spent eight hours in the garden. I’m 83 and the love of my life is the garden.
My earliest memories are of being in the garden with my dad. He grew all the vegetables and I would prepare a little patch in the corner. Then I’d get a few seeds out of his packet. That was my first gardening, watching my vegetables grow. Then it was flowers. We had a garden by the side of a road. I bought a few packets of seeds and people would come by and see the flowers, because all the seeds grew. I have green fingers, that’s what they tell me.
We moved here because Jim and I wanted a garden and a house. Below that was allotments, and the holder wanted to sell, so we ended up with three-fifths of an acre. I was told it was far too much for me, and it was – you can see that –but it’s beautiful. There were more than 300 trees to dig out. I had a cold frame at one end, made from old windows, and grew plants in that. As we made spaces, I put in what was ready to move.
There was no plan. As each plot was cleared, you walked around it. That was how the paths were created in all directions, and that’s how I lose garden visitors. Groups come and like to go round with me, so I can explain how I do things.
I believe in recycling. If someone throws something out, I take it. Stones, wood, brick, baths for rainwater. I put down carpets on the steep paths. They’re easy to walk on, need no weeding and if you have time you can brush them. One carpet came from the church president, who was getting a new one. I give healing every week at the spiritualist church and I play the organ on Sundays.
I’ve spent very little on plants. I’ve brought in cuttings and seeds from the whole country. Everything I put in seems to grow. One pretty rose was in a car park by the railway. I grew a chestnut from a conker and another shrub as a cutting from the church garden. I don’t know the names of all the plants, but I know who or where they are from. That’s what matters.
My favourite spot
Everywhere. Right now, it’s sitting by these Canterbury bells, listening to a blackbird in the apple tree that I grew from a pip.
• How does your garden grow? Email space@theguardian.com
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