The wall around the garden is made of stones from the previous Elizabethan house, which my Quaker ancestors replaced in 1837. There’s a magnificent wolf tree – as lone Scots pines are known in dendrology circles – that dates from my grandparents’ time, a fine present for later generations.
My father, a military man, arranged the garden like a drill area for roses, but my wife and I have planted crab apples and cherry trees to give some shelter from the wind, which never seems to stop in Northumberland. We’ve tried, with some success, to grow things over the pergola, but perhaps my father’s vision of creating a floral Horse Guards Parade in Northumberland was more realistic.
Today, we grow flowers for the house such as peonies, sweet peas, climbing roses and lavender, as well as herbs, spuds, salad and tomatoes. Snowdrops, daffodils and aconites start the year, arriving just when you need them. Winters can be bleak.
The garden features a plaque by the poet Thomas A Clark, carved lettering by Luke Dickinson and a card by Ian Hamilton Finlay stapled to a beam in the greenhouse. I didn’t buy them specifically for the garden. I loved them anyway, but their various texts nudged me into placing them there.
There’s a short post- or pre-prandial walk across a field to an old stone pump house, home to the world’s first aeolian (wind-powered) neon poem, After John Clare, by Simon Cutts. Over the burn that borders the bottom of the garden is a glass bridge entitled Anyone, also by Cutts, and a stepping stone carved with the word Now, by Luke Dickinson. This last was a whim of mine.
I hope our children have memories of sun-filled days in the garden. I certainly do. We were on the flight path of the V bombers in the early 1960s and I still remember the thrill as Vulcans and Valiants roared over us at about 50ft. I also remember lying on my back, aged six or so, watching a spaceship disappearing into the blue. It must have been a weather balloon. Every day, when I go to pick or dig something, I wish I spent more time in the garden. Modern jet fighters aside, there’s a peace here that’s hard to find anywhere else.
My favourite spot
The greenhouse: a leaking, ad hoc disaster built round a vine my father planted in the 60s. My friend Alan has built an Eastern Bloc-style rocket boiler in it, which means we can have salad at Christmas for the price of a few bundles of twigs.
• How does your garden grow? Email space@theguardian.com
