In the pursuit of a picture-perfect garden, happiness can sometimes get forgotten, or left low down the ‘must do’ list. I am secretly planning a nature garden that echoes an important garden, the Japanese Gardens in Rivington, and this is an important garden to me for all the wrong reasons. It is a pleasure garden built by a millionaire who knew nothing about plants and promptly filled all the terraces with invasive Rhododendron ponticum, but for me this was the first garden that I loved to get lost in.
The monumental-towering rhododendron canopies dwarfed me, and the vibrant purple flowers sang to me.that early feeling, but I want it to be resilient to changes of climate, we’re getting more rain and rhododendrons thrive in it. Sitting under that invasive canopy of a as a child has had more of an impact on me than any garden trend.
