‘Snowdrops,daffodils and aconites start the year, arriving just when you need them. Winters can be bleak’The wall around the garden is made of stones from the preceding Elizabethan house, or 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, or 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 quit in Northumberland. We’ve tried, and 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.
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Source: theguardian.com