Lorrie's garden
Lorrie is getting on in years, and she hasn't been very well for quite a while. But still she manages to spend time in her garden taking cuttings, propagating and planting.
Lorrie moved into the house and started the garden in 1950. She tells me that when she first arrived all there was was an apricot tree in the back garden.
Lorrie's garden is 62 years old. Yet Laurie is philosophical when talking about its future. She knows that when the house is sold, the house and garden will be turned into another MacMansion like the others in the street. Lorrie the quintessential gardener knows that nothing is forever.
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| Lorrie with her son in the garden |
I hope the garden fashion reverts back to how it used to be. Then maybe more gardens will be like Lorrie's: an exuberant, enthusiastic tangle of plantings, tended by a passionate, experienced and knowledgable plantswoman.
So much more interesting than a flat garden. Understand thoughts about what will happen when new people take it over one day. Hope they will be able to love it and develop it rather than dismantle it.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope that Lorrie will be able to take care of her garden in future as well. Her garden looks really cozy and beautiful.
ReplyDeleteLorrie's charming house looks perfect nestling in a garden filled with beautiful plants. Lorrie is right about new owners - a garden never stands still, if it did, Lorrie would have stopped propagating and planting anything new years ago. Still... let's hope any future owners will think carefully about the relationship between a house and garden before embracing the latest garden trend.
ReplyDeletePart of what makes gardens so special is their ephemeral nature. Like the performance of a beautiful piece of music, it brightens all who experience it and then fades into memory, leaving us changed for the better. I do hope that Lorrie's garden can continue to be tended and her lovely home enjoyed by whoever comes next but even if it isn't, it will have been a true thing of beauty which has given her great joy and all of us a moment of admiration.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Lorrie's dog is adorable!
ReplyDeleteas you say, wish fashion would rediscover - a garden, a place filled with plants, carefully chosen, nurtured and enjoyed.
ReplyDeleteIt will be a sad day when Lorrie's garden leaves us. It is hard to find such a lovely garden as this around these days. Perhaps it is up to us to set a new garden trend.
ReplyDeletehi Karen, important rallying cry to action! I guess it's too easy and comfortable just 'talking' with people who agree with us, somehow we need to get out there and try to change the world.
DeleteI have every single intention and aspiration to be as active in the garden as Lorrie is when I reach her age! You tell her double thumbs up for me!
ReplyDeleteme too - I once worked with someone whose mother died with her secateurs in her hands - what a wonderful way to go!
DeleteIt's the people like Lorrie who keep plants from becoming extinct. If left to the big box garden centers, we would all be growing the same thing.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic garden Lorrie has made with a real tapestry of wonderful plants.I'm sure it gives her so much pleasure and hopefully it will do the same for someone else.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately property developers only see the space to build more, I think it is happening all over the world, how can we open their eyes to the beauty of a garden?
Great post! These sorts of gardens are precious - as is the knowledge the Lorrie has after so many years. A real botanical treasure!
ReplyDeleteWow! A very lovely garden indeed. I love the shades of the blooms. Thanks a lot for sharing your garden. Indeed a treasure!
ReplyDeleteJoy @ www.eGardenSheds.com.au/
What a wonderful garden! Oh, to have a garden 62 years old. It seems such a shame that it may eventually get demolished - although, that is probably what will happen. People don't seem to have the time for gardening much anymore, or perhaps it's the knowledge of getting our hands dirty and growing things that is lacking. I know she gets a lot of joy from her garden. It is lovely.
ReplyDeleteThis is a gorgeous garden Catmint and well done you for writing about it, and the gorgeous pictures. Old gardens are like well aged wine, they have depth and flavour and personality. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteGreat post about a fine gardener.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful garden. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteLorrie's Garden is so special. It is sad when the garden is not maintained with new owners...that happened with my old house...they ripped it all out, cut down the great trees and planted grass...ugghh...lovely post..thx for sharing this special lady and her garden!
ReplyDeleteI too, Catmint, look forward to the day when land will be revered, not seen as a trade-able profit return. Money sort of comes last to me, in the scheme of things, not first.
ReplyDeleteme too Faisal, i hate the way land is built on here now that it has become so ludicrously expensive.
DeleteWhat a lovely woman, she's truly an inspiration, I can only hope my body holds together long enough to allow me to garden for that long. We can always cross our fingers and hope that when her house goes up for sale that a gardener will fall in love with it just the way it is. It's difficult, but I really try to live in the moment and not worry about what will become of my garden after I'm gone.
ReplyDeleteWhat an incredible place! I wish I could see it in person and meet her as well. I wish people valued gardens as much as they did other things.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely post catmint.
ReplyDeleteGardening, like many other leisure arts is often tossed to one side in this frenetic world where instant gratification is the order of the day.
It is hard when a garden is maimed by new owners. When we left our old house the new owners not only covered it in grey concrete render but pulled up all the bulbs and cut down the crenellated hedges that my father had lovingly maintained.
I wished that I had not driven past to see what it looked like.
Hi Kirk, we know that gardens are impermanent and ephemeral, and try not to care about what happens to them in the future, but of course we do care.
DeleteWhat a wonderful garden she's created over the years - I so hope it doesn't get dug up and paved over! So few people seem to value gardens nowadays, sadly.
ReplyDeleteI hope my garden looks half as exuberant as this one does by the time I've done with it ...if you ever finish a garden?!
Lorrie is awesome. I don't know why anyone would turn that into a McMansion when that house is so gorgeous! Really, they do that all the time here and it's ridiculous. If i were rich, I'd either get a house in a richer neighborhood, or maybe build an addition or something while keeping the integrity of the original house. Shameful. Well, hopefully someone with sense and style will inherit the house one day in the distant future. Lorrie has done an amazing joy over the years!
ReplyDeleteCatmint, I would like to endorse all the wonderful things which your visitors have said about Lorrie and her beautiful garden. Just thinking though, how pleased is she going to be in seeing what you have done, I am sure it will touch her very deeply.
ReplyDeleteWhat a sweet post. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the person who lives in the home next buys it for the garden? Can you imagine being that person and discovering with each season all the "presents" left by Lorrie? What an exuberant gardener she is!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments, dear cyberfriends. I know Lorrie and her family appreciated them too.
ReplyDeleteIt's a joy to see a garden tended by someone who clearly loves it and gets to see the seasons change what the garden offers to its inhabitants. It's wonderful, too, to see a garden that offers a gardener a chance to see changes as plants grow and mature. It's the other sorts of changes that always worry me--the kind where one gardener takes over another garden, or when a garden is obliterated for no reasons better than creating a suburban monstrosity--that are so painful to view. I hope this garden a long life and many engaged caretakers.
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteGreat to meet you. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a lovely comment.
How wonderful this garden is, as you say, a tangle of beautiful plants, an old cottage garden. I am with you, the modern structured look leaves a lot to be desired. Plants don't grow in an orderly fashion if left to nature, they are free, unhindered by man's manipulation, let them dance I say!
Now following your lovely blog.
Di
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What a charming house and garden. Lorrie has been blessed to have enjoyed her little patch of land for 62 years. Her efforts will not be forgotten because you, dear Catmint, have recorded them for posterity.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, those lovely Spanish lavenders are annuals here. But definitely worth replacing every year!
That house and garden will remain adorable with people, the reason for changing the garden these days to more manageable ones is because people lack time there, but go and compete with money-making jobs. But I am sure if they have time, they will still like Lorrie's style of garden. But how old is she now? My mother is 82 and also still active like her tending her garden and her pet chickens and goats, in addition to her cats.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrea, I don't know exactly how old Lorrie is - in her 80s or 90s. I think it's wonderful your mother is still able to be so active, she is lucky to have kept her health.
DeleteI love this garden, such a wonderful blend of planting with so much life and a slight element of ordered chaos, and the house really is beautiful too.
ReplyDeleteGaz Alternative Eden
it is beautiful, completely different to the latest style of housing that's going up everywhere ...sigh.
DeleteThank you for sharing this beautiful garden with us! Lorrie's garden is full of personality! I suspect Lorrie is an exuberant person, so full of life even at her age. I would hope someone will buy her place who would appreciate both the house and its garden and who will seek to maintain its charm. But you are right. Most people are so busy they just want something that is easy to maintain, rather than something that nourishes the soul.
ReplyDeleteI suppose they must find their soul elsewhere, but not in nature. Hard for us to comprehend, isn't it?
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