My Dad loved his garden, probably equally as much as he loved horse racing. He used to sit for hours just taking it in. He'd get home from work in the summer, and go lay down next to the fishpond (a rectangular hole in the ground left by an old air raid shelter we found when digging one day shortly after we moved to the house - we excavated it, filled it, stuck goldfish in and the occasional stickleback from the local canal), soaking up the late afternoon sun.
Even shortly after his first heart attack, I remember seeing him out there banging in fence posts.
We (the 3 brothers and I, and all the kids in the street) had no garden interest, ofc. Other than to be out there playing football pretending to be Steve Heighway, Stan Bowles, or Rodney Marsh. Breaking the garage window (numerous times), greenhouse panes, and the odd branch on one of Dad's plants.
Anyway, when Dad passed, the mantle of 'gardener' passed to me (as the eldest). I had to learn what the plants were, water in summer, mow the lawn, tidy up in autumn, and generally keep it in the way he'd have liked.
There were peonies he'd planted, ferns, perennial geraniums, an aged Laburnum and Ornamental Cherry in the front. Various other perennials and shrubs like Hydrangeas. Snowdrops towards the end of winter, crocuses, and daffodils all marking the arrival of spring each year.
I learned what started to appear and when, when it was at it's best, and when best was over and it was time for the next plants to flourish and flower.
So that, ofc, created an emotional attachment with gardens and plants that solidified and grew over the years, and with each successive garden of my own (now numbering 5, I think).
When Mum sold that house, I took clumps of the Geraniums and the ferns, some of the bulbs. Seeds from the Laburnum. They've all made an appearance from the original stock in each 'new' garden.
I'd like to think Dad approved. Each one has a bit of him in it. It was all for him. As the years have passed, I've realised it wasn't just for him, but for me, too. Both of us combined. A kind of faint or abstract sense of permanence. An endurance of spirit that arguably - in the grand scheme of all things - means nothing, but at the same time means everything.
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I think that over time, I've come to see a garden as a piece of art. A permanently changing piece of art, all be it on the backdrop of a (likely) permanent core structure. I'd say I have zero artistic qualities (as in the 'normally' accepted sense of artists and their art), so maybe this is the one thing where Chaumi's 'art' will endure.
When I'm gone, maybe one of my sons or daughter will be writing something similar 50 years from now.
