The Garden at Old Thatch

THE GARDEN AT OLD THATCH VICTORIA CONNELLY No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Some names and locations have been changed for privacy. Victoria Connelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. Cover design by Celia Hart Photos copyright © Roy and Victoria Connelly Author photo © Roy Connelly Published by Suffolk Bunch an imprint of Cuthland Press All rights reserved. Copyright © 2023 Victoria Connelly CONTENTS Introduction My History in Gardens Meet the Old Thatch Garden Planning a Garden What I Love About Gardening Sowing the Seeds Potting Up Wildlife and Weeds The Traditional Cottage Garden Summer Arrives Sunflowers Return to Pink Thatch Foraging Flower Heaven Visitors and Visiting The Hens of Old Thatch The Walled Garden The Saddest Summer The Second Spring March, April and May Abundance Suffolk Friends Summer Blooms New Faces Floral Ambitions The Heatwave Summer Party Victoria’s Favourite Gardens Victoria’s Favourite Garden Books Acknowledgements Also by Victoria Connelly About the Author To Lyn and Anna-Louise with love INTRODUCTION Three years ago, my husband Roy and I fell in love with a five-hundred year old thatched cottage in rural Suffolk. We didn’t mean to. We were actually looking for a farmhouse-style property with large, practical rooms and a solid tile roof, but there was something so special about Old Thatch. It seemed to wrap itself around us just as the garden wrapped around the old house. Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved gardens and I’ve been lucky enough to own homes that have always had an outside space which I can enjoy – whether that’s by creating a brand new cut-flower garden or simply sitting in it quietly with a good book. This is not a book about gardening. I don’t have the skills nor the experience to write such a book. It’s a book about our garden and the happiness it brings us throughout the seasons. It’s about the things we’ve discovered in it and the things we’ve chosen to grow. It captures the little corners that make us happy and shares a few of the struggles we’ve had while creating a place that we can truly relax in. This is also not a book about grief, but I do talk about it because, for the last couple of years, it’s surrounded me, and writers tend to write about the things around them. I guess it’s our way of dealing with the world, of working things out and making things right. In the summer of 2021, my father died suddenly and unexpectedly. He didn’t get to see Old Thatch other than in the photos I sent to him, but he did make a comment about us needing a gardener! He probably thought we were a little mad to take on so much work because he was never an enthusiastic gardener. He liked a neat lawn and tidy edges, and he grew a few tomatoes in the MY HISTORY IN GARDENS I was brought up in a series of little villages in Norfolk. The first home I remember well was in a village just north of Norwich. We had a bungalow on a junction with a good plot surrounding three sides of the property. It was mainly lawn with a large area for shrubs in the front and a neatly fenced back garden with a border around the edges full of nineteen-seventies favourites like lupins in rainbow colours. I remember a lot of bare soil around the plants – something I abhor today. My love of cottage gardens demands that things jostle for space and that very little soil is visible. But this garden from my childhood was all about being low-maintenance so it was mostly lawn and a few shrubs and perennials. A move to a village on the other side of Norwich brought a different garden into my life. This one backed onto an orchard and I loved gazing into the fruit trees and the slightly wild grass beyond our own garden. There were laburnums in our plot which our parents were frantic to explain were highly toxic and not to be touched. How could something so beautiful be so deadly, I remember thinking, frustrated that I couldn’t handle those beautiful yellow flowers. We had our first greenhouse here, but I don’t recall having anything to do with it other than eating the tomatoes grown there. Gardening was still rather alien to me then. I appreciated the beauty of things – I loved the sycamore tree at the front of the property and I’d delight in watching the helicopter-like seeds spiral down from its branches each autumn. I adored the perfectly round clumps of primroses and that incomparable scent of newly-mown grass. But I was not yet a gardener. The next move was to Beech Cottage, a nineteen-thirties home near Norwich. The house was set