a year in the garden

I’m not sure if we’ll be in this garden next year. There’s been talk of moving somewhere bigger, out of London and into more space.

 So 2026 seems the perfect time to finish the myriad of projects dotted around the garden. One final summer of barbeques with friends, early morning coffee in the shaft of corner sunlight and vegetables growing happily in raised beds where now there’s paving slabs.  

The first small step is removing the endless fronds of the Phoenix canariensis, pruned with conviction last year to protect relations with neighbours as it proudly sprayed its leaves into 4 surrounding gardens. Already swelling precipitously close to the fence when we moved in, its management has become an annual event, but I can’t imagine the garden without it.

A swaying reminder of heat and beaches in the midst of London, it also houses an enormous population of ladybirds, with the larvae crawling out of the v-shaped pinnae in droves come summer.

So despite the slight inconvenience when it shades out garden sunbathing, the ever-increasing regiment of sawing and lopping, and the intense pain of its needle-sharp young fronds, it will outlast us in this small London plot.