Adam's Garden

During the course of the month I received a panicked phone call from Greg, an old friend of aristocratic birth and owner of a large country property. In one corner of his estate lay a small cottage, originally a farmworker's abode but now earmarked for his mother-in-law. It had been extensively renovated and modernised in preparation for the old lady's arrival, but the garden was still in a state of advanced dereliction. It transpired that a month before the old lady's arrival she had fallen ill. Consequently Greg's wife Sophie left home to look after her mother, and the impression Greg received at the time was that his mother-in-law would be unable to move for many months, if at all. Because Sophie had been overseeing the preparation of the new cottage and garden, and left Greg to finish things off in her absence, he decided it was a great opportunity to jet off for an easy few weeks in Cairo.

On his return he was horrified to learn that his mother-in-law had not been quite as poorly as everyone had been led to believe and the move was going ahead as originally planned. Greg has a loyal butler who always provides plausible cover stories for his absences, and tells Sophie what she wants to hear and he had simply been telling her that all was well with the arrangements, safe in the knowledge that Greg would sort things out on his return. Unfortunately the head gardener had recently left and most of the gardening staff were on holiday, leaving Greg with a headache and a complete lack of ideas on how to proceed. His mother-in-law had always questioned his marriage to Sophie on the grounds that he was idle rich and this would be just another occasion to prove her right. She was due to arrive in three days and Greg was desperate. In the circumstances I simply said I would do my best to help him and rather foolishly agreed to take charge of transforming the garden.

I decided the best approach was to spend the first two days planning and assembling materials for the operation and on the third day the job would have to be completed. Sophie had ordered a number of extravagant centrepieces and mercifully these were ready for delivery. The cost of these was astronomical. Greg was detailed to chase up all the orders and ensure their delivery. He also agreed to provide everything else I requested. It was granted, unflinchingly, and it soon became apparent that it had become a matter of honour to him to complete the project.

The garden was to be about six acres. It comprised of the original cottage garden behind the house and a scrubby field running downhill and bounded on all sides by thick woodland. It soon became apparent that Sophie's plan had been to clear the field completely and join it seamlessly to the original garden. I could only guess as to her intended layout and decided that improvisation would be the name of the game. The first and most immediate problem was access. The garden was cut off by the surrounding trees and Greg had forbidden me to clear any of them. My first instinct was to fell some to make a path for earthmoving equipment but with this option ruled out the decision was made to dig them up, move them to one side, and plant them back in position afterwards. With this agreed the rest of the plan could be formulated. An enormous amount of labour was necessary and the estate could only muster about twenty men. Luckily, only a couple of miles away, a huge out-of-town shopping complex was under construction and the day of our work coincided with the August bank holiday. Greg can be very persuasive, and his influence quite pervasive in his part of the world. It turned out that he went to Eton with the owner of the primary contractor and it was arranged that we would have access to a huge resource of equipment and labour on the day. Workers were to be paid double rate for working on a bank holiday but Greg was in complete agreement.

The two days before the operation were fraught. Plants were ordered and delivered, as were turf, building materials, objets d'art, sculptures, water pipes, drainage pipes, cables and so on. Everything was dumped in front of the cottage ready for the off. I prayed for clear skies on the Monday that the work was to be done.

I rose before dawn and work started shortly after. The weather was good and held all day. Mechanical diggers were used to extract several scrub oaks and good access achieved round the cottage to the garden. Hydraulic flails were manouevred in, and along with a dozen or so men with strimmers the site was cleared of weeds and scrub. As this was being dragged to the far side of the garden and piled onto a huge bonfire the diggers began to carve the landscape into shape. The plan was to work up from the bottom of the garden, finishing each lower section before moving up toward the cottage. Electric cables and water pipes went into position first because a gigantic fountain, modelled on one at Versailles was to be installed to kick off the project.

Without time for concrete foundations to set a huge precast base went down in sections below ground level to support the monumental weight. The fountain itself came in several pieces which were lifted into position by a crane. The builders relished this unusual work, swarming over the rising colossus like ants. The top piece had been modified from the original and consisted of a gilded statue of Sophie, made to look like one of the Caryatids from the Erectheon on the Acrpolis of Athens. The water was meant to gush triumphantly from the top of her head but unfortunately when it was first switched on a crack had appeared on one side and it jetted out from one ear as well. To balance the effect I instructed one of the men to drill a hole in the other ear and the mouth. The uneven pressure sent these shooting off wildly and the only way to reduce it was to drill hundreds of smaller holes all over the body. This did the trick and I sighed with relief as Sophie was consumed in a perpetual rain shower.

Viewed from the cottage the fountain sat in the centre of a kind of natural amphitheatre formed by the trees behind. The effect was enhanced by planting a semi-circle of yew trees between the woods and the fountain about eight foot high and in time trained into a hedge. Moving on up the slope came the next feature, a tenth size replica of Stonehenge made of hollow cast concrete but carefully finished to look original. The stones were held into the ground with stainless steel spikes and this work was directed by the craftsman who had constructed them. I continued to direct work on the next feature, a mock rainforest covering about a quarter of an acre.

As I continued this part of the garden which simply consisted of planting exotic looking but hardy species such as monkey puzzle trees and various ferns there was an unseemly row at Stonehenge. The artist was missing a stone and railling at various absent work colleagues and associates whom he assured everyone within earshot were to blame. I suggested that given the limited time available he just spread out the remaining stones and we would be none the wiser. He rejected this out of hand and decided a statue of Apollo earmarked for elsewhere in the garden would do as a stand-in until the missing stone could be found. I returned to the rain forest and with the massed labour planting was finished in no time. Leaf litter and chipped bark were spread in a thick layer and dozens of mist nozzles tested. At the same time an electrician had been installing lighting for the lower section of the garden and a speaker system which cleverly varied the sounds in the different parts of the garden. Distant mystic chanting was to be played around Stonehenge and a full authentic rain-forest was piped to my section.

As the final touches were made to the rain-forest we moved on to the ruined abbey. Several large sections were craned in and smaller pieces manhandled to give the effect of a peaceful ruin. We laid turf on the gentle undulations that had been carved out and scores of rambling roses were planted and fixed to the decaying masonry. A series of small tunnels entrances were bored in and around the ruins to form a warren but because of the risk of rabbits decimating the plants in the other parts of the garden it was decided not to introduce live animals but to judiciously place terracotta specimens. This area would be left silent, a place of contemplation.

It was lunch time already and we were falling behind schedule. A break was not possible and we each snatched a bite and drink when we could. Greg spent most of his time encouraging the workforce and obtaining last-minute essentials. A large pool was the next feature, an interpretation of Monet's water garden. The hole had been excavated and lined whilst we had been working on the lower sections of the garden and the plants carried in ready. The only problem was a lack of water; thirteen thousand gallons to be precise. It was filling too slowly and Greg was detailed to obtain a tanker. Greg's trout lake was virtually sucked dry as water was pumped out for Monet's pool and a number of fish were transferred in the process but in no time the pool was full. An original bridge was put in place and the irises and water lilies planted out. A number of other water plants were put in to add a little authenticity and fake dragonflies strategically positioned. The sound system would play Edith Piaf, a favourite of Greg's mother-in-law.

Rising up towards the cottage the penultimate feature was a sunken garden in the shape of a mediterranean courtyard made of York and Cotswold stone. The central feature was a raised bed lined with stone containing a plastic Jacaranda tree. Sophie wanted a Jacaranda tree but was worried it wasn't hardy enough. Also she wanted it in flower, which meant it had to be fake, an issue about which her mother would not be concerned. The courtyard was cruciform with the tree in the middle and the other beds containing mediterranean plants. Dusk was falling as we finished this part of the garden and I was relieved to think that the final piece of the jigsaw was about to fall into place. How wrong I was!

At the top of the garden, immediately below the cottage, a large flat oblong had been excavated and concrete blocks positioned to support a large timber replica of the treaty house of Waitangi. Greg's mother-in-law was a passionate supporter of Maori rights and Sophie thought this would be perfect as a pavilion from which to view the garden. Although constructed of timber it was quite heavy and I thought it would transfer easily carried from either end by a JCB digger. This turned out to be the case but the access around the cottage was too narrow. Two eighty foot oaks and a giant redwood blocked the path. Either they went or the treaty house did. Suddenly I remembered that during the day a couple of helicopters had alighted outside Greg's home. Some business associates had a prearranged meeting which Greg had cancelled without informing them and they had repaired to the sauna, leaving the pilots to while away the time in the snooker room. The pilots, inured to a humdrum existence ferrying flabby fatcats from A to B, were delighted when Greg informed them that their bosses had instructed them to carry the treaty house into the garden. The businessmen were kept in the dark and the helicopters were pressed into service. Night had fallen. We had finished the rest of the garden and a series of arc lights illuminated the site for the treaty house. Unused to such work the pilots had difficulty in transferring the dead weight. The builders had devised a system whereby the house would stay roughly level with one helicopter at each end but a certain amount of synchronisation would be required from the pilots. It took a while for them to become coordinated with one another. The treaty house rose into the air and the pilots fought to stay in formation. The treaty house swayed this way and that and started to swing from side to side. The helicopters rose and fell as the pilots who were obviously not in raidio contact each tried to guess what the other would do. Gradually the helicopters became settled at the same height but the treaty house was swinging wildly. At this point the pilots would have been well advised to wait for the treaty house to settle but instead decided to move over the cottage into the garden. Misjudging their height, on a downswing the treaty house demolished the cottage chimney. Mercifully this corrected the pendulum motion and, once clear of the cottage it was possible for the treaty house to make a perfect landing.

We had all had enough and after cursorily clearing up we repaired to the pub. We had done our best and Greg had the next morning to make things look presentable for his mother-in-law. She was delighted with the garden, never noticed the damaged chimney and was particularly impressed with the fountain with it's mystery maiden shrouded in mountain mist!

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