My place

TO SOME PEOPLE A GARDEN A PIECE OF EXTERIOR DECORATION, AN EXTENSION OF THE HOME DESIGNED TO IMPRESS. TO OTHERS, IT IS AN EXTENSION OF THE HEART AND A SHOW OF LOVE AND PASSION, AND THAT IS A VERY DIFFERENT THING

Words: BURFORD HURRY Photography: LARS HINSENHOFEN

WHAT IS YOUR garden to you? I know what mine is to me. When I step through my front door my garden takes me in her arms and my blood pressure goes down a notch or more. She is a friend and a comforter, a refuge and an inspiration. It’s where she prompts my memory of the road I have taken so far and reminds me of my friends and pets, alive and long gone.

My garden is small, which makes it easier for me. It is also unusual as it is almost in the centre of Loulé, is on three levels and is bounded by a river with a small waterfall. The top terrace has trees and shrubs, and something of a herbaceous bed with a wide path through it – I have a young dog.

The middle terrace has balusters and is paved with old decorated cement tiles. This has potted cymbidiums, some aloes and gasterias and, because it is partially shady, even some begonias.

The lower terrace has a magnificent old white mulberry (Morus alba), a palm (Chamaedorea elegans), a cycad (Cycas revoluta) and a zamia (Zamia furfuracea), as well as a natural spring, the drama of a cascading waterfall and the Cadoiço River.

My garden is not pristine and neat. There are no lawns to mow or deadlines to keep. There are weeds. I call them volunteers. When they arrive they comfort me as they remind me of the strength of Mother Nature. I remove those plants I don’t want and leave those that I like. So in March/ April there are handfuls of blood red poppies and opalescent mauve poppies (Papaver somniferum) in between the calçadas. Also left are the dark pink occasional valerians (Centranthus ruber).

My helpers

There are special volunters. Some years ago I found a caper (Capparis spinosa) on the top terrace at the foot of the pomegranate (Punica granatum), my ‘private dancer’. The caper has become a shawl which has fallen off her bare shoulders.

If I have volunteers I also have garden escapees. A silver-leafed cotyledon (Cotyledon orbiculata), left abandoned in a shallow plastic pot has scrambled over the lip of her pot, and down a flight of stone steps. The effect looked so good I planted her in the soil in the same spot as where the pot had stood. A single slip of Purple Heart (Tradescantia pallida “Purpurea” ) stuck carelessly in a bed became a glorious pool of dark purple leaves and has remained.

Something else; I don’t use any of the ‘cides’ such as pesticides or herbicides and fungicides. Of course I have ‘pests’ – there are greenfly on my pomegranate. Last year a host of striped and voracious caterpillars left my capers looking like a collection of thin sticks. Mildew has attacked my agapanthus and it has been years since they flowered. However, there are wonderful rewards - I have birds and nests chameleons, terrapins, the occasional snake and lots of butterflies. And this year I think I might have flowers on the aggies. Patience rewarded.

I have the same pleasure on the upper terrace where a much larger area has my private dancer, a fountain of palm leaves (Chamaerops humilis) and a couple of capers. The combination of which also provides interest and tranquillity while friends and I have lunch in the shade of the carob.

As for a reminder of friends and people? As the list is endless where to start? The Salvia clevelandii that grew in the gardn of collector, John Lavranos*, grey leafed with clear ice blue flowers visited by bees in spring. The Iris unguicularis, native to the Atlas mountains, given to me by Rosie Peddle* years ago. The iris not only survives the neglect heaped on her by me, she shrugs off her regular destruction by my dog, and despite all that produces vibrant fragile deep blue flowers every year.

Then there is the palm planted next to my spring after I had taken a Zimbabwean friend’s advice to remove the large bamboo growing there. I replaced it with a bamboo palm, which now towers above the middle terrace, despite being assured by Google that it “would struggle in full sunlight and wouldn’t grow very tall”. Haven’t we gardeners all made mistakes like that? But it’s a mistake not a train smash and the palm is majestic.

My garden is where my dogs and cats and my companheiro Richard have been buried. They lie without stones or sterile crosses to mark where they are. They live again through the trees and shrubs that grow strongly above them. No surprise really for those plants have their roots in blood and bones or ash. That senna is Fred, that Malayan citrus is Daffy, that jasmine is Luis, the strong elegant cypress is Richard. It’s the cycle of life as it should be with death and life as part of the real world we live in. Sometimes painful and heart breaking but also joyful and growing and continuous.

I have several viewing gardens. My everyday one is on my terrace and consists of two clusters of containers on the little jutting-out veranda. The one cluster on the right has five pots and includes a large and voluptuous Portuguese stoneware jar. The other four pots in the group have different succulents in them – a cotyledon, a kalanchoe, a green cascading Portulacaria Afra and a miniature Euphorbia milii with pink flowers and, in winter, autumn-coloured leaves. The latter is the little sister to the bigger pink euphorbia in the cluster on the left side together with a bonsaied Portulacaria Afra and an old symetrical clay Portuguese money pot. This simple arrangement of containers and plants is for when I am having lunch or supper. A tranquil, familiar comforting view to explore and enjoy while I am eating.

So when I step from the road through the front door my garden gives me all this and more. Although only 23 years old she has an innate wisdom far beyond her years. Perhaps now you can understand why she has become a solace, an inspiration and a companion who reminds me every day how good it is to be alive.

*John Lavranos was a close friend, a polyglot, a plant collector extraordinaire and an author who gave me a better understanding of the world, as well as a deeper appreciation of the realm of succulents in particular, and plants in general. Rosie Peddle is an enthusiastic plants woman who was instrumental in starting the Mediterranean Gardening Association of Portugal and who has influenced my approach to gardening in a Mediterranean climate.