Creating a garden is a complex activity. For me it includes being able to include favourite and/or simply very beautiful plants, creating pleasing shapes, vistas and flow. It’s hard work. Forget the current fad for “rewilding” (fantastic when done properly, an awful apology for not doing any work when done badly). The very concept of gardening involves tweaking and managing nature. Otherwise it is just nature. (“Just”? Someone will pick me up on that for sure!).

In this part of the world the conditions can be harsh. Hot dry summers are often followed by long cold winters with harsh frosts. Many plants succumb to these challenging conditions. We’ve learnt to water as much as we can in the first couple of summers and hope for the best. Some things make it. Others don’t.

One of the joys for me in beginning to develop this garden was to be able to include many different plants that I’d always loved but never had space for. One day I’ll do an inventory.

One of the early trees we planted was a Crataegus laevigata ‘Paul’s Scarlet’. It’s a particularly fine double dark pink flowering hawthorn. In the first couple of years it was wonderful and we looked forward to it going from strength to strength as it grew.

Last year, after a spectacular flowering in spring it gradually defoliated throughout the summer. Initially I put it down to the extreme heat and drought we experienced, with no rain and temperatures in the high 30s and above 40 for weeks. But I then began to research and discovered a fungus disease called hawthorn leaf blight which Paul’s Scarlet is particularly susceptible to.

By the end of summer the tree was completely denuded. We decided that a deciduous tree that only had leaves and flowers for 2-3 months of the year wasn’t pulling its weight. So we decided to give it one more year to prove its worth.

I’ve been looking at it today. Sadly the leaves are discolouring and falling fast. So it will have to go. It’s a shame as it is in an important position, and could have been such a beautiful feature of the garden.

Now. What to plant in its place …

Leaves discolouring and blighted.

You might just be able to see some bare branches already

Not a pretty sight.

What would you replace it with?

I’ve not written a blog post for a while as I’ve been spending time trying to make sense of my autism diagnosis. It’s been very tough to be honest, reviewing a long life which has included a lot of trauma through this new lens, and trying to work out how best to live the years I still have ahead. I’m still overcome with sorrow at times, for what might have been, what never was, and the difficulties that continue in trying to navigate a world which is not flexible enough for those of us who have inbuilt differences and challenges. I will write much more, mostly because I feel that if I share openly it just might help others.

In the meantime, a plea; if someone is different from you please try not to judge them negatively. And above all else, at all times, be kind.