As children our garden had the typical lawn surrounded by flower beds. It was a long garden so we had a big lawn; there was a broad flower bed on the other side of a path leading from the back door, along past the kitchen and sitting room windows to the coal bunker. When our landlady had central heating put in that was replaced with a tank for oil. Down the left side of the garden was a flower bed to about halfway down where there was an espaliered cordon of fruit trees with an other flower bed in front of that, and in front of that was a peach tree which had the most glorious white peaches – so aromatic and juicy and full of flavour. There was a garage to the right of the back garden with another path running the length of the lawn and beyond to the vegetable part of the garden. The clothes line was beside the path, and the asparagus on the other side, running for about thirty feet – asparagus was a commonplace on our dinner plates!
My parents chose flowers for the garden as much for the scent as the appearance, so I remember gorgeous wallflowers ( oxblood red and a gold which I don’t remember the name of) night scented stocks, roses, and pinks. They thought pinks had a better perfume than carnations and sitting here I can almost smell their perfume now. I don’t know if there is a difference or if pinks are just a gaiety of carnation, but their glorious strong pink colour became a favourite of mine
I’m not a 100% sure the flowers in my featured image are pinks… they certainly are pink though!
Lois Elsden 