M&G Garden 2014

The basic ingredients of the early paradise gardens (shade, water, food, scent) continue to influence our gardens today two thousand years and more since the first gardens were built. I thought it was something worth celebrating.

Central to the garden was a courtyard with a stone fountain and flanked by a stone wall depicting the tree of life or more accurately, the roots of the tree of life, a simple metaphor for the fact that the roots of the English garden go way back to the early paradise concept.

Paradise gardens were much bigger than a 10m x 22m plot so the objective, to capture the essence of the paradise concept, much like some of the smaller Islamic courtyard gardens in North Africa and southern Spain was both challenging and rewarding.

The memory of this garden is dedicated to Derek (Des) Martin, the stone mason who made the fountain and much of the stonework, who tragically died in a motorbike accident soon afterwards.