This week, I thought I would write a piece about my weekend in Devon re-igniting my love for all things green. We, as a team, while away the days steering nature like a farmer holding pigboards either side of his sow; challenging but you get there .

With determination, hard work, and little patience, we build gardens. Those gardens in Rutland and Stamford, predominantly favour clipped hedgerows, picture perfect topiary, and just maybe the odd plant one could not resist buying from the local garden centre, with a blowsy borders surrounding a well-manicured lawn. Devon’s green and pleasant lands, however, are the antithesis of this.

My fascination with bluebells was stirred not by watching the Chelsea Flower Show on the television, but from driving to a different county – via the Gloucestershire services, obviously! If you have not frequented this establishment, I highly recommend it as a game changer pit stop).

Whilst we are on the subject, we cannot ignore the annual endeavours of gardeners and garden designers from all over the world that bed down in Royal Hospital, Chelsea. Just the achievement alone is to be celebrated. Pockets of horticultural excellence dazzle and bewilder so many for only a week.

I am so grateful for the BBC’s coverage,as it is so comprehensive. I would recommend RHS Malvern,or any alternatives, if your passions are with gardening, as opposed to the usual social calendar with the added anxiety of what attire you are going to wear. This is after quite a few attendances.

We digress… Devon this weekend was a delight. An opportunity to reconnect with all things green and wild. My dear friend Amy was celebrating her 47th(ish) birthday(she won’t mind me telling you). I am godparent to her 8 year-old son, Otto. Amy was having a small gathering in Chagford,a little town similar to Stamford,but with more mellow vibes, fewer Range Rovers, more wooden beams, and locals dressed in colourful garments, with more time, moving at a slower pace in life.

After collecting the award-winning sourdough from Beachwood Bakery, I drove to a glade down a winding path, kissing the hedges with both my wing mirrors as I passed. The Glade was surrounded by bluebells, hawthorns that had just completed their blossoming,and lashings of green unfurling bracken.
I turned my engine off, opened my car door. Soft fresh air rushed in to tickle my nose for a brief moment. I climbed out of the car with some effort, as only a 42-year old gardener can… it was not particularly graceful, after the long journey. Placing my feet outside, they rapidly soaked up the dew from the grass, as the sounds of the chattering birds became harmonious. The sun began to break through the clouds and splash on my face, giving me my first real feeling of summer. The early morning departure was most definitely worth it.

The reality suddenly dawned on me; my car was on wet grass pointed downhill, and, like an informed tourist, I had a large chance of spending the weekend there, unable to move. I chuckled and just stood still, drinking it all in.

Amy had convinced a local farmer to allow us to wild camp on his organic smallholding. With the valley becoming clear some boundary lines appeared revealing some manicured hedgerows, and others beautifully wild and unkempt in the way that only the south-west can be.

After pitching camp and having a bite to eat, Amy and I walked down to the freshly cut field through the gate, past the farmer’s tractor, finally arriving into what can only be described as the Chelsea Wild Winner.
Ahead of me lay land that had been untended for generations with a small charcoal operation at the bottom of the hill surrounded by a bluebell wood, and nestled under a tree canopy of wood sorrel (oxalis acetosella). Wood Sorrels heart shaped leaves balanced so delicately with mauve flowers. Stones that most likely were removed from the earth centuries ago to permit farming, now collected moss, harbouring trees of their own.

A little further on, Amy pointed to a sauna, whilst wearing a big smile on her face. The sauna was built out of trees from the very land it sat on. A glass door and a diving platform to the brook below, gave it stature. I was lucky enough to sit in the sauna for a moment of solitude before the others arrived. (This was after 45 minutes of channelling my Boy Scout abilities to make a fire without fire lighters). To sit and listen to the woodland and the brook, (not my own thoughts for once), was the tonic I needed.

The weekend continued to reconnect me, reminding me that steering nature and letting nature steer us from time to time is integral to who we are as humans. The ‘wild’ in ‘wilderness’ is not one we can buy tickets to see. With just a little time (5 hour journey), and a little patience, (bloody steep slippery slopes), nature will deliver the goods.

Until next month, stay wild.
Edward, Alwyn, Laura (size 8) and Ali – www.hayneshorticulture.co.uk