Introduction – Elisabeth’s Garden on TAFN - The Accessible Friends Network

Welcome to my accessible garden in South Bristol, England.

The Early Years

We always had gardens at home. Usually a back garden where Dad grew fruit and vegetables; and a front garden which Mum made colourful with lots of flowers, and at least one green lawn. There was often an allotment as well.

As children Dad gave us pocket money to help with the potato harvest. He would dig up the Potatoes, and we had to pull them off the roots, rub most of the soil off, before putting them in large phessian sacks. These were stored in the shed until needed. Another task, was to pod the Lupin seeds, and put them into envelopes,so that they could be sown the following spring.

With this inheritance it was probably inevitable that I would subcomb to the gardening addiction. Then there was the day Dad threw a bag of Crocus bulbs at me saying, “you plant them.” You see the previous year he had planted Crocuses, but they had all been eaten by mice. I can never resist a challenge, so I did. They all came up and flowered. There’s nothing like success to fan a minor interest into a raging addiction.

My next venture into growing things happened in my late teens. I had left school, when one day Dad got hold of an old, large, shallow butler’s sink. He raised it on two piles of bricks. Filled it with soil and told me to plant it up. Soon it had purple Sachsifrage, a miniature Rose, and a small lawn, which I cut with a pair of nail scissors. I tended this miniature garden lovingly for several years.

Then one day someone noticed rather a lot of waspse buzzing round my garden. I’m alergic to wasps’ stings, so panic ensued. It turned out, they’d built a large nest under the sink. Dad poured petrol onto the nest and set it alight. It got rid of the wasps, but the heat also cracked the sink and my garden collapsed.

Next, Growing my dream