Author: Sarah Salway
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Week 1 of Writing in the Garden – a free creative writing exercise
Hello! I had such a lovely response to my recent article in the RHS Garden magazine on reading and writing poetry that I’ve decided to put a different creative writing exercise up on this website EVERY WEDNESDAY. We’ll see how we get on, but I suspect we will make some poetry and prose creative fire between…
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A Trip to Tropical Tresco
See whatttttt I did there? We’ve just come back from the Isles of Scilly, it was the perfect holiday but interesting how loads of people have heard of them but aren’t quite sure what – and where – they are. And those who have, say ‘ah Tresco,’ as if that’s the key one. Although yes,…
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Ready for your close up?
God but flowers are amazing. How are we not worshipping them daily? All these were taken today at Great Dixter Gardens – and I would have walked past them all without really noticing if I hadn’t stopped at the first one and then started looking properly. And for more awe and a writing exercise, see…
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Why gardeners should read (and write) poetry
It was Cicero who said that if you have a garden and a library you want for nothing, and I’m proud to have an essay in the RHS The Garden magazine about why gardeners should read poetry. It was a joy to share lines of some of my favourite poems in the essay, and if…
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The News From the Garden
is earthshattering, a blackbird’s made its nest in the hawthorn tree, and breaking as I write, seedlings planted a month ago are bursting forth, teasing us with their rainbow hints, but if you rub a leaf between finger and thumb you can smell summer already; a baby is kicking its legs in response at the…
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A garden poem for meditation – walking in Stand Wood above Chatsworth House
We were too early to get into Chatsworth House so walked up to the Hunting Tower in Stand Wood while we waited. It was as if we’d wandered into a magic kingdom, and I suddenly realised how many times I’d walked here before in my imagination during meditation visualisations. Here’s the poem that came from…
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What do you do with all your garden guides?
We went on a ‘grand tour’ of the Peak District and Yorkshire last week – only one garden a day but even so I’ve ended up with an armful of guides. But what to do with them now I’m back? Write a poem about them of course… You need to have a plan They…
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Gods, jade and sulphur – the Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens in St Lucia
Looking out at grey skies today, it’s a joy to go back through posts from just a month ago and pick out ones from our visit to the Botanical Gardens in St Lucia. The gardens from part of the legacy of the Devaux family who owned the land since 1713, and which used to be…
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Snowdrops rising like lanterns
Winter Garden by Sarah Salway Like the pilgrim divests himself of worldly goods, the garden’s stripped back to a skeleton, only the vertebrae of paths holds its truest form and even as trees hold blossom close, buds aching, it’s still the cutting back that matters most, while through it all the river’s artery rolls,…
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Remembering Capability Brown – Lady Nature’s Second Husband – and a little bit of Compton Verney
The English landscape gardener, Lancelot (Capability) Brown died 236 years ago today, 6th February 1783 – and fittingly is remembered on Twitter, via @BrownCapability: “Your Dryads must go into black gloves, Madam. Their father-in-law Lady Nature’s second husband, is dead! Mr Brown dropped down at his own door yesterday” wrote Horace Walpole to Lady Ossory…
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Silence in the nature reserve
And a happy new year to you all! I think it’s still all right to say that, but this has been my theme recently… just a little too late! We spent the weekend after the new year in the middle of silence. It was beautiful. I’d been wanting to stay at the Elmley Nature Reserve…
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Ernest Wilson – keeping one eye open
There’s a little gate off the main street in Chipping Camden. You might not even notice it, but step inside, and you’re … not in Wonderland, but almost in China! It’s a memorial garden to the plant hunter, Ernest Wilson who was born in the town in 1876. Here’s his house, just further up the street……