A garden left untended soon becomes a wilderness. The restoration of the Lost Gardens at Heligan, in Cornwall was a fascinating project. The return of the many lingering features of the garden’s once glorious past has captured the public’s imagination.
Lost Gardens
There is a peace about the place that is hauntingly attractive. Left undisturbed for nearly 100 years there is still a sense that something wonderful used to be here, and in some ways still is. Wild life has thrived here over the decades and it still does despite the recent re-development of the gardens. One part of the garden that specially interests me is the old potting shed.
Being a keen gardener, I have a close affinity with ‘potting sheds’. They are the gardener’s indispensable work place that lies behind the outward show of the garden. The atmospheric Heligan potting shed is full of memories. There are tools, sacks, clay pots, and trays, and the musty garden smell of the past fills the place. Most poignant of all are the pictures of the gardeners who worked here up until the First World War claimed so many of their lives. Since the War the garden fell into disrepair and became a ‘sleeping beauty’.
Restoration
Then, in recent years Tim Smit and his team of visionary garden restorers stumbled across the lost estate and set out to re-awaken it – a moving, romantic story. Much of the original beauty remains. They have even restored the practice of charcoal burning. Now the garden has come to life, is productive again and open to visitors.
We were fired by a magnificent obsession to bring these once glorious gardens back to life in every sense and to tell, for the first time, not tales of lords and ladies, but of those “ordinary” people who had made these gardens great, before departing for the Great War.
Tim Smit
In Tim Smit’s words:
‘There is a calm and peace about gardening with the grain of nature; husbandry ( a lovely old word) that allows wildlife to thrive… Working with the seasons roots you to the land. Every part of the year has a purpose, from the spring hope that comes with the early bulbs onwards. It is like being let into a secret –one feels full of hope.’
Paradise Lost – Paradise Regained
These are inspiring stories of restoration, but there is a far more ancient Lost Garden, a forgotten ‘Paradise’, out there waiting to be fully restored. John Milton’s classic 17th century poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained cover this grand theme.
Looking around our world today we see many traces of Eden, often just struggling to survive. They stir in us that deep feeling that something is not right with the world as it is today. There is still a bit of us that hankers after a lost Eden in the distant past.
As a gardener I love the fact that the Bible story about human life begins in a garden and ends in a garden/city. The Tree of Life that was forbidden in Eden will be there in Paradise. Its fruit will bring eternal life to a believer, its leaves will bring ‘healing for the nations’.
Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God
The words of Jesus in Revelation 2:7
On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Revelation 22:2
For more details of Heligan visit these two links:
A Listening Heart 