A garden of Joy in Stevenage

By Clare Bourke on January 31st 2012

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Manny Lewis pays special tribute to sister Joy’s beautiful Stevenage garden

My sister’s garden is very special. It is her world. It is part of Joy’s living family.

With the peculiarities of our English weather, this year she kept putting off her holiday in Devon until her garden was ready – until the flowers had bloomed and were strong enough for her to leave! What more can I say?

My sister Joy is very special. She lives with her two dogs, Cassie and Evie. Cassie, her constant companion, is a small collie and Evie, a black working spaniel adopted from a friend emigrating to Australia.

Joy lives in the heart of the new town of Stevenage - a town which has, amongst many other attributes, 43 green spaces. It feels as though you are in the heart of the countryside – town planning at its best with parks, lakes, adventure playgrounds, sports fields and many other community facilities.

But, for me, the heart of any visit is my sister Joy’s garden which she loves and treasures - her secret garden. Any visitors, including the wood pigeons, Winifred and Wilbur, and the numerous smaller birds of great variety own the garden’s pleasures. Even the pair of neighbouring cats, Kit and Kat, are allowed to patrol the perimeter wall.

Not forgetting Cassie and Evie who act as dedicated ground staff investigating new life. With noses to the ground, they sniff the foliage for new smells and scents alongside the narrow pathways which thread their way around each shrub and plant.

I dedicate this garden tribute to my sister Joy.

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A Garden of Joy

Small and secret, a wonderland of nature’s best

Joybells’ garden created by Joy who will say it’s cheap and cheerful, all you need is imagination

A celebration of every day

Whatever the weather

Whatever the mood

Something special is happening in or above Joybells’ garden.

Snatched telephone quotes from snippets of conversations, Joy’s very words

Clouds dance above the trees

Changing tempo at a glance

White, fluffy shaped like skipping spring lambs

Enough blue to make an elephant a pair of trousers

Or sometimes the grey dull skies touch the ground

But in Joybells’ eyes every sigh of Nature’s life

Brings something special to her garden – the gift of life.

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Daily garden life

In our frequent telephone calls, she describes what is happening.

The birds are waiting and watching – Wilbur and Winifred perch on the shed roof waiting and watching for the bird table to be covered in seeds. Then, in a flash, they both swoop down and harvest the seed in a magical dance.

Smaller birds delight in a quest for the fruits of the clematis, rambling rose in and out of the trellis woven with a range of fruits and seed hanging onto a network of twigs and branches.

Different shrubs are celebrating their individual shades of colour, the hydrangea has changed from pink to blue to green, their mop caps proudly decorating their stalks.

The geranium festooned with detail as the colours change from pink to red to purple.

Petunias dance with abandonment, their trumpets full and bloated over the side of their garden pots

In every corner, there are displays of colour, shape and tender loving care.

Joybells’ garden is a garden of Joy. A garden of love and caring detail. Every aspect has a story.

In this time of recession, doom and gloom, it’s good to share Nature’s spirit in the natural world created by my sister who says ‘It’s only cheap and cheerful, you have to keep tickling the earth.’

On the milkman’s last visit, he said ‘I love coming to your garden. It reminds me of my Nan’s. It’s like going back in time – the colour, the flowers, the mood. I love your garden.’

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