AN ANCIENT CONIFER greets us when we arrive home. I can’t imagine anything lovelier, more constant or comforting as a backdrop to family life. I’ve had periods of convalescence studying its shifting shapes, as I drifted in and out of sleep; nursing years, babies soothed by its constancy; I’ve invented stories about its birth from tiny seed. I knew nothing of nature before this garden – before it made me curious enough to learn all I could about plants, natural law and holistic science. I’ve studied this tree and the ‘weeds’ that have sprung up, from foxgloves and forget-me-nots to wood sorrel and buttercups
As nature intended