The garden was my husband’s domain. He spent hours snipping the heavy foliage here and there. He knew each tree and its characteristics, yet the garden never ceased to be a jungle. It had an air of mystery. The grandchildren loved it.

My husband became ill and I began to panic that the house would be submerged in that ever-growing foliage. I searched for a gardener. It took time and thanks to a friend not just one but two gardeners turned up.  One was solid and covered in tattoos. He was cheery. The other was silent.

In a flash they had tamed the garden but they tamed it in such a way that it still held its air of mystery.

We wheeled my husband round it and he was content.

My husband died. He had been released from a terrible illness.

The gardeners cleared a space in the undergrowth and we created a rose garden.

We had a party to celebrate his life. We put his ashes into an ornate and graceful Arabic coffee pot. We drank tequila and French Stephanie and her daughter played laments on their violins and we sprinkled the ashes around the new rose bushes. The party went on until the early hours.

Then came the aftermath. The sense of loss. The profound grief.

The gardeners continue to come.  They help my grief with their good humour and invention. They create a secret arbour complete with a green slate bench.

They make an art

feature from the collected rubbish that they found buried in the undergrowth.

They bring me flowers from other people’s gardens. They give me a space to grieve.

I walk round the garden and wonder at its organised air of disorganisation. The lofty tree trunks twist gracefully, looking sculptured, the yucca palms, ferns and bushes look randomly placed, yet there are also flowers and climbing clematis.

Spring arrives, then comes the perfume of the roses that bloom with such abundance and I tell my husband that he has done such a good job. I understand that I am part of the pulsating life around me. The birds still sing, the field mouse still rustles through the undergrowth.

My new season is beginning and I am sustained by two rugged gardeners and the tender scent of a rose that tells me to enjoy it.