Hazel’s blog: the last days of planting

It’s a typical September day, thick fog followed by hot sunshine. A breeze creates ripples on the pool of the Psalm 23 Garden. Around it, the planting is being summoned into being. It is hard to believe that this little place hasn’t been here forever. It exudes permanence, solidity, peace. 

But we are still in a building site. Every kind of construction vehicle known to mankind is here, driving slowly, delivering, building, carrying, beeping. Yet, the Psalm 23 Garden exudes peace among the noise and clamour. 

BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme have been and gone, their coverage airing this Sunday at 8.10am. Journalists are calling from radio stations, newspapers and magazines around the country. Everyone wants to interview designer Sarah Eberle, to know more about this beautiful garden, its ethos and its aim.  

Everyone stops and looks at the garden, contractors, designers, stall holders, all in high-vis and steel toe-capped boots, seasoned professionals who know an outstanding garden when they see one. I don’t need to say much. The garden speaks for itself. 

‘It’s an oasis of calm,’ said one observer. ‘I want to always swim in that pool,’ said another. ‘I feel so peaceful when I look at it,’ said a lady. Great comments, and we’re not finished yet. What will people say then?

The bees and butterflies are also out in force. If you could hear them over the beeping vehicles, the air would be thick with the thrumming of the bees. A ladybird larvae crawls over my laptop as I write, looking for blackfly to eat. I welcome it, and quietly wish it luck. 

It’s been a three-year journey to get to this point. There were many dark days (and nights) when I wondered if the garden would ever become real. Now that we are just 72 hours from the Show, it feels instead, like the most relevant garden imaginable. Never before has Psalm 23 had the emotional resonance that it does now. How could this garden not exist?