In Your Garden: Edmund’s Kent Garden

We moved at the end of 2022 only to be met by an 8ft wall of bindweed – the house unlived in for two years. We cleared the garden and unearthed numerous old bricks and pavers which we worked back into the garden, giving it harmony with its walls.

Natural abundance underpins the design of the garden. A path snakes down the garden through oversized beds – slowing the journey and inviting the opportunity to immerse oneself within nature. The planting deliberately spills over the paths, softening the edges and bringing a tactile element to it. Watching my son Arlen do just this, his fascination with nature flourishing, is a constant joy – the whole garden is his place to explore, go on bug hunts and frolic!

I’ve always believed gardens can be more than beautiful spaces; they can shape how we feel, how we connect and how we live. That belief became profoundly personal during Arlen’s treatment for a cancerous brain tumour. For ten months we moved between hospital and home, living in weekly cycles of treatment and isolation. The garden became our sanctuary. It offered normality when life felt anything but. I’m delighted to say that Arlen is now a year and a half in remission and doing brilliantly, he truly is a superstar!

The garden continues to be the place we spend most of our time as a family – it gives and it grows, and we do with it – there’s a beautiful symbiosis there.

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Follow Edmund: @edmundjacksongardens