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Taking time to live well
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Photograph by @docleaves

Word Origins | Up The Garden Path

Iona Bower July 16, 2024

Ever felt you’d been led up the garden path (and not in a ‘come and see my greenhouse tomatoes’ kind of way?) Join us on a journey through the veg beds to find out the origins of the phrase…

Being led up the garden path, meaning to be misled or caused to proceed wrongly, is a phrase dating from the early 1900s when many homes had a garden of various beds and veg plots, which pathways wound through. 

The phrase is  uncertain in origin but may come from the practice of village elders tricking a young man into marrying a, shall we say ‘less than attractive’ veiled bride in order to get her off the shelf. 

Weddings often took place in gardens so the unsuspecting groom would be led up the garden path, to find his bride, hidden behind a veil, at the end of the garden. Once married, he would lift the veil and, if disappointed by what lay beneath, it would be too late! He had been literally led up the garden path already. 

So, a rather uncharming fable about young men, but an interesting piece of etymology. We’re not so sure those veiled young women necessarily felt they’d found a real catch either. Let’s hope, despite the shallow husbands, they at least had a beautiful garden to console themselves with. 

Fascinatingly, in Australia one is lead down the garden path, which we suppose makes sense, geographically speaking. 

In our July issue, our My Place pages feature lots more beautiful garden paths to be led up such as the one by Libby Webb @docleaves above. The issue is on sale now or you can buy it from our online store.

Buy this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

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Photography by Emma Wise

Outdoors | Garden Dens for Grown-Ups

Iona Bower July 5, 2022

Make a space that’s just for you to crawl in, curl up and tune out

If you were lucky enough to have a treehouse, Wendy house or simply a den under a bush when you were a child, you’ll understand the pleasure of an outdoor room of one’s own. If you didn’t have one, it’s time to put that right.

Every grown up should have somewhere to read, snooze and hide a tin of biscuits outdoors, where they can relax and watch the world (and the bees and butterflies) go by on summer’s afternoons. Here are a few ideas for ways to make your own grown-up garden den.

Willow wigwam

This is no instant garden den, but it’s so satisfying to literally ‘grow your own’ shelter. You’ll need to buy a selection of willow ‘whips’ - about 10 or 12 big ones (depending on how large you want your den to be) and then about 20 smaller whips to plant diagonally between the larger whips. 

Plant your large whips in a large circle, equally spaced but with a larger gap where the entrance will be. They need to be planted around 20cm deep to root. Tie them all together securely at the top. 

Then plant two smaller whips in each gap between the big whips, and weave them diagonally through the big whips. 

Water the whole thing well and continue to water while it grows. You should soon have a nice, leafy den to relax inside. 

Bed canopy

Got a tree with a reasonably solid branch at least ten feet off the ground? You’ve got yourself an instant den. Buy a mosquito canopy (even IKEA sells them these days), hang it from the branch, drape the curtains about elegantly and fill the space inside the canopy with cushions. Add a few fairy lights and you have your own (mosquito proof) reading nook. 

Wooden arbour

A wooden arbour with a seat inside looks so pretty in the garden and offers sturdier shelter if you don’t want to be chased indoors by a light shower. We recommend getting one with a storage bench, so there’s somewhere to stash your secret biscuit tin and a book. And if we were you, we’d face it away from the house, so when someone is looking for you to do a chore or be asked a question, you’re not too obvious to spot. 

A simple deck chair corner

If your need for a grown-up garden den is urgent (and why wouldn’t it be?) there’s a lot you can do with equipment you already have. A deck chair in a corner of the garden can easily be given extra privacy with a wind break or two, and an outdoor ‘sail’ overhead. If you can’t run to a windbreak or sail, a clothes horse and a judiciously pegged blanket will give you some shade, and a throw or rug rigged up over a washing line offer easy shade. All you need is a flask of cold drink, a pile of books and a large hat and shades. 


If you’d like to lust after more grown-up garden dens, don’t miss our My Place feature in our July ‘Taste’ issue, which features willow spheres, wendy houses and willow huts like the one above which belongs to Emma Wise (@quintonrectorygardens).

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In gardening Tags gardens, outdoor living, dens, garden shelters
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Playlist | How does Your Garden Grow?

Iona Bower April 15, 2021

“Hello sunshine
So glad to see you sunshine
Hello sunshine
It’s been dark for a very long time”

A bit of sunshine, a bit of rain and a lot of love. Hear the playlist here

DJ: FRANCES AMBLER

In playlist Tags issue 107, April, playlist, gardens
Comment
Illustration: Zuza Misko

Illustration: Zuza Misko

Wildlife | make a hedgehog hotel

Iona Bower May 10, 2020

Reach out to a spiky friend and invite them to stay in your outdoor space

Having a hedgehog visiting your garden is pretty special. In our May Inspire issue (in shops and available to buy from our online shop now), our Magical Creatures slot celebrates the hedgehog. Turn to page 64 to read all about our favourite hedge-dwelling hogs.

At this time of year, hedgehogs are putting the finishing touches to their homes and getting ready for mating season. So what better time to build a hedgehog hotel? If you want to provide a dedicated boutique bolthole or a simple bothy for hedgehogs, hedgehogstreet.org has some good ideas, whatever your budget or DIY expertise. 

Self-catering hedgehog hostel

One of the best habitats you can provide is actually just to leave an area of your garden be. A compost or a wood pile that hasn’t been disturbed for a while is a favourite place for hedgehogs to lay their heads. And because insects will also make these areas their homes, your hedgehogs will never go hungry… there’s a full room service menu of grubs and bugs for them to choose from!

Simple hedgehog B&B

Use an upside-down crate or plastic storage box (add a few air holes) and cut an entrance into the front 13cm square. Cover the box with plastic sheeting and cover that with twigs and leaves. Finally, add a comfy bed (some pet straw or dry leaves). 

Five-star hedgehog hotel 

Using untreated wood, nail together a box. Leave the ‘roof’ loose so you can get in to clean it out when it’s uninhabited. Add batons underneath to lift it off the ground slightly and stop it getting too damp. Add a narrow tunnel at the front to prevent predators getting their noses in. You can find an easy to follow plan on the RSPB’s website. 

Whatever type of dwelling you go for, remember not to put food in it. Hedgehogs like their food a little way away from their beds. And it’s best to locate it at the boundary of your garden, within five metres of the house. If you also ensure that there are some gaps under your walls or fences, you’ll make it easier for hedgehogs to find you.


If you like the spiky little chap illustrated above by Zuza Misko, you might like to know that you can buy a print of him for £15 from our online shop. It’s one of four of our Magical Creatures that is available as a print.

Buy this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

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Photography: Getty

Photography: Getty

5-minute gardening

Iona Bower March 18, 2020

Daunted by your garden? Try taking it five minutes at a time

We were really inspired by Laetitia Maklouf’s feature on ‘little by little’ gardening in our March issue - the concept of spending just five minutes in the garden each day. We’ve all been out doing our little-by-little jobs every evening as the days get longer and seeing a real change in our gardens already. 

Here are a few ideas for jobs you can do in five minutes that will help add up to a beautiful outdoor space by the time summer’s here.

  1. Weeding. Pop on your headphones, a podcast, a pair of gloves and tackle one small patch of earth, maybe just a square metre. Don’t get distracted by anything else, just concentrate on your patch.   

  2. Plant out forced bulbs. Have you got hyacinths languishing indoors? Don’t throw them away, try re-planting them outside.  

  3. Trim and tie down anything climbing before it comes into leaf and 

  4. Turn your compost if it needs it, or just tidy up your compost area so it’s easy to get to with food waste. This week is National Compost Week so there’s no time like the present.

  5. Pop some pots of whatever is flowering at the moment by your front door so you can enjoy them every time you go in or out. 

You can read all about Laetitia’s little-by-little gardening ideas on p102 of the March issue or in The Five Minute Garden: How to Garden in Next to No Time (National Trust Books).

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More from our March issue…

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Photography: Alamy

Photography: Alamy

Why we love a secret garden

Iona Bower April 27, 2019

Come through the gate with us into a wonderful, walled world


Wouldn’t we all love a walled garden? Who can honestly say they’ve not wandered through the pretty paths of a walled garden in a stately home, between manicured flower beds and pleached fruit trees and pretended just for a few seconds that they are lady of the manor, taking their crinoline out for an airing on a turn round the estate?

Something about their secluded nature makes them just a little bit magical. It’s little wonder many a novel and film features a walled garden, symbolic of the fertile ground hidden inside the walls of our mind, the wonder of a secret well kept, the idea that behind any ordinary brick wall one might find something fantastical…

One of our favourite fictional walled gardens would have to be in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. “It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted together.” But the sweetest thing about it for Mary Lennox is the chance to learn to tame the garden and to grow within its walls. The garden, abandoned for a decade, (note that orphan, Mary, unwanted and then left by her own parents, is also ten years old) is an allegory for Mary’s spiritual self. Inside the brick walls of abandoned garden are bulbs waiting to shoot and then bloom. And inside cold, self-centred Mary Lennox is all sorts of good just waiting to be nurtured into growth.

The Secret Garden is considered a classic British children’s book, but the interesting thing about it is that it was written neither as a book, nor for children. The story was first published, serialised, in an adult magazine. It wasn’t until 1911 that it was published in its entirety as a book, and then it was marketed to both adults and children simultaneously, in much the same way as the Harry Potter books or Philip Pullman’s Lyra trilogy were decades later.

In its time, The Secret Garden was a bit of a damp squib among Frances Hodgson Burnett’s far more successful novels, such as A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. What probably saved it from obscurity was a sudden adult interest in the studying of children’s fiction at the time and that marketing of it as a book for adults.

It’s a strange thing that we adults, who hold all the cards really where children’s fiction is concerned, spotting authors, paying illustrators, devising budgets for the marketing of all these books, are so reticent to step forward and enjoy them. We feel, for some reason that we have to leave these books for children, wait to be invited into their secret garden. And every few decades, along comes a book that transcends the barriers between adult and children’s fiction, and the people in suits at the publishing houses feel they have to throw us a bone with an ‘adult version’ cover, or at least one we won’t be embarrassed to be seen reading on the bus. It’s a great shame, really.

We’d like to encourage you to pick up a book that’s ‘too young’ for you this month and read it proudly in public. Who knows? Behind that cover that says ‘not for you’ you might find a long-forgotten secret garden with all sorts of wonders just waiting for your imagination to carefully weed around them, tend to them and watch them grow.

Reading list

If you love a book about gardens, you might like to try (or re-read) one of these:

Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, 1958

Tom is staying with his aunt and uncle in their flat while his brother recovers from measles. The flat has no garden and quarantined Tom has no playmates, until the clock strikes 13 and the Midnight Garden appears…

The Camomile Lawn, Mary Wesley, 1984

One that really is for the grown-ups. Wesley’s novel about youth, love and loss that begins in the summer before World War Two, has at its centre, the scented camomile lawn in Helena and Richard’s garden by the sea, which epitomises holidays, summer and carefree youth.

The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton, 2008

An abandoned child, a secret garden, a mystery… If you enjoyed The Secret Garden you’re sure to enjoy this.


If you’d like to read about the history of walled gardens don’t miss Wonder Walls in our May issue, in shops now.


Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

More from our May issue…

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In Looking back Tags April, gardens, looking back, children's books, issue83
Comment
Featured
  Buy ,  download  or  subscribe   See the sample of our latest issue  here   Buy a copy of our latest anthology:  A Year of Celebrations   Buy a copy of  Flourish 2 , our wellbeing bookazine  Listen to  our podcast  - Small Ways to Live Well
Feb 27, 2025
Feb 27, 2025

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See the sample of our latest issue here

Buy a copy of our latest anthology: A Year of Celebrations

Buy a copy of Flourish 2, our wellbeing bookazine

Listen to our podcast - Small Ways to Live Well

Feb 27, 2025
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The Simple Things is published by Iceberg Press

The Simple Things

Taking time to live well

We celebrate slowing down, enjoying what you have, making the most of where you live, enjoying the company of of friends and family, and feeding them well. We like to grow some of our own vegetables, visit local markets, rummage for vintage finds, and decorate our home with the plunder. We love being outdoors and enjoy the satisfaction that comes with a job well done.

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