Lost in Spaces

I think my townside garden is a magnificent success but not everyone shares my view.

The neighbours have reservations around the unruly nature it’s displaying. They fear, I think, for their boundaries which are, it’s true, being pressed by the shear bulk of growth from my side. Perhaps they creak at night, giving the neighbours real cause for their concern. The taller plants, and there are many, lean drunkenly over the fences as well in a manner that could be considered threatening by the nervous and I’ve no doubt that tendrils and roots are appearing on their side of the divide.

It’s a heaving mess of pottage according to my ex-hospital grounds man friend and I agree. There’s certainly no open space, no laid-out lawn or jungle clearing. It’s wall to wall vegetation
It’s very quiet in there, despite the garden being practically in the centre of town.
The thick curtain of leaves, twigs branches and trunks absorbs the sounds I suppose, muffles the traffic noises and soaks up the drone of the town’s electric motors, car alarms and general hubbub.
You could hide in there and I suspect people do: teenagers bunking school, husbands wanting to avoid house-painting or gutter clearing (I saw such a one in there on several occasions. He looked like me!)
A refugee would not go hungry in there – there are gooseberries and currants, apples and rhubarb, artichokes, plums, potatoes and grapes. If he somehow couldn’t find those or if they were out of season, he’d only have to walk 30 paces to the supermarket for his vittles.
A runaway or a tramp could set up camp in there, building a shelter from high mallow stalks and flax leaves, cooking on a small fire of dried stalks from the globe artichokes and twigs off the hazels. I’d not mind, in fact I’d probably never see them and nor would the neighbours, so thick and jungly is the garden.
Most gardens, it seems to me, are too tame.
My townside garden’s pretty wild and at the same time, wildly pretty.
If ever you are in the area, feel free to wander in and forage.