With new projects of mine now entering further into the world of horticulture I thought back to my first garden inspiration, and while my mother had almost exclusively gardening shows on in the evening it was not all down to them. It was one my favourite childhood films, The Secret Garden.
It gave me a love of castle ruins strewn with climbing flowers and more unusually the dark winter landscape in the garden, where all seems grim and lifeless until you look a little closer.
It also gave me something I had not previously realised was connected to the film which is a habit of collecting small porcelain elephants ever since I was small.
The beginning of the clip below shows the garden in all its glory after all of Mary and Dickon's hard work, with roses blooming up the ruins and a carpet of flowers from all the bulbs that they had planted in the depths of winter. I know they have recently remade the film but I won't be watching it. I would never risk the wonderful lasting impression of the 1993 film.
Frances Hodgson Burnett (1993)
