Skymeadow : notes from an English gardener /

'Skymeadow' is the story of how Charlie Hart singlehandedly built a five-acre garden from scratch; it is a gardening memoir which celebrates the healing effects of nature on mental health. When Charlie first visited Peverels, a small farmhouse that sits lazily on the lip of a hill running down into the Peb Valley, he was at breaking point. He was grieving the death of his father and anxious about the impending death of his mother. He and his wife Sybilla felt that their London life had been steadily growing in noise: the noise of loss and grief, the noise of busyness, the noise that comes from the expectations of others and, for Charlie, the constant burr of dissatisfaction at work. At Peverels, Charlie found an expanse of virgin meadowland, the perfect setting for an audacious garden. A garden that is now known as Skymeadow and grows with a lusty, almost biblical vigour.