Poppy season

There are times, with this site, when you have the place to yourself, that the genius loci, or spirit of place bubbles gently to the surface. 112 years ago before Green Futures was the Vanson Centre council nursery, before it was Bradley Nurseries, before it was the retirement dream of William Thickett, this area was a meadow and pinfold in Bradley Parish; alive with grasses, wildflowers, insects and birdsong, glowing year after year under midsummer sunsets. This acreage was sold in 1914 on the eve of the First World War. Doubtless for many who left to fight, the countryside became a symbol of what was being fought for, little knowing that the mechanisation of the world wars would usher in industrial ways of farming and that the old ways were disappearing. Poppies became enduring reminders of the lives lost in that war, and a link, also, looking back, between the way our countryside was lived in and farmed at the beginning of the 20th century.

The poppy shows that life can spring from disturbed soil and that each turn of the year, each turn of the spade, can bring hope for better days, for mistakes to be learned and for the chance to try again. Gardens can be acts of rebellion and hope. They were created in the trenches by First World War soldiers, who sowed and planted amidst the surrounding destruction. To garden is to create and imagine the future, to sow seeds in the hope that tomorrow the soil will bloom with poppies, cornflowers, calendula, sea holly, ox-eye daisies and rose campion. Our lovely site is a reminder of that faith in tomorrow.