We had been looking forward to this open garden day for an entire year having missed it the last time. Organised by the Mapesbury Residents’ Association, the Open Gardens Day was held on Sunday17th June 2007.
Coming from India, the whole concept is new to me. The experience of actually walking into someone’s back garden and admiring their gardening skills was something absolutely novel and truly eye-opening. Not because people don’t invite each other but because there are so few private gardens in the cities.
The first thing that strikes an Indian coming to London is the harmonious blending of urban life with nature. You can’t get more urban than London but also you can’t find yourself more in the heart of nature here than in any other city in the world. You can get out of a tube station in Central London and in a matter of five minutes be in the middle of trees and flowers and hear birds calling.
Everyone knows that India is taking giant leaps and is now is no more as poor a country as it used to be. But this new affluence is bringing in uncontrolled urban development. In all this euphoria of building people have forgotten to include islands of greenery in the cities and there is no place for gardens at all. One can not justify it by saying that the developing countries need to think of more basic things such as living space because even in a country like Japan where space is severely limited there is always a little garden or a park in the cities.
On the Open Gardens Day what a joy it was to stand in a garden just behind the street where we live and to see a carefully tended patch or a lovely wisteria creeper. It was not only the happiness of discovering the secret gardens hidden from the eyes, behind the houses that we pass everyday but also the warmth of being welcomed into the homes of people who live in such close proximity but who are totally unknown to us.
If there is anything the world should learn from Britain then surely it is this strong attachment to nature. This concept that a garden is as much a part of your home as your living room needs to be exported, as well as the idea of doing things as a community. Clearly, only an island country knows that no man should behave as if he were an island because there is nothing to gain from that.
