There was another noise too, though: the rumble of a mini-digger ripping up a nearby garden. In the space of one beautiful warm April day, what used to be a garden is not any more. And it’s happening almost everywhere: a Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) audit published last year found that nearly half of Britain’s garden space is now paved over. The negative space where you don’t garden can be precisely where the ordinary magic of life happens. The work, I suppose, is mental – letting yourself find something different beautiful; resisting the urge, or external pressure, to keep things tidy.

Source: The Guardian April 12, 2026 14:32 UTC