Erif’s front garden: ‘I burst into tears when I saw my first bee’

When Erif moved into her Victorian ground floor flat in 1988, she wasn’t really into gardening. Aged 45, she had been a tenant all her adult life and had only tended window boxes. But Erif did something that most people don’t think about: she hired a jack hammer to take up the paving in her small front garden. Erif was too poor at the time to hire anyone, so she did the work herself across two days. In doing so, she managed to generate 38 bags of refuse and hired half a skip to dump it in.

As Erif explains, ‘I didn’t know what I was taking on. I had to remove a layer of paving stones, then another layer of pavers and a bottom layer of thin concrete. The soil was dead and there were the remains of a cinder path. The soil did not smell like earth.’

Luckily for Erif, her mother lived in Somerset and could bring up carloads of rotted pig manure to London. Erif then spent at least a year nursing the soil back to life, creating green manure which involved growing cress, digging it in, and then starting again. ‘I remember the day when I saw my first worm and burst into tears when I saw my first bee.’

Only when the soil was good did any planting take place. Initially, as Erif was very ignorant, she planted things she liked, but they suffered unless they were watered regularly, so she learned the hard way that as the front garden is west facing, she had to put in plants that could cope with lots of sun.

Award-winning front garden

These days, all the flowers in the garden are white. She has an Oleander near the front door that has been there for at least 35 years, and a Jacqueline du Pré rose that is known for its strong fragrance, as well as an old French rose, Blanc Double de Coubert. Irises do well, as do Japanese Anemones, a Mauritian convolvulus, balloon flowers (platycodon), evening primrose, and there are loads of bulbs in spring.

Passersby often stop for a chat to admire the garden and some even ask for cuttings. The garden is so appealing that Erif has twice won Islington in Bloom awards for best and then second-best front garden. Not bad for someone who was never into gardening!

Over the years, Erif has got to know all the people on her street who have gardens and that her front garden has been a good way of making friends. But she also firmly believes that her front garden helps reduce the risk of flooding, pointing to an incident a couple of years ago where the mains burst in Hornsey Road. The flood never reached her garden, but she hoped that if it did, it would have soaked up at least some of the water and helped to prevent it spreading. She also stresses that planted, as opposed to paved areas, reduce city heat significantly.

Paving is so ugly

However, Erif’s chief bugbear about paving is that it is ugly, and she despairs when looking at all the paved front gardens in her street. Even when Erif moved into her flat all those years ago there were very few green front gardens, and now there are only about three. ‘It’s like that trend for putting in kitchens that look like operating theatres, it’s all so unnatural. Human beings have this idea that we have to dominate nature, that we have got to be in control. Nature is not something to be admired and treasured.’

What’s interesting is that class differences don’t seem to determine whether a front garden is paved on Erif’s street, which is in Holloway, north London. The demographic social mix is typical of the neighbourhood: accommodation includes housing association, council dwellings, and privately owned flats and houses. The appeal of paving is perhaps understandable if households want parking but the front gardens on Erif’s street are too small for that. So, it must be about the convenience of seemingly low-maintenance gardens, which in the event often end up looking neglected with loads of weeds growing in the cracks and overflowing bins.

As for what can be done about the problem of paved front gardens, Erif is disappointed that Islington Council has not campaigned to encourage householders to keep their front gardens green. But she is pleased about CPRE London’s Front Gardens Network which provides a voice for people concerned about the loss of front gardens to paving. Erif is glad that she is not alone on the issue of front gardens.

When speaking to Erif, it really struck me how unusual it was for someone like her to take up the paving, and I asked her what her motivation was to which she replied: ‘Don’t know, just wanted to be surrounded by growing things!’

Erif’s story proves that it’s not particularly hard to create a beautiful front garden, and it’s lovely to hear that nearly 40 years later she and her neighbours are reaping the benefit. She hopes that her front garden story inspires at least a couple of people to take on their paving!