The books on planting and flowers were extensive and many of them older than Diana, but they had pictures of the plants inside them, which helped Amanda see how they would look in full bloom, but she was still struggling to imagine it complete.
There was only one thing that Amanda knew she could do to make the garden something she could see in her mind.
She went to her room upstairs and pulled out the suitcase that she had packed some art supplies in. She found her watercolours and paper, some brushes and pens and went downstairs and set them up on the kitchen table.
Drawing and painting had become something she viewed as an indulgence when her mother became ill, despite Wendy’s protestations that Amanda should be drawing every day.
But she couldn’t concentrate on anything but trying to help her mother and when the news came that the brain tumour was terminal, Amanda had put her art supplies away.
Now she opened the tin of her best French watercolours with the most intense hues and laid it carefully to the side.
She went to the cupboards and found a jam jar and put some water in it. She also found an old cloth; perhaps it was a dusting rag, she thought, as she took it from the drawer, as it was too frayed to be anything else.
She opened the book to the maps of the garden in season and then opened to a new page in her A3 sketchbook.
She carefully sketched out the layout of one of the beds along the driveway. While it wasn’t an architectural masterpiece, it gave her an understanding of the parameters and boundaries of the stone walls and edging for the beds.
Looking up the plants recommended for summer she marked the pages for each of the flowers mentioned and then set to work.
White hydrangeas sat happily besides pink cosmos daisies, and snapdragons and tall white and pink foxgloves. They were mixed with something called a hosta, which Amanda immediately loved for its verdant green leaves. The pink and white were a gorgeous combination, she thought, as she painted the layers of the water colours for the different shades of pink.
She started to shade the pathway but couldn’t remember what the ground was like. Was it stones or crushed gravel there? she wondered. Taking her drawing pad and her pens with her, she walked to the part of the garden that she was drawing. The driveway passed Diana’s house and she wondered if she should call on her but she was mindful not to bother the woman. She had a life outside of Moongate and didn’t need Amanda asking her silly questions that she could probably find answers to herself.
Amanda scuffed the ground to see what the path was next to the bed along the driveway and saw it was gravel. She filled in some shading and then stood back and looked at the empty garden bed and then at her drawing.
If she could turn that into this, she thought, it would be a miracle.
‘Doing a little sketching?’
Amanda turned at the sound of Diana’s voice and saw her standing with her dog, who was off leash and sniffing about the ground.
Diana was in a simple pale green dress that looked very good quality, if not a little old-fashioned, and a light yellow cardigan and sensible lace-up flat shoes. She was also wearing tortoiseshell-style sunglasses, which seemed slightly incongruous with the rest of her look, but Amanda could hardly pass any style judgement while wearing purple Indian harem pants, no shoes, and her ‘New York Baby’ T-shirt tied at the waist.
‘Hi,’ Amanda said. ‘Simon showed me that book you wrote. You’re amazing!’
Diana laughed. ‘It’s not really a book and we only printed a few copies, but I thought it best I record what we did to bring it to its full glory in case anyone else wanted to restore it one day.’ Diana looked at the pad that Amanda was holding. ‘What did you sketch?’
Amanda looked down at the page. ‘I was trying to imagine the flower beds, so I did this. I mean, it’s not great, but I’m a visual learner,’ she said, handing the pad to Diana.
Diana looked at the paper and then the garden bed and back again a few times.
‘Remarkable,’ she said. ‘It’s near perfect. You must have a strong knowledge of flowers to be able to replicate the ones on the legends of the maps.’
‘Not really, I looked them up, but I found the drawer of seeds in the potting shed.’
‘You didn’t?’ Diana gasped. ‘I thought that had been mistakenly thrown out.’
‘No, all there and they’re all so neatly marked. The box is lined and was weather proof, so I think some of them might germinate, or at least I’m hoping. Even if some don’t take, I at least have the names of everything now. The writing is so neat.’ Amanda laughed. ‘Neater than mine.’
‘That was Pete’s writing,’ said Diana. ‘He did all of that work.’
Diana looked back at the paper, her finger trailing over the artwork.
‘This is exceptional,’ she said to Amanda, who blushed.
‘It’s very rudimentary, but it helps me see what it was like.’
Diana nodded. ‘Will do you do other seasons? I would very much like to see them.’
