Looking and watching, listening to the omens, all the omens. One of the first birds I saw reflected in my newly made pond was a cormorant. The cormorant is my talisman bird. I don’t know when it became such, but now it is. And although in the past I would see it occasionally, now I live in Newbury I see it often. To see it deep in my garden, under my garden, above my garden, was a wonderful moment. It was transcendent, and confirmed my endeavour.

It all starts with birds. This is not necessarily a practical comment, it’s a spiritual comment. Not quite. It is more grounded than spiritual, even though the birds move in the air above the garden. At the moment the swifts scream around in the air above all day long, and through the night, never coming down to earth.

One of my garden’s starter birds is the sparrow. They spend a lot of time in the dust, making little depressions to bath in, to bring the gritty earth in amongst their feathers. There are masses of them. I counted seventeen at once, one day recently. They are like little mice, scuttling around, having little play fights, whizzing in and whizzing out at a moment’s notice. They are not entirely endearing. They devoured a row of beetroot that I planted, quite completely, and they like the shoots of peas. I am getting to know them. They like bathing in the pond, too. They are mischievous little sprites, endlessly forgivable. In time there will be less dust, and it will be interesting to see how our relationship develops.

There is dust because I am changing the topography of the garden. I have lifted paving and dug out the rubble under it and replaced it with topsoil. I have changed the level of much of the rest of the garden to make it roughly on one plane. I have dug a large hole to make a pond. All this excavation has meant large areas of bare soil. In the future there will be no bare earth and no digging, and maybe the sparrows will spend less time with me. So be it. Other birds will follow. Louise saw a thrush the other day, which is very exciting. Thrushes eat snails and are an essential part of the balance I am seeking to create where there is a harmonious coexistence of all beings. Beings. For a moment I want to talk about the level of coexistence I am seeking. In this garden there will be fruit and vegetables for us to eat. That is one aspect. I am following a forest garden principle where ultimately I have a closed system where all the plants and other beings live together. Because I have chosen productive perennial plants, trees , shrubs and climbers, with some plants that have edible roots, and some that are aromatic, herbs for the kitchen and some that take nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix it in a way that makes it available to other plants, there will be very little for us to do other than harvest the produce. But this first year is different. This year there are many annual plants that are filling the bare earth.

I have allowed the plants to present themselves, like the birds. Sam gave me an advent calendar at Christmas which had a packet of seed for each day. These are some of the seeds I have sown. Marigolds, yarrow, chamomile, St John’s wort. Clary sage and hollyhocks. Tobacco plants. Sweet Williams and Jacob’s ladders. Mullein. I’ve read recently that mullein is good at healing the earth. It feels as if my earth will be glad of some healing, with all the upheaval that has gone on. Add to these other plants that I happen to have grown – peas, courgettes, cabbages, beetroot (?), beans, squashes. And more. And then there is the green manure, which like the mullein will heal the soil. Rye grass, tares and clover. And of course there are the things that are just there, that appear without any tending or invitation. Poppies, fat hen, lemon balm, dandelions. Wild lettuce, feverfew, sunspurge. Caper spurge. I’ll pause a moment to love the names of all these common plants. Marigold, dandelion. Sweet William. Jacob’s Ladder. The love that people have had for these plants for hundreds of years is reflected in their names. And they are all here in my garden. What a wonder!

Other plants came with me, in pots for several years as we searched for this place. All the herbs, chives, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, many different mints. Odd things that I love like the white mallow, Malva moschata alba. A dark red snapdragon. The crazy giant Echium pininana which nearly died in the cold of last winter but is making a comeback. Some strawberry plants and a few currants. All these plants are filling the garden, and my heart.

Two other identifiable categories remain, the plants that were here already and are staying and plants that I have bought specially because they will fulfill the garden’s overall purpose and become permanent residents. Some of the ones I have kept may not stay forever. The scented viburnum in the front garden and the yellow shrubby hypericum are still here. The dog rose will probably go. Perhaps one harvest of hips before I remove it. But the keepers are the apple tree and the laburnum, and in the front the cordyline. And of course the roses. I don’t count the dog rose because they grow happily in the hedgerows, and will be there to harvest if I want to. The roses I’m keeping are a rambler that will clamber over the roof of the garden room. It has clusters of small white semi-double flowers and is beautiful. Another beauty is a climber on the fence that has small buxom fully double clusters of pale cream flowers. In the apple tree another rose is clambering. It is yet to flower, keeping me in suspense until next year.

Finally we come to the permanent new plants. There are roses here too, although there probably shouldn’t be. But I am a gardener, and so there will always be roses. First there is Tottering-by-Gently, a joke rose, a gift for my seventieth birthday from Mike and Sue. It turns out to be a very beautiful single yellow rose which has flowered well in its first year. It’s lovely. The other two roses are a climber around the front door called Strawberry Hill which I’m not sure about and a species rose called Rosa banksiae ‘Lutescens’ which I’m very excited about and which plans to clothe the whole house and be covered in small scented single yellow flowers in the early summer. Also in the front garden are the sacred sage, Salvia apiana, which I grew from seed, and a pomegranate which I grew from a cutting of a plant I had in Chichester, a gift from Nicholas. In the main part of the garden I have planted a framework of trees and shrubs. These plants are the Siberian pea, Caragana arborescens, a medlar, an almond, a hazel nut and a Mirabelle plum. Also a Chinese plum, Cephalotaxus fortunei. These six trees, along with the apple tree and the laburnum, will form the structure of the garden. This winter I will buy or propagate some more plants to form the understory, the next layer down.

Stepping outside in the extreme heat to check the name of one of the plants, I see a red kite turning and turning above the garden. The return of these birds to the Berkshire skies is another omen, of what I do not know. They are magnificent and menacing. Mostly they eat carrion, so I think my sparrows are safe.

I have forgotten all sorts of things, but this is only the beginning. Of the garden and of writing about it. For a lifetime of happiness plant a garden. I finally know what that means.