Ghostly Gardeners – a fictional piece based on a world of experience, following a writing prompt about a doorway. By Gary Webb

Looking back, maybe it wasn’t an overactive imagination that placed those oasis-like images in my mind. Maybe the ghostly head gardener had put them there to whet my appetite; to convince me not to pull the old glasshouse down but breathe new life into it. I suppose it could be restored with a few fresh timbers cut-in and some new glass, maybe giving another century of growth, but I’m torn, as when I first set my sore eyes on that tumbledown structure.

When I was there the door, indeed the whole glasshouse clearly needed more than a lick of paint to set it straight. Rust coloured rainwater stained the timber below hinges and where putty should have sat neatly between wood and glass, mossy cushions

now thrived. Guttering, where it hadn’t collapsed had turned into soggy weed growing troughs, and the once pristine timber framework had withered, its grain opening ever deeper to the wearing skies. Surely the time for this old growing place had come and gone.

Gleaming white this house may once have been, but with a constant cycle of swelling winter rains and shrinking summer droughts its paint had fallen away. Knocks and chips from passing tools hanging from wheelbarrows hadn’t helped, and the odd kick from a gardener’s steel toe-capped boot too: they had all left their marks and a characterful if sorry sight it had become.

Being hand crafted from the finest materials the structure had mostly lasted well, thanks probably to meticulous maintenance in its younger years. Likely it was the head gardener’s pride and joy judging by an old photograph I’d viewed but half an hour before, pinned miraculously still to a dusty cobweb covered bothy shelf. Maybe on a clear moonlit night she and her ghostly gardeners could be heard whistling, or their colourless souls could be seen tying in crops and watering pots, cleaning the beavertail glass or polishing the produce. Those gardeners might have come and gone, but their memory and place in history remains.

They couldn’t be blamed of course, those gardeners, for many of them were forced to leave when the estate was last sold. I was told that one of them kept coming for a while and kept it all going, taking what they grew in the walled garden to sell at the local market. Beyond that, other than local kids sneaking in to go scrumping, the walled garden had grown fallow. No, this garden and its glasshouse had reached and surpassed its use-by date.

I had a key to the rickety door which sat amongst dozens on the large bunch given to me when sent there to carry out my inspection, although even if I had wanted to enter, its interior had become an impenetrable jungle. Instead, I stood and stared at a slow scene of devastation, where mother nature had worked deftly to claim the place back for herself. I couldn’t help but feel sadness at the loss of a once vibrant and productive place where people had toiled day-in day-out for a living. 

Inside, I could see slatted shelves where seedlings grew or potted flower displays might once have bloomed, though now a shady place where brambles grew thick and strong. Where neatly presented, fed and weed-free borders once lined the white-washed rear wall, now debris and broken glass sat layered upon the floor. Only the elaborate network of ironwork rods and levers and heavy flooring grates amidst terracotta tiles gave any hint of an illustrious past.

Unable to enter fully, I retreated, heading around to the other end of the glasshouse to see if it had faired better, wading through a dense sea of nettles. Ducking down under a sprawling self-set butterfly bush and grasping a wet fist-sized handle, I gave the door a firm shove. Pushing also with my foot the door opened wider, sweeping an arc of damp dirt and detritus on the floor. Clearly this house had seen no life for a long while, until I focussed on a large, living, grape vine: Ah, a vinery I thought, stepping inside.

Frustratingly and filling the space before me, cascading stems from the vine above still blocked my path. Some stems had even touched the muddy floor and taken root in a desperate bid to keep the mother plant alive no doubt. Other stems had fallen, garrotted by their once neatly tied supporting wires. The whole scene was again one of sadness where a once thriving entity now limped weakly on. All I could do whilst rain began to tap on what glass remained was question the past, present and future worth of the old glasshouse. 

Had the house covered its original investment of time and expense I wondered? Had all those previous winter hours labouring to keep the stove stoked, its pipes warm and the plants clean proved as fruitful as once hoped? Could it all be hauled back from the brink, albeit with a new set of values to again power the walled garden in which it sat? Indeed, should a new broom sweep clean, and this house of glass live to grow again? These questions weighed heavy.

Moving from one end of the tumbledown glasshouse should have been enough to convince me that its time was now up, except maybe for some metalwork and glass that could, with some tender care return to service elsewhere. The longer I paused though, the more uneasy I felt at the thought of demolishing the weather battered old house. I pictured diggers pulling and pushing its timbers, the falling glass, and its complete eradication; rebuilding from scratch might have been the way of the world, but somehow it didn’t feel right.

Old, withered and mummified grapes might have hung before me, but as I blinked I saw plump bunches of juicy fruits ripe for the picking. I could have blocked those fanciful thoughts but chose not to, and for a few moments remained motionless, closed my eyes again and opened my mind to an alternative scene. Clean timbers in the brightest white came into view, with slithers of blue sky just visible between leaves and beyond those, crystal-clear panes of glass were all present and correct. At my feet, terracotta tiles were swept smooth, large pots filled with foliage plants sat on gravel before clean white walls, and freshly greased hinges saw vents wide open; the house was a pristine workplace.

Returning to the present and stood in the cold, the glasshouse that for a few moments had lived in my mind as a place full of growth and vigour, was exactly how things should be. Yes, times had moved on and grapes can now be shipped-in, and the glasshouse could be swept away. But to see plants nurtured in this way in a place built for the task, and designed for people to live and work in was and still could be so very special.

Physically, I could return through the doorway, wind my way back through the nettles and signal for destruction. But emotionally, could I ever be the one to call time on the old glasshouse or its people. Could I ignore those voices from the past and turn away from the head gardener’s fading sepia face. When I passed through the doorway I had crossed a threshold to a place where ghost gardeners still had much to say, and not only had I listened then, I still needed to hear more.

Gary Webb, October 2023