My Allotment: A Wildlife Garden That Inspires My Art

I’d like to tell you about my allotment garden, which has become a huge inspiration for my artwork. Having an allotment means I can spend time in nature, watch things grow, and paint the flowers and vegetables that I harvest.

I inherited the allotment about 15 years ago, when it was totally bare. The soil was great and had been dug over, but there were no trees or plants at all. It was during the time when my kids were small, but somehow I managed to get down there and began my allotment gardening life.

Because of the way my brain functions, I soon realised that I wasn’t suited to planting things in neat rows like a traditional vegetable garden. I struggled to work out what to plant when, where, or how. So instead, I let nature take its course, working intuitively to create my garden, while keeping the beneficial weeds somewhat under control.

It was important to me not to use any chemicals, as I didn’t want to make the environment toxic to wildlife. Many years ago I had done a permaculture course and learnt a little about no-dig gardening, so that’s what I followed. I began planting flowers and vegetables together to support pollination and encourage biodiversity.

Over time, my allotment became a wildlife haven. I became fascinated by the number of insects that appeared there - spiders (so many! who knew they were everywhere?), bugs, butterflies, bees, wasps, and all sorts of tiny creatures. Watching these mini-beasts and pollinators fed my fascination with nature.

I also discovered how much I love to grow flowers, just as my mother did. I grew many dahlias, starting from bulbs given to me by a friend who was obsessed with them. Every year they came back into bloom with wonderful colour. My mother had an amazing flower garden and she used to paint flowers from her garden, a habit that I seem to have picked up. I soon discovered that painting flowers is harder than you might think. It’s always a challenge to capture their luminosity, shape and colour.

I also decided to paint my allotment flowers in the variety of vases I inherited from my mother. She had an incredible collection of mid-century pottery, gathered over many years from car boot sales. She had a great eye and always knew how to find a bargain.

However, there has been a recent setback on the allotment. In September and October 2025, most of the allotment site was underwater due to a blocked drain running under the local industrial estate. It took the council weeks to unblock it, and the flooding even made the news in Wales.

It was an environmental disaster. Thousands of worms were floating in the water, and the smell was terrible because contaminants had washed across the site. The pictures below show the before and after.

When the drain was finally cleared, the water receded and the allotments looked hellish - a bit like the Upside Down in Stranger Things. Sadly, the standing water had been there for so long that it killed many plants and damaged the soil structure.

Over the last few months I’ve been trying to repair the damage by adding compost and seaweed to the beds to nourish the soil. I also spent time with my friend Naomi clearing out an extraordinary amount of carpet, plastic, and other rubbish that had been buried in the soil for many years.

In a strange way, it has become an opportunity to start again. The trees and fruit bushes have survived, so now I’m waiting to see how everything looks this summer - when life returns once again to my allotment.