I was very fortunate to have been reared in a beautiful home with the most wonderful gardens.
In 1930 the garden was 3 acres, but grew to 9 acres with my parent's acquisition of adjoining properties in the early 1930's.
My father employed three full time gardeners before the war :- Mr. Burr, Mr. Wakefield and a 15 year old boy.  All were lovely and talented people who were kind and helpful to me, although they would probably have liked to have cuffed me around the ears at times !

  CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF A KENTISH GARDEN

Rows of sweet-scented border pinks,
Wagtails tip-topping on a fence,
Beech logs stock piled like Egypt's sphynx,
These things I now remember.

A moss encrusted croquet lawn
and primrose grotto leading to the
tin-roofed shed where logs were sawn
on wet days in November.

Blue as a cloudless summer sky
Iclandic poppies in the wood
called Meconopsis Baylei
would blossom each September.

The potting-shed wysteria caged
with gnarled and knotted branches.
New season's growth would look quite aged
the following December.

I often sit and contemplate
the happy childhood days I spent,
There's nothing now could compensate
For things I now remember.