Dref Gerrig

There is a place not too far from here. Just three hours of winding Welsh roads door to door.
There is a village far from any other where a road becomes a lane, the lane a track, the track a woodland drive, the drive a cottage yard.
There is a cottage on the lower slopes of a Welsh mountain, quiet, secluded, home for four autumnal days.

This is Dref Gerrig an old basic farmhouse perched between forest and an ever rolling landscape on the feet of Cadair Idris. So far from anything that at night the sky is emblazoned with stars and by day you’d swear you could hear the slow munch of lichen dissolving stone and creeping endlessly on. It’s rare for me to leave the garden for anywhere other than forest but this mountain and landscape are something special, plus it does have some rather wondrous woodland looming up behind the house. Or did.

After a steep, narrow drive up from the village below I turn the bend expecting to see the first tentative glimpse of the cottage down a tree shrouded track only to discover a one sided expanse of sky. The forestry commission have obviously been hard at work clearing old pine plantings from the hillside, what was once dark and deeply mossy is now open, sunlit and rather daunting. Before one always had the feel of being enveloped by the land as though the woodland was physically reaching out to hug the cottage to its mountainous bosom. Now Dref sits exposed on one side with the very peak of Cadair rising up in the distance behind. Thankfully most of the broadleaf trees still stand including a stunning Beech standing sentinel next to the cottage and walking over where the woods had once stood I could soon spot the new seedlings which enriched by the sudden access to sun and rain were speeding skyward. Rowan, Oak, Beech and Larch were dominate but it didn’t take long to discover a diverse array of plant life that would become the new woodland. Give it a few hundred years.

As phenomenal as all this was there was one thing remaining. One thing that was needed to complete the perfection of this moment in time and the sudden crunch of tyres on gravel announced the arrival of it. My brother. Now much can be written about this man and how who I am now, owes much to his influence in my formative years. My love and innate fascination in nature was at the very least bolstered by him if not inspired in the first place. I’ve no doubt that without him I wouldn’t be the gardener I am today (the lovely irony is that he wouldn’t be the gardener he is without my influence either).

I can lose myself in this landscape so easily. The seemingly endless drystone walls heaving with thick verdant mosses, lichens of increasing complexity, forest glades perfectly lit by the split rays of the sun. A landscape such as this has been perfectly crafted by nature for hundreds of years, Dref itself is at least three hundred years old. As a gardener I am always amazed at what nature can achieve but here I have to not only take my hat off but throw it away never to be put back on because here is a landscape that would bring Capability Brown himself to his knees.

I will save the tales of our adventures here for another time. I’m aware of much to be told and the ever increasing length of this blog alone. I will therefore leave you will a few images of this most special of places.