As an eternal optimist I seek positivity in the people and world around me, and I believe our cities’ gardens and park are a constant source of that – for me and I am sure for so many of us.  

Those green spaces are where memories are made, of lazy summer days with family and friends or unrecorded milestones in life such as teaching children to ride a bike, first kisses or adolescent gatherings away from parents. So John Mole’s ‘Paradise’ struck an immediate chord. I am there with him as he re-captures that evocative smell of cut grass –  the “live in the moment” happy simplicity of childhood: ‘another load of luscious freshness.’ 

Smells are powerful triggers for memory, so I was delighted to discover in the archive John Heath-Stubbs’ short but eloquent ‘Inscription for a Scented Garden for the Blind.’  A reminder that gardens touch us beyond the immediately visible. 

These spaces are also where most urban residents really confront and observe nature. Whether they are there for quiet contemplation or raucous parties, exercise or lying in the sun. Laura Potts recognises this power of nature in her incantatory poem, ‘Watchmen‘, which in turn is based on Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s post-pandemic poem ‘Swineherd.’ These both explore hope, desire and longing for simple lost pleasures. 

And our green spaces should not be relegated to mere locations; overlooked and uncelebrated. For that reason, I loved the way Fred Sedgwick captured the multisensory impact of being in nature in ‘Lord Of All Gardens‘: ‘mysteriously float the scents of herb and flower, grass and tree.’ 

More elusive and mysterious was Berlie Dohert’s ‘Ghost in the Garden‘, which resonates as it celebrates the mystery of gardens being a transparent backdrop to our lives… intrinsic to what’s happening yet “isn’t there” as its vast presence has become somehow ghostlike. 

But back to the living. City landscapes tell the stories of human settlement and development. They feature architecture and design influenced by the generations which came before us and sowed seeds or nurtured plants gathered from around the world. There is greater diversity in city parks than you’ll find in any other UK habitat. 

So I went to Velma Pollard’s ‘View Up Through Her Window‘, reminding me that what we perceive to be naturalised plants or wildlife are actually shared, plundered, translocated or simply travelling echoes of other places and cultures now blended with and enriching our own. Though there is a difference, as she remind us – ‘gardening is costly here/and cold.’ 

At the heart of the city – with its crack sellers and wind-blown litter – are Helen Dunmore’s ‘City Lilacs‘.  I particularly liked this poem as it pitches me right into the debate about the resilience and determination of weeds to survive despite the odds. These determined plants, both big and small, colonise barren places and bring life, colour and vitality: ‘here the city lilacs release their sweet, wild perfume/then bow down, heavy with rain’.  

Finally, I discovered the Scottish poet John Glenday’s short poem ‘The Garden‘, which adds a mystical or religious quality to green space, or in his words ‘the powdery ceanothus shade’. This speaks of the circularity of nature to me rather than divinity, and how things inexplicably change or transform. 

Thank you Poetry Archive for reminding me of the power of our parks and gardens to move and inspire us. Collectively, these green spaces are the heart, lungs, kidneys and soul of the hard, bustling, and grey coloured centres of our densely populated cities. 

Tim Webb is Director of London Parks and Gardens. He is a conservationist passionate about access to quality public green spaces. As part of his role, he runs London Open Gardens which happens every first weekend in June, when 100 + gardens not normally open to the public open their gates.