FEATURE:
Heavy with Seeds
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Under the Ivy: Kate Bush and the Personal and Creative Benefits of Gardening
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SOME might see it…
PHOTO CREDIT: Alamy
as a sign of retirement or quitting, but that just shows there is ageism when we think of gardening. Maybe once synonymous with the older generation, it is not the case that gardening equates to someone ending a career and giving in. Even if you are older, taking up gardening is not indicative of decline or choosing a different pace of life. In fact, it is frequently done by people who lead a very active life and are still working. Gardening now much more visible among younger generations. In terms of music, you do get artists who mention that they have taken up gardening. When I think of Kate Bush, among the images that spring to mind is the garden. It has been a part of life since she was a child. I have recently written about Bush’s East Wickham Farm childhood home. How there was this beautiful garden and farmhouse. A barn and an outside pool. I can only imagine how intriguing the garden was for this young girl. Not that Bush was too involved with the upkeep of the garden herself. Maybe she helped her parents out or was seen dancing around in the garden as they tended to the flowers. The tactility and colour of flowers and the garden no doubt would have fascinated a very young Kate Bush. I mention it because, in recent years, people have connected Kate Bush gardening with retirement. Bush spoke with Emma Barnett in 2022. Bush was asked what she is doing at the moment. Bush replied ‘gardening’. Maybe a question that was designed to elicit plans of new music, many felt that Bush was now in a stage where she did not want to make music and instead was living a much more normal and non-musical existence. Last year, Bush and Barnett spoke again. This time, Bush revealed she was keen to work on a new album. It goes to show that one cannot associate gardening with retirement. In fact, it has been a source of inspiration and creative motivation throughout Kate Bush’s career!
I will end with Kate Bush gardening in the 2020s and how it could, forgive the pun, plan the seeds for an eleventh studio album. I think that the gardening and that routine of planting seeds and curating a garden has been something stabilising and calming for Bush. Getting out in the open and being influenced by the soil and comfort of a garden. It was very much centre stage for 2005’s Aerial and its second disc, A Sky of Honey. A summer’s day unfolding from the view of an English garden. The sound of blackbirds ringing out. Watching the sun rise and set. The moving and evocative world that one gets from their garden. Let’s move back to 1985’s Hounds of Love. When Bush had a bespoke studio built at East Wickham Farm to record Hounds of Love in, there was this wonderful period where she was making music plans but also relaxing. Not only did her trip to Ireland influence her songwriting and open her mind. Bush and Del Palmer (who were dating during the time) spent the summer gardening. Apart from going to films and Bush driving around and enjoying her freedom, gardening was very much a way for Bush to both unwind but also inspire her creative mind. Hounds of Love is an album awash with the natural world and weather. A track that was recorded too late to be included on Hounds of Love but was the B-side for Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), Under the Ivy very much takes us out to the garden.
One of Bush’s most beautiful songs, its lyrics are so evocative: “Go into the garden/Go under the ivy/Under the leaves/Away from the party/Go right to the rose/Go right to the white rose/(For me)/I sit here in the thunder/The green on the grey/I feel it all around me/And it's not easy for me/To give away a secret/It's not safe”. I love how there is a flower in front of Kate Bush’s mouth for the cover of The Sensual World. This is what Bush said: “The rose on the front cover is real. A lot of people think it was made out of silk…or paper. It’s a rose called Doris Tysterman. I’d planted it in our garden a few years before. Found just before the photo shoot; Doris had produced the perfect bloom”. I know East Wickham Farm had a rose garden, so that would have been spellbinding for a young Kate (Cathy) Bush. I can imagine that her mother was a gifted plantswoman. If Bush stated in 2022 that she was into gardening now, I don’t think it ever left her. Especially when she was at or near East Wickham Farm, she would have been out there gardening. She lived at addresses throughout London during her career – including a time when she lived at Wickham Road in Brockley with her two brothers. Bush took the top floor and lived alone whilst Paddy and John had their own floors. I don’t think she had much access to a garden whilst there. It has become more defined as she moved to larger properties. Bush bought the Grade II-listed Georgian mansion in the mid-1990s in Berkshire. She also used to own a South Hams (Devon) clifftop mansion. Bush currently resides at Clifton Hampden Manor in Clifton Hampden, Oxfordshire. Previously, Bush lived in a property located on the river Kennet, near the village of Theale. The property was built around 1800 as a miller's house for the nearby water mill. Standing in 22.54 acres of grounds, Shenfield Mill was this idyllic paradise.
IN THIS PHOTO: Clifton Hampden Manor, Oxfordshire
In each property, I think the garden and grounds was important. The space and privacy was key. Bush able to build her own studio or have enough room to have a separate studio. If you look at photos of these properties, you can imagine Bush wanting something similar to her childhood home. In the sense she could have this garden that was awash with colour and beauty. Where she could spend time out there relaxing and also working. I think about her now, aged sixty-six. At a time when new music is in her mind, she lives in this wonderful house with beautiful grounds. I think that the gardening she spoke to Emma Barnett about in 2022 led to some songwriting. Bush released the Little Shrew (Snowflake) last year. Whilst in that very busy period of creating and directing the video, I think Bush would have found time to garden. For anyone who thinks that Bush’s love of gardening is her stepping away from music, that is obviously not true! As mentioned, the garden has provided fascination for her since she was a child. One of her earliest songs (around about 1974) was titled In My Garden. Otherwise known as Something Like a Song, these lines strike me: “There's something that sounds like a song/In my garden, by the willow/A piper: "Oohoo, ahoo, oohoo, ahoo, oohoo, ahoo, hoooo"/I see him when I turn the lights down low/In my garden, wading through the pond/Rest and sing: "Lover oooooooh..."/"Oohoo, ahoo, oohoo, ahoo, oohoo, ahoo, hoooo". In a future featyure, I will look at the properties Bush has lived in through the years. How they were instrumental when it came to her creativity. All providing their own inspiration. For now, my mind is in the garden. Kate Bush among the flowers, under the ivy; the soil heavy with seed(s). A source of joy and comfort for Bush, it has often fuelled her songwriting. I think we will once more see this…
REALISED fairly soon.