Yr Ardd – Growing our words

First visit

I love gardens, so having been invited to lead a project that lived in a garden was a dreamy prospect. The idea being that I would lead a series or writing workshops with different groups over a short period at Yr Ardd, using nature and the surroundings at Yr Ardd for inspiration. We were going to be growing our words and being creative. I was looking forward to my first visit.

Yr Ardd is a little scrap of previously forgotten scrubland on the edge of Llandysul, a small town on the border of Sir Gâr and Ceredigion. But what a fabulous place it is. My first visit was on a glorious summer’s day. I’d been given instructions as to how to get there. I knew Llandysul a bit, having worked there previously, but I couldn’t work out where the place could be. 

When I got to the place, I couldn’t believe how neatly Yr Ardd tucked into the town. You drive off the main road up a side street following the signs to Yr Ardd. Once you’ve parked your car, you walk down a lane that loops underneath the road, through a tunnel that would delight Alice in Wonderland and then, you get to wonder at the land as the garden opens up in front of you, like a forgotten surprise. 

Yr Ardd is a triangle of land sloping gently down towards the river, over on the other side is the by-pass flying low above the garden boundary, leading up towards Llanfihangel-ar-arth and Pencader, it is almost folded in under the seam of the road, like origami. 

Having arrived, I took a path towards the shed, which is always a good idea in a garden, because you’ll invariably find somebody there who will know what’s what. This is where I met Elizabeth, and she knows what’s what, she has been working at Yr Ardd for over a year now as the coordinator. First of all, there was a cup of tea and a sit down, just to get our bearings. From our bench in the wild section of the garden we could see the whole of the space, with paths networking around the garden like veins, creating different zones for different things. So, come with me on a journey through Yr Ardd.

Along the bottom part of the garden I spy a mud kitchen with wooden cooking stations and old pots and pans. Excellent! It looks like an brilliant place to be making mud pies. Also at the lower section of the garden is a willow house and tunnel, all green and growing, that seems to change and morph with each day. The willow house sits in an infant orchard with a willow deer (Dewi) overseeing everything. And like a jewel, glinting in the sun, in the far corner, lies a newly laid pond ready to be home to all kind of animals and plants. 

In the polytunnel, where it’s warm and it smells of the earth, of green things, there are tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, courgettes busy busting out of their seeds and claiming the space as theirs. They seem to grow at an alarming rate – I am in awe. 

As I look up towards the bank above, the primrose yellow sign YR ARDD – like it’s nestled in the Hollywood hills – shines like the sun, with Haf the hare and her cheeky floppy ear sitting underneath it in her bramble nest, soaking up the warm rays. This is a good place I think, it has taken root and grown organically, and even though it’s a fairly new venture, it feels like it has always been here. 

Along one side of the space there are raised beds where fruits and vegetables abound and right at the centre of Yr Ardd is an open-sided shelter – a cwtsh – kitted out with benches, a food prep station, a fire-pit and a barbecue. This is where everybody meets, it is the heart of Yr Ardd. 

I was told that the people who use Yr Ardd are from all parts of the local community, from families and children, young people, to volunteers. I’d be doing writing workshops with three different groups: preschoolers and their families, teenagers who attend the youth centre and an older demographic of volunteers and Welsh learners. They all feel like they own a bit of this special place, this scrap of land, a whole world living, breathing, growing just in the shadow of the flyover. I left this beautiful place after my first visit feeling a little overwhelmed. 

Second visit

I thought I should visit Yr Ardd again, just to make sure I’d got the measure of it. Before going there, I’d had a really excellent Zoom conversation with Iola Ynyr (amazing woman), a practitioner and facilitator who works with different groups of people helping them to understand themselves better and to feel the connection with the land and where they are in the process. Iola helps people to be creative as well as to reflect and connect. 

Iola lead me through my expectations for the workshops and also prepared me for for the unexpected. It was such a great session, preparing me for anything to come. We talked, laughed and cried as we shared our experiences. I said that I was hoping that I would make a connection with people there and if, many years from now, we should happen meet up on a street somewhere, that we could look at each other, smile and know that we had shared an experience. Iola also helped me think about the practicalities of working creatively with people outdoors. We talked about how this place where the workshops would be held would be a safe space, where everybody is accepted and respected, where there is no judgement, where we just come together to share and enjoy each other’s company.

When I called over to see Yr Ardd again, Elizabeth was there, and we had a chance to sit and talk, just us two, over a cup of tea. I got to see and feel what her vision is for the place, she told me about the enjoyment she’s having from working with communities, form seeing things change and grow. She is so grateful for the friendships she’s made, and for the community that has taken root there. I felt so welcomed by her and by Eirwyn, the Welsh sheepdog. 

What I saw was that the garden had grown since my last visit, it had changed and was evolving. There were new things happening, things were progressing (for some reason, initially, I was stupidly surprised by that). But now I could feel how this place really gets under your skin, I could feel it. And I felt like I was a little part of this garden too.

Preparation for the workshops

I knew that even if we were working outside, we would need to be able to write, draw or do whatever we wanted on the go, so I decided to make some garden notebooks out of scraps of coloured paper and garden twine. Participants could take them home at the end of each session. 

And for a therapeutic afternoon before the sessions, I had a little notebook workshop going on in my kitchen. I was like a little industrious notebook elf. I had a ball. I used bits of paper that I had kept in case of just such an event. 

I had worked out roughly what I aimed to achieve in each session, knowing that each group would be of very different ages. I wanted each set of participants to have thought about the garden and their place in it during our session, and having been inspired, that we could pool our ideas and write a collaborative piece together towards the end of each session. I gave myself some margin for also just enjoying being in the garden and having a nice time. 

So armed with my notebooks, some pencils and my rough plan, I went to the garden to meet people.