My hobby eventually became my profession. I began doing maintenance gardening for a largely older clientele. I was aware that many felt a deep sense of loss at no longer being able to garden. One of my clients was Hope Elizabeth Pringle. Mrs Pringle was a great grandmother and still lived in the house where she and her late husband had brought up their children. She was in her eighties and could walk only with the aid of a frame. Though she could no longer tend her garden she still looked after a large number of potted plants she kept on her balcony. I had thought her content till one day she said to me with such sadness ``I used to love muckin' about in the garden."

This went through me like a bolt of lightening. In that instant I realised that I too might one day be unable to garden. It was then I took my first conscious step toward The FOREVER GARDEN. From that time on I began to seek out ways of adapting gardens and gardening for older gardeners. I discovered the existence of Horticultural Therapy, where gardening is used formally by health professionals as therapy and rehabilitation for their clients. Horticultural Therapy became the focus of my studies.

The horticultural therapy movement had amassed a vast amount of information on ways to make gardening accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities, and I realised that many of the techniques being used would also make things easier for the home gardener, especially as they aged. I realised too that the information was not always reaching those who needed it, so I began writing newspaper articles about adapting gardens for retirement. These, in time, led to The FOREVER GARDEN.

My need to garden is soul deep. Over the years I have sought reasons why the garden brings us such joy, such peace, such a feeling of wholeness. I have found some through the developing field of Ecopsychology which looks at our relationship with the natural world. Humanity's earliest physical, intellectual and spiritual lives were nature based, and our need for contact with the natural world is abiding. In today's world we are often starved of this contact, but as gardeners we establish an intimate relationship with nature through our gardens; this relationship is the heart of the garden magic. We gardeners need our gardens, for all of our 'forevers'. My hope is The FOREVER GARDEN will help us meet this need.

CARA ROSEHOPE