Where a forgotten garden becomes a place of wellbeing, memory, and new beginnings — and where outdoor walking opens a path into confidence, connection, and practical outdoor challenges.
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An Unexpected Garden
Sometimes life plants seeds in places you never intended to grow.
When I first imagined the future of Moor Mountain Grow, it wasn’t supposed to include a neglected cottage, a greenhouse held together by optimism, overgrown ponds, or enough plant pots to open a small garden centre.
Yet here we are.
Eastridge arrived during a period of significant change for our family. Alongside the challenges of dementia and declining mental health, decisions that once made perfect sense slowly became harder to manage. Ideas started with excitement and passion but became difficult to complete. Like many families facing similar circumstances, we found ourselves looking at a place that had once been loved but had gradually become overwhelming.
And nowhere tells that story better than the garden.
My mum clearly imagined something wonderful.
There are echoes of beach gardens, woodland gardens, wildlife gardens, hidden gardens, and gardens that perhaps only existed in her imagination. Trees appeared where trees probably shouldn’t be. Some found their way beneath overhead wires. Others settled above a septic tank. More than one hundred tubs of plants spread across the property, each carrying their own story and intention.
The result wasn’t quite Kew Gardens.
It was more like a horticultural treasure hunt designed by someone shopping with enthusiasm and planning with crossed fingers.
Yet buried beneath the confusion was something important.
Vision.
The challenge wasn’t a lack of imagination. The challenge was finding a way to bring all those ideas together.
So in March, with help from family, friends and a willingness to get muddy, I started the slow process of creating order from chaos.
Not by spending lots of money.
Not by bringing in excavators and landscape architects.
Simply through time, effort, borrowed tools, tea breaks and occasional moments of wondering what on earth I had agreed to.
Sometimes life plants seeds in places you never intended to grow. Moor, Mountain, Grow began with a belief that the outdoors can offer more than a destination: it can offer time, encouragement, and a way to take the next step.
Hiking and outdoor walking are one option within Moor, Mountain, Grow. They sit alongside the wider work of building confidence, learning through practical outdoor challenges, and finding a pace that makes the countryside feel welcoming rather than intimidating.
Yet here we are.
Nowhere tells that story better than the garden.
Attempting not by spending lots of money in a time of spending money for dementia care and rest-bite.
Attempting by not by bringing in huge excavators and professional landscape architects.
Every helping hand matters: clearing one corner, moving one pot, planting one seed, or simply making space for people to learn and belong outdoors.
The Tub Graveyard
Every great restoration project apparently starts with moving hundreds of plant pots. Pots in all shapes, couloirs and sizes. Some made of clay and other hardcore plastic. Each one full of a Vision or plan, a plan that is lost inside a broken brain.
Welcome to the Tub Graveyard.
This isn’t as dramatic as it sounds.
It’s simply a safe area where pots can be stored, protected from winter weather while I work out which plants should stay, which should move, and which might help fund future improvements.
The goal is simple.
Sell surplus pots. Buy seeds. Grow new life.
A modest gardening economy if ever there was one. One thing that my mum had managed to enjoy was buying a pot, adding compost and an arrangement of the same plants. The edges of these tubes planted with bluebells and the centre with shrub. Repeated many times and some with greater success than others. One tube started off as a bin, bags or household waist then one day later, compost added, followed by some bulbs and yet another siliute of a plant, the red lab led variety stood in a corner of a garden centres version of a graveyard.
Restoring the Greenhouse
The greenhouse has seen better days.
Trees have crowded around it, panels are broken, and the paint has long since faded.
The vision is straightforward: let in the light, repair what is broken and bring it back into use as a place for propagation, annual flowers and summer favourites.
A greenhouse should feel hopeful. The place where new beginnings happen, a place of sanctuary on a wet Exmoor day.
That’s exactly what I’m aiming for. This element is one of trepidation, the overhanging trees with the added natural winter weather of Cottage on Exmoor. The aim is to use the window of opportunity to layer the trees in the winter and before bird nesting season. If this is successful, it’s a case of seeking glass that can be delivered and then replaced.
Reimagining the Car Park
This might not sound exciting, but it could become one of the most important changes on the site.
The current space feels cramped and awkward. Future plans involve creating logical parking, better access and groundwork that will eventually support new services for the cottage.
The garden borders will soften the space with shrubs, heathers, thistles and low-growing flowering plants.
Less car park.
More “arrival experience”
At least that’s what gardeners call it when they’re spending their weekends digging holes.Less car park.
Enton’s Garden
This space has become my outdoor experiment. With the added story of my father’s first guide dog Enton.
Since March, more than a thousand litres of soil have been moved into place, along with sand, gravel and a collection of carefully chosen plants.
A rescued pine tree now stands at its heart.
Cornflowers, thistles and yellow-flowering plants provide seasonal interest, while the overall feel sits somewhere between a coastal landscape and lowland woodland.
The real purpose is learning.
If this planting scheme thrives, it may become the blueprint for other areas across Eastridge.
Simple gardening.
Low cost.
High impact.
Keeping gardening, as I like to call it, “keep it simply stupid”.
The Secret Garden
One pot at a time.
Every property deserves somewhere to breathe.
The Secret Garden will remain just that.
A quiet corner with filtered sunlight, layered hedges and a hammock.
No grand plans.
No ambitious projects.
Just a place to sit, think, and occasionally do absolutely nothing.
Something we could all benefit from more often.
The Pond
The pond is currently winning.
Not by much.
But it’s definitely ahead on points.
Years of growth and limited sunlight have allowed nature to take charge. Pond weed and overgrown shrubs now compete for every inch of space.
There are several options.
- Tidy it.
- Start again.
- Or create something entirely different.
At the moment I’m leaning towards a seating area, a small fire pit, and somewhere to spend a summer evening with friends.
Perhaps even a Pimms.
After all, every great garden deserves somewhere to celebrate the victories, however small they may be.
Would you like to get involved
This project will grow one step at a time. Along the way there will be walks to learn from, practical outdoor challenges to share, gardens to restore, and new ways for people to take part.
If the thought of an inclusive countryside appeals, and you would like to volunteering at Eastridge, please come and be part of the next step.
It’s about honouring the vision my mum once had while adapting it to today’s realities.
It’s about acknowledging the impact that dementia and mental health challenges can have on families, homes, and everyday life.
Most importantly, it’s about proving that progress doesn’t always come from large budgets or grand plans.
Sometimes progress is simply clearing one corner.
Moving one pot.
Planting one seed.
And then repeating the process the next day.
The plan
We welcome volunteers to spend an hour, a day or a weekend with us over the summer. Dates and locations will be shared with everyone who signs up.
Please use the form below to register your interest, and I will get back to you.
Thank you.
Follow the Journey
Eastridge won’t transform overnight.
Like any worthwhile garden, it will take time, patience, mistakes, learning and plenty of cups of tea, with the odd large glass of Pims.
But every week something changes.
- A path appears.
- A flower blooms.
- A forgotten space finds purpose again.
Follow Eastridge on Instagram and YouTube for the latest updates, photos, and videos, and click our social links to stay connected.
If nothing else, come along and watch a slightly blind gardener attempt to wrestle a century’s worth of enthusiastic planting back into submission. Please help in any way you wish, it’s not about the money it’s about getting this garden to shine on a moorland area of Devon.
Inclusive at my heart and positive in every direction.
Supporting people from all aspects of life looking for new beginnings and the change that is needed to go forward.
Who I help!
- Individuals who are blind or partially sighted, concentrating on practical skills and confidence.
- Creative people enabling them to unblock projects and build sustainable practice.
- Inclusive startups & entrepreneurs, push through the blocks and create design and grow with accessibility at the core.
- People looking to be part of a community, taking Eastridge to a new beginning.
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