I grew up in a small two bedroomed house with no garden. There was a small back yard with a patch of grass about eight foot by six. Hard to believe now, but back then the toilet was outside, so to one side of the back yard was the toilet and a coal shed. The outside area had been bigger when the house was built originally but Dad and my Uncle had built a kitchen extension.

Despite its smallness, Mam did a lot with the 'back yard'. A flower bed, that ran along a bright whitewashed wall housed an array of flowers all year long. Flowers and plants that were almost always grown from slips of plants obtained from family and friends.

Hence, among others, we had Aunt Nan's carnations, Aunt Lil's rhododendron, Eddie’s lavender etc. There was a creeping pink rose tree climbing the whitewashed wall. It always flowered in May and roses would be taken from it and placed on the May altar that was set up every year for St. Mary. I made perfume from the rose petals as a child. In later years, my daughter was to do the same.

Last week we were out together in the gardens of Newbridge House in Donabate and we came upon a rose bush of the same variety. The scent hit us immediately, it brought back memories of the perfume making to both of us. I explained to Lyla, my little granddaughter that we had made perfume and that I have a rose bush, slipped from the one in Rathgar in our garden now. She will make ‘perfume’ from its petals in the future, I hope.

There was a window box on the windowsill of the back bedroom, replanted every year with trailing petunias and pansies. The window box was made by my Dad and was repainted each summer to match the colour of the back door which led out to a laneway that was overgrown.

Some neighbours had built extensions to their house that encroached onto the lane, so it had become unusable over the years. Therefore, my Mam decided to claim it and we suddenly had several extra feet added “out the back” as it was called. The clothesline was moved out there and a small vegetable patch was planted.

Despite the size of the little yard, there are a lot of memories. Sunbathing, getting burnt to a crisp and knowing no better. My Mam had dark skin and was a sun worshipper. I suppose I always hoped her capacity to take the sun and tan, would just suddenly come to me! There is the photograph of her sitting on a stool in the garden, book in one hand and a cigarette in the other, catching the sun and reading her book with a tea towel on her head to protect her. She was out there any chance she got.

Strange the things that come back to you once you put yourself in a place and time. I remember that I was ‘sunbathing’ in the garden when I heard on the radio that Nelson’s Pillar had been blown up - I would have been about seven.

Another time I remember sitting out there with a transistor listening to music and ‘Pretty Flamingo’ by Manfred Man came on for my first time of hearing it. Daddy was with me and he said, “That’ll be Number One this week” and it was.

For years we had a little dog called Sindy. We got her when I was quite young, and she lived until I was about sixteen. Her kennel was in the yard and she spent a lot of time there. She even gave birth to a litter of puppies in the coal shed and we hadn’t even realised that she was pregnant! I had been on holidays in Skerries with Mam and Dad at the time. My sister was in the house, so with there being no contact while we were away, we arrived home to the news that there were six puppies in the shed.

Years later when we bought our house in Swords my Mam was in awe of our garden. 120-foot-long and the width of the house and garage. She loved sitting out there in her little suntrap and helping us to learn how to tend it.

There have been many birthday parties and other celebrations in our garden but that's another story.

The tradition has remained. To name but a few I have the descendants of Mam's pink rose tree, my friend, Carol's cosmos from Kent, Aunt Lil's rhododendron, Kathleen Ryan's berries and Tom Nulty's lavender tree residing happily in our garden in Swords. I’ve also recently just acquired some daisies and a rose shrub from my friend Ger. The berries are going strong and once again this year there’s been lots of jam made.

We are continuing to do this, as I have slipped some lavender, the rhododendron, and a few other flowers and now they are growing in my daughter’s garden. The next generation of flowers.