What does the interviewer find surprising about Mariella’ s house?

M Mariella, you live in a typical London terraced house, with a long thin garden plot at the back, just like all the other houses in the street. But there the similarity ends. Your garden is a—well, I don’t know how to describe it—it’ s a jungle in the nicest possible way, a bit of paradise! You’ ve got hanging baskets bursting with flowers, roses clutch at your feet as you walk along the path. (11)In fact, everywhere you look is bursting with flowering shrubs, bushes and plants of every description at every level! Why did you create the garden?
W I wanted a garden which would remind me of my native home in Jamaica, although the climate here is very different, of course.
M Your father was a fanner, wasn’ t he? Do your green fingers come from him?
W No, I haven’t got green fingers! No way! (12)My father cultivated bananas for a living but he grew lots of different kinds of vegetables and we lived off what was grown in the garden. And besides vegetables, we had lots of flowers too.
M I must say, the exuberance of your garden here certainly captures the atmosphere of a Caribbean landscape. You came here many years ago—it was February, wasn’t it?
W Yes, it was cold and grey when I arrived—not the best time to be here! The garden was nothing but weeds but I saw it and I set to work.
M What did you grow at first? W My son liked vegetables. He liked to eat them raw, not cooked. (13)So I grew vegetables for him. He would come in from school and munch away at the freshly-picked vegetables: cabbages, carrots, cucumber, pumpkin. I used to get a lot of satisfaction just watching him eat.
M How did you learn to garden?
W I didn’ t learn from books or anything like that. I would just walk into a shop, see a packet of seeds and plant them, just like that! (14)If they didn’ t work out, I would keep trying until they did okay. My children weren’t interested in the garden but my grandson is keen on gardening. He learned about gardening at school and planted those sunflowers all by himself, although he’ s only six.
M Do you allow yourself a favourite flower?
W I love the shrimp plant with yellow flowers that is grown in Jamaica. (15)Friends in Jamaica said it would be too cold here for it to flourish, but I planted it in the garden and then took it to the living room, where it blooms well.
M You must derive a great deal of satisfaction from the garden.
W When I wake up in the morning and look out, you know, it...it is joy, pure joy.