Lack-A-Daisy

Pyracantha; multi-talented & multi-functional.

2012-02-01T11:35:00.001Z

Some of the frothy flowers of our pyracantha

We have a huge pyracantha at the bottom of our garden; it is a multi-talented plant. When it flowers it is a boundless fantastically frothy white mass which joins next door’s pyracantha & the one in the house at the back of us. Bees love it. I would share; I have better photos but who knows where they are!

The sparrows love the dense shrub using it as a resting/hiding/look-out point before they use the feeders in the garden. In the summer months it echoes with that tuneless sparrow-song & the air is full of the whirring of wings as they constantly fly back & forth. 3 broods of sparrow babies grow up amongst the branches. We almost had a robin nesting in it last year!

The sparrows are the rather indistinct little brown jobbies in the photo!

The bright red berries don’t last long with the pigeons & blackbirds gobbling most barely before they are ripened leaving only those on the edges or ends of the tiniest of branches to brighten the winter gloom.

Lastly the shrub gives us lots of privacy from the houses at the back of us. We are all quite close to each other so it is quite nice to feel tucked away from it all whatever the season.

I normally prune the pyracantha every year to try & keep it under a vague semblance of control, quite difficult & indeed dangerous with a long-handled pruner. It does now need drastic hacking back as it over-hangs the planted areas at the back of the garden. I am not bothered about the shade but it does keep the area underneath extra dry. The not so delicate operation hack & slash began a couple of days ago.

You know that the pyracantha flowers in May/June followed by the immature berries gradually ripening to, in our case, bright red. Much has been written about the mild weather causing plants to be rather un-seasonal in their flowering & fruiting habits. As many plants will flower twice if given the opportunity I have not been too astonished but I was quite flabbergasted to see the pyracantha flowering in January. I had seen blobs of white on the plant but had assumed it was sparrow guano.

Then I noticed that not only was it flowering but immature berries were also forming….

……who knows if they would have reached this stage; doubtful I suspect but who knows.

I must be off, more pruning to do.

** I apologise for the dire quality of the photos in this post; for illustration purposes only!

Ham & errr, sausage roll!

2011-12-14T18:04:00.001Z

It was the first frost of the year on Sunday. The sun rose & everything sparkled beautifully. Just the morning for a walk.

We were slightly encouraged by a craft fair being held in the grounds but Ham House is always a lovely National Trust property to visit. We got there before it opened so started off with a walk along the Thames’ tow path noisily crushing the ice on the puddles. We toyed with but decided against a visit to Petersham Nurseries so returned to Ham House to be revived by a hot latte* & a really truly excellent sausage roll. The sun had increased the temperature to such a point that we were able to sit outside looking at the vegetable garden. We were almost basking in the sunshine

The garden, although not large is very interesting historically with very contrasting areas. Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

And whilst not wanting to sound like a tourist guide the Palm Centre is just around the corner as well as the already mentioned Petersham Nurseries.

* Now I do love a latte but they can be insipid if not made properly. However, the worst coffee crime is when they are TOO COLD. Frequently they seem to be just warm enough to drink immediately so if you like to sip something hot, or, more importantly, eat a delectable slice of something cakey beforehand they do not retain enough heat & I can then get jolly cross. ‘Make it hot please’ can be frequently heard as I queue for my beverage of choice.

I gracefully declined being judged in the final of the competition.

2011-07-18T20:25:00.001+01:00

This probably sounds ever so middle class & even a bit twee but our local resident’s association has a front garden competition every year.

The aim, a very laudable one I am sure you will agree, is to encourage people to contribute towards making the area look nicer by putting a bit of effort into their front garden.

There are no entry qualifications or applications; every garden in the area is judged by a team of enthusiasts before those gardens with the highest scores going through to a ‘grand final’. There are three categories; summer garden, all year garden & container garden; the highest scoring garden of the 3 is awarded the best front garden, receiving a cup & some garden vouchers.

The judge’s gardens are disqualified from judging & the previous year’s winners are usually asked to help with the judging.

We won the competition quite a few years ago, I can’t even begin to work out when it was. Following that triumph I helped with the judging for quite a number of years. It was usually an enjoyable exercise but in some areas actually quite depressing. Most of the front gardens but many occupiers seem to take no pride in that first impression. It wouldn’t have been too bad if it was just the odd house here & there but in some streets it was difficult to find any garden that could possible be squeezed into the final judging. Concrete & weeds are fairly common & more recently storage sheds have begun to appear which I can see are very practical but take up almost half the available space. At least we have not been forced to deal with the delights of wheelie bins which would have to be kept in front gardens although many people have dustbins & re-cycling bins tucked somewhere.About 5 years ago I decided to both give judging a rest for a while & to give our front garden a re-vamp as it was getting a bit out of hand. I was rather shocked & embarrassed to be awarded the best front garden prize again! It had not occurred to me that it would even be considered as it had only just been completed & some planting needed a bit of time to really get going! Oooops! Judging beckoned again!

This year the letter about judging was on the doormat when I got back from holiday.I had to deal with some work issues & I quite forgot to get in touch as intended. Imagine my horror on Friday evening to get a letter saying we were to be judged in the final on Sunday! What should I do? Clip the box so it looked it’s best? Not clip the box or the hedge so it might look a bit neglected? Say I didn’t want to win again? (How self-important would that sound) In the end I rang the organiser & muttered I should not be included in the final judging as I should have been involved in it myself & sorry for not getting in touch…….. Phew!

Today I was delighted to do a little emergency judging. There were 2 contenders for the best container garden with the same score. I was asked if I could go & give my opinion to come up with a winner, so I did!

More of my Chelsea

2011-06-02T22:42:00.001+01:00

You are safe dear reader, I am not going to ramble on about Chelsea gardens weeks after the event when everyone has lost interest. No, this is about me, or at least a bit of my garden

I will remind you, because I expect you have forgotten, that after the Chelsea flower show last year I was enthused enough to create my own what I laughingly call my Chelsea bed. My initial rush of enthusiasm resulted in this updated in early spring to this.

These pictures show very honestly what things were looking like during Chelsea week….

Not very inspiring is it when it was looking rather nice a little while ago! Rather dominant is the dyeing foliage of the bulbs. A 2nd phase of daffodils looked lovely but the iris which were meant to follow on are very small (1 plant divided into 3) & suffering from a severe lack of water this spring so the one potential flower shrivelled. The rose in the middle of the bed is flowering away like mad but has gone rather leggy. At least my balls have been trimmed to encourage them to thicken out a bit so now I await the flowering of Geranium Rozanne which will be the main summer colour.

I know, I could have mown the grass & tidied up behind, but I didn’t!

Giraffes are a go go………….

2011-05-28T10:56:00.001+01:00

Do tell. What is it about giraffes that make them suitable garden accoutrements or ornaments?

I have been to 2 flower shows recently & at each there have been ornamental giraffes on sale to adorn your garden.

Malvern Spring Show

Chelsea Flower Show

Do you use them as supports for climbing plants? Do they add height to your otherwise flat & boring plot? Do you use them to add a feeling of the wide African plains to your tiny London backyard?

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would want a giraffe in their garden. Do you dear reader?

Yes, you can do it…..

2011-05-25T09:40:00.001+01:00

….if you B & Q it!

Hooray, after his Sunday scrabble for stones at B&Q Wandsworth, Diarmud Gavin has won a Gold medal at Chelsea for his Irish Sky Garden.

I loved the greeness of it, sculpted trees, swathes of grasses & mounds of box surrounding numerous pools & a sinuous pathway leading to the glory of a petunia pink pod containing most of the flowers in the garden & from which a few chosen souls could see the garden at its best, from above whilst us mere mortals gazed open mouthed from below.

Diarmud’s gardens often cause mutterings & indeed this one has too, but I just love to see someone who is both daring & able to push the boundaries of garden design & if you can’t do it at Chelsea……

But did he buy enough slate chippings?

Has he left it too late?

2011-05-22T12:35:00.001+01:00

Stop Press

RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Today assessors visit the show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show before judging tomorrow . Today will be the last minute polishing, vacuuming & dusting to make sure everything is in prime & pristine condition for the judging to begin.

So who was that looking rather panicky in B&Q Wandsworth this morning pushing a trolley with 10 bags of blue decorative slate & asking what time they closed tonight.Whose first card payment was not accepted?

Can you spot him, yes it is a him, in the distance?

Yes, you are right dear reader. It was himself, Diarmud Gavin of the controversial flying garden dashing about B&Q this morning possibly making up for shortfalls in his forward planning. Alternatively he could have finished & be moving on to his next job. What do you think?

I wanted to wish him all the best but had a feeling it may not be appreciated in the circumstances, but good luck anyway Diarmud.

A dog’s dinner or a curate’s egg?

2011-05-05T14:07:00.001+01:00

MrB has had the joy of commuting to Slough for the past few months; he started off training it but reverted to the more reliable motor vehicle. During his many ‘I must find the best route’ diversions he ‘discovered’ Chiswick House & gardens which we recently decided to explore.

The house & grounds have had a chequered history. The house, a palladian villa, was completed in 1729 having been designed by the then Lord Burlington & never intended as a private residence but as a showcase. The gardens were designed by William Kent & began the ‘English Landscape Movement’. The house was home to various members of the Burlington family until the late 1800’s when it fell into decline being used as a mental institution at one point. The house was sold to Middlesex Council in 1929 & became a fire station! The gardens are currently in the care of the LB Hounslow & the house is in the guardianship of English Heritage. In order to unify the management of the site the Chiswick House and Gardens Trust was set up & took over management in 2010. There has been a major restoration project carried out on the grounds so what is the result?

It is a fine house & there is still much of the statuary & other physical features around the gardens. The latter have obviously had much money spent on them recently to restore many of the original features, some of which look superb.

I know that newly planted shrubs will always look sparse until they have matured a little. But whilst some protection may be necessary too much & poorly maintained just makes the place look a mess.

There were lots of ‘municipal’ fences, many of which were there to provide dog free areas for families to use. Ugly but extremely important in a park used incredibly heavily by dog owners….

…although the situation was extremely well regulated…

The other niggles were the renovated glass-house was all closed up & orange plastic fenced off for no apparent reason, a walled area was locked with no indication of what it was or why it was shut, the beautifully shaped flower beds were just sitting empty.

So all in all I would say that, just like this blog, the gardens were a total mish-mash, trying to re-create what was obviously a very important garden to something of its former glory whilst having to cope with dogs, children & dogs. There is no doubt it is an enormously valuable & popular local resource but if you are looking to bask in the history of the place, beware. It will improve as planting matures but I think the conflict between its historical importance & current usage will always result in a less than satisfactory situation.

This was no tiptoe through the tulips…

2011-04-10T15:06:00.001+01:00

……more of a dive into the daffodils.

* What was the ‘this’ you ask? It was a Big Day Out with the inimitable Arabella Sock**, yes, she of the 100% cashmere loveliness. So we took a walk in the park, Nymans gardens to be exact which is approximately half way between our respective abodes.

We could not have asked for better weather; the sun shone strongly, the sky was blue & spring was springing up everywhere.

I have never seen so many fritillaries before; an indication of it being just the perfect place for them. Photos can not do the mass of them any justice. There were several ancient wisteria preparing to burst into flower & an interesting use of field beans in the bare beds which were waiting to be planted up with summer flowering plants.

It is difficult to be critical about a garden on such a gloriously sunny spring day when so much is bursting into life & the birds are singing their socks off so I abandoned any small critical faculties I possess, didn’t really think about it & just enjoyed the day.

*No animal was hurt in the taking of this photo & I have the written permission of the body in question.

** I am sure that Ms Sock will have already posted an erudite & witty entry on her blog by the time I get this finished

I’ve made my Chelsea bed so now…….

2011-04-06T21:16:00.001+01:00

Last July I wrote about my delusions of grandeur as I attempted to translate some Chelsea box clouds into my own little patch of SW19. I had only got as far as planting the box balls & all that remained of the original planting was a rose vaguely positioned towards the middle of the bed & a runty clump of sedum towards the back.

It was all planted up in the early autumn & I tried oh so hard to keep the planting fairly simple & limited. Here are some spring views taken on different days towards the end of March.

Councilspeak

2011-03-25T09:08:00.001Z

We have an allotment, well 2 in fact. We have had them for quite a few years now & they are tended assiduously by the very dear MrB with, sadly, very little input from me. The burden of guilt is heavy.

The site has worked well for years; we have water in dip tanks & taps, the council cut the main grass paths & take the rubbish away & every now & then heaps of stable manure are delivered.

The site has 2 entrances, one for vehicles is on a main road & near a large junction & consequently not easy to drive into. The second, pedestrian entrance gives access to a large cemetery. A number of allotment holders, us included drive through the cemetery & park close to that gate. This has been going on for many years.

2 recent developments;

The council want to hand the management of the site over to the allotment holders; part of its money saving measures. At present consultation is minimal; we don’t have an allotment association or any fancy stuff like that. I understand the ‘threat’ is that rents will double if the council cuntinue the management of the site.
They are going to close the gate from the cemetery.

All this is very interesting & no doubt very boring for you dear reader, but what has really made me laugh about the whole thing is the language of the council member of staff with whom MrB has been corresponding. I have been close to hysterics over his mangling of the English language:

“Furthermore, we are not satisfied that all use of the gate in question is absolutely necessary and are concerned that, increasingly, vehicles are driving through the cemetery that are not on business that is directly related to it. In other words, some are simply using it because it is there and they are not being challenged.”

“I am sure that you will be aware of the Council's grave funding problems”

“In the long term our priority is the security of the cemetery and the future cemetery gate closing arrangements will not necessarily be overly accommodating to allotment holders who remain on site late into the evening and so using the main and proper allotment gate will be a good habit for tenants to adopt henceforth.”

Why use 1 word when at least 10 will do! Was the ‘grave funding’ a joke? Probably not as I suspect he has had a sense of humour by-pass!

Capability Brown swings…..

2011-03-22T09:11:00.001Z

….and slides and has a climbing frame.

I am talking about my local park here, just a couple of streets away, loved by many local & not so local families for its play areas, bowling green, lake, Sunday football, athletics track, wooded area, tennis courts, cafe & perhaps not so loved when it is used for car parking during Wimbledon fortnight. It is used by many different groups of people all year & although the planting & landscaping are nothing to write home about it is green & a fantastic leisure facility.

View Full Album

I frequently walk through the park to work & took the photos last year

So dear reader, where does Capability Brown fit into this I can hear you shouting ? I hope you are still there? I can’t keep talking to myself now can I?

Well, a history lesson here. The original park comprised the grounds of Wimbledon Park House, the seat of the manor of Wimbledon. A number of different owners had enlarged the park & by the 19th century it was at its largest extent, and one of the homes of the Earls Spencer, lords of the manor.

It was the 1st Earl Spencer, was only 12 years old when he inherited the title, who carried out many ‘good works’ toward Wimbledon Park. And it was he who commissioned Capability Brown in 1765 to turn the Wimbledon Park valley from being semi-marshland into a grassy parkland populated by oaks with its main feature being a sizable lake by constructing a dam across a brook that flows from near Wimbledon Common down to the River Wandle.

In 1846, the 4th Earl Spencer sold the estate and house to John Augustus Beaumont a property developer who laid out new roads and sold plots of land for house building. Development of the area continued throughout the second half of the 19th century, gradually nibbling away at the parkland resulting in the park as it is today with it’s adjacent area of housing, also known as Wimbledon Park.

The modern park was bought by the Borough of Wimbledon just before the First World War and is now the only remnant of that former, larger park.

Just beside the lake there has always been a sad bit of a waterfall, a remnant of the original design but never working.This is what it looked like after a clean-up.

Recently however there have been developments!

What do you think? What would Capability Brown have thought?

I think it certainly has the potential to be an attractive addition to the park but my concern is the ability to keep the area looking attractive & allow the plants to mature & fill out. Although I am an optimist I can only see children running & cycling over the beds as well as the paths & climbing on the logs at the edge. Merton Council is not among the most well off of London Boroughs & like all others is having to make financial cut-backs. There was recently a proposal that they would not lock any of their parks overnight in order to save money. That is no longer the case but indicates the severity of the problem.

We will see……….

***The crocuses at the top are not from Wimbledon Park but Wisley a couple of weeks ago!

“Are you admiring my snowdrops?”

2011-02-20T16:34:00.001Z

This question was asked in well-modulated tones by a well-preserved well-dressed woman of mature years as I stuck my camera through the railings of the planted area next to some mansion blocks in Victoria.

I was on my way to the RHS Halls to visit the Spring show last Tuesday. I enjoy these London shows very much & of course it is so easy for me to pop onto a District Line train for a quick visit & then pop home again, hopefully with a bag or 2 of some choice goodies. What I also enjoy when I go is walking from the station through an area full of large mansion blocks, probably home to some rather well heeled residents, & admiring the planting in the communal gardens along the road-side, the pots in court-yard areas & planting boxes on window-sills or on the railings.

Now the snowdrops through the fence look nothing compared to the treats at the RHS Show. How could they!

This is the first show of the year & I suspect some people get a little hysterical! Someone kept blocking my view with a, admittedly stylish hat.

But I did manage to drool over the little gem like hepaticas which you can’t help but love with their delicate pastel colourings often with contrasting stamens.

Don’t you wish you had a woodland just to fill with these beauties?

Now I wasn’t alone on this early spring jaunt. There was Arabella Sock of course, (these jaunts are becoming a pleasantly regular habit with us, but there was also VP, Victoria who have all written about the show more speedily & descrptively than me, Helen & partner & an all too brief attendance from Simon. Other than Simon who had ‘done it all’ before we arrived, we all made our way to the Jugged Hare for a little sustenance after we had had our fill of things horticultural. And very enjoyable it was too. I even met a neighbour who had also been to the show; he claimed to have heard my voice! Most odd really as I say very little.

Jacqui et James

2011-02-20T15:53:00.001Z

Two early spring favourites; Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’ & Garrya elliptica ‘James Roof’. Such a shame you can’t smell the Daphne!

The Trollop’s Pop-Up Shoppiwop

2011-01-26T20:14:00.000Z

I have taken advantage of a niche of opportunity to promote this SALE of beautiful sculptures.

You already know how talented I am……actually I may not have made myself totally clear on that point being of a rather slothful nature, but I can assure you that I am.

My brother is also really rather good at all sorts of things & has made some exciting sculptures. Sadly he has to find good homes for some of these for reasons of space, or rather lack of it.

Now this is a serious matter dear reader, so I immediately thought of you. There are pictures of these sculptures below in case you feel you must give one a good home, subject to the usual terms & conditions applying to such transactions.

I am only acting as middle person so have no information other than the photos (which have sizes on them) but I will be delighted to put you in touch with my brother if you are interested. (Sorry, contact details on photos no longer valid)

Le ciel was very couvert

2011-01-18T19:49:00.001Z

Whilst we have just about avoided the extremes of weather recently suffered in many parts of the Southern hemisphere & I don’t like to grumble, honest, we seem to have suffered a surfeit of that grey dreary depressing nothing type of weather here. January is a month in which many people feel particularly low & feeling a dark grey sky pushing down on you for much of the day is enough to make even the most cheery of souls feel like muttering something slightly rude.

In these circumstances it was lovely on Sunday morning to see a bright blue sky & a bit of sunshine so after a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs with the last of the christmas smoked salmon we duly got a train up to Waterloo to take in whatever culture we could find……..of course when we arrived the sun had once more disappeared behind that grey murk.

So, first priority was to have a coffee of course, & I persuaded the slightly reluctant MrB to honour a french style cafe with our presence; ‘that’s a bit arsey’** was his comment on having to drink his coffee out of a bowl but it did hit the spot. We left feeling perkier to then find it had started to rain; the day was beginning to look more & more like a black & white photo.

In fact the only bit of colour seeping in to the day was the graffitti, oh, & the neon cement mixer at the top.

A visit to the National Theatre to see the winners of the Landscape Photographer of the Year competition was foiled because it was not open! The pleasant stroll was not as pleasant as anticipated so we walked rather more quickly along the river towards Vauxhall, a walk last taken at about 2am on January 1st, wading through abandoned bottles & cups whilst listening to the glorious song of the blackbird welcoming in 2011.

We reached our destination slightly windswept & rosy cheeked but full of anticipation of the main aim of our Sunday perambulations, the Garden Museum.

It is a number of years since we last visited & much has changed but the exhibition, ‘Going Dutch’ was the main reason for this return visit. This lovely little exhibition looks at the influence of Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen & their naturalistic planting styles on British garden design in the 1990’s. I have seen the Oudolf designed borders at Wisley many times but had forgotten about his award winning design at Chelsea in 2000. Certainly a more naturalistic style of planting is far more prevalent now & we loved the Prairie Gardens in Sussex designed by a couple who have been working with Piet Oudolf. We liked the gardens so much we visited them twice, here & here. Being a sad person our visit to the museum was enhanced by the half-price entry as members of the Art Collection Fund.

Having mentioned Wisley & the fact that MrB & myself like a bargain has reminded me that on a visit to Wisley just after christmas we were able to take advantage of their sale; as well as buying next year’s christmas cards half price we also bought some grasses reduced by the same amount & bulbs which were 75% off. In a rather chilly window of opportunity a couple of weeks we managed to plant these bargains in the front garden having at last been able to tidy up after having a new path laid. It was all very satisfactory other than the fact that the slate mulch we bought did not match the colour of the existing despite our best efforts. I think a bit of mixing up is likely to happen!

** Having just read Nigel Colborn’s very excellent blog I do hope I, or rather MrB used the correct arse!

We had lights, we had cameras…….

2010-12-16T12:12:00.001Z

The place: Wisley.

The time: 18.30.

The problem: too many small people & Surrey type 4x4 buggies in the dark.

Separated at birth

2010-12-15T17:50:00.001Z

One of these is a baobob tree, one isn’t!

Who knows which one isn’t & what tree it is? I know, there aren’t any leaves which doesn’t help this tricky question. The ‘I am not a baobob’ was photographed in Kew Gardens.

Additional picture clue:

Now it’s easy!

The answer:

I confess to being surprised that it was a London Plane, common in London & many other cities. I have never seen one with quite such an odd shape; I am used to seeing tall rather magnificent specimens with the mottled bark being a main feature. I wonder why this one reached this particular shape & size.

Stuff & Nonsense

2010-12-09T14:05:00.001Z

It is quite a while since I ventured to put finger to keyboard to recount to you, my dear reader, the further adventures of a Lazy Trollop. I can only put it down to sheer exhaustion after trying to get the most monthly visits on this blog. Now how ridiculous is that; I don’t really write this for other people but because it is inevitably flattering when people do visit it can sometimes go to your head. I apologise un-reservedly for my lapse. It is even better when visitors read the content & so exciting when they also comment, even if it is just to say ‘crap’**

Since I last wrote a glorious autumn has turned into an early & bloody cold winter; an enormous shock to the system particularly here in a normally balmy SW London. This has forced me into an early hibernation mode as far as gardening is concerned.

We are currently having a new path laid. So what is so interesting about that you may quite legitimately ask. On its own merits not a lot to others, but it has brought to mind the debate which often simmers in & around organisations like the National Trust & in many discussions about historic houses & gardens; should we preserve them in aspic & restore every tiny detail as it was at a certain period in time or should we try to move forward whilst still reflecting & respecting what has gone on in the past.

Our house is part of an Edwardian terrace with some modest but attractive original features like a stained glass front door & nice detail on the windows. Part of this was the black & white tiled front path which had been patched by us many times but reached the end. It has been replaced by a modern version of the black & white tiles. Was this the right decision or should we have attempted something more contemporary?

This historical accuracy/contemporary conundrum is no doubt constantly in the minds of the custodians of 2 stately homes I visited over the summer; Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire & Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

Blenheim Chatsworth

Now I will not bore you even more by wittering on about them in any detail & there is lots of ‘stuff’ happening at each estate but what I found most interesting was some of the directions in which they were moving. Blenheim has a new(ish) exhibition in the house using lots of new-fangled technology to bring the past to life & give visitors a real taste of history. Chatsworth has taken a very different tack & is very keen to put the modern in with the historic particularly with works of art both indoors & out. Personally I found Chatsworth seemed to have more dynamism whilst keeping true to its historical roots.

Modern sculpture in the grounds at Chatsworth.

*The winter photos were taken at a snow-covered Wisley gardens last week

**For an interesting discussion on the use of the word ‘crap’ to describe, in this case gardens, please look here, here & here at some related articles on the Thinking gardens website.

Arboreta, who needs ‘em.

2010-11-04T09:04:00.001Z

Autumn in the city…..

It is a fantastic year for autumn colour; it’s all about the right combination of sun & frosts at the right time of the year. People are dashing off to arboretums*, woods & tree filled gardens to see the glorious colours. But hang on, even in the middle of the city they are there right in front of your nose…..or possibly feet.

I thought I would capture some of my local colour before it all disappeared in a puff of wind.

We have an enormous variety of street trees here; I once spoke to the council tree man who said they had been given a ‘job lot’ some years previously.

There are lots of older trees, including the London Plane, which get pollarded every year & can look rather odd…

Trees more recently planted are usually some sort of Rowan whilst Amelanchier are also quite popular. The Magnolia stellata below is brilliant in spring but turning rather nicely here.

The peach, yes, you read it correctly, the peach is not looking too good!

The Gingko is rather odd as a street tree with its right-angled branches, but we have several. The butter yellow leaves look almost good enough to eat, but most are on the pavement!

Addendum: this one in a nearby street has more leaves!

I have saved my favourite tree until the end. It is quite truly stunning.

This tree positively glows at the end of the road. I hope you agree; small yet perfectly formed.

Actually, not quite the last because I am sure you are wondering how my own (1 tree) woodland is looking… ….I am considering re-designating it as an arboretum.

*the plural of arboretum can be either arboreta or arboretums.

An apple a day…..

2010-10-31T14:42:00.001Z

……can be used to make one of these, a Squidgy Spiced Apple Cake

I was given lots of windfall un-named cooking apples by a client. With them I have made jars of apple & rosemary jelly, frozen several pots of apple sauce & made a number of variations on the theme of Apple Crumble & stumbled upon this recipe whilst browsing. Apple requirements; 1 large cooker.

Not high-end dining I know but this was delicious served with a blob of creme fraiche & some sliced cox fried with honey & calvados. The cake apparently improves with keeping so am looking forward to testing that hypothesis!

False Alarm

2010-10-28T19:13:00.001+01:00

Is the trend for pretend & plastic in all things gardening increasing/getting worse? It certainly seems so to me. Indeed the poor taste brigade seems to be muscling in more & more. Actually, I am not talking about ‘all things’ gardening, I am referring to plants here…..you know, those things that grow, flower, die back; in other words they are living things that change with the seasons & the years providing huge enjoyment & also a little frustration to us mere mortals.

It all began earlier this year….

……….I was quite horrified to see these lurid green balls in a garden centre. Who on earth would use these? I was soon to find out…..the biggest culprits seem to be pubs, or at least these are the most visible users of the panoply of plastic planting.

Look at just a few of the things I have seen…………..

Don’t you just love the 2 varieties of ‘ivy’ in the last picture & the ‘double bubble’ hanging balls!

I have always admired the planting outside pubs…

This is more like it!

So do you think we will see an even more widespread proliferation of this tasteful & easily maintained greening of our pubs & other premises?

**The green balls at the top are made from actual plants & were on show at the Chelsea Flower Show.

The play was over but the stage not yet cleared

2010-10-22T21:45:00.001+01:00

This was how I saw the garden at Great Dixter during a visit there with Arabella Sock a few days ago. The weather was glorious; the sun shone from a deep blue sky, as we entered the garden I momentarily thought it must be spring with the huge spreads of a glorious lavender blue crocus in the lush green grass….

I had only visited Great Dixter once before, during the height of summer & had been impressed with the planting combinations then & loved seeing the late Christopher Lloyd pottering around, talking to visitors. So when Arabella Sock suggested an autumn visit, (I suspect just to show off one of her new hattiwats), I agreed as I was interested to see the garden in another season & under different stewardship.

In spite of the weather there had very obviously been a frost the night before. Many of the tender & exotic plants at Great Dixter had clearly been affected. Some of the plants we could not see, although quite why the exotic garden had to be closed whilst it was assessed I don’t know!

But first, the stage. This is the bones of the garden, the permanent structure around which the planting ebbs & flows with the seasons like actors & actresses entering stage left & leaving once their role had been fulfilled, some to return, others to have only one brief part to play. The first of this stage set is of course the house with its history, shapes & colours which are very pleasing. Then we have all those rather dominant yet rhythmical yew hedges & shapes. These seem to anchor the planting, no matter how exuberant it may be.

So, the players, just who are they?

The dahlias had been frosted but still looked rather glorious, like old & faded actresses where you can see that wonderful bone structure but the lipstick was beginning to bleed into the wrinkled skin round their mouths & their dresses have got creased & torn. Despite this they were still an essential element of the chorus.

Other players were still feeling full of vim & vigour…. like the asters & the grasses…..

There were also some little details which I thought were so wonderful including the wall full of the delightful Erigeron karvinskianus & the brick path through the grass……

Oh yes, and the hat….

…….. like the garden, exuberant!!

Shopping was off but the autumn show was on

2010-10-13T08:30:00.001+01:00

I have stretched my critical facilities to the limit recently by reviewing 2 gardens on here so it is about time for a bit of general drivel about life, shopping, autumn, whatever takes my fancy.

Now, I am aware of the phrase ‘lifestyle shopping’ but have always thought of it in relation to rather twee companies like Kath Kidson or Sarah Raven. When it comes to shopping for myself I am very much a MOR Sainsburys & Marks & Sparks sort of person with an occasional foray into a pound shop. In essence, a bit short on style & too mean to spend much.

During our recent holiday in the Cotswolds a visit to the Daylesford Organic Farm Shop was recommended. It was close so we duly made a small trek via an extremely nice pub lunch. Now I know what lifestyle shopping is! The outlets, one cannot call them shops, are set round an extremely tasteful courtyard. I could not look at the prices in the garden shop after I had noticed a (not very large) candle in a jar for £15. The part that made my jaw drop was the Bamford Barn; now that is what you call understated! I considered the purchase of a sort of sleeveless coat which was only £1 under £2,000 whilst my husband admired a stylish trilby-like hat which was a snip at £560 or something like that – my eyes kind of blurred at that point & we hurriedly, yet tastefully left, passing many very nicely turned out Cotswold ladies that had been lunching.

Much more my style was a foray into Batsford Arboretum, where these pictures were taken. Now I mentioned earlier my reluctance to spend money on expensive things so was delighted to find our visit coincided with the last day of free entry for RHS members.

The arboretum claimed, on its leaflet, to be the most popular in the UK. There was no evidence backing up this claim. It was an extremely nice walk but I have been to arboretum with probably more things going on.There are plans for changes & improvements so watch that space.

Prairie Sunday; the reprise

2010-10-11T07:52:00.001+01:00

Way back when, well it was August actually, I visited the Sussex Prairies garden. I was blown away & waxed lyrical about the experience here. I was determined to make a return visit when the grasses were more dominant & did so last weekend.

Unlike the sunshine & blue skies of August it was a rather damp morning which turned to rain. It did not really spoil my enjoyment of the garden but the photos were a bit disappointing as a result. I hope you can appreciate the planting from these.

I love the way the grasses are combined with other perennials reflecting the colours but adding texture & movement.

Although many perennial flowers have faded or are in shades of dusky pinks & purple there is the occasional zinging yellow shouting it’s presence.

Or a few clashing reds & pinks.

The different colours & textures of the grasses are quite exciting.

And I love being able to get in amongst the plants………….

………… a bit more difficult this time where the plants were bowed under the weight of the recent heavy rains

This block of planting runs the length of the garden & is very simple backbone to the other beds.

I have drivelled on at some length here. Do I still love the planting? Yes. I did try to look at things a little more critically than last time when I metaphorically wallowed in the huge drifts of colour & textures. Although we would see nothing like this in nature it does look quite naturalistic. We get views of the countryside surrounding the gardens, perhaps not as much as I would like but the site is surrounded by mature trees. What I particularly love is being able to get in amongst the planting.

I had a chat with Pauline McBride (both the McBrides are very accessible & approachable) & was asking about cutting all the plants back thinking it would take such a long time. They burn it! Now obviously this garden does have a period of looking, well, black & crispy, but then it is not open to the public at that time!

The garden is being visited in Gardeners World on Friday 15 October.

PS. The nearby recommended pub was packed out & so we weren’t able to fulfil our expectations of an excellent lunch. That was a bit of a bugger!

Hidcote; an appreciation

2010-10-08T08:45:00.001+01:00

‘Inventive’

‘Influential’

‘One of the great Arts and Crafts gardens in England’

‘A series of outdoor 'rooms'.

These are just a few of the words used to describe the garden at Hidcote, in the Cotswolds. There is little point in me telling you all the background as you can find some of it here. Needless to say it is a garden that many people have heard of, thousands visit every year & it has been one I have been wanting to visit for some time. A week ago I had the opportunity during a short break in Stow-on-the-Wold.

The view as you step out of the door; vista alert

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Some more vistas

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The area near the house is dominated by a large cedar tree.

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Paths to look down, viewpoints & holes in hedges.

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And a few more of those vistas

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A wide open space spoiled, in my view, by the tree at the end. A more elegant one might have improved it.

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The red border was still looking good

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Some favourite bits!

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So, what did I think?

Initially I thought all the different views & vistas were fabulous; looking down little paths to a different area with something interesting to see at the end, glimpses through gaps in hedges but after a while I began to tire of being ‘encouraged’ where to look & would have liked the relief of a wide open space where I could just look around in my own way. I also felt rather claustrophobic quite close to the house; the hedges were very high & the ‘rooms’ were fairly small. Added to this was the large cedar tree & lots of tall plants coming into autumn & looking rather sad & floppy. I wondered if the hedges were supposed to be this high.

I think my view of the garden may well have been coloured a little by the season: the ‘wow’ factor of some of the flower beds was missing, but then a good garden should hopefully be one for all seasons. The advantage of the time was few visitors of course. I really enjoyed my visit, loved many parts of it & could see how the garden had been very influential but personally would have enjoyed a little more freedom to view.

The daisies are a moving & so are the peas.

2010-09-22T20:47:00.001+01:00

Picture this; early afternoon, a gloriously sunny day, you have enjoyed an excellent glass of Youngs bitter, walked across a village green where a late summer game of cricket is being played & suddenly come across what looks like a stray from a classy fancy dress party.

This weekend was Open House London. You know the one, where lots of buildings not normally open to the public throw open their doors & positively welcome us in with open arms. I have visited a few buildings over the past few years, & not visited even more, but the one I enjoyed most & visited again this weekend was the Herbarium at Kew Gardens. A little history of the herbarium can be found here.

I find the whole place fascinating & would happily spend hours there. We started off in the original building where not only is a sense of history engendered by the dark wood panels & portraits & busts of Hooker, Bentham & Broomfield, but actual history is right there in front of you. We were looking at plant specimens brought back from the Livingstone expedition. Specimens are collected & sent to Kew in an almost identical fashion to the way all those plant hunters did many many years ago; between newspapers in a cardboard folder. The dried specimens are still glued onto paper & stored in the same way.

In parallel to this living botanical history some new-fangled processes & procedures have to be employed too. Now, in order to protect the specimens from pest damage, not being allowed to inject the plant material with poison, they all have to be frozen & the storage of some material is in the recently opened new building at the herbarium, where the temperature can be more strictly maintained.

Currently the Asteraceae & Fabaceae families are being transferred to the new building, a process will take about a year to complete.

I think I am really a frustrated botanist. I loved biology at school & was frustrated not to be able to study it at A level. When studying for the RHS General Certificate & Diploma I suddenly found myself enjoying the botany bits enormously. Bit late for a career change!

Sadly we came to the end of a wonderful afternoon far to soon.

In praise of……

2010-09-16T20:09:00.001+01:00

…. a stalwart little workhorse of a plant, Nemesia ‘Wisley Vanilla’.

I bought 6 of these in early summer to go in a window box & hanging basket, mainly as a long flowering plant with a colour & shape contrast to Begonia ‘Something or other’. As I couldn’t be bothered to make & maintain the hanging basket 3 plants got shoved in a pot & have sat on the table outside in the garden ever since.

They certainly have flowered their socks off all summer but it took a while for their other major attribute to penetrate my consciousness, or should that be my nasal passages! I always have pots of lilies on the decking every summer, filling the outside & inside with their very heady & heavenly scent so it was some while before I realised that the vanilla of the Nemesia in fact referred to the perfume rather than the colour. So in between & particularly after the lilies had finished pushing themselves forward like over-dressed strumpets the decking area has been delicately perfumed with the lovely aroma of sweet vanilla.

18 July (note the ‘professional’ design drawing of the proverbial Chelsea bed)

19 July window box performance

2 August (you can just see one of those lary lilies)

15 September

All this with very little in the way of trimming or cutting back. Wisley Vanilla will be back……………..

Of Cabbages & Kings

2010-09-06T21:02:00.001+01:00

Oh yes, & cakes of course.

Everyone who IS anyone has already blogged about the trip to Ssssshhhhh, you know where. Sorry dear reader but I don’t really care. I thought I should trail my blog along several days after the event & reveal my experience & thoughts on the much hyped & discussed bloggers & tweeters trip last week to H***g****, the country pad of HRH the Prince of Wales .

Firstly the cabbages; well they were meant to be cabbages but many think they looked rather lettuce like… or even green roses. What did? The decorations on top of the little cakes made to celebrate this great event. Peculiarly I seem to have become known for making cakes; a heavy weight of responsibility to bear for such a naturally lazy trollop. I had just decided that I could manage enough cakes for a group event when certain shy & retiring person started putting in orders on Twitter for a personalised cake. Bloody cheek. Despite this on-line bullying I faltered only briefly & cakes were made & decorated with cabbages in recognition of a conversation on Twitter about how cakes are essential for happy garden viewing. A personalised version was produced at the last minute – hence the rather wobbly writing (or perhaps it was the several medicinal G&Ts)

I must also mention the wonderful chauffeuring of the inestimable Rob Stacewicz. As a fellow SW Londoner what else could we do but travel to Tetbury together & I was not turning down a offer to be driven. It was an uneventful journey despite a loop playing of Duran Duran including a sing-along ‘My name is Rio & I perch upon your hand’, poor jokes, coded messages as the car came to an unscheduled halt………

Anyway, the garden. Sadly, but I suppose understandably there were no photos allowed so no illustrations. Much chatter went on during the guided tour but we were able to see a garden of many different parts, some of which worked & some of which didn’t & which did not really fit together as a coherent whole. There was also no real sense of the garden fitting into the landscape or views which took in much of the outside; it was all very inward looking other than perhaps at the front of the house. Could that partly be a result of the landscape itself or a future king needing to feel protected & safe? I quite liked some of the quirkiness such as the use of stone carvings in a stone wall, but in places it became a little over quirky.

Others have written much more eloquently about the day here, here, here & here. I enjoyed it enormously; meeting lots of lovely & interesting people & seeing the garden was a delight. I look forward to other such trips!

Prairie Sunday

2010-08-09T09:29:00.001+01:00

The Sussex Prairie garden has been on my computer list of ‘favourites’ for ages; I don’t remember where I got the link from in the first place, it just looked a really lovely garden to visit. On Sunday we made the trip, meeting up with Arabella Sock & the bedsock.

So what was it like you ask. Stunning.

I suppose in concept the garden is quite simple; large sweeps & drifts of perennial planting, each variety in very generous dollops. The site is surrounded by trees with glimpses of the South Downs in the gaps. What is lovely is that you can walk in amongst the planting on lots of pathways & really appreciate the contrast of textures & colours, movement & variety. Sometimes the planting is over your head so you almost get lost amongst it. There are lots of seats so you can just sit & contemplate, some in amongst the planting, some on the edge. The place was awash with bees & butterflies & dragonflies around the pond areas.

There were some sculptures in the garden too, some of which worked well in my view,

others not so well

Despite the look of the perennials the garden is very new & the hedging has a way to go before it has the necessary impact but it a glorious way to spend a few hours. There is a terrace where you can sit with a coffee & a delicious slice of cake & chat about the experience. I am aiming to return for the October opening when the grasses will be at their best. Oh yes, & apparently there is an excellent pub close by.

It is probably no surprise that the creators of the garden are working with Piet Oudolf. If you are interested the Prairie Garden has been reviewed here, here & here.

Guerrilla Gardening Lazy Trollop Style; the sequel

2010-08-05T09:24:00.001+01:00

I thought it was about time you saw the results of my experiment in guerrilla gardening which I wrote about here. The pictures speak for themselves…

What do you think? Is it a success or perhaps another one of those ‘works in progress’ of which I seem to have many.

Whilst I could blame the cats, dogs, foxes & anyone else who uses & abuses the alleyway, in truth I think it is purely a combination of my laziness & the Grimsby fish sellers.

Still, not one to be downhearted, I have more free seeds from the Hampton Court Flower Show which I will scatter in the autumn this time & possibly with a little more in the way of preparation.

The buttocks in the picture are a statue in the gardens of Hardwick Hall, a fascinating National Trust property in Derbyshire.

Remembrance of things past

2010-07-28T13:02:00.001+01:00

No, this is not a 7 volume autobiographical novel containing a lengthy description of eating petite madeleine with tea.** More a gentle reminder of a little of my past. Well, I can indulge myself on my own blog!

You have probably forgotten dear reader, but some while back I mentioned how my mum had moved from rural Norfolk to a care home in busy SW London. Recently we returned to her house to begin clearing stuff; always a difficult task but also one that evoked many memories of times long gone. Hankies out!

Amongst the many things we came back with were some garden memories.

We gave this little potty chap to my step-father several years ago & he sat on a pillar in their garden since then, falling off once & having to be carefully resuscitated with glue & garden wire. He could not be abandoned to an unknown fate.

The other memories go back to my grandparents & their garden.

This little plaque always sat in a little sunken section in the middle of my grandparent’s garden at their house in Carlisle before following my mother from Cumbria to Norfolk.

My grandfather was a carpenter & made lots of little wooden toys & other items, most of which have long gone. These 2 birds remain. My daughter thinks they are creepy.

But best of all …..

This frequently re-painted policeman twirls & whirls in the wind & used to stand on top of the gatepost at our house when I was small, & medium come to that. I believe I have mentioned that I lived in extremely rural part of N Cumbria where my parents were teachers at the small village school, although there was no actual village. We lived in the school house, a little way down the road from the school. Those were the days when doors weren’t locked & one day my mum sent a 6 year old down to the house to collect something & bring it back to the school. He was a little longer than she thought & he ran back puffing & panting. “Sorry Miss” he said on being asked why he had been so long, “I had to wait for the policeman to let me go through the gate.”

So my garden memories will now find a place in my garden & the policeman will always bring a smile to my face.

**I am just so chuffed at that literary reference; you all know it of course!

Chelsea to SW19 via Ikea & the Peak District

2010-07-22T09:15:00.001+01:00

I think I must have, no, I know I have serious delusions of gardening grandeur; last year enthused by a garden at Hampton Court I dug up & re-planted one area of the garden & this year I have moved on to do my Chelsea thing.

I know dear reader, the show gardens are supposed to inspire us amongst other things, but when you have a pocket handkerchief sized garden there is surely a serious limit on the amount of inspiration that it can handle.

My problem was this; I am also a serious plantaholic & just cannot resist buying plants at almost every opportunity. This, coupled with the size of the garden has meant that over the years clear areas have gradually been eroded to be filled with as much plant life as I can cram in. My daughter constantly moans that we even planted a tree in the middle of the already teensy lawn so she cannot gracefully drape herself over it, scantily clad of course, during the warm heady days of summer. Now, where was I? Oh yes, plants, loads of them. The result is that the garden is very busy & frequently, due to my rather lackadaisical attitude, rather overgrown. I needed to try to simplify & calm down one or 2 areas. I would start with the small bed nearest the doors, reduce the varieties of plants used to a minimum, but then needed inspiration……it came after this years Chelsea visit.

I loved these clouds of box in the Laurent-Perrier garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith & whilst I was musing on my little problem it came to me that I could have my own version of box clouds. This would produce a calm yet sculptural element to the garden. This was the way forward.

I had decided but I thought I had better consult other parties involved, namely MrB. Initially he was rather dubious but eventually he was persuaded by my obvious design talents & as is usual, threw himself into the problem of sourcing material with great gusto. Now box balls are quite pricey & even the relatively small number & size that we wanted was going to cost more than a couple of quid. But before I had even planned the numbers & sizes needed the intrepid MrB came home from a trip to Ikea with 2x30cm box balls for the extremely reasonable price of £10 each. Result! (Don’t tell me that small children worked for weeks in appalling conditions & were paid a few pence to help their starving families to produce these because I don’t really want to know.) We had to return to said store & hoped they still had the balls; sadly they did not but they did have some larger untrained plants for a similarly reasonable price. They would do & we could do our own trimming & training so 2 of those were purchased. The final 3 smaller untrimmed plants were bought whilst we were on holiday in the Peak District; well it’s cheaper up North isn’t it. So, we were ready for off.

The first bit of planting was done yesterday & I got rather excited, probably over-excited about how good it looked already. What do you think?

This is not the whole area of course, it is a work in progress. No doubt later blogs will keep you up-dated on what is happening. I should probably produce a progress report on the Hampton Court bed too! I’ll bet you can’t wait!

Is it better late than never?

2010-07-11T21:48:00.001+01:00

I am sitting in a very lovely cottage in the Peak District whilst my husband watches a ‘very crap game’ of football. We have no mobile phone signal but we do have Wifi & a laptop.

This situation has led me to write a little something about the Hampton Court Flower Show which I visited LAST TUESDAY! I know, why bother now you are probably thinking, but I have done my little bit about the trolleys so thought I might try something a little more serious for my own benefit, if nobody else’s.

Along with many others I did enjoy the ‘Conceptual’ gardens. These have always been thought provoking & not obvious gardens in the traditional sense

The Pansy Project was just spot on…..

Many large gardens were disappointing.

Dull & pedestrian.

Glaring.

Plonky planting (& this was Best in Show!)

But there was some fun too

For once I will remember the theme of this garden!

Who can fail to smile at Lego people

And lovely design in my opinion……

The floral marquee was filled with fantastic plants although it had been moved from previous years so we couldn’t find it for ages! Poor soul, I know.

There were lots of shopping opportunities which we took on with great gusto. For once most of the plant purchases were planted almost immediately. I am now hoping that my daughter is watering satisfactorily whilst I am absent!

I also met the delightful Michelle Wheeler at the show which was an added bonus.

If anyone has read to the end of this ramble I apologise. This is not really the proper time or place for this, but it had to be done. I mean it is extra time!

T-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rolleys

2010-07-11T21:08:00.001+01:00

As has recently been the case, my Hampton Court Flower Show experience was interrupted by the sound of trolley wheels on the metal walkway & the necessity of having to avoid the bloody things as whoever is pulling them does not have a clue where they are in relation to people’s legs.

There are other ways of transporting your many purchases..

including the ‘official’ wheelbarrow pusher or penniless student.

This looked to be about the best transportation I saw: maximum capabilities!

But I couldn’t leave this without the most colour co-ordinated trolley/outfit…..

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

2010-06-22T08:24:00.001+01:00

It was a lovely walk on Sunday, through trees, fully green at last, grassy areas filled with wild flowers. The martagon lilies were particularly lovely & the rosebay willow herb was just beginning to burst into that mass of blowsy pink fluffiness. The birds were singing & the weather was almost nice. There was even a thoughtfully placed seat to pause & enjoy the sights & sounds.

This rural idyll was slightly marred by the frequency of planes passing overhead & the raucous sound of green parakeets….

…because we were in Kew Gardens directly under the Heathrow flight path.

This wild area of Kew is the Queen’s Cottage grounds, in the NW corner of the gardens. Apparently it was once a game preserve & pleasure garden, presented to Kew in 1898 by Queen Victoria on the understanding that it would remain as a natural site. Over time non-native trees are being removed & replaced & the focus is on habitat creation & bio-diversity. At some time in the future there will be a nature trail but at the moment it is just lovely to be able to wander through what could be rural countryside so close to central London.

Life can sometimes get a little bit edgy

2010-06-17T22:18:00.001+01:00

My favourite clematis, viticella 'Venosa Violacea'

Perhaps I should start this with a boring post alert! Or is that a more boring than usual post alert……..whatever!

Laetitia Maklouf recently wrote about getting some young hunks to edge her beds. Lucky thing! I only had MrB, wonderful though he is, but then he is very good at doing all sorts of other stuff too.

I designed our garden about 10 years ago when we had an extension built. I can’t really say it was re-designed as all previous incarnations were merely shifts from the original. Mind you, it had shifted considerably since we moved in. I was thinking the other day that we only have 2 shrubs left from all the plants that were here in the beginning; a weigela & a Viburnum tinus. Sorry, I have done a little more digressing haven’t I? So, as I was saying, the design 10 years ago – we edged all the beds & the lawn with timber as I reckon there is nothing more important in a garden than a nice crisp edge to beds, borders & lawns. We just used whatever timber the builder had lying around so over the years it has gradually rotted & generally fallen upon hard times.

Over the past couple of years we have gradually replaced all the old timber,

culminating with the lawn edging just a week or so ago.

It is looking good!

I know it is a bit boring & I have deliberately failed to add pics of the hunky operative & the whole garden, but it is these important little details that can make all the difference – to what I don’t yet know but one day I will find out!

Now, onto more interesting things…….

Little & Large

2010-06-10T16:53:00.001+01:00

Did you ever have those exam questions, ‘Contrast & compare….’ This is what I thought on Sunday when I travelled many miles, well a couple, to visit 2 Yellow Book Gardens. Have I told you that being nosy in other people’s gardens is one of my favourite occupations on a sunny Sunday? Well it is. Even better on one such visit was when we had to walk through the house to get to the garden – double whammy! It got even better when instead of tea we got an extremely generous slug of Pimms. But I digress slightly.

So, this weekend’s garden no.1 was a huge house, very close to Wimbledon Common. The garden had been designed 2 years ago by Andrew Wilson, RHS Chief Assessor among other things apparently. It was a large garden to match the large house with a sweep of beautiful grass & areas of planting divided by yew hedges (bought & planted by the metre). A lovely pond which according to my companion could do with some fish, expensive tasteful paving & matching planters.

My feeling about this garden was a beautiful design which was let down by the planting. The latter may have suffered due to the weather & the grasses will no doubt look wonderful later but to me it lacked texture & anything with a bit of wow factor – overall rather soulless.

Garden 2 couldn’t be much different. A small patch backing onto a railway line at the other side of Wimbledon. The outside doesn’t look promising dominated by neighbouring blocks of council flats.

Inside the gate is a beautifully planted little front garden, down the side of the house… …to an eclectic plant-filled oasis. It would have been a complete surprise if I hadn’t been there twice before!

Here is a train!The garden is totally private, lots of seating areas despite its size, nooks & crannies abound, fantastic pots full of shade lovers, particularly beautiful were the Japanese painted ferns. The white wisteria was just finishing but must have been glorious.

Do you get the idea that I much preferred this one? Well done, you are correct. Part of it must be the fact that I too have a tiny garden which is crammed full of plants & which needs lots of trimming to keep it under some sort of vague control. But this garden also spoke volumes about the ‘designer'/gardener’. She is a set designer which I am sure is some help in her vision, but it is full of personality, down to the storage area at the back…

Whatever the type of garden, I really do admire anyone who opens theirs for the picky public to paw over. I always like to think that mine would be good enough………if I could be bothered…….if MrB wouldn’t refuse….. if there was more of interest….

The poppy at the top is mine!

The not so good, the bad & the downright ugly

2010-06-01T15:44:00.001+01:00

Now I do know that Chelsea is old hat, but I had started to write this, just didn’t finish in reasonable time. Despite that I now reveal the bits of Chelsea that were not my cup of tea, or indeed my glass of wine come to that! Dear reader, ignore this if you have had enough.

So, my first question is would you want to sit in your beautifully designed garden enjoying an early evening aperitif with the setting sun throwing its dyeing rays on ….. half a naked torso! I mean what for? And not only one but lots of body parts poking their way into your petunias, buttocks in your begonias & as for your tithonias…….

I guess it may be for some, but not me.

So, to other things which definitely did not rock my boat. I guess the first are the crowds but you get used to them, practise the Chelsea Shuffle & employ PATIENCE!

This lumpy path is supposed to represent difficulties at the beginning of ‘the journey’ in the Cancer Research UK Garden. I am not sure why everything has to be a journey these days but I for one would not be tempted to start it with the thought that i might twist my ankle on the way!

I first saw this wall & pots in Andy Sturgeon’s Daily Telegraph garden from the side & at the time thought they just looked so solid & lumpy amongst all the planting & soaring steel. It looked completely different from the front view.

And this paving was just too fussy; I rather liked the curves that had been cut into it but not into such intricate inter-locking slabs.

The very frothy planting in the M&G Garden was loved by many, it did become the People’s Favourite after all, but my initial reaction was too fussy & frothy so the structure was a bit lost amongst a mass of roses & I was not keen on the stone roses either!

Another garden which I thought was overly busy too was Kazahana where the planting seemed to detract from the beautiful, almost sculptural moss.

The Light & Colours of the Alps garden did nothing for me.

I was enjoying the Pine & Conifer Enthusiast Garden & thinking that perhaps they could make attractive gardens until I saw these silly miniature trees at the back. Yuk!

Ace of Diamonds – more yuk!

Actually, I am really only being very picky about small things as I did love most of the gardens very much. It is just I have this very practical nature so whilst I adored the pillows of box beside the pool in the Laurent-Perrier Garden, I couldn’t help thinking that it would make a mess in the pool when they were being clipped. And sometimes the concept of the garden detracts from my enjoyment of it as a ‘proper’ garden.

Whatever my views are I really do admire the designers & everyone else involved in producing the gardens in the time they have.

That’s more than can be said for some of the things on sale at Chelsea which I assume the sellers feel would enhance our outside spaces!!

Choice Chelsea Choices

2010-05-28T23:00:00.001+01:00

No blithering here, just the bits I liked best; gardens, plants, plant combinations….I will let the pictures speak for themselves: I mean most things have already been said much more eloquently by many other people & to be honest, I can’t really be bothered.

Chelsea chapeaux et cheveux

2010-05-26T11:27:00.000+01:00

There is a mass of blithering & blogging about the Chelsea Flower Show, & I expect I shall do some myself. When I am out in public with the extra-ordinarily talented Arabella Sock we frequently see who can spot the best hattiwat. So here is a slightly different view of the show. Let the hattiwats commence!

Tempted as I am to say my favourite is the up to the minute re-use & re-cycle converted lampshade, it has to be this rather chic little number

Five tulips do not a drift make….

2010-05-21T13:39:00.001+01:00

Idiot! Me that is. Those of you who have stuck by me may remember that I have been re-vamping a triangular flower bed in my small garden, enthused by a garden at Hampton Court Flower Show last year. It is actually pretty much nothing like the planting in the show garden, but it got me to dig up & re-plant with a vague nod in the direction of the glorious show I saw.

I wanted to plant some tulips in the bed so bought a selection of different purples.Being a Lazy Trollop I bought a ready made selection thinking it would save me matching them up myself. 5 each of 5 selections. It was a pleasure planting them in the freshly dug ground which had been topped up generously with compost courtesy of the compost bin & the council. I planted the bulbs in drifts, snaking between the other plants & was excited at the prospect of seeing the fruits of my labours……………..

Idiot! Of course 5 tulips don’t make anything like a drift; how could I have even thought that was possible. Although the flowers were lovely, indeed some of them still are, they just looked like a random scattering of tulips across the whole bed. On top of that the heavy rain just as the stems had reached their full height meant they flopped all over the place & the cat rampaging through the bed to leap over the fence to next door added to the general look of chaos & mess.

Don’t get me wrong, as individuals they are beautiful, but as a group, annoying & not achieving their full potential!

Damn!

Today’s special guest is…..

2010-05-19T12:12:00.001+01:00

The elephant is a funny bird
It flits from bough to bough
It makes its nest in a rhubarb tree
And whistles like a cow.

Today’s guest cake is a rhubarb & sour cream cake, just perfect for using up all of that spare rhubarb you have lurking in the kitchen, or if you are in danger of being crushed by a mountain of the stuff; “ I have to pick it so it grows some more” I am told. Don’t make yet another rhubarb crumble, make this cake. Even my rhubarb hating daughter loves it.

The recipe can be found on the BBC Good Food site. It is spongy on the bottom with nicely tart chunks of rhubarb mixed in, then topped with a sugary nutty crumbly topping. Enjoy it for pudding with a dollop of creme fraiche. Awesome!

Sometimes real life gets in the way

2010-05-18T10:16:00.001+01:00

A field of camassias at Wisley

It has been a funny few weeks recently; busy at times with not much to do at others but not being able to really concentrate on much. Importantly I have not really had either the time or the inclination to garden or blog. I have certainly missed the first, I just have to look out of the window to see the results, & it just may be possible dear reader that you have missed the latter in some small measure, if only to see how tediously boring I can get.

So, real life…… I am of an age when you just about manage to sort out your children, or at least not have them hanging about the house needing you to spend money on them quite all the time, but you then find you have aging parents to sort out instead. In my case this has resulted in recently moving my 90 year old mother from her own home in rural Norfolk to a care home in bustling SW London. One of the points of the whole exercise has been to move her closer to me but suddenly I realised the weight of responsibility, particularly when I ended up going to St Geoge’s Hospital A&E department at 4 am last week (nothing too serious).

The view from her window has changed from this…..

…… to this.

It is a period of some small ups & lots of huge downs! I don’t usually ‘do’ the personal but somehow felt it would be cathartic for me to get this out! I hope you don’t mind dear reader, that is if you have managed to get this far!

For your delight & delectation

2010-05-06T14:53:00.001+01:00

I have lots of stuff going on at the moment & although I have various rubbish things I might or might not blog about I just haven’t the time or more likely the concentration. Just so as you know I have not forgotten you dear reader, I thought you could see some of my pictures from a few days in Southwold taking in Dunwich & Minsmere.

OK, that will do.

The bastards!

2010-04-22T08:21:00.002+01:00

I would like to add that a number of 'creatures' were harmed in the making of this blog entry!

So, I had my gold scissors but where was the ribbon……

2010-04-20T15:36:00.001+01:00

This was, of course, for the Grand Opening of Rob’s shoppiwop, The Garden Sage.

Now there have been rumours that this particular shoppiwop was for the sale of curtains & other types of window dressing, but I can assure everyone there was neither curtain nor blind in sight, & as for chintz roses, the man has much more taste than that!

So, let me go back a little. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

In fairly recent times I got to know a fellow blogger called Rob. I do a mean that I did met him in the old fashioned way rather than in the virtual world where many people lurk. And I should clarify the use of the word blogger in describing myself as calling myself one at that time was more than a bit of an exaggeration.

(ooops, sorry about that duck’s head!)

It happened like this…. I was perusing the blog of my good friend, Arabella Sock, something of a minor celebrity in blog world for her carefully crafted & insightful bloggywog, The Sea of Immeasurable Gravy (beware it contains pictures of kittens). I was doing a bit of stalking of those who made comments, as you do, & came across Rob & his blog. ‘Hang about’ I thought, ‘I think I know where this person works’ which was in a garden shop very close by.

So, I pop into this shop, casually buy a few plants whilst checking out the man working there before confronting him with the words ‘Are you called Rob & do you write a blog?’ It was the very same so we had a bit of a chat. I really should have been more suspicious when he became very animated after I explained I was a friend of Arabella Sock. When he asked if I was a blogger, for some ridiculous reason I said yes when all I had been doing was fiddling around just to see if I could.

Rob told me of his plans for his own shop & so I eventually found myself on a very lovely sunny Saturday afternoon in Raynes Park all geared up to make a speech & cut the ribbon…….

There was food, there was drink & of course many beautiful plants but no ribbon. And I had made him his very own celebration cakes too.

And at last, here he is, hiding behind the orchids……..

Well done Rob The supposed great & good who spurned your invites have missed out on South West London’s premier event!

(I still think Little Shop of Hostas would have been a better name, don’t you?)

A Case of Simple Yet Effective

2010-04-01T19:43:00.001+01:00

Bless me for I have sinned. It is some time since my last blog & why is that? It was almost done & dusted. I was going wow you nature lovers with a chat about the joys of parent-hood in an urban setting. You see the robins had started building a nest at the back of the garden. This then led onto lengthy reminiscences about my trials & tribulations last year with the blackbird family which had me in a state of high anxiety for some weeks. I had the stories, I had the pictures, then the bloody robins decided upon some better bit of real estate, they had called in Kirsty & Phil & moved elsewhere.

What to write about now?

It came to me whilst wandering round Wisley on Sunday morning admiring some of the flowers. The camellias were beginning to get into their stride; lots of big blowsy blooms which I duly admired. I was then reminded that, on the whole, I love single flowers much more. This camellia flower says it all.

The double kerria japonica is widely grown, but look how more effective the single flowered version is.

I love the many & varied flowers of roses of all stages of blowsiness but at the end of the day am a real ‘sucker’ (there is a vague joke there by the way) for the single flower. I have a lovely deep red ‘Dortmund’ in my front garden which I love. Indeed there are many examples of different plants I could talk about, but best not.

Needless to say there are some doubles which quite frankly should not exist!

Narcissus ‘Rip van Winkle’

Oh, OK then, here is one picture of one of the (now deceased) baby blackbirds from last year.

‘Runty’

Mums & Molehills, Badgers & Bunnies

2010-03-16T11:12:00.001Z

Painshill Park, Cobham, Surrey.

Sunday, Mother’s Day, daughter had forgotten to send a card & son wondered if I wanted one on that day or when we go out for belated curry later in the week. Hopeless! But happily the sun was shining brightly & the temperature was a bit higher than in recent days so it was time to get out for a bit of fresh air.

If you drive to RHS Wisley from London on the A3, as I frequently do, you will pass a sign to Painshill Park & this is where we decided to go.

It is quite a few years since we last went, indeed said rubbish children were fairly small & whining at the time if I remember correctly, but in recent years we kept saying we must return, so return we did.

Unbeknownst to us it was a ‘Mums go free’ day at Painshill. OK, so we did not have to fork out as much cash as we thought (even though I did not have a whining child in tow), always nice but it did mean there were rather a lot of mums around along with myriad other family members. But no worries, it is a place where you can avoid lots of people quite easily.

Painshill Park, also referred to as "Pains Hill" back in the day, was developed between 1738 and 1773 by the Hon. Charles Hamilton, 9th son and 14th child of the 6th Earl of Abercorn. It is claimed to be one of the finest examples of an 18th Century English Landscape Park. It has a number of follies in various states of repair & views of the ‘living paintings’ that Hamilton was trying to create.

It has been restored/developed quite a bit since our last visit including the reception & there are now reasonable paths to every area. Despite this it still has a slightly abandoned feel to it which I like. Last year we visited Stowe Landscape Garden & whilst it is beautiful in its way I felt slightly annoyed & manipulated that everything was positioned just so in order to get the best view or vista with the buildings carefully placed within. Painshill is also nowhere as near as ‘grand’.

One of the most interesting areas of restoration is the Grotto which was closed when we last visited. It is now open & the crystal interior is being painstakingly restored, bit by bit. They reckon at least 5-10 man years before completion!

There were lots of snowdrops still out & daffodils just beginning to open up to the sun.

It is obviously a perfect place to see nature; lots of evidence of rabbits, badgers ripping up turf & more molehills than I have seen in ages (although I guess SW London is not conducive to mole tunnelling).

The walled garden at the entrance is due to open this Spring.

Was slightly taken aback part way round…….

It was a lovely walk on a glorious day to be rounded off with a cuppa & a little light lunch……………………….wrong, sadly I think the catering was slightly overwhelmed by the success of the ‘Mums go free day’.

We went home.

Guerrilla Gardening Lazy Trollop Style

2010-03-12T14:45:00.001Z

Still no daffodils

Guerrilla gardening is a bit of a political side to gardening where direct action is taken to plant derelict areas of land. There is plenty of advice around about the whys, hows & wheres which I don’t intend to go into. Take a look at this site for more information.

I thought I might give you the Lazy Trollop take on this interesting aspect of gardening, something I am intending to participate in later this year.

Try to ensure you live in a house with a side alley. Terraced houses will provide the best setting for the impact of your surprise attack of floriferousness in which case you will be better situated in the end terrace for ease of access. Don’t make too much effort. If you don’t live in the right place then don’t bother.

Now take some packets of hardy annual flower seeds; given away free in a magazine, handed out at a flower show some years ago or just festering in a box from goodness knows when. No need to buy specially.

Now you just chuck those seeds artistically along the sides of the alley in question making sure you don’t mess up the right of way . If you can be bothered perhaps mix the seed up with a handful of compost to give it a bit of a start.If you have any seeds left & are lucky enough to live in a street with trees, try a few seeds round the bottom of the tree along with all the usual detritus that hangs around in such places.

I will let you know what happens………………………

Daphne bholua Jacquline Postill

Today’s Special Guest is….

2010-03-04T14:32:00.001Z

I wanted one life
you wanted another
we couldn't have our cake
so we ate each other.

Roger McGough

.. Chocolate & Banana cake.

Enough of gardens, we now have a short interlude, an interruption to normal service, the first of possibly a number of short breaks to settle down with, perhaps a cup of tea &, some cake.

Today’s cake is a great favourite & extremely useful for using up those blackening bananas, in fact the riper the better!

Enjoy! I did!

And yes, I did deliberately bash her back-pack….

2010-03-01T09:02:00.001Z

We were going stir crazy. The weather was wet, the garden was wet, the roads were wet, the allotment was wet, the cat was wet….. do you get the picture? ‘Lets pop off to Kew’ said the Doofer, it won’t be busy with this weather, we can go & see the orchids’. We are normally early birds & like to go to places as they are opening so as to avoid the lazy slothful stay-a beds but needs must…….

It started well, we parked very close to the gate, the rain had stopped pouring down, the gardens were quiet……but of course everyone who was there was in the Princess of Wales glasshouse. Now the modern parent has to free any small children from the confines of their buggies & let them roam free; the number of times I almost stood on one of these small things as I rounded a corner or tried to take an artistically important photo. That was not all, adult groups without children were as bad; standing talking whilst taking up the entire width of the pathway. And the lady with large back-pack? As I tried to squeeze past whilst she took not a blind bit of notice of this poor person (me you understand) I suddenly decided to take matters into my own hands & quite deliberately bashed her back-pack as I passed. It made her swing round a bit but did not put her off her long & I am sure essential conversation with the others in her party.

What follows are some pictures of the orchids & other bits of Kew although I am a bit miffed that Ms Sock got to see them before I did & wrote her usual individual take on things, but I do my bit.

Outside, despite the weather, you could see that spring was if not exactly springing into life, at least making a valiant effort to put on a brave face.

And a few other pictures for your delectation.

Should I Keep Myself Regular….

2010-02-24T21:25:00.001Z

……or should I await the urge?

Some people blog say once a week or even, god forbid, once a day. Other bloggers wait for the muse to come upon them & then get it all out for their avidly waiting public. The advantage of the regular blog is that it must instil some discipline into the author & there is nothing like a deadline to get the brain cells working. But then what if you have nothing interesting to say…….. yes, I know, I rarely do.

At this point I really should say how gob-smacked I was at the sudden huge (for me) influx of people who read my last blog entry. I must thank the talented, the wonderful Ms Arabella Sock & Mr James Alexander (my name is too big for a fairy cake) Sinclair for having me hanging on their coat tails. I am most smarmingly grateful. I think there were still a large proportion of new arrivals at Lack-A-Daisy looking for my bare bits. So, in their honour I give you………

……. my lawn. Yes, you did indeed read this correctly. It is a bit of my lawn. Not looking up to much I can hear you mutter dear reader. And whose fault is that? PIGEONS! Those vile dirty irritatingly stupid feathered creatures. I confess the grass was not the brilliant green sward I would have liked but I had lovingly aerated & top-dressed it in the autumn. This particular bit of lawn is under the bird feeders which are wired & protected so as to prevent the greedy buggers in question getting anything out of them, so what do they do but patrol up & down underneath all day long scooping up any little bit that falls to the ground whilst at the same time pounding my grass into obscurity.

This by the way, is the original bare bit, still looking bare though with lots of bulbs reaching through, & some attempt at pigeon protection going on as they don’t know how to walk round a delicate emerging shoot!

OK, rant over. I have presented you with a couple of other pictures taken in my garden which are of such small bits that you can’t see the crap!

Which reminds me, I don’t think I have the discipline to become regular.

A Tale of Two Hattiewats.

2010-02-17T11:35:00.001Z

I know the RHS London Flower & Design Show is all about plants, gardens & gossip but as I joined my 100% cashmere friend, Arabella Sock, to hit the horticultural halls yesterday, we could not help but notice that we had the best 2 hattiewats by far. In fact I only spotted 2 other rather poor contenders for the crown & I feel we thoroughly deserved a Gold Medal for our seasonal display, beautifully & carefully presented. Yes, that is Gold, not any old Silver-Gilt showing you haven’t quite made it! I didn’t actually hear any but I am quite sure there were gasps of astonishment as we walked by.

OK, after that brief interruption for flowers, & to be fair the snowdrops did look quite magnificent , it is back to the important matter of the hats. I will show you the 2 pretenders to the crown….

I am quite happy to point out their attributes: the first is very seasonal with the snowdrops but the spring effect is rather spoiled & over-shadowed by the main combination of colours, & as for the cow’s teat on the top…………. The overall effect of the second outfit was striking but I felt the wearer was making up for a rather half hearted hattiwat & hoping to blind the viewer.

Now for the important bit. Unfortunately I am unable to show you my own headgear in situ but I think you will be impressed at the magnificence of the beast I am about to show you.

The picture does not show the object at it’s best, but you can see how it is subtle yet sophisticated, smart & suave & of course extremely expensive. The impact was awesome.

You had better see a few more flowers. I went to the same show last year & remember being totally blown away by all the jewel like hepaticas. It was like looking in a sweet shop window although the one I bought is sitting in the greenhouse whilst I carefully ponder where to put it. Not so this year.

I am never sure about the design content of this show. There seems to be barely enough to get the brain cells moving, & what there was seemed to be rather dour looking. I did decide eventually that it was probably the lighting as even the bright yellow narcissi looked rather dull.

I did enjoy the show: it is a lovely way to see plants that are in season & perhaps to purchase something not otherwise easily available, but then it is very easy for me to get to. The company, as ever, was more than excellent. Oh god, I’ve just realised, I’ve become a lady what lunches!

I will leave you as I started, with the good ladies on the balcony of the Lawrence Hall.

Where shall I point Percy?

2010-02-10T10:47:00.001Z

So dear reader, you are not interested in folk music then.

How about helping me with a bit of garden design. Well, when I say garden design I think this is probably on the fringes, niche even, possibly an edgy aspect of garden design. Or is it art? We could even find ourselves reading about it in Thinking Gardens!

The dilemma I face is where to point dear Percy, & no, I don’t want to hear shouts of ‘At the porcelain’ thank you very much!

This is Percy…

Percy was given to us at Christmas. It is obviously well known that I am a Trollop of very poor taste who likes to place works of art (which others might regard as tat) around her garden. With all the cold weather we have kept Percy snug indoors, but as spring approaches we need to put our minds to where Percy will be happiest & seen to best advantage by the visiting public.

The possibilities….

On the lawn……………………………. or on the deck?

Next to the pond?

In the new bed (which should but may not be full of flowers)?

In my one tree woodland?

Under the window……………

or with the ducks?

I just don’t know.

I look forward to an avalanche of even 1 suggestion.

A Surreal Yet Totally Meaningless Title

2010-02-02T09:43:00.001Z

So, at the risk of boring the socks off my reader, a bit of culture. I have popped on sandals over my socks & have got a finger stuck in one ear as it’s folk day on Lack-A-Daisy. No, I am not a folkie geek but I do enjoy lots of the music.

On Sunday it was a trip to Queen Elizabeth Hall to see The Imagined Village, a fantastic folk fusion. I loved the sitar. The line-up vwries to include Billy Bragg, Benjamin Zephaniah & Paul Weller, none of whom were there on Sunday!

The gig began with a support session from Chris Wood who got things going with a brilliant song about the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. I loved My Darling’s Downsized, his take on the love song which contains references to allotments, celeriac & chitting potatoes. You can’t get much better than that. (You are allowed to skip to 3.55)

It is difficult to get a real feel for the evening: I just love live music of all sorts, you can’t beat it! All you have to do is enjoy.

The Bastard

2010-01-20T17:03:00.001Z

This is not a rant or a moan about some despicable individual despite the title, although I am sure I could manage a fair bit of it if pushed. No, this is about a tree; the Bastard Gumwood tree (Commidendrum rotundifolium).

I was happily listening to the radio whilst driving back from Norfolk yesterday when I heard the fascinating story of this poor bastard of a tree on St Helena, the last of its kind, which a scientist from Kew Gardens is trying to save. The problem is that the tree is not self-fertile so they are hand pollinating every flower in the hope that there will be some slight genetic mutation which would then allow self-pollination. The poor thing has also to be covered in netting to prevent pollination from a closely related species. Apparently it was thought this tree was extinct but it was re-discovered! I imagine it was trying to live out its last days in peace!

The news story can be found here.

I just loved the story.

The photo is part of the Japanese garden in Kew Gardens. I would not have one myself, too neat & tidy, but they are very calming to look at.

Oh, what the hell…….

2010-01-13T19:58:00.003Z

I am fed up with it but I thought I would put a couple of pictures of the garden under snow taken this morning. It is really just so I can look back at them in future years & gasp!

ER

2010-01-12T13:57:00.001Z

Despite mouth to gill resuscitation & a great crowd of me rushing round the trolley shouting BP 1 over the odds we were not able to save this, our first casualty of the worst winter since I were nobbut a lad.

Shame, it was our biggest & best with a beautiful tail. It would have been dead before the ice encasement which makes me feel marginally better!

On the whole it is likely to be some time before we can assess if there has been much permanent damage in the garden following the lengthy spells of below freezing temperatures but some can be seen very clearly straight away.

My Australian Wonga Wonga vine (Pandorea pandorana), of which I am very proud, had icicles hanging off the flower buds last year but still it produced a fantastic display. I was so looking forward to this spring’s show as the plant is much bigger but I will be lucky if I get a couple of sprays.

I should have popped this into the greenhouse shouldn’t I.

I was very pleased to get an astelia half price in the Wisley sale. It might have been a slightly better idea to put that in the greenhouse too instead of just popping it under the table for a bit of protection! It may recover.

Still, it is lovely to see the hamamelis just starting to unfurl.

Spring is coming……………………………. honest!

Rumour has it that winter is here again!

2010-01-06T09:46:00.001Z

More snow, although here in SW London it has been a fairly light covering. It seems that London is surrounded by much more serious conditions & as I write Mr B is still struggling to work through several signal failures.

It will be interesting, possibly upsetting, to see how the garden copes with this extended winter weather. Certainly in areas like this we have probably become quite complacent about what we grow & how well we protect plants during recent winters.

The photos here were taken at Wisley On New Year’s Day. It was a beautiful cold & sunny day; just perfect after getting home at 3am after a wonderfully fantastic night at the Royal Festival Hall on New Year’s Eve where we enjoyed the music of Bellowhead in what can only be described as a festival in the RFH.

Not deeply meaningful

2009-12-31T16:04:00.001Z

As it is that time of the year I thought I would wish everyone all that they wish for, within reason of course, over next 12 months.

I don’t make resolutions but despite that I will of course end next year thinner, better off, less lazy with a garden that looks glorious all year, an allotment heaving with the most perfect produce, I could go on but those flying pigs are a little off-putting.

Happy New Year!

What a difference a day makes…….

2009-12-17T10:02:00.003Z

I was accused yesterday of not blogging for ages & being a lazy trollop…………………yes, ‘and the point is’ as that very annoying little phrase goes!
I could have blogged about being a domestic goddess & making jams & chutneys or steeping magical ingredients in vodka for delectable Christmas pressies but I couldn’t possibly reveal all that hard work, where would my lazy trollop street cred be?

I have also been extremely busy thinking about biscuits, & that is very taxing work I can assure you, particularly the extensive road tests I have to carry out at great personal expense & risk.
So, instead of all that I will show you the before & after pictures of the effect of all that exciting snow yesterday on my garden.

Dramatic or what! Well it is for suburban SW London in December! The sad thing is that once the snow had started to fall I found myself singing Christmas songs. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

What’s occurring?

2009-12-09T12:05:00.001Z

At last the weather has brightened a little so yesterday I was able to get out into the garden & do a bit of overdue tidying.

The Patient Gardener has been bemoaning the fact that things have just been too miserable to get out & do much constructive & even I was beginning to feel a bit frustrated at not being able to do anything much! At last I got round to sweeping the front path of leaves so I didn’t get sued by the milkman when he slips with his semi-skimmed. I had actually given him a teeny little walkway through the middle of the leaves but there is no point sweeping until they have all come off the tree now is there. I did a few more bits of sweeping & trimming & then this morning I had a little wander round to see what had been happening in my absence on the other side of the glass.

The camellias have got huge buds on them, a hellebore is flowering its socks off, primulas are starting to flower but all blooms are being nibbled by slugs & snails which must be on cloud nine with this wet & relatively mild weather, the viburnum tinus is starting to flower as is the Fargesia nitida.

Mine began flowering last year so I kept cutting out the flowering shoots & fed it up & we survived one more season so I will try the same this time & just hope we can pull through the crisis. The sparrows & starlings have virtually eaten all the seeds from the cordyline. I was glad to add something new to the menu here: I mean the birds only have sunflower hearts, niger seeds, fat balls, peanuts & mealworms.

It is cheering to see the seed heads of the Iris foetidissima glowing in my woodland (1 silver birch!). Should I scrub its bark for the best winter show – probably not! Bulbs are beginning to peak through in various parts of the garden: the iris reticulata are poking through the gravel in my (fairly) newly planted sink which I did after seeing some lovely examples at the Wisley Flower Show. The obvious gap is a hosta just in case you were wondering.

As for Christmas which is apparently looming, well the tree has been bought & will sit in a bucket outside until the weekend before the big day. The cake has been made. Victoria made me feel quite inadequate.

I have bought a few presents, including a few for myself, but that is it! It is only Christmas after all……….