Gardening as Therapy ~ 5th December 2016

A series of really rather unfortunate and pretty horrible stuff happened to me over the summer. 

I am sure I will be able to write about it all in greater detail sometime but now is not that time. 

 

I can confidently write that if I were not a gardener, outside in all weather, connecting with the earth and its various moods, I would not have coped nearly so well. 

The Autumn of 2016 has been so exceptionally gorgeous and it has been a pleasure to be out in it. 

 

The fundamental actions of pruning, digging and turning compost have proved even more invigorating than in previous Autumns. I have survived, physically and mentally, and the leaf colours have been all the sweeter for it. 

There is a school of thought that suggests that maybe I have kept even busier than usual so that I can successfully ignore the events of the summer. On the contrary, I feel that I have been able to work through the happenings in my mind whilst really getting stuck in to a particularly overgrown viburnum (the latest unsuspecting victim of my insatiable pruning) and returning said viburnum to a less congested and aesthetically pleasing state.

There is no photo of the viburnum to hand so here is some scrumptious homemade compost in its place. 

 

I think that I will write about the summer one day but in the meantime I will continued to regain my strength the very best way I know. 

Gardening ~ the only therapy for me. 

 

Update in The Great Dahlia Experiment 2016-2017

I watched as three hard frosts turned my Dahlias from stately ladies to swampy rags and I lost my nerve. 

I dug up the tubers and they are now upside down, drying out in a cool room. 

I couldn't face losing them. I couldn't face a winter of fretting.....were the tubers slowly rotting underground whilst I watched and wondered?

The Great Dahlia Experiment 2016-2017 is off. Null and void. Maybe 2017-2018 will find me in braver mood, ready to face the winter with carefree abandon. I doubt it though. It's their little faces you see. 

Dahlias become friends. 

 

The Great Dahlia Experiment 12016-17

In one garden I am playing it safe

In another garden I am being very brave. 

I am being especially brave in garden #2 because it is my garden.

My own Dahlia tubers will stay in the ground all winter. 

625kg of horticultural grit arrives on Tuesday. I will mulch the cut flower bed with the grit - this will keep the tubers warmer and aid drainage in the soil. Dahlia tubers will put up with a bit of cold, but cold and wet will result in the tubers rotting and my beautiful Dahlias will not come back next year. 

 

I am hoping that the grit will help in another important way. When the dahlia shoots emerge next year, slugs and snails will be less willing and able to travel over the grit to munch the tasty, fresh growth. 

This will be a risky move. We could, quite conceivably, experience a horribly wet and cold winter. We have already had a couple of heavy frosts. I could lose them all. 

It goes without saying that I really, really hope that I don't! 

 

Less risky is the method that I employ in my client's wonderful garden - garden #1. 

Over the 7 years that I have worked in the garden we have built up quite a considerable collection of Dahlias. 

 

We have the space to store the Dahlia tubers inside, away from the worst of the winter weather and it almost guarantees that we can put those Dahlias back in the ground next summer. 

We dig up the Dahlias after the first frosts. 

 

We make sure that the Dahlias are correctly labelled - either with their botanical name or, if the name has been lost along the way (as can sometimes happen, despite all best laid plans) or the Dahlia has been grown from a seed mix, we label with a flower colour, flower form and an approximate height description. 

The foliage is cut down to about 20cm and then the tuber is stored upside down for a few days thus ensuring that the moisture in the remainder of the stems exits before storage. 

 

 

Next week we will collect up all available storage crates, crack open our vermiculite supplies and tuck the Dahlias away (checking on them and giving them a small sprinkle of water every three weeks to ensure that the tubers do not completely dry out) until mid-spring 2017 when we will say hello to them again, pot them up and watch as they send up new shoots and we can revel in the anticipation of greeting the sumptuous flowers in high summer. 

 

The Dahlia tubers in my own cut flower patch will have to fend for themselves. I will be watching with great interest and with a huge amount of trepidation. Will my tuberous babies reappear or not? 

Here begins the Great Dahlia Experiment of 2016-17. 

Nicola wanted to write......

Nicola wanted to write but didn't know quite where to start. She had read and listened to plenty of interviews with successful authors and knew that if you wanted to write you had to jolly well just get on with it. So, Nicola just got on with it. 

She had huge amounts of bouncing creativity and would feel a great frustration if she came to the end of the day without something tangible, colourful, to show for it. She hoped to plough as much colour and texture into her writing as she ploughed into her gardens. 

Nicola remembered hours of satisfying toil in the libraries of school, college, university. She remembered those who marked her essays and reports praising her imagination and ability to research insightfully. Nicola remembered the English teacher at her all-girls school commenting that if only she put as much effort into her handwriting as she applied to the humour that littered her comprehension homework, that she might well achieve better marks. 

Art was her best subject. At least, Art was the only subject where she was recognised as very talented. Nicola could draw, she could capture likeness and form and had a sharp eye for colours. Art was her future (it must be a relief for a teacher to see an obvious exit point for teenager approaching the end of school) and she was steered towards, pigeonholed and shown the correct corridor along which she was to travel. But she was abandoned somewhere along that corridor and she had not the maturity to steer herself. She was left disillusioned by the art world. Failing to find a mentor, a path or a vocation within the subject. 

Horticulture rescued her. Gardening gave her the daily challenge she needed. It was her creative release, therapy and, as the years went by, it gave her an authority. She put in those 10,000 hours and became an expert (as much as you can ever be an expert in horticulture ~ 10,000 years would not be enough) but still she wanted to write. 

She wrote delightful Thank You letters to family and friends; she wrote her blog. She read countless novels spanning several genres (apart from sci-fi - she had no time for sci-fi) and encouraged her children to take as much pleasure from reading and writing as she did. 

And then it boiled down to making decisions. Nicola never really was a great one for making decisions, especially those perceived as important decisions. 

Fact or fiction?

Nicola decided that she must just write. She must write as frequently as possible. She must publish her intentions on her website and once her intentions were out there she would have to keep on writing. 

Nicola hoped to get better and better 

...........

 

Introducing Organics: beyond horticulture ~ 12/09/2916

I have been practicing organic gardening since 1995. That's quite a while now!

I fell into organics; I did not seek it out. 

A couple of weeks of work experience at Highgrove led to me working there on and off for the next decade. 

It started as a fun summer job. A way to earn money and be outside in a beautiful setting. I was much more into the aesthetics of gardening. I was studying Fine Art and hadn't even considered horticulture as a career. 

My fun summer job has gradually become my vocation. 

I have never practiced conventional horticulture. Organic horticulture is all I know. It would have been all any gardener would have known until the 20th century. 

I have always aimed to buy as much organic food as we can afford as a family and, of course, I grow quite a lot of tasty produce too. 

Instagram has encouraged me to widen my organic journey. The Soil Association - please look at their website for more about what they do - www.soilassociation.org - award Organic status to farms, growers, producers and makers who meet their high standards so I enjoy following their work on my preferred form of social media. 

My attention has been captured by the Soil Association Beauty blog. I have always been aware that what I put on my skin and the skin of my children is as equally important as the food we consume but I always considered it to be financially unattainable. 

Researching the different brands was a bit baffling. I prefer to try before I buy and was reluctant to commit to a product that may have not been right for me so I was thrilled when the Soil Association announced a limited edition Beauty Box to coincide with their #organicseptember and Organic Beauty Week (19th-25th September 2016). 

The box is a revelation. Packed full of treats from some of the leading Organic Beauty brands e.g. Neal's Yard, Botanicals, NatraCare, Skin and Tonic, Terre Verde, Odylique, Kiki Health and Essential Care. 

Botanicals 'Radiance Facial Serum' is an instant hit and I will be a future customer, of that I am in no doubt. I also love the clensing wipes from NatraCare and the 'Rose Mist' from Skin and Tonic ~ I have been using it to fix my make-up in place and it works a treat (yes, I am a make-up wearing gardener......well, I have blonde eyelashes, what am I supposed to do, go without mascara? Not a chance). 

The verdict: I will continue to follow the excellent work of The Soil Association and look to them for guidance as I continue on my organic journey. 

April, May and June.....

April, May and June.......my feet do not touch the ground. July.......and relax....but not too much. 

I would like to share some of the highlights of this busy, busy (some might say completely bonkers) time of the horticultural year. 

Spring bulbs ~ Fritillaria meleagris at a local Wiltshire Wildlife Reserve. A vintage year. 

The RHS Malvern Spring Festival. Wonderful show gardens, champagne and I won an olive tree. Best birthday present ever! 

Tulips ~ this is 'China Pink'. Given the right conditions this variety will keep on coming back year after year. Such good value. 

Working in new gardens. I love the colour of this cottage. What a great backdrop for this wisteria and Rose 'Golden Celebration'. I so enjoy getting to know new gardens ~ a real highlight of my work. 

Stunning peonies at a special and rare plant sale near Cirencester. WARNING: give yourself a strict budget before entering .......and be prepared to exceed your budget because some plants are just too tempting. 

Growing new types of old friends. I would usually grow huge amounts of frothy, white Cosmos 'Purity' but I was tempted (see previous photo) by yellow Cosmos 'Xanthos' this year and it is rather gorgeous. Not as effusively space-filling as 'Purity' but an attractive and welcome addition nonetheless. 

Reaping the rewards of hard winter work ~ extensive border rejuvenation in the off-season makes for fresh and exciting Spring, Summer and Autumn borders. If I could explain one thing to non-gardeners (and I do .....but it often falls upon deaf ears) it is that gardening does not stop in the colder months and, in fact, this is when the majority of the planning and reorganisation should be achieved. 

Taking time out to learn from the experts ~ a day spent with Chris Beardshaw is never a day wasted. The award winning garden designer and broadcaster is incredibly eloquent and inspirational. I made a promise to myself at the beginning of 2016 that I would take more time to build upon my horticultural education. I am aware that I could very well become set in my ways and stagnant unless I seek out opportunities to meet with and really listen to leading horticulturalists. 

Making and crafting ~ I get an enormous thrill from making new things for the garden. This is a climbing plant support made from many woven willow hoops and set on a hazel pole frame. It is working wonderfully well as a sweet pea support and I will be making more of the same in the future. 

John Sales ~ I felt like the luckiest horticulturalist in the world last weekend when I had the chance to visit the private garden of the former head of all National Trust Gardens. John Sales is an eminent and highly regarded horticulturalist and, as I found out, a fabulous host. His obvious passion for his plot in deepest, darkest Gloucestershire is thrilling. His garden is picture perfect and loaded with unusual plants. The interesting plants are expertly placed so that they mingle rather than stand out in this, the most expertly effortless garden I have visited for many years. 

Topiary ~ summer only truly starts for me when I make that first clip with my shears. The smell of the freshly cut box takes me straight back to happy teenage summers at Highgrove. 

In summery ~ an exciting Spring has become a pleasing summer in all of my gardens. Winter slog has paid off and I have had some wonderful opportunities to meet interesting new people and new plants......and I may even have the time to post a new blog every now and then! 

Happy summer 2016 to all ☀️

 

Spring salads ~ 19/4/2016

Get a big sack type planter for your greenhouse or conservatory; fill it with some lovely growing media of your choice (I use good quality multipurpose compost mixed with some delicious homemade compost) and sow yourself some salad crops. 

I am currently enjoying small harvests of salad bowl lettuce, lollo rosso lettuce, coriander and beautiful, shiny, red radishes. It is so, so worth the effort if you have the space and the facilities. I mean, look at these stunners.....

What are you waiting for?! Wide reaching frosts have been forecast for this coming weekend so I am delaying planting out or sowing anything remotely tender outside but I am not at all displeased because I have my radishes. (#annoyinglysmug) 

Confession ~ 4/4/2016

It is time to come clean. 

I frequently post photographs on my website and Instagram of beautiful plants, flowers and garden scenes. 

Some of the beautiful plants and flowers are from my own garden. None of the beautiful garden scenes are from my own garden. I do not live in a pretty part of town. 

We moved to our ex-council house just over three years ago. It's not much but it is ours and we have grown to love it. We live right next door to a large secondary school so, although it is not a pastoral view, we do have a view - and it could be a lot worse than netball courts! 

Our home comes with a reasonably large South-west facing garden and it is (or, at least, it will be) quite wonderful. Because, you see, when you start with something ugly, the potential for increasing the interest, colour and beauty is huge! 

When you garden in a lovely spot you have a duty to honour it's loveliness. When you garden in a place that is really quite plain.....the only way is......oasis. 

I am aiming for an oasis in the middle of a small market town Bronx. 

We are slowly turning our blank canvas into a garden that we can be proud of. 

I have worked in world renowned gardens, quintessential Cotswold gardens, immaculately designed gardens, gardens with vast budgets, gardens with small budgets, tasteful gardens,minimalist gardens, maximalist gardens and Royal gardens and I have learnt the rules......now I get to break them! 

(This is not my garden!!!⬇️)

 My garden will evolve slowly. My budget and time is limited but I have my skills, my experience, some lovely plants and now my extremely exciting new Rhino greenhouse. I also have my helpers .....human and feline

......I feel better now that I have confessed. 

Now you all know that I do not live in a pretty Cotswold Stone cottage with a view over a peaceful valley ~ not that I ever stated that I did. 

Now you know that I live in a solidly built 1950's ex-council house with a view over the Craft, Design and Technology Block and I can let you all know exactly how I am getting on. 

.....just don't expect miracles straight away! 

.......and you can still expect quintessential Cotswold scenes ~ I am lucky enough to look after some stunning gardens. 

England v Spain (Bluebell League) 2/4/2016

Today is the day ~ First bluebell sighting of the year! 

I need to qualify this statement. 

It was my first sighting of the beautiful, delicate, deep and true royal blue English bluebell but I've been digging up heaps of it's brutish cousin, the Spanish bluebell, for weeks now. 

There is no comparison. 

This is the gorgeous, dainty English Bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta.....

I have no photograph of the Spanish one, Hyacinthoides hispanica, because it's not nearly so pretty and I get rather cross when I see one. These Spanish blighters are clunky, paler blue and lack the lovely, pendulous habit of the English blooms. 

Worse still, they hybridise with our dinky, sweet-smelling, native bluebell and threaten their very existence. 

A plea from me: do not buy, plant, or encourage the Spanish bluebell and if you see it about, dig it out! 

The English Bluebell is one of my favourite plants (can you tell?!). Please help me protect it. 

Today was also the day that I decided to take the girls to my childhood den. I was pretty sure they were old enough to appreciate the sideways growing tree over the top of the stagnant pond. I was right. Next time we are bringing scotch eggs (current outside snack of choice). 

Simple pleasures