Fragments

"Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

This weekend I barged my way into a lot of borders. I wriggled under prickly raspberry stems to tug out buttercups and squeezed between the black elderflower and a red brick wall, to prise out nettles. I felt cumbersome and clumsy, my giant clodhopping feet pushing plants aside every step. 

But as I became absorbed in my task, and began to piece together the subtle comings and goings of the intricate world I had imposed myself on, I began to feel very humbled and very small.  

Just above my head, the remnants of an old blackbird’s nest were slipping through the vines of the clematis. I remembered last year’s fledglings, beaks relentlessly open. 

Tucked behind the base of the clematis were a heap of empty snail shells, hollow fragments of a passerine feast.

My trowel uncovered a couple of split walnut shells, so that’s where the squirrels hid them.

A broken eggshell, large, pale brown with speckles. A gull's egg?

As if to confirm my suspicions that nature doesn’t depend on a gardener's meddling, even my favourite tulip this year was one that I didn’t plan. A cross-pollination resulted in an exquisite cream and red striped bloom. And in decline, it is still beautiful. 

Welcome to the wild flowers

"Nothing is a better lesson in the knowledge of plants than to sit down in front of them, handle them and look them over just as carefully as possible; and in no way can each study be more pleasantly or conveniently carried on than by taking a light seat to the rock-wall and giving plenty of time to each kind of little plant, examining it closely and asking oneself, and it, why this and why that." Gertrude Jekyll

In my previous post on weeds, I was perhaps a bit harsh in my condemnation, coloured by a long day of filling my barrow with unwanted vegetation. A weed is, after all, merely a wild flower in the wrong place. 

There are plenty of wild flowers that unbidden weave their seductive charm through my garden and I cherish them for that. 
I promise they won't end up in my barrow... unless they get too unruly!

Wonderful weeds

"Weeding is a delightful occupation, especially after summer rain, when the roots come up clear and clean. One gets to know how many and various are the ways of weeds - as many almost as the moods of human creatures. How easy and pleasant to pull up are the soft annuals like Chickweed and Groundsel, and how one looks with respect at deep-rooted things like Docks, that make one go and fetch a spade." 

Gertrude Jekyll

Sadly, I barely had to venture further than a few yards from my back door to gather this assortment of weeds. I would have preferred to boast that I had to search high and low and long and hard to find them. 

Jekyll is right, they are many and various.... and fascinating to observe closely. So many different leaf shapes and growth habits. 

How wonderful is our native British flora... just not in my flower border please! 

The vagaries of March

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: 

when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade." 

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

....summmery enough for me to skip round the garden to see what's in bloom!

Happy New Year

I’ve just walked round the garden in the dwindling daylight.
The last fruits of winter have released their grip, making way for the buds of spring.
Bowed heads, sapped of energy, snared by the frost and gloom.
Yet in each shriveled pod and faded petal a shred of beauty lingers.

 

To Do or not To Do

It’s a real tonic to put aside the ‘to do’ list once in a while, and take the time to enjoy what someone else has ‘done’. 

With this in mind we visited Somerleyton Hall a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful brick boundary walls, tree lined driveway, fat herbaceous borders, drifts of meadow flowers, clipped yew and picture perfect courtyards. 

The air of tranquility belied the phenomenal amount of effort required to sustain such an inspiring garden.
Until I poked my nose into the cordoned-off greenhouse.
Charmingly dilapidated, I had found the heartbeat of the garden in the unravelled hose, the upturned seed trays and bags of compost... 

...it was the palpable birthplace of those magnificent borders.

So what's on my 'to do' list this weekend? 

Get into the greenhouse and sow some biennials.

High summer

Been catching each of my new roses as they come into bloom. I will treasure 2016 as the summer of anticipation… especially for the one mystery rose that got separated from its label… really had to restrain myself from prising open a bud!

Just space on the page left for Madame Alfred Carriere which has kindly waited until my return from holiday.

Clockwise from top, Rosa pomifera, Rose de Rescht, Gertrude Jeykll, Buff Beauty, Rhapsody in Blue, Tuscany superb.

Garden maths

 I've been busy "adding" to my rose border.

Take an old paintbrush and a pot of black paint

and some old hoe heads that have been waiting for their moment of glory...

Fleeting flowers

After days of heavy showers, I’m resigned that my irises are over for another year. They do not die gracefully. Rather than scattering faded petals on the whim of the breeze, each bloom coils into a slimy knot and then slowly atrophies. I will enjoy tidying up the spent stalks. 

A couple of weeks ago, while they still looked good I spent a glorious day painting outside... and I wasn’t the only one enjoying the warmth of summer on my back. 
Nearby, the chickens were so spreadeagled in the sun they looked as though they had been spatchcocked ready for the barbecue. Wings fanned and bodies sprawled, the only clue they were still alive was the sound of gentle communal purring. 

Now that’s what I call happy hens!

May

May has been a month chock-full of blossom. 
First blackthorn in the hedgerows, pure white, starry clusters. 

Then the orchard fruits. Unashamedly frilly cherry, plum, pink flushed apple and delicate pear. 

Candy stripe buds on the quince uncoil with poise while the deep crimson crab-apple buds rush onto the stage with pantomime exuberance.

Horse chestnuts burst into leaf at an alarming rate and then throw out a spectacular firework display, which for a few glorious days is suspended mid explosion. Meanwhile hawthorn and honeysuckle weave their way nonchalantly along the lanes.

I have loved May.

May

“A flower blossoms for its own joy” Oscar Wilde

May, prime time for fussing and fiddling in the greenhouse. 
Maize peeping through, too early to plant out the beans, tomato side shoots need pinching out. 
Not to mention a good deal of primping and propping in the garden, sweet peas need wigwams, peonies.. supports, dahlias.. stakes. 

Regardless of my efforts the wild flowers are just quietly getting on with it. 

'Travels With My Aunt'

"I have never planned anything illegal in my life," Aunt Augusta said.

Graham Greene 1904-1991

Neither of my parents had siblings so as a small child I sometimes used to wonder what it must be like to have ‘real’ aunts and uncles. Having said that, we did manage to accrue an engaging array of substitutes.

We visited ageless Jewish spinsters in lofty north London bedsits, that had the magical allure of squeaky polished floors, colourful cushions lined up on the divan, and carved wooden camels marching across the mantlepiece.

There were soft cheeked Aunties that moved gently in a haze of talcum powder, wore slippers and silky stockings, and gave us embroidered cotton handkerchiefs on our birthday. 

And then there was Aunty Ethel. 

She was a country-woman at heart but lived in the local town. When calling on her unannounced, we knew to circumnavigate the house, wander straight into the back garden and listen for her melodic voice rising from the bushes. Spotting us she would straighten up from her reverie and smile. I remember a spider gently letting itself down from the rim of her straw hat as she excused herself for soliloquising in the rose-bed.

I mention Ethel because whenever we took her out on garden visits she came with a commodious handbag, complete with secateurs. We would invariably lose her as she strayed from the path to scrutinise an unusual plant. With her back covering her actions she would be busy taking cuttings and stuffing them into her handbag. 
If she were ever apprehended we had prepared our retort... she was not related to us!

It was with her in mind, that on a trip to the magnificent Cambridge Botanic Garden last autumn, shhhhh, I snapped off a seed head from a Lychnis coronaria ‘Alba’ and popped it into my pocket.
So immaculately tended were the beds, I felt sure that if the gardener had got there before me he would have simply tossed the unsightly straggling stem straight into his wheelbarrow; I was simply doing him a favour. 

Back home I sowed my booty straight away, a couple of weeks later tiny green leaves appeared and now I have nice sturdy little plants ready for the white garden. 

Just think, if I’d slung my jeans in the washing machine without checking the pockets first it could all have been in vain!

P.S. I’ve taken to writing on my pots rather than using labels... too oft’ did one get separated from t’other.

"We are not amused"

My Queen Victoria mug plays host to jolly primulas,

who are not amused, by frequent April showers.

Now just suppose you find yourself in Herefordshire, and too, are displeased with the rain, you will be very welcome to seek shelter at the Old Chapel Gallery where you can see some more of my watercolours alongside lots more beautiful contemporary artwork!

My new toy, or how not to plan a rose bed

This weekend I have done the work of a small mechanical digger.
And now I have a new rose border.

My husband ‘bought’ me some rose bushes for my birthday in November.
Winter is the perfect time for planting bare root roses. 
Bingo, this could have been a text book enterprise.

Way back last June our good intentions were firmly intact. 
We visited some gardens with splendid roses. We inhaled their unrivalled perfume, made notes, took photos. 
We searched the internet when we got home... and were overwhelmed by a thousand choices.

But first things first, there was the ground to prepare. Perennials to move, weeds to eradicate, mulch to spread. 
Well, that’s a breeze to postpone!
My birthday came and went and still we looked out on a tangle of seed heads and choking tendrils.   

Fast forward to March and I’m in a spin.
Not wanting to let the year pass without my roses materialising I contacted a lovely garden designer friend Kate.

“Please tell us we’re not too late to order some bare root roses?”

Her supplier had a limited choice in our preferred colours and types. Perfect. That made choosing so much easier. 

And the border?

I ripped through it in a weekend with ‘my’ amazing new toy, a long handled grubbing hoe, or azada that I bought my husband for ‘his’ birthday. 
With the correct relaxed arm swing, the blade slices deftly into the soil. So much easier than the back bending, wrist jarring action of a conventional fork or spade. 
I might have tackled the job much sooner if I’d known about such things. 
Go on, put one on your birthday wish list.

Oh, the banana skins? 

Sloppy couldn’t-care-less labourer?

Kate’s tip of the week... pop one in the planting hole of each rose, they’ll love the potassium.

Oh to be a biennial!

I spent a large part of Saturday outside on my hands and knees. 

Weeds, trowel, barrow.

Wisened sunflower heads swayed overhead, meting out the pendulous tick of autumn. 

Badly behaved dahlias tapped me on the shoulder, stems snapped awkwardly and flower heads awry.

It was warm in the sunny kaleidoscope of the undergrowth. And as I tugged, there hidden beneath the weeds, 

I found a thousand tiny foxglove seedlings chuckling at the surrounding decay. 

Darsham Nurseries… good things come in threes... Nursery, Cafe, Shop

Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.

Rudyard Kipling

Last Saturday I pulled a shameful amount of weeds from my vegetable patch.

So the following day I felt perfectly justified in wandering around Darsham Nurseries trilling ‘Oh how beautiful’.

Forget the shade bit, I enjoyed coffee and incredible pastries in the autumn sunshine and discovered the most enchanting potager.

There were cosmos bobbing among the cabbages and onions sauntering through garlands of amaranthus. Chives elbowed their way past purple ageratum while haughty zinnias commanded over regiments of salad.

In my exuberance I stopped the gardener in his tracks. I detained him with questions about lettuce seeds and climbing beans, annuals and artistry, then departed, inspired to exchange weeds for flowers in my own patch next year.

And the gardener? He got straight back to work of course… there's no sitting in the shade for him!

A fishy tale

A few months ago I was sheltering from the cold and rain in the Brighton Sausage Co. shop. 
What I needed there and then was one of their famous hot sausage rolls. 
What I didn’t need was a can of cold soup. 

But scanning the shelves, this Soupe de Poissons tin caught my eye. 
Classic French typography, jolly colours and some disconsolate fish swimming around in a large citrine tureen. 

I recalled a quip from my local scrap metal merchant... 

“If I only sold people fings they need, I’d go broke.” 

....so I put the fish soup in my basket along with my hot sausage roll.

I was back at the scrap merchant's this week. 

I found a battered ex-army jug and an aluminum jelly mold. 

I didn’t need them, and my £3 will hardly make the proprietor wealthy, but my purchase might well be invaluable for my next painting.

Almost caught out….

Last spring, after much umming and ahing, I replaced some disintegrating willow hurdles with a Rosa rugosa hedge. It backs the mixed border that edges the front path. I wanted something that would provide a long season of interest, plus a harvest (rose-hip syrup) and be beautiful to paint. Who says I’m demanding!

Kept in check, it should provide me with dense glossy foliage from spring to autumn, floppy magenta blooms all summer and corpulent orange hips in the autumn.

And... the old hurdles will make nice dry for kindling for the woodburner!

Having planted the thorny twigs with plenty of compost I kept my fingers firmly crossed. 

As self elected ‘bud monitor’ I watched closely for the first signs of life. Sure enough, over the next few weeks, ruby red swellings erupted into fresh green foliage. And all summer I have enjoyed vibrant splashes of pink followed by those unbelievably glossy hips. Perfect!

Only I never quite got around to painting the wretched things. Until last week. I picked what is probably the last flower of the season, wet my brushes, made a nice cup of hot tea, and settled down at my desk…

Monday 6 a.m.

"It was the moment between six and seven when every flower… glows."  Virginia Woolf

June in bloom

"I paint flowers so they will not die" Frida Kahlo

"Their beauty is beyond dispute. No velvet can rival the richness of their falls; or, let us say, it is to velvet only that we may compare them. That is surely enough to claim for any flower?" Vita Sackville-West, writing about the iris