Pop and Perennials

While it is still regularly below freezing, the perennials are poking their first leaves above ground. It has been pretty grim out there but every time I poke my own nose outside some new plant is optimistically back on the scene.

There are finally tête à tête daffodils, the tulip foliage is looking sturdy and there are shoots on the tree paeony, Geranium phaeum and phlox. I have a shocking track record for growing poppies, although I love them, so I am happy to report that it is looking good on that front too.

The sunshine-yellow Helenium (whose name escapes me) is basically slug bait and takes half a season to get more than 2” high, despite sharp grit and copper barriers, although it is doing its best. Curiously Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’ does not get nearly so chomped. Echinacea ‘Fatal Attraction’ was an impulse purchase Hampton Court Show last year and I am waiting with bated breath to see if it has made it through the winter. Bet it hasn’t…

Perennials need regular dividing, best done before they get growing. Mine are not big enough yet but I have some moving - or culling - to do as last year was a bad year for buying the right plant. Or possibly the correctly labelled plant.

For the hot border, I bought the Shiraz-juicy Potentilla ‘Monarch’s Velvet’, which turned out to be a ‘Melton Fire’. And although I know that the big DIY sheds can be a bit dodgy when it comes to plants, in a moment of weakness their dormant perennials look sooo cheap. But Monarda ‘Cambridge Scarlet’ turned out to be a violent magenta creature (see above), not scarlet at all and not good next to orange and red. So it needs a new home. (Not, you understand, that I have a corner of my garden devoted to tasteless purple flowers and other sub-standard flora, but I am very bad at ditching plants. It may yet, (possibly), have some hidden merit, and given its provenance it is a miracle it survived in the first place!).

Visiting one of my favourite garden centres in North London, I bought a Rosa ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’ which is supposed to be soft-pink and fragrant, to scramble up a hibiscus and make it a bit more interesting when it is not flowering itself. I don’t know what I have actually got but it is a rather dull, greyish colour. I entirely forgive it as just five fantastically perfumed blooms scented the whole garden, but its eventual height remains to be seen.

On an entirely less attractive note, I have just seen an advert for something called the ‘Barbie potty training pups playset’ which has the cheery jingle “What’s it going to be/ Puppy poo or puppy wee?” It appears that one waggles a plastic animal that then micturates etc on a mat, to be cleaned up by infants. Oh. My. Dear. Lord. That is repulsive. I am going to lock myself away somewhere genteel and fragrant, (Kew, maybe), until the world has come to its senses.

On the music front while not currently listening to anything myself, my daughter just got Now That’s What I Call 00s for her birthday so I expect to be imminently immersed in decade of pop.

Also looking forward to seeing Big Hand, supported by The Screenbeats. Cool. How about it?

The Essential Apocalypse Skillset

Let me tell you a story. Several years ago, I was painting the bathroom of a house in Bristol. The window was open and it was a pleasant sort of day and people were wandering past. Around about four o’clock I heard a couple of sets of feet come down the hill and then stop. “Look, cherries!” said one voice (female, mid to late teens). “No, I don’t think they are. They can’t be.” Said the other, doubtfully (ditto). “Well, they look like cherries. Let’s try them!” “No, they are probably berries. Completely different. Some of them are not red, they are blackish. They are probably poisonous.” “Oh. Yes, I suppose so.” (disappointed) The feet moved on. I looked out of the bathroom window at the large and heavily laden cherry tree leaning over the wall of the garden opposite and wondered what the world was coming to. Red Sky in the Morning, Shepherds Warning ((c) N Slade) I am actually still wondering. When my grandfather was a child, he and his brothers (and a dog) ...

On The Road

Galanthus 'Fly Fishing' at Bellefield House . My latest snowdrop crush. Back in the dim and distant mists of time, when dinosaurs roamed the land and pterodactyls were frequent bird table visitors, I spent an enjoyable few years managing rock bands. There were headline gigs, support gigs. Mainstream venues and pubs. In some places the PA was state of the art, in others you thanked your stars for the decent size amp in the back of the van. Some nights the crowd was ecstatic. Others, the bar man, his dog and a couple of regulars would sit there, nodding and comparing the band to musicians that had died before the lead singer was born. Occasionally people listened to the first thirty seconds, got bored and went off to get drunk and find someone to sleep with. So it goes. I have just finished a modestly epic tour of the land, promoting The Plant Lover’s Guide to Snowdrops . And, as I pull myself vertical, brush off the debris and straighten out again, there are som...

A Different View

Sharp angles and offset rhomboids: Heligan in Winter I woke up this morning convinced that it was late. The light was grey behind the curtains and the room was silent. Reluctantly, I looked at my phone and discovered that it was in fact early. It has been a busy few weeks, but walking up the road, the magnolia buds are suddenly swelling in furry promise, and lilacs pertly tipped with green; Crocus tommasinianus have appeared where there were none. Acer griseum and white-barked birches stand bold, in full knowledge that their spare charms will soon be overwhelmed with spring. Time has passed while I was not looking. So as the season creeps forward - and faster it does, when ignored - I am looking back, with a kind of regret. The thing is, that although gardens are considered 'off peak' in winter, there is often no better time to see them. This is the point where they show their true colours and strengths. As a visitor, you can read their geometry and detail without ...

Electric Green

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