Skip to main content

Great Hairy Weeds

Well, Chelsea has come and gone. Thought it was rather nice, actually in a green-and-white fashion. I liked the show garden by Roger Platts, and the little Rhubarb Crumble and Custard Garden. Congratulations to Thrive for their well-deserved gold medal – and thanks for the smart green tea towel that came in the press pack.


Slebs spotted include Bill Bailey, Bernard Cribbins (who I always confuse with Bilbo Baggins as he read The Hobbit on Jackanory when I was little) and that Anita off Birds of a Feather who is always there. A bit short of rock stars for my personal taste, but Ringo just tends to tear around being rude to people so maybe it is no great loss. Although I was rather pleased to meet Brian May a couple of years ago.

Gardens. Celebrities. Schmoozing. Chelsea in a nutshell.

This is the time of year when it is all about multi-tasking. Weeding is something that has to be kept on top of, or civilisation as we know it crumbles. This is best done on the phone to ones mother or mother in law, I find. Two useful things at once. Sadly the phone reception only reaches half way down the garden...

Need to do a little something about the hot border. The perennials are filling out nicely, but it is more purple than hot. A scarlet geranium is making a brave stand and Geum ‘Mrs Bradshaw’ is coming out – but it looks vile next to an egregious allium (no idea what it is doing there, must have come in the same pack as some of the tulips). I will move it somewhere where it can be decorative and pretty, as indeed it is next to all the blue alkanet – which I swear I will chop back until I discover it is full of at least five varieties of happy bumblebee fossicking around, dusted in pollen and looking like all their Christmases have come at once.

Alkanet may not to be to everyone’s taste, indeed, it is rampant and hairy (even if you like that sort of thing) but following a letter about a school trip I feel inclined to encourage native species:

“The visit will be led by nature specialists at the centre and the children will be looking for and identifying common plants (weeds!) natural to the area...”.

I am slightly outraged on behalf of British flora in all its manifestations. Weeds indeed. Or, worse, ‘weeds!’. Ah, the bright derision of the school system.

I would like to be listening to music but I am too busy. However I have been invited to a party where I have been promised a bluegrass band and some latter day psychedelic rock. Promises to be interesting.

In print this month (June) in Kitchen Garden Magazine writing about scarecrows and in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire Life.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Metamorphosis

Writing a book is often likened to having a baby. And with some justification. There is the giddy conception and whirlwind of excitement, then the warm glow of a contract signed. It then the process starts to lag and become heavier; sweetmeats are deployed to maintain performance – pregnancy, like literature, is an endurance sport. My new book, Published by Green Books, 22nd September  2016 Finally, fat and fecund with promise the manuscript is delivered to the publisher, for supervision and medical intervention if necessary. And, finally, the screaming and anguish suddenly stops. The Author's desk (the buns have already been eaten) And here is where the process differs. After months of to-ing and fro-ing, deliberations about nuanced argument and tone of voice, followed by concerns about stacking words in a column and balanced captions, it is confiscated. They just take it away. To put it another way, it is like watching caterpillars. They eat and eat and eat and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Adventures in Floristry

Ingredients for a bouquet Back in the summer I went on a floristry course to Green and Gorgeous in Oxfordshire. Historically, I have not been at all keen on formal floristry. It seemed rigid and stuffy, coming up with arrangements that had names like ‘Orchid and Sphagnum on a Tortured Twig’. But at G&G they laid my demons to rest with an intensive day learning how to make fashionable naturalistic bouquets. Since then I have had little need to use these dark arts, but as the autumn colours intensified the floristry bug intensified too. Venturing out with the secateurs I acquired Pyracantha berries, bronze and gold forsythia leaves, soft grey goldenrod seedheads (cunningly stabilised with a blast of extreme-hold hairspray to stop the seeds dropping off), and some Sedum flowers. I bought some Physalis and cellophane from Lulu Flowers round the corner – where they also gave me a quick refresher in wrapping them for travel. So, with much garden wire and raffia, I assemb...
Post a Comment
Read more

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) ...
7 comments
Read more