One Weed to Rule Them All

Urban Dystopia

At the weekend I returned to a garden that I made about eight years ago to show it some love. Funny, you turn your back for five minutes (or five years as the case may be) and everything goes berserk.

The formerly modestly proportioned planting was level with the fence and swathed in a thick blanket of bindweed. Not simply bindweed growing through it, more a dense shroud over straining shrubs, the stems coiling up from the ground in fat ropes. Stringy corpses from summers past providing a ladder for this year’s growth. The mat of foliage covered a good third of the garden, swamping the shrubs and reaching up into the cherry tree.

Working my way into the murky green understory to undermine the menace, I considered a dystopia; humans gone, neighbours no longer trimming the tree and battling the bindweed on the boundary. Where the fence collapsed and the spreading, new, layered plants of Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’, Lonicera fragrantissima and Forsythia marched across the neighbourhood like a slow motion ornamental army, the joyous curling bindweed fluttering like flags unfettered.

Despite my machete-work the bindweed flying carpet remained suspended, apparently held up by sky hooks. A different tactic was called for. I grabbed bunches of the stuff, cutting across to remove it in progressive sections. That showed it.

Next, the monster rose. Deep red, beautifully scented Rose ‘Etoile de Hollande’ was to trail prettily up the kitchen extension in a romantic, roses around the door sort of way. With a maximum size of 12ft (according to the label*) it should have been a tidy solution. But it too had made its way into the cherry tree. The flowers could be seen if one glanced upwards from the upstairs windows and the stems, now several inches across, threatened to rip the guttering and outside tap off the wall.

Rosa 'Etoile de Hollande'

If one were, for example, shopping for plants to surround a castle in which one had locked ones daughters away from young oiks with unseemly ideas, ‘Etoile de Hollande’ would be an excellent choice. If one, for example, wants subsequently to extract ones daughters, or simply to do a spot of pruning, the results are markedly uncomfortable.

A 480 cubic foot heap of brash in a 25 foot garden is daunting. I went and bought a shredder. I am normally a total machinery wuss, and shredders are just a step down from chainsaws in terms of noisy and scary. But I am now a total convert. Munched it down properly small it did. And didn’t die on me either (so far).

So I took the presents that the garden had given me; rose cuttings and the new shrubs from old. I comforted the miserable Cotinus, got in the car and drove onto the north circular. Dystopias is as dystopias does. If the A406 is on the side of righteousness, order and light then I am with the bindweed and the dark army.

*Crocus says that its eventual height is 5.5m, however. Um.....

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 ...

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...

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) ...

Electric Green

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