Off The Edge Gardening

Yesterday I met up with the wonderful Malvern Maid and her lovely Malvern Man to explore Marwood Hill Gardens.  We had a great time.  The Big Three of plants, cake and shopping were achieved.  It was a splendid day.  There was a surfeit of gossiping and tangents and gasping. It was very good.

And it got me to thinking about friends.  This is only the fourth time I have met MM and I know very little about her history, the details of her life are a little vague, and she would say the same about me.  But that doesn’t matter.  We clicked the first time we met and this hasn’t diminished, we hit the ground running. It is an easy relationship, no need to impress, undemanding, not forced and above all honest.  The essence of friendship.  Some of my friends are a little hard to handle, some are quiet and contemplative.  Some I see often, some rarely.  Some are gardeners, some not.  They all have a special place in my heart.  These friends support me when necessary and I try to do the same in return.   So these delicate scilla are a gift* for my friends, old, new, virtual and real.  I am lucky gal.

*  When I say these are a gift, it doesn’t mean you can go to Marwood and take these flowers,  just look at the pretty picture and be happy.

A daff for my lovely mum, love and kisses YBD x

Just as Brucie has “Nice to see you”, Larry Grayson “Shut that door!” and James T “Beam me up Scottie”, I too have a catchphrase.  It is the rather snappy,”Don’t worry, it’s just a shower!”.

After spending a restless night in which the Valkyries hammered at our window demanding entry for hours on end, I drove to work through the hail storm from hell.  “Don’t worry” I thought “its just a shower”.  Shortly after, as I sat in Lavinia and Lionel’s kitchen sipping a cup of their finest coffee, I looked out of the window.  To my surprise the sky was full of white fluffy stuff “Good golly” I mused “that’s proper snow” followed swiftly by “Don’t worry, it’s just a shower”.  So gallantly I donned full waterproof kit: hat, snood, oversized jacket, trousers, boots – nothing could encroach this meteorological force field.  After some, I thought rather cruel, laughter from Lav I set to work, undaunted.  This heralded the sun’s dramatic arrival.  What followed was a horticultural striptease and the realisation that I had had no need to worry at all, it really was “just a shower”. Who would have thought it?  I was right all along!

 

What a heady brew of a day!  A potent cocktail of rain, hail, sleet and sunshine, all washed down with a wind from the north west that could lift you off your feet.  Unfortunately this wind, and the many others that have preceded it in the past few weeks, has caused much damage in the garden. The soft and spoilt foliage of evergreens has been scorched and disfigured, wet-footed shrubs and trees have been rocked on their soggy roots and newly emerging flowers discoloured and ripped from their boughs. So often the icy pair of frost and snow are demonised, but the evil duo of cold wind and persistent rain are just as worthy for a pantomime hiss.  I am hoping that some of Max’s magnolia blooms will hang on long enough to reach their full potential.  Since I started working in his garden, late last summer, I have been impatient to see this collection of trees in flower.  It may be that this wind scuppers my wish.  If so I suppose there is always next year, but that seems an awful long time to wait ……..

Too tired for words tonight and its only Tuesday!  Perhaps this picture will have a thousand for you.  If so, can you talk amongst yourselves, I’m off to bed.

After an extremely productive morning at the Winkleigh Cider Company, we popped into RHS Rosemoor for lunch and a quick alpine house inspection.  There was one pot that did not have a label, and that belonged to my favourite of this visit.  I had a good old rummage around but to no avail, my champion remained incognito, a mystery.  It might be Ipheion uniflorum “Wisley-Blue”, it may well be something completely different. Did it matter today?  I’m not sure that it did.

What is better than a good experience?  To share that experience with others.  What is better than a great plant?  You’ve guessed it, to share those plants with others.  Today I went to Incredible Edible Ilfracombe’s event at the newly reopened Lantern, a Green and Growing Seed Swap.  I came home with a fine haul; Thai basil,  French Bean “Kew Blue”, rocket, poached egg plant and Tomato “Tangella”.  I tried to wrestle a packet of Cosmos “Xanthos” out of Hero’s hands but she is too strong and she fights dirty.  As I was under-organised I had nothing to swap so instead I made a donation.  But I was at fault, money was not the point of this exercise.  The Incredible Edible network is made up of like minded folk across the country who are setting up community projects, for young and old, growing food, having fun, learning lessons and of course sharing.  They have a site not 5 minutes walk from my home, I really have no excuse to find out more about what they do and why.  So to begin I will share the so simple, but so seemingly hard to grasp, idea that it is good to share and it is even better to share growing things to eat.

An extremely satisfactory day.  I considered sharing photos of newly dug soil enriched with sumptuous mushroom compost, paving slabs defining the vegetable garden, a superhuman tag-team barrowing concrete planters up a progressively steep hill then filling them with soil and Strawberry “Cambridge Favourite”,  holes that once housed ancient fruit bushes and will soon be home to new vigorous specimens, a large piece of carpet, a dry stone wall built in the casual manner, a pruned hydrangea or three and naturally, the odd chicken.  However I have decided instead to show you Tiny, Pip and Muffin enjoying the warming sun and their fresh pasture.  It was a wonderful, tiring, but very satisfying day.  And not a whisk in sight!

“On the way to work this morning I nearly drove into a mountain of mangelwurzles.”

This frilly number, photographed last week at The Farm, is the antithesis of what I consider to be the perfect daffodil.  My idea of daff excellence is a petite form, with elegant reflexed outer petals and an elongated central corona, simple in design, understated and classy.  Just like …. well perhaps not.  On a particularly adventurous day, an orange trumpet would be acceptable, apart from that yellow is the only acceptable colour.  I am of course talking about Narcissus cyclamineus the cyclamen flowered daffodil.  This native of north-western Iberia and its cultivars would make up my own personal “host of goldens”.  No flashy interlopers allowed.  Or so I thought.

For some reason, and definitely against my better nature, I found myself admiring this decadent specimen.  It may have been something to do with the sporadic gaps in the hail-peppering weather, or perhaps it was the teasing sun on its buttercup yellow bloom, or how bravely this solitary flower stood with “last man standing” vigour.  Or I may just have been having one of my moments.