Off The Edge Gardening

They say, “Confession is good for the soul”, so in an attempt to salve my conscience I will admit that I wasn’t being strictly truthful yesterday.  You may have got the wrong impression as to the success of my day as a whole and more specifically Hero’s and my trip to Holbrook Garden near Tiverton in mid Devon.   In truth it was a wonderful day.  If I had a tick list for what constitutes a good day my pencil would be blunt.  As it has been a week of lists I will continue in this tradition.  So let us get the clipboard out: Good company, tick, great weather, tick, homemade apple and walnut cake, tick, garden of delights, tick, laughter, tick tick, bread and cheese, tick, a nursery full of treasures, tick, tick, bloomin’, tick, and not forgetting an adorable puppy, ahhh tick.   Before you jump on your moped you must realise that cake and cheese are for the chosen few and you will have to supply your own laughter, good company and great weather.  Do not worry about these omissions, get your crash helmet on, the garden is reason enough to visit.  Scrub that, you better get the van out of the garage, you will be not be able to resist temptation at their nursery Sampford Shrubs.  I have visited Holbrook several times before, but each and every time it is a fresh garden that I visit.  Ever evolving, casual but adventurous, full of the ordinary and the extraordinary, enveloping and embracing.  And you may, if you are very, very lucky, get to stroke a puppy, but no promises as she is very fussy about who she makes friends with!

This is pterostyrax, I can’t remember the specific (I was told but foolishly didn’t write it down) but most likely it is hispidus.   The common name is the fragrant epaulette tree, referring to its fringed flowers.  Quite beautiful.

Today myself and Hero went on an expedition to Holbrook Garden/Sampford Shrubs.  I know exactly what you are thinking and I can assure you this was definitely not another jolly.  I can assure you that there was absolutely no joy associated with our day.  None whatsoever.  At great personal risk we undertook this daunting and dangerous journey, we suffered all kinds of devilish hardships, tales of which would curdle your milk stout. Home now, battered and in need of debriefing and a double Babycham, I am so exhausted this will be a very short post.  Tomorrow I will share some of the horrors of the day with you.  Here is Tropaeolum ciliatum as a little taster of the pain and misery …..

This is my favourite photo from my Tapeley Away Day.  Poppies in the Permaculture Garden. Yeh!

This rose/geranium combo is very effective.  In fact it caught my eye as soon as I arrived at L&L’s on Friday.  The baby pink rose bloom, hiding bashfully behind the indigo geranium, a match made in horti-heaven.  Later that morning Lavinia was standing transfixed by the lovely couple and I said “they look great don’t they?”.  “They do” she replied “but I am a little surprised as I don’t have a rose there”.  Where this interloper came from, who knows, but do we care?  He is making a very good neighbour and that should be celebrated.

“I love this escallonia.”

I love working at The Farm.  It is always fun and a bit bonkers and unexpected things tend to happen.  I especially love the animals, each and every one of them.  Well not quite.  Today Slasher Shorn said to me “I used to love chickens until I came to work here”, glad it’s not just me.  These are evil chucks, they have no fear, take no instruction, they hunt in packs and with their demonic claws rip plants out of the ground leaving them to suffocate and shrivel in the sun.  Where they have learnt this bad behaviour I could not hazard a guess.

Just as I was leaving this evening Mrs G walked up the lane towards me holding some raggedly vegetation in her mitts.  “I have dug up the docks” she proudly informed me.  My face in a rictus grin said “Those are the verbascum that I planted last week”.

Is there any hope?

The salvias are doing well.

So far.

My drive to work this morning would have been perfect for the opening credits of a spooky melodrama; Dickens, Poe, Conan Doyle would have been in their element.  The initially patchy fog intensified, in a spine-tinglingly daunting way, as we approached Exmoor and the garden of the newly monikered Lord and Lady Mantle.   All began well and as we set about our work clearing another area the mizzle abated and we felt we were achieving something.  Optimism prevailed.   We even attempted some amateur archaeogocial exploration.  We found what I interpreted as the final resting place of an ancient Celtic king as evidenced by a thigh bone, his precious shield, a golden hoop for a quick post-death game of croquet, and the remains of his store of mead and honey for his journey to the afterlife.  Lord Mantle had a different explanation however, the artefacts are apparently as follows:  the remains of someones lamb roast (bone), a broken shovel (shield), some smashed crocks (grub), a tent peg (hoop).  Not sure what he based these assumptions on.  Then a splash, a cry and Lord Mantle leapt into the pond to the rescue.  No, and I am sorry to disappoint you, it wasn’t me it was my long-suffering camera.  After some delving into the icy deep he found my now sodden camera, raising it into the air like The Lady of the Lake held Excalibur aloft (but obviously in a very masculine way).   There had been a velcro malfunction.  Still I am truly an idiot.  I knew the velcro was dodgy after The Nettles Incident so I should have replaced the pouch.  Idiot!

ps  It went straight on the aga and is now continuing its drying out at home.  The prognosis is not good.

This week summer arrived in North Devon. Quite how long it is going to stay is unclear.  On past experience we cannot depend on it hanging about for too long.  It must be made the most of.  It has been a week when any gardener worth his salt has a good hat. You will be pleased to know that I do.  I now have a rather attractive line across my forehead.  How we suffer for our art.