Off The Edge Gardening

With extreme generosity I have given myself the rest of November off.  It is a buffer zone of decadence between the past and the future.  This does not mean that I will stop posting, just that I will be continuing in the rather random fashion I have utilised over the past three months.  Then the fun begins.  Lined up in the wings, snorting with anticipation, are new missions (I have chosen to accept them) to challenge me.  Wondering what they have let themselves in for, new clients are awaiting my first spade strike.  My travels will take me not too far and only a little bit wide, but I will promise you tales of daring-do.  The highlight may be handsome pig named George.   You will have to wait to see said porcine pin-up but you may meet his dust bathing colleagues.  Always leave them wanting more.

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.” (Hamlet, iv. 5.)

Today was my last day at Cliffe.  As expected it was heady mix of tears and treats, fun and goodbyes.  We toured the garden and discussed the occupants, we drank coffee and discussed the good times.  We talked about the future and reminisced about the past.  Returning to the Potting Shed after lunch at Hero’s house we discovered a plastic container on the doorstep.  Within this mysterious container were definitely (not probably) the best muffins in the whole wide world.  After a long debate as to where these scrumptious cakes could have come from, Hero, as clever as ever, suggested the clue might lie within and we should eat every one to find the answer.  This was either an ingenious act of martydom or a cunning plan towards gluttony, not really sure.  After some intensive detective work the perpetrator was discovered and TT was found guilty on all charges.  What a star and a reminder of not only the amazing people I have worked with over the last 8 years but also the many wonderful people I have met because of the garden.  Proof that there are enough good guys out there to kick the bad ones into touch.  Hopefully I have told the ones that matter what I feel about them.  If not, forgive me, I always meant to.

So the disco balls were packed up and I climbed the hill to give the medlar one last hug and a few words of farewell.  It has been good, very good.  Thank you.

Over the past 8 years I must have taken the short walk further up hill onto the Coastal Footpath less than a handful of times.  Myself and Hero often talked about taking our lunches up to one of the benches to enjoy a change of scenery, but it turned out to be all talk and no action.  We were too comfortable in our customised Potting Shed and the prospect of more “up” in our lives not tempting.  Now coming to the end of my tenure, and feeling a little nostalgic, I decided to wander up to see what I had been missing.  Darn it!

It is wet, it is miserable.  Although dry I too am mildly miserable.  This calls for a little bit of emergency sunshine from the archive.  And a bee.  I’m feeling better already.

As I am afflicted with an extreme case of nosy-itis it is impossible for me to refrain from examining other people’s front gardens when I am dawdling down the road.  More often than not there is something interesting to spy on, all visible from the street without having to resort to stalker status and causing them to release the dogs.  Sometimes I am intrigued by unusual colour schemes or planting combinations.  Sometimes a mystery plant gets me wondering or a special specimen gains my admiration.  Sometimes I am disappointed by neglect or excessive hard landscaping.  The front garden as a forum to show off your gardening prowess has diminished in recent years.  They are being converted into hard standings for cars or are so “low maintenance” that it would be stretching the parameters to call it a garden anymore.  This saddens me.  It has been proved that paving over your front garden exacerbates urban flooding, this is due to the decrease in soak-away and resultant increase in run-off.  More than this, any reprieve from harsh tarmac and concrete will surely only improve our environment aesthetically.   Not only for ourselves but our neighbours and the curious creatures that walk past your home.

This autumn flowering camellia with its downward facing pink flushed blooms came in both the “mystery plant” and “special specimen” categories.

A unexpected gift is a wonderful thing, especially when it is a cerise cyclamen.

When I was at horticultural college, one of my tutors was a keen beersman. His arboriculture lectures would include examples of the trees we were studying, pointing out their proximity to a hostelry.  Along the road from The Merchants Arms are some fine examples of Betula utilis var. jacquemontii, outside The Highbury Vaults a splendid Davidia involucrata and so on. This weekend I returned to the city that I had once called home and, with an old friend, walked the streets following a set route which highlighted little known points of interest.  It is strange how you don’t really “see” a place until you return and what I “saw”, amongst other things, was an amazing variety of street trees.  Not young trees planted recently in a flurry of urban regeneration, but trees that had been insitu for decades.  Blue cedars, ancient oaks, golden ginkos, and pendulous birches.  This Catalpa bignonoides, the Indian Bean Tree, replete with beans, caught my eye just before we headed off to the location of a 17th century massacre and a framed Banksy.  This was swiftly followed by a trip to one of the aforementioned hostelries, an education is indeed a wonderful thing.

…. should never be seen.  Or so they say, actually I think it looks quite effective!