Off The Edge Gardening

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!

Late flowerers are most welcome in the garden, their stubborn presence temporarily holding back the inevitable march of winter.  Of course early, mid and continual blooms are not to be sniffed at, but at this time of the year it is not the stalwarts or the eager beavers but the loiterers that are celebrated.  This apricot abutilon with its sheath of dusky pink is in no rush to shut down, coddled against the storage heater bricks of the Round House.

Right hand woman, voice of reason, human valium, comfort blanket, cake magician, horticultural psychiatrist, partner in crime, patience in human form, giggle monitor, my lovely friend, Hero.

Earlier today myself and Hero were asked by Superbaz to walk across the lawn on the up stripes and back on the down stripes.  After we stopped laughing at his impertinence I gave him a Chinese burn.  He will miss me so much.