The Wellywoman Awards 2012 – Part Two

And so to the second part of my awards for 2012. Today I’m offering up a Golden Snail for those things that let the side down this year.

The first award has to go to the weather. I know Britain isn’t exactly known for its great weather but really this year was a shocker. And it started off so well. Basking in sunshine in March it wasn’t long before there were the rumbles of hosepipe bans and drought warnings. Water butts were flying out of garden centres as gardeners prepared for a summer of water shortages. Someone was interviewed from a water company and said we’d need it to rain incessantly for most of the summer to fill up the depleted reservoirs and aquifers. The words be careful what you wish for do spring to mind. There’s no denying we needed rain but not in the quantities we’ve ended up with. Ground saturated after summer now can’t cope with the winter rain. It wasn’t just the rain though. Summer never really got going. Sunshine levels were low and we didn’t have much heat to speak of. All of this meant it was a pretty shocking year for gardeners. We can only hope that 2013 is an improvement but that wouldn’t be hard.

Slugs, to be honest, would feature in any list of downsides to gardening but with all of the aforesaid rain slug numbers this year exploded. Pity the slugs didn’t. It’s fair to say they had a field day chomping their way through not just the usual Hostas and lettuce but, in my own garden, climbing all the way up plants to eat the flowers of Heleniums and Monardas. Now this really was rubbing it in my face. What worries me is, if all those slugs laid eggs that are waiting in the soil to emerge next spring, will we be in for even more slugs next year.

I wasn’t sure choosing a plant purely because I liked its name was the best idea and Ezetha’s krombek blauwschokker proved me to be right. A purple mangetout pea it was, well, pants. It wasn’t particularly prolific, the pods needed to be eaten very small so they weren’t tough and if you did miss picking the pods the resulting peas were pretty flavourless. It’s flowers were pretty but then I wasn’t growing it for them. I already had two beds of flowers, what I really wanted was tasty peas. So it gets a big thumbs down. In future, I think I’ll be looking for flavour recommendations instead.

The White Garden at Sissinghurst

Derek Jarman’s garden may have won the Golden Wellies award but Sissinghurst unfortunately gets a Golden Snail. Maybe it was never going to be able to live up to the reputation that preceded it but the visit just left me feeling rather flat. In many ways it’s a victim of its popularity. Coach loads of tourists pull up every day, in fact numbers are already restricted during the busy summer months and yet it still felt too busy. I like to be able to find a quiet spot in the gardens I visit but this really wasn’t possible and it did give it the air of somewhere that was just being crossed off the sightseeing list. Coaches disgorge their cargo every day but a comment I overheard did make me wonder how many of them would have chosen to go if it wasn’t just part of their itinerary. Wellyman and I were gobsmacked to hear someone say ‘I don’t really like gardens with flowers’. Really? Well I’m guessing you’re not going to enjoy today then. I don’t deny the design of the gardens and the setting are beautiful but the atmosphere can matter just as much and sadly this didn’t feel right at Sissinghurst.

I feel a Golden Snail must go to the TV producers out there who could bring us great gardening TV but aren’t. Considering gardening is the most popular hobby why is there such a dearth of programmes about it. One half hour programme once a week in the form of Gardener’s World seems rather paltry to me. There was the Love Your Garden programme on ITV and the Flower Pot Gang on the BBC but these were makeover programmes rather than garden programmes. They served a purpose and I’m sure appealed to many and some really deserving people had gardens created for them that will make a difference to their lives but they aren’t what I’m looking for in the schedules. What about some botany programmes, features about gardens abroad and how gardening is perceived in other countries, allotments, arboretums, plant collectors both historical and modern? Why has nobody thought about  programmes devoted to a particular plant in a similar vein to Anna Pavord’s book The Tulip . There is so much potential out there and I do find it very frustrating that gardening seems to be seen as just about digging and sowing.

The Blueberries I never got to eat

The birds which stripped my blueberry bushes before I had a chance to net them are awarded a Golden Snail. If they ate more snails rather than blueberries we might have a more harmonious relationship.

And finally, my last Golden Snail of the year goes to those suggesting that tools can no longer be stored at my allotment site because of Health and Safety. As well as all the usual stuff I take up to the plot with me – secateurs, trug, gloves, twine, bucket for flowers, bags for produce and sometimes fleece or netting, the idea that I might now have to somehow cart up there a spade, fork, rake and hoe doesn’t thrill me. All this and no car. I think I’ve got an interesting year ahead of me as a committee has been set up to liaise with the council to iron out problems with the management of the allotments and I volunteered to be on the committee. I don’t like the politics that invariably results from these sorts of meetings so I’m not sure how it’ll go. We needed 4 people to represent the allotment holders and the response was underwhelming to say the least. For me the allotment is about a place to escape to, my main concern is that it becomes somewhere that is less about relaxation and more about a cause of stress. Lets just hope I’m not giving the allotment a Golden Snail this time next year.

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The Wellywoman Awards 2012 – Part One

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Burgon and Ball, Daucus carota 'Black Knight', Derek Jarman, Dungeness Nature Reserve, felco secateurs, greenhouse, Lia and Juliet's supper club, tayberry

With winter approaching it’s a good time to look back and reflect on the year that has passed and, as the award season is starting, I thought I’d introduce the inaugural Wellywoman awards. Courtesy of Wellyman and his rediscovered model making skills I have the ‘Golden Wellies’ which I’ll award for those garden related greats of 2012 and, in homage to the Golden Raspberries that go to the year’s worst films, I bring you the ‘Golden Snail’ awards. It was going to be the ‘Golden Slugs’ but modelling a slug and making it actually distinguishable from, well, a blob of modelling clay proved a little difficult.

So it gives me great pleasure to announce, in no particular order, the recipients of the first ‘Golden Wellies’.

Daucus carota ‘Black Knight’

My flower of the year has to be Daucus carota ‘Black Knight’. In itself, it’s not the showiest of blooms and the tricky growing conditions this year meant it took a while to get going but once it did flower it just kept on going right into November. The plummy-pink coloured umbel flowers of this variety of carrot looked so good in arrangements and they lasted up to 2 weeks when cut.

This was the first proper year for my tayberry fruiting. Although I made the mistake of buying the thorn covered variety which has made it interesting and painful when training into some semblance of a structure, its fruits have more than made up for any scratches. A combined flavour of blackberry and raspberry and a long fruiting season have made this a great addition to the plot.

The humble pea gets my nod for an award. This is the first year I have grown them. I’ve always wondered what was the point when frozen peas are so good but nothing on the veg patch this year could beat the sweetness of freshly picked peas eaten raw. They are top on my list of crops to grow in 2013.

My favourite TV gardening programme of the year had to be Sarah Raven’s Bees, Butterflies and Blooms. The series followed Sarah as she tried to change perceptions about community planting schemes for the benefit of locals and wildlife. It was fascinating, informative and, at times, infuriating (it appears some would rather having plain old, boring grass than a beautiful flower studded meadow).

This was the year I discovered the delights of squashes. The plural there is really rather stretching it. I grew Uchiki kuri and the weather conspired to make this not the best of years to be trying to grow squash for the first time.  I didn’t, at one point, think I was going to get anything at all from the plants so I was delighted when I spotted two yellow fruit forming. It was a bit of a race against the lower temperatures and lack of sunshine to see whether they would actually ripen in time. In the end, one grew to a really significant size and turned a beautiful deep orange colour, the other ripened but didn’t grow very much. It was a squash version of Little and Large. Despite the low yield I’ve been bitten by the squash bug, so I’m hoping I can fit some more varieties into my planting plan for next year.

The tool of the year has to go to my Burgon and Ball flower snips. I was lucky enough to receive a pair this time last year to review on my blog but November wasn’t the best time of year to put them through their paces. I didn’t think anything could replace my Felco secateurs but I used my snips all year-long. They can cut through surprisingly thick stems and are lighter and smaller than my secateurs so I tended to favour them. The one problem is their green coloured handles. I’m not sure how much time I wasted this year hunting for them after I’d put them down somewhere. I think some coloured tape around the handles may be applied this winter.

Derek Jarman’s garden

Despite the weather I did get the chance to visit some beautiful gardens. After years of wanting to go to some of the iconic gardens of East Sussex and Kent we finally got around to visiting them. My favourite was Derek Jarman’s garden at Dungeness. The simplest and possibly least typical garden it had immense charm and was set in a stunningly bleak location. The plants that thrived here seemed all the more precious because they were growing in such a hostile environment. For me it showed that the need to grow is an innate response to our environment and that even when faced with such unlikely growing conditions the desire to create beauty using plants was too strong to resist.

The amazing food at Lia and Juliet’s Supper Club deserves one of my ‘Golden Wellies’. I was new to the concept of supper clubs when we went along in June but what really drew me to this one was the celebration of fruit and vegetables and seasonality. Keen allotmenteers, Lia and Juliet wanted to showcase the produce they grew and make it a real event. With tea-lights lining the path to the front door, fairy lighting in the back garden and a verandah for pre-dinner drinks the scene was set for a great night. Not only was the food great but so was the company. In fact we loved it so much we went back again in October.

Some golden wellies have to go to the newly installed greenhouse. It was a pain to build and was responsible for a fair degree of swearing and although it’s not really the time of year to start using it to its full potential, I love it. There are already several seed trays of hardy annuals in there, some salad leaves and herbs. Roll on spring.

And finally, my last ‘Golden Wellies’ of 2012 go to my fellow garden bloggers and tweeters. They are too many of you to mention individually but you’re great. You inform, inspire and amuse. I’m looking forward to reading about the highs and lows of 2013.

Read my next post to see who and what will receive a ‘Golden Snail’.

Flushed Away

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flooding, green manures, nutrient leaching, RHS, soil testing

Flooded field

Well what a week for weather. Gale force winds, so much rain and yet more flooding. After the summer we’ve had maybe it was too much to expect autumn would be kinder to us all. We’ve been lucky. We lost a fence panel to the wind but this can be replaced fairly easily come spring and the allotment is squelchy to say the least but compared to those who have had their homes inundated with flood water it’s nothing.

Much of the countryside around us is under water. The two main rivers, the Usk and the Wye have broken their banks and because we had such a wet summer the water table is already at full capacity. As a result, water is lying on saturated ground. It’s hard to tell what is river and what is a field in places. We popped into our local garden centre on Sunday to find the car park flooded and a makeshift walkway in place to access the shop.

Garden centre car park

Eventually the water will subside and the ground will dry out but the consequences of so much rain go beyond the immediate problems of flooding. For farmers and gardeners the impact on the soil can be significant. Nutrients are held in the soil by electrical charges and are released into a film of liquid called soil water after a series of chemical reactions and exchanges. This soil water is held around soil particles and plant roots are able to absorb nutrients that are held in it. However, after lots of rain this film of water becomes so thick and heavy the soil cannot hold onto it and the nutrients are lost as water drains away. Heavy rain is to be expected over winter and in agriculture the ground is treated as being totally deficient in nitrogen by spring. Nitrogen, essential for leafy growth is a particularly soluble nutrient.

For farmers, soil testing and monitoring of nutrient levels has become an increasingly important part of their job, allowing them to increase yields but use expensive fertilisers only when and where they are needed. For gardeners it’s a very different story. Incorporating compost and manure is normally enough to ensure a fertile soil in our garden or on the allotment. The major nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium are those that plants use the most and can be satisfactorily replaced with organic matter. Generally, it is uncommon for soils to lack the trace elements such as boron and manganese that are vital to plant growth but are only needed in tiny quantities. However, it is difficult to know how the unusually heavy rain this summer followed by the wet autumn will have affected nutrient levels in our soil. Certainly, tests of agricultural land are showing significantly lower levels of nutrients, although not all of this can be attributed to just the rain and is a result of changes in farming practices.

I’ve never felt the need to test my soil before other than doing a pH test. Listening to Gardener’s Question Time yesterday though I heard Christine Walkden say that nutrient leaching has been a significant problem this summer. Certainly some plants on the allotment have struggled this year and whilst I’m sure some of it was simply down to the lack of sunshine and warmth some of it may well have been down to a lack of the vital food they needed.

Sandy soils and those with little organic matter which already have good drainage are particularly prone to nutrient leaching but we’ve all had so much rain this year that it could well be a problem for a lot more of us. It is possible to buy kits which enable you to test your soil but these will only allow you to check the levels of the 3 major nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. These are the most essential though. They can be bought for between £20 to £30 from most of the major online gardening suppliers. Having never used one before I would love to hear if anyone else has had experience of using them, whether they were easy to use and were worth the trouble and cost.

It’s also possible to have your soil analysed by the RHS. A service available to both members and non-members, the charge being £25 and £30 respectively, it gives you the pH level, an idea of your soil structure, the level of organic matter in the soil and the levels of the major nutrients. It is certainly something I may consider.

Growing green manures is one way of protecting soil over winter. The leafy growth protects the surface of the soil from damage and the plant absorbs nutrients and holds on to these in the plant which are then released back into the soil. The problem for me this year was that I didn’t have any free ground to sow the manure into in September and October and my experience last year was that the seed struggled to put on enough growth to be useful if sown in mid October. Mulching with manure or compost will again protect the surface of the soil but there can be issues with manure regarding the leaching of nitrates into water courses. Although farmyard manure has much less nitrogen that is immediately available, unlike poultry manure, applying it to soil when there are no plants actively growing to take up soluble nitrogen means, particularly in periods of heavy rainfall, that it may leach from the soil. Although, just to confuse matters some growers believe nitrogen isn’t so readily leached from soils in the first place.

Nutrients are not only important for the plant, when we then eat that fruit and veg it is those nutrients that have allowed the plant to grow that we then absorb. It matters to all of us that our soils are healthy because in turn we too will be healthy. Perhaps the only way to find out the impact of all this rain is to test my soil.

Bringing You The Dribber

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Christmas present, Derek Jarman, Dribber, Hen and Hammock, stocking filler for gardeners, sustainability

Hen and Hammock dribber

One of the side effects of having a blog is the emails I sometimes receive. There are ones I don’t even bother opening, generally with words such as Viagra in them. There was a request to use a photo from my post on Derek Jarman’s garden for a Hungarian art magazine which was featuring an article on artists and their gardens. And then, occasionally, I’m asked to review products. Generally I turn down these offers. I’ve no desire for the blog to become an advertising ground for other companies. There’s also the problem with the ethics of a company. My blog is a very personal thing and I don’t like the idea of being linked to products that may damage the environment or with companies I know little about. I don’t like to stray too far from the themes of gardening, the environment and the countryside but you’d be surprised at the companies that contact me. There was talk on twitter a few weeks ago amongst garden bloggers about who had received emails from a PR company asking them to blog about the wonders of Velcro. Is Velcro that useful to gardeners? I recently was sent an offer of writing about AGA cleaning products. Firstly, I’m not sure of the relevance of AGA cleaning products to the people who read my blog and secondly, I’m not sure how I can review AGA cleaning products without an AGA.

This is all a rather long-winded way of saying that occasionally I will get asked to review something that intrigues me, is actually relevant and I really like the sound of the company behind the product. And this is how I happen to have come across the Dribber. Designed by the team at Hen and Hammock the idea was to combine several tasks in one tool. Measuring 20cm long the dribber is designed to fit standard and half-sized seed trays and allows you to drill lines for seed sowing, dib holes for individual seeds and then tamp down the surface of the compost.

I have to admit I’m not much of a gadget girl as my kitchen cupboards will attest. I’m not an asparagus steamer or pasta maker type of person and this follows into the garden. Generally, this is because of a lack of space to store all these tools and once you’ve managed to function without them for so long why bother accumulating more stuff but I do like the idea of a product that multi-tasks.

The dribber is beautifully made in Shropshire. The wood is oak, grown sustainably but, unfortunately, imported from America. But as Andrew, from Hen and Hammock, points out there is very little sustainable oak grown here in the UK. Perhaps if we managed our woodland more effectively we would be able to exploit them more successfully as a sustainable resource.

Wooden tools always feel so nice to handle. There’s a warmth to the wood that you don’t get with metal or plastic and there’s a feeling that this is a product that will last. Like the old tools you can see in the potting shed at Heligan, quality tools like this feel like they’ll be around for a long time.

When it comes to seed sowing I tend to be a bit haphazard. My RHS tutor would shudder at that sentence. Trying to grow all of my plants for the allotment using one windowsill means that I have to maximise the space I have and this includes in the trays and pots when I sow. I tend to split seed trays up into 3 or 4 sections and start off 3 or 4 different varieties rather than devoting one tray to one type of plant. I also sow quite closely together and then prick out and plant on quickly. The spacing of the dribber is quite generous compared to what I would normally do, but there is also the ability to use it as a drill. There aren’t any seeds that I need to sow at the moment but I did do a dummy run in the shed a few days ago and it does what it says and is nice to use. With my new greenhouse and the ability to have a potting bench now, rather than using the floor outside my shed, I plan to be much more organised and methodical about my seed sowing and this tool will certainly be well used come the spring.

It’s the quality of the dribber, its sustainable credentials and it’s mulit-tasking that really are its selling points, in my opinion, and it is something that would make a great stocking filler for a gardening friend or family member. The price of £8.50, I think, is reasonable for such a well made piece and shows that British-made, sustainable products don’t have to be expensive.

I also like the ethos behind Hen and Hammock. A small independent company, their belief is that it is possible to have nice products for our homes and gardens that are long-lasting, made sustainably and in a way that doesn’t damage the planet. They also donate 10% of profits to non-profit organisations every year. They have a great range of products not just for the garden. Perhaps one of my favourite features about their website is the ‘meet the producers’ page. So many of the goods we buy nowadays are mass-produced by anonymous people somewhere. OK, most of us don’t have time to research where everything we buy comes from and their environmental credentials, but a company like Hen and hammock does that for you. For instance, there is Ken, a carpenter, who collects waste wood from local builders and makes traditional wooden seed trays or Damien, the last garden riddle maker in the UK who crafts beautiful garden tools from beech wood.

For more information and to see a great range of products which might inspire you, with Christmas coming, take a look at Hen and Hammock’s website.

A True Test of a Relationship

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greenhouse

I have a bit of a theory when it comes to DIY projects. You can consult horoscopes, do all those relationship tests they print in women’s magazines or even go along to pre-marriage classes but if you really want to know whether you and your intended are well suited spend a weekend building a greenhouse. If you haven’t shouted at each other or blamed the other for the mislaid spanner and are still speaking by the end of it then you’re pretty well matched in my opinion. It could, actually, be any sort of DIY that requires some team work but I picked greenhouse because that’s what the Wellies spent the last weekend constructing. And yes, we are still speaking.

With the delivery of the various sections of our greenhouse last week this weekend revolved, pretty much entirely, around its construction. Excitement at finally having my own greenhouse was tempered by the sight of the instruction manual and all the parts. It all looked rather daunting. The delivery guy said it would take only a few hours to put up. A FEW HOURS?!! But he did go on to admit he’d never actually built one himself.

I know it’s quite a skill to write instruction manuals. Conveying as much information as possible, in this case just with diagrams is quite a challenge. The problem I find with them is that some of us need a little bit more information than others. Wellyman isn’t normally fazed by them but even this one left him scratching his head.

By lunchtime on Saturday with all the sides built and joined together, we were lulled into thinking we might have the whole thing built in a day. How wrong could we have been? After a quick stop for lunch reality set in. With the afternoon light fading quickly it was a race to get it to a stage that we could leave it in overnight.

Everything is held together with nuts and bolts and after 5 hours I was sick of the sight of them.  Despite my much smaller fingers I seemed to have a problem getting the nut to stay on the bolt so I could twist it onto the thread. The back of the greenhouse is up against a fence panel. There was just enough space for us to get down the back but wedged between the greenhouse and the fence trying to screw nut to bolt and then losing the nuts. Aaaaarrrggghhh! It’s fair to say the air was a little on the blue side this weekend. Then, the No. 10 spanner was put down ‘somewhere’. Of course, the instructions didn’t even mention a No.10 spanner being an essential tool for the job. Just as we thought we were getting the hang of things we would get to another section and find yet another set of instructions in a tiny plastic bag with yet more screws, blots and nuts.

We finally called it a day for food, lots of tea and, in the case, of Wellyman wine. But we weren’t finished for the day. We spent the rest of the night building the staging whilst watching Have I Got News For You on Dave. We know how to live.

I woke on Sunday and groaned at the thought of all that glass waiting outside. I groaned even more when I opened the curtains to see we’d had the hardest frost of the autumn so far. The garden and the greenhouse were covered in white, glistening frost. Handling glass with cold-numbed fingers was going to be fun. It’s always the fiddly things that take time with any DIY job, the bits you don’t think about. And then there are the bits that that should fit but don’t. Brute force, a hammer and a metal file were all employed, successfully but discovering pieces don’t fit with rapidly fading light is incredibly frustrating. Patience isn’t one of my strong points and I do think I uttered the words ‘I wish I’d never bought the damn thing’ at one point. Possibly it was when we had a section of glass that went above the door and it just wouldn’t fit because the door was in the way. Head scratching ensued, the tape measure came out, the manual was consulted. In the end, we had to unscrew the door and then force it into place and the words force and glass really shouldn’t go together.

Finally, at 4.30pm on Sunday, in the dark, we fitted the final bits of glass in the louvre vents. Fifteen hours later and too many bolts and nuts to count we had a greenhouse. I even managed to muster enough energy to do a little dance in celebration. It is pretty small, as greenhouses go but it will be perfect for the growing season ahead of me and the plans I’ve got. And every cloud has a silver lining – a bigger greenhouse equals more nuts and bolts.

The Mind Boggles – Part Two

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Alan Titchmarsh, Carol Klein, Monty Don

Cephalaria gigantea

Back in July I posted about the strange search terms that brought people to Wellywoman. They do make me laugh. So on this grotty, miserable, November day I thought I’d post about the ones I’ve had since, in an attempt to cheer myself up, if no one else. Oh and there are a few completely unseasonal photos along the way to hopefully bring some colour to the day.

It’s a weird mix which I suppose rather sums up the internet in all it’s glory. There are those clearly desperate for enlightenment on a particular topic. I often feel like I want to respond to them or learn a bit more about them. It’s a little like people watching at an airport when I wonder where the people around me are going to, who they’ll be meeting and why. The ‘my lawn is boggy and faces north’ really should be advised to give up the lawn unless he or she wants to cultivate moss. The especially simplistic ‘tree with red fruit’ says to me not a gardener. Possibly someone who has moved into a house with a tree in the garden that has red fruit on it and has no other points of reference other than the obvious. They may be some time in their attempts to discover what their tree actually is with such little information at hand. My sympathies go out to ‘itching like ants crawling’ although I’m relieved they didn’t add where they were itching. I doubt very much they found any solace from my blog.

There are the nosey, searching for ‘where does Carol Klein go on holiday?’ and ‘how tall is Carol Klein?’. Why would you want to know how tall Carol is?

‘Why is Alan Titchmarsh boring?’ did make me chuckle, although it is rather mean and really what did they hope to find? Did they really think they would find an answer?

The fascination with Monty Don’s clothes continues although it seems to have moved away from his shirts to his footwear. After my last ‘Mind Boggles’ post Danielle from Tasmania left a comment to say she had actually found my blog whilst searching for what type of shirt Monty wears. It has been fascinating to read about her gardening on the other side of the world and to think it was Monty’s shirts that introduced us.

Dahlia ‘Nuit d’Ete’

The welly fetish searches continue with a particular interest out there apparently in welly aroma. ‘Forced to smell her wellies’, ‘I love the smell of sweaty wellies’ and ‘who likes sniffing their wellies?’ are all rather disturbing but I think it is the strange random search terms that puzzle me the most.

‘A knight and lady went riding one day in forest’. . . sounds like the start to some Arthurian tale.  Or how about the long-winded and grammatically dodgy ‘what is the French for excuse me madam whereabouts are your shopping trolleys at’?

Corncockle

My favourite has to be though ‘how do I get rid of slug slime which has dried on my cat?’ That sounds like one lazy cat for a slug to be able to climb on board and leave behind it’s slimy residue. I’m not even sure I’ve ever met a cat that would be happy to share its fur with a slug. And aren’t they always preening themselves? Does make you wonder whether the cat was actually still alive?

And finally, this was actually gleaned from my spam box. Normally nothing there is worth bothering with. It’s either incomprehensible gobbledygook or if it isn’t, you wish it was, then you wouldn’t be subjected to the unsavoury elements of the internet. But this I thought was a gem. No idea whether it was a genuine compliment and things just got a bit lost in translation or whether they thought it was a cunning way to ensnare me. And so, I leave you with, ‘an excellent site . . . I am sending it to a few pals sharing in delicious. And of course, thanks in your sweat!’

Book Review My Secret Garden by Alan Titchmarsh

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Alan Titchmarsh, Ebury Publishing, Gardeners' World, My Secret Garden

Alan Titchmarsh ‘My Secret Garden’

Perhaps the most famous gardener in the UK over the last two decades, Alan Titchmarsh was used to sharing his own garden with the public. For 6 years, as host of the BBC’s Gardener’s World, Alan allowed the viewers into his garden known as Barleywood. Then, in 2002, he left the programme and his home and garden of over 20 years. His latest book, My Secret Garden, is the story of the new garden he has created over the last decade. A space, until now that has not been shown to the public.

I was looking forward to receiving this book. I used to avidly watch him on his BBC gardening programmes, even though I had no garden of my own at the time and I’ll often refer back to his gardening books for ideas and advice now I do have a garden. And, to be honest, I’m quite nosey so the idea of being able to see the garden he has created appealed to me.

It’s quite a hard book to pin down. There are lovely photographs by Jonathan Buckley showing the garden in all its glory which gives it the feel of a ‘coffee table’ book but there is also text from Alan as he talks you around the garden. This is a book about the raison d’etre of his own personal garden. He avails us with the thoughts behind his design ideas and his planting choices.

I don’t think I’ve read a book like this before. It is described as a gardening memoir. I’m not sure that memoir is the right word but then I’m not sure what is. I did enjoy hearing the reasons behind the ultimate look of the garden and where his inspiration came from. He shares his triumphs and disasters and doesn’t feel the need to hide elements that haven’t worked so well, for instance the use of box and the subsequent blight attack. It makes those of us with less experience feel better to know that someone as knowledgeable as Mr. T can still make mistakes.

I liked the photographs taken from the same angles throughout the seasons. These particularly highlighted the value of evergreens and structure in the garden. And, whilst the book is not so much about passing on gardening expertise, I did think it was possible to take elements away from the book to possibly use in my own garden. Certainly by studying the photographs you could take inspiration for planting combinations.

If you like cutting edge design this won’t be the book for you but then Alan is probably not on your radar anyway. The garden surrounds a stunning Georgian house and the garden he has created is classical in style but there is a relaxedness about the space that came across in the photographs. It’s certainly a garden I would like to spend time in. There are elements of the garden that I loved, the topiary lining the terrace, for instance, and his stunning greenhouse but there were other aspects that were less to my taste such as the Union Jack flying from a flag pole. However, I like the fact that he doesn’t feel the need to hide these from the ‘design police’, this is after all his own garden.

I would have liked a few ‘before’ shots of the garden showing what it was like when he first moved there, to give the creation of the new space some context and I was disappointed there weren’t any pictures of the vegetable garden. It was a shame this area wasn’t given any coverage.

If you’re a fan of Alan’s then you’ll love this book. It’s interesting to read about the formation of a garden and the reasons behind it. So many gardens seem to evolve quite haphazardly over time or are created in one fell swoop by a design team. It was good to read about the problems he encountered with his new garden. It wasn’t a blank canvas as so many gardens aren’t and yet this seems to be only rarely touched on in features about gardens. Having someone describe their garden is a interesting idea. It’s quite easy to pick at someone’s personal taste but I wonder how many gardens would stand up to such scrutiny. I think it’ll make me question ideas I have about my own garden in future and the plans I have for it.

Alan’s book is available to buy now from Amazon and all good independent bookshops.

Thanks to Claire at Ebury Publishing.

New Wellies

Tags

Le Chameau, wellies

Old Wellies

It’s strange to become attached to clothes and footwear but I think most of us, at some point, have had a feeling of sentimentality to a favourite piece of clothing. Wellyman had a long, wool overcoat that he loved despite it being known as the ‘flasher coat’, not, I hasten to add because of any weird predilection for availing passers-by with more than they wanted to see. It was a name given to the coat by a friend of his because it did look a little like the sort of coat someone up to no good would wear. It had been his grandad’s when he was in his early twenties and Wellyman had rediscovered it in the loft one day.

The problem came, of course, when the coat, which was by now over 60 years old, started to look a little worn. Holes were appearing but still I couldn’t persuade him to replace it. The death knell for the coat though was mould. Even he had to admit it was finally time for a new coat. Finding a replacement that feels as good and fits as well is the challenge though and it probably makes us cling onto our beloved clothes that little bit longer than we should.

When I discovered my wellies leaked a few weeks ago I thought finding new ones would be a frustrating experience. I’d grown stupidly quite attached to my little green boots. The easiest solution would have been to simply replace them with another pair of Hunters. These ones had lasted me 7 years and had been worn pretty much every day. They had coped well with baking sunshine, freezing weather and snow and, of course, copious amounts of rain. From the plot and garden to the beach and the hills around our home they had certainly been well used, to the extent there was hardly any grip left on the soles. So I was more than happy to replace like for like but then, just as Wellyman was about to order a pair for my birthday, we had a tip off that Hunters were no longer made in Scotland and that they had changed the manufacturing process. After trawling the internet it did appear this was the case and that, as a result, the quality had suffered. Whether this is true or not I don’t know but there were certainly a lot of people complaining about their recently purchased wellies.

Not prepared to take the risk the quest for new wellies began. Twitter and blog friends were generous with their suggestions and advice. There are so many wellies to choose from now, it’s quite incredible. There’s tartan or leopard patterned wellies, neoprene-lined super warm wellies and gorgeous but expensive leather ones which require a phone call to the bank manager before purchase. The choice felt a little overwhelming. There is only so much you can glean from the internet anyway. I much prefer to try before I buy, especially with clothes or shoes. Whilst the internet is great for many things the impact on our high streets saddens me.

However, I needn’t have worried. My welly search meant I discovered a local country store that I hadn’t known existed, with friendly, helpful staff. Their selection didn’t included a vast array of patterns or colours; green or black was the extent of the palette and there wasn’t a wedge welly in sight. This was a place for serious wellies.

New Wellies

And so it’s au revoir to my Hunters (I’m going to keep them for when I do outdoor painting jobs) and bonjour to my Le Chameaus. They came highly recommended, are a great fit for my narrow feet and super comfy. Most importantly though they don’t leak and have amazing grips on them, so no more unintentional acrobatic routines on the muddy paths at the allotment.

A Blogger’s View

Tags

Bill Bryson, Cornwall, David Day, Good Gardens Guide, NASA, Norfolk, Troublesome Words, WiFi

I seem to be spending more and more of my time in front of my computer these days. Increasingly for work but also, of course, for blogging. Catching up on other blogs yesterday evening, I was struck by the thought of the people I have got to know ever so slightly via their blogs over the last year, and I wondered what they were looking at whilst they were composing their posts.

David Day painting – the view from my computer

I don’t actually have a view from my desk, it’s positioned in such a way that I’m staring into a corner. It does little to inspire but I suppose the upside is I don’t get distracted. Last year we finally got round to buying a painting to go above the desk. A painting of a local scene in really muted colours which captures the dark brooding hills and farmland around my village in Wales. The artist, David Day, used to be an architect and I love the buildings and the way he has drawn them with a flattened perspective. This style is more prominent in some of his other works. I just fell in love with this painting though. The sheep, the farmer, the white farm buildings and the looming form of the Skirrid, the hill in the background will always make me think of this part of the country, no matter where we live.

I often find myself drifting off and staring at it. In a very small way it connects me to the outside whilst I’m in front of the computer. We’ve had the painting nearly a year now and even though I see it pretty much every day I haven’t got sick of it.

Joining the computer on my desk is a peace lily. With yellowing leaves and crusty leaf tips it has that slightly unloved look most house plants seem to have, certainly in my house anyway. I haven’t managed to actually get this plant to flower since I bought it which is disappointing but not unusual apparently. So often the conditions in our homes aren’t suitable for the plants we grow indoors. Still I don’t mind too much, it adds a splash of greenery and it was voted by NASA as one of the best plants to grow to clean the air. A plant particularly useful for sticking next to electrical equipment as it can absorb the small levels of radiation given off by computers and also chemicals such as formaldehyde, given off by paint and soft furnishings.

There’s a selection of books including a bashed and battered dictionary that has seen me through A’ Levels and university, this has sat on many a desk and bookcase over the years. It isn’t the most comprehensive of word collections but suffices; I probably use the thesaurus more. An out of date Good Gardens Guide that my dad gave me, which is a useful reference guide and Bill Bryson’s Troublesome Words sit on the desk too. I first read the latter a few years ago and loved it. I’ve always been a huge fan of Bryson, an American writer, who has become an honorary Brit. Known mostly for his travel writing, Troublesome Words is one of his very early books written when he was working as a sub-editor for The Times newspaper. Inspired by having to use the English language and its glorious disorderliness every day he wrote this book to answer some of those questions that even the most educated get wrong. Peppered with some quite cringing examples of grammar and spelling misdemeanours by journalists, his book highlights the problems most of us encounter with our own language. Whether to use flaunt or flout, is there anything wrong with splitting an infinitive and whether you can start a sentence with ‘and’? After taking it out from the library again this year I decided I would buy myself a copy. I knew of a little second-hand bookshop in a town we were visiting whilst on holiday and thought I’d pop in. I couldn’t quite believe it when I saw it sitting on a shelf in the shop and for the bargain price of £3. For anyone who likes writing and language I can highly recommend it.

And finally, sat on the far corner of the desk is a collection of natural stuff, shells, pine cones and pretty stones picked up on walks. They remind me of particular places, my favourite beach in Cornwall, a woodland walk in Norfolk. Again these connect me to the outdoors even though I’m writing away on my keyboard. At the moment they have been arranged by Wellyman to sit on top of the router. He is trying to achieve the optimum range for the WiFi and has moved it about in an attempt to discover where this is. At the moment it seems it’s at the end of the desk with shells perched on top. I don’t think these are adding anything to the signal though.

I dream one day of having a view from my desk, maybe of my garden or of the sea. I’m sure I get more work done without one though. I’d love to know a little bit about what you see whilst you’re writing your blog.

Hibernation is Here

Tags

celeriac, greenhouse, hibernation, lifting dahlias

Still flowering – geranium

I’m not sure if it’s the clocks changing or the weather but the feeling that takes over me at this time of year is here once again. The desire to stay warm, dry and cosy inside is hard to shift. You might say ‘why bother, give in to the feeling, our bodies often know what is best for them, what they crave, why fight it’? I did hear once about a village in France where the people apparently spent the winter asleep. It wasn’t true hibernation, in that they didn’t lower their body temperature as animals do. Even so there are days, particularly in January, where staying warm under the duvet and sleeping my way to spring sounds like the best way forward.

Of course, there is much to look forward to over the next couple of months and despite the gloom I feel much more positive about the winter ahead than I have in previous years but the one thing I can’t seem to motivate myself to do is get up to the plot or into the garden. We haven’t had any significant frost yet but we have had lots of rain and plenty of dark, dank days. The sort of weather where you can almost feel the damp penetrating your body. There is nothing remotely enticing about spending time outdoors in these conditions.

I really do need to get up to the plot, at the very least, and lift my dahlias, dig up a celeriac for dinner and pull out some of the hardy annual flowers to tidy things up. Fortunately, the need for celeriac will force me up there because otherwise I could find more than enough excuses as to why I should stay at home. I don’t like this feeling of procrastination which is not normally something I suffer from. I am, I’m afraid a bit of a fair-weather gardener. I decided this year to try some salad leaves for autumn and winter but to be honest they haven’t been a great success. Standing out in the cold, the rain and the dark, on a morning, picking the meagre leaves for Wellyman’s lunch is losing it’s appeal. Most were eaten by slugs and production levels have dropped so much that I would need so many pots to get any worthwhile quantities.

Still flowering – erigeron

I have got some lettuce at the plot which seems to be faring better on the slugs front, at least, but it’s just not as convenient to have salad leaves up there at this time of year. Things maybe different next year though, because last week I took the plunge and bought a greenhouse. *does a little dance* I’ve wanted one for a long time but the combination of thinking we didn’t really have the space and the cost have put me off. Oh, and the thought of it being just another thing to take with us when we move. After moving 7 times in 8 years it’s hard to shake off the feeling that you’ll be moving again soon and the rigmarole that entails. The lack of space still is a bit of an issue but I’m working on something for next year which requires more plants than my cold frames and kitchen window sill can cope with, so it felt like the time was right. It will hopefully make life a little easier next spring and the idea of being able to give tomatoes a try again and maybe even some chillies is pretty exciting.

It’s a small greenhouse, as space is tight and I haven’t even got it yet and it’s probably too small with all the plans I have. Still after years of not having one it will be a real joy to have any indoor growing space. The idea of being able to sit with a cup of tea on a chilly spring day with the sun streaming into the greenhouse and being warm and toasty inside brings a smile to my face now.

There is however, the small matter of having to put the greenhouse up. Whilst now might be a great time for buying greenhouses, as there are some great discounts, the chances of a dry weekend in mid November are slim. I can’t say I’m looking forward to spending 2 days constructing a greenhouse in the cold and damp *shivers*. Now what was I saying about hibernation.