Is gardening cool enough?

Tags

BBC Gardeners' World, The Great Allotment Challenge, The Great British Bake Off, The Great British Garden Revival

Gardening can give so much pleasure.

There is much talk at the moment about the future of gardening. There seems to be a collective panic amongst many within the gardening industry be it growers, writers or the gardening establishment of the RHS that gardening is in decline. The suggestion is younger people aren’t interested in plants, front gardens have been concreted over to give our cars a home for the night and where’s the room for plants in our back gardens when there’s hot tubs, trampolines and barbecues the size of some people’s kitchens taking up all the space.

Two new garden programmes will be on the BBC soon – The Great British Garden Revival and The Great Allotment Challenge – which it hopes will reignite the nation’s passion for plants. But is there a crisis in the first place? Certainly in my experience I know few people who garden and by garden I mean actively grow plants, mowing a lawn once a week doesn’t count. But if I think back to when I was growing up in the eighties I don’t remember gardening featuring highly as a hobby for the parents of my friends. So has much changed?

There’s certainly more opportunities to spend money on gardening products than ever before. But garden centres and even the large flower shows, where there is a huge focus on non-plant related garden paraphenalia, have changed our ideas about what constitutes gardening. The phrase ‘outdoor room’ makes me shudder but that has been the trend of recent years and means many gardens are becoming a repository for everything BUT plants.

There’s much comparison between the seemingly insatiable appetite for food programmes and the distinct lack of gardening on TV. David Dimbleby recently suggested there should be fewer food and garden programmes. He has a point regarding cookery, some nights it’s wall to wall nosh, but gardening? The half an hour a week of Gardeners’ World hardly counts as a surfeit of plant related telly. It has been suggested that gardening needs to be made cool and instead of people being obsessed by cake decorating and soggy bottoms it’ll be home-grown carrots and gardening gloves that we’ll all want. But food programmes do have one big advantage at capturing our attention and that’s all the sugar and fat? A soil encrusted parsnip isn’t going to get the saliva glands going in quite the same way as butter, cream and oodles of chocolate.

There’s a much quicker result from food. You see the ingredients being combined and then, ‘hey presto!’, a cake appears. It’s much harder to convey the satisfaction that gardening can give in a half hour programme. Sow some carrot seeds and then it’s three months before the result can be shown. Getting hung up on comparisons with the interest in food is distracting. Sales of juicers maybe up 210% but anyone who has ever owned a juicer knows the reality. You use them once or twice then you realise they are a nightmare to clean, they spend a year in the cupboard before you give it away to some unsuspecting relative. Viewing, purchasing and actually doing should not be confused.

Gardening has always been seen as a pastime for an older generation.

Gardening does have a bit of an image problem. I recently received a birthday card from a friend. In the note inside she wrote about how she loved walking around it in spring and seeing the plants poking through. She finished this with ‘I must be getting old’. Admittedly we are both approaching forty so she isn’t wrong but the connection between gardening and age is interesting. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this either. Throughout my twenties and into my thirties I was made to feel as if my love of gardening meant I had progressed all too rapidly towards the world of pipe and slippers. Gardening presenters are, with a few exceptions middle-aged or over, and content often focusses on gardens that many of us unfortunate enough to be on the wrong side of the property boom will never in our wildest dreams be able to afford. These two factors do create a general perception that gardening is not for younger people. But hasn’t this always been the case and does that mean there should be a drive to make gardening trendy and appealing to a younger audience? The first problem is defining what is young. When I stand up after planting bulbs my knees remind me I’m getting older but in terms of the typical age group that watches Gardeners’ World, which is apparently over 60, I would imagine the production team consider me a youngster. The danger is trying to make something trendy can be like watching someone recapturing their youth on the dancefloor – painful. And what works for one programme won’t necessarily translate to another. Just because the format of Top Gear has worked so well, (this is completely unfathomable to me) that doesn’t mean you can shoehorn it into other subjects. Gardening should be seen as open to all, a rewarding and fun hobby but perhaps we need just need to accept that gardening is something that comes to many for the first time in their thirties, forties and even fifties and that in many cases circumstances drive this.

The back garden – under construction

Perhaps a fundamental reason for the success of food programmes is that we all have a kitchen. When it comes to gardening not everyone has the space to grow. A straw poll of people I know includes those who house-share even in their thirties because to buy is too expensive and those who live in flats, again driven by financial circumstance. Then there’s time. Some spend several hours a day just getting to and from work, there’s young children to look after and childcare to arrange. Demanding jobs and increasing ways of spending our leisure time mean gardening is bound to be one of the hobbies that falls by the wayside. I can remember the days before Sunday trading was allowed. It’s hard to imagine now that Sunday was meant to be a day of rest, a day for pottering around the garden. I’m not looking back at the early eighties with rose-tinted glasses, I remember all too well the interminable boredom sometimes that drove us to watch programmes like Bullseye, but the way we use our free time has changed and gardening has suffered as a result. If anything the crisis in gardening is not about those who are choosing not to grow but those who would grow given the chance but a lack of space and time make it impossible. The problems affecting the future of gardening go much deeper.

Our garden transformed by plants

I look forward to new, and hopefully inspiring, gardening programmes but if we want to get more people growing it won’t be enough for gardening to pin its hopes on TV to be it’s saviour in the same way The Great British Bake Off has been for cake tins and baking trays. There is a huge focus on gardening in primary schools now so there is hope that this generation of young people will grow up with a love of plants. Whether they have anywhere to grow them may be a different story. Whether land for growing, be it allotments, back gardens or community spaces is available in the future for today’s children to carry on Britain’s great tradition of gardening is down to our politicians, architects, planners, house builders and ultimately us. If this generation don’t value the green spaces we have bought alongside our houses then why should the politicians. If we concrete them over to provide parking why should we expect planners and architects to see a value in gardens. Whether gardening is cool should be the least of our worries.

A Sneaky Peek

Tags

Frances Lincoln, Growing Cut Flowers, Jason Ingram, photo shoots, The Cut Flower Patch

The Cut Flower Patch

When I first started writing my blog one of the topics closest to my heart was growing cut flowers on my allotment. I have been a little quiet on the subject this year and that’s because I have been writing a book about it. Up until now I haven’t been able to say too much but at last I no longer have to keep it a secret. So I thought I’d tell you a little bit about it and give you a sneaky peek inside.

The book is called The Cut Flower Patch and it will be published on 6th March. Eeeeekkk!!! It’s all a little odd to be honest. This time last year I had just started the writing and had my first photo shoot. It’s hard to believe that I now have a finished book, I do find myself having to pinch myself. The book is a ‘how to’ guide to creating your own cut flower patch based on my own experiences over the last few years. When I first started growing flowers for cutting I thought I would need lots of space, which I didn’t have, for it to be successful, but it’s surprising what you can do even with a small patch of soil. The book covers everything from preparing a site and how to grow, to how to make your flowers last once picked. There is a whole section devoted to the flowers I’ve found to be the most productive and ideas about how to extend the cutting season using pickings from your garden and the hedgerows.

A section from Chapter 2 of The Cut Flower Patch

I love my cut flower patch, and it’s so addictive planning my list of what I want to grow next year. I really hope the book will inspire others to cut their own too. It frustrates me that so many flowers are flown half way around the globe. The environmental cost of this is huge. Then there’s the lack of any real choice, originality or seasonality. There are so many plants out there which make stunning cut flowers but we seem to be mainly offered lilies, chrysanthemums and carnations. There’s nothing wrong with any of these flowers as such but I’d like a bit of variety, blooms which reflect the seasons and ones which haven’t damaged the planet in the process. The theme of sustainability runs through the book with thrifty ideas of what to use as vases and using local suppliers and resources where possible.

A section taken from Chapter 9 of The Cut Flower Patch

Writing a book is an odd process. It has been fun, fascinating and at times frustrating. I feel really privileged to have had the opportunity. Like any other job, it comes with its stresses though. For a long period of time it is your baby and then you hand it over to the publisher and you realise it’s a collaboration where the finished product ends up a collection of ideas rather than just your own. I heard an interview with the crime writer Ian Rankin recently in which he said a draft copy of one of his books came back from the editor with a whole character removed from it!!! It can be quite a lonely process too. The ideas were in my head, it was up to me to produce the goods, and in the case of this book that meant not only the words but also the flowers. As a gardener I have always been fairly obsessed by the weather but that was taken to new levels this year. The coldest and latest spring on record followed by such a hot July played havoc with my plans. At times you start to take it personally. Growing flowers for cutting is really easy, growing them for a specific time when a photo shoot has been booked is a whole other ball game. I had small windows of opportunity for my flowers and the allotment to look their best which led to a few sleepless nights and moments of panic. Should I dead head and risk there being no new flowers or should I leave them and risk there being no new flowers. Planned photo shoots had to be rescheduled and there was a point in June when I did wonder if the plot would ever look like summer. But, in the end, it all worked out well and I’m really pleased with the final product. I have Jason Ingram, a wonderful photographer to thank for capturing the flowers and my allotment so beautifully. The photo shoots were one of the best bits of the whole process. Generally they went past in a frantic, lack of sleep induced blur but I loved them. When I have to leave my allotment behind some time in the next year or so it will be lovely to have such a beautiful record of the space I love so much.

A sneaky peek inside -Chapter 8 of The Cut Flower Patch

The night before the last photo shoot I went up to the plot to give everything a final water and to make sure it was looking at its best. The sense of relief that I was nearly there was almost overwhelming. Tomorrow would be the culmination of all my hard work. I allowed myself a few minutes where I felt a real sense of pride, and then panic took over. The site is quite visible from the main road, and although I hadn’t experienced any problems with vandalism other plots on the other side of the road had. A horrible thought suddenly struck me – ‘What would happen if my flowers were sabotaged over night?’. It sounds funny and more than a tad paranoid now when I look back but this was it, a year’s worth of work now in front of me. The idea that something could happen to it over night was too hard to contemplate. Wellyman, bless him, stayed watch at the plot until 11pm. He probably would have slept up there if I had let him but fortunately our rational brains kicked in and everything was where it needed to be the following day.

So, in less than 4 months the book will be out there, which is quite scary. Of course, that’s always the point but it was an abstract thought when I first started this. The other consequence will be I’ll no longer be just Wellywoman. My cover will be blown!! Oh yes, and I need to get use to the publicity stuff which doesn’t come particularly naturally. So I’d better not forget this bit.

The Cut Flower Patch is available to pre-order now on Amazon here in the UK and in America or from Waterstones. If you would prefer to buy from your local bookshop you can pre-order from there too.

Embracing the shrub

Tags

cottage garden planting, herbaceous perennials, Hydrangea 'Limelight', liquidambar, planting using shrubs

Hydrangea ‘Limelight’

It’s taken a while I’ll admit, but I’m finally starting to love shrubs. Cottage gardens packed full of exuberant herbaceous perennials have always been my ultimate in garden style. As soon as we acquired our own growing space the aim was to cram in as many plants as possible. I love the hotchpotch of cottage garden planting. We used to live in a house in an impossibly pretty village by the Thames. It was all brick and flint houses and long narrow gardens with meandering paths. The house we rented had a garden that had become a little neglected and unloved, as the gardens of rented houses tend to be. Having a rummage and a poke about through the borders I could tell this had been a garden of someone who loved plants. I have an old sepia photo of my great-aunt Dora from the 1920s, all horn-rimmed glasses and pin curls, standing in a similar garden next to towering hollyhocks and sweet peas.

This type of cottage garden planting, created over time through propagation and seed sowing, rather than the more modern approach of mass purchases for a more instant effect appeals to me. But the charming higgledy-piggledy nature of cottage gardens belies the design skills that go into creating that natural looking ‘undesigned’ space. It’s a bit like trying to create the au naturel look with make-up; it’s harder than it looks and often requires more effort than going for the more obvious option. The best cottage gardens were created by gardeners who had an innate ability to work with plants. Their plonking of a particular plant at the front of a border might not have had much conscious thought but deep down there was a plan or some deep-rooted understanding that it would work in that spot.

The appropriately named liquidambar

What I’ve learnt in the last 6 years is that a backbone and structure need to be there for the stars of the show – the herbaceous perennials – to shine. And this is where my new-found love for shrubs has come in. It’s not as if my early planting plans were a shrub-free zone. The teeny fatsia I bought is now an impressive specimen in my shady border and the box balls planted at intervals along the paths to provide evergreen focal points throughout the year have worked well. The idea that we’ll probably be moving has made me start to evaluate the garden and what has worked and what hasn’t. I’ve been thinking about how I have tackled creating my first garden. Looking back I was quite tentative about what to plant. Shrubs and trees are expensive purchases and I was so keen not to get my choices wrong that in some cases it was easier not to buy at all. And that’s how more herbaceous perennials crept in.

I was a little scarred by the 1980s desire for shrubberies and conifer beds. This idea for low maintenance gardens seemed pointless to the young me just becoming interested in plants. Why would you want a garden that was bland and boring, a garden that didn’t change with the seasons? There’s a form of this still out there, the highly designed, restricted palette look that is suggested as the best way forward for small spaces. And so I brought this shrubby baggage with me to my first garden. Some of my early purchases were a reluctant concession to the fact that I didn’t want to be staring out on to a barren, plant-less space over winter. I’ve discovered though that I need shrubs and my garden needs shrubs.

Choosing carefully seems to be the key. Firstly I don’t want my garden to resemble a supermarket car park, the home to so many a shrub. Secondly they take a while to get growing and finally there’s the hit to the bank balance. It’s tempting when considering this last factor to accept shrubby freebies when they become available. Of course, like any gardener my eyes light up at the prospect of free plants and any semblance of discernment tends to disappear out of the window. Much as I love the now substantial winter flowering honeysuckle that came as a rooted sucker from the grounds at college it’s straggly, sprawling nature doesn’t warrant such a prominent position in my garden. The problem is in a small garden everywhere is fairly prominent. This shrub’s days were numbered and its removal was part of a border redesign planned for this autumn. It has a stay of execution now until we have more idea of when and where we might be moving to. I’ve even found some more rooted suckers which I’ve potted up just in case our next space has the perfect tucked away corner where I’ll still be able to smell its heady winter fragrance.

The shrub I have fallen in love with is the Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ I bought two years ago. I have a while to wait for it to put on show. From spring until August it provides an unobtrusive background to geraniums and Iris sibirica, and then delicate ivory panicles of flowers start to appear, lighting up the shady border. I love the contrast between it and the hot colours of my raised beds on the other side of the path zinging with pinks and yellows. And then, as autumn approaches, the flowers take on a tinge of pink which spreads and deepens as the temperature drops and light lessens. It’s a cracker of a plant. Other additions this year included a sarcocca to provide scent by the path to the front door and I finally got round to purchasing some perennial euphorbia. Why it took me so long I don’t know.

Autumnal colour at the start of November

Looking at my garden over the last week I see how I’m evolving and learning as a gardener. I’m often hard on myself about my gardening ability. There’s a desire to have that ‘perfect’ look, wanting my plants to work together and thrive. They do their own thing though, one will grow a little too well, swamping everything else in sight; another, supposedly slug-resistant addition, will be devoured over night. Despondency does occasionally creep in as my gardening pride is dented. But then I’ll catch a glimpse of something that makes my heart swell and I remember why I love it all so much. I was absent-mindedly staring out of the window the other day and focussed on a part of the garden which really captures what I had hoped I might be able to achieve. The view of the liquidambar in all its autumn glory with the pink of Hydrangea ‘Lime Light’, the dramatic leaves of fatsia and fading colour of the sedums. Even the soggy, black seed pods of the irises add form and interest.

I bought a shiny new notebook when I was in Edinburgh. It has sat on my desk since. I’m aware of the blank pages but a sense of creativity has eluded me. I’ve finally decided it will be my garden notebook. It’s going to be filled with ideas from my current garden, from garden visits and from any inspiration I come across from the blogs and magazines I read. The idea is that wherever we end up I will be more confident and less tentative about designing a new garden. In the past I’ve made notes and copious lists but they’re always on scraps of paper which I lose and don’t have with me when I need them. And so, to get me started, I’d love to know the shrubs you wouldn’t be without.