Rain, rain go away and publication day

Tags

natural Christmas decorations, The Crafted Garden, topiary

A wet August has made for a decidedly sodden garden and allotment, and at times a soggy gardener. I wouldn’t have minded so much if it was just drizzle but it has been the sort of rain, those big fat drops, which soaks you in minutes.

I’ll admit I’m a bit of a fair weather gardener. It’s the cold that mainly makes me retreat indoors. Rain doesn’t bother me so much, particularly if I’m prepared and wearing full waterproofs, even if I do make a passing attempt at the ‘trawlerman off to sea’ look. The problem with gardening when it’s wet is the mess that results. It’s impossible to not end up looking like a creature from the deep or like I’ve spent the last few hours bog snorkelling rather than gardening. Or is this just me?

Weeding is initially quite pleasurable as dandelions and thistles with long tap roots slip from the rain-softened earth so much more easily than from sun-baked soil. It’s not long though before I’m covered in mud. Using the trowel or hoe elicits a squelching noise from my rain-soaked gloves as another weed is removed. Deadheading isn’t too bad but then the petals and leaves stick to me.

I trimmed my yew topiary cones by the front door last week. The forecast promised wall to wall sunshine and little chance of rain. The yew needed taming. It had taken on an unkempt shagginess which meant it was no longer possible to distinguish any real shape. I wish I hadn’t planted them in the first place. Clipping them, although a task only needed to be done once a year, has become a chore. One of those jobs I’ll put off until I have to accept I need to do it or we won’t be able to get to the front door. Of course the wall to wall sunshine included a series of heavy downpours – it’s been that kind of summer. I sheltered in the hall during these cloud bursts but each time I returned outside the soggy yew clippings would cling to everything – me, the shears, the path and the brush. Much muttering about stupid yews and their annoying need to grow and chastisements of the inexperienced gardener who planted them 8 years ago ensued.

There’s an autumnal feel to my arrangements now

I absent-mindedly left the shed door open last week. The next morning it looked like a torrent had streamed through it. A neighbour asked if I’d heard the storm that night. I sleep with ear plugs in so had been oblivious to the deluge the heavens had deposited on the village.

At least showers have replaced incessant rain. In the intervening dry spells I have been trying to get as many garden jobs done as possible. Hardy annuals have been sown, biennials are in their final homes on the cut flower patch, the plot has been weeded and the box balls no longer look like shaggy hedgehogs. All this means I can go off for a bit of a break knowing everything is as it should be, well, for a couple of weeks at least.

So it’s finally here. The Crafted Garden is published today. It’s an exciting and nerve-racking time. I’ve had some lovely feedback already which is always a bit of a relief. I really hope if you get a chance to read it you’ll feel inspired to try some crafting using nature. Whether it’s simply collecting a few bits and pieces on a walk and creating your own nature table at home, making natural wreaths or finding ideas for home crafted Christmas decorations. Even if crafting isn’t your thing I’ve included some fabulous garden-worthy plants that will make great additions to any green space and there are tips along the way on how to grow a variety of plants. And of course, there are plenty of flowers.

The Crafted Garden is available from bookshops and online, or you could take advantage of this special discount price.

To order The Crafted Garden by Louise Curley at the discounted price of £13.99 including p&p* (RRP: £16.99), telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG355. 

*UK ONLY – Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

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Finding my way

Tags

Cobaea scandens, Cosmos 'Xanthos', cut flower patch, Dahlia 'Amberglow', Dahlia 'Karma Naomi', Helianthus 'Italian White', Larkspur 'Misty Lavender', The Crafted Garden

Capturing summer

Life is like a maze, sometimes it’s easy to find your way to where you want to go, other times you stumble around coming up to dead ends or not being quite sure of which direction to take.

I’ve never really enjoyed mazes. Wellyman on the other hand, with his more logical, problem solving brain, loves them. He tackled one in Belgium three times in the same afternoon. The second and third times he was unaccompanied. As mazes go Drielandenpunt is pretty impressive. On the borders of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands it is Europe’s largest hedge maze, created by the English maze designer Adrian Fisher from 17,000 hornbeam trees. Once was enough for me though.

I’m feeling a bit like I’ve been stumbling around in a maze for most of August to be honest which explains my absence from the blog. August always brings a lull. It’s a no man’s land, ideal for those on holiday but a strange void of time for those who aren’t. I was meant to use this month productively and make the most of the quiet spell. We’ve caught up with family and some friends which has been lovely but the admin and tax return still await, silently nagging me as I walk past them piled up on my desk. Other jobs I had hoped to tackle remain on my list and September is approaching fast.

Discombobulated is the word for it. I’m sure the weather hasn’t helped. It is August, isn’t it, and I haven’t slept Sleeping Beauty-like for several months and woken up in November. I need some clarity as my mind has developed a fog which won’t seem to shift. Even my garden and plot aren’t providing the same respite they normally do. I’m not sure if they are actually contributing to some of the fog. They’ve both had to work hard this summer with pots and plants galore and the garden is feeling cramped – perhaps I’m asking too much of it. Certainly the crab apple needs attention as it’s casting too much shade over the end of the garden hence the back border flagging so early this summer. Where it once created pleasant, dappled shade it is now downright gloomy. It feels like I need room to breathe and that the garden needs room to breathe too.

Dahlias from the cut flower patch

But through the fog come the flowers. My love of dahlias grows every year. They just make me smile and I’ve noticed it’s a reaction others have to them too. They are joyful blooms and I want more. I picked some Dahlia ‘Karma Naomi’ and D. ‘Amberglow’ yesterday, along with some other flowers to take to a friend who has just moved into a new home. Ann is a feisty, spirited lady in her seventies who used to be our neighbour when we first moved to the area. She has just taken the plunge and left her home of over 20 years to move into a flat as arthritis takes its toll, so I thought the flowers might bring a smile to her face and they did. On the journey there I had so many people asking about the dahlias. I fear for my bank balance as my dahlia wish list is growing daily thanks largely to all those flower growers I follow on Instagram. Could I devote a whole bed at the plot to just dahlias? Well, half a bed at least.

Dahlia ‘American Moon’

This one is a bit of a monster. The flowers on D. ‘American Moon’ are big and I love the intricacy of the petals and the flashes of lemon among the pink. It’s a bit tricky to use with other flowers in arrangements as the flower heads are whoppers, but it’s beautiful enough to warrant a vase of its own.

Cosmos ‘Xanthos’

One of the stars of the show this year has been Cosmos ‘Xanthos’. It’s been flowering now since the start of July. I know lots of gardeners shy away from yellow or just don’t like it as a colour. I interviewed a gardener recently who told me she’d told the designer Tom Stuart Smith that she didn’t want any yellow in her garden. He went ahead and added yellow plants and she now loves the colour. I’ve loved ‘Xanthos’. In fact, it might even be my favourite cosmos. I find many of the pink varieties a bit too girly. They conjure up images of cupcakes, frills and candy floss. I’ve loved ‘Xanthos’ because it’s like a hit of acidic lemon juice cutting through all that saccharin sweetness. It looks fabulous planted and arranged with the striking blue of Salvia patens.

Another favourite is Larkspur ‘Misty Lavender’. It has an aged vintage beauty about it even as the petals unfurl. Like all larkspurs it dries really well, retaining its colour beautifully. I have used larkspurs in several projects in my new book The Crafted Garden and have bunches of larkspur drying in my airing cupboard at the moment. I love plants which have other uses, whether it’s a pretty seed pod, petals that dry or fabulous foliage, as well as stunning blooms. In a small space it makes sense to grow plants which can be used for different purposes.

Cobaea scandens

Then there’s Cobaea scandens or the cup and saucer plant. This exotic beauty is finally putting on a show. It’s a tender climber so it only started to flower in August, perhaps a tad reluctantly as grey skies have loomed over head, but it’ll keep going until frost cuts it back. Hopefully that won’t be until well into autumn and then we can enjoy these fabulous flowers for some time yet. I’m growing the purple variety but the fascinating thing is that as the bud opens the flowers are white. When I first saw one open I thought there had been a mix up with the seeds. Then over the next day or so the trumpet started to flush with colour until the whole flower had been transformed into the purple flower I had ordered. They look beautiful climbing up and over the hazel arch Wellyman made for me back in spring.

Helianthus ‘Italian White’

There was a point when I wondered if I’d have any sunflowers at all this year. At the end of June my Helianthus ‘Italian White’ plants looked dreadful. I always start sunflowers off indoors as slugs will devour seedlings over night. My little plants went into the ground in June about a foot tall with healthy green leaves and they looked fabulous, if I do say so myself. Of course pride comes before a fall and two weeks later they were in a sorry state. Slug-mauled, wind-battered and covered in blackfly. Wellyman attempting to squish the blackfly accidentally decapitated one of the plants too. I wish I’d taken a photo of them but it was too embarrassing. Well the transformation is quite remarkable. I now have 5ft tall lemon-coloured flowers reaching for the sun (desperately hoping they’ll see some). They’re more delicate with smaller flower heads than most sunflowers and I find they are much easier to arrange with other flowers.

Not everything has worked. There have been annoying mix ups with seed varieties and tubers. Chatting with others this seems to be a problem which afflicts most seed and bulb companies. It’s frustrating but occasionally they bring a pleasant surprise. Antirrhinum ‘Snowflake’ has turned out to be a multi-coloured selection with beautiful lemon flowers and striking cerise blooms on fabulously tall stems. Fortunately I don’t grow for weddings otherwise I might be quite grumpy about these unexpected colours in the flower beds.

Through the fog my love of flowers hasn’t diminished and maybe they might even help me to find my way out of this maze.

My new book – The Crafted Garden

Tags

cut flower patch, Frances Lincoln, homemade wreaths, inspired by nature, natural crafting, seasonal crafting, The Crafted Garden

My new book ©Jason Ingram

A heavy envelope which felt like it had books in it arrived the other day with the postmark of my publisher on it. It’s funny how after nearly two years in the making, and the pulling teeth process of editing which can make even the most committed of authors fall a little out of love with their book, the excitement is still there when you see all that work come together for the first time. It’s not as if the content comes as a surprise, you spend hours in front of a computer writing the words, there’s the time coming up with the ideas, in my case growing the plants to provide the material and there’s the photo shoots. Finally there’s the editing process. Time spent working with your editor and the designer marrying the photos and text together, and the juggling of it all to fit the layout and design of the book. Weeks and weeks of looking at PDFs and going through edited text can strip you of most of the passion and excitement you had when the book first started to form as an idea.

Fortunately there is a breathing space when it all goes quiet, the emails from the publisher stop and you return to a life no longer dictated to by your book. You stop waking up early, usually with a sudden jolt, worrying about whether you’ve spelt someone’s name correctly in the acknowledgments, or whether you remembered to send that urgent email about the photo that’s in the wrong place.

A spring project – The Crafted Garden ©Jason Ingram

Several months later the emails start again – publication date is drawing closer. Then a package, a book-shaped package, arrives and that excitement you felt all those months ago when you first starting working on the idea returns. It’s a little odd seeing all those long hours, the frustrations but also the fun times, staring back at you in book form. It’s a team effort to bring everything together and it was a delight to work with the very talented team behind my last book, editors Helen and Joanna, photographer Jason Ingram and designer Becky Clarke. Wellyman is also rather chuffed that some of his photos have made it into the book too.

The Crafted Garden brings together my love of gardening, crafting and nature. For me these three loves go hand in hand. Why buy a fake wreath to adorn your door when the natural materials to make a gorgeous seasonal wreath can be grown so easily in your garden or foraged from the hedgerows? Why buy Christmas decorations shipped in from the Far East when simple ways to festoon your house can be made from cones, lichen-covered twigs and evergreens collected on a winter woodland walk? They can be thrifty, fun to make, connect you and your home with the seasons, and they can be composted when the New Year arrives.

The Crafted Garden ©Jason Ingram

I think more and more people have grown tired of mass-manufactured products that have little or no charm, made in vast factories and shipped from the other side of the world in massive container ships. Many of us are rediscovering the pleasure in making our own or seeking out skilled craftspeople who make bespoke pieces. I think this is all a bit of a backlash against the homogeneity of the high street. Being creative is also good for us. Neuroscientists are looking into how creative tasks impact on the brain. It’s believed it can have an impact similar to meditation, and increasingly crafting is being used as a way to help people suffering from stress or mental health problems. Why do gardeners and florists regularly top the lists of people happiest in their jobs? Because there’s a real connection between a task and a visible outcome and in many cases the chance to be creative.

I’ve found crafting with natural ingredients has broadened my ideas about what I might grow in my garden or on my cut flower patch. I now regularly include flowers which dry well alongside those I pick fresh. I also look out for plants with great seed heads which I can save or pretty leaves for pressing.

The Crafted Garden ©Jason Ingram

For me it has also been a great way to beat those winter blues. Projects give the mind something to focus on as the light levels drop and by creating projects based on the seasons it has made me learn to appreciate what each season has to offer. I’ve always loved the weeks before Christmas and decorating my home but I can’t be the only one who really feels the gloom of January, the house bare after the winter festivities. But if you have some pots of paper white narcissi and flamboyant hippeastrums waiting in the wings to decorate a dining table or windowsill it’s amazing how they can lift the spirits and remind you spring isn’t far away.

The Crafted Garden is divided into the seasons with projects inspired by the plants and countryside of each. And, because I’m a gardener and plant lover, each project includes details of how to grow plants which could be used in the project with some other recommendations too. The projects range from ways to make your home look pretty, to floral fascinators perfect for a wedding or festival, with some ideas which would work as presents too. And there are ideas on how to craft and arrange flowers in a more environmentally friendly way. I’ve included a range of projects; some are very easy, others a little more complicated but still achievable. Lots of them are fantastic for crafting with children and inspiring them to appreciate nature.

The Crafted Garden is published on 3^rd September by Frances Lincoln and is available to preorder now from Frances Lincoln, Waterstones and Amazon.