Scent in the garden, British Flowers Week and a flowery giveaway

Tags

Bare Blooms, British Flowers Week, Lancaster and Cornish, Scent in the Garden, The Cut Flower Patch

Home grown cut flowers – sweet Williams and pinks

First of all, my apologies for the lack of a May ‘Scent in the Garden’ post. Chelsea Flower Show, work, Wellyman’s final exam and then a week in Dorset have intervened and meant May has disappeared in a blur.

It just so happens that this month’s scented post coincides with British Flowers Week. This is the third year this week-long celebration of British grown blooms has taken place. Britain used to be self-sufficient in cut flowers before the advent of cheap/subsidised fuel meant it was cheaper to import flowers from across the world. In recent years a greater awareness of the environmental costs of imported flowers and a growing interest in seasonality have meant there has been a resurgence in British grown blooms. Thanks largely to a growing band of incredibly hard-working and talented small-scale flower growers across the country it’s now possible to buy super fresh, seasonal flowers with a local provenance.

Scent is one of the features so often lacking in imported blooms. Cut flowers have often been bred for other qualities – longer stems, shelf-life, ability to withstand cold stores – and scent is lost in the process. Chilled storage which keeps flowers fresh as they are transported also impacts on scent. Just think about those strawberries you pick at the allotment and how you can smell them, all warmed by the sun, now think about those from the supermarket kept chilled; the contrast is quite amazing. Growing your own flowers for cutting or seeking out British grown flowers with scent is the way to bring scent indoors. And even if you’re reluctant to pick your own flowers – I know how hard it can be when you have a small garden to take a pair of flower snips to your favourite blooms – there are so many fabulous plants that will fill your garden with scent all summer long.

For me June is a fabulous month for scented plants. Sweet Williams have started to bloom on the cut flower patch. There’s an air of the old-fashioned about them, conjuring up thatch cottages and gardens festooned with honeysuckle-clad arbours. I find them tricky in the garden though as they are quite stocky plants, they don’t tend to mingle like other plants, hence me devoting space to them on the allotment. They are biennials, so sow some now for flowers next year, but don’t feel you must dig them out after they have finished flowering in late summer, I have a clump from last year which is healthy and flowering once again. They will tend to get woody over time though so sow some every year to have young plants at the ready.

Carnation ‘Memories’ ©Ian Curley

Sweet rocket is another deliciously scented biennial with the purest white flowers or dusky-pink blooms. It’s a great plant for attracting moths to your garden as its scent is much stronger on an evening. Pinks have to be one of my favourite flowers. They don’t really like my soil – it’s a tad on the acid side for their liking – but I tend to get a few years from plants before they need to be replaced with new ones. I have ‘Gran’s Favourite’ and ‘Fragrant village Pinks’ in flower at the moment, lining a bed on the cut flower patch. The white-flowered ‘Memories’ is in a container – one way around not having the chalky soil they prefer. Garden worthy plants, they also make fabulous cut flowers which I’m picking in huge bunches at the moment.

Philadelphus is a plant I remember from childhood. There was one by my parents’ gate and I used to love standing there and sniffing the flowers. It’s blooms are fleeting compared to other plants, but I wouldn’t be without the mass of white, orange blossom-scented flowers taking over a corner of my front garden at the moment, the scent drifting in through an open window into my lounge.

Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’

Roses are perhaps the classic scented flower – as long as you don’t buy the imported cut flowers which never have any perfume. Currently in bloom in my garden are ‘Gertrude Jekyll’, ‘Geoff Hamilton’ and ‘A Shropshire Lad’. If you’re thinking of growing roses, now is a great time to seek out a specialist rose garden (the National Trust has some of the best rose gardens). June is their flowering peak and you can take notes of those that please your nose the most.

Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber) ©Ian Curley

Red valerian (Centranthus ruber) is an underrated plant, in my opinion. It’s incredibly easy to grow. Why do underrated and easy to grow seem to go hand in hand? OK, it does have a tendency to self-seed, but it will tolerate most soil types. If you keep on deadheading it over the summer you will curb its tendency to pop up all over the garden and encourage it to flower right through into autumn. It might not be high on lists of scented plants but it does have one. Maybe not as sweet as a rose, but lovely nonetheless, and as it’s another where the scent is strongest in the evening, it’s great for moths. There’s honeysuckle too clothing the fence in the front garden and this little beauty, Tiarella ‘Creeping Cascade’. I bought it mainly for its foliage but have discovered that its pretty flower spikes are also sweetly scented.

Tiarella ‘Creeping Cascade’  © Ian Curley

All this scent means it’s a veritable feast for my nostrils. And they all make great vase material. If you’re a reluctant flower picker I urge you this week to celebrate British flowers, to take your flower snips into the garden and to just pick a few stems. Even if you simply plonk them in an old jam jar and put them on the kitchen windowsill I can guarantee they’ll make you smile.

In honour of British Flowers Week I’ve joined forces with two lovely ladies to offer 3 fantastic gifts. Chloe Plester of Bare Blooms and the British Flower Collective grows beautiful flowers in the garden of her home in North Oxfordshire and is offering one of her gorgeous bouquets. Sian Cornish of the online haberdashery Lancaster and Cornish uses flowers and foliage from the countryside around her Cornish home to hand-dye bamboo silk ribbons. They’re perfect for tying a bouquet, decorating a vase or embellishing a gift and she’s giving away 3 ribbons. Alongside these will be a signed copy of my book The Cut Flower Patch.

For more details on how to enter (UK entries only, sorry!) take a look at the following links.

The British Flower Collective

Bare Blooms

Lancaster and Cornish

or take a look at my Instagram page. Good luck!

Advertisements

Scent in the Garden

Tags

Narcisus 'Geranium', RHS Great London Plant Fair, Scent in the Garden, The Cut Flower Patch, Victorian Violas, viola cornuta

Tulipa ‘Verona’

I remembered it was time for the latest instalment in the ‘Scent in the Garden’ meme on Saturday afternoon whilst I was crouched in a very uncomfortable position sawing at the base of my Viburnum x bodnantense. I’m not sure why it came to me then, I’ve somewhat lost track of the days in recent weeks; perhaps it was the scent of the narcissi which jogged my memory. I’m a bit late to the post but it’s that time of year where a couple of extra hours each day would be useful in order to fit everything in – like pruning shrubs and writing blog posts. Anyway better late than never. Blog posts like this are a useful exercise in getting me to stop and actually look at my garden rather than letting the spring garden pass by in a blur. Spring for a gardener is a bit like the spin cycle on a washing machine – lots of frantic activity – before things then slow down. In between my seed sowing, pricking out, potting on and watering (who’d have though April would be so bereft of the synonymous showers) it would be a pity to miss these scented spring delights.

Narcissus ‘Geranium’

There are so many forms of narcissi it would be impossible to have one favourite, but for me Narcissus ‘Geranium’ is certainly in my top ten. It has tall stems but smaller, more refined flowers than many varieties, with a dainty, snub-nose trumpet in vibrant orange. Most of all though I love its potent perfume – a real ‘knock your socks off’ whiff. Unfortunately my resident slugs and snails seem to be attracted to all my narcissi, including ‘Geranium’. So much so, many of them have been chomped to a raggedy mess. After the briefest of rain showers one night last week I went out on the first mollusc patrol of the year. After weeks of dry weather they were out in force and it was a real heart-sinking experience. Buoyed by the glorious weather and spring bursting forth I have been feeling quite perky and full of the proverbial joys, but having to pick big fat slugs and snails off the trumpets of daffodil blooms rather burst the bubble. Why do they slither and slime their way past weeds and leaf litter, crawl all the way up the daffodil stem to eat the flower? It seems like they are taunting us gardeners, it’s almost like they know how to wound us the most. There’s that point in a spring garden where everything looks fresh and new, untouched by the weather and pests, and I just want to keep everything looking so pristine and beautiful that I wish I could press pause. Then there’s the tipping point where spring perfection morphs into doily-like hosta leaves, tattered narcissi flowers and frost-induced mushy, brown magnolias and I sigh with resignation. Perhaps the slugs and snails might have a penchant for Chanel No. 5 and I could spray weeds to distract them from the daffs … It would be an expensive means of control, not quite as expensive as nematoding my garden for the summer though!

Tulipa ‘Verona’

Tulips aren’t generally thought of as being scented. I didn’t think so until I was researching The Cut Flower Patch. I’m eagerly anticipating the opening of Tulipa ‘Ballerina’ with it’s orange jelly-scented blooms but it’s ‘Verona’ which has been the first tulip to flower in the garden. A fabulously voluptuous variety with ruffled peony-like flowers in a deliciously buttery-cream colour. It doesn’t have a powerful ‘fill the air’ type perfume but, if you get up close, it does have a delicate sweet aroma. It lasts for ages too – providing a good four weeks of flower power. If you’re going to grow one tulip I can highly recommend this one.

Crab apple blossom

At last the crab apple has come into blossom; it’s later than it has been in past years. For the last week the tree has been studded with rose-pink buds. From the vantage point of the kitchen sink I thought something reddish-pink had become caught in the branches until I realised it was simply a huge cluster of flower buds. This weekend delicate white petals have started to unfurl, and with them a wonderful, underrated perfume. Underrated perhaps because it isn’t an overt aroma, the sort typically used in the perfume industry. For me, crab apple blossom perfectly captures spring in its scent – clean, crisp and fresh, like washing which has been dried outdoors in a gentle breeze. My crab apple in full bloom on a warm, sunny day fills the air with its scent, appreciated not just by me but also the bees which descend en masse to devour the nectar.

Syringa meyeri ‘Josee’

My mission to add more scent to the garden was helped somewhat by a visit to the RHS Great London Plant Fair last week. It was a coincidence (honestly) that I happened to be in London that day anyway. It was my first visit to a London plant fair and I was impressed. I would have liked there to be more nurseries in the Lindley Hall but overall there was a good selection of plants and at reasonable prices. The big dilemma was how much I could safely carry and keep alive on the long journey home. Among my quarry were Syringa meyeri ‘Josee’  and Viola cornuta ‘Victoria’s Blush’. I adore lilacs. There are several ways I can get to my allotment but I deliberately walk the route which takes me past a huge unkempt lilac, just so I can have a quick smell of the intoxicating aroma. I’ve always wanted one of my own but I have been a bit put off by the size of many of the varieties. So the smaller, more compact variety Syringa meyeri ‘Josee’ took my eye. A height and spread of 1.5m will make it ideal for my already cramped garden. I’m a huge fan of violas, particularly the perennial varieties. These trouble-free plants have a long flowering season. A purple Viola cornuta lines my borders producing a low-growing carpet of foliage and for several months delicate scented flowers. Cut back hard in mid-summer it gives a second showing into autumn. It does self-sow in cracks and crevices but I don’t hold that against it. For such a little flower Viola cornuta produces a heady fragrance, best on a still balmy evening.

Viola cornuta ‘Victoria’s Blush’

This little beauty was on the Victorian Violas stand. Its pale pink flowers caught my eye but it was the scent that won me over. I could have left with more if I’d had another pair of hands, luckily though it’ll self-sow once established. As ever, it would be fantastic if you would join in this meme – posting on your own blog (leave a link here) or leaving a comment about what its scented in your garden this month. I’m really loving discovering new scented plants and celebrating all that is fabulously fragrant.

British Flowers Week – Book Giveaway

Tags

British Flowers Week, The Cut Flower Patch

Just a quick post to thank everyone who entered last week’s book giveaway for a copy of my book The Cut Flower Patch. The lucky winner is Rachel the Gardener. Congratulations! A book should be winging its way to you soon.

The Cut Flower Patch winner

British Flowers Week and a Competition

Tags

British flowers, British Flowers Week, flower petal confetti, Flowers from the Farm, grow your own cut flowers, New Covent Garden Market, Our Flower Patch, The British Flower Collective, The Cut Flower Patch

Flowers from my cut flower patch

Well I couldn’t let British Flowers Week pass by without a post. This is the second year of the celebration of British grown flowers, an idea devised by the New Covent Garden Flower Market, the main hub of flower trading in the UK. The idea is to raise awareness about the choice and availability of home-grown blooms and foliage in a market dominated by imports.

My own cut flower patch is burgeoning at the moment. There’s love-in-a-mist, linaria, alchemilla, achillea, candytuft, ammi and pinks. I picked so many sweet Williams the other night that I gave bunches of them away to passers-by on the way home from the allotment, and at home there aren’t many surfaces left which don’t have vases on them. Even so my scale of production, a few beds on my allotment, is tiny compared to the new breed of artisan flower farmers springing up across the country. Certainly there seems to be a renewed interest in locally grown flowers, particularly with couples planning their wedding but there’s still a lot to be done to change the attitudes of the flower buying public, florists and supermarkets if we’re to reduce the amount of flowers brought to these shores from abroad. My local supermarket has a selection of British flowers for sale at the moment but it’s still only a few buckets in amongst the ubiquitous roses, lilies and carnations. It’s such a pity when I know what they could offer.

So here are a few ways you too could support British Flowers Week:

Look for British Flowers at the supermarket, there should be stocks, sweet William and sweet peas for sale at the moment. If they don’t have any ask the customer services desk why not.

When buying from a florist ask them about where their flowers come from. It’s surprising how many don’t know as most are shipped across from the flower auctions in Holland. I asked a florist in April if they could source British flowers, she seemed a bit stumped and then said she couldn’t because the weather in Britain isn’t good enough to grow flowers at that time of year. But what about the tulips, daffodils, scented narcissi, ranunculus and irises which were all being grown in April by small-scale British flower growers? If more of us ask for British flowers it will encourage florists to source them.

Search for a local grower. There are two fantastic websites The British Flower Collective and Flowers from the Farm which list flower growers across the country from Scotland to Cornwall.

Encourage your local school to start growing flowers. There’s a renewed desire amongst parents and those involved in education to get children outdoors and to get them to connect with nature. Our Flower Patch is a fantastic education resource aimed at primary schools and youth groups. It combines growing cut flowers with teaching elements from the National Curriculum and gives schools the chance to earn some much-needed money too from the sales of any flowers.

If you’re going to a wedding this summer buy British grown flower confetti or make your own – it’s surprising simple.

Picked fresh this morning from my allotment

And finally, try growing your own flowers for cutting. Incorporate them into your garden or devote a special patch to cut flowers. It’s a rewarding experience which is fantastic for wildlife – providing pollen and nectar for insects, and it will go some way to reducing your carbon footprint. You’ll have a much greater choice of flowers available to you rather than the limited selection at your local supermarket and they’ll be super fresh. Whilst it might be a bit late to start a cut flower patch from scratch for this year, now is the perfect time to start planning for next year by sowing biennials and perennials.

To celebrate British Flowers Week a copy of my book The Cut Flower Patch is up for grabs. I know Christmas is a long way off, I’m sorry I even mentioned the word, but here’s a chance to cross a present off your list, even before summer is out!!

You need to live in the UK or Ireland to enter. If you’d like to be in with a chance of wining a copy then leave a comment stating that you’d like to be included in the draw. The competition will close at midnight on Friday 20th June. Wellyman will draw a name from a hat (he has a bit of a hat addiction so he’s got plenty to choose from) on Saturday 21st June. Please make sure I have an email contact for you so I can let you know if you’re the lucky winner.  Good Luck!

 

At Last – It’s Publication Day

Tags

Cinead McTernan, Jason Ingram, Kitchen Garden Experts, seed sowing, The Cut Flower Patch

So today is the day when my book is published. It feels like an age since I put the idea together and emailed it to a handful of publishers. I guess that’s because it is. It takes a relatively long time to put together a book with all its different stages. From idea to publication The Cut Flower Patch has taken 3 months short of 2 years, so to say I’m pleased the day has finally arrived is an understatement.

Tulips make stunning cut flowers

I have read some very lovely reviews and I’m over the moon that people seem to love the book. It really does make the hard work, sleepless nights and tearing my hair out at the weather worthwhile.

If you’d like a peek at some of the gorgeous images from the book to whet your appetite here’s a link to photographer Jason Ingram’s website. Whilst you’re there take a look at his own book Kitchen Garden Experts, created with his wife Cinead McTernan, which will be out on May 1st. Whilst Jason was working on my book he was also travelling the length and breadth of the country visiting the kitchen gardens of some of Britain’s best chefs and their head gardeners. Their book is a brilliant combination of growing tips and delicious recipes direct from the experts.

So if you love flowers, fancy filling you home with flowery gorgeousness and want to embrace the seasons rather than relying on imported blooms then hopefully my book will provide some inspiration.

Right, enough self-publicity, I’m off to sow some seeds. x

To order The Cut Flower Patch at the discounted price of £16.00 including p&p* (RRP: £20.00), telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG101. 

 

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

If you’re in North America you can find The Cut Flower Patch at Amazon.com

The Grumps

Tags

Crocus 'Cream Beauty', forcing bulbs, slug damage, The Cut Flower Patch

It’s raining again

I’m grumpy. I am sat here at my desk writing, with the rain and wind lashing against the window, wondering if this weather will ever stop. I can’t remember the last time I saw sunshine. It has been the wettest January for a hundred years in parts of the south. No mention of how Wales has fared yet but if someone tries to tell me there has been a wetter January …. well it just can’t be possible. A simple 5 minute walk to the post office or to pick some vegetables from the plot requires head to toe waterproofing and I am sick of looking like a trawlerman every time I need to leave the house. I’m even fed up of having to wear my beloved wellies. I’m not just grumpy with the weather I’m grumpy with myself for constantly banging on about the weather. As I commented to Flighty the other day, I’ve started to bore myself.

My muppet-like crocus

Back in the autumn I planted up a variety of bulbs for indoors. The narcissi, hippeastrum and hyacinths have all been and gone now but I planted up some crocus too. I love crocuses and their cheery flowers but hate the fact that they seem so easily damaged by the weather. I have found the best compromise is to fill some small clay pots with bulbs, put these in the greenhouse and when there are signs of greenery bring them indoors. They flower a little earlier with the extra protection, last so much longer,and I get to enjoy their flowers from the warmth of my kitchen. Well, that is if you get to them before the slugs do. Slugs in January, now that just made me even grumpier. The distinctive silvery trail ran across the top of the pots and the crocus stumps they had left behind. I’ve also discovered this odd phenomenon where some of the petals seem to have not developed properly but the distinctive orange stamens have poked out. It makes them look like mini versions of Beaker from the Muppets. Has anyone noticed this before? It doesn’t look as if I can attribute the blame for this to the slugs. Fortunately, some of the pots were untouched and I now have the flowers of Crocus ‘Cream Beauty’ appearing unscathed, so all is not lost and it looks like ‘Snow Bunting’ and some of the ‘Barr’s Purple’ have survived too. A couple of crocus in the garden have reared their heads but they really shouldn’t have bothered as they look forlorn and mud splattered at the moment.

Crocus ‘Cream Beauty’

The real delight of bringing plants like crocuses indoors is that you get to look at them close up. It’s hard to get close to something that might only be 10cm tall when it’s growing in the garden. In a pot on my window sill I can see the delicate markings on the petals but best of all I have discovered that crocus have a scent. You need to get right into the flower to catch a whiff of the perfume but it’s worth it. It isn’t a scent which permeates a room, which is a pity, but every time I pass by, I stop to have a sniff, and it’s enough to lift the spirits.

Some plants in the garden haven’t escaped winter slug damage. The flowers of snowdrops have been nibbled too, as have some primroses. It all makes me wonder about climate change and gardening. In 2012, we had no summer to speak of. Instead we had grey skies, cold days and lots of rain. Last year we had no real spring with cold days lingering on well into June. I remember vividly that first week in July felt as if we went from winter to summer. My memory of this is so good because I needed an extension on the deadline for my photographs for the book I was writing. It’s hard to conjure up summer when you haven’t had one yet. And, so far, we are yet to have a winter. No real frost, no snow and interminable amounts of rain. I’m wondering what 2014 and beyond are going to bring. Will we ever get to garden this year or should we start to farm cranberries?

The Cut Flower Patch

As well as the appearance of the crocuses something else which managed to lighten my mood was the arrival of an advance copy of my book. A small number of books arrived just after Christmas, ready to go out as review copies to newspapers and magazines. The rest will arrive in the coming weeks, closer to the date of publication. I knew the book was on the way, so when I saw a parcel in the postman’s hand and the label of my publisher on the envelope I got a little excited. I know it might seem a little odd that I sound surprised I got excited about it, but I am. I have seen the images and text so much over the course of the last year that I feel like I know them inside out, so I did wonder whether it would be a bit of a let down when the book finally arrived. I’m pleased to say that wasn’t the case, and to see it all together, as a finished product, did make me grin in a slightly inane manner for quite a while. Wellyman, bless him is actually reading the book, even though he must feel like he knows it all inside out too.

It’s been quite cathartic to write about my grumpiness but I can’t put off the inevitable any longer. I have kale to pick and it appears to still be raining so where are those waterproofs…..

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.