Where, oh where did May go? No sooner had it started than June was upon us. Now it’s midsummer, the longest day is almost here, and I am way behind with my garden diary. As I explained to our allotment neighbour at the weekend, May is a month where doing takes priority over writing about doing ….. and there’s been an awful lot of doing both here at The Watch House and on the allotment. So much that I’ve split May’s diary in two.

Together with the ever-tolerant Beau, I’ve tackled jobs that would have been left indefinitely had I not had the benefit of the extra time bestowed upon us by working from home and cancellation of the Chelsea Flower Show. Interestingly I felt more relief than loss at Chelsea 2020’s demise. More time for real, hands-on gardening is always a gift.

Judging by our experience of shopping for plants, compost and other gardening materials during our incarceration, we are not alone in having more time to spend outside. While others have been saving, I’ve been sating my appetite for plants by shopping online. The results have been very mixed and there will be full disclosure in my next post. Long delays and stock shortages seem to be the norm. I have been waiting 2 months for deliveries from Primrose (still waiting) and Sarah Raven, reaching the point where I no longer have room for what I ordered but have not the heart to cancel.

The Beau and I literally jumped for joy when garden centres reopened, not least because it provided us with an excuse to venture out in the car again. Our local garden centre was among the first to open, but after a deluge of customers had no terracotta pots left and only multipurpose compost, although plenty of it …. for the time being.

Plants and mail order are not easy bedfellows. No amount of bold or witty ‘This Way Up’ labelling is going to penetrate the consciousness of the average delivery person. We have had some beautifully prepared parcels arrive from Cornwall (Treseders) and Wales (Dibleys). They were packed with such care and attention that any damage could only be blamed on the carrier. We have also received some absolute shockers. I’ll name no names here, but Covid 19 offers no excuse for packages that have no hope of making it to the recipient in a respectable condition. And why, oh why, does everyone seem to hand parcels over to the Royal Mail on a Thursday when they know they won’t deliver them until Monday? Several humid boxes packed with lightly mashed specimens have arrived at The Watch House after five warm days in transit. The contents have required the horticultural equivalent of the kiss of life, followed by careful nursing administered by yours truly. It is no wonder that until the current crisis only 5% of plants were sold online in the UK. I imagine many gardeners are overjoyed to get back into nurseries and garden centres now that it’s safe and practical to do so.

Meanwhile I am trying to buy ferns and lily bulbs online and am finding most specialist nurseries have sold out of their choicest cultivars. It’s hard to tell if this indicates a bumper spring or whether nurseries have simply struggled to propagate and prepare plants for sale. For so many sectors this has been an unimaginably tough time and particularly so for horticulture where timing is everything, margins are slim and many people are in it for the love rather than the financial reward. We must all do our bit to support small nurseries and growers as lockdown is lifted, for our own future benefit as much as theirs.

Back to May and I’m afraid I was very slack when it came to keeping a record of what I did and when. I will no doubt regret that in due course, but I never regret seizing the moment. This spring broke many records in terms of sunshine hours, but the record to trump them all is that May 2020 was the sunniest calendar month ever recorded in this country, with 266 hours of sunshine, beating the previous record of 265 hours in June 1957. Here in Broadstairs we did rather better than average with 322 hours. That’s over ten hours of sunshine every day. Here’s how we took advantage of the uniquely un-British weather.

Friday 1st

I firmly believe that preparation is everything, hence we have been putting an enormous amount of effort into readying the allotment for planting. Sometimes I look at the expanse of brown and wonder what the hell we’ve been doing, but the answer lies beneath the surface. Three trailer-loads of five-year-old horse manure dealt with half the plot and the rest has been steadily improved by incorporating compost made from wool and bracken. As manure and compost have been gently distributed through the soil by an army of worms we have noticed a profound difference in texture, water retention and colour. The earth at the allotment is generally light in colour with a tendency to dry to a fine powder on the surface. The additional organic matter has rendered it darker, richer and easier to work.

We begin the month by planting the cut-flower beds with calendulas, helichrysums, cleome and salvias. It’s a little early but the weather is set fair and the plants have been hardening off for weeks. It’s good to furnish the carefully prepared beds with plants and to fuss over the tiny green plumes of foliage.

Saturday 2nd

The Jungle Garden is now a riot of colour. Five Geranium maderense plants – three pink and two white – are pumping out clouds of blossom against a backdrop of Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’. A Beschorneria yuccoides that had been shaded for far too long is producing two enormous coral-pink spikes that will soon bear hundreds of coral and green flowers. It’s an unconvential scene, but we embrace all kinds here at The Watch House.

Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th

May is change-over month in our two gardens; a phasing out of tulips and other spring bulbs in tandem with the steady introduction of tender tropicals. How fast the process goes is dependent on the weather and our energy levels: if either is lacking we very quickly fall behind. In such a confined space, getting everything in the right place is rather like solving a rubik’s cube. The only way to solve it is a little at a time, responding to when each plant is over and another ready to take its place. The process of summerfication is normally complete by the end of June.

The garden table is now completely covered by dahlias grown from tubers and with seedlings being hardened off. How I’d love to have space for cold frames so that we could keep the gardens free from clutter, but having plants close at hand means we can keep an eye on them and judge when they’re ready to be planted out. Of course we have grown far too much, but rather that than not enough.

We remove all the yellowing tulips from the raised bed and take them to the compost heap. The soil in the bed is dry and light so we add as much farmyard manure as we can without it tumbling over the sides. When these beds were first made the soil level was well below the top. Now I have to create a ridge in the middle if I want to mulch. We want to make sure the raised bed is not obscured this year, so there will be no gingers on this side of the garden and we’ll put much more effort into planting it up.

Wednesday 13th

Whilst I’ve been working at home I have been trying to join The Beau on his afternoon dog walk as often as I can. As a result I have seen as much of Broadstairs over the last two months as I have seen in the preceding fourteen years. It has been wonderful marvelling at the bridal whiteness of hawthorn trees in St Peter’s churchyard, to watch the carnival of flowers that appear on the cliff edge and to catch the long forgotten scent of honeysuckle in the hedgerows.

There are some very attractive front gardens along our walking routes, but many that are less so. The BBC reports that access to a garden is now the number one requirement for anyone wishing to buy or rent a property. Turns out that a well-tended garden is more likely to sell a home than a fancy kitchen or bathroom. It will be interesting to see if this raises the standard of gardens across the country and puts those homeowners who elect to turn their front gardens into ecological deserts at a disadvantage. One can only hope so.

Friday 15th

It was a lovely surprise to receive an email telling me that the short film made at The Watch House in 2018 was to be repeated on tonight’s episode of Gardener’s World. It is strange to see myself without a beard after two years! Sadly the repeat coincides with a tribute to Monty’s charismatic sidekick Nigel, who passed away earlier this week. The presenter’s gentle canine companion charmed and amused us all each Friday night and will be sorely missed by viewers. Our own dogs are not so much interested in gardening, but like Nigel they love to doze in the sun, trot around behind us or play with a random stick. We’d be lost without them. Our thoughts go out to Monty and his family.

You can watch the episode on the BBC website here or on You Tube below. The segments begins around thirteen minutes into the programme.

Saturday 16th

I try not to mix work with pleasure, but just occasionally the two worlds collide. As part of an initiative called ‘Feel Good Friday’ our press team at John Lewis & Partners asked me to make a short video about how to look after houseplants. After a little coaxing The Beau agreed to be my camera man and we recorded about twenty minutes of footage which was quickly edited into the video below. It’s a little on the pacy side and some of the sense of what I was saying got lost in the editing process, but considering we’re both amateurs it’s not a bad job.

Sadly the Streptocarpus saxorum behind me in the opening shot decided to hurl itself onto the floor a couple of weeks later, crushing everything beneath it. It’s now been repotted and given a brutal haircut, so it may be a little while before it looks this good again. Meanwhile I have acquired four new Streptocarpus since lockdown – S. ‘Harlequin Lace’, ‘Polka-Dot Purple’, ‘Falling Stars’ and ‘Crystal Ice’ – all from Dibleys. They are together on the hearth in the library covered in flowers and giving us daily pleasure, especially on days when we can’t get outside.

Coming soon, Part II, our Grand Spring Staycation and yet another glorious Bank Holiday. TFG.

I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with myself for posting so infrequently. Okay, so I no longer have a long commute to London and I can’t wait to get out from behind my laptop at the end of each working day, but surely there must be time to draft a post or two? Seemingly not. Then it came to me in a flash during my first post-lockdown haircut: I’ve been setting myself up for failure. My posts have been getting longer and more ambitious, to the extent that they now need a day or two to complete. I simply don’t have that amount of free time. The prospect of summarising a month in one go is so daunting that ultimately I have shied away from doing so. That’s not good. Hence I am going back to where I began with short, off-the-cuff posts, illustrated with decent pictures, that I can complete in a couple of hours. It works for me and I hope it works for you too.

As you might imagine, plants have been flooding through The Watch House’s gates at the fastest rate ever. A tsunami would be a more accurate description of the flow. A glass of wine in one hand and a mobile device in the other is a recipe for shopping and I have not been found wanting in the impulse department.

At one time I owned just a single brugmansia (datura in old money, angel’s trumpet in common parlance), a sorry plant which I rescued from my local garden centre. It had been left for dead by the petunia-buying public: I generally have eye for plants other folk overlook. I didn’t really know what the plant required so it was consigned to the greenhouse where it produced a few enormous coral-pink blooms that were quickly mutilated by snails. Despite my ignorance, my first brugmansia survives to this day, which says something about how easy they are to grow provided a few key needs are met.

The Beau bought with him multiple specimens of Brugmansia x candida ‘Grand Marnier’, an old faithful, which looked to me like chubby sticks with a handful of anemic leaves sprouting from the top. They were shoved in the back passage for the summer and not a single one flowered. Then we spotted a variegated shoot at the bottom of one of the chubby sticks which The Beau recalled might be a cultivar named ‘Sunset’. We removed it, grew it on over winter indoors and then hardened it off in the greenhouse. Taking pity on the tiny shoot, I’ve meticuluously fed and repotted it until all of a sudden it has become a magnificent plant with enormous grey-green, ivory-edged leaves. Each one is the length of my forearm.

Spurred on by my success with ‘Sunset’ and the rude health of last year’s ugly ducklings I turned to Jungle Plants to increase my collection. For starters I chose Brugmansia sanguinea and Brugmansia ‘Super Spot’. They arrived, beautifully packaged, a fortnight later. Happily B. sanguinea was already covered in buds (I feel like such a cheat!) so I potted it up pronto and positioned it by our outdoor kitchen sink on an upturned pot to keep it out of snails’ reach. Within days the first yellow trumpet had unfurled, blushing pale orange at the tip. The Beau reckoned the flowers should be much redder. Lo and behold, the next two blooms have had much stronger colouration. They are beautiful, mango and pineapple sorbet perfection. Although there’s no scent and I can’t claim to have grown it, I am chuffed to bits with my new Brugmansia sanguinea.

Anything from Jungle Plants tends to be a little pricey but worth every penny for the quality. It’s so true that you get what you pay for. Sadly Jungle Plants are not offering as many plants as they once did, but the seeds are always worth checking out. The instructions that accompanied my plants filled significant gaps in my knowledge. I did not know, for example, that brugmansias will not flower until their main stem has forked to form a ‘Y’ shape. I also didn’t know that organic pesticides containing pyrethrum will kill them. I’m glad I spotted that before I got trigger happy! I was aware that brugmansias were greedy feeders but not that I should feed them heavily, twice a week.

The results of copious amounts of liquid seaweed being applied are already clear to see. Those chubby, ugly, translucent-looking sticks are now vigorous plants covered with lush, felty leaves and promising flower buds. I wish I had known that it was so easy to turn my plants around. Unfortunately the incessant wind over the last fortnight, often laden with salt and sometimes sand where I live, has burned some of the larger and more exposed leaves, but this will be of little consequence since they grow back so quickly.

Of course I am now considering where I might squeeze in another brugmansia or two and am imagining huge pots on the allotment with tree-like specimens like those at East Ruston Old Vicarage in Norfolk. What a dream that would be. Someone confiscate my credit card!

Naturally I would encourage anyone with a sheltered garden and an adventurous spirit to give brugmansias a try. Most enjoy our relatively cool summers, actually refusing to flower in hotter climes. They can be overwintered in a shed or garage without light until spring arrives, or kept going in a conservatory or greenhouse. However, it would be remiss of me not to point out that all brugmansias contain tropane alkaloids of similar toxicity to deadly nightshade, so they should be treated with caution and not eaten by adults, children or pets. I always wash my hands after touching my brugmansias, which doesn’t feel like such a chore when one is doing it every five minutes anyway.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this more pithy post. It’s been a breeze to write so I’ve definitely made the breakthrough I needed. See you soon. TFG.

It is official, we won’t go hungry this summer! Harvesting on the allotment has well and truly begun, especially the crop of courgettes, and we are eating more of our home-grown produce every day.

Previously I mentioned our salad crops and I can most definitely confirm that we are now eating plenty of fresh leaves. All those lettuce that TFG planted have plumped up, grown up and been pulled up. He’s sown more, however, I am more than happy to be eating a mountain of lettuce if it’s accompanied by something delicious on our outdoor grill. Isn’t that what summer meals are all about, especially when you’ve grown the veg yourself?

It would appear that we have grown some rather high-yielding courgette plants: the varieties are ‘Atena Polka‘ and ‘Sunstripe‘, both yellow cultivars. In the last week we have cropped thirteen fruit. I’m going to need to consult every cookbook I own in order to rustle up interesting menu options using courgettes. I particularly enjoy making chutneys and pickles but our tomatoes are not yet ripe and I don’t want to buy them when they’re growing on the allotment – I shall be patient…

Another crop we’ve been enjoying is beetroot. We sowed a packet of mixed colours and we’ve just cropped the traditional red along with white, gold and striped. Apart from a handful of white beetroot that I roasted for dinner (TFG confirms they were de-li-cious!), the rest of the crop were pickled. We have already sown another batch and they too are almost ready to be eaten.

My absolute favourite sandwich in all the world is fresh, thickly-sliced white bread stuffed with mature cheddar cheese, sliced pickled beetroot and lashings of mayonnaise. I can assure you that once the pickled beetroot is ready I will be enjoying that first sandwich of the season – my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

On the day that we cropped the beetroot, I also thinned out and cropped Swiss chard. I have grown the ‘Peppermint’ variety for a number of years, simply for the colour: it has bright neon-pink and white stems. However, I must confess that until this year I have never eaten any. Instead I have grown it, cropped it and given it away under the misapprehension that I wouldn’t like the taste. Well, how wrong can one man be?! We had Swiss chard simply steamed in a recipe with roasted white beetroot and it was delicious, We don’t talk about the rest of that particular meal: I didn’t know one could create lentil porridge until that evening … don’t ask!

Vegetables currently creating excitement and discussion on the allotment are the Tromboncino squash. They are romping away, producing lots of fruit as they go. Okay, they do look a little bit rude even to the non-smutty mind. Yes, they do grow very quickly and sowing more than half a dozen plants may have been a bit overzealous. No, I wouldn’t change a thing. They are super plants; one of my favourites on the allotment. Every day they grow around a foot or so, if not more, casting their long-reaching tendrils as they go, clinging to the frame we built and steadily getting higher and higher and higher. It’s the stuff that inspired Jack-and-the-beanstalk! During the summer you can treat Tromboncino as a courgette, picking when young and small. Later you can also leave them to ripen on the vine and use them as winter squash. They’re related to butternuts and their flesh tastes nutty so we are looking forward to eating them.

It’s not just edibles that are currently cropping. Our cut flowers are covered in blooms, in particularly the gladioli. I say ‘cut flowers’, but neither TFG or I can actually bring ourselves to pick the flowers and bring them home, preferring instead to leave them to the bees and butterflies, of which we seem to have many. Only yesterday we sat watching clouds of large white, orange-tip and meadow brown butterflies perusing the plot, along with some gigantic bumble bees.

As well as butterflies, the plot is currently smothered in ladybirds. They are everywhere and on everything. We have had a plague of black aphids and so the presence of ladybirds is welcome. They will hopefully consume their fill of the little blighters. We also appear to have a population of frogs that shelter under the shed. As they enjoy a meal of slugs or snails, they are also very welcome to stay as long as they like. Being on an allotment we are both mindful of the wildlife that frequents the area and are keen that we don’t harm the delicate ecosystem that we share with them. However, getting Millie to stop chasing foxes is going to take some time.

Last, but by no means least, there are dahlias. Oh my Lord, how I love them, but you already know that. It was my intention to devote an entire blog post to these wonderful blooms, however, I am pretty sure that TFG is going to show you all the flowers we are currently enjoying at the allotment. Instead I will leave you with the image below. It was supposed to be ‘Cafe au Lait Royale’, however, it plainly isn’t. Does it matter? When a bloom looks this good, who cares what it’s called? It is currently my favourite flower on the allotment. Once we know it’s name, will be one of my favourite Dahlia varieties. It is glorious!

I still have to remind myself that we have only had the plot since January of this year. When I stand in the middle of it, surrounded by vegetables and flowers that we have grown, some of them towering over me, it fills me with a sense of accomplishment and pride. Every time I visit I say to myself, ‘…we did this, we grew all of this and it looks fantastic!…‘ and it does, it really does.

Happy Gardening One and All.

The Beau.

As you know, we both adore dahlias: sadly they don’t adore our garden. Dahlias appreciate a little elbow room and plenty of sunshine to grow well, neither of which they readily find at The Watch House. One recent garden visitor, pointing to Dahlia ‘Firepot’, exclaimed ‘everything looks so healthy …… apart from this poor thing!’. I might have been offended had I not agreed entirely: ‘Firepot’ looked sick and pale. It has taken me several years to come to terms with the changing conditions in our garden since I love to see those big, colourful blooms emerging from a mass of banana leaves. The truth is that behind those colourful blooms lie tall, straggly plants searching for the sun and often looking threadbare at the bottom.

Gaining an allotment gave us the opportunity to relocate and build our dahlia collection successfully. We started off with a dozen varieties overwintered as tubers, including ‘Honka Fragile’, ‘Verrone’s Obsidian’, ‘American Dawn’, ‘Nicholas’, ‘Firepot’ and ‘Bacardi’, all old favourites. To these we added another sixteen cultivars from Sarah Raven which arrived as tubers in mid March. Being unable to control ourselves we then went on to place an order for a dozen cuttings from the National Dahlia Collection in Cornwall. At no stage had we made any plans for where to put them all, either in the earlier stages of growth or later on. This is very much the way things happen here and I imagine in many other gardens around the world. Hence one dahlia bed at the allotment turned into four, plus a row of pots and perhaps another one to come ……

It’s been eye-opening comparing the performance of our dahlias on the allotments versus the garden, and observing those grown from cuttings rather than from tubers. You may have seen our live dahlia tour on Sunday, which illustrates how healthy and happy they are looking in their new home. (The quality of the video is poor to begin with but improves later on. Sadly allotments do not come with WIFI!)

Our allotment is bright and relatively exposed with free-draining, chalk soil. Our once lanky dahlias have grown stout and bushy thanks to several rounds of pinching out. This has resulted in them flowering a little later than anticipated, but they are more robust plants for it. The tubers we overwintered have made enormous, floriferous plants very quickly; one can spot the mature plants a mile off. But the dahlias grown from cuttings that didn’t arrive until early June have mostly caught up with with any tubers planted in March. Some are substantially bigger.

We prepared the ground well before planting, digging in well-rotted horse manure and adding a generous scattering of blood, fish and bone at the time of planting. Subsequently I have given an occasional liquid seaweed feed, but there’s probably ample goodness in the soil to see them through to the autumn.

So far we’ve kept on top of the deadheading. This will become a bigger chore as summer changes to autumn and our dahlias produce more blooms. Although better for pollinators, single dahlia flowers do not last long and need regular checking for spent blooms. I prefer to deadhead at the first sign of petals falling from the back of the flower – I have a real hatred of decay and disorder – whereas The Beau prefers to hang on and enjoy each bloom to the very last. Neither approach is wrong, the main thing is to stop the plant from producing seed and thinking it’s done its job.

As in most aspects of gardening we are novices, not experts. Growing sixty dahlias on an allotment is very different to growing a dozen in pots in the garden; what we’d really like is a field full of them. We are learning all the time. Pest control has been easier than we anticipated, thanks to a population of frogs we have recently discovered living under our shed. They have been chomping through a large proportion of the slugs and snails that typically frustrate gardeners’ attempts at growing dahlias. We had a very brief plague of black fly which was swiftly dealt with by a rescue squad of ladybirds. Rather than taking action with chemicals I am glad we waited to see what our little red friends could achieve. As for earwigs we watch and wait, but none so far.

Our support system is something of an experiment. Rather than staking each individual dahlia with a cane or post we have made a kind of framework using tree stakes and twine. I already regret using natural, cream-coloured sisal for the smaller beds as it is much too visible – you will see it clearly in some of the photographs. However green jute twine is easily snipped through whilst deadheading. Thanks to fine weather our dahlias have grown short and strong and we’ve had no wind or heavy rain to really test the efficacy of the framework. My hunch is that it could be a lot better, but it seems good enough for now. We’d love to receive tips from anyone who has to stake a lot of dahlias in a cost-conscious way.

As I write about 60% of our dahlias are blooming. The other 40% are dahlias grown from cuttings or acquired in early summer. These will start flowering by the end of the month, continuing into November if we are lucky. I have managed to post a ‘Dahlia of the Day’ on my Instagram account for over a month now, and hope to be able to continue for another month without repeating myself too often. Many of those images are repeated in this post, but if you’d like to see more, please give me a follow.

Dahlias are one of the most rewarding plants one can grow in a garden provided one can offer them the right conditions and are prepared to be vigilant when it comes to slugs and snails. They will flower for months on end, from June until the first frosts, never letting up. The number of cultivars runs into the tens of thousands with new introductions every year. Each country seems to have is own portfolio of dazzling dahlias so don’t be surprised if some of those I’ve mentioned are not available where you live.

Not all cultivars are good, but there are sufficient for you to find your own favourites. The only colour that does not feature in the dahlia colour palette is blue, and thank goodness for that! Dahlias will happily grow in pots provided they are well fed and watered. Although very far from being native, single-flowered dahlias are highly attractive to bees, supplying them with nourishment well into autumn.

If you’ve not grown dahlias before, or feel inspired to grow more next year, then early spring is the time to place your orders for tubers and rooted cuttings. If you happen to be in Cornwall, then a trip to the National Dahlia Collection at Varfell Farm is a must. You’ll be met with a 2 acre display of 1600 or more dahlias which will dazzle you with the sheer variety and brilliance of this dazzling flower family. TFG.

“Growing your own produce is great if you want no food, then 400 tomatoes, then nothing, then 120 cucumbers, then nothing, then 3 carrots that weren’t eaten by the local wildlife, then 40 weird looking courgettes, of which only 3 are edible.”

This quote pretty accurately describes where we are right now with our allotment. We are most definitely in the midst of a glut, particularly of tomatoes. We have grown A LOT. In the last month I have turned 10kg of ‘Tigerella’ and ‘San Marzano Plum’ into pasta sauce. We’ve even considered buying a third freezer to preserve it all. On top of that, we have also been cropping ‘Golden Crown’ and ‘Black Opal’. Who’s idea was it to plant almost 50 tomato plants? …. Errr, that would be me! I’m not hugely impressed with ‘Black Opal’. The fruits are fine but not outstanding. They take a little longer to ripen, the flesh is nice but the skins split very easily. ‘Golden Crown’, however, is a joy of a tomato, small, sweet and delicious to snack on whilst dead-heading the dahlias or watering the allotment – even Millie enjoys a tomato or two.

In July’s post I mentioned the courgette glut. Well, that continued for a while and then, all of a sudden, the plants were covered in mildew. This is a common occurrence in the squash family. I decided to cut off all the affected leaves and fruit and wait for them to flush up again, which they did. We have gone the other way now and instead of picking young courgettes we have been missing them and picking some monster marrows! I stuff them with a mince and vegetable mix, wrap them in foil and bake for an hour before serving on a bed of steamed, home-grown Cavolo Nero – delicious).

I have pickled more beetroot. This time I cropped all the white and golden ones together. In a jar of clear vinegar, they look rather appetising. I confess that I made a small error with the original jar of ruby beetroot. Instead of a teaspoon of pickling spice I used a tablespoon. If anyone would like the roof of their mouth blown off by some rather fiery beetroot, please do let me know as I don’t think we will be eating them. However, I cannot bring myself to waste them. I just need to work out how to ‘soften the blow’ – any ideas, readers?

The Tromboncino squash continue to cause a stir with passers-by, particularly ladies of a certain age and pretty much all the male folk. We have eaten a few and really enjoyed their dense, nutty flesh. But, as the days get shorter, I have taken the decision to leave some on the vine and let them turn into autumn squash. What I did not consider is that they would become monsters: they are huge! One of them must almost four feet long. I am particularly looking forward to roasting them or making soup. I am hoping the extra time on the vine will increase their flavour. I will definitely be growing Tromboncini again next year. They have quickly become a favourite of mine on the allotment for their easiness, their rampant growth, their size, their taste and, of course, the humorous comments and gasps they elicit.

The gladioli have almost finished now. We are still enjoying the blooms of G. ‘Sancerre’; a beautiful, big, white variety. All the others are over and gradually dying back.

Our zinnias have been a joy and a pleasure: I forgot how long the flowers last. We’ll definitely grow more of these beauties next year. (I’d personally like a bed devoted to zinnias, but I think that would be a waste in terms of production). For me, zinnias are second only to dahlias.

Apart from the crimson-red flowers, the broad beans were utterly disappointing. As soon as the pods appeared it seemed as though every black fly in the country descended upon them in plague proportions. They were never the same after this onslaught, although we tried in vain to rescue them. I think it’s fair to say that we won’t be growing broad beans again – who eats them anyway? (I’d like to but I don’t think my life would be less so for not eating them and, from a positive point of view, not having them means we can grow something else.) We did have success with runner beans and dwarf french beans, which we are still cropping, and they taste delicious too.

Another crop I don’t think I will try again is heritage sweetcorn. As with the broad beans, they were very disappointing. ‘Double Red’ didn’t produce many cobs and the stalks were very weak. We had a fair bit of wind during the summer and you could bet that when you got to the plot one or two of the ‘Double Red’ sweetcorn would have been blown over. I was filled with eager anticipation for ‘Mexican Giant White’. The higher the plants got and the bigger the cobs became, the more giddy with excitement I was. What a let-down they were. The plants look good, healthy and strong, standing about 8 feet tall, but the cobs are not great and they are not sweet at all; quite bitter in fact. I tried them but I won’t be trying again. The modern variety we grew was definitely much sweeter and more successful. However, I will be growing ‘Glass Gem’ corn next year for no other reason than that their multi-coloured cobs are a joy and a pleasure to look at. (Google them, you won’t be disappointed.)

As you may remember, we grew several varieties of potato – ‘Anya’, ‘Pink Fir Apple’, ‘Kestrel’ and ‘Cara’. We’ve been slowly eating our way through ‘Anya’, a salad potato, and they are very tasty. I would definitely grow them again. The other varieties are still in the ground and I am hoping they can stay there until such a time as we are ready to consume them. Please don’t ask about early, main or late crops, I’m a bit lazy in that department and just plant the potato I like the look of and that has a nice flower. I know it’s ridiculous, but I firmly believe you should plant what you like, not what you should, if that makes sense?!

Our allotment society has a Facebook page. Just recently, a member started a thread about the theft of her fruit; it was plums, if I remember correctly. This person was adamant that someone was taking all the fruit from the top of her tree, not the bottom where it would be easier to take them from. What a lot of allotmenteers fail to notice is that our site is full to the brim with wildlife. We have foxes, rodents, frogs and a large and varied bird population, including woodpeckers. I have seen foxes take corn cobs from the plants and wood pigeons strip brassicas in a matter of minutes if left unattended. So it is no surprise that a few days ago TFG and I stood watching a flock of ring-necked parakeets (an introduced species) snacking on the fruit trees in the allotment. To my utter joy they started perching on and eating our spent sunflower heads. I am and will always be happy to let these ‘thieves’ eat their fill, especially the birds. Not only are they getting a meal but I am being brought closer to nature. That can only be a good thing …. just don’t strip the crops bare, please!

Knowing how much I love dahlias, TFG bought me a wonderful gift this week – a book showing me how to hybridise and breed my own dahlias. I am already rather excited about choosing my first hybridising project. What colour will I choose, what size, what shape? I have caught myself already thinking of names for any successful hybrids that I might one day produce. The possibilities are endless and infinite. Watch this space!

Talking of which, I haven’t mentioned dahlias much so far. What can I say apart from that they are MAGNIFICENT! We are still enjoying lots of gorgeous blooms. Currently I am very much in love with ruby dinner-plate Dahlia ‘Spartacus’ …. he is a beauty and my favourite on the allotment. Other favourites include ‘Tartan’, ‘Taratahi Ruby’, ‘Ornamental Rays’, ‘Henriette’ and ‘Black Narcissus’. We are currently discussing the introduction of even more dahlias to the allotment in 2021. In my opinion you can never have enough, so this is obviously music to my ears. We are creating a wish list of varieties that we would like to grow and then we shall whittle them down to those we really want. If you’re interested, you can see more of our dahlia pictures on our Instagram pages. My account is ‘jmkna’ and, of course, TFG is ‘thefrustratedgardener’.

In other exciting news, TFG and I are currently finalising plans for our spring 2021 bulb display. That’s where I am off to now – I need to ensure that he’s included all the gaudy tulips I’ve chosen before he checks out.

Happy Gardening One and All!

The Beau.

Like many folk, we’ve barely spent a night away from home since the New Year. I love The Watch House with all my heart, but being there is not a holiday. Everywhere I look there’s a job to be done: a plant to be watered, a bulb to be planted, a wall to be painted or papers to be sorted. It is not relaxing to be taunted by tasks wherever one’s eye settles. I cannot rest until everything has been put in order, added to which recent storms have decimated both gardens and the allotment.

There is enough work to keep us both busy for an eternity, but just for now it can wait.

Our plan was to have a ‘proper’ holiday in September. That was then pushed half into October. As soon as it began I came down with flu; I knew it was coming the minute I boarded the train back from London on Friday night. Hence the first week was spent either sleeping, moping around, getting frustrated or over-exerting myself, delaying my recovery even further. As I improved, The Beau then developed symptoms, so all-in-all week one of our break was not a success.

Nothing other than a legal restriction was going to prevent us coming to Cornwall – we even made plans to circumvent that had the situation arisen – and now we are here we are glad we were steadfast in our resolve. After just one day we both feel happier and more relaxed; the dogs are in their element. There is nothing that must be done and just enough that could be done, which is how I like it. Where we are staying, in a croft-like space near Gunwalloe, there’s a stove, a simple kitchen, a cosy bed and enough books to keep us occupied for years. If we were not in such a beautiful spot, close to so many friends, we would not care to venture out.

Today we paid a visit to Trebah, a garden about which I have always had mixed feelings. The location on the Helford River is sublime of course, and the collection of mature plants, mostly woody ones, is stupendous. However Trebah lacks two thing for me – the personality that’s bestowed on a garden by a living creator and a certain level of attention to detail. It’s perhaps rather harsh to make judgements on the latter in any open garden this season, given what a struggle it has been to keep any enterprise going through the pandemic. Nevertheless we thoroughly enjoyed our visit, even the rain showers that added to the jungly atmosphere, and will doubtless be back again soon. (I think a springtime visit may go some way to improve my impression of the place.)

Back at Chyanvounder, which translates from Cornish rather disappointingly as ‘house on the lane’, I am relishing having time to read. I finished Tim Richardson’s freshly-baked account of Sissinghurst on day one and have started Arthur Parkinson’s ‘The Pottery Gardener’. Both are excellent reads.

From our host’s extensive library of vintage titles I plucked Margery Fish’s ‘Gardening on Clay and Lime’ (1970) and Stuart Dudley’s ‘Taking the Ache out of Gardening’ (1962). Frequently such elderly books become dated, not only in their language but also their advice, especially where machines or chemicals are involved. Margery Fish’s advice is expert and utterly timeless, whilst her writing style is concise, opinionated and approachable. ‘Gardening on Clay and Lime’ reads as well now as it did fifty years ago.

‘Taking the Ache out of Gardening’ might almost be considered ahead of its time, advocating the principles of ‘no-dig’ gardening within the first few pages. Mr Dudley lays out his ‘Magna Carta of streamlined cultivation’: no inversion of the soil, all fertilisers and manures in the surface layer and deep cultivation simple and seldom (if ever). This is why I enjoy rescuing old books – they are generally cheaper, better informed and less tainted by celebrity than anything one finds in a bookshop today. TFG.

Since the end of August the garden has taken one battering after another. In Broadstairs we have experienced gales from every point on the compass, heavy rain and unusually chilly nights. By the end of September both the Jungle Garden and the Gin & Tonic Garden looked more like they usually do in early November. Any hopes of an Indian summer were dashed by some of the soggiest October days since records began.

When conditions change for the worse in autumn, the garden quickly reaches the point of no return. In some ways this is a blessing. I stop stressing about everything looking picture-perfect and start to think about how I might sensitively manage the journey towards winter. The tenderest plants are steadily moved inside, others are cut back so that they don’t act like a sail in the wind, and others are introduced to keep the dream alive for a few more weeks. Late-flowering gingers, nerines, passion flowers, salvias and brugmansias are a godsend at this time of the year. They flourish in cooler, wetter conditions than we’ve enjoyed for many months. Some of the coleus are still good too, especially the smaller-leaved cultivars such as ‘Lord Falmouth’ and ‘Burgundy Wedding Train’. Those with larger leaves are already starting to look like ancient handkerchieves that have been boiled for too long. The limp and faded will soon be cleared to make way for bulb planting. Over the coming days I’ll need to find new homes for a growing collection of bromeliads, including the airplants that adorn the trees in the Jungle Garden. They are considerably more resilient outdoors than one might expect, but they won’t like it when it gets properly cold.

The allotment took the same pummelling as the garden. In some respects our plot, being on an open site, is more exposed and therefore more vulnerable in stormy weather. In other respects the lack of obstacles funnelling the wind and intensifying its strength is a blessing. Half the Jerusalem artichokes were toppled; one plant was lifted clean out of the ground, tubers and all. The main dahlia bed, planted three deep, was pushed over to one side with several plants broken or twisted at the base. No amount of staking was going to save them from 60mph winds from the north. This is enough to tear single blooms clean off their stems.

Our chrysanthemums and helichrysums have proved very resilient. I have not grown either since I was a teenager and it’s been great to reacquaint myself with these wonderful, long-lasting flowers. The chrysanthemums appear to be rudely happy on the allotment. Most were grown from cuttings delivered in June and they have made substantial plants. ‘Spider Bronze’ has yet to flower but is covered in buds, whilst ‘Blenda Purple’, ‘Dixter Orange’, ‘Bruno Bronze’, ‘Littleton Red, ‘Smokey Purple’ and ‘Patyon Blaze Red’ are all putting on a cheerful show. I know chrysanthemums are not everyone’s cup of tea. They’ve been cast into the horticultural shadows by dint of the their ubiquity, but surely they must be due a comeback soon? If dahlias can do it, so can chrysanthemums. Personally I love the scent, it’s one of the top notes in the bittersweet perfume of autumn. There will be more chrysanthemums next year, that’s for sure.

I was on the road for much of this week; in and out of the car, on and off with the wretched facemask, seeing people I’ve not seen for months. It was refreshing but I missed home. How quickly I have become used to staying put! On the journey through Hampshire I stopped off at Longstock Park Water Gardens, lovingly maintained by the John Lewis Partnership. I have visited these sublime gardens on the River Test many times, but always in May. It was marvellous to enjoy them in a different guise – a little scruffier, a little more natural, overblown and fading. Vistas were fuzzier and the water surface sprinkled with fallen oak leaves. As I progressed ducks landed clumsily in the chilly water and frogs plopped in to its shallow greyness from the slippery grassy banks. It was all splendidly magical, if a tad melancholy; a different perspective on a garden I thought I knew well.

Back at home my list of jobs to do in the garden is extensive. I’ve purchased more bulbs than ever before; what possessed me? Now I shall have to plant them at the same time as lifting dahlias, finding homes for ever-larger gingers and brugmansias, repairing the edges of allotment beds, clearing out the workshop and so on. The Beau sees a list on the dining room table and scuttles off in the opposite direction. Whatever I do I am always on the back foot in autumn. This year I don’t have the complication of being in China, so whatever I achieve over the next two weeks will be more than I would have accomplished normally. I shall press on with the soul aim of staying one step ahead of winter. By Christmas everything should be put to bed. TFG.

The first draft of this post began with a rather gloomy assessment of the year’s events. By the time I reached the third paragraph I had bored myself, which is never a good start. Besides, who really needs reminding of 2020’s shortcomings? Shortly after beginning again I learned of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory (was I the only one refreshing BBC news every 10 mins on Saturday?) and the post started to change course for the better. On the whole I have very little interest in politics and only the most tenuous relationship with the USA, but like millions of others I felt this election result mattered a great deal for the world; for democracy, for honesty, for civility and indeed for peace. My mood lifted and my mind instantly turned to spring and happier days ahead.

Here on the Isle of Thanet, where the North Sea meets the English Channel, it is finally time to clear away the summer exotics. It is backbreaking work, so we tend to do it over a series of weekends between now and the end of the year. Our mild, maritime climate means that we rarely experience frost before January, if at all, so we can afford to take our time. During the autumn gales rather than cold nights are the enemy of top-heavy plants, especially those with large, paddle-shaped leaves. The gingers and cannas had started to look especially raggedy so these were prioritised for removal this weekend. When they are ready for hibernation the ginger stems come away from the rhizomes in a most satisfactory manner, exuding a light, fresh, gingery perfume. This makes it a most enjoyable task, although lifting the heavy, contorted pots is slightly less fun. Gingers are happy to be stored somewhere dark, dry and frost free until late April, unless they are from warmer climes in which case they do not die back and should be overwintered in a cool greenhouse or conservatory. Cannas need cutting back to about 6 or 8 inches after lifting and should be given some moisture over winter as they don’t like to dry out completely. Three brugmansias are still flowering nicely. These have been moved to sheltered spots in the garden until they finally run out of steam. Brugmansia sanguinea is an absolute gem, its exotic appearance belying its preference for cooler temperatures.

Our biggest job in November is planting tulips. I went completely overboard with my bulb order this year, imagining that we might be able to open the garden in spring for a pop-up tulip festival. This seems increasingly unlikely, but the bulbs are purchased and they have to be planted. The Beau was keen to try something new – one of the many reasons why we get along so well – so we ditched our usual orange, bronze and plum scheme in the Jungle Garden for a more risqué combination of pink, red and black. This not-so-subtle palette was inspired by a display we read about at the National Trust’s Emmetts Garden where tulips ‘Pink Diamond’, ‘Kingsblood’ and ‘Queen of the Night’ are planted into a meadow beneath cherry trees. What do you think?

In the Gin & Tonic gardens we’ve plumped for yellow, white and green, which will be clean, fresh and unfussy. Incorporating yellow helps with the transition from early narcissi to late tulips and makes for a longer-lasting display.

I cannot be without some of my favourite tulips, including ‘Jan Reus’, ‘National Velvet’, ‘Amazing Parrot’ and ‘Doberman’, so these have been planted at the allotment instead. Now that we have a year of allotmenteering under our belts we have decided to grow more flowers and less fruit and veg. The strawberry bed was the first victim of this new strategy: it had to go in any case as it was riddled with couch grass and bindweed. Despite my best efforts to remove them, the weeds will be back in spring. Every fragment of root I have accidentally left behind will form a new invasive plant. As we treat tulips like annuals we will have another chance to remove any persistent weeds before planting dahlias in their place. Having dug out all the strawberries and left the soil exposed to the elements for a couple of weeks, it was a dream to plant up. I managed to squeeze in 14 rows of 25, which is 350 bulbs in total; our very own Dutch bulb field in miniature. TFG.

The year 2020. Where to begin? It’s tempting to dive straight into the obvious negatives – and let’s face it that would be rich territory – but I’m prepared to stick my neck out and say that in many respects it has been a good year, for us at least. I hope you won’t think me perverse if I admit there’s much about the lockdown way of life I have enjoyed. To begin with, I have gained five productive hours every day, not to mention £500 a month, by not commuting to my office in London. I’ve also experienced my first October in the UK for eight years as a consequence of cancelled travel to Hong Kong and China. Whilst not all of this time has been completely freed from the shackles of work, I have gained considerable flexibility in my life, quadrupling the time I get to spend at home in Broadstairs with my little family. Many hours have been redeployed in the garden or on our new allotment, out in the fresh air, getting exercise and tackling jobs that would otherwise have waited indefinitely. Our companionable dogs, Max and Millie, appear to imagine all their Christmases have come at once: they love having me around and I love giving them attention. Our bond had grown inestimably stronger as the year has worn on. Instead of feeling rushed and stressful, tasks such as watering have become a pleasant, unhurried ritual at the end of a working day. It can be no coincidence that this is the first year in nearly thirty that I have not suffered from a single bout of tonsillitis. Could it be the clean sea air, the lack of pressure or the benefit of eight hours’ sleep every night? I know not, but I am glad to have banished this tiresome affliction for now.

In Broadstairs there has been a noticeable change in the environment. There is much less nocturnal noise as a consequence of pubs and restaurants being closed, yet considerably more birdsong by day. The skies over Thanet are no longer criss-crossed by vapour trails as a result of air traffic to Europe, India, Asia and Australasia being curtailed. A significant number of those flights leave UK shores directly above our heads. On the flip side it’s been incredibly tough for local businesses in the town and this makes me very sad. We’ve experienced more gratuitous littering than I can ever recall (some unbelievably selfish people clearly feel unable to take their detritus home with them), especially coffee cups and fish and chip wrappers. I have most missed seeing friends and family as well as visiting gardens, but by-and-large I have not pined for travel, dressing up for work and going out as much as I thought I might. It’s interesting how quickly one adapts to a different way of life.

We lost dear Alex, affectionately referred to as ‘Him Indoors’, shortly after the first lockdown began. Alex developed an especially predatory form of Motor Neurone Disease in the autumn of 2019 and it took hold with unrelenting pace. I suspect I share a deep sense of feeling, along with others who have lost someone dear to them during the last ten months, that I have somehow been cheated of the opportunity to say farewell as I’d have wished. I’ve never properly understood the notion of needing ‘closure’ until now, when it’s lacking.

The Beau had his brush with Covid 19 early on and still experiences some ‘long Covid’ symptoms now. Otherwise we are both in reasonable shape physically and mentally and are very thankful for that.

As I write it seems unlikely that the first part of 2021 will be a lot different to the end of 2020. In many respects it will be tougher because we have the coldest and dreariest months ahead of us. (I am thinking of moving my birthday from January 12th to August 12th, or even celebrating it twice, as the chances of living it up in the next fortnight seem rather slight!) However, we all know the drill by now; we know what to do and where to get stuff, which at the beginning of lockdown was a complete puzzlement. Perhaps by the end of 2021 we will have regained a degree of normality, whilst holding on to a few of the benefits of a quieter and less sophisticated lifestyle. One lives in hope.

5 Highlights of 2020

1. A Plot of Gold – A call early in the New Year took us both by surprise. Having waited just four and a half months for an allotment, there were suddenly four plots available. After dismissing one that was cute but small and another that was too much of a project, we were left with a choice of a shady-but-sheltered plot or a large, open square at the opposite end of the site. We went large and never looked back. It’s not the prettiest location – the security fence makes it look like a prison compound – but we have lovely allotment neighbours and a constant stream of passers by to talk to while we work. Our dogs love being outside, lying in the sun, skirting around Mr Findus the allotment cat and occasionally barking at a comrade on the other side of the railings. The soil is in reasonable condition, the weeds are manageable and we are gradually learning how to deal with an exposed site. In the space of a year we have achieved far more than I imagined possible. My garden has always been a personal project and that, I think, is a hard habit to break. However the allotment is very much a joint venture and I have enjoyed working on it alongside The Beau. The beauty of the allotment is that it’s large enough for us both to find something to do, yet be on hand when the other needs assistance. Perhaps it was always a case of needing a bit more space, but for me it’s also acknowledging the need to leg go and accept someone else’s help and ideas.
2. Dahliaholics, not so Anonymous – We are both a little bit in love dahlias. I think we always have been and always will be. We both have a penchant for cultivars that are slightly unusual and The Beau leans towards the species. Alas, it’s fair to say that dahlias are not in love with our garden. It is both too shaded and too crowded to provide optimal conditions for most flowering plants. The allotment with its rich soil and open, sunny position has given us the opportunity to grow almost any dahlia varieties we would like. They are such easy and rewarding plants, flowering for months on end and providing endless quantities of blooms for the house. We found room for about sixty varieties by the end of this summer and next year that might rise to over one hundred. I can visualise us growing dahlias and other cut flowers for a living one day. The thought crossed our minds several times over the summer but we decided that we are not quite ready to take the plunge. Who knows, the events of 2021 may yet force our hand.
3. Garden Open Today – It was a pleasure to open for the National Garden Scheme again this August. For a long long time it seemed that this might not be possible. Thanks to a jazzy new pre-booking system we were able to welcome around 150 visitors to The Watch House in an safe and orderly manner. In many respects it was a nicer experience for all concerned; virtually a private view for each pair of visitors and considerably less work for us. In 2021 we hope normal service will be resumed with openings scheduled on July 31st and August 1st, 12-4pm. If lockdown constraints are eased in the New Year we may also have a flash opening in late April to show off our bulb display, which occupies well over one hundred terracotta pots.
4. As seen on TV, and Other Media – Thanks to the restrictions on creating new content, a segment about The Watch House filmed in 2018 was broadcast for a second time during Gardener’s World in May. We also welcomed film crews for a couple of other shows which should be on air this coming spring. The Gin & Tonic garden featured on the front cover of The Garden in August. This pleased me all the more because this area is never normally the main event. The brilliant Marianne Majerus can make any garden look special and she certainly worked her photographic magic on ours. Throughout the summer The Beau and I tried our hand at Instagram Live with varying degrees of success. We had a ball, but our clunky WIFI let us down here and there. A definite case of ‘must try harder’ and technology getting the better of us, but now we’ve got the bug there will be more in 2021 for sure. January will kick off with the publication of ‘Fearless Gardening’ by Timber Press. Loree Bohl, author of popular website The Danger Garden, was kind enough to include The Watch House alongside many North American gardens. Loree’s three commandments – ‘Be Bold’, ‘Break the Rules’ and ‘Grow What You Love’ – resonate strongly with me. I know it will be a sensational book packed with ideas that I can, and will, steal. Preorder your copy now and it should be with you by the end of next week.
5. Black Gold and Seaweed – In all the time I have lived at The Watch House I have had very little need to involve myself in the pursuit of composting. I have nowhere to put a compost heap and spend a great deal of time encouraging plants to grow less rather than spurring them on to yet greater luxuriance. Gaining an allotment changed that altogether. There we need an almost continuous supply of compost and manure to condition the soil and keep the crops coming. After lockdown, much to the The Beau’s annoyance, I took to filling carrier bags with cast seaweed on our daily dog walk, then barrowing it up to the allotment to fill trenches where we would soon plant potatoes and squashes. I can report that it was worth every effort as our potato crop was splendid. Making compost is an art. Whilst I have purchased multiple books on the subject, I still have an awful lot to learn. Another blessing was a plentiful supply of five-year-old manure from our friends’ stables, generous dressings of which encouraged bumper crops of tomatoes, beans and sweetcorn.

5 things that 2020 has taught me

1. Doing comes first – You will have noticed that I have spent much less time writing my blog this year. Whilst this genuinely pains me, the time I have not spent in front of a computer screen has been reinvested in the physical pursuit of gardening. From that I have learned so much more than if I sat at a desk typing or searching the Internet. Like many folk, my habits and behaviours defined by a busy life and overuse of social media, I frequently struggle with living in the moment. During 2020 the balance has shifted just slightly away from the virtual world and I feel a lot better for it.
2. More haste, less speed – Spurred on by the allotment and with time on our hands we were far too eager to get sowing this spring. We soon filled the greenhouse staging, only to find that those seeds we planted straight in the ground or under cold glass a few weeks later overtook those we’d coaxed along indoors. Case in point were our tromboncino (an Italian summer squash known for its long and vaguely suggestive fruits): of all the plants we grew from seed, those sown outside in June were the most vigorous and productive, leaving the April-sown seedlings in their wake.
3. Thin, thin, thin – No, this is not about our waistlines, although they do require urgent attention post Christmas. This is about vegetables. We both dislike waste and have a real problem with pulling up seedlings when they germinate too close to one another for the plants to develop correctly. Time and again we ignored advice to thin to 6″, 8″ or 12″ and let nature take its course. Not a good idea. Cramped plants, like cramped people, will not flourish. They need space to grow and air around them to breathe and stay healthy. After a year of making mistakes my advice is either to sow as thinly as you possibly can or get over the fact that you will have to sacrifice a few plant babies for the benefit of a good crop of fruit, vegetables or flowers.
4. Stake early and stake well – I am getting very much better at practicing what I preach, but still there are occasions when I think ‘that’ll be OK’ and then along comes a gale and flattens the lot. It was particularly windy from late August onwards and those parts of the garden and allotment that I staked or supported properly survived much better than those where I hoped for the best. (Spurred on by my first draft of this post, yesterday we staked our kale and purple sprouting on the allotment. The forecast snow never materialised, but they’d have needed support at some point, so this is a good job to have done.)
5. Seize the moment – I’ve always heeded Benjamin Franklin’s simple piece of advice – ‘never put off until tomorrow what you can do today‘ – yet still I look back too often and think ‘if only I’d taken the time to do that’. (My only caveat would be that where one’s back is concerned, it’s always wise to know when enough is enough.) Whether it’s sowing, transplanting, pruning, photographing or simply taking time to appreciate something properly, as a certain brand reminds us, don’t procrastinate, ‘Just do it’.

With that last thought ringing in my ears we must, today, plant the last few tulip bulbs languishing in their brown paper bags. It’s certainly not too late to plant tulips, though if you have daffodil or iris bulbs hanging about you had better follow my lead and manage your expectations accordingly.

Over the Christmas period we started making plans for a new season in the garden and on the allotment. Large orders for dahlia cuttings have been placed with Halls of Heddon and Pheasant Acre Plants, umpteen seed catalogues have been grafittied with stars and crosses, and ideas about growing more brugmansias in the Jungle Garden are developing apace. The future remains uncertain, but our hopes and dreams propel us forward into a New Year with uncompromised vigour. Wasting time worrying about a situation one can’t change is the biggest folly of all.

From all of us here at The Watch House we wish you all a very Happy New Year. TFG.

January 2020

After waiting only four months, we got the news that we had reached the top of the allotment waiting list: if we were still interested, would we like to come and choose the one we wanted? Yes, we were still very much interested, although, I have to admit, I was a little hesitant at first. Prior to Covid, TFG’s work took up much of his time and I couldn’t really see how we were going to fit in an allotment on top of the gardens at home, our jobs, the dogs and life in general. But, as you will have already read and seen, we managed it. On the 4th January 2020 we chose our plot, took ownership of the keys and started planning with much gusto….and I am so glad we did.

February 2020

After general weeding and a tidy up, one of the first things we did was to contact my best friend who just happens to keep horses and has access to a plentiful supply of well-rotted horse manure. In total I think we took delivery of a couple of tons or so. It was back-breaking work but we managed to fill each and every raised bed with high quality ‘black gold’, thus giving our crops a nutrient-rich start and healthy growing season. We planted red and white onions in starter trays and placed them in the shed, having missed the traditional autumn sowing season.

March 2020

With better weather came more chances for us to plant, sow and plan. We planted out the onions that had been started in the shed. Although we had a good crop, we have already sown the crop for 2021 and increased it by approximately 50% (we use a lot of onions in our kitchen!). Remember my lovely Crimson-flowered broad beans? Well, they were growing on a treat last March and almost ready for planting out. I do love their colour and that’s pretty much the only reason I grow them. Considering how much we were plagued by black fly later in the year, I’m happy to never grow them again. Who eats broad beans anyway?

Following TFG’s harvesting of cast seaweed from the beach we set about planting our potato crop and what a crop it was! Did the seaweed assist with our bounty? I would like to think so. We had good crops of all our varieties, in particular ‘Pink Fir Apple’, which did really well. We still have brown paper bags full of potatoes in the garage waiting to be eaten. Also to go in were the Jerusalem artichokes which went in to their own little bed. We planted 20 and I think 10 came up. However, I had not really thought that through properly and even the 10 that came up filled the bed – we have eaten some of them and I can confirm that they are delicious. In March we also built our compost bins which I am happy to report are doing a wonderful job. We should be able to dig out our own ‘black gold’ in the very near future.

We sowed a variety of peas in trays which grew (not very satisfactorily) along the front of the shed – another veg I am happy not to grow again. March also saw our first ‘up-cycle’ project with the boxes for the climbing french beans and nasturtiums. The runner bean supports were erected and we sowed some summer flower seeds and planted gladioli corms.

April 2020

A busy month, not just for us, but for everything that we had sown and planted. The greenhouse at home was choc-full of sweetcorn, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins and summer flowers. We felt confident that we were ahead of ourselves and everything was doing as it should, if a little early. However, that wasn’t to be the case and we ended up re-sowing a number of seeds in May. As TFG said in a previous blog post, we found that those seeds we planted straight in the ground or under cold glass a few weeks later overtook those we’d coaxed along indoors. Definitely a case of more haste, less speed. We thinned out and straightened the rows of raspberries and earthed-up potatoes.

April was also the month we chose to deal with the shed and, most urgently, its leaking roof. Neither of us had re-roofed a shed before, however, having sourced the felt we set about getting it done. I had visions of a Derek Jarman inspired black and yellow shed but as the roof felt was green and we had some sage green wood paint at home we decided to stick with that colour palette. The result was rather marvellous even if I do say so myself. Although, having taken a look at the shed a few days ago, it now needs a further coat of paint. Oh joy!

May 2020

Everything that we had sown directly into the soil started appearing and growing at breakneck speed, particularly salad crops such as beetroot, radish and our first lettuce. The Swiss chard needed thinning out. The emerald green spears of new gladioli leaves were everywhere and the calendula marigolds were starting to flower. Our sweetcorn and pumpkin/squash seedlings were planted out together in one bed – I was inspired by the native American ‘Three Sisters’ planting plan but didn’t want to grow beans up the sweetcorn. At the end of the month we planted out tomatoes, cucumbers and, most exciting of all, erected posts for the dahlia beds. We planted out the first dahlias that we had started from tubers at home.

June 2020

A month of firsts – our first strawberries on 1st June, our first dahlia flowers and we cropped our first courgettes. We did a lot of tending, planting and thinning out, but to adequately convey how much the plot changed in June you just need to watch this video…the plot went ‘BOOM’!

July 2020

Flower power arrived in all it’s dahlia glory. This month is when my favourite flower really started to come into it’s own with the vast majority of varieties now flowering their little socks off. To walk to the allotment and see who had bloomed next became something of a daily routine for us both in July. There wasn’t a day in the month when I went to the plot and wasn’t filled with joy at the sight of so many blooms: not just dahlias, we also enjoyed gladioli, daturas, cosmos, zinnias, sunflowers, chrysanthemums and Californian poppies, to name a few. The tomatoes were starting to produce fruit, as were the squash and pumpkins. We cropped our first tromboncino too – and I will grow these humorous squash for always and forever. They are fast-growing, heavy-yielding, tasty and very easy to grow. It was around now that we started cropping our runner beans. They were a little feeble to begin with but some picked up and we were able to pack a few bags into the freezer for winter.

August 2020

August carried on in pretty much the same vein as July, with marvellous weather. There was much cropping of produce, flowers in abundance and with the dead-heading that was taking place on a daily basis, the compost bins really came into their own. We had our first proper crop of tomatoes and I pickled cucumbers and beetroot, which we still haven’t tried. We were taking home punnets of raspberries on a daily basis, all now in the freezer awaiting consumption, and I did my first dahlia Instagram live. I’m not the most confident public speaker, whether that’s in person or via video, but it was something of a thrill to be able to share our dahlias with the world. If only I could do it as a job. What a magical, marvellous thing that would be!

September 2020

For me, this is the most exciting month of the year. Dahlia production went into fifth gear and we were enjoying new blooms and dead-heading at every opportunity. The tomatoes also decided that they would increase their output. On a daily basis we were cropping somewhere around 2kgs of fresh, ripe, delicious, small, regular and plum-shaped fruits. The majority were turned into pasta sauce. You would not believe how many tubs of sauce are still in the freezer waiting to be consumed, even though we are using at least one a week. As well as my sauce, TFG made yummy ratatouille. Yes, it has aubergines in it and, no, we didn’t grow any, however, I am rather tempted to give them a whirl this year, particularly as there are quite a few exotic varieties that we could try. I’m not a huge lover of eating them (they are the vegetable equivalent of a slug!) but maybe I will be converted. This is the month that TFG gifted me the most fantastic book – ‘Dahlia Breeding for the Farmer-Florist and the Home Gardener’ by Kristine Albrecht of Santa Cruz Dahlias. I am hoping that 2021 is the start of a new and exciting chapter for me and Dahlias…..watch this space.

September was the month we decided that the strawberry bed had to go. Being completely full of strawberries meant that the bed was only productive for a few weeks in an entire year. So, knowing that he was going to be faced with much couch grass and bindweed roots, TFG set to work on clearing the bed and improving the soil, to make way for…….MORE DAHLIAS! I know that we do seem to be a little obsessed with them, but how can you not be when there are so many cultivars, flower shapes, sizes, colours, etc? They bring much joy and, if I am anything like the man I considered to be my grandfather, I will grow them until my last breath. First, before the dahlias take their place, we have filled the bed with tulip bulbs for a zingy, hotbed of rich reds, oranges and yellows. Spring-time at the allotment is going to be as colourful as the summer if we have anything to do with it. In case you are wondering, we have kept the best plants from the strawberry bed and will grow these on for our annual summer crop of sweet, tasty fruit, much to Mildred’s delight.

October 2020

While still enjoying a copious amount of dahlia blooms and tomato fruit (remind me why I planted over 40 plants?!), we cropped the last of the tromboncino, squash and pumpkins and placed them in the shed to dry off ready for storage. As the summer flowers started to fade, the chrysanthemums came into their own and were an absolute delight. We planted two varieties of garlic in order to get them going before the first frosts as they benefit from a cold blast. I think this month was also when we really started to think about 2021 and what we would or wouldn’t grow and sow.

November 2020

It didn’t take the garlic bulbs long to show their fresh green tips. They are now several inches high. I am looking forward to cooking with the pungent scent of our homegrown cloves. Now that the strawberry bed is empty, the tulip bulbs can go in. I cannot wait to enjoy their bright, colourful blooms in late spring. Does anyone else find an allotment a constant source of ‘looking forward’? In a world currently full of negativity there is something positively reassuring knowing that you can and will grow something tasty, something beautiful and something awe inspiring. After having dug them up on a ‘need to eat’ basis, we exhumed the last of the potatoes, placed them in brown paper bags and stored them at home in the garage. We are still enjoying the crop and will be doing so for some time.

December 2020

The final month of the year. Due to lack of light, the weather and not being able to visit until weekends, the plot has taken something of a back seat. However, plans continue at full throttle and we have already purchased the seeds for next year’s tomato crop. I will try not to sow quite so many (who am I kidding?!). We saved the most back-breaking job until the very end of the year and have now dug up and stored all our current dahlias tubers. After being carefully lifted by TFG I cleaned them off and we have stored them in the garage in cardboard boxes on a bed of straw with some old potting soil on top to protect them while dormant. We have prepared our 2021 allotment plan, deciding where to grow what. Yes, you guessed it, we have found more room for more dahlias. The long bed that had over 40 tomato plants in it last year is going to be a sea of dahlia flowers. Because of this decision, we have purchased another 40 dahlias to come and grow on the plot. I have absolutely no idea where we are going to store them all next winter – we might have to build an extension for them. We have also started a page dedicated to the dahlias that we grow and you can see it by clicking here. More cultivars and information will be added over the coming weeks.

There is so much I have probably missed or forgotten about. As much as I wasn’t sure I wanted an allotment, I am absolutely sure that now I couldn’t and won’t be without it. It gives a purpose in its need to be cared for, to be nurtured and to be looked after. Do these things and it will reward you ten-fold. Isn’t that what life is about? In these times of flux and worry, I find the allotment a place of contentment, somewhere to forget everything that’s going on beyond the prison-like barrier fence. It is a prison I am happy to be locked in. May my incarceration be long and fruitful!

Happy New Year One and All!

The Beau.

P.S. If anyone knows where I can get hold of Dahlia ‘Hapet Austria Lace’, please do contact me. It’s at the top of my ‘Want List’ and I wants it!

If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it’s to look after our mental health. If it’s taught us another, it’s to look out for others’ wellbeing at the same time. Having been vulnerable to depression and anxiety in my youth, these days I consider myself fairly robust. Even so, at the start of this week I found myself welling up every time anyone said anything nice to me. This took me by surprise; after all, what do I have to complain about? Yet when one considers everything that’s happening in the world right now, it should not be a surprise to anyone that negative feelings might occasionally catch them unawares. The trick is to read the signs and do something about it pronto, rather than wallow. My response is always to get out of the house for some fresh air, even if that only involves crossing the road to the bakery for a sneaky sausage roll.

Us gardeners are fortunate in that we need scant encouragement to go outdoors and generate a little Vitamin D. Gentle exercise is good for us, of course, but as a source of escape, distraction and hope there’s little to rival our garden or allotment. Searching for signs of spring can keep us amused for hours during the winter months. I spent most of the day pottering about outside and not once did I give work pressures, viruses or lockdown a second thought. None of them have gone away, but giving one’s brain a break from any source of worry or negativity is absolutely essential in these uncertain times. I hope it will also make for an excellent night’s sleep.

Today we finished planting the tulips. Should you have the odd bag of unplanted bulbs hanging about, now’s the time to take action. Tulips will be perfectly happy planted now, daffodils will be less forgiving, but it’s still worth a try.

Before I came inside I counted the terracotta pots in the jungle garden bulb ‘stadium’: we have eighty-eight in total. Given each is home to around twenty-five bulbs, that’s at least 2,200 blooms we can look forward to between March and May. This should be quite a spectacle in a space no more than twenty feet by thirty feet. Planting seeds, bulbs and trees are activities charged with hope and anticipation. Depending on your needs and circumstances, you can do no better than to undertake one of these pursuits if you’re feeling the slightest bit blue. In just a few weeks there will be new leaves, rapid growth ……. perhaps flowers ……. and the whole world will seem better for them. TFG.

Every weekend is pretty much the same during the lockdown. A time to catch up on sleep, to read, phone friends and family, make lists, walk the dogs, eat, drink and do a few jobs outside. There are a great many substantial projects that need to be tackled at The Watch House: fixing the roof, replacing a ceiling, painting the bedrooms and mending the front gate to name but a few. All require skills, resources, time or energy that we don’t have right now. I consider each postponed task as I spy a damp patch, an area of flaking paintwork or make an attempt to elbow my way into the house. A little voice in one ear tells me that I should jolly well get on with it before matters get worse, whilst another reminds me that if I start something on such an ambitious scale I am highly unlikely to have the wherewithal to complete it. My compromise is generally to attempt some small, insignificant job to appease my guilt over not tackling the project that might really have made a difference. Looking deep into myself, and sharing more than I perhaps should, I think this might be the one thing that holds me back in life: always too busy making baby steps to take big strides forward.

Today, instead of tackling anything too demanding, I will be giving the plants in the garden room a little TLC, putting Christmas decorations in the roof, mulling whether to purchase fruit trees for the allotment, choosing paint colours for the rooms I won’t be decorating any time soon and waiting for much-anticipated snow to start falling.

The week ahead is going to be pretty tough, so today I have a low appetite for engagement in anything too demanding of mind or body. On Friday I took some time off and spent five happy hours on the allotment weeding, tidying and planting a couple of bags of bulbs I found lurking in a cupboard. (My post ‘When Is Too Late to Plant Spring Bulbs?’ is what drives traffic to my blog for most of the winter. As such, I am grateful for it. If you are curious but don’t have time to read it, the answer is ‘not quite yet’. Tulips, providing the ground is not frozen and the bulbs are still firm, will do perfectly well if you plant them immediately. Other spring-flowering bulbs are a bit dicey, but if you have them hanging about, plant them as soon as possible and see what happens.) I was surprised to find that the forgotten daffodil bulbs, N. ‘Bright Jewel’, were still in perfect condition. Normally they’d be looking a bit dry and shrunken by now, sending out long shoots in a desperate search for light. I planted them close to one another next to Erysimum ‘Walberton’s Fragrant Sunshine’ and Tulipa ‘Banja Luka’. An unsubtle but cheery combination that is quite appropriate for an allotment.

The big job that needs doing on the allotment is replacement of the edging to all the beds. The timber edging we inherited a year ago – mostly constructed of pallet wood and old decking pierced with an abundance of rusty nails – was 60% rotten, 20% decrepit and 20% ugly. It’s now 80% rotten, 20% ugly and only about 50% effective so we need to take action: I can bear some degree of rusticity but when the look starts to border on abandoned I can ignore it no more. We have toyed with the idea of living without any edging at all, but with paths of woodchip and couch grass running riot we’d have a hell of a job keeping the plot tidy without some kind of barrier. (Before anyone comments, I have no expectation that a simple plank of wood will keep couch grass at bay, but one has to start somewhere and I’m not prepared to use weedkiller.) We both have slightly more enthusiasm for this task than we do for decorating, so we’ve started the search for affordable timber locally. It’s a huge plot so we are considering reclaimed scaffolding boards or something similar so that the project does not cost us the earth.

The Gin & Tonic Garden and the path that leads to it from the street is largely neglected between November and March. The tiny courtyard space is pleasant enough to look out on from the library over winter but the sun does not grace us with its presence for many hours until April. Last weekend I cleared sacks full of brown, frazzled clematis foliage from the fence, noting dejectedly that this needs repainting before the climbers started to cover it again. Another job for the list ….. probably heading in The Beau’s direction. I finally dispensed with an underplanting of Pelargonium ‘Orange Fizz’, which has survived but not impressed, and will replace this with more of the white form of Begonia grandis subsp. evansiana which seems to perform better in a slip of earth not more than six inches wide.

Anticipating cold weather I have moved most of my hardy succulents and tender shrubs close to the house. Here they’ll be warm, dry and somewhat sheltered: the concept of shelter is always relative here on the east coast of England. Together they make a pleasing little posse. I feel inspired to work on the arrangement over the coming weeks in order to introduce more colour and variety. Correa ‘Marian’s Marvel’ is a delight, producing its lobster-pink and avocado-green bells for months and months on end. Above it towers Anisodontea ‘El Royo’ (some refer to it as ‘El Rayo’, I am not sure who is correct), another shrub with an incredible capacity for producing blooms throughout the winter. Anisodontea is closely related to mallows and lavateras, just as its pink, hibiscus-like flowers might suggest. It’s not a shapely plant at the end of the season but I have no intention of cutting it back and curtailing the display.

Here I must leave you to undertake more trivial jobs that will nevertheless give me some sense of achievement during this peculiar period we are living through. Despite all the opportunities that lockdown might offer, the current situation provides so little motivation. Or perhaps it’s just me? For now, baby steps are all I’ll be taking as we edge towards spring. Then matters will be taken out of our hands and our gardens will dictate what action must be taken and when. TFG.

It’s that time of year when galanthophiles (the polite name for snowdrop bores) start to bombard social media with images of their pearly-white treasures. Whilst I would not go as far as to say ‘they all look the same to me’, it’s certainly the case that one must be a) an ardent lover of winter, b) fiendishly observant, and c) grateful for small mercies if one is to fathom what all the fuss is about. Having a few bob in your pocket also helps, since snowdrops can be an expensive and addictive habit. I neither have the conditions nor the patience to establish great drifts of galanthus at The Watch House, and this year I am unable to leave the house to enjoy the efforts of those who do. There will be a time and a place for snowdrops in my life. For now, I skip through the flurry of photographs on my feed with a level of interest as fleeting as a snowflake alighting on a warm hand.

I may not have an appetite for snowdrops, but the garden certainly isn’t without flowers. Staring out of the dining room window at lunchtime, I notice that Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’ already has buds opening. This is very early, even for Broadstairs. If it continues raining as much as it has been doing, the tiny, clotted-cream flowers will turn brown and drop before they can be appreciated. More flowers will follow in April. Considered slightly tender in the UK, I have seen Rosa banksiae growing wild in the mountains of Bhutan where it is colder, but I suspect drier.

In a small pot on the outdoor kitchen worktop, Iris ‘Pauline’ has produced the first of many elfin blooms. Would I rather irises than snowdrops? Perhaps, but they are fleeting and unreliable in comparison, lasting only a short time and rarely gracing us with their presence for a second year. I treat them strictly as annuals when planted in pots. To witness Iris reticulata blooming on the same grand scale as snowdrops one would need to travel to the mountains of Turkey, Iraq, Iran or Russia. I don’t know about you, but after eleven months of lockdown, any suggestion of travel is mouthwatering. I repair to the library to peruse ‘Flora of the Silk Road’ written by Basak Gardner & Chris Gardner and this only makes matters worse.

I have been growing Agapetes serpens ‘Scarlet Elf’ in a pot attached to the wall outside the front door for eighteen months. It cannot be grown any other way here, since it’s not remotely lime tolerant. Like me, it’s sickening for a holiday in Cornwall, where I’ve seen it growing wild and tangled in garden walls. Nevertheless, my plant is already starting to produce an abundance of flowers. Each one is an elongated Chinese lantern, delicately marked with a chevron pattern. In common with the snowdrop, agapetes is a plant that demands close scrutiny. If I can keep this one alive, I will track down Agapetes ‘Ludgvan Cross’. This hybrid has ivory flowers, heavily flushed rose, and dramatic markings resembling varicose veins or one’s retina. For more information on agapetes, you can do no better than to visit Strange Wonderful Things.

Those hyacinths that we planted in pots in September and left in a sheltered spot are already a few inches tall, displaying pale green flower buds. We did not finish planting all the bulbs until Christmas. This should reward us with a display lasting several weeks. Every year I complain that we should have planted more hyacinths. Even having tripled our order for 2021, I suspect I might be repeating myself come March. Not everyone appreciates the hyacinth’s regimental flower spikes, but nothing in the world rivals their perfume. I adore them for that, and their waxy, iridescent petals.

Other than a few pinpricks of bright colour, everything is green, and lush green at that. The ferny canopies of Geranium maderense have so far survived the winter, although cold winds last weekend made the leaves limp. After years of worrying, I have concluded that this is a clever evolutionary tactic to stop the whole plant from taking off as if it were an umbrella in a gale. By allowing the leaves to become floppy, the plant reduces its surface area, thereby limiting any damage – or at least that’s my theory.

Isoplexis sceptrum always looks healthier in winter than it does in summer. However, the foliage on one branch is persistently anaemic. Assuming this was a problem with the alkalinity of the soil, I have been using Epsom salts and ericaceous plant food to correct the yellowing, all to no avail. Only recently did it dawn on me that the issue may not be coming from below, but from above: the branch with the sickly foliage is immediately below a bough where our resident collared doves roost. Their alkaline droppings frequently smother the leaves below and I now wonder if their caustic doo-doo is the culprit. If anyone has any experience of such a phenomenon, please do let me know. In the meantime I may experiment with an ericaceous foliar feed to see if that helps.

And so we look forward to another cold, wet weekend. 2021 has not been kind to us weekend gardeners, serving up awful conditions every Saturday and Sunday since New Year. I am done with armchair gardening, online shopping, tidying cupboards and fretting about household repairs. Scrolling through other people’s snowdrop spam is not for me. I want to get outside and get growing again. TFG.

I am generally reticent about writing book reviews. However, when the first couple of critiques I read online are comedically scathing, my interest is piqued. Can a book really be that awful, or is it the reviewers that I should call into question? I must judge for myself.

Having received my copy of The Kinfolk Garden*, and after reading it from cover to cover in a couple of sittings, I can confirm it’s the other reviewers that I would have to challenge: this is a beautifully produced, original volume; light on text but imbued with style and perfectly in touch with the zeitgeist. Definitely worth a place in The Watch House library.

The Kinfolk Garden is certainly a different kind of book about plants, nature and design. It’s not a gardening book in any sense (this seems to be the principal objection of mealy-mouthed reviewers who must have been expecting a reference book); it’s a collection of short stories about people whose lives have been enhanced by a relationship with plants, gardens or landscapes. We should all be able to relate to them, despite the diversity of their interests and enterprises. I suspect those reviewers who claim the book is ‘vacuous’ or ‘superficial cosmetic pretence’ (here TFG smirks at how angry some people can get about a pretty book) did not bother to read the copy or acquaint themselves with some of the quietly remarkable characters who feature. Yes, one can establish at first glance that this is a book that might sail close to the wind when it comes to style over substance, but by being original and diverse in the choice of subject matter, The Kinfolk Garden definitely brings something new to the (coffee) table.

I have a great many books about plants, gardens and nature, thousands of them probably, yet I can count on one hand those that are illustrated with photographs of people in their beloved environments. The Kinfolk Garden does so with aching style, as you’d expect from any Scandinavian lifestyle ‘authority’. Florists, garden designers, artists, craftsmen and community activists are shown in carefully composed shots, each of which appears to have been captured at the end of a perfect day, just as the light fades from white to gold. Herein lies my first small complaint: although flattering to skin tones and buildings, this bleached-out, sepia-infused filtration renders greens flat and dull, sometimes almost brownish. As a celebrant of green in all it’s generous vivacity, I find it hard to see green tones reduced to bottle, lime and olive. The photographs are beautiful and harmonious, but by the time you get halfway through, they all start to look quite similar. Since I have started, I may as well reveal my second niggle now: between each of the chapters – Care, Creativity and Community – there is an unnecessary segment of ‘tips’, the literary equivalent of a TV Ad break. These sections aren’t pretty, they are not particularly enlightening, and they provide an excuse for grumpy reviewers to claim that this is trying to be a gardening book. Kinfolk started out as a magazine and it’s as if they feel it’s necessary to remind us of that with these ‘articles’. My advice is to skip over them and pretend they were never there.

One of the greatest joys of The Kinfolk Garden is that it represents a moment in time, not quite to the extent that the dreaded C word is mentioned, but in that many of the protagonists are entirely ‘of the moment’. Whether it’s Julius Værnes Iversen with ‘alien’ floral installations, Sourabh Gupta making exquisite paper plants for friends who can’t keep the real thing alive, or Kristian Skaarup and Livia Haaland farming on a Copenhagen rooftop, these are creatives and visionaries on the edge of what’s happening in our world right now. Whether one likes what they’re doing or not, I think we should all be interested in them. Those characters who are not breaking new ground in the same sense, appear to have been chosen because they are timeless, exceptional and perhaps a little underrated. I was delighted to see the Parisian landscape gardener Camille Muller peering out from these pages, having encountered one of his beautiful creations in Madagascar many years ago. Also to read more about Luciano Giubbilei, a garden maker who operates on a higher plane, often investing many years in the development of a design for his clients. I had never heard of perfumer Abderrazak Benchaâbane, the man who helped Yves Saint Lauren restore Jardin Majorelle before founding the Palemerai Museum in Marrakech, yet his story is a remarkable and important one. If you’ve not grasped already, The Kinfolk Garden is also a book that celebrates diversity without needing to point a finger at it. I may well have a handful of books illustrated with photographs of people, but I could count those that aren’t dominated by the white, middle or upper classes on ….. well …… one finger.

So, bravo to you, Kinfolk, for publishing a book that’s a little bit different, good to look at and easy for us time-deprived folk to consume: it’s a time capsule in the making and a welcome relief from the conveyor belt of ‘how to ……’ and ‘gardens of ……’ books that appear every year. Sadly you’ve made this volume so pretty that lazy folk can’t see beyond the gorgeous, hazy, sun-soaked photography. Let them write ill-informed reviews and know that smart, intelligent people will find richness in these stylish pages. TFG

*Please note that I was sent a copy of this publication free of charge for review purposes. To find out more about this publication, or to purchase a copy, pop over to the Kinfolk website.

Do let me know if you enjoy my book reviews or not. I could write a whole lot more, but if you’d prefer I stuck to gardens and gardening, I can do that too! TFG.

Our garden is at its lowest ebb from early February until the Ides of March, on the 15th of the month. Battered by gales laden with salt and sand, scorched by snow and starved of light, everything but the eternal evergreens* is pale, frazzled or mushy. I try to like what I see, but I yearn for it to be April and for the blemishes of winter to be erased by lush new growth. By normal standards, our spring bulbs have been extremely slow to get going, although we do now have a smattering of hyacinths, daffodils and crocuses to enjoy. These offer a sure sign that spring is underway and that more colour will follow. We now have well over one hundred terracotta pots in their final positions, containing tulips, narcissi, hyacinths, anemones, ranunculus, lilies and hardy orchids. The emerging foliage of persicarias and hostas will help to break up a sea of flowers. At least that is the theory. Anything especially good looking or precious will be promoted to the worktop of our outdoor kitchen to be admired at close quarters.

The tasks we’ve been undertaking over the last fortnight are not glamorous; they have not lent themselves to pretty photographs, hence I have been short of excitement to share here. We’ve emptied and cleaned the greenhouse, repainted the fence around the Gin & Tonic Garden (at least The Beau has), repotted about twenty percent of our perennials, house plants and shrubs, and started umpteen dahlias and begonias into growth: the spare bedrooms are filling up fast. First to sprout are Dahlias ‘Twynings After Eight’, ‘Fubuki Red and White’ and ‘Burning Love’. The rest will not be far behind. On the allotment, we’ve planted eight fruit trees (plums, damsons, apples and a cherry), then weeded and dug in anticipation of more planting once the weather warms up a little. Our homage to the Dutch bulb fields, a square bed planted with 15 varieties of tulip in straight rows, is a source of great anticipation. The lines are now evident and it’s fascinating to observe the differences in leaf colour and shape as they emerge from the cold earth.

Deliveries of bulbs, seeds and plants keep on coming. These first packages are modest in size, but there are many more to follow. If there’s one thing I have learned from last year, it’s not to be caught short, so I am already stocked up with pots, fertilisers and composts to keep me going for a few weeks at a time. It looks like it will be a bumper year for the nurserymen as the nation prepares itself for another summer spent in the garden. I am returning to those companies that served me well through 2020, as well as trying a few new ones – Halls of Heddon, Farmer Gracy, Pheasant Acre Plants and Brookside Nursery included. My begonia tubers from Farmer Gracy were so enormous that I could barely fit them in the palm of my hand; purchases from the rest have yet to arrive. A collection of beautifully grown clematis from Thorncroft will fill the gaps on our boundary fences. I treated myself to Clematis florida var. florida ‘Sieboldiana’ which I will grow in a pot and hope not to kill. Books have also been arriving thick and fast, the last flurry before my evenings become consumed by watering, staking and deadheading again.

Whilst neither glamorous nor showy, this is an important time in the gardening year; it sets the standard for the rest of the year and time that can’t be had again. How plants are handled, potted on and coaxed back to life will determine how they perform in the mid to long term. In March there is always more to do than there’s time for, and there’s never much to show for it. Working conditions can be uncomfortable but occasionally wonderful, especially on those days where it feels warm, or when a drowsy bumblebee strays across one’s path. We soldier on, knowing that our efforts will soon be richly rewarded. The Ides of March may have been ominous for Caesar, but just as in Roman times they mark the end of the old year and the start of the new for us gardeners. TFG.

*the eternal evergreens are: Phillyrea latifolia, Laurus nobilis f. angustifolia, Pseudopanax chathamica and Trachelospermum jasminoides. Rarely do they ever look anything other than perfectly green and healthy.

It’s a little known fact – so little known that one might almost call it a secret – that the first job I ever applied for was with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. As a Landscape Architect I would be travelling the world, recommending how to look after these historically important sites. The main attraction was not the work, but the opportunity to visit new and unfamiliar places. When I looked a bit harder, I found the commission’s planting style to be spartan and manicured; totally appropriate for war graves, but a little restrictive for a young creative wishing to spread his wings. I wondered how rewarding the role might be. I didn’t get the job – I don’t even recall being interviewed – and soon found something else to do.

The majority of Britain’s graveyards are not maintained in the same meticulous fashion as war cemeteries. They are, in most instances, considerably older and have expanded slowly, sometimes over several centuries. Disturbance tends to be minimal, whether that be in the form of noise, development or foot traffic. Chemicals are not applied, and maintenance is often reduced to a bare minimum to save money. All of this is an attractive proposition for wildlife, helpful in building biodiversity. Provided a reasonable balance is maintained between the sensitive care of memorials and letting nature run its course, graveyards are one of the more successful examples of humans, plants and animals coexisting in a confined space.

Near to where we live is the church of St Peter-In-Thanet. It was first built in 1070, then enlarged in the 12th century. A square tower was added in the 15th century. For hundreds of years, St Peter’s church was the seat of local government. The village of St Peter’s was the largest settlement in the area (Broadstairs did not expand from a fishing village until in 18th & 19th Centuries), hence most of the parish’s great, good and indeed not-so-good are interred here. Some older memorials, close to the church, are very grand indeed. Over time, more and more space was required for burials so that now the graveyard extends to nine acres, a long, narrow finger of green extending north west towards Margate. The newest plots are furthest from the church. These can be identified top left of the photograph below, looking rather more open than the rest of the graveyard. One wonders if additional space will be required in future.

From a wildlife perspective the middle section of the churchyard, where one can find several war graves, is the most interesting. The trees are smaller here, mainly hawthorns and deciduous ornamentals, allowing a meadow rich with flowers to establish beneath them. Here and there, brambles form thickets favoured by birds, and no doubt rodents. Our natural flora is augmented by plants that have escaped from planting on and around the graves themselves. Chief among the interlopers at St Peter’s is the daffodil. Destined to naturalise, daffodil cultivars old and new can be found romping between the gravestones, forming large clumps or scattering themselves artfully around. It’s very possible that they have hybridised, creating daffodils that might only be found in this one spot.

Daffodils are likely to have been introduced to our country by the Romans from the Iberian Peninsula, but like snowdrops, they’ve been with us for so long as to be considered native. They are certainly very much at home on our shores, both growing wild and being cultivated for flowers and bulbs. The reason they are so successful is that they are brilliantly adapted to our damp, maritime conditions and strongly perennial. It takes a lot to push a clump of daffodils into retreat; even then they may dwindle and refuse to flower rather the die out altogether. Daffodils are survivors, glad of man’s helping hand, but self-sufficient thereafter. Noel Kingsbury sums it up perfectly:

“At the heart ….. is the idea of the daffodil as a metaphor for our relationship with nature, as being a cultivated plant, but one which is capable of living its own life. Like cats, they feel only part domesticated”

Noel Kingsbury, Daffodil, Timber Press.

A daffodil expert might have a field-day in the graveyard at St Peter’s when it is flooded with blooms every spring. They might even gain clues as to the identity of each variety based on the age of the graves they are growing near: it might be pure coincidence, but the only daffodil we can accurately identify, N. ‘Feu de Joie’, was introduced by William Copeland pre-1927 and is growing close to graves dating back to WW1. It is a beauty, and we will be tracking down bulbs to grow at home next year. This kind of blousy, romantic daffodil was left behind as fashion favoured neater flowers on stronger stems, but to me the form and colouration of ‘Feu de Joie’ is exquisite.

We are not daffodil experts, so we spend our time generally enjoying the scene and marvelling at each and every different flower we alight on. Although variations on a theme, the permutations of colour, trumpet and petal are remarkable. Bobbing in a stiff breeze, they bring so much joy and hope for the year to come. Pictured below are just a handful of the varieties in bloom at St Peter’s at the end of March. I’d love to hear which ones appeal most to you.

We’ve experienced such a long, cold spring in 2021 that the daffodils have lasted much longer than normal. In the Jungle Garden, many have yet to bloom, which means we’ll be enjoying flowers well into May. Planned carefully, a succession of bloom can be achieved quite easily, starting with a variety such as N. ‘Cedric Morris’, which will flower in time for Christmas Day, and ending with N. poeticus, which might occasionally hang on until June. Five months is a long time to enjoy daffodils, although some might argue it’s not long enough.

I can recommend a couple of excellent books if you are interested in learning more about daffodils:

• ‘Daffodil, Biography of a Flower‘, Helen O’Neill, Harper Collins.
• ‘Daffodil, The remarkable story of the world’s most popular spring flower‘, Noel Kingsbury with photographs by Jo Whitworth, Timber Press.

There’s still time to get out and enjoy daffodils as gardens and parks begin to open up post lockdown. Make a note of your favourites and order bulbs in summer ready for planting in early autumn. For heritage varieties like N. ‘Feu de Joie’, you may need to search the Internet for specialist growers such as Ron Scamp in Cornwall. (It goes without saying that you should never take daffodils from the ‘wild’ or from parks and gardens without permission.) Unlike tulips, daffodils need to be planted before it gets cold in winter, so they can establish their roots in warm earth. They grow well contained in pots, but they’ll never be as happy as they would be in the ground, where they are never very far from claiming their freedom. TFG.

It has been the strangest month; cold – indeed the frostiest April in sixty years – and desert-dry. Although we’ve escaped spring frosts here on the East Kent coast, it has been bitter day-in, day-out, with desiccating winds blowing in from the north and east. Most days I have returned from walking the dogs feeling like I’ve had a facelift. Our heating is still on and I’m bundled up in my Ugg boots and a thick wool sweater as I write this post. Meanwhile, we have been watering our pots twice weekly since the end of March. (Rain forecast overnight tonight may save me a job later on.) The Meteorologists explain that dry ground combined with clear skies exacerbates the frost situation by encouraging ‘radiative cooling’. If I have learned one thing this year it is that gentle watering actually helps to guard against frost damage at ground level, although that’s of little comfort to those who lost their magnolia and camellia blossoms during the snow earlier in the month.

The impact of the weather on both gardens and the allotment has been pronounced. For weeks plants have grown at a snail’s pace when normally they’d be erupting from the ground with gusto. On the upside, our daffodils and tulips have never lasted longer. They’ve remained bright and unsullied for at least twice as long as normal, rewarding us with a terrific display. Less than half the tulips have coloured up so far, thus as May approaches there is much left to enjoy, including anemones, ranunculus and slipper orchids. I have only dispatched a handful of snails and other pests, since all creatures seem reluctant to come out of winter hibernation. Once again, I’ve not set eyes on a single lily beetle. Long may that continue. On the downside, our tiny greenhouse is bursting at the seams. The first twenty dahlias we potted up in March are now large enough to be planted out, eighty more are sprouting and another twenty have not been prompted into growth at all, owing to lack of space. Despite delaying seed sowing by several weeks we are going to experience a severe case of overcrowding if we cannot move anything outside soon. In the workshop, the gingers, cannas and brugmansias that are usually growing apace by now are only just showing signs of life. Although plants are fiendishly good at catching up, I predict summer will be on the later side this year.

Regular readers of this blog may recall that in November I revealed our bulb planting schemes for 2021. At the allotment, we went for smouldering purples and fiery reds and yellows. These colours make my heart sing. Through the fence between us and the carpark we hear a lot of ‘Oooh! Look at all those tulips!‘. We hope passers-by find them as joyful and uplifting as we do.

On the whole, I’ve found that the tulips at the allotment have stopped well short of their expected height, I presume due to drought and the openness of our plot. Tulip ‘Cash’ has been a winner, although it’s very close in appearance to T. ‘Apeldoorn Elite’, which I have grown since I was a child. The main difference is that T. ‘Cash’ is 50% taller than my old favourite with enormous flowers. The Beau is in love with T. ‘Ravana’ which is short yet extravagant with flamed petals and variegated foliage: definitely a more-is-more tulip. We have been taken aback by the similarities between some other cultivars. T. ‘Jan Reus’ and T. ‘National Velvet’ are extremely hard to tell apart, as are T. ‘Antraciet’ and T. ‘Uncle Tom’. What this and our other experimental plantings demonstrate is that one can’t go by pictures in a catalogue or website. They are almost always inaccurate, sometimes gratuitously so. One must try new varieties out for oneself, to properly assess colour, stature, flowering time, hardiness etc. etc. We can now select the best of these pairings for our situation and make room for something new and different next time.

We did not plant enough bulbs for the Gin & Tonic garden, where our theme was ‘ice and lemon’. Having failed to finish planting all our purchases in autumn 2019, we played it too safe and focussed on the Jungle Garden. However, we have lots of favourites here, including the ubiquitous Narcissus ‘Tête-à-Tête’ and the delightful, N. ‘Lemon Beauty’. Much as I love N. ‘Lemon Beauty’, her flowers face demurely downward like a hellebore, making it difficult to appreciate them fully. We planted generous quantities of T. ‘Purissima Design’, which is nicely simple without being boring. Yellow-edged leaves, reminiscent of a hosta, are a good foil for the ivory, egg-shaped flowers. The scheme would not be complete without T. ‘Exotic Emperor’, a flower which lives up to its name in all but colour. You’d naturally expect something rich and jewel-toned rather than off-white and green, but what it lacks in colour T. ‘Exotic Emperor’ makes up for in flamboyance of form. Surrounding a soft, powder puff of petals there are all sorts of pointy bits (botanical term) reminiscent of the tines that hold a jewel in place: unique and well worth growing. I’ve been waiting in vain for Acacia verticillata ‘Riverine Form’ to produce its pill-shaped puffs of yellow, but this feathery little shrub is showing typically antipodean disdain for our cold British weather and is not budging. The Beast From The East has left many other plants leafless until it warms up. Next year we need to think bigger and bolder about this small space, adding some fizz to bring the cocktail alive.

The main event at The Watch House is the Jungle Garden. We were inspired by the National Trust’s Emmetts Garden near Sevenoaks in Kent after a visit in September. Here, tulips ‘Pink Diamond’, ‘Kingsblood’ and ‘Queen of the Night’ are planted in the grass beneath cherry trees. I had never contemplated mixing pink, red and purplish-black before, and went to town on a full spectrum of colours from blush (T. ‘Poco Loco’) to ebony (T. ‘Continental’). We planned everything out on paper, including flowering times, to ensure we had a long succession of bloom. That part of the scheme worked; the palette is more of a happy accident, with a mix of pinks and reds that turned out to be too yellow or too blue alongside a few outright bad choices. Back to the point about trying things first hand, next year I am determined to perfect this scheme by planting more of the same cultivar and sticking with either warm pinks and reds or cool ones. The stand-out tulip, by a country mile, has been T. ‘Albert Heijn’. It is all too easy to be dismissive of established, popular varieties, but there is generally a good reason for their elevated status. T. ‘Albert Heijn’, unromantically named after a Dutch supermarket chain, has a chiselled silhouette and blooms that for last weeks. If you’re looking for a good pink tulip, you cannot go wrong with this one. T. ‘Czar Peter’ did something very peculiar and developed flowers which never properly opened, instead puffing out like Chinese lanterns, every petal seemingly fused at the tip. This is not normal, but looked marvellous.

One thing I did get right is the quantity of hyacinths. Every year I chastise myself for not growing enough, but this year I cracked it. Ten pots, each planted with twelve to fifteen bulbs, have filled the garden with intoxicating scent. First to bloom were H. ‘Anne Marie’, followed by H. ‘Carnegie’ and H. ‘White Pearl’. Then came H. ‘China Pink’, H. ‘Miss Saigon’ (totally wrong colour, but a gift, so I can’t complain) and now, H. ‘Dark Dimension’, which has the darkest navy flowers I have ever seen.

I had been waiting for the perfect moment to photograph some of my favourite tulips for you. Fearing my stars may never align, I took the plunge today, ahead of tonight’s rain, despite some only just developing their true colour. Below, from left to right are: T. ‘Claudia’, T. ‘Attila Graffiti’, T. ‘Alison Bradley’, T. ‘Albert Heijn’ (almost gone over), T. ‘Poco Loco’, T. ‘Continental’, T. ‘Fantasy Lady’ and T, ‘Lasting Love’. If I had to choose three I would plant again, they’d be T. ‘Attila Graffiti’, which is the most fabulous, shimmering fuchsia-pink, T. ‘Continental’, with petals richer than Macassar ebony, and T. ‘Lasting Love’ which, as its name suggests, is lovely and lasts for weeks. If I had a sophisticated garden full of silvers and greys then T. ‘Poco Loco’ would be a sublime choice, but in this company it looks inspid.

Here, at the tail end of April, we are in a strange situation where our display is halfway through rather than at an end. The buds of narcissi including N. ‘Calgary’, N. ‘Salome’ and N. ‘Cotinga’ have yet to burst and the list of tulips still to bloom is extensive – T. ‘Supri Erotic’ (what a name!), T. ‘Hemisphere’, T. ‘Capri Dream’, T. ‘Design Impression’, T. Black Hero’ and T. ‘Pretty Princess’. I must conclude that despite the weird weather it’s been an exceptional year for growing spring bulbs. Having invested a pretty penny, we’ve really got our money’s worth. TFG.

Our bulbs this year were sourced from J. Parker’s Wholesale and Dutch Grown, who are currently offering a 15% early bird discount to organised gardeners. As new kids on the block, selling direct from The Netherlands, this family-run company is definitely worth a look.

In a normal year, I’d consider myself lucky to have one or two daffodils blooming in May. By May Day their dominion is over and tulips reign supreme. This year is an exception; I have more daffodils in flower now than at any time previously. An Entente Cordiale has been reached between the two exalted genera, resulting in an unprecedented fanfare of flower in both gardens. Although completely unexpected and unplanned for, it’s a situation I am relishing.

Of course there are daffodils that naturally flower later in the spring, for example Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus, the old pheasant’s eye daffodil. It’s always nice to plant a few of these, although perhaps they are not as deeply treasured as those that bloom in the depths of winter. Like a tiresome relative at a wedding, somehow they seem to have outstayed their welcome. This year’s late blooming has been encouraged by a chilly winter followed by an exceptional cold and dry spring. Plants big and small have hung back, waiting for more comfortable conditions. Those that have braved the weather have been slow to develop and vulnerable to frost damage. No such problems here on the coast, but it does seem as if our garden has been preserved in aspic for two months, the rapid explosion of growth restricted to small, almost imperceptible changes each day. This is where photographing one’s garden regularly helps, making comparisons with the previous week or the equivalent time last year straightforward as well as illuminating. If you’ve grown daffodils, tulips and other spring bulbs this year, you will certainly have had your money’s worth by now.

I list here the cultivars that are still in the their prime today, May 8th 2021. In terms of lateness, please take this roll call with a pinch of salt as the timing may well be a consequence of the weather, rather than the variety’s natural tendencies. N. ‘Misty Glen’, for example, is noted by Ron Scamp to be a mid-season daffodil and yet it’s only just getting going as I write. The list follows the image below, starting from the top.

1. Narcissus ‘Mrs R.O. Backhouse’ – when first introduced in 1921, this was billed as the world’s first pink daffodil. The trumpet is patently not pink, but a very pleasing pale, coral-orange. The bulbs should flower in March and April, hence they were almost over when this picture was taken. Older blooms start to fade towards white at the base of the trumpet, which is rather charming.
2. Narcissus ‘Thalia’ – almost as revered as N. ‘Tête-à-Tête’, N. ‘Thalia’ is loved for its scent, generosity of bloom and tolerance of damper ground. Curiously, it does not have an AGM from the RHS. No matter, because N. ‘Thalia’ is a brilliant naturaliser and neutraliser in the garden, exceptionally lovely planted in huge drifts. Plant enough bulbs so that you can pick a generous quantity through the season. If you fancy trying something similar but different, I’d recommend N. ‘Tresamble’.
3. Narcissus ‘Obdam’ – our only disappointment this year. Of forty or so buds, only five opened. The remainder shrivelled miserably within their paper cases. This phenomenon is called ‘bud blast’ and was most likely caused by hot weather last spring and summer, wherever the bulbs were grown. Unfortunately for me, the impact is only evident the following year. The blooms that opened were pleasant, but rather heavy and I am not convinced I will trouble myself with N. ‘Obdam’ again.
4. Narcissus ‘Salome’ AGM – for a few days I was convinced that I had mixed two cultivars in the same pot, because N. ‘Salome’ opens with yellow trumpets before fading to pinky-peach over the course of a few days. The in-between stages are most attractive, as I hope you can see from the two blooms pictured above. In a sense, you get two daffodils for the price of one. I have found N. ‘Salome’ perfect for pots since the plants are not too tall and very weatherproof.
5. Narcissus ‘Jack Snipe’ AGM – not normally a late-flowering cultivar, this year N. ‘Jack Snipe’ seemed to be frozen in time. This is a fabulous little daffodil for pots, troughs and window boxes, taller that N. ‘Tête-à-Tête’ but pleasingly so: I find N. ‘Tête-à-Tête’ a bit overly compact. Expect flowers in March in a normal year. Plant generously in large clumps or drifts. (My Australian friend Helen refers to drifts of daffodils as ‘floats’, which sounds much more magical.)
6. Narcissus ‘Misty Glen’ AGM – if Farrow and Ball did daffodils, this would be one of them. Every inch a modern daffodil, N. ‘Misty Glen’ is neat, well-composed and strong-growing. Each bloom displays satin-white petals with a trumpet flushed palest moss-green. The foliage is a dark, silver-green that might be called something like ‘Leaf Beetle’ or ‘Basement Grey’. It’s all achingly beautiful and a masterpiece of hybridisation, however the formality of this bloom does feel better suited to the show bench than the garden.
7. Narcissus ‘Sun Disc’ AGM – I love a bargain as much as a nice surprise and these daffodils ticked both boxes. I purchased three large potfuls of unnamed bulbs from my local nursery in February, planted them in the ground and they turned out to be N. ‘Sun Disc’. The tiny flowers are as flat as buttons, surrounded by foliage as fine as grass. Naturalises well, so perhaps we’ll have more next spring.
8. Narcissus ‘Lemon Beauty’ – I generally detest split corona daffodils (i.e the trumpet is divided and often flared backwards against the petals) but this is an exception. The best way to describe its colour is luscious lemon curd swirled through an ice-white sorbet. It’s a dazzling daffodil. The split corona is well disguised so that only the yellow markings are perceived roughly as a star at the centre of each flower. The only annoyance is that the flowers face downwards, like a hellebore, requiring some effort to appreciate them properly.
9. Narcissus ‘Stratosphere’ AGM ? – this was ordered as N. ‘Hawera’, which it most evidently is not! Some lazy detective work suggests it may be N. ‘Stratosphere’, but whatever the name it’s marvellous. The flower colour is rich and clear, and the stems are upright. A very welcome error on the part of the bulb merchant, so I will let them off this time.
10. Narcissus ‘Cotinga’ – Although wonderful, I have my doubts that the flower pictured above is actually N. ‘Cotinga’ and not an imposter. The trumpet appears to be much shorter than it ought to be – but perhaps it might lengthen over time. N. ‘Cotinga’ is a diminutive Cyclamineus daffodil, with small, nodding flowers. Ideal for the top of a wall or on a terrace where they can be appreciated from below.
11. Narcissus ‘Bridal Crown’ AGM – if truth be told this is not one of my favourite daffs. It’s a bit clumsy and the stems tend to bend over quite easily, here at least. The fussy flowers remind me of a dessert my grandmother used to make called Russian Cream – as sort of jelly with egg-white froth on the top (it tastes better than it sounds!). N. ‘Bridal Crown’ is scented and often forced for early blooms.
12. Narcissus ‘Mount Hood’ AGM – a daffodil of my childhood and fondly cherished. These bulbs were kindly sent to me by Dutch Grown and I am delighted because I would not have considered growing this cultivar in a pot, having always thought it better for the border or naturalising. Turns out N. ‘Mount Hood’ is a good sport in a container, although the bulbs I was given were so enormous that they have almost exploded out of the compost. The trumpets start out primrose yellow before fading to ivory white, as shown above.

If, like me, you are having a day doing ‘indoor jobs’, may I extend my sympathies. Tomorrow promises to be the start of a period of warmer weather which will have gardeners jumping for joy. TFG.

Cold weather in spring can only hold our gardens back for so long. It’s like a catapult, the further the sling is pulled back – i.e the longer the cold days continue – the faster the shot flies when conditions improve. For the last week, every night has been over 5ºC and daytime temperatures have climbed into double figures. April’s green haze has started to solidify into the lime blaze of May, although it still feels as if we are three or four weeks behind a normal year, let alone last year when summer seemed to start in late March. I think we are all surprised and delighted by the length of this year’s tulip season, which has now endured for two months. I reckon we have about two weeks left, which, incredibly, will take us to the very eve of June.

In the Jungle Garden the spring display has now reached its zenith. I used to call my arrangement of pots a bulb ‘theatre’, but it’s become so lengthy that’s it’s now more accurately a bulb ‘stadium’. Larger pots (12″-14″) containing taller varieties are placed in the back row, medium sized pots (10-12″) are positioned in the middle and smaller pots filled with irises, hardy orchids, crocuses, miniature tulips, hostas, anemones and ranunculus make up the front row. At this time of year they are rearranged weekly and deadheaded daily to keep things looking tip-top.

Of course, it’s tulips that sustain our displays until the exotics are ready to come outside. We have several varieties that are in their prime right now, and one or two that are still in their first flush of youth, namely ‘Capri Dream’ and the absurdly named ‘Supri Erotic’. In the Gin & Tonic garden ‘Madonna’ and ‘Twilight Princess’ flank the greenhouse door, still fresh and fabulous. Here are mid May’s main protagonists:

From left to right: ‘Exotic Emperor’, ‘Madonna’, ‘Supri Erotic’, ‘Hemisphere’, ‘Peppermint Stick’, ‘Pretty Princess’, ‘Design Impression’, ‘Merlot’, ‘Capri Dream’ and ‘Black Hero’.

From top to bottom: ‘Exotic Emperor’, ‘Madonna’, ‘Supri Erotic’, ‘Hemisphere’, ‘Design Impression’, ‘Peppermint Stick’, ‘Pretty Princess’, ‘Merlot’, ‘Capri Dream’ and ‘Black Hero’.

What I particularly love about tulips is the sheer depth and complexity of their colouration. Even before you get to colour, there are different flower shapes, singles, doubles and parrot or fringed petals. Layer on top of that a spectrum of shades and tones that frequently defy description (if only there were a dictionary of words one could use to describe colour), displayed on petals with the most extraordinary lustre, and then add the effects produced by different lighting throughout the day ….. it’s enough to blow one’s mind. I have the exact same blooms I photographed for this post here on the table next to me and they look totally different only a few days later. Take ‘Merlot’ for example. In bud it’s a dusky, burgundy beauty; there’s violet in there, plus a deep, smoky-rose that reminds me of Rosa ‘Charles de Mills’. I find myself aching for better words to try and explain its beauty. Cheek-by-jowl with the rosewood glow of ‘Continental’, the pairing exudes class, restraint and understated glamour. Then ‘Merlot’ opens, catching the sun, and all that aching sophistication is replaced by a glossy berry compote, juicy with shades of raspberry, elderberry and loganberry. Absolutely mouthwatering. Indoors, at lower light levels, the flowers lose much of their uniqueness, which is why I generally prefer not to cut them. That’s just one tulip, inadequately described, and yet I am exhausted in my quest for the right words to commend it to you. My advice is to grow more tulips next year and experience their multifarious dimensions first hand. It’s the only way to truly appreciate them. TFG.

To hear me waxing lyrical about tulips and daffodils, among other flowers, tune into the ‘Talking Dirty’ podcast either on You Tube or Captivate FM.

From top to bottom: ‘Exotic Emperor’, ‘Madonna’, ‘Supri Erotic’, ‘Hemisphere’, ‘Peppermint Stick’ and ‘Pretty Princess’

Anyone who has spent time holidaying in Cornwall will know that the county’s weather can be relied upon to dictate your itinerary from start to finish. Rarely does a day start as it means to go on: ‘four seasons in one day’ is not so much a concept as a way of life on the most south-westerly tip of England.

If you are determined to adhere to your plans, then you had better be prepared for all weathers. It’s often the case that one coast is shrouded in mist or fog whilst the other basks in sunshine. On family holidays when I was a child, my dad would often drive around the county searching desperately for the sun. There is, you see, very little to do indoors and certainly nothing to compare the glories of the Cornish coast and countryside. Hence no day out is safely embarked upon without a raincoat, sweater, thick socks, wellies, sunglasses, a brimmed hat and sunscreen, packed just in case. (Umbrellas are generally as useful as a chocolate teapot in Cornwall, since the wind blows incessantly.)

Despite being well prepared for rough weather, the deluge which preceded last week’s visit to Tremenheere Sculpture Garden was enough to put the most ardent garden visitor off. It had been teeming down since lunchtime, rendering even the most sheltered spots soggy and cold. My niece Martha had declared that Sunday May 23rd would be a unicorn-themed day, marking the occasion by wearing a blush-pink dress covered in net roses and a headband adorned with a rainbow horn. Accessorised with green wellies and a blue anorak, it was a look her great-grandmother might have called ‘fetching’.

Being a Cornish girl, Martha was completely unfazed by the atrocious conditions, shaming us adults into sticking with Plan A. After dithering in plant sales and then delaying further by loitering around the tea hut clasping hot chocolates, we finally commenced our walk. Entering the woodland garden at the bottom of the valley, it struck me immediately that some gardens might be better experienced on a rainy day. There were very few visitors for starters. (This is always a bonus, although why is it that even in an almost empty garden, there is always someone wearing a bright red cagoule standing exactly where you wish to take a photograph?). Then there were the colours; bright, clear and slicked with water. The sound as each drop of rain bounced eagerly through the canopy made the whole space come alive. Martha sped on ahead, filled with excitement as I wasted time wiping splashes from my glasses. ‘It’s just like a tropical rain forest!’ she exclaimed, and she was quite right, as children often are.

The tree ferns at Tremenheere are remarkable, less for their abundance, which is greater elsewhere, than for their great variety. I am insufficiently expert to identify them all, but I recognise Dicksonia antarctica due to its relative abundance in Cornish gardens, and Cyathaea medullaris because of it’s slender black trunk and gigantic, gauzy fronds. These are plants that only grow well in climatically blessed localities such West Cornwall and the south-west of Ireland. Here they are spared the coldest temperatures by the Gulf Stream and shielded from the wind in thickly-wooded valleys or ancient quarries. Gardeners attempt to grow tree ferns elsewhere – myself included when I lived in London – but except in very charmed locations I always feel they are existing rather than thriving.

As we climbed out of the valley I was stopped in my tracks by a fabulous Pieris japonica with flamingo-pink leaves. When wet, the foliage possesses a sheen similar to that of capiz shells. How much more beautiful are these shrubs, so loved by my Cornish grandmother, than the horrible, coarse Photinia x fraseri ‘Red Robin’? I detest this poor, misused plant. Like the child of a pushy parent, it has been grossly overstretched in terms of its true capabilities. It is touted as the perfect shrub for almost any situation, which it patently is not, to the point that it’s destined to be loathed by anyone who inherits it. I fear ‘Red Robin’ may be the Leylandii of the next gardening generation. Anyway, I digress. Lower down the valley I had spotted an ageing whorl of mahonia leaves, slowly developing the classic colours of autumn. It was so beautiful and unexpected among the verdure that it barely seemed real.

There have been developments at Tremenheere since my last visit, and I suspect there may be more planned for the future. A section of the garden on the eastern boundary, overlooking St Michael’s Mount, has been cleared to make room for a new sculpture called ‘Holding Breath’. Call me a heathen – it’s been said before – but this artwork is not my cup of tea. However, the sleek viewing platform next to it very much is. A deck cantilevers out from the hillside, projecting towards the Mount’s Bay. The planting beneath it is interesting, a bank of swishing grasses, shrubs and perennials which I need to study in more detail on a dry day. On this visit it was all about keeping moving and completing our circuit before closing time.

With its rapidly evolving landscape, burgeoning collection of sculptures, excellent restaurant and cornucopic nursery filled with plants grown by Surreal Succulents, Tremenheere is rapidly becoming one of our favourite places to visit in West Cornwall. Dogs on a lead are permitted in the garden, which is a big advantage for us. Come rain or shine this garden has something to offer – shelter in the valley or inside James Turrell’s mesmerising elliptical chamber entitled ‘Tewlwolow Kernow’, magnificent views of the Cornish coast, plants that you’ll rarely find growing outside elsewhere in the UK and great food to sustain you on a visit that could easily fill a full day.

We returned to our cars, dripping wet and a little chilly, very happy that we’d stood up to the weather and gone ahead with our Plan A. Our only disappointment was that the nursery and shop were closed on departure, so any indulgent purchases will have to wait until our next visit. TFG.

You can plan a visit to Tremenheere by visiting their website. You can also read previous blog posts I have written about the garden here (2014) and here (2019).