We're Going To Need A Bigger Pot

The Potting Shed

2012-05-31T21:59:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to shift some things around in the garden. I'd allowed myself to spread out and take over a corner next to the house for the greenhouse, all my pots, compost, paving slabs and so on. It looked messy, and now that we have nice neighbours whose interest in horticulture involves being outside in the garden and maybe putting in some raised beds, rather than hydroponically growing cannabis, I was keen to reel it back in.

So Hubster broke into the cellar. We have access from inside, but there's an external access that used to have a padlock on. The padlock was no match for a Glaswegian with a 2lb geological hammer.

There was a bucketload of dust to clear out of the way before I could get anything into the cellar. But I had the perfect location for a potting bench (one of the lab benches I snaffled from my old biology lab before it was demolished), and plenty of space for storage.

The Aussie upstairs expressed a desire to get a home brewing kit set up, and I've made sure at least half the space is available for such worthy endeavours.

Putting the compost, pots and tools in the cellar has freed up the greenhouse to actually accommodate plants. So I suppose I'd better get on with propagating. The greenhouse was easily moved to one side of the steps, next to our grey-water butt. I remember that being where my first greenhouse (more a plastic-covered shelving system!) was put, so it's nice to have that return to the original layout.

Today In The Garden

2012-05-27T22:16:00.000+01:00

This afternoon was a time for sitting and enjoying the weather, and the light was beautiful.

This is a sight you're all used to seeing - the little paved area with the fountain in the background. But the view in the opposite direction takes some getting used to:

I added in the paving slabs yesterday (like the ones next to the fountain, they are from my parents' garden, so will come with us when we eventually move house). It makes walking through the garden in my slippers a bit easier first thing in the morning. We've finally got to the stage where it is warm enough to regularly eat breakfast outside, so slipper-clad perambulation is an important consideration.

Wordless Wednesday: Outdoor Office

2012-04-11T18:11:00.002+01:00

We Dug

2012-03-17T16:04:00.000Z

Last weekend we finished the gravelling of the garden. Hubster dealt with the surprisingly tough job of putting in the edging next to the turf, and I hefted much of the tonne of gravel, aided by one of our neighbours. We dug a little pond and transferred in the water from the other pond, including a rather annoyed damselfly larva (who will no doubt take care of mosquito larvae come the summer).

So here are all the photos. We're getting a picnic bench to go in the centre of the gravel, as it's a lovely sun trap until about mid-late afternoon - we'll stain it blue to match the rest of the wooden things. There's going to be a breeze-block structure for our barbecue over in the back left hand corner, and Hubster is looking forward to barbecuing all manner of meat this summer. The maple to the left of the gravelled area has lots of bird feeders hanging from it, and I've counted robins, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long-tailed tits, goldfinches and chaffinches.

The drought is going to be pretty tough on Jurassic Park this year with a hosepipe ban coming in, but we've got water butts set up, have figured out that our shower water is nearly enough to water the entire garden (and of course some plants like euphorbias and the Wollemia won't need it every day), and Thames Water have said drip micro-irrigation systems are fine as they're very water-efficient, so I'll be ordering one of them. I think there's reason to be optimistic - I just hope we're not restricted to standpipes...

We Dig

2012-03-04T19:32:00.000Z

About four years ago there was a really crappy television show called "Bonekickers", all about crime-fighting archaeologists. I switched off after the following exchange:

"What do we do now?"
"We dig."

Anyway, yesterday, we dug.

Now that I am once more the only resident of Jurassic Towers with an interest in horticulture, the property manager has been quite busy getting builders in to repair the damage to the upstairs flats, and we now have new neighbours next door (after nine months alone) and above (after a year and a half). This means it's time to rethink my occupancy of the garden. After our upstairs neighbour died, and it was clear no new tenants were coming in, I spread out underneath the fire escape.

It was a rather crappy bit of the garden to be honest, and only really good for taking candid shots of Hubster through the leaves as he sat at the table. So, I wondered whether the property manager would be amenable to me gravelling over part of the lawn. The answer was "hell yes". And you'll see why:

Here's the lawn, with Hubster for scale. I'm not a big fan of lawns - I don't like big monocultures. That said, this was mostly clover and buttercups, with a bit of moss thrown in for good measure. And of course with a maple, an apple tree and a tree of ~~heaven~~ hell forming a triangle, this bit of lawn was never going to get the nutrients it needed. It took about four hours to dig everything up, then we broke for a shower, and a trip to the garden centre to get membrane and a massive cream tea. We laid the membrane as we were losing the light.

We pegged the membrane in places, and put plants on top in others. This morning, I started placing some of the plants. This was harder than I thought, and some of them look really bad at the moment, like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.

Next weekend the gravel is arriving, and it'll look a whole lot better then, I hope. We're putting in a little pond, and I have plans for a larger table and chairs (maybe a picnic bench?) in the middle of the gravel.

All of it looks rather miserable, not least because it was tipping it down with rain. I was in waterproofs, but after two hours out this morning I was soaked to the skin. I'm really rather ready for spring to happen so the plants can get a bit of colour on them. It's on its way - I can tell - the Metasequoia has buds on it, and the Acacia has little flowers forming. I even saw a bumblebee yesterday morning sunning itself.

Tune in next week for the arrival of the gravel...

A Different Kind Of Gardening...

2012-02-17T20:27:00.000Z

Hasn't this blog been quiet? A number of things really - work has been sufficiently time-sapping that I've been leaving in the dark and getting home in the dark, even as the evenings are getting lighter. I put Jurassic Park to bed in October half-term, with reports that we were heading for some cold weather - it never materialised, but I couldn't be bothered to unfleece everything. So for nearly four months the garden has been wrapped up and cosy.

But it appears not everyone at Jurassic Towers was holding off the gardening. Do you remember the horrible builders over summer 2011 who smashed my Euphorbia and who may even have smashed Bastard I? Turns out they were putting in a rather elaborate raised bed upstairs. They were also putting in insulation, reflective panels, extractor fans and a hydroponics system. Oh yes, dear readers, they made a cannabis farm.

Eventually the police had enough evidence to obtain a warrant, and boy was it quite a haul! We were shown photos of the "crops", and it looked like one of those sweeping shots over the rainforest that you see on nature documentaries. This was all several weeks ago, and since then we've had significantly nicer builders in renovating the flats. They had a skip, and we were able to see some of the "kit" being used.

Firstly, there are an awful lot of pots aren't there? We were surprised by this - the pots all had compost in them, and good quality stuff too. I was under the impression that hydroponics involved very little compost - perhaps they just had a capillary mat or something. Nevertheless there would have been an awful lot of irrigation needed. You'll also notice the large drums - we think these were part of the extractor system. Apparently increasingly cannabis farmers are using fans to pump that distinctive aroma out through chimneys and so on. There was also a lot of foil-covered board, to reflect the heat back in to the plants, and the obligatory high-wattage lights.

When I teach my BTEC Plant Science unit, I find a lot of the most well-researched articles online on plant nutrition and especially micronutrient balances are from the cannabis growers. They've really studied very hard, and I have to hand it to them for maximising growth in usually distinctly non-ideal conditions for growing plants. I'm just puzzled about one thing - we think they've run their lights 24 hours a day. Now, as far as I recall, plants require a period of dark to be able to process all the products from the light-dependent stage of photosynthesis. If they don't remove the products, then basically photosynthesis slows. Surely it would be in the interest of cannabis farmers to maximise photosynthesis.

So I'm wondering, do cannabis growers have periods of light and dark, or do they grow their crop at less than maximum efficiency? Or has the need for light and dark been shown to be rubbish?

My Parents' Problem Patch

2011-10-22T22:36:00.000+01:00

Two years ago, my parents had their garden completely redesigned. Some sections of the garden look lovely - there is a swathe of lavender in the middle of the garden, and the colour is gorgeous. The west-facing border has taken off so well that my mum probably has enough Alchemilla mollis to supply every garden in Nottinghamshire. However, some of the designer's ideas were, umm, bewildering, to say the least. Where Mum said she loved every colour of flowers except yellow, she now has a load of Euphorbia and the aforementioned Alchemilla. The ground underneath the lawn was not levelled properly, and it will never be able to double as an impromptu croquet lawn or putting green, as my grandfather's lawn used to.

We don't talk about the chamomile lawn. It used to be where the recliner now sits:

And in an east-facing border, we have a Camellia. As far as I remember, it's pretty much the only advice given on the label when you buy a Camellia: Don't plant in an east-facing border, and don't feed after midnight.

The east-facing border is a bit of a problem though. You can probably spot it from here - it's the ruddy great big copper beech tree. So it's shady, dry and really crappy soil. My mantra when talking to my mother has become "More manure, more manure, more manure", but it's clear that the plants need to be sorted a bit.

Doesn't look great, does it? The Cotinus hasn't grown at all in the two years it'd been in, nor, really, has the Mahonia. Fatsia japonica seems happy enough, as does the Buddleja, but there's a lot of miserable looking soil.

Both Rob and Victoria have made some suggestions. Sarcococca could be a winner, as could Brunnera - I think Mum would like some bigger shrubs though, to hide the fence a bit. I also mentioned Liriope muscari, and perhaps many of the plants listed on the Plants for Shade website, but she might prefer to hear it from you lot.

Any more ideas? I know what's in the books, but personal experiences are always something my mother takes notice of. They live just outside Nottingham, so it's pretty much USDA zone 8, and the house is on the south side of the garden.

With Fronds Like These Who Needs Anemones?

2011-10-18T09:30:00.000+01:00

Just over two weeks ago, Hubster and I went over to visit Victoria, accompanied by Rob. There was an ulterior motive - the presence of two Big Strong Boys was requested to help move some pots, and one of those pots contained a Cycas revoluta that Victoria was giving to me.

We were also able to meet Mario and Luigi the kittens (who are as adorable as they look in the photos), and eat scones and clotted cream.

So here is Bastard III, resplendent in the garden:

Thank you so much, Victoria - it is a marvellous specimen, and looks very happy in between the Wollemi pine and Halocarpus bidwilli.

Signs Of Spring

2011-10-15T22:35:00.000+01:00

What glorious weather! There are new young leaves on Liriodendron chinense:

There are buds on Magnolia x soulangeana:

There are flower buds on Acacia pravissima:

And new leaves on Grandpa's Geranium plants:

Even Podocarpus salignus is getting in on the act:

So it's a pity really that it's October and the frosts are going to nix all of that any week now...

A Reason To Be Cheerful

2011-09-19T21:17:00.001+01:00

Watering the garden this evening, I noticed a small patch of green at the base of my presumably very dead Cunninghamia lanceolata, languishing in the ICU. I lifted up some of the brown needles, and saw new growth. I grabbed the secateurs and hacked back the dead bits to see this:

I'm so delighted that it's come back from the dead - I was sure it had carked it over the winter (although it should be able to cope with USDA Zone 7 type winters!). One thing that has surprised me is that it has grown up from the base. I don't remember where I read it, but I was under the impression that conifers did not regrow from the base (although angiosperms will, as my parents' knackered bay trees demonstrate).

Any of you have any examples of conifers regrowing from the base? Is it a lot more common than I realised?

Il Faut Cultiver Notre Jardin

2011-08-29T17:52:00.000+01:00

Voltaire didn't write about allotments, but I bet he'd have been none too impressed with my own allotmenteering skills. I have neglected it terribly. It's in the grounds of Hubster's Quaker Meeting House. The plan was that I would tend it while Hubster was in Meeting, then come in for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Of course that only works if Hubster is a good Quaker and goes every week...

So, before we went on holiday to Cornwall, it looked like this:

Hubster went once the week after we got back (I can't remember why I didn't go to the allotment - maybe I was tutoring that Sunday morning), and said it was pretty much wild. It evidently stayed wild until I finally got back to it yesterday.

This is what it looked like two years ago before I did anything with it:

I didn't take any photos of it yesterday, but it looked even worse. The borage has evolved into a new species, Borago triffidus, and whilst I can just about see over the top of it, we could lose whole classes of schoolchildren in there.

The oddest thing is the disappearance of vegetables. I put in a bag of first earlies, a bag of main crop and some onion sets. There are no onions. I got maybe a dozen main crop potatoes. Fortunately my first earlies are quite a bumper haul:

I'm assuming that onions have been dug up and eaten by squirrels/pigeons, and that the main crops were irresistible to slugs. Suppose that's a consequence of abandoning the plants for four months!

One of the other Quakers suggested sowing spinach, so I think I'll be doing that in a couple of weeks' time. This coming Sunday, however, I have an awful lot of digging to do.

In other news, I finally made it to Victoria's open garden yesterday afternoon. It looks even more gorgeous in real life than it does in her photos. And even Hubster was happy - he proclaimed the carrot cake the best in the world and was seriously considering another slice (the first one was massive!).

My crappy phone camera did not do this border justice. But I think it was my favourite part of the garden - the combination of reds, maroons, purples and oranges was bright, bold and damn sexy. As you know, I don't really do flowers in Jurassic Park, but I do have a massive soft spot for dahlias.

So two gardens yesterday, at opposite ends of the care-and-attention-given-by-the-owner spectrum. And mine languishing somewhere in between...

Reasons To Be Cheerful

2011-08-12T21:16:00.000+01:00

The great thing about a garden is that, even when you have lost plants (or bits of plants), and when you're feeling very pessimistic about the world in general, and wondering where you're going and why you're in this handcart, there is something to cheer and inspire. Bastard the Cycad is still in recovery, but Bastard II has decided, almost as a means of comforting me, to start a flush:

And despite being written off as a winter loss, Doodia media is alive. I did buy another one, but presumably you can never have too many Doodias...

I have lots and lots of Pelargonium cuttings taking root, ready to brighten up my new lab, which I move into on Monday:

And as well as some Chlorophytum pups that I've finally potted on, having got my GCSE students in 2009 to make them root to demonstrate asexual reproduction, I have my parrot plant (Impatiens niamniamensis) cuttings doing well:

Despite growing all these plants, I'm really not that confident at propagation. Dividing I'm fine with, and I've done that so many times with ferns to give chunks away. But cuttings, and - heavens! - sowing seeds brings me out in a cold sweat immediately followed by a deep sense of shame for my lack of confidence. So I know that Impatiens and Pelargonium are about the easiest genera to propagate evah!!, but it's impressive for me anyway.

Needless Vandalism And Destruction

2011-08-11T15:26:00.000+01:00

You've probably all been watching the images of riots, looting and criminal damage. It was shameful and disgusting to watch. Hubster and I joined in with the Ealing cleanup on Tuesday - we couldn't just sit back and do nothing. It was a reminder that there are people in this country (and no doubt around the world) who manage to be materialistic and greedy while putting no value on belongings.

I wouldn't dream of comparing damage to my plants to the losses faced by the poor families I've seen on the news. I would give up my whole garden without a second thought for the sake of my own family. And yet the sense of perspective didn't make this any easier to deal with on Monday night:

This was Bastard the Cycad. Less than a month ago he started flushing, and by the time we went away this time last week for my brother's wedding, he had a good six inches of growth. I came back to find all his fronds snapped off and laid in the pot next to him.

I tried to think whether it was a strong gust of wind, or an animal. But wind would have sent the broken pieces across the garden, and an animal would have eaten the bits (hopefully getting the staggers afterwards). The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced this was human. We have guys who work next door to us, but they are lovely friendly chaps who know how much my garden means to me, and I am sure that if one of them had knocked Bastard accidentally, they would have said something. So I'm discounting them.

Which means I'm led back to our nasty new neighbours and their builders, and I reckon this time it was deliberate. The fronds were put back in the pot. But because I was away I have no means of proving this. I just feel gutted that I'd spent all this time nursing Bastard back from near death, and now he won't have this lovely full flush of seven fronds that he was growing. If he's lucky we'll have two full ones.

I'm fed up of people who vandalise other people's property. I hate these builders, and the criminal tenants employing them. I'm disgusted by the far, far worse destruction and wrecking of people's lives that has gone on in the past week. And I'm angry because I am absolutely powerless to do anything about it.

Death From Above

2011-07-31T19:51:00.001+01:00

People who have kept up with the saga of us, our landlord and all manner of dubious prospective tenants for the flats above us via Twitter will be aware of this. Cutting a very long story short, we have some dodgy builders in the upstairs flat who will think nothing of working from 7:45am to 9:00pm, hammering loudly and incessantly the whole time. They may well be putting in internal walls (illegally, as it's a listed building and no planning permission has been sought), and they're sticking a new back door on at the top of the fire escape.

On Thursday they dropped their drill. Into Jurassic Park. Hubster saw one of them come down the steps, reach in and pick it up, and go back upstairs. Then he went outside to check on my plants.

That used to be Euphorbia characias "Black Pearl". I doubt it is anymore. There are a few things about which I am incredibly protective. My family, my gecko, my students, and my plants. Not only did the builder smash the plant, but he did not own up to it. If he had tapped on the back door (which is almost always open when we're in) and said "I'm really sorry, I dropped the drill and it smashed the plant" then we could have had a civil conversation about it.

But ask any one of my students, and they'll say that not owning up to things is one way to really piss me off. So by the time I had got together the pieces, I was seething with rage. I absolutely screamed at the builders, all of whom denied it, until one of them said he'd dropped the drill "so I think maybe it was me". YOU THINK??? Hubster, by this point, was more concerned for the safety of the builders than he was for my distress.

Eventually they asked me how much it was, and I plucked £15 out of the air. Perhaps a little more than it would normally cost from a garden centre, but I'm happy enough to factor in a replacement pot, compost and the several stiff margaritas I needed to calm down. However, I'd bought it from Burncoose Nurseries on holiday in Cornwall this year, so if that proved to be the only place selling it then delivery charges alone would be £13. I don't think "Black Pearl" is too unusual a variety, but it's not really the right time of year to buy euphorbias as they're all finishing up their flowering (I deadheaded "Robbiae" today). The plant itself may not be lost - I shall repot it and put it in the ICU to see if I can breathe some life back into it.

One thing I did manage to impress on them is that they were jolly lucky the drill did not fall a couple of feet in either direction. Whilst the guy who appeared to be in charge seemed to have more money on him than we have in our bank account, I don't think they'd appreciate replacing what is now a 1.5m tall Wollemia nobilis, or Encephalartos princeps (could I even get another one of them?). And I doubt replacing my £300 fountain is in their budget either.

Jamie Oliver And Peat-Based Compost

2011-07-25T18:35:00.000+01:00

I enjoy a good Jamie Oliver-bashing, I do. I restrained myself when his Dream School took over the airwaves for all too long, but many others didn't. Not content with trying to tell me how to teach "kidz wot da system's let dahn innit", he now wants to tell me how to grow my own vegetables, and he wants me to use his compost to do so.

Firstly it's a bit over-priced, compared to what I pay for New Horizon at the garden centre. With any luck it'll simply attract the idiots at the bottom of the economic food chain in that case. But worse is the composition of the compost:

That's well over 50% (maybe getting on for 60%) peat in the fruit and vegetable growbag.

Same with the potato compost. At a time when the pressure should be (and is?) on compost manufacturers to reduce the amount of peat in their products, Jamie Oliver goes right in with more than 50% peat.

Why do I have a problem with this? Well, firstly, I'm a leftie pinko tree-hugger. I like our unique habitats. I like the endemic species of the highland and lowland peat bogs. I'd quite like them to hang around for a few million years more, until they naturally die out. I like how peat bogs are excellent carbon sinks, and how we'd be even more screwed in terms of anthropogenic global warming than we already are. Read Mark Diacono's piece for the Telegraph. See what Mr Corduroy himself, Monty Don was saying back in 2002:

Every time you use a peat-based compost in the garden, you are deliberately participating in the destruction of a non-renewable environment that sustains some of our most beautiful plant and animal life. No garden on this earth is worth that.

Whatever you think about his presenting of Gardeners' World, there is no doubt that Monty has no trouble with the yield of crops from his kitchen garden. Perhaps it's all the different compost recipes Monty uses for the plants with specific requirements.

Which brings me to my second point: peat-free composts are outperforming peat-based composts. They first did so in 2010, when Which? published their annual compost survey. They did so again this year, according to Hort Week, including my favourite, New Horizon. When I don't use my own compost, I buy a couple of bags of New Horizon. Does my garden look like it's suffering for the lack of peat?

Homebase have really disappointed in this regard. A few years ago they published a paper outlining their commitment to reducing peat in their compost sales. Their target was:

To ensure that by the end of 2009, 90% (by volume) of the growing media and soil conditioners sold by Homebase are peat free.

How can they possibly still aim for that target given that they're selling Jamie Oliver's peat-based compost? I note that there was no peat-related target on the 2009 corporate responsibility report, but it returned in the 2009/2010 targets:

Achieve at least 60% peat-free growing media by end 2009/10 and at least 65% by end 2010/11

Well, that's a bit of back-peddling and a half. It's also not clear whether this is by volume sold, by number of products available, or indeed by popularity contest. I'd love to know how Homebase are squaring their targets with their introduction of a new high peat content product, but this certainly discourages me from shopping there full stop (we were only there to buy a new toilet seat - I cannot remember when I last bought gardening products from there).

And in the meantime, perhaps Jamie Oliver could stop trying to tell me how to teach and how to garden? I promise, that if he goes back to just cooking stuff, I won't tell him how to do it properly.

Bastard Lives

2011-07-21T10:15:00.000+01:00

I truly thought that Bastard the Cycad had carked it over the winter. All his fronds were yellow and crispy, and he looked very sorry for himself. But you should never write off a cycad, so he was moved to the ICU and put in a bucket of water. A few weeks ago, there were signs of life:

Two weeks later, we are well and truly in a flush!

That's probably a good 3cm in 15 days. He's in a pretty sunny spot now, and he's still sitting in a bucket of water. I'm not moving him until the fronds have fully formed, as movement would result in some twisting of the fronds. I really must investigate the physiology of this more. Angiosperms grow to the light, but conifers don't seem to have much of a phototropic response - I didn't need to turn my Sequoia seedlings on the windowsill. I don't know whether conifers aetiolate either (I've seen it in cycads, ferns and of course angiosperms).

It looks like I might get as many as half a dozen fronds off Bastard, so I will try to post regular updates on his progress.

Wordless Wednesday: Hail Damage

2011-07-20T21:01:00.001+01:00

Meeting Carol

2011-06-20T19:55:00.000+01:00

Bloody hell - two months without a post on here? That's not good! Anyway, on Sunday Hubster and I decamped to Birmingham to visit BBC Gardeners World Live, a first for me (I've done Chelsea, Hampton Court and plenty of the smaller London-centric shows). It was nice to see the gardens, and do a little bit of shopping (I replaced my frazzled Doodia media and scored a Selaginella uncinata, which I've only ever seen at Kew Gardens). But the one aspect I was most looking forward to was Carol Klein's talk about container gardening at Glebe Cottage.

I wondered out loud on Twitter whether she might be able to sign a book, and the superb @BBC_GW_Live responded to say she would be doing a signing immediately after her talk. Brilliant! Grabbed my copy of "Grow Your Own Garden" and we hit the road.

Carol's talk was fantastic. Her enthusiasm is utterly infectious, and anyone who doesn't smile when she talks about her garden has a heart of stone. And I have to admit, as I was queuing up to have my book signed I got all nervous, worried that I would babble away like some kind of sycophant with verbal diarrhoea.

One day I will learn that when I'm just so damn excited I could burst I need to keep my shit-eating grin in check. I did start off saying how much she had inspired me to garden, even though my little patch is difficult, to say the least. And then I asked if she would like to see a photo, and whipped out my phone. I'm utterly proud and a little overwhelmed to say that she thought it was "lovely" and indeed "absolutely gorgeous". And that she took down my contact details to pass on to the GW production team.

I suppose it is looking rather nice in Jurassic Park. I told her what I was growing in there, and she seemed really pleased that it was just what she had been talking about. We had a little chat about teaching in West London - she taught art. She must have been a phenomenal teacher with that personality and enthusiasm. So I told her that I was so impressed with her "The Science of Gardening" show that I had ordered it from our college library and that I showed it to my students at the start of their unit on plant sciences because it was just so well explained, and it had been an amazing way to introduce the topic, with photosynthesis and seed storage and plant anatomy.

I feel like an utter fangirl, but it really was one of the defining moments of my gardening life. I'm sure all of you who know her well will find my excitement at having met her highly amusing, but I'm so thrilled, and even more delighted that she liked my garden. I told Hubster that was like him meeting Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett and having them say they were a fan of his writing. I know you lot all comment from time to time to say how awesome Jurassic Park is, but having heard Carol say it, I believe it just a little bit more.

A Much-Needed Holiday

2011-04-25T21:14:00.000+01:00

Hubster and I have just got back from a week's holiday in St Ives, Cornwall. We visited two years ago with friends, and decided to go back this time just the two of us. The aims were:

To visit a load of gardens
For Hubster to paint a lot of watercolours
To restock from some of the great nurseries
To read a few books (me) and write some more novel/short stories (him)
To relax

I did naff all reading and Hubster did naff all writing, but we managed pretty much everything else, and especially the latter.

So where did we go? Well, we visited The Minack Theatre:

And then we went to Penjerrick, and if you have never been there then you really, really must:

We walked across to St Michael's Mount:

We had a stroll round the gardens at Burncoose Nurseries (where, yes, I might have bought one or two things...):

And we spent an afternoon at Trebah, where the tree ferns seem to have done a lot better this year than they had two years ago:

We were wholly disappointed with the Barbara Hepworth Garden, a reaction which appears to be a mortal sin in Cornwall, but neither Hubster nor I felt that the sculptures and the garden were right for each other:

It was suggested to me that I could not expect very much given the small space, to which I say bollocks, and I imagine the owner of this front garden in Newlyn would agree:

I'm now trying to brace myself for the horror that is heading back to the chalkface tomorrow, so I'll leave you with a tantalising glimpse of my haul:

Wordless Wednesday: Blood, Sweat And Tears

2011-04-20T11:19:00.006+01:00

GBBD: Acacia pravissima

2011-04-15T10:06:00.001+01:00

I don't have much flowering in Jurassic Park (for obvious reasons) but I was persuaded to part with a little money a few years ago for a small Acacia pravissima specimen. This year I have been rewarded with some gorgeous little flowers:

There have been some enormous bees around recently, but they don't seem to have located the flowers yet. A pity, as I gather they go pretty crazy for acacia nectar.

Wordless Wednesday: Ta-Daaaaa!

2011-04-13T12:01:00.002+01:00

Wordless Wednesday: Signs Of Spring

2011-03-02T10:17:00.004Z

Snow On The Ground

2011-02-28T20:17:00.000Z

Last week was half-term, and because it's February the weather was almost entirely rainy. Absolutely miserable. Except Thursday.

So, having read about it in The Garden, I dragged Hubster out to Welford Park in west Berkshire. It's only open for a month every year, specifically for its snowdrops.

The owners get you to drive quite slowly as you approach, and this is probably a good thing as the primary response is to gawp open-mouthed at the woods as you pass. I'm sure there have been the odd shunts and rear-endings.

Of course, the photos don't really do the snowdrops justice. It has to be seen in person, so you should put a note in your diary for next February.

The other early spring plants were not to be outdone, so there is a vibrant display of crocuses and winter aconites near the house:

They don't take credit cards, and they're in the middle of nowhere, so I highly recommend taking plenty of cash, as the smell of the bacon rolls they serve in the tea rooms is almost irresistible. Also stout boots or wellies and someone who doesn't mind pushing the car when it's stuck in the muddy car park will be helpful. All absolutely worth it!

A Weekend Of Plants

2011-02-13T21:11:00.000Z

It was my birthday today (having turned 30 last year I now plan to tell everyone I am 29.95 plus shippling and handling), and Hubster has learnt well over the last year - this means that at some point I will drag him to a botanical garden.

This year, the poor sucker had to cope with two draggings: Chelsea Physic Garden on Saturday and Kew Gardens today. Chelsea Physic Garden is still very much a hidden gem in London, although I am sad to see that the rule about close supervision of children is not as strictly enforced as in previous years - somewhere with Ricinus, Digitalis and Atropa belladonna is probably not suitable for use as a children's playground.

Depressingly enough, the first thing I saw when I went in was a display on plant fibres and their use in rope, which I thought would be perfect when teaching the final AS Biology topic on use of plants.

The lichens are amazing, and at this time of year were some of the most vivid organisms in the garden. Oh yeah, and there were some snowdrops too...

Kew Gardens was all about the tropical extravaganza.

It seemed a little less "extravagant" this year, and it was unusual not to see the waterlily house in use this year. However, it was a great opportunity to get stuck in with my tripod again, and snap some orchids:

And a first for me - a jade vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) in flower:

The colours were utterly amazing, and I think I managed to capture them pretty faithfully even with my little digicam.

Next weekend sees the start of half-term, so I stand a chance of being able to a) see my garden in daylight, b) dig over the allotment and c) sow some of the gazillion or so seeds that I ordered over the past few weeks...