blooms in the house

 It feels unspeakably mean to bring in any flowers from the garden at the moment (on the last count: Winter Jasmine, the odd daisy and, improbably, Hoop Petticoat Daffodils) so I'm picking them up, at great speed, on the weekly shop. Just basic bitch supermarket flowers: daffs and-and -another like basic tulips or carnations. I have a very soft spot for them though; they have an irrepressible cheerfulness. 

Last week's tulips have, as they always do, died beautifully. Even the daffs have withered tidily with them, as if caught up in the tulips' love of the glamour of decay. Dying daffs are more often a spludge of gunky yellow; these have kept their form.

One more day and they will be over, but for today it's beautiful.

when next year comes : abergelasney

Maybe it's too early to making solid plans, maybe it's not. I've had a rough week, health-wise. But thinking about where I might go, when it becomes possible, that's a thing, surely?

So I found myself reading about Aberglasney and its extraordinary Ninfarium. Here's a little view of the gardens: 

They're not far - in South Wales, and therefore both accessible as a fairly epic day trip, and as a practical, modern stately home - they also (ooh!) have rentable holiday space. 

Our 1920s quarti is the end terrace of a four house block. Along the back of the houses runs a basic brick and beam columned colonnade, roofed in the same curvy red tiles as the rest of the house. Originally housing an outdoor toilet and providing clothes and firewood drying space, lots of them (ours included) got enclosed in the 70s-80s-90s-00s. This leaves the space more indoor than outdoor - warm enough for exotic plants, for example. But the exterior nature persists in a crittal window looking into the kitchen, a pebbledash back wall, a primitive raised floor, a certain improvisational feel. Often in Oxford these spaces - neither in nor outdoors - are called "garden rooms" and I've filled it with a lot of plants.

Not so many that they menace the cats and the drying washing - all spaces must fulfil multiple designations - so I will never be able to approach the plants-first brio of Aberglasney's exterior/interior spaces. But I'd like to see them; there's often interesting ideas about how things may grow more happily in limited spaces, vertically, together, luxuriantly, beautifully. 

poisonous cucurbits

Last year I grew cucumbers successfully for the very first time. It wasn't intentional. I'd bought a courgette plant from Aldi on impulse, and when I got it home I noted in passing that it didn't actually have anything other than "plant" written on its label, but thought nothing more of it, as I stowed it cheerfully into a pandemic-friendly individual shopping basket that had turned out to be very much hand-unfriendly.

The courgette grew wonderfully, but was also a cucumber, and that was great, as I like cucumber very much. But the last of the cucumbers was not great. It was a little shrunken, and had that bitter tang, almost a touch soapy, that I associate with plants that I'd better not.

Cucurbitacins made the news last year, along with slightly sniggering headlines about "improperly grown zucchini" along with first hand accounts and tabloid exposés. Hair falling out and dying are mentioned, though most of those affected seem to have just had the dicky tummy warned about by the RHS.

I didn't eat the cuke, I tend not to eat things that seem a bit iffy, not since the incident with some red quinoa from a health food shop that hadn't been properly washed to remove the saponins. Bitter lemon yes - bitter cucumbers, no. 

That said, I do rather fancy growing them again this year. They seemed to like the warmth of the patio and cheerfully tumbled leaves and tendrils all over the place. I would like some actual courgettes, though, too this time. Maybe I should try buying an Aldi cucumber plant - win either way. 

I quite fancy a Golden Globe or similar. These look good.

some things I found at Kew

Back when we could, before lockdown locked down, there was a brief moment when outside socialising was permitted and the weather wasn't too terrible and my sister and I both had an afternoon. We went to beautiful Kew Gardens. Not for the winter lights, just for an afternoon bimble. 

I was with my niece who wanted to visit a glasshouse. Surely not, I thought. But the glasshouses at Kew are huge and distanced visiting was possible. Inside the glasshouse I found this:

Earthstar, Cryptanthus - it's freely available as a pot plant, and I rather like it. Different varieties have rather lovely names - Rubin Star, Pink Sarlight, Ruby Red. Of course the thing I get won't turn green and make flowers, eh, probably ever? That's a very mature plant. But the plants themselves are rather lovely, even when tiny.

I'm also finding myself increasingly drawn to variegated leaves. My garden, surrounded by neighbours' trees, tends toward darkness. Variegation brings a little sparkle. Mail order variegation is an unreliable beast, however; you never quite know the mutant you'll get.

Meanwhile, out in the gardens, the bushes were watching and advancing....

But there were some more surprising things outside, too. Observe the hardy cactus and succulents! Growing in the cold and not caring less.Just last year, I started moving some of my cacti and succulents outside in the summer, for more light and space. But looking at these, outside in December, I can take all that much further. It is time to start seriously investigating Hardy Cacti?

I don't really have enough ground to worry about ground cover, but my large number of deciduous shrubs and trees mean that I do need to consider what looks good with fallen leaves. Fine fernlets of some type and a creeping variegated deadnettle or similar are looking very good with the fallen leaves. I brought home a couple of  Yellow Archangel stems last year which might give a similar look. They're also tough enough to take on my terrible perennial weed-load.

I also took this picture, for reference. It's an artichoke plant, taller than me. I brought two of these home from the allotment. Will I regret this? I don't know.

dawn from the garden bench

We got a cheap bench from IKEA last year. The design suggested that it had been fairly hastily improvised from a bedstead; the perfect small seat for a socially distanced visit.

For us, it was replacing last year's cheap bench (a Wilko special) which had cracked under the weight of being used as a cat trampoline. It had a comfortable woven seat with enough bounce to make it a fun jump for our kitties up into the jungle gym of trees that backs the garden.

In full midwinter the light never hits the bench. The garden sinks into full shadow. But just occasionally, now, when there is a fine morning, I get to sit in the sun with my morning tea, considering the chaos that it is; a garden belonging to someone who has been convalescent for six months and locked down (on and off) since last March. Fair to say there's quite a bit that needs doing.

But just for now, I'll have my morning tea in the January sunshine, while the Red Kites warm their wings and the sparrows scuffle in the trees.

object of desire 2021 #1 - Coronilla Glauca

There is a house I used to walk by, back when walking that route wasn't a risk to the health of myself and others, which had a beautiful blue door and a front garden dominated by a big, stunningly beautfiul Coronilla Glauca Variegata. It's been on my kidnap-a-twig list for years, but I've never had a cutting take (the twigs have come from a rather scruffier and closer to home specimen!)

Variegated plants add a little sparkle to a dark garden, but I recently met the species variety in a Botanic Garden and it is, honestly, just as good:

putting a seed in the soil of 2021

So, in the space between me crashing out of work with a suspected second stroke (false alarm! Now on adjusted medication and feeling a lot better) and waking up to a second desperate scuttle into my workplace for a few last key tasks before second lockdown, a couple of gardening catalogues came through my door. 

During the time I was so uncertain about my recovery, I couldn't face the thought of the garden. It felt like a jinx to plan into the future that way. Gardens, after all, are faith in a future. It might be yours, shared or someone else's. But you've put your hand on the steering wheel of continuity. Whether it's alkanet or roses, nettles or hellebore, you can look out on it and whisper, "I made that".

So, to the catalogues. That pile of glossy promises, full of hints of an April, a June, even a September. Will we be out of our homes by then? Or should I budget for a lot of being in the garden? One day I found myself marking items in the catalogues; another putting in an order of seeds. The hands have voted for a future, in the garden, with fruit and flowers. And who am I to argue?

So, what's in the garden for 2021?

Somewhere in the postal system:

• Sweet Pea. Blue Shift, Bristol, Prince of Orange and Velvet Crush.
• Tomato Orange Queen, Orange Wellington, Ailsa Craig, Bloody Butcher, Brown Berry and Carbon 
• Chilli Black Cobra, Cayennetta, Chenzo, Little Bomb and Orange Tyger

Other marked up in the seed catalogues include a climbing/hanging basket strawberry (I left my strawbs up at the allotment), those weird blue potatoes (actually a shade of purple), Courgette summer ball and those sparse sprouting broccoli like Red Fire. There's also a lovely white Kale (Emerald Ice - also available, Midnight Sun) and a cartoonish bean called Selma Zebra. I want some crimson flowered broad beans too though I'm also intrigued by Masterpiece Green Longpod - a new variety to me.

Yes, yes, I know. I don't have an allotment any more.... 

the wet world of winter

Today the sun never shone. We went for a walk and it was fun; there were new year swimmers in the icy lake. Just a few, but some were in bikinis! The vigour of youth... Kids were breaking the ice so they could run their Christmas RC Boats, tow paths were closed but no roads were flooded. It was a walk we know well - we're sticking to regular routes for our health walks, just a few. This one would normally take us up the tow path, but it is flooded in the low parts. As it was, we walked past the allotments which I stared at with speculative eyes. I'm already thinking about my next allotment, even though it's too early for that sort of thing yet - I'm very much still recovering.

But, things which might be happening this year:

• I have a geodesic dome kit in my shed: I'm waiting for the neighbour to finish on the willow tree, then back-garden shelter, of a somewhat festivalish variety, will arrive.
• Reconfiguring the main bed: we have a big bindweed problem. Plus Alkanet, Enchanter's Nightshade, Red Valerian, etc. as if the garden is trying to collect the full perennial weedset. Which means I may have to dig. Or go up, using bricks to raise a bed (I have a lot of bricks as a result of a kitchen wall that went).
• Turning the compost: my compost bin is full. There's a great ants nest in it, but it's not moving fast enough to keep up with winter waste. That means work must be done.
• Vegetable planters: after last year's success with the cucumbers I want to try again - how much fruit and veg can I grow actually in my own garden.
• Something ate my apples last year: who was the culprit? Post-Christmas, I am the happy owner of a rugged trail cam. This year, we investigate our wildlife.

That's enough. I don't honestly know how ill I'm going to be, or how long I'm likely to take recovering. The new medication mix is making me feel better but I don't know if I'll be able to stick with it. It's all rare enough that the data is just case studies.Some people are just fine after. Maybe I can get there. Consider it an overarching resolution.