My mother’s camellias

…She hasn’t space for bushes…so instead she wall-trains them.

…It takes a while….

These have been here for as long as I can remember – (the pink one was given to my mother at the birth of my older brother)….What I’m trying to say is that they’re older than ME.

I don’t remember them ever flowering so abundantly as this year.

…leaving a trail of luscious bounty….

Too many blooms to carry indoors, (like so many precious babies) and float in bowls

…So they get used to anoint topiary…’n stuff.

I’ll write a recipe for this one-pot-wonder once I’ve grilled my mother on her secrets.

a bientôt

x

Something to soothe

Never parTICularly been one for an ‘erbal infusion’ (unless it’s lemon verbena or peppermint)

I’m far more likely to munch leaves or a flower in a salad…

or cover it with sugar and put it on a cake…

… but stuff’s wee bit stressy at the moment, and I went out to pick a tiny posy because I thought it was something rare, and non-computer-based…and then I found myself marvelling at these pretty things, and I picked up Jekka’s Herb Book, and it said  that a tisane acts as a ‘mild sedative’…’good for anxiety and insomnia’, so I chucked some leaves and a flower in a cup.

Primula vulgaris are mighty easy to grow, particularly if you have a deciduous tree kicking around, under which they can live in a nice, moist, partly shady world.

Wild primroses are less common than they should be, so don’t pick them unless there are absolutely loads, and certainly don’t pull them up by the roots.

Colours vary from the palest of creams to much deeper, eggy yellows, and look how pretty the buds are:

You can grow them in a pot – just use JI No2 and water regularly, and you can divide them in the autumn if you’ve got big clumps.

The scent is sweet.

I think the small bottle of blooms did more for my jitters than the tea

My new book is coming out soon – and people – (people I admire and respect) are being SO nice about it. This is totally wonderful and deeply gratifying and NOT what I expect…So thank you English Mum and Fennel and Fern.

This site came under attack a while ago and I basically lost the whole caboodle. It was the brilliant Neil who resurrected it, and who is now helping me to improve it. My beloved Lust List has completely disappeared and I am re-writing it (slowly but surely…a little bit every day….). I am hoping to have it back up soon as poss.

February bells

Muscari (Grape Hyacinth) are out in the shops right now. You should plant bulbs in autumn and LOTS of them…in which case you could do a lot worse than create a river like this one at Keukenhof (oh to see that one day).

But for those of us with a little less space, they are perfect for a container, a window-box, or any piece of glorious china you happen to have at home…just employ a bit of judicious ‘plonkage’ and cover any plastic pot bits with sphagnum moss. Indoors, they will go over quicker, but frankly who cares?

They are perennial bulbs, which means they’ll come back year after year for you and have these tiny little urn-shaped flowers. They come in deepest cobalt, and also white and lilac (but honestly, why on earth would anyone want anything other than blue?).

Desperate measures

I don’t tend actively to involve my daughter too much in my gardening – Children command all your attention, and I am not Dawn Isaac…(although I’m trying…very, VERY hard to be).

But I had one of those desperate moments the other day – the sort where you have to kill 30 minutes, and every toy has been played with, and illness is preventing a proper walk, and you’re just out of ideas….

generally…

…in life.

So that’s when I remembered this, from Homebase, where you buy what looks like a takeaway coffee cup, with compost and a packet of seeds (these are bunny tail grass) inside. You’re supposed to sow the seeds with your child, put the lid on, so it becomes its own propagator, water, watch and wait.

She loved it.

…loved doing the seed sowing thing, and every morning she wants to look at it, to see if it’s germinated.

It’s not like I haven’t sown seeds with her before…(we did some peas in the summer)…but I think the attraction of this was partly the packaging, and the fact that she has ownership of this colourful paper cup with its own lid. #simplepleasures

It’s an easy way to do the gardening thing with her when I just don’t have it in me to gather all the necessary bits and pieces…I’ll be buying more and putting them in a cupboard, in exactly the same way that I store lollies….for emergencies.

A swamp for George

Soleirolia soleirolii – the perfect bathroom plant.

I’ve been using these lovely creeping emerald droplet-leaves for years now, both indoors and out.

Outside, they do this tight-knit, softening thing – the leaves are slightly tougher and darker, and none the worse for that. I long to take a machete to the cement between my paving stones and let it do its thing.

Some people regard it as a nuisance, but (as I’ve said many times before) nuisance plants are my kind of deal, for obvious reasons.

Indoors, it’s a very different proposition. You can put this plant in almost any sort of container and it will thrive. The warmer it is, the longer the creeping stems will become, and the softer the cushioning.

I have this hideous window in my bathroom, and found a tray thingy in one of the big sheds. I thought I’d make a place for George the crocodile (Schleich toy of the moment) to hang out, and decorate this desolate window-sill (although I’m not sure you can even call it that).

You need:

1 x Soleirolia soleirolii plant – available at good garden centres in little pots. Sometimes it’s sold under the name ‘Helxine‘, sometimes ‘Mother of thousands’, sometimes ‘Baby’s tears’ (ahhhhhh). I’ve never seen it sold in any of the big shed ones (silly billys, because it would fly off the shelves)

A container – anything you want, but you’ll need drainage holes, which is why I had to drill some in my tray. I drilled three large holes with a fat drill bit that had a point on the end of it. It took a grand total of ten seconds…but if you hate stuff like that, then just use an ordinary pot or pots – terracotta is nice.

Some multi-purpose compost – try to find one without too many huge bits of bark in it. But if you can’t, then just remove them when you come to fill your pot. This is simply to create the best environment for the creeping stems to attach themselves and put down roots.

A drill, to make holes (if you need them)

Method.

Fill your container with compost, right up to to the top. You don’t want to be leaving a gap between the top of the compost and the rim of the pot because this plant’s M.O is to ‘spill’ over the edge – it’s very very pretty.

Now remove your plant from its plastic and divide it gently into little pieces. How many depends on the number of containers you have to fill, but know that it only takes the merest suggestion of leaf and roots, planted with care and attention (or not) to get this plant started and within weeks it will have covered the surface of the compost.

Of course, you could just buy enough to fill your entire container and have the finished product right there and then…no harm in that, except watching things grow is more fun.

Plant your pieces, making sure that the roots go in your compost, and the leaves remain above it, but generally you can be quite slap-dash and just squish it in.

Water well from above with a watering can that has a rose attached to give you a gentle shower of water, and from below also, by putting your container into another one, filled with water, and leaving it there to soak.

Keep the compost damp at all times (which isn’t hard, in a bathroom, is it?)