Five of the best for February

I went into the garden today (bit early, I know – how unlike me…I mean it’s not even MARCH yet is it)

…but there was a sliver of sunshine, and the grass was gleaming, and the whole thing just sort of said ‘come hither’. So out I waddled, inappropriately dressed as usual, and stood next to the Lonicera, and breathed deeply. I planted this shrub three years ago, when I bought it in a small pot at the garden centre. I never dare to hope too much when it’s something I truly madly deeply love, so the fact that it has shot up and out and everywhere and is now blooming its gorgeous heart out is the best feeling…like I just won something in a raffle.

If you don’t have one of these, they’ll be on sale NOW, flowering so you can sample that sweetly floral pong. Buy one and put it in. QUICK. It will make your Februarys sing.

There are snowdrops too.

I find it ridiculously difficult to get a good photograph of a snowdrop, but here you go. These are a slowly increasing patch of I forget which one…S. Arnott perhaps?, which are prettily scented, and which I pick mercilessly (naughty me)…but then I’m not in the garden enough over the winter to praise them like I should.

Buy them now. Put them in a pot if you don’t have a garden (these come from a pot where I’d kept them, on my windowsill for five years). Use John Innes no 2 compost, with some added grit. Enjoy.

Hellebores are the very loveliest of things out now, with their speckledy petals and wonderful bruised colours..

It is for this reason alone that I forgive them for not having scent (cardinal sin) but you can’t have everything…you mustn’t be greedy. I grow them under my apple tree, but also in window boxes and hanging baskets, where they do well enough for me to murmur to myself ‘I must’ve done something GOOD’.

An essential plant in any garden (sorry to be bossy, but it is true), and, as I said, you don’t need a garden to have one or two in your life. Multi-purpose half and half with John Innes no 2 and you’re laughing.

Sarcococca. I won’t go on about sarcococca

….I blether about it far too much. Suffice to say if I had to choose between House of Cards (which I am LOVING) and my sarcococca, then Netflix would have to do without me. Here’s var dignya, for your delectation.

…And yes, if you don’t have a garden, then it will do perfectly gorgeously in a pot…nice and deep please. Thank you.

And an update on my indoor shenanigans:

I sowed basil and some peashoots, amongst other things, just under three weeks ago on my Crocus blog. Basil just appearing now (it takes its own sweet time, does basil), but I’ve been eating sweet pale green peashoots for a couple of weeks now, and they look (and taste) just DIVINE.

…it’s like you can FEEL the chlorophyll, coursing through your body, doing you GOOD. Time to sow another pot I think. I also have rich micro-pickings of lettuce, coriander and dill.

Even if it’s only February, my plate says it’s summer time.

Garden sluttery and lavender baggery

The garden has been neglected (and is none the worse for that)…I’m sluttily leaving it until the second half of September, when I shall whip things into shape in that ‘back to school’ way we all have.

What HAVE I been doing?

well, mothering really. A three year old takes rather a lot of creative energy. You have to stay one step ahead.

I rarely manage it, so it’s mostly me, running on a treadmill, really fast, just to stay in the same place, if you see what I mean.

This is not a blog, just some pictures of the lavender bag we made together… (or rather, I sewed, and she said ‘oh commmoooooooon mummy’)

Sometimes I think this blog should be titled “An excuse to show you my small daughter’s beautiful dimpled hands”.

…but for information’s sake, you dry your lavender for a couple of weeks, pull it off its stem, make a little bag from some old, thin Liberty lawn (and using backstitch, of course…this is not the sort of thing for which one would go hoiking out the sewing machine…cumbersome things). I do not even hem – pinking shears do nicely – and tie the thing with a proper ribbon or bit of grosgrain.

The result is surprisingly heady, and I shall probably make more, because one small bag really does make a whole drawer smell delicious.

I’m taking a break for a bit now. Normal business will be resumed when the blogging god tells me to get on with it.

Until then xx

Take-home Chelsea: Cleve

Remember Chelsea?

I’ve been meaning to do a few blogs about doing Chelsea at home but, like the British summer, I am slow at getting into gear this year…

A few stand-out things have stayed with me since Chelsea, and they won’t go away. I think this is an excellent marker of VERY GOOD STUFF. Hurrah for slowness.

Cleve West’s garden for Brewin Dolphin was my instant favourite. Not JUST because of the frothy, billowing planting (which, if you know me at all, was bound to appeal), but more importantly because all that froth had a foil…

…my eyes could dance over bliss, and then have a rest

The planting was staggeringly beautiful (this IS Cleve after all)

Ferns and alchemilla creeping, with irises, euphorbia, poppies ammi and matthiasella holding their hands, and then the whole thing crowned by cirsium and crambe (which wasn’t even out, but was all the more beautiful for that…I do love the PROMISE of something don’t you?)

To get this at home any time soon is tough without access to a Russian oligarch

…those amazing yew monoliths need years and years of growth and clipping…this is gardening for your grandchildren.

But you CAN do it small, and get the same effect.

This is one of those occasions where if you have little or no space, you win. You can fill a space with these, and get that same sense of majesty and softness because your garden is within each container. In the ground it would just look a bit embarrassing because the topiary would feel too small.

You need:

Container. Make them beautiful. This is one of those times where you should probably pay more than is strictly comfortable. Mine is from Crocus, for whom I regularly review products. Their own-brand terracotta pots are distinctly lovely, with a soft apricottyness about them. Get your pot first and then choose your plants accordingly.

A piece of topiary. Box or yew, but for Cleve-ness, choose dark, mysterious yew.

Some froth. Fine to go and find some frothy bedding like diascia or verbena at the garden centre, but for less faffing next year I’d go for little ferns, alchemilla mollis, or erigeron.

Method:

I use a half and half mix of multi-purpose and john innes 2, and I usually bung in a handful of fertiliser granules if I have them to hand. I plant slowly and carefully because I enjoy it. I water diligently and always put a big saucer under the pot so that the compost can soak moisture up from the bottom. With terracotta pots like these, I also water the outside of the pot when it’s hot.

A courtyard full of these, or a long path lined with them? Fabulous.

Slow things…

I love slow things.

Here’s something I made almost a year ago, when I was rushing around being very un-slow, filming stuff for telly.

Succulent off-sets, pinched off and squidged into the gritty-compost-filled frog of a brick. (You can get the recipe here).

It was done in haste (and many, many times over, because that’s what you have to do with telly). I don’t have a ‘before’ pic and I can’t find the clip anywhere…but it is ridiculously easy to do. What I didn’t get to mention then (because with telly you can’t ever really say stuff that YOU think is relevant) is that a succulent will take its own, very sweet time to spread.

These little babies are the result of almost a year of benign neglect.

I like that.

George and his swamp

I’ve been meaning to do a quick update on the swamp I made for George back in January.

Suffice to say, George is comfortable.

Here it was in January:

Also, late to the billion dollar party, I know, but I am finally having a love affair with Instagram (although I do want to add that that THE LENS OF LIFE DOES’T HAVE VASELINE, (or apricotty, 70′s filters) so I shall probably fall out of love at some point.