Garden interrupted ...

Sad garden news today, I'm afraid: due to a series of very complex and upsetting circumstances which have happened over the last few days, we have had no option but to withdraw our offer on the house, and with it the garden, so we are back to being garden-free, alas. Ah well! The best-laid plans, as they say ...

There is however a lower offer, plus conditions, on the table in order to ensure the same situation doesn't happen again if the vendors decide they do want to take the selling process seriously after all, but I don't think they're quite ready to do that yet. Maybe a long, long way from being ready!

In the meantime, we have decided to spruce up our flat ready for the market and, when that's done, have a good look round at gardens (with houses attached!) in the local area. It has surprised us just how much stuff there is around that we can (gosh!) even afford, so watch this space.

But we must for the moment wave a fond farewell to our "foster garden" and look forward to having one of our own some day soon ...

Anne Brooke

A flower by any other name ...

We were somewhat bamboozled by the bizarre onion art going on in Gardeners' World last night - goodness knows why anyone would want to store onions in great bundles tied to string in a very tenuous fashion which are bound to injure the first child that plays underneath them - all very strange, but someone must like it ...

Anyway, the heuchera are doing well, you'll be pleased to hear, and the odd stick-like plants appear to have more leaves on them. Not only that but there are one or two white flowers on the choisya (ten points to anyone who can tell us how we should be pronouncing that - as we have already humiliated ourselves in a garden centre by saying "cotoneaster" as it looks, which prompted a sigh from a nearby really rather rude assistant who said with a grimace: cot-own-ee-aster. Well, now we know then, thanks, but some customer skills here and there wouldn't go amiss, madam ...). Anyway, this is a choisya ("k" or "ch"?)

And the potentilla also has some nice yellow flowers coming out:

Today, K and I have had great fun wandering around Hinton Ampner, which is really very stunning and the cakes are scrumptious, hurrah. So I have now decided that I would love a lily pond, a sand-pit and a summer house with columns, but K continues to look dubious ... I fear that the chickens in the garden option is a no-no too! Ah well.

Anne Brooke

A minty moment

We've had fun today with the mint:

It's been hanging up in the spare room for a couple of days or so now and is now in ... wait for it ... mint condition. Hurrah! All perfectly dried out. So we've taken it down and stored it in the required air-tight container, as specified in Gardeners' World, and now all we can smell is mint. It's very intense stuff.

We've even had some in our mashed potato tonight - mmm, lovely ... And I'm wondering if I can make mint tea somehow. From the smell I suspect it's spearmint and apparently that's the most commonly grown garden mint variety so I may even be right.

Anyway, all this makes us feel very much "back to nature" and I'm wondering what we can use in our cooking next.

Anne Brooke

Figs and sticks

Since fostering a garden, with potential adoption close on the horizon, K and I have become obsessive garden visitors. Yesterday we had a good look around The Savill Garden which is part of The Royal Landscape - my, how posh! - and very nice it is too. What a lot of hydrangeas and hostas there are. The Queen must love 'em.

Today, we visited Nymans, so we are really well gardened for the moment.

As a result of our visit, we think we've identified more of our mystery plants. We have spiraea (which is rather like sedums but the leaves are different):

Our spiraea flowers aren't quite like they are in the picture now as they've all died off and left brown petals so it's not as pleasant, but we're looking forward to next summer to see how it does.







For reference, here below is a picture of a sedum, which we also have in our garden, but again it's past its best:

The flower shapes are sort of similar so you can see our confusion ...









Whilst visiting other people's gardens, we also found out that the large pot plant that we are looking after for our dead neighbour is probably a fig tree, whereas the smaller one might well be a hosta. You never know, though we're more confident about the fig. It's massive really and makes our stairwell look like a small forest. It's tricky squeezing past it in the mornings ...

Meanwhile, as a result of my stepfather's expertise, we've discovered that the creeper making its way up our potential summerhouse is definitely a winter flowering jasmine, so that will be fun seeing the flowers come out, I hope:

I'm also pleased to announce that our heuchera appear to be doing well and are making a lovely splash of colour on the furthest flowerbed. The other excitement is that, in the same bed, there have been some dead-looking stick things which we have been merrily stepping through in order to sort out the buddleia (which I am still pruning by the way), and now they actually have a whole lot of new leaves on them, well gosh! We think they must have been eaten by a deer coming through from the wood but, now we've shut the gate, whatever plants they are have taken the chance to fight back. We're wondering if it's not too late for some flowers too, as that will help us sort out what they might be. Here's hoping the deer don't battle their way back in before we find out ...

And we've taken a tip from last week's episode of Gardeners' World and have brought in a handful of mint sprigs which we are now drying out by hanging above my exercise bike so we can add them to things through the winter when they're properly dried. They're making the room smell lovely and giving me new zest in the mornings, hurrah!

Anne Brooke

The joys of compost and tomatoes

Thanks to the lovely Sue, I now have a wonderful composting link from our local council - discount composters! It's definitely the way forward, and there are lots of lovely pictures to admire. We could have this:

Which I don't think is an actual composter, but it looks very cute anyway. Or we could go mad and have this:

Which you have to twirl round once a day in order to obtain composting in 21 days. Now that sounds like fun ... Though it's not the cheapest of gadgets and I don't know where we'd put it.

In the meantime, I must really prune the buddleia, which should look like this:

But sadly doesn't ...  but I'm waiting for a gap in the raindrops before I venture out. Perhaps it's a task for the weekend?

In the meantime, we have Gardeners' World on TV tonight to look forward to - and apparently we're going to be told how to grow plants on sheds. My question is: why would you want to? Perhaps to soften the look? Though I'd have thought some of said plants might be too heavy and the poor shed would collapse. All will indeed be revealed ...

To end, K's answer to my question this morning - what would you like to do in the garden this weekend, darling? - was this: I'd like to sit quietly and be a tomato ... Well, there's no answer to that, really.

Anne Brooke

Portugal poison

We have identified another mystery plant in our potential garden:

It's a Portugal laurel, and very pretty indeed with its red stems and contrasting green leaves. K took a cutting a couple of days ago and has been playing around with it in the kitchen since then trying to find out what it is. Well, now we know. We also discover that if the leaves are crushed or burnt, it releases cyanide into the atmosphere which may of course explain why I felt so exhausted last night and had to go to bed early! Though I suspect that's just me in all honesty. Suffice it to say we won't be crushing or burning it, and we certainly won't be eating the berries it's supposed to produce at some stage ... But it is very pretty.

So, what with the huge amounts of rosemary bushes in the garden (which are also poisonous if taken in large quantities, especially for pregnant women I believe), we are developing our own little version of the perfectly marvellous Alnwick Poison Garden - we just don't have the cascading water features or the style, yet ...

But there's still time! We've had a look at some Beginners' Garden courses at Wisley and they look like fun. If only they'd put the brochure for the second half of the year up, we could really get excited, but at the moment it only goes as far as July, groan. I've sent them an email (well, I am a member, you know ...) but have yet to hear.

Anne Brooke

Tea on the lawn

Had a lovely few moments after work when I came back and, instead of going straight up to the flat as usual, I wandered around the garden for a while, watering the heuchera. I think Georgie is doing rather better than Rose, but I hope Rose perks up soon. I don't really want a droopy heuchera. Perhaps I should start talking to them.

Then, joy of joys, K came home and we both pottered around the garden drinking mugs of herbal tea. Double bliss. We even did a spot of impromptu weeding - how very "country", dahlings. Really the garden is lovely in the evening - heck I could get used to this kind of life. I hope we get the chance to.

Anne Brooke