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