Chelsea Flower Show

Plants bought:  0.  Didn't go on plant sell-off day so this is not really an achievement.
Hours spent on feet: 8.5
Hours spent in heavy rain: 9
Garden magazines bought:0.  None on sale but also weaning.

What can you say about Chelsea?  Some people say it is out of touch with real gardeners and that the show gardens are not rooted in reality.  It's pricey, it's crowded, only investment bankers and celebrities get to go into the gardens (possibly the only time some of them go into gardens at all) and it's in England so it will probably rain.  Nevertheless, 157000 of us flow through the gates of the The Royal Hospital Chelsea every year.  Although it poured down all day and some of the show garden concepts were, erm, hard to understand, the atmosphere was buzzing, thanks to both friendly exhibitors and a throng of ordinary gardeners always ready to pass the time of day with strangers with a witty comment about one of the more outlandish features.

The hype is all about the show gardens.  Heavily sponsored, the theme is all around the concept or 'meaning' behind each design.  Mostly the concepts were lost on me, or else I read up on the theme and then looked up from my show catalogue (£10 a time) and said to Le Photographe, 'I still don't get it.'   The only theme I could really relate to was Chris Beardshaw's garden for Arthritis Research.  Chronicling Chris's own journey with a condition similar to rheumatoid arthritis, the garden had three rooms to represent his own journey.  I have a related condition and could understand his depiction of the time around diagnosis, using a statue and shaded wooded area to represent the loneliness and despair.  I have to say I don't remember feeling as if I was sitting in a perspex shelter but still, I understand where he was at.  More importantly, it looked great, with stunning planting and perfectly placed sculpture that gave the garden a restful and contemplative air.  I was delighted to hear that Chris's garden won the People's Choice award this evening and that may be as much to do with simply being a lovely garden to look at as well as there being 10 million people in the UK with arthritis who may well also relate to his personal journey to living with this condition.

Chris Beardshaw's garden

For sheer opulence of planting, the type I really went to see, my favourite garden was Roger Platt's 'Windows Through Time.'  The garden represented looking back over a hundred years of Chelsea through the eye of a sculpture.  I wasn't sure what the little thatched house (reminiscent of an Ethiopian village houses known as tukuls) meant but frankly who cares when you have eyes only for an astonishing grouping of plants.




Sumptuous planting by Roger Platt



As someone addicted to high-gloss garden magazines, I am familiar with Jinny Blom, who normally produces gardens that dreams are made of.  Unfortunately her  Forget-Me-Not garden representating Lesotho went wrong somewhere for me. with too many materials that did not seem to harmonise together.  The acerbic garden writer Anne Wareham likened it here to being akin to 'a helipad and an ashtray' and I can only say that I am sorry that I agree.  Fortunately I am neither rich enough nor do I have sufficient room for a helipad so it will not be one of those feature so often lauded about that I can 'take home from Chelsea.'  I do however, have an ashtray.

Jinny Blom's garden. NB the gnomes are not part of the design.

It is always wonderful to look at gardens; however the place where I really lost myself is The Great Pavilion.   What was great was not only the floral displays but the way you could wander around top nurseries and talk to the growers, each of whom was happy to answer any question.   Blom's bulbs were on standby to review the photos of  my failed tulips (not given enough water), Bowden's Hostas advised me I was wrong to crush snails as this provides food for slugs and also that a pot sprayed with WD40 makes your pot all the more slug resistant. Both Warmehoven's (alliums) and Raymond Evison's (an amazing tunnel of clematis) were happy to spend time explaining to me some of the processes in the run up to the day.  Despite the huge crush, all the exhibitors had time to talk and there was not a touch of snobbery about a silly question or a gardening novice like me not knowing that delphiniums don't always come true.   Things did become a little overheated in the Pavilion during a cloudburst that seemed to send all 40,000 visitors of the day inside in one go.  Evison's had wisely devised a one-way system for human traffic through their clematis tunnel, something David Austin's might have learned from, as a four way entry system into their rose stand proved inevitably too popular and it looked like some people had collapsed or perhaps sat on a poor Rose Munstead Wood.

THOSE alliums: winners of the Diamond Jubilee Award

How did your tulips do this year?

Exhibits can look as good as you want but what really makes up these events is the atmosphere.  Despite the hype, the celebrities and the big-name sponsors, the bulk of the crowd is made up of ordinary gardeners like you and me.  Strangers smiled and shared a joke all day, suffered the rain together and raised eyebrows at the Twitter garden knowing that we all shared a love in common.   Although I almost lost an eye many times thanks to umbrella spokes, had my toes trodden on and we all ended up wearing complimentary disposable macs blazoned with an investment bank logo, the atmosphere was joyful at all times.   Chelsea goes from being brash, bizarre, beautiful, inpsiring, expensive and exhausting but it is a wonderful opportunity to unite yourself with the ordinary gardener within the crowd.  I'll be back and out of pocket next year and already looking forward to it.

Tough plants from Yorkshire

Plants bought this weekend: 24.  (This included a tray of 12 annuals so it's not as bad as it sounds)


This Saturday, I visited Dark Star Plants in North Yorkshire during a visit to my parents.  I was prompted to visit by an article in The English Garden Magazine (yes, still buying magazines) which described the nursery as specialising in plants in dark, dramatic colours and raised to be hardy in the cold climate of Yorkshire.

Dark Star Plants have created their nursery within the old walled garden of Rounton Grange, home of the Bell family who were wealthy 19th century industrialists.  The  Grange itself has been demolished but the extensive walls of the garden remain, replete with the 100 year old vine-eyes still in place.   Overcast weather darkened my initial impressions, however glimpses of sun reflected a glow from the red brick onto purple-black violas and the burgundy foliage of heucheras casting a spell of warmth over the place.  The plant range is extensive, laid out in neat rows: the darkest, most velvety irises, aquilegia 'Barlow Black' and astrantias in all ranges of claret.  It was a relief to browse a real nursery with plants in the state that they should be at this time of year.  Nothing had been forced into flower in a Dutch hot-house with the aim of making a quick sale.  It seems like a long time since I had visited this kind of place and I found it a haven of peace, even though I worried for the owners with the lack of crowds queuing up to buy candles and thermal socks or whatever else garden centres are flogging these days.

The walled garden.  That's my dad in the flat cap on the right.

The nurseryman was a true northerner, slow and thoughtful in his words, greying hair spilling out underneath a countryman's hat.  Once warmed up, he idled for twenty minutes telling us the history behind the garden.  The daughter of the Bell family, Gertrude (described by various sources as a traveller, politician, writer, archaeologist and spy), loved the garden and its staff, writing of the very walls in her books and sending seeds back home from where she eventually settled in Baghdad.  None of the original plants remain now but the new owners have recreated a working garden as well as a nursery, cultivating cut flowers as well as fruit and vegetables which they sell to the farm shop next door.

Typical dark and cloudy Yorkshire weather guaranteed to blow cobwebs away.

It seemed like the idyllic life to a plantaholic like me, tending the nursery within the shelter of the walls, the moors just a nod away on the horizon.  The reality is probably harder: pressure to compete against large commercial outfits and the gardener's perennial affliction of back problems.  Still, it was a treat to browse an unusual collection of plants that cannot be found elsewhere.  If you like your plants hardy and true to life and don't need photoshopped pictures or flowers forced out under UV lamps, plus a bit of history thrown in then it is well worth a visit.

PS My dad pronounced the range of plants 'impressive' - not praise that is given away in a lighthearted manner.

Hellebore orientalis 'red hybrid'

As advertised

I've been after a pink hellebore for a while. It's been a furtive kind of lust, pretending to Le Photographe that I'm not going to buy anything else until I've finished the garden design course that I'm starting this week. In the meantime, I've been loitering around garden centres, fingering hellebore leaves while no-one was looking or browsing on-line nurseries alone late at night and then deleting the browsing history to hide my plant addiction from those who care about me.

It was thus that my ongoing love-hate relationship with the 'boutique' N1 Garden Centre continued when I told Le Photographe last week that I was just popping out for some potting compost. As the helpful assistant carried my compost to the till, a couple of pink hellebores just, well, slipped into a basket I happened to have picked up on the way in.  (Why can I never do as the books tell me to do and always end up buying pairs of plants instead of three or five.)

Now the N1 Garden Centre is in quite an affluent area and most of the customers these days look like they are record producers or in PR. I didn't want to look like someone from Clapton with no cash so I said to myself, "I'd better buy them then."

Our relationship took one of its rocky turns at the till when I pointed out that the label advertised that the hellebore was pink as seen in the plant label above.

What perturbed me was this flower on one of the plants:

I questioned this to the assistant who didn't know about hellebores. Someone else was called who also didn't know. Now I do not know much about hellebores either but I mumbled something about thinking that they don't always come true or maybe can have different shades of flowers on the plant. Assistant number 2 consulted one plant encyclopedia and then another before reading out loud, "flowers darken with age."  She snapped the encyclopedia shut, knowing it was victory for them. 

Now this seemed implausible to me but I felt the pressure of both lack of knowledge and the queue of people building up behind me anxious to get back to their recording studios or wherever. My finger had already been poised over the card machine for 10 minutes by now ready to punch my number in so it was already the point of no return.  I thanked the assistants for all their help looking this up and said I felt reassured because I really wanted a pink one and so if was going to go pink, that was good.

Assistant number 1 then carried my compost to my car for me.  My car has been with me since 1998, my Toyota Starlet which has never let me down but, let's face it, has seen better days.  The assistant deposited my compost into my rust-caked boot and then he turned and looked at me very deliberately as if he wanted to make sure he could recognise me in a police line-up.  I can hardly blame him amongst all those BMWs and four by fours.

The trusty Starlet.

Over the course of the week, the single flower has blossomed and become pure white apart from a  greenish tinge.  Hackney has a drug problem and perhaps it would seem pink to anyone after some hallucinogens but it is definitely white to me.

Helleborus orientalis 'red hybrid' in white

 Hellebore experts, please advise!

RHS London Plant and Design Show

Today was the start of 'the season' - the first of the RHS shows opening with the two day Plant and Design event.  I went last year and was disappointed.  I can't say why exactly.  I don't think I was in the full throes of plant addiction then.  I was the gardening equivalent of someone that smokes only socially whereas now I am like an alcoholic who says they only drink to relax.  So it was only with half a heart that I set off, battling a tube full of children on half term.  At Westminster, the sun shone through the thin light of winter, Big Ben silhouetted against a pale sky.  As I walked into the Horticultural Halls, I was greeted by a sea of irises that bought tears to my eyes.

(Note to Helene from Graphicality - you NEED irises!)



Vast tables of spring bulbs lifted everyone's hearts out of the frosty morning. 

Orchids bloomed.

Hellebores gave off a radiant but delicate glow.

I have to explain at this point that Le Photographe refused to come to this show as he is already 'garden showed-out.'  This is worrying so early in the season.  It must be something to do with the different approach the French have to gardening.  They are all into order and topiary, chic and understated, less obsessed.  Maybe other French people might think he is a paysan if he is seen at shows.  I had to take photos with my mobile instead.


Slugs - or rather those who warrior against them were also represented.  I bought three of these anti-slug rings.

There was also a kind of anti-slug magic carpet for sale.

In an act of heroism to spare my terrace the weight of yet more overcrowding, I managed to buy only one plant.  Yes, just one.  Just an iris.  Iris reticulata 'baby blue.'

I decided today that anyone who is ill or upset should be able to have an iris prescribed for them.  You can only feel better for having one.  If you have had a bad day, I prescribe you one iris.

Irises are out

Spring bulbs are in flower.

Let's get this party started!

The Little Book of Slugs

According to these people, Britain has more slugs than anywhere else in the world. The Little Book of Slugs regales us with tales of frustrated gardeners spending nights outdoors spearing slugs with screwdrivers or creating networks of tiny electrified wires in order to kill them off. In a hundred pages, the frustrated gardener can learn of seventy different methods in order to help us deal with the enemy. Told in hilarious fashion and sprinkled with Shakespearian quotes (about slugs, of course), this would make a good read for for any gardener in need of entertainment during the winter nights.  by the The Centre for Alternative Technology, (CAT) and edited by Allan Shepherd  and Suzanne Gallant, the idea for the book was driven by the Bug the Slug campaign where readers contributed to www.ihateslugs.com with ingenious methods of slugbusting. The ihateslugs website is now defunct but the knowledge of generations of gardeners lives on in this tiny tome which is packed with ideas to slug it out (couldn't resist that one).



The book is divided into four sections. An understanding of the life cycle of slugs forms the basis of part 1 including fascinating facts such as slugs eat slugs and that throwing them on the compost heap can be a useful thing to aid the process of decomposition. Part two is a collection of seventy different methods of control sent in by the British public. The good, the bad and the ugly are all in here: instruments of death, sheeps' fleece spread on the garden, warm pee and someone who claims to swallow slugs whole believing them to be nutritious. There is also a list of slug resistant plants and the top 5 slug predators. Part 3 explains the CAT method, an organic approach of soil improvement, rotavating the soil (kills slugs eggs) and growing healthy plants that are strong enough to resist the onslaught. They claim that their methods mean that they rarely resort to traps or other means. Finally, part 4 reviews the effectiveness of each method, possibly the first of its kind in providing raw data on the traditional methods of barriers, beer traps and grapefruit skins.


The Little Book of Slugs is a great read, packed with puns that encourage us 'don't be sluggish' as well as a huge amount of information for such a small volume. It's brevity is its' strength; after all, who wants to settle down on at bedtime with an encyclopedia on slugs. There aren't any major negatives; however they don't explain how they arrived at the ratings for each method, whether that came from the campaign or they drew their own conclusions. As the book based itself on the www.ihateslugs.com website, it would have been better if they had done something to ensure the longevity of the website which is now defunct. Overall, these are minor points and the book would make a good present for any gardener with a slug problem and a sense of humour.

Gentian Diana from Spalding Bulbs

Part of the agreement with Spalding Plant and Bulb Company for having their logo on here is that I will review some of their plants from time to time.   Someone from their blogger club sent me an electronic catalogue of plants and said I could choose one for free as long as I wrote about it.  I chose a Gentian Diana for its striking blue flowers and also because I killed one of my own last year and fancied having another go.  Gentians are perennials and of course are dormant at the moment.  It's quite hard to review a plant that arrives looking dead but of course it isn't and the roots are nice and healthy so I'll do what I can to share the experience so far.

The Gentian arrived securely packaged in a kind of green plastic bubble wrapped around with brown paper and then a box so large that my colleagues presumed I had arranged for a sofa to be delivered to the office.  This is the same as my other experiences with mail order plants and although the packaging can seem over-zealous at times, I presume these people know what they are doing.

Gentian in a green plastic bubble

The gentian was completely unscathed when unwrapped.

Gentian survivor of the Christmas mail

There was a label enclosed in fourteen different languages which implies this is a truly international plant; however all this does say is that the plant is dormant and therefore in the best state to go in the post.  This variety of nationalities suggests to me it could thrive in a whole host of different habitats but this information wasn't enclosed and I couldn't find it on line.


Unidentified languages included with this gentian


There were a whole load of vouchers and plant catalogues enclosed and an offer of a free hardy palm with any order.  Offers of free plants are like a red rag to a bull to a plantaholic like me although goodness where I would put a hardy palm which apparently can grow to twelve metres.  I was about to write that I already have eighteen sweet peas on the go for next year and nowhere to put them but then I told myself off for exaggerating as there was no way I had that many.  I then went out and counted them and there are twenty five.  (If anyone is passing in spring and would like a few sweet peas you are welcome.)   Anyway, this new relationship with Spalding Bulbs could lead to dangerous new levels of plant collection.

There was nothing in the way of care instructions which I would have appreciated.  I had to look this up online but that's not a huge problem and the care instructions are also available on the website.  I do like to keep plant labels though, for future reference.  The website says that Gentian Diana prefers acid soil but a novice like me could have done with the word ERICACEOUS compost spelled out in big red letters.  I made the mistake of ignoring that advice on the last gentian I bought.  I read today that 'normal' compost makes acid lovers go yellow and die which is exactly what the last one did.  As I am now responsible for reviewing this plant I felt I should give it every opportunity to stay alive and so I got a scoopful of the right compost from my neighbour (thanks Tracy), potted it on and wrapped it in a nice fleece as it was freezing outside.



Gentian Diana snug in its fleece


Spalding Plant and Bulbs say that their plants come with a one to five year guarantee but I couldn't find out what that means.  Can you take it back if you allow the dog to pee on it, never water it or plant it in the wrong compost like me?   I wasn't clear.

Gentian Diana retails at £9.95 on the website which is very expensive for a perennial plus delivery is £4.95.  They do offer a track and trace facility so you can work out what day your plant will arrive.  I have had little experience of ordering plants online before, partly because of the high cost of delivery charges and also because I can't guarantee on being in to receive them.   I get them delivered to work but I don't always work in the same place so I do need a rough idea when they are coming.  Anyway, it didn't matter with this one and delivery was free for the review anyway.

All in all, it seems like a good quality plant with healthy roots, safely packaged, quite pricey but once you start ordering there are more offers to be had.  I will be charting its progress on here over the course of the summer and looking forward to some of its late summer flowers.

Time to plant some bulbs

Hours spent gardening: 6
Bulbs planted: another 264
Plants purchased: 0
Sycamore leaves collected: 6243
Worms accidentally guillotined: 200 or so

I've been anguished over bulbs after having seen the tulips by Bloms Bulbs at Chelsea this year and vowing I would have them for myself.  It was only after 6 months of drooling over their catalogue that I noticed the price tag of £7.50 for a pack of ten tulips.  This stopped me right in my tracks.  The upwardly mobile side of me (some might say shallow) was attracted by the statement on the website that said that Blom's are suppliers to Europe's finest stately homes.  At last, a touch of class for Clapton, I said.  Unfortunately, after endless nights agonising over Tulipa Jan Reus and wondering how I could justify it all in a recession, I allowed myself to purchase just thirty bulbs.

There is something about bulb planting time.  The nights draw in and this is our last chance to be outdoors.  Planting bulbs feels like a final fling of connection between the cycle of life and decay; handling bare earth lays down the foundations of the new shoots of next year.  Bulbs signify the signs of life at winter's end: the gold of the first crocus that promises the passing of harder times and the first sign of thaw.  Here, autumn's damp has long since sent the reggae blasters indoors.  In November, I am the only one still outside, the sharpness of the cold on my hands, the song of the robin in the tree, a thin golden sunset framed by the trees.

These primaeval instincts to plant, sow and divide were not going to be satisfied by thirty bulbs.  I then went on a kind of bulb binge, buying job lots of cheap ones from DIY stores.  Colour scheme went out of the window.  I chose the tulips from Bloms after hours of deliberation, settling for succession planting of pink, soft white and the darkest red verging on black.  At B&Q, I loaded the trolley with bargain bags of more tulips, fritillaria and an iris mixed that included yellow (normally banned around here, daffodils and crocus being the exception).  Everything was stuffed into the ground in a frenzy.  The other thing about the act of planting was forgetting where all the other bulbs were from last year and splicing through them with the bulb planter.  In this way, you can ensure I always have gaps to fill and thus feel justified in buying more plants.  I also managed to decapitate a couple of hundred worms.  I think I mentioned not being a very good organic gardener before.

The final mix is a combination of Bloms, JP Parkers, Spaldings (free for joining their blogger club and sticking the logo on here), Homebase and B&Q.  It's a kind of sliding scale of the social ladder of bulbs..  I'm waiting to see if the Bloms ones really perform better in the spring or whether we can all rest easily knowing that spending £9.99 on a pack of 100 will do the job just as well.

Chelsea Flower Show, 2012

Europe's shortest herbaceous border

Hours spent gardening: 6
Plants purchased: 0
Hours awake all night coughing: 12 (have man 'flu)
Plants divided: 7
Bulbs planted: 254
Sycamore leaves collected: 5231

It's that time of year when gardeners go dormant like perennials and ease themselves into an armchair with a pile of seed catalogues to hand.  I had been planning to redesign the back bed (formerly known as the veg patch) and suddenly realised we were cruising towards late November without having given it a second thought.  The original plan had been to recreate something inspired by a visit to The Broadwalk Herbaceous Border at Hampton Court last year (Europe's longest herbaceous border at 580 metres).  I've been dreaming all year about foxgloves and irises interspersed with allium heads nodding in the breeze, the whole thing held together by silver foliage and towers of sweet peas ready to burst into bloom.  You know the kind of thing I mean.  As I type this, I realise how ludicrous this is given that the border I am dealing with is 2 metres long and partially in shade.  It seems logical to call it The Short Border from now on.  Since my original plans, the recession has put a damper on frivolous spending habits in London's chi-chi garden centres.  This could actually be a good thing in my horticultural evolution.  I can see from other blogs that real gardeners are busy propagating, taking cuttings, growing things from seed and making everything go further with plant division.  Only city types are whiling away Sundays in the plant equivalent of Harvey Nichols, where the customers think that agastache are people who make 'eyewear' and compost is a nightclub on the Dalston fringe.  Times are hard and I will just have to grow my own.

The Broadwalk Border, Hampton Court Palace.  Taken in May (obviously)

Irises at Hampton Court, something to aspire to

A close up of those alliums

Unfortunately, what was missing from the new thrifty revolution was planning.  I've read the books on planting plans.  I've got a little compass in order to draw the expected diameter of plants, bought the plant encyclopaedia with what goes where and even have an app so that you can point your ipad around the garden and it will tell you what to plant.  So did I make a planting plan?  Reader, I did not.

What actually happened was this.  In the midst of some carefully planned bulb planting activity, I realised winter was almost upon us and I must act now if the Short Border was to be anything in time for next year.  A selection of random bulbs went in following by some foxglove seedlings that had, as usual, been neglected and were bursting out of their posts.  Some had to be discarded due to a coating of white mold.  Then came a frenzy of plant division reminiscent of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  (Things were not helped by the fact that Le Photographe has broken my spade.)  A geranium phaeum was torn into pieces, a hosta Frances Williams pulled apart and stuffed carelessly in the most slug prone part of the garden. A grass was ripped into shreds leaving blades of grass scattered as if attacked by a combine harvester.   A mixed pack of iris bulbs were poked in in an unpredictable rash of colours including yellow (normally banned from my colour pallet, daffodils excepted) and alliums went into the shade without a thought as to whether they could actually grow.  A lack of markers has rendered the bulbs vulnerable to the reckless and over enthusiastic gardener who is prone to going in and digging up areas she has forgotten have been planted.  Squirrels, foxes and cats roam on the area, routing for bulbs or simply welcoming the open and freshly turned ground to be used as their personal toileting area or as a dining area for those who believe bulbs are edible.

Images of The Short Border are available but are unsuitable for readers under 18.

Cyclamens and Cineraria, Hackney November 2012

Holidays in Spain

Hours spent gardening: 0
Hours the Spanish were seen to be gardening: 0
Number of plants in full bloom: 1000000
Number of plants observed to be dead, dying or failing to thrive despite being completely ignored: 0
Spanish gardening magazines purchased: 0 (language skills limited to ordering wine in all three colours at the bar)

Just back from two weeks in Andalucia spent lolling around swimming pools, on beaches or the terraces of bars.  There was not so much as a gardening magazine in sight.  Spain, I was told by the owner of our apartment, has two flowering seasons.  Everywhere we went, there were plants bursting with blooms, yet not once did I see a Spaniard feeding, deadheading, trimming or training a single plant, never mind spraying on some terrible chemical to get rid of an infestation or disease.  Time is spent gossiping with neighbours, taking an evening stroll, propping up the bar at the venta or taking a siesta.  That's rural Spain for you.  The only concession the Spanish made to gardening was to set up lots of sprinklers, preferably ones that go on abruptly and automatically in the twilight so as to both scare and soak the guests.

Village street in the Ronda mountains

A traditional matador in the famous bullring of Ronda

I came back to find that a combination of heat and downpours had left the garden coated in autumn leaves.  Next door's cats had filled the veg patch with cr** in spite of the alarm.  The petunias had breathed their last breath, tomato plants dessicated without producing fruit and the lavender had collapsed under its weight. Spiders are everywhere and there is a profusion of miniature, unsquashable slugs.  Our friends appointed to water had kidnapped my chilli plant, feeling it needed a better south facing home. I have yet to succeed in its release.  Apparently it has now sprung into bloom and is producing a chilli crop sufficient to feed Mexico.

Monty Don, the celebrity gardener, wrote on organic gardening in the August edition of Gardener's World.  Monty tells us to 'relax your grip', advising that the organic garden 'heals itself' and that we should garden with nature rather than fighting it.  The organic gardener becomes part of a finely balanced system rather than lord and master of the realm.  Something tells me that Monty never came back from his holidays to find his garden gone wild in his absence.  It took two of us four hours to gain control. Does Monty just sway a bit with the breeze and it all comes together?  I must have a lot to learn.

Pretentious Andalucian touch I added after the holiday

The seedy truth about this blog

Le Photographe and I were sitting in a restaurant last night when he said to me, "You know one thing I like about you?  Your honesty."

I was pleased with this at first.   (Le Photographe was of course referring to my character as I don't have an honesty plant in my garden.)   Honesty is definitely something I aspire to personally; I was born and bred in Yorkshire where a spade will always be a spade and not a hand-crafted oak-barreled blunted plant division instrument.  So when I got home, I was on the patio, admiring the Cosmos in the moonlight when I realised with horror that I had grown them from SEEDS.

Now readers of this blog will know that I have previously dissed and disrespected seeds.  I made grand statements about how real people with day jobs don't have time for them, perhaps even inferring from this that I might be a high octane career woman who is so busy with board meetings she has no room in her life for seeds.  It was thus that I was even more mortified when I looked around and noticed how much stuff I have at the moment that was grown from seed.  A restless night ensued, tossing and turning, knowing I had to come on here and confess to having grown things from seed.

It isn't that bad a lie: successful seedlings here have only survived by either freaks of nature or extraordinary resilience in the face of neglect.  What usually happens is this: I plant the seeds following the instructions on the packet to the letter.  If they're lucky, they'll get potted on but then it all goes wrong.  Seedlings don't like being transplanted, no matter how careful you are not to touch the root.  The sight of rows of little wilting plants disheartens me and then I start to lose interest.  Most of them will die of dehydration at this point but a few of the tougher ones will insist on growing up until I cannot bear the sight of mature plants bursting out of their 5 cm plastic pots any longer and will have to cave in and plant them out.

Eventually therefore some seedlings did grow into mature plants.  This is not that surprising by the laws of mathematics as I probably planted thousands of seeds.  Here's a confessional of some of these hardy plants that survived my gardening.

Cosmos bipiniatus 'Purity'.  Allegedly

These Cosmos seeds came free with a magazine, thus justifying the £3.99 price tag.  I didn't think I liked Cosmos and have no idea what made me plant them other than whatever primitive compulsion drove me to sow thousands of seeds.  I am quite pleased with them now as they have added this season's must-have height into the garden.  The packet said they were white but some of them are pink and are not the species it said it was on the packet.

Scabious Pin Cushion Mix only they weren't very mixed.

Only a few of these survived to adulthood.  The packet said they would flower in June but the cruelty they experienced in their youth has presumably delayed their development as they are in flower now.  The packet showed mixed pinks and white but only the white ones grew.  An impulse buy.

Cornflower Blue Boy

As seedlings, these were on their way to the compost heap when Le Photographe flung himself into my path in the manner of someone pleading for someone's life in front of the guillotine.  A bit of staking and they turned out ok.

Poppy Cherry Glow

Another packet free with a magazine.  My dad tried to weed up the seedlings until Le Photographe (perhaps aspiring to become the patron saint of little seedlings) stepped in again to point out the little label I had planted in the ground to stop myself weeding them.  These brilliant red flowers lasted precisely 24 hours before all the petals dropped off.   They have however left some attractive seedheads (below).

Poppy seedheads

Verbena bonariensis

These were left to die in these little biodegradable pots that I had bought in a freak moment of deciding to garden organically.  The seedlings appeared to refuse to grow and were devoured by slugs when I noticed that the roots had long since eaten their way out of the pots and were practically begging for their lives.

Sweet Pea Anniversary Mix.  A severe case of powdery mildew.

Another magazine freebie - from last year's Gardener's World.  Ironically I tried quite hard with these, planting the seeds in toilet roll tubes so their roots had room to grow.  Which just shows what fickle things plants are: those love the most will pay you back with a disease. 

Coffee outlawed as slug deterrent

According to today's Daily Telegraph, European Union bureaucrats have stated that using coffee grounds to deter slugs is illegal.  Using anything that has not 'passed through the system' to officially be called a pesticide risks prosecution for the gardener.  The list of forbidden items stretches to salt, eggshells, tea leaves, water infused with garlic and other methods used by gardeners throughout the UK who only wish to fend for  their plants by the most innocently organic means.  Presumably EU politicians have total disregard for gardening in a way that is cheap or organic or that might even be fun (anyone with a sadistic streak who has poured salt on a slug will know what I mean).

Brussels politicians must wake up to this kind of thing every morning

Dr Andrew Halstead, principle plant scientist at the RHS has warned that gardeners using coffee grounds as slug repellent could risk heavy fines - although the chances of prosecution, he suspects, are remote.

Furry Foes

Hours spent gardening: 1 (cannot think of any gardening jobs suitable for August, what am I missing?)
Slugs killed: 3
Plants bought: 0 (wrong time of year I guess)
Gardening magazines purchased: 1

Slugs have been on the wane here so my attention has turned to next door's cats who like to have a dump on my borders.  On warm summer days I peep through the orange fence to spy on them sunning themselves on their lawn.  They have a little routine for these moments: relax, have a stretch and then think, "I know, I'll go and have a crap next door."  No wonder that I broke one of my mantras this week ("Claire, thou shalt not covert more gardening magazines!") when I saw this month's feature in Gardener's World: KEEP CATS OFF YOUR BORDERS.  It shouted to me off the shelf.  This turned out to be worth the money as there were a few things I didn't know about cat repelling, such as putting a string of wire on top of your fence.  Unfortunately this isn't really suitable for a small garden unless I want it to look like Her Majesty's Holloway Prison.  Sprinklers are also mentioned but this is madness for someone without a lawn.   Here's my own summary of my anti cat tactics so far.  All tests were conducted under controlled clinical conditions.

Lion dung: 0/10
Anti cat spray: 0/10
Lemon peel (kindly suggested by the owners of the cats next door): 0/10.  Thanks for nothing.
Lavender (apparently a cat repellent): 0/10, goodness what I am doing wrong as I counted 11 lavender plants in the garden and it is only about 4 metres square.  (Can you have too much lavender?  A topic for another post I fear.)
Sonic cat repellent gadget:  this works really well so I give it 8/10.  The only thing is you have to be prepared to cash in  your life insurance policy to afford the new batteries it needs all the time but it is well worth it not to have animals going to the toilet in your veg patch.

Here's one of them about to launch an attack on my perennials:

Feigning disinterest

Caught in the act

The look of defiance

Apparently a water gun works well but I'd have to sit there all day like some sniper in downtown Sarajevo and people would think I was insane.  Also I'd have to give up my day job in order to watch the garden effectively but then I suppose I'd then have time to grow some seeds.

On a brighter note, this gladiolus callianthus came into flower this week.  I was a bit surprised as I thought all the bulbs had come up blind.  A massive sycamore and some squirrels are to blame (oh dear, I can feel all the new topics welling up inside of me!). It was supposed to be part of my late flowering scheme to avoid the August gap but as only one in fifteen or twenty of them planted have flowered I guess I won't repeat them next year.  Famous last words!

Gladiolus callianthus