Back to work!



My favourite front garden - but not my front garden!

 After the wet winter, and with lots of other demands on my time earlier in the spring, I wondered if I would ever manage to find time to get back to work on my customers' gardens, bearing in mind that getting to grips with my own was proving problematic. 

Yesterday, at long last, I managed to do so, and was very glad that I did.  Not only was it a great pleasure to see how two of 'my' gardens were growing, but I was able to work with one of my occasional employers, which is always enjoyable in her case.  While I appreciate the peace and solitude of gardening alone a lot of the time, it is also good to swap ideas - and swap plants!  And in fact I'm never alone here - if the humans are out, there's always a little robin hopping about at my feet on the lookout for worms.

Herbaceous border

I can't take too much credit for this lovely garden, as its owners had it planted long before I appeared, but I have pruning and weed-control duties, and get to advise and assist on a few new projects - such as the shady border below.

If all goes to plan, there are some Mahonias to disguise the fence and give a little winter colour and structure, though some foxgloves will be adding height before that, and if the slugs don't do too much damage, there are some lovely hostas hiding amongst the forget-me-nots.

Nearby, a project that is very much my design has come through the winter weedy but otherwise well, and a couple of hours' work despatched the worst of the weeds.  I think I will have to clear right back to the hedge - my original plan was to leave a path and just mulch or trample that clear, but it will make more sense to clear and plant with ground cover that can be stood on for hedge-pruning (more geranium macrorrhizum and alchemilla, then!) and will come back fighting, and add another line of shrubs.  The next border along, where the fence has been replaced, also needs planning. 

What will make all the difference to the look of this border is a proper sharp edge to the lawn, but I have yet to find a lawn edging tool with a nice long handle.  I could use a spade, but you never get as clean a line with a curved blade, and I could do with a proper edger for other projects - but the long handle is a must.

Sarah's tools - and college 'hobbit tools'.

I put in no more than a dozen potatoes last weekend using the spare fork and spade of standard length that we keep in the allotment shed, and I could certainly feel the difference, at least until a hot, deep bath sorted out the ache in my back.  At college last year I started taking in my own tools since there wasn't a single set with longer handles available, and with a plot of our own to dig over and cultivate, I wasn't going to injure myself using the 'Hobbit tools' from the store!

I'm very fond of my big wooden-handled, stainless steel fork and spade.  I almost feel they deserve heroic names, like the swords of Dark Age warriors.  I haven't been inspired to name them yet, but don't rule it out.  Nor the possibility that one day many centuries henceforth, an archaeologist will exhume the skeleton of a large female from a supposedly 21st century burial, and wonder why there appear to be Saxon-style grave goods; the traces of long wooden handles to a large square blade and a strange pronged weapon. 

I'm going to need a new hand-trowel and fork soon too - ideally also with longer than average handles, as I tend to bend rather than squat or kneel to plant and weed, but also the strength to deal with being wielded by me in sometimes heavy or stoney ground.  If I had an unlimited budget, I could probably have something suitable made, but I dread to think what that would cost. 

So I shall be on the look-out for something this summer - unless I can devise a way to replace the splitting handles of my existing tools, perhaps adding a nice Staffordshire Hoard style pattern of interlinked dragons or sea-serpents?  The capacity to glow blue at the edges in the presence of slugs might come in handy too!

The 'F' Word

Plum blossom

After some warm and sunny days, the garden is looking glorious, with the mid-season daffodils nicely set off by fresh green foliage of perennials such as aquilegia and astrantia.  The plums and damson trees in the front garden are in full bloom, and whereas last year I had only just planted the first early potatoes, this year the first shoots are already through the ground.

And with impeccable timing, we are promised a sharp frost tonight.  Great!  Virtually no frost all winter, and just when it can cause maximum trouble, we have a still night and clear skies.

That's the risk with 'growing your own', and I was worried that some of the City's movers and shakers had missed that when a few weeks ago an item appeared in the local press suggesting that some of the people affected by food poverty could help their situation by adopting a 'dig for victory' approach.  It might well seem to an uninformed observer that with the big gardens traditional Council houses have, someone struggling to make ends meet thanks to the 'Bedroom Tax' could dig over their back garden and get some onions and taters on the go.

Fruit, veg, cut flowers and shrub cuttings in the back garden

Except that people in that situation are struggling to find the money for food to eat right now. If they had £4 for a bag of seed potatoes, they wouldn't be at the foodbank.  If they don't already have tools, there's no money for them either.  It's depressing enough when you aren't absolutely depending on it to find your crop of salad leaves has been wiped out by slugs, your carrots are full of root fly holes and your spuds and tomatoes are blackened with blight after some damp and thundery summer weather; if you had skipped a few meals to get the seeds back in the spring, you'd feel well and truly cheated.

So all credit for the Appetite4Change team for looking beyond individual effort and risk at options for collective action.  I'll be interested to see what comes of it and I'd be delighted to share some tips and tricks of the trade, especially the ones involving recycling food packaging to make propagators and seeds trays, though can't honestly promise them a lot of time with my other on-going projects both in and out of doors.  Ideally, the project will employ some proper, professional horticulturalists - that would create some much-needed employment - though who will put up the money is anybody's guess.

Meanwhile, with Easter almost upon us, let's enjoy a few of this year's spring flowers...