The Best Day of the Gardening Year

There is a day (usually some time in February) when I take a sandwich outside and sit in the low winter sunlight. This sandwich is called the Hope of Summer Sandwich. I could give you a recipe for it, but I am no Nigella Lawson and in any case, the filling can be whatever we fancy, as long as salad is involved. Chocolate spread has never been included in the Hope of Summer Sandwich. I understand that this might appear to be a shocking omission for a chocoholic, but I am not crazy about chocolate spread and in any case, we must consider the salad element (even my relatively untrained tastebuds recognise that tomatoes do nothing for chocolate spread). 

Crocus tommasinianus

You may quite rightly be thinking that I should stop all these thoughts of bread and get out more. I agree, but I have had a brief spell in hospital and have been stuck indoors since late October. Consequently there has been plenty of time to think about food and not much time to garden, so the gardening to-do list is lengthening by the second and I may be ready for winter some time next spring. Instead of being tucked up in fertile soil, bulbs are strewn across my rather less than fertile office floor and the heating is turned down in a vain attempt to keep the bulbs happy until I am finished with the whole convalescing malarkey. As you can imagine, preserving the bulbs is playing havoc with my typing speed as my fingers are fair freezing to the keyboard - something which will not be happening when I tuck into my Hope of Summer Sandwich.

Helleborus x hybridus

The Hope of Summer Sandwich is significant because it is eaten on my very favourite day in the gardening year: the first day it is sunny enough to sit outside and perhaps even justify accessorising my lunch attire with a pair of sunglasses. It is a day which fills me with hope that summer will return and I will eventually warm through to the marrow, throw off my thermals and barbecue some corn on the cob. Even better, if it is windless and sunny enough for me to eat al fresco, there is a chance that I might be joined for lunch by an early bee.  

There are many contenders for the best day of the gardening year. Switching on the propagator should rightly be accompanied by a fanfare, champagne and a party until dawn. The first snowdrop nudging through the soil is certainly cause for a giant bar of chocolate; and the completion of just about any gardening task really ought to be celebrated with a hot coffee and a jolly good sit down. But it is that first sunny lunch time which is my favourite. It seems a little inadequate to celebrate it with a sandwich (especially as I am a coeliac and gluten-free bread is rarely delightful) but it is a decades-old tradition and it wouldn’t be right to upgrade it to something more upmarket.

Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane'

Of course, if you live in a place where winter isn't very cold, Hope of Summer Sandwich day is not going to take priority in your gardening year. Perhaps you like the cold and the first frost of winter is a cause for celebration, but for me, much as I love the heat of summer, Hope of Summer Sandwich day is more of a cause for celebration than summer itself. 

Gardening Sins and Penitent Pigeons

When I was five years old, I entered a name the doll competition at my school summer fair. I studied the list of potential names and rejected any I recognised in favour of one which my emerging reading skills were unable to decipher. It might not be the most scientific approach to competition winning (in my defence, the field of dolls' names guessing is notoriously under-researched), but it worked; and as I scrambled onstage to collect the doll with the name I couldn't read, I felt like the luckiest child alive.

Chaenomeles speciosa 'Nivalis' in the Barn Garden

Maureen the doll travelled with me through childhood; a daily reminder that I had once been lucky. I haven’t won many prizes since then, but I do count myself as lucky, particularly when it comes to gardening. Garden luck comes in many guises; be it the weather, a happy chance seedling, or getting away with gardening misdemeanours. My gardening life has to fit around whatever else is going on at home and at work. Gardening calendars and years of horticultural training count for very little if the diary is filled with appointments with humans rather than plants. Worrying about a recurring failure to garden in a timely fashion is not going to help. Gardening should be fun and relaxing, not stressful. So I eat crops when they ripen and I try not to worry about tasks which will wait until tomorrow (or a week on Wednesday).

Aubretia living up to its reputation as a bee magnet

Sometimes the delay can seem endless. Instead of being planted when the bulbs arrived in autumn, beautiful Iris reticulata 'Blue Note' endured a twelve week sojourn on my office floor before I finally found the time to pop the emaciated bulbs into the soil on January 17th. At the time I was uncertain whether this was a planting or a burial, but guess what? The lovely Iris forgave my gardening sin. From planting to flowering in nine weeks. How lucky is that? 

Iris reticulata 'Blue Note'

I often meet new gardeners who are frightened of putting a foot wrong with their plants. Fear seems to hold back their gardening potential and reduces their enjoyment of their plots. I have always believed that plants will survive if it is at all possible, irrespective of the level of care they receive from me. Of course they need to be planted correctly in a suitable soil and location, and their dietary needs should be met, but they can be remarkably forgiving when we garden a little less than perfectly.

Crocus tommasinianus forgave a very late planting

Had there been an award for the most neglected fruit in England last year, my strawberries would surely have won first prize. Mulch was a distant memory, as were food and water. I didn't have high hopes of a single berry, but they proved me wrong. With luck like this, the pigeons will be sauntering past my cabbages, cooing, "We're sorry we ate your crops last year. Please don't hoe and net on our account, we've discovered the No Cabbage Diet and we only eat weeds. Oh yum... delicious dandelions.” 

Actually, my good fortune in the strawberry patch left me feeling deflated. Had I tended those strawberries, I would have been delighted that the care I had lavished on them had resulted in a bountiful harvest. Since they cropped well irrespective of any effort on my part, the question of why we bother to garden raised its ugly head. I garden because I love gardening. I may rely too heavily on luck and I might not garden according to the timeframe I learnt in order to pass my exams, but I remain optimistic that the plants will forgive me and that one day I might achieve perfect timing with all my gardening tasks. As for the strawberries, even if they don't need it, they will be receiving abundant care this year. After all, my garden might manage perfectly well without me for a while, but I don’t believe in pushing my luck.

On The Menu in February for Bees

I grew up in a hospitable home and while my culinary skills may never set the world alight (indeed they might arguably give the world a dicky tummy), my desire to replicate this wonderful part of my childhood extends beyond the dining table and out into the garden. I don't mean that I am in a permanent state of barbecuing, although that would be fun, rather that I like to offer food to wildlife, not just in the feeders we have dotted around the garden, but also in the form of the plants I choose to grow. 

Anemone blanda

I have seen bees or butterflies during every month in my garden, so I have challenged myself to continue to increase the quantity and variety of forage on offer all year round. It is the most wonderful way to garden. 

Choisya ternata

In any year there will be the rule breakers - those plants which strut their stuff irrespective of the fact that it isn't their turn to take centre stage. Choisya ternata appears to have given up on the concept of waiting in the wings and has reinvented itself as a year-round flowerer, as has Pyracantha. This is all marvellously above the call of duty, but who is to say that they will manage the same generosity of flowering period in the future? 

Iris reticulata

The pollinators' pantry is surprisingly well-stocked in February and it contains too many wonderful plants to focus on here, so I have selected three glorious February flowers which the bees and I couldn't live without. 

Gorgeous Galanthus

February without snowdrops is like Friday without chocolate (or any other day of the week in my humble opinion). Good old Galanthus nivalis not only raises our spirits in the darkest days of winter, these little beauties provide a valuable source of quality pollen. They flower for weeks on end, probably because pollination can be a bit hit-and-miss at this time of year given the weather and the reduced number of pollinators on the block. But when the weather is right, bees will be busy working those snowdrops and lifting our spirits even higher. If you don't already grow snowdrops, now is the time to order some and plant them 'in the green'.

Crocus tommasinianus

The Crocus lawn is coming into flower now. It is only small, but it is a valuable source of nectar and pollen for bees. Bumblebees are always the most entertaining foragers; I love to see them dive headfirst into the flowers of Crocus tommasinianus. Crocus flowers close at night and bees will lie swathed in the petals until morning when they can enjoy breakfast in bed (such is the life of a queen bee). If you are able to grow Crocus and have not yet tried a mass planting of them, please think about adding Crocus tommasinianus to your autumn bulb list so that you, too, can sit with a warm drink on a sunny winter day and watch bees. I can’t recommend this pastime highly enough.

Hurrah for Hellebores (and Lonicera fragrantissima
  in the background)

Garden blogs are usually swamped by photos of Hellebores at this time of year and for good reason: they are an all-round fabulous plant. Not only are they beautiful; their evergreen glossy foliage makes a stylish weed-suppressing ground cover and best of all, they are a valuable source of nectar for honey bees and queen bumblebees. Queen bumblebees can hibernate for up to six months. Consequently, they wake in desperate need of food. If there are no flowers and no nectar, these bees may die. Fortunately the plants which make all the difference to the bees happen to look wonderful too. Isn't gardening with wildlife in mind wonderful? 

You may rightly have spotted that the photos in this post were taken in the dark. Unfortunately I was so busy digging that I forgot to take any pictures until sundown. I am linking this post to http://www.maydreamsgardens.com/, where you will find plenty more posts written by bloggers who don't wait until dusk to photograph their plants. I am now heading over to May Dreams Gardens to see if I can steal some menu ideas for next February. Happy GBBD. 


P.S. If you want to see cute bee pictures, there's one here http://thegardeningshoe.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/bottoms-up-bees.html

Bottoms up Bees!

There are people on this planet who are always prepared for every eventuality. They have wrapped bottles and chocolates under their Christmas tree waiting for unexpected guests and a drawer filled with every conceivable type of card ready to commemorate any event requiring stationery. Sadly I am not one of these people. The sight of a bottle under the tree has me reaching for the corkscrew and I seem incapable of leaving a shop with chocolates still in their wrappers, since shopping is one of the most snack-inducing chores on my long festive to-do list. As for cards, if I write one, I rarely have a stamp, so my good wishes sit forlornly on the postage pile for months on end.

Happily, pollinating insects do not require celebratory stationery and their chosen source of refreshment is not top of my snack chart (although I am unable to resist nibbling Hemerocallis flowers which is a bit embarrassing on garden visits). Since there are plenty of plants which aren't Hemerocallis, I am in with a very solid chance of being prepared for pollinating visitors; and bulbs are a massive help when it comes to having refreshments ready for any early arrivals.

Iris reticulata

Top of the earlies at Le Grys Farm has to be Crocus tommasinianus. Last year I planted a little crocus lawn and on a sunny day in February, I sat on a bench and watched bees tipsily plunging head first into the blooms. Bottoms up my dear friends. 

This year I will be planting more Crocus tommasinianus and they will all be sited close to benches to entice me to sit down and enjoy offering the bees this little hospitality. 

Another flower which saw bee action earlier this year was Tulipa clusiana 'Peppermint Stick'. The outside of its petals are rose-red, edged in white and they open to reveal glorious pure white inner petals. The flowers last very well and it is a joy to have them in the garden, so I will certainly be adding more to the borders this autumn.

Iris reticulata is a late winter bulb which I wouldn’t wish to be without. Two streams of them flank the path to the old farmhouse and although the foliage seems to elongate forever after flowering, they are planted among Geranium which quickly grow up and disguise the dying leaves. In summer, Iris x hollandica punch through the Geranium plants. If you have never sat and sipped coffee while watching bees disappearing into these beautiful flowers, you need to get a batch of bulbs and grab a mug. It is one of life’s simpler pleasures and one which is truly worth experiencing. 

Of course, there are plenty of wonderful pollinator-friendly plants available in summer and one I love to see in the garden is Allium. Now is the time to plant the bulbs, not least because buying the plants in spring or early summer will cost a great deal more than a bag of bulbs.

I am always interested to hear about which plants are popular with bees on other gardeners' plots. It can present a garden-based shopping opportunity which is up there with bulb planting as one of my favourite gardening tasks. It certainly makes a very welcome break from the boredom of digging out the clay pan from hell. This seemingly typical clay pan has now mysteriously metamorphosed into the 6" deep concrete slab of a former farm building. Consequently, I am adapting to this alarming discovery by metamorphosing into Popeye. It's not quite the look I was hoping for.

Holey Clogs, the Garden Museum and a Day Out with Matthew Biggs

One Mothering Sunday not many moons ago, my children asked me what I would like to do to celebrate my special day. “You can do anything,” they said and my eyes lit up as images of me clad in a maternal swooshing skirt and skipping hand in hand with my beloved brood of smiling, plant-loving children through swathes
of daffs passed joyfully through my idealistic mind “...except visit a garden.”
I clattered inelegantly back to earth and landed with an ungraceful thud.

The girls skipping through the daffs (yes, they were bribed)

I reminisce dewy-eyed on the good old days, when all I had to do was suggest a trip to a beach which just happened to be in close proximity to a garden I wanted to see and they would clamber unwittingly into the car, trailing their buckets and spades behind them. Over the years they have grown wise to my pathetic ploys and I am subjected to trial by teenager if I so much as utter the words “day out”.

Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost' in the farmhouse garden

The wiser the children grow; the more creative I must become. Days out with dual interests work well, so long as my hidden horticultural agenda remains undiscovered. Many zoos have superb gardens; and do you think I would have driven my offspring all the way to Legoland had I not harboured a burning desire to ogle the landscaping? So you can imagine my excitement on hearing about an exhibition exploring the relationship between fashion and garden design at the Garden Museum in London. All I had to do was conceal any reference to gardens and I would have my day out. 

Bergenia 'Silberlicht' in the farmhouse garden

It is a fascinating exhibition, spanning centuries of design from the use of botanically accurate images of flowers on clothing during the 1600s to Valentino’s spring/summer 2013 couture collection. Apart from the jaw-droppingly beautiful clothes, I particularly enjoyed a collection of paintings featuring gardeners at work. Gardeners were once such a source of pride that they were painted. Imagine! I would certainly need some new clothes if I were to be captured on canvas doing my mulching. 

My least holey clogs after years of mulching

This leads me to one of the questions raised by the exhibition. "How did people dress to garden, or to visit gardens?" The 18th century landscape movement may have given rise to a new style of dressing, which eventually developed into the outdoor clothing we see in glossy magazines, but I am not altogether convinced that this stylish ideal holds much relevance for real gardeners with brittle nails and that half moon sun strip around the midriff which never seems to fade. In any case, we know what we wear to garden these days, as we have already chewed over the issue of gardening clothes here: 
http://thegardeningshoe.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/swishing-for-gardeners-and-garlic-bath.html

Crocus tommasinianus proving its value to wildlife
 in the farmhouse garden

When it comes to visiting gardens, twenty-first century style choices can be astonishingly diverse and bewilderingly unpredictable. For example, there was a time when I might visit a garden sporting beach clothes accessorised by sand, seaside buckets and spades. These days however, I might dress as if I were on the verge of accompanying my teenage children to a music festival, but got lost en route and found myself visiting a garden. Ahem.

P.S.  Update on the children... After the initial horror of finding themselves duped yet again into a garden-based day out, they relaxed and enjoyed the exhibition. The level of forgiveness will be assessed on Mothering Sunday later this month. You never know, they might be reading this and decide (completely without any hinting from me at all) to treat me to a day out with Matthew Biggs.
http://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/page/mothers-day-in-the-garden-with-mathew-biggs-30-03-14 

Information about the Fashion and Gardens Exhibition can be found on The Garden Museum website:  http://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/page/fashion-and-gardens

F₁ Hybrid Gardening Contortionists

Gardeners are extraordinary hybrids of the here and hence. Our feet are firmly planted in the fine tilth of today, but our brains keep galloping off to the future. My body is currently in autumn (which sounds like a comment on my age rather than the season), but my mind has been bouncing around like a lamb in spring ever since the bulb catalogues started dropping through the letter box in July, which was, of course, when the rest of my body was luxuriating in mid-summer. 

It may sound improbable when we stand up, stiff-backed after a long weeding session, but gardeners are marvellous time-flexible contortionists with futuristic heads grafted onto gardening bodies (I am now getting an image of Sarah Raven rootstock with a scion of The Jetsons). This arrangement means that we have the capacity to escape from the more challenging aspects of any season. The very notion of winter without seed catalogues makes me shiver; but if my head is in high summer, cold weather becomes more bearable.

Last winter (the one which seemed to last forever), my mind was abuzz with autumn pollinators and as a result, butterflies and bees are now enjoying Asterfest in the farmhouse garden. I have been particularly impressed with Aster amellus 'Veilchenkönigin', which is short (around 35cm), stocky and a strong violet colour; but at the moment the pollinators seem to prefer Aster amellus 'King George'.

Small Tortoiseshell on Aster amellus 'King George'

Autumn is the season of butternut squash, brambling and bulb planting. I mention butternut squash since my fondness for it may shortly be put to the test. Unless there is a catastrophic squash meltdown, we will soon be harvesting 10 socking great fruits from three 'Sweetmax' plants grown from seed sown in March. It is the first time that I have grown this variety and if it tastes good, I shall certainly sow it next year (head in spring again). 

I am unable to work out whether I am becoming more clumsy in the garden or if my manners are improving with age, but I seem to be spending an increasing amount of time apologising to plants for accidentally deadheading perfectly good flowers, or digging up bulbs. Last week, while my mind was mulling over springtime sources of nectar and pollen, I inadvertently dragged a daffodil bulb from the soil. I don’t know who looked more shocked: me; the daff; or the passers-by who overheard me begging a bulb’s pardon. Once the daff was tucked safely back in bed, I scurried, red-faced, back to the house to add Crocus tommasinianus to my plant list. Come February, the lawn will be awash with purple; bees will be blanketed in pollen; and with any luck, my blushes may finally have faded.

The hedgerow fruits are looking resplendent in the autumn sunlight and as usual the plumpest, juiciest blackberries are just out of reach. This is no bad thing because they can be enjoyed by winged wildlife and my sense of guilt about gathering berries is assuaged. Recently, I have been leaving fruit on the lower branches too, as there have been several sightings in the farm hedgerows of a rare species which migrates from its natural habitat to feast on ripe blackberries. One of my proudest photographic achievements has been capturing two of these shy creatures on camera. 

Please remember that the Lesser Spotted Onesie Brambler hunts in packs and should only be disturbed if you are in possession of a fully prepared crumble topping and custard.