Secret Gardens of East Anglia

Beautiful books with depth seem to me to be a rarity. Many of the visually arresting publications gracing my coffee table and shelves have little to say beyond the photos. Secret Gardens of East Anglia differs in that it might have been two books. One, a masterclass in photography by the hugely talented Marcus Harpur, who, sadly, died recently; the second, a fascinating insight into gardeners and their gardens by Barbara Segall. The two combine to create a visually delightful experience and an exceptional read. 

Parsonage House (Photo: Marcus Harpur)

The private tour of twenty-two gardens ranging from a dramatic, densely planted city plot to spacious stately homes is a joy. I have lived in East Anglia for almost half of my life. Some of the gardens in the book I know well, others are new to me. Proximity is irrelevant though, as this is a book for everyone who loves gardens, regardless of whether they will ever set foot in East Anglia.

Ulting Wick wildflower meadow (Photo: Marcus Harpur)

Yes, I want to visit the gardens - who wouldn’t after drooling over all those mouth-watering photographs? But the stories of the gardens and their gardeners, so engagingly told by Barbara, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and propelled me outside to reconsider my own plot. The stories and photographs in this book have inspired me to be a braver, more audacious gardener. To garden bigger and better and with greater passion than ever before.

Wyken Hall (Photo: Marcus Harpur)

I must confess that I know Barbara and I was sent a copy of the book by the publisher. That said, had I not been given a copy, it would have been at the top of my Christmas list. I have returned to Secret Gardens of East Anglia on several occasions since I read it for the first time. It is, without question, my favourite book of the year.

#My Garden Right Now

Here is a rarity: the Lesser Spotted Sitting Gardener. Brimming with to do lists and incapable of controlling the urge to weed, deadhead, sow and mow (not necessarily in that order or all at the same time), the Lesser Spotted Sitting Gardener is apt to instantaneously metamorphose into the Greater Spotted Sidetracked Gardener. 

Please don't let the turquoise mac fool you. It is machine washable and sees more non-bio action than your average coat. Shortly after this photo was taken, the Lesser Spotted Sitting Gardener scurried off to plant a yew hedge, and tested the mac's trench coat credentials to their gardening limits. Now the mac is resigned to spending yet another Saturday night dancing around a drum on a 30 degree wash.


This photo was taken today for the #MyGardenNow project. Details are here. Go on... join in. We all want to see your garden right now! 
http://vegplotting.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/introducing-mygardenrightnow-project.html

And if, like me, you have trouble sitting in your garden and doing nothing, why not try one of these?
 http://thegardeningshoe.blogspot.co.uk/2013_03_01_archive.html

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. 

A New Breed of Supergardener

I love the winter garden with its skeletal structure and great nostril-loads of scent. On a bright, frosty day what could be better? Actually, quite a lot. The problem is that although I delight in the great outdoors, I absolutely cannot stand being cold. In no particular order, my pet hates are: cold hands, cold feet, and cold hurting ears. It takes me back to hockey at school, only then I had cold blotchy knees to add to my misery.

Luscious Lonicera

I don't like to show off, but these days I am blessed with a fine collection of thermal undergarments, a woolly hat, lined boots and an array of mismatched gloves. Hacking icy flints from the borders and untangling bare-root hedging plants which have knitted themselves together (presumably for warmth), I am an advertisement for wearing everything at once. To put it succinctly: I am a walking wardrobe.

Eranthis hyemalis

This whole business of being so cold that I am barely able to move for all the layers of clothing has got me wondering why gardeners haven’t evolved over time. We have been cultivating our plots for thousands of years and while I appreciate that many gardeners of the past might have inhabited warmer areas of the globe, there must have been a fair few green-fingered pioneers who ventured out on a frosty morning to prod a stick at a patch of cold earth. 

Frosty Phlomis italica

If we were climbing plants, we would by now have adopted aerial roots or adapted our leaves into tendrils, so why have we not developed ever-warm extremities? I think that the answer might lie with the cooks of the world. We have been burning food for longer than we have been cultivating gardens, so where are the chefs' heat-resistant hands and unsliceable fingers? 

Echinops with an ice cap

Cooks' and gardeners' adaptations might be mutually beneficial. I am no chef, but I wouldn't mind having heatproof hands for those occasions when I forget about hot pan handles; and I am sure that chefs could adjust gardeners' adaptations to suit their own purposes (although I'm struggling with adaptation number 8 below). 

Were I a time traveller, I would have a word with our ancestors and ask them to initiate a few improvements so that all gardeners nowadays would be blessed with:

1. Constantly warm hands, feet and ears

2. Thorn-resistant skin

3. An ache-free back

4. The ability to prune with the scissor action of the fingers of both hands, thereby adding hours to the gardening year which might otherwise be lost searching for secateurs 

5. A dripless nose

6. The ability to hover mid-air while pruning, thereby rendering ladders unnecessary

7. A reviving stare which rejuvenates listless plants and makes old seeds viable

8. Toes which double as hoes.

There must be something I’m missing from this list..... what do you mean I need to get out more? It's cold outside.