Veg Plotting

Of course I completely ignored my own advice and have been merrily buying and ordering plants like I'm designing my garden from scratch rather than the odd border tweak here and there. The damage thus far: The usual weekly trips to Franks Plants - luckily for me the choice and quality hasn't been as good as it used to be, so the temptation hasn't been too great and I've managed to keep to just the things I need for my summer pots A trip to the absolutely enormous West Kington Nurseries last weekend - well they're local and it was for charity, so it would be churlish not to. I bought some very nice Cosmos 'Chocomocha' (meant to smell even more of chocolate), Papaver 'Patty's Plum, Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' and Dahlia 'Dark Star' Some boxed plants on special offer from Homebase - Monarda 'Cambridge Scarlet', Echinacea purpurea and Echinops 'Blue Globe' I can never resist the Parkers catalogue as the plant...

When in the springtime of the year When the trees are crowned with leaves When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew Are dressed in ribbons fair When owls call the breathless moon In the blue veil of the night The shadows of the trees appear Amidst the lantern light We've been rambling all the night And some time of this day Now returning back again We bring a garland gay Who will go down to those shady groves And summon the shadows there And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms In the springtime of the year The songs of birds seem to fill the wood That when the fiddler plays All their voices can be heard Long past their woodland days And so they linked their hands and danced Round in circles and in rows And so the journey of the night descends When all the shades are gone "A garland gay we bring you here And at your door we stand It is a sprout well budded out The work of Our Lord's hand" Loreena McKennit - 1997 This is my favourite song by Loreena McKennit and it ...

It might be the month of Maying (see last year's Muse Day for picture and poem/song), but it's also the month of Clematis in my view. Already I have vast swathes of Clematis montana clothing the fence and this pictured Clematis alpina 'Francis Rivis' is threatening to overwhelm the contorted hazel supporting it. Looking like that though, I can forgive it entirely. Elsewhere there are fat buds of other Clematis bursting forth everywhere - if our mix of fair weather and rain keeps up over the next week or so, I'm sure they'll be the main feature for May's Blooms Day . Without further ado, here's May's events as assembled by the ever diligent You Ask, We Answer team: 1st: May Day - traditionally the day when Britain's men get out their handkerchiefs and sticks and wave them at each other in a spot of Morris Dancing. There's also very quaint dancing round the maypole and the Queen of the May is chosen in each village. Sadly not ever...

...Organic Ever since I bought the fantastic River Cottage Preserves book earlier this year, I've been toying with the idea of making Preserved Lemons so I can have a play with some middle eastern cookery. The recipe calls for unwaxed fruit, so I was very pleased to find these O rganic lemons reduced to 15p a couple of days ago. Since bringing them home, I've noticed the kitchen has a lovely fresh lemony aroma - perhaps their usual waxing locks in the smell. Now I'm O ff to make that recipe - byeee! O ff you go to the ABC Wednesday Mr Linky blog to find some more O's...

The You Ask We Answer team have been hard at work investigating Chia and Chia Pets after Mr. McGregor's Daughter likened them to the plastic topiary I found recently. We don't have these in Britain, though we do have something a bit similar: usually around Christmas as a garden centre gift line, which then quickly enters the drastically reduced section in January. However, for all non-American YAWA readers who don't know what we're missing, this rather helpful clip from YouTube reveals all: But who would have thought something so innocuous could be quite so controversial ? And not only that, it would appear that Chia Pets might have some of the same issues as their live counterparts, with a potential environmental disaster in New Mexico resulting from the dumping of unwanted pets . So do remember you owners out there: a Chia Pet is for life, not just Christmas ;)

Public planting seldom makes the news, but an almighty row has broken out in the local paper over the recent changes to the entrance to Monkton Park. I believe most of it's political point scoring ahead of the local elections - the two main councillors involved are hardly doing themselves any favours as they sound like children who have thrown their toys out of the pram - but I'd hardly call the work so far the expected 'stunning' result as quoted by one of them in the newspaper recently. I'm rather stunned in fact, though to be fair the work isn't complete yet. This entrance leads from Chippenham's main shopping street into a parkland landscape of river walks, trees and large open spaces. It was tired and run down, so the council earmarked (a reported) £65,000 to improve it. I imagine the brief given to potential contractors went something like: Stabilise the river bank area Screen the adjacent Emery Gate Shopping Centre so the parkland feel to the landscap...

This one's for Frances who remarked on my Hope post recently that despite hiding them under a rock for several years, her Anemone blanda had defied the odds and rebloomed for her this year. This genus must be pretty robust, because I was delighted to make the re-acquaintance of this Anemone coronaria De Caen group in my front garden a few days ago. I didn't hide it under a rock, but as these are usually a relatively short-lived variety and I did plant them a few years ago, I am surprised to see this one after an absence of several years. As Carol Klein would say - 'Geeeeeeorgeous!' This is another shameless interim Blooms Day post bought to you courtesy of Veg Plotting ;) PS I scheduled this post for today not realising it's Frances' birthday: I can't think of a better way of wishing her well on her day than by coincidentally dedicating a post to her :)

A couple of weeks ago and completely out of the blue NAH and I had one of those milestone kind of conversations: NAH : There's a petrol mower for sale at B&Q for under a hundred quid Me : @!#% a petrol mower? NAH : Yes, for under a hundred quid Me : But we've got the push pull mower! NAH : This one will cut the grass Me: So does the push pull and it doesn't use any fuel NAH (in a small voice): I'm not getting any younger dear... Flashback to the last time the allotment was mown: our understanding is mowing is the sole help I get from NAH. We bought the push pull mower second hand and from time to time he'd sigh and go a-mowing, with very ill grace. Often on his own too - best to keep a safe distance. But last time we'd gone together as I was behind in my other tasks, as usual. After a while the reassuring gentle whirring of the mower slowed and then stopped. NAH was nowhere to be seen. I stormed up the plot where I found him slumped in the car looking rath...

I can't think of a better way to celebrate a perfect St. George's Day yesterday than a trip to Lacock with Threadspider to see the International Garden Photographer of the Year exhibition. This features the results of the first IGPOTY competition held in 2007/2008 and Lacock Abbey is one of the few venues chosen to show these photographs. Where could be better than the garden where William Henry Fox Talbot experimented with his Pencil of Nature ? The photographs were breathtaking and a number of the finalists demonstrated that it takes only a back garden and a keen eye to take a winning image, such as the stunning portrait of a grass snake taken by David Maitland in Calne - a mere 10 miles from here. Ever since I'd known this exhibition was coming to Wiltshire I'd been intrigued as to how it would be staged in the open air. It looked like the images were printed onto a waterproof board - there was no sign of lamination. I also liked the sinuous path that the exhib...

A rethink of my strategy for the boring fence project led me to seek out some large pots recently so I can put some screening plants on the patio. I was very pleased to find some large blue 'long tom' style pots - 20 inches high and 16 inches across - for half price at Homebase. I was even more pleased when they went through the till at one third price - that's £9.99. I've planted one of them with a holly tree from last year's Franks Plants and the one in the picture's housing Clematis 'Crystal Fountain' from that lovely Mr. Evison . Revamping part of my borders saw me rip out quite a few woody lavender and I've had a bit of a guilt trip because I'm not replacing them with plants the bees love. Instead I was very happy to replace a very tired looking rosemary on the patio with three good sized lavender plants bought from Focus for a fiver. They're not a special variety, but the bees won't mind that. And don't worry about the ...