Last Post

It is now 13 years since Doc and I moved to Springfield.  We were in our mid forties - relatively young empty nesters - and free to take on new challenges and projects.  We were ambitious for our generously sized garden and set to work.  Then we worked some more.  Then some more.  If we weren’t working, we were spending money on hard landscaping and heavy duty machinery.  Had we known beforehand what a challenge restoring and developing a 1 acre plot on the side of a hill was going to be, we would not have moved here.  Ironically though, the fact that we foolishly rushed in where everyone else feared to tread was a blessing because our garden has been a joy, much more so that the house will ever be.  We soon grew out of our over-active imaginations but we stuck at it and reaped immense rewards.

Unleashing the garden’s potential consisted of hacking-back decades of uncontrolled ‘nature’ and felling dead trees, followed by building sheds, a greenhouse, pergolas, fencing, a garden room, raised beds and lots and lots of paving.  I cannot count the times we dug up plants (and weeds we thought were plants) and carefully moved them to a new position only to discover that we would have to move those same plants again the following year - sometimes back to where they came from!  Doc cannot count the barrow loads of soil, gravel, compost, manure, bark, green and brown ‘hackings’ and all manner of building materials, he carted up and down the garden. However, he did calculate that during one 3 hour stint of hauling chipped bark, he walked 5 miles.  I remember spending so long de-greening some felled tree branches with loppers that my arms froze in my shoulder sockets and even a restorative hot bath did not revive me.  Days spent in the garden left us filthy and groaning but since both of us had had stressful jobs, physical tiredness was a more welcome bed fellow than mental tiredness. 

Paradoxically, for quite a while there wasn’t much actual gardening to do but when we started to grow produce, we were infected with a renewed energy bug and our war with nature was turning into satisfaction. ‘Trugging’ was the task of choice and we would relish our harvests even if some of it required copious amounts of washing and processing. (Cabbages have so many unnecessary leaves!)  Standing 7 hours in the kitchen preparing and cooking a huge vat of the most delectable damson chutney was pure heaven and spending a softly lit, dewy autumn afternoon picking and sorting through buckets brimming with fallen apples, was sublime. 

Sometimes it was difficult to see how far we had travelled because there was always so much to achieve. But Doc is an optimistic and stoic plodder and I am a good manager so together we ploughed on as a team.  We have learned a lot, failed a lot, learnt some more and often we succeeded.  The garden gradually took on a new shape and when we dared to spend an idle moment wandering around, admiring it, we realised it is all ours and were thankful.  We felt we were so lucky to have such a large, interesting garden that is rich in plants, produce and wildlife.

They say pride comes before a fall.  We thought we were in control and that the summit was within our grasp.  Doc was getting nearer to retirement, the list of new garden developments was reducing and we were looking forward to enjoying and relaxing more in our lovely garden. Then just over 2 and a half years ago I stepped off a stool and everything changed.

I broke a bone in my foot and although most of us don’t regard that in itself a major disaster, for me it was unfortunately very different.  I won't go into details but complications ensued and I am still in pain and at times disabled by it. It is doubtful I will ever bound around our physically challenging plot like I used to.

To say that the last couple of years have been difficult would be an understatement.  I would report that I have battled and won, been courageous and seen off tragedy with a brave heart.  But I am not a hero. I am ordinary, not super-human. Coping with gnawing, constant pain is tough but grieving over what I have lost and living in a world that operates in steps, has at times been unbearable.  

Doc and I went away for a few days last week and we drank wine, ate good food and laughed together.  So something has changed.  I don’t know how we got from despair to here but we have.  I just keep getting up in the morning and try to be as useful and occupied as I can be and Doc continues to be the stoic and optimistic plodder he always is. He is my rock and always will be.

As I try and potter in the greenhouse or lightly prune the odd rose or two, Doc races round with his barrow and tools - doing everything else.  When my tears blur my vision of our wonderful garden, he notices and brings me something he has picked or points to a beautiful flower.  He has never complained once, never pleaded exhaustion and Springfield continues to be cared for.

Gardens never stand still, do they?  Neither do we.  Life changes.  We don’t know what the future holds.  How can we?  Doc and I are in a better place than we were a year ago so maybe things will improve more.  We hope so. We will stay here for the time being and Doc is determined to finish the development work.  After that we may hire in some help.  One day we will have to move to a smaller place and we will know when it is the right time.  In the midst of so much uncertainty, there a kind of freedom.  We are taking things one step at a time, literally and enjoying what we can, whilst we can.  One thing I am absolutely sure of is that I am so glad we came to Springfield.  I would not have missed it for the world.

Our journey continues but it is a journey that Doc and I must do on our own.  I have enjoyed writing posts and sharing the story of our garden.  Thank you to everyone who has dropped by and sent me kind and generous messages.  Take care and I wish you health, happiness and good luck.

Happy Gardening!

Sizzling Colour

First Attempt

Nature does colour well, doesn’t it?  A vase of cut flowers from the garden lifts the spirit.  Number One Daughter (And Very Experienced Floral Designer) gave me a good tip.  I initially used some white flowers to compliment the reds, yellow and orange tones.  She says this is a common mistake when using colour.  She suggested I add some lime green foliage and as ever, she is right.  She also reminded me that less is more so I must curb my enthusiasm to achieve a more satisfying result. The subsequent vase looks so much better - though clearly I still have a long way to go.  She also suggested that pink would work equally well but I could not find a suitable pink flower with the right tone.  Maybe next time….. 

Improving

A little snooze on the side.....

Most people find preparing for holidays stressful. There is a lot to do and if you a gardener you have to make sure there are watering systems or babysitters organised for your precious plants.  We decided to increase the pressure level and have our new Garden Room built just 2 weeks before our trip. In hindsight it was good to have a tight target to work to but supervising the Electrician the very afternoon before our departure was cutting it fine. However, once the electrics were installed without any problems, Doc and I unwrapped the furniture and did some hasty ‘room styling’ before moving on to packing for our holiday. Needless to say we did not actually sit in the Garden Room other than to test that the furniture was okay.

The Garden Room had to be finished because 4 days after we got back from the Baltic cruise, our family came to stay for a week. It was just the surprise we had hoped for (lots of wows and ahs) and we could not prise Doc’s mum from the new home-from-home. In fact at one point there were 9 people in the retreat which seems like a contradiction in terms but no-one seemed to mind the crush.  In fact, it reminded us of our caravanning holidays. It has a cosiness and friendliness about it.

Doc had shifted 2 bulk bags of cotswolds chips for the drainage strip around the perimeter of the Garden Room and we are still admiring the chips when we go in and out of the door.  We know the effort it took to bring the gravel down the garden!  A barrow load looks substantial until you lay it on the ground. Doc laid some temporary paving and now has to plan for a newer, larger paving area, flower beds, pergola and water feature. However, the next step is to finish the steps behind the Garden Room and put hand rails across the banks. That is all before we plan any new planting.  We had hoped to be doing that in the Autumn but have revised that ambitious target. 

We had concerns that we would not use the Garden Room enough to justify the expenditure but we need not have worried.  Because of my disability, I sit in it the most and even though Doc is running around doing jobs he is still finding time to eat meals in there and take a tea break in comfort. Now we have somewhere lovely to sit, we go there and because the room is winterised with insulation and a heater, it really is a home-from-home all year round.  An internet connection was a must too and now we can watch TV programmes or listen to the radio.  What we like the best is the fact that the room is actually in the garden, away from the house.  Once we are inside, relaxing, it is going to take Herculean effort to leave our haven and do some chores.  Yawn, I feel the need to go and sit down right now……  

This and That

We have been very busy this last few weeks.  We had a wonderful cruise to the Baltic countries and then family and friends came to stay for a week.  Since then Doc has been assessing the garden and trying to catch up with maintenance but the harvesting is getting in the way.  But that’s nice.  Home produce is always welcome and a full trug is satisfying and useful in the kitchen.  Rosy tomatoes will always bring a smile to our faces and the smell of the leaves is intoxicating.

The strawberries are abundant and we are full to bursting.  I have decided to try freezing some of the surplus to make jam in the autumn.  Using frozen berries works with raspberries, blackberries, red currants and blackcurrants so we will see if it works with strawberries.  I doubt the flavour will be as good so I will add lemon juice to perk it up.

The sugar snap peas are doing well and lots of pretty white flowers means there are many more pods to come.  We eat them raw or steamed.  I have never tried freezing them but we don’t have a glut - yet!

The courgettes are slow in getting going. The plants are still small though there are a couple of flowers.  I have a couple of spare courgette plants in the greenhouse and they are producing tiny courgettes so that is nice. The squashes and pumpkin are just about the same size as a month ago which is bad news.  I blame the cold May and June. 

The cut flower bed experiment is not quite as glorious as we hoped.  Again, the cold weather earlier in the season did not enable the plants to get established quickly.  The plants sulked when put outside and they needed a boost of warmth and sunshine.  Still, we have picked some bunches and together with some bits and bobs from the rest of the garden, the house is looking a little more loved.  Our grand-daughter liked the Helichrysums or ‘Strawflowers’ because of the papery, crispy petals.  They are remarkably long lasting in the vase too.

A friend brought me a large bunch of yellow roses and I cannot resist posting a pic.  The gypsophilla is homegrown and it looks good with yellow.  The flowers are only starting to fade but they have been amazing.  So far, we have had them 11 days and they still look good.  I change the water every day.  This was a top tip form our daughter.  She is a florist so she should know.  It works!

The very wishy washy pale pink peony is delightful and the scent is heady.  This was a plant that was here when we moved in over a decade ago.  Half of it was dead so we rejuvenated it.  Then it was moved several times and then had to sit for a few years to recover from its trials.  We did not know the colour of the blooms and assumed it was the same as the other peony which was also hiding in a border - a beautiful magenta.  How different could it be?  Anyway, last year I staked it and a couple of large flowers were well supported.  However,  this year the stakes were not quite high enough, there are masses of flowers and it rained on them.  The plant nearly keeled over in exhaustion!  I had to pick most of the flowers and they were a bit of a mess but I have saved a few for the vase.  The plant is huge now so next year we need stakes of nearly a metre to support the almost dinner-plate sized flowers.

The summer is rolling along and the garden is full of colour.  The foliage is starting to billow and it won’t be long before the wisteria needs a bit of a tidy up.  It flowered well this year.  We missed the whole show because we were away.  Gardeners should never go on holiday……..

Green is the colour

I know a lady who hates yellow flowers and another who loathes white ones.  Me? Well, I have no hang-ups about colour. I am cheap and cheerful, easy to please and content to mix and match colours with scant regard to tone, hue or matters of ‘good taste’ - whatever that is. I like bold and brassy, cool and sophisticated and I don’t mind mixing the two.  Life is a struggle against pain, there are too many long, grey winter days and in any case, more than one notable gardener has said that since nature does not create a colour scheme in the wild, why should we?  Nothing clashes and colour literally brightens us all up. 

The colour we often take for granted is of course green. This is probably because it is forms the very structure of our gardens and the power of it is that it blends in, is easy on the eye and has a very calming effect. It is not until we visit a green-free zone in a town or city that we feel a strong sense that something is missing.  

At flower shows there are often gardens where the only interest is a mixture of different shades of green in different textures.  I do ‘get it’ and quite like to see such creativity but it has never been ‘our thing’ at Springfield.  I started with a hot border, a cool border etc but over time the poppies seeds fly off and mix it all up and I am happy if the plants are happy.  

For me it is the pops of colour fizzing in front of a green backdrop that excites me.  There is one exception however (does that prove the rule?) and that is my small collection of hostas. They demonstrate perfectly how infinitely varied the colour green is and how our perceptions of green can be altered.

This hosta is outside our back door in a big pot and it is a delight every year.  In spring it awakes from its winter slumbers and erupts into tightly furled cigar shaped shoots and within a few weeks these open out to reveal acid lime green and deep green leaves which are glossy and corrugated in texture.  It is a joy to behold when I go out to the dustbin I cannot resist touching it.   It lights up the passage way leading to our garden. 

Of course as the season progresses we may see the results of a slug or two nibbling the edges of the leaves but keeping a hosta in a pot topped up with coarse gravel, minimises the invasion.  Sometimes I even put copper tape around the top of the pot and sprinkle over a few organic slug pellets, but not always. I also find that the thicker and glossier the leaves, the less the slugs attack them.  I assume the leaves are too tough for their little teeth.

The pots of hostas by our garden shed do well in the semi-shade but hostas seem to do well anywhere in our garden. I split them all this year and Doc dotted clumps around the garden.  That is the beauty of a perennial.  You buy a plant, grow it on and within a couple of seasons you can dig it up, cut it into sections resulting in free plants to plant out or give away .  

I am told that you can have too much of a good thing.  Number One Daughter bought a house from a hosta collector and yes, you’ve guessed it, the garden is full of them.  Needless to say, I can take a few off her hands.  She is all ‘hostered’ out….!

Droning on

The fact that the use of technology is accelerating faster than it takes to send an email is an understatement.  Doc and I like to think we are nifty when it comes to computers, email, digital photography etc and our ipad is so well used that the cover is wearing out.  However, Ashley, our neighbours’ teenage son has been showing us that we don't know nothin’ yet!

Ashley has a drone that takes pictures and he called round the other week and politely asked us if we would like some aerial shots of the house and garden.  We jumped at the chance, well who wouldn’t?  ‘Shall we take the washing in from the line?’ we asked him.  ‘Oh no, you don’t need to do that,’ he said.  ‘I can edit that out later.’  Heck.  It crossed my mind to ask him if he could neaten up the borders and add a few ornamental trees to create more of a wow factor but decided that maybe we might be accused of mis-representing the garden.

The drone an impressive piece of kit.  It is no bigger than a frisbee and very stable when airborne.  Ashley is well practised with the controls and he can zoom it around smoothly and quickly.  After a few circuits of the garden, he nipped over the garden wall and in no time at all, we had a couple of really good pictures. The drone also takes video too which Ashley adds a soundtrack to.

Doc wondered about asking Ashley if he could do a survey of the roof of the house.  Old houses are so high it is very difficult to find out if there are any slates loose.  Technology is great, what’s not to like?  Thanks Ashley!