Wild crocus
I glanced out of the sitting room window and saw a splash of pale lavender blue in the grass. We are lucky. Wild crocus have naturalised and spread. They were here when I came to the house, large pools of shimmering blue. Just before I bought the cottage I passed its gate in a former Jalopy. There was a wash of the palest blue across the grass. Magical and almost unreal – like an illustration from a 1930’s children’s book. These flowers seem so much more delicate than the standard crocus. They respond to the gentlest breath...
read moreThe grand amaryllis challenge
My mum gave me two amaryllis (Hippeastrum) bulbs at Christmas and finally today they have been set in a bed of compost. They will flower a bit later than usual but that’s fine with me. We usually have a race to see whose amaryllis flowers first. A few years ago I was decorating her house and seemingly overnight her amaryllis developed a second bud. Neither of us had ever seen this wonder before. Like many people nowadays she keeps her mind in trim by tackling The Times crossword every day. She does not get up in the morning until she has...
read moreFlowers from the garden: January 2008
This is the start of the second year of not buying flowers and just picking flowers from the garden. In January 2007 I decided not to buy flowers for the house for a year. Having been a rather extravagant flower buyer for decades, this was a testing challenge. Especially when I passed a flower shop or supermarket display. Danny bought me an occasional bunch but as the months went by I began to prefer the flowers cut from the garden. They have a softness and a charm that is rarely found in commercially produced flowers. Having been an avid...
read moreHyacinths
It’s my T.S. Eliot time of year. Three large blue hyacinths loll beside the laptop on the kitchen table. Their scent is as overwhelming as the weight of their waxy flower heads. My old edition of Eliot’s complete poems is just out of reach. Slim and tempting and almost as worn as the hands that turn the pages. The book now smells musty. I have opened its covers and dived in for nearly thirty years. The long intermittent journey has been more startling and intriguing than most. Hyacinths and The Waste Land are a heady mix. This...
read moreFlowers from the garden: December
It’s quite fitting that the last day in the year should end with the final monthly instalment of Flowers from the Garden. This was a challenge that I set myself in January 2007. Having been an extravagant flower buyer for over 20 years I decided not to buy flowers for the house from a shop or even a wayside stall. For the period of a year all flowers for the cottage had to be picked from our garden. With the exception of flowers given to me. This required a phenomenal strengthening of character. After two months of floral buying cold...
read moreIsolde the self propogating Dendrobium orchid
Isolde, our Dendrobium orchid has had five babies this year. The quintuplets didn’t come all at once. They have developed gradually. Initially I noticed that she was developing a cluster of leaves on a stalk, with very fine roots, about ten months ago. The roots thickened up. I decided to leave the baby orchid on the plant and wait to see what would happen. Gradually more babies appeared. Isolde continued to throw up flowering shoots. Just as one would expect from an orchid named after a Wagnarian heroine. About a month ago I found the...
read moreFlowers from the garden: November
When I saw the clever fireworks post on Purple Podded Peas I felt inspired to rush out and see what was flowering in our garden. I must admit I wasn’t dazzled by our display but I managed pick this little old fashioned posy. The sort of bijou arrangement that I imagine would sit on a side table in a Dicken’s novel. An incidental backdrop to the plot. The Flowers from the garden posts report on my progress since I decided not to buy flowers for the house in January 2007. I have managed to avoid buying cut flowers from supermarkets,...
read moreCyclamen
When I went down to Mike’s house in Saffron Walden ten days ago, the garden was full of small groups of cyclamen. I don’t know whether they had just been planted or were an early flowering variety. His house is just off Castle Street in a small enclave of four Victorian houses. Set in a pretty communal garden that theoretically belongs to Mike’s house but is shared by all the residents. Mike scored instant brownie points on his arrival as he owns a lawn mower and the other residents no longer had access to one. He scored...
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