The Cottage Smallholder

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 turkey the process got a lot easier. More flowers bloomed in the garden and I started to prepare for the future. The herbaceous borders were overhauled and planted with pots of flowering plants (mainly from the stand outside the secret garden, 40p each or 3 for a pound). If I was going to stick to this new way of life, I needed to cultivate more flowers.

I was tempted many, many times. I was amazed at the power of the flower buying daemon. I often found myself considering lying to Danny,
“Mum gave me these flowers.”
As she lives 15 miles away and I had only popped out for 20 minutes this would be unlikely.
“Someone stopped me in the street and gave me these flowers.”
I am not quite glamorous enough for this sort of gesture.

I’d run through various lies in my head and by the time I had rejected them all as too outlandish the craving for bought flowers and crackle of cellophane would have passed.

Yesterday I was queuing in the supermarket behind a couple who had rather a moth-eaten bunch of roses in their basket. As the man proffered a ten pound note I glanced at the till. ?9.50. The roses were not a deluxe bouquet so this must be the change due. Clearly they were selling off the out of date flowers. The flower buying daemon sprang into action,
“If the roses are only 50p, there might be lilies. I am sure that Danny owes me money for various things. If I bought the flowers I wouldn’t really be buying them as I’d be paying with Danny’s money.” I was startled out of my reverie by swish of the till opening. She handed over the change – to my horror it was only 50p.

I’ve saved a lot of money but the biggest bonus is that I enjoy the garden far more than I have done for years. The focus had been on vegetables and fruit but now has widened to include flowering shrubs and plants again. I’m impatient to see the new plants flowering next year. Many had lost their labels so 2008 will be full of surprises.

Today I was amazed to see that the forsythia is in bud and a few flowers were opening. So I snipped off a bit for this month’s arrangement. The roses (a mystery variety) were waving their heads beside the chicken run. I expected the two viburnum and the winter flowering honeysuckle to be in flower but was stunned to find that I could fill a proper vase rather than a doll’s sized glass. I have included a hellebore (I seem to inadvertently have started farming this particular variety), sprigs of mahonia, elaeagnus, wintersweet, ivy and a variegated holly.

There’s no question of turning back now.

Happy New Year!