The Cottage Smallholder

This is the ninth month of flowers from our garden. I decided to stop buying flowers from the supermarket and wayside stalls in January. I worked out that including parties and festivals we were spending over five hundred pounds a year on flowers. Flowers have always been a regular treat and indulgence for me. They give me enormous pleasure. Especially a bunch on the kitchen table as this is where I sit and work when I am at home.

Giving up buying flowers has not been a easy. The first three months were the worst when there wasn’t much flowering in the garden and the displays in the shops looked so fabulous. Gradually, I have begun to enjoy the challenge. And bit by bit, I have become more creative with my selections. I copied Joanna, over at Joanna’s food and picked the ground elder flowers, they lasted well and looked so pretty. I have also used snippets from shrubs.

Years ago, when this was a weekend cottage for me, My Mum used to stay a lot during the week. She would always pick a small posy of flowers for my bedroom. I did the same for her. This gentle exchange of tokens was a small celebration of the cottage. I had forgotten the pleasure of these posies until this evening. These tiny posies were a challenge too.

Now I find that I prefer a bunch of flowers from the garden to the supermarket ones. They are softer and as I have planted each flower over the years, each one resonates. I must admit that I was surprised to find all these flowers at lunchtime. I just haven’t been pottering in the garden enough recently.

September’s bunch includes two roses, Iceberg and Thisbe. Iceberg will flower reasonably well on a north facing border. It doesn’t have much scent but flowers on and off from spring until the first frosts. Thisbe was the name of my dog that was sent to replace my very own first dog. She had gone blind at six months and had to be put down. Thisbe was a star and the best companion. So I was duty bound to buy the rose when I spotted it at Sagger’s Nursery Garden, Newport, Essex.The little rose has a heady old rose scent and the pale yellow buds change to creamy yellow and then cream as they start to go over. I love this rose almost as much as I loved the little dog.

The rest of the bunch is a combination of campanula lactiflora, cosmos and Japanese anemones. The two fuchsias are growing just outside the backdoor. They have loved the warm wet summer, flourished and given us enormous pleasure.