Tea and roses
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Discoveries, General care | 17 comments
I realised that if I bought leaf tea rather than tea bags I could save a bit of cash and also use the sweet little tea spoon that I inherited from my grandmother. It meant a week of drinking some rather elderly mango infused tea to finish the caddy. I stuck it for a couple of days and put the rest in the compost bin – it is supposed to be a fertiliser after all.
We discovered that the loose tea leaves were packed with far more flavour than the same type and brand of teabags. But dealing with the tea leaves was going to be a bit of a palaver.
Remembering that my mum used to put the tea leaves on the soil under the rose bushes, I have been feeding the rose that grows outside the back door with the leftover tea and leaves. The clematis that grows through it, a weedy specimen that has drifted waif like through at least ten summers, has perked up considerably. And was clearly longing for tea rather than good plain water. Admittedly it’s in a rather dry spot.
“I’m sure that it would thrive on whisky. It’s the moisture not the tea.” Danny was examining the miniature forest of new stalks and leaves.
“The rose is looking much happier too.”
The rose, has always been stick like. A Kate Moss amongst roses. With most of the growth at the top of slim stems. Now new buds are forming lower down. Fired with enthusiasm, I cut out all dead growth at lunchtime and watered it well.
I looked up the benefits of using tea as a fillip for the garden and discovered that it’s a natural fertiliser for roses and a host of other plants including parsley. In fact most plants would benefit from a top dressing of tea leaves even the ones emptied from old teabags.
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Hi Pamela
Please don’t put yourself out over the recipe. It would be good to see, when the time comes.
Basic mid week cooking – not too onerous?!
Danny retreated to bed before supper last night so I let it cool down and fixed myself cheese on toast so that I could have a semi evening off tonight!
Hi Fiona
I’ll have to ask my mum for the recipe as I don’t eat fruit cake – all those pesky dried grapes – I know it is easy to make and involves soaking the fruit in a mug of cold tea overnight. I think the recipe may have come from a Preston Guild cookbook around 1972. It was my dad’s piece de resistance after he retired and took over most of the basic mid-week cooking – not too onerous a task as by then we had all left home.
Hello The Organic Viking
Danny is making the switch from drinking coffee all day to drinking tea for some of the day so we’re on red alert to find the most satisfying tea for him.
There’s something rather comfortable about using a tea pot!
Hi S.O.L.
That™s interesting “ thanks for the tip.
Hello Jane
We make our tea using loose leaves in a tea pot. We measure it out with a special ˜tea spoon™, the bowl of which is roughly the size of a normal teaspoon. We add 2 or three spoons of tea to a medium sized tea pot. Pour on boiling water and infuse for a few minutes. It™s strained through a tea strainer. Danny tops up the pot with fresh water every now and then, so it works out much cheaper than the instant coffee that he used to be addicted to.
Hi Kay
We are Assam freaks too! I™m finding it fun choosing which plants are going to benefit from the dregs each day.
Hi Kate(uk)
I™ve heard of this banana treatment for roses. Definitely worth giving it a go “ I™ve several that would benefit.
Hi Pamela
Cold tea cake sounds delicious. I™d love to see the recipe for that!
Hi Mollysmum
I™d forgotten about the coffee dregs. Thanks for the nudge.
I always put my teabag’s in my compost heap also coffee dregs.
My dad used to make a mean cold tea cake.
Any left-over tea goes on the houseplants. My grandmother had a spectacular clematis by her back door that got the tea slops and leaves everyday- regular moisture and constant mulching, no wonder it was so floriferous!One of my elderly neighbours swore by banana skins for roses. One of mine was a bit peaky so I saved and chopped banana skins every day and threw them around its roots- it has perked up, probably just because it was mulched with some nice squidgy skin bits, but I like to think there is some special magic between roses and banana skins.
We drink Whittards Assam loose tea and the leaves either go in the compost heap (a quick trip down the garden: delighful in summer, something one does at a rush in wellies in the winter) or get ‘watered’ onto our winter jasmine.
Hi, I’ve just recently found your blog and I am loving it…I was just wondering if you might expand a bit more about the loose tea and how you measure it out and what kind infuser you use. I haven’t tried loose tea before…but it has always intrigued me.
My Gran always watered her house plants with tea. They grew like crazy
Great tip! I agree, loose leaf tea is infinitely superior, and this is definitely something to remember when I finally have a garden in which to grow roses.