Growing up

There is a lot of growing up being done in the greenhouse. Every time I look, something new has germinated, grown taller, or is about to flower. It's wonderful - especially when you have sweet peas that look like a bird in flight!

These are my Aquilegia 'Nora Barlow'. I planted them last autumn, and over the last few weeks, they have been getting bigger and bigger. I've planted some of them outside, in gaps between shrubs.

This made me smile - the promise of nigella flowers! I also planted these in autumn, and have planted some outside (I feel ever so cautious about planting my lovingly-grown babies outside, as I seem to share the garden with every hungry squirrel, bird and insect in South London!).

These are hopefully Delphinium 'Galahad', and not just weeds.

And these are Nicotiana 'Lime Green'. I sowed too many in this tray and will need to get rid of some.

Cerinthe...

Borage...

Lupin 'Sunrise'. This, the three previous flowers, and the aquilegia were grown from Higgledy Garden seeds.

Panicum 'Frosted Explosion' (a.k.a. fountain grass) - some are two months old and the others were sown a month ago. This was from Sarah Raven seeds, along with the Nigella 'Moody Blues' and Cornflower 'Polka Dot'.

Cleome, which was sown in two lots, like the fountain grass.

Zinnia 'Purple Prince'...

Zinnia 'Early Wonder': new sowings...

...and older ones which are growing up.

'Penny Lane' and 'Genova' dahlias from Shannon's Garden Centre are doing well.

Foxglove 'Milk Chocolate' (but do not eat!) given out at the Macmillan garden at Hampton Court last year.

And chilli seedlings from Wahaca matchsticks, which I planted in the first week of March.

Outside, the Peony 'Bowl of Beauty' has five buds which the ants are crawling over. Claire Austin says this doesn't do the plant any harm, and may in fact help the bud to open.

I moved out the sweet peas to the usual containers, also around a rose bush (climbing up the jasmine trellis), and going up a fence at the back. They are looking feeble in some places (the back garden), but fine and dandy in others (e.g. most of the containers and the trellis). They were all autumn sown, and I got them from Eagle Sweet Peas. There are five varieties, which were meticulously separated and labelled in the greenhouse, but are now a bit mixed up. Sweet pea roulette! The varieties I am growing are Just Jenny, Fields of Fire, Leominster Boy, Dot Com, and Harlequin.

Finally, this Cornflower 'Polka Dot' flowered in the greenhouse yesterday, and I was delighted as it's the only one to survive my autumn sowings. It's so tall and the flower is attracting bees and butterflies already.

Surprise London

I won’t be too slushy, but there are days when I fall in love with this city. When I used to travel to the centre from the suburbs as a child, it was usually for one of two things: visiting my mum’s office, which was just off Regent’s Street, or it was trips to Oxford  Circus for the summer and Christmas sales, at a time when there were only two sales a year and you didn’t see signs for ‘Mid Season Sale’ and ‘Blue Cross Sale’ every other week. This was a long time ago; I mean, we used to get the Jubilee Line from Charing Cross in the days before Canary Wharf!

Even though I just went to the city centre for one of two known things, it still felt magical and wonderful. I didn’t always know which shops my mum or dad would take me to, although I could usually hazard a guess. One time I walked around the perfume counters at Dickens and Jones with my mum. I must have been about seven, and I thought that if I could find a tiny bottle of perfume, I would be able to buy it with my Christmas money. As I looked around for something that was less than a pound, a salesperson handed me two perfume samples. My mouth dropped open and I just stared at her – as far as I was concerned, she had given me two  £15 bottles of perfume. For free! The woman said, ‘Aw. She’s struck dumb,’ to my mother, which I thought meant that I had suddenly become stupid, so then I felt a weird combination of delight, shock, gratitude, and confusion.

The point of that story is, it was the first time that I remember London surprising me. I had gone out expecting one thing, and been surprised and delighted by something else.

Last week, I went to London to take part in Gemma Seltzer’s Speak to Strangers Bankside project, and to photograph the Body Gossip flash mob on the South Bank. It was pouring with rain and even though I prefer not to carry an umbrella in central London (it’s far too crowded, it makes it hard to overtake people, and I’m not very tall) I thought I had better for the sake of my camera.

I came out of London Bridge Station and couldn’t move for people huddling by the entrance, sheltering from the rain. As I squeezed past, put my umbrella up and walked west, I saw a young man in a university graduation gown with a woman who I presumed was his mother. I thought: how random. I looked around but couldn’t see any other people in gowns. Then I started to cross over the road towards Southwark Cathedral, and it was like a scene from The Walking Dead, when all of a sudden, walkers come from nowhere. Only these weren’t zombie walkers, fortunately; just gowned ones. They all came out of the cathedral with parents and friends and partners, and lots of umbrellas.

It was fantastic. I had expected to run into office workers on their lunch break or groups of tourists, but not university graduates with gowns and umbrellas. There was the young woman who pulled her gown up over her head, like a hoodie. The mothers in saris. The older man holding an umbrella over his partner with a younger man behind them holding an umbrella over his girlfriend. It was all rather sweet. I snapped away as unobtrusively as I could.

Once they’d gone, and I’d seen Gemma, I carried on walking along the river. I saw a group of schoolboys with messenger bags walking along the sandy shore of the Thames near the Oxo Tower. I took photos of the Body Gossip flash mob and tried to read their messages of body love from afar. Looking at the photos later, I saw things that I expected people to like about themselves – eyes, hair, smile – and things that pleasantly surprised me – six-pack, height, jaw-line. It’s a worthwhile idea, and I hope more schools and employers join in with the next flash mob.

When I walked past them, I noticed something greenhouse and shed-like. A closer look told me what it was:

It’s a great project – just what London needs. There are separate sections for various plant families: potato, tomato, daisy, peas and carrots. From top to bottom there are flowers, vegetables and herbs. It’s joyful, beautiful and educational – the golden three!

The group that designed the Queen’s Walk Window Gardens is called Wayward Plants. It says the gardens are ‘large-scale allotments created from reclaimed windows’ and created by volunteers. It is part of the South Bank’s rather splendid Festival of Neighbourhood which runs until Sunday 8^th September. 

Spring/Summer Collection 2012

As it’s Easter, I thought I’d add some photos from the past month. I’ve used lots of spring flowers – scented narcissi, irises, ranunculus and anemones, as well as pink, summery roses: huge Sorbet Avalanche spray roses and scented Auguisa Luise garden roses.

This gift posy uses florist hyacinths, paperwhites and ranunculus.

The next few pictures feature hyacinths that I’ve grown in the greenhouse. The blue is Delft Blue, the pink is Pink Pearl, the yellow is City of Haarlem, and the purple is Woodstock. They smelt gorgeous.

And here are some arrangements using City of Haarlem hyacinths, Pacific Blue roses (which are also scented), lisianthus and skimmia.

How does your garden grow?

Roald Dahl, whose writing I adored as a child and still love as an adult, wrote a marvellous parody of the nursery rhyme ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary’ which features in his collection of poems, Rhyme Stew:

‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
“I live with my brat in a high-rise flat
So how in the world would I know.” ’

Now I don’t live in a high-rise flat, but I am a novice at this gardening lark. I've felt incredibly inspired by Sarah Raven, who is to gardening what Jane Packer is to floristry, and I've been devouring her book, The Cutting Garden, every day. It's a must-read if you want to grow your own flowers for cutting - there are garden plans for each season, ideas for seasonal flower arrangements, and huge section giving detailed information on different plants to grow for cutting, including particular varieties for their colour or scent.

Today we started to prepare a bed for daffodil, muscari and tulip bulbs. I can’t believe I actually used a wheelbarrow without any disasters.

I’ve planted hyacinth, ranunculus, Anemone De Caen, and snowdrop bulbs in pots and left them in the greenhouse (which is in dire need of a tidy up). I’ve already learnt one lesson, which is that labels shouldn’t be written with a water-soluble pen! We’ll see whether I have any success with the flowers in the spring.