Lewisham Seed Swap: Talk and demo on 21 February

Some exciting news for locals - I'll be doing a little talk and demo this month on growing your own flowers for cutting! You can see some photos here of the flowers I grew last summer - hopefully giving you a taste of things you could do with flowers you grow.

Below are the details of the Lewisham Seed Swap afternoon. I hope to see some of you there!

Save money by swapping seeds with other home, allotment and community gardeners.

Swap:

* Vegetable & Herb seeds

* Heirloom & Heritage Varieties

* Cut flower & Wild flower seeds

Fantastic gardening workshops.

‘Growing Veg in Small Spaces‘

Host: Dig This Nursery 

(New Cross Tomato Festival)

‘Grow Your Own Flower Bouquets-

Start A Cut Flower Garden!’

Host: Flowers by Shamini

‘Bees, Bugs & Butterflies-Gardening for wildlife’

Host: Alison Marsden, Garden by Design

Plus #AskAlison a gardening question.

With  Alison Marsden, Professional Garden Designer and Trainer

Date: Saturday 21 February
Time: 1-4pm
Venue: Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden Reginald Road, Deptford, SE8 4RS

Twitter @LewishamSeeds

Midsummer in Greenwich Park

It’s been a couple of months since my forget-me-not and cherry blossom visit to Greenwich Park, so I thought I would go back and see what midsummer in the flower garden had to offer. These were taken a fortnight ago, so things will have blossomed even more by now.

The park didn’t disappoint me. There were alliums, baby sunflowers, and foxgloves. There were brilliant displays of colour from lots of dahlias, ranging from peachy-orange to blackcurrant-red. There were sweet peas climbing up frames and showing their gentle colours. And there were even late peonies in a border, still looking gorgeous. I think the peonies will be gone by now though!

There were plenty of pigeons and squirrels, and they were glad of the midweek feed from my little sister, although she was less glad when they started to crowd around and jostle with each other. At one point, a poor squirrel got trampled on by a bunch of hungry pigeons, but he did wriggle free. And there was a sweet robin who hopped over near me, before flying away. 

I’m still faffing around a lot when I take photos, trying to get the settings right but doing the opposite of what I need to do, especially when it’s as sunny as it was in Greenwich. I know I should properly read some books on photography, but at the moment I have too many new things on the go: screenwriting, short story writing, improvisation and acting, as well as editing, and also learning more about floristry, gardening and counselling. I might have to devise myself one of those timetables we made at school to help us revise – and it was always more fun drawing the table and colour-coding it all than it was doing actual revision (apart from French and English. I adored French and English).