Withypitts Dahlias: The cut flowers

After walking around Richard's dahlia field a few times, I had to make some difficult choices: which dahlias would I buy? I wanted a mixture - when you buy dahlias wholesale, you usually have five or ten of the same variety or colour, so it's quite a treat to be able to pick 'n' mix different colours, forms and sizes.

Richard walked around with me and cut the flowers I wanted, trimming the bottom leaves off. I'd sometimes slow down and pause by a particular dahlia, and Richard would carry on talking (it was lovely to walk around the field and chat to him) and wait for me to ask what the dahlia was called and ask for a stem. It was hard knowing which to choose - I liked so many of them!

In the end, I got three pompons - Prom, Dunaj, and Fenstergucker...

I also got some anemone and collarette dahlias: Blue Bayou, Fashion Monger (aka Flower Monger), and Pooh (as in Winnie, although Richard says this red and yellow dahlia reminds him more of Rupert the Bear).

Withypitts Dahlias is not too far from the Hundred Acre Wood and Poohsticks Bridge where Winnie the Pooh played Poohsticks with his friends. A Winnie the Pooh walk has been on my to-do list for years. As ever, I do more as a tourist in far away places than I do as a local in nearby ones, so while I've not visited the locations in Sussex, I have visited the Winnie the Pooh statue in Winnipeg, Canada. (That wasn't a special trip just for the statue; I was visiting my aunt!)

I got a few dahlias for their name as much as their beauty. The dark red cactus dahlia, Black Narcissus, in particular - you know how much I love my films! I've still to make my improved, spring Black Narcissus posy - I'll try to remember next year. Here is the dahlia next to (I think - I didn't write it down) Polka.

Another couple of wonderfully-named dahlias are the orange Arc de Triomphe and the cactus dahlia, Shooting Star.

Pippi is a cute name, but I think of this gorgeous orange and red flower as "The Lion King" - it reminds me of a scene when a young Simba sticks his head into a flower to look as though he has a mane.

This big, beautiful salmon-coloured dahlia is Carolina Wagermanns, and I haven't got the name written down on my list, but I think this pale pretty one is Bracken Ballerina.

This huge pink flower turned my head a few times in the flower field. It's called Bloemswaard.

I asked Richard for one of his best white dahlias and we went to the polytunnel, where he cut a stem of this: White Ballet. It lasted the longest out of all of the cut dahlias.

But this was my favourite: Thomas Edison. The flowerheads are massive, the petals are just perfect, and the dark maroon purple is luscious. And the man it was named after, by most accounts, was pretty cool.

I didn't want to mix anything with the dahlias; I just wanted them to sing on their own. I also didn't want to cut the long stems down at first...long stems are such an expense for a florist (compare the prices of 80 cm roses to 50 cm roses of the same variety), but I didn't have enough tall bud vases for them, so I had to cut some, otherwise they just wouldn't stand up.

Then I made a big handtied with them, but left the White Ballet on its own in my chicken vase.

Withypitts Dahlias: The flower field

After admiring gorgeous flowers on Twitter for the best part of a year, I went to the open day at Richard and Hazel Ramsey's dahlia field. And what a sight it is! I can't imagine there being a more diverse range of dahlias on display somewhere than the ones I saw at Withypitts Dahlias.

I went with my dad, who was not that fussed about dahlias before (probably because he's seen my cackhanded attempts to grow them), but now he's converted and wants to grow them himself. Such is the power of a flower field like this.

I spent ages walking up and down each row, photographing the dahlias, thinking, "This one's my favourite...no, this one...no, this one...", and chasing butterflies that seemed to love the colourful blooms.

Richard showed me the famous Flower Monger, aka Fashion Monger - a striking dahlia that attracted bees.

I saw huge Cafe au Lait blooms, which are very popular with florists. (Although personally, I can't see why they are so universally adored...they're beautiful enough, but, I don't know. I prefer others.)

Like these...

Or these. The first is Wizard of Oz, the second I am not sure, the third is Orange Garden, the fourth is Orfeo, the fifth is Hapet Belladonna, and the sixth is Black Wizard.

It was lovely to get a tour of the field with Richard afterwards, as he cut stems for me to take, and to hear about his work and about the different flowers. He is so knowledgeable and a delight to chat to - I recommend a visit to his flower field for anyone who likes dahlias. And for Sussex florists, this is kid in a sweet shop territory - do go and visit. This is my bucket of sixteen different dahlias. Beautiful!

Nineties Penguins and other book covers

I saw that there was a talk today at the Victoria and Albert Museum for the London Design Festival. It was by David Pearson (who's designed some fantastic covers for new editions of Orwell books) and Jim Stoddart (an art director at Penguin), who were both discussing book covers.

It got me thinking about the books that have leapt off the shelf to me because their covers were so enticing. I have three bookcases full of books, thanks to varied interests (flowers, gardening, films, art, counselling), book splurges in bookshops, and charity book sales at my old publisher (a sister company of Penguin).

Collecting books in the nineties, when I was studying English at college and then university, was a happy time. I remember two of my friends buying Beloved by Toni Morrison because they liked the cover of the book that was sitting on my desk. I'd bought it because it was an option on our reading list and...I liked the cover! None of us enjoyed the book, but oh well - it made us read a book we might never have read otherwise. I also bought several books because they were recommended by the Manic Street Preachers - as their biographer Simon Price said, the Manics probably did more for teenage literacy than the GCSE English Literature syllabus. I bought my own copies of books that I'd taken out of the library dozens of times in my teenage years (Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Tess of the D'Urbervilles). Penguin brought out new covers for their modern classics in the nineties, and I thought they looked beautiful (as well as containing fantastic reads).

When I started working in publishing, I would spend hours in Hatchards or (the old) Foyles or the huge Waterstones at Piccadilly after work. I would add book after book to the pile in my hands, resting them on a shelf while I looked at a new possibility. I often wanted to buy yet another copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Madame Bovary because I'd seen a new, beautiful cover, but I couldn't really justify spending another £5 to £10 on the same book, I did buy second copies of books just for their covers at the charity book sales, but the books were sold for 50p so it didn't seem so indulgent.

I did spend a lot on a third edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, because of corny reasons (it was in a bookshop in Blackheath - which is where Orwell and his first wife, Eileen, went horse-riding when they were courting) and because I don't suppose I could justify buying a very expensive first edition, even if I found one. A third edition, published by Secker and Warburg, still feels pretty special to me.

I really like my two copies of Cold Comfort Farm, especially the more comic-style one, which suits the tone of the novel. It was a 50p purchase from work - the joys of working for a publisher!

I do like old book covers. Penguin's orange covers are well-known and well-loved - I've even seen intricate nail art inspired by the designs. Here are three of my orange Penguins - two new copies (The Girl from the Fiction Department and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) and one old (Lucky Jim, with cover art by Quentin Blake).

I even developed an author crush based on an author's book covers. I saw a bright pink Faber and Faber book called Kitchen by a woman called Banana, and thought I must try this! Banana Yoshimoto has such a lovely writing style, I went back and bought three more of her books: Asleep, N.P. and Lizard. It's slightly jarring that the last two books are taller and wider, but no matter - the covers are still stunning.

There are plenty more wonderful book covers I could share - graphic novels such as Maus, The Killing Joke, and Tamara Drewe are stunning, and flower books are beautiful - I've shared a couple here before. I'll save the rest for another post!