More from the garden

We got another of those little pots of miniature roses last Christmas, and as usual separated, pruned and potted up the individual plants.  Most of them came on well in the conservatory, and after a week or so hardening off outside in their pots they’re now planted by the front door.  Some of the older ones had died or failed to thrive, so have been replaced: the rest got a good prune, some top dressing and a word or two of encouragement.

In the new bed at the back, the top dressing has pretty much disappeared, so a lot of the newly planted subjects have rather exposed roots.  I’ve treated each to a shovel or two of muck, and hope they respond.  It’s that nice time of year when most days bring something else into flower.  Today it’s the daphne odora and the ornamental cherry.

For years we didn’t realise we had a flowering cherry, since its flowering season is very brief, and must have coincided with our spring trips to France.  Margaret and John gave us two daphnes some years ago as tiny plants, and they each proceeded to grow to a good metre in diameter.  They are not specially long-lived, and indeed one of them packed up last year.  But the survivor is threatening to block the path to the little greenhouse, and is starting to produce its richly scented flowers.

I’ll try again to propagate from it: previous attempts didn’t succeed, so I’ll consult the RHS before I try again.  Other candidates for propagation are the potentillas, which are getting a bit unruly, and the cistus, which have become, variously, very leggy or dead.

The tomatoes are growing fast: some of the Sweet Olive plants already have flower trusses, so I’ve taken out the side shoots with a view to propagation.  We have rather more San Marzano plants, so I’ve contented myself with taking out and discarding the side shoots.  In the propagator, the runner beans are starting to germinate, and we have a few tagetes seedlings from some oldish seed I found in the garage.  No sign of life from the rudbeckias so far: I may be forced, believe it or not, to put my hand in my pocket and get some plug plants.

The Mother of Parliaments, eh?

PMQs, ever a bear garden, now sees the latest Rt Hon First Lord of the Treasury for the time being resorting to red-top style name calling.  His right wing is forcing him to move yet again towards breaking international law on human rights (the Universal Declaration on which was a British invention, long before the UK’s membership of the EU and, of course, entirely separate from it, then as now).  The only other European countries derogating from it are those havens of liberal democracy, Belarus and the Russian Federation.  Not, as the Rt Hon Mr ‘Cleverly’ puts it, a club of which we should be aspiring to membership. 

This utterance may perhaps damage Mr ‘Cleverly’s’ chances of filling the new deputy PM vacancy, so truculently created by the previous incumbent’s resignation to avoid dismissal.  This follows some five months of enquiry by a silk, whose fee will have cost the taxpayer a score or two of doctors’ salaries.  All entirely wasted, since Raab might in other times have been expected to resign or be sacked long ago.  But some might say he lacks the decency to do the former, and his ex-boss the balls to do the latter - not that I could personally express a view.

Integrity, Professionalism and Accountability, eh?  Well, I suppose we can hope.

Easter greetings….

 …to those who observe such things.  

The tomato seedlings have come on well, so we picked up some compost from the stores yesterday and did some potting up.  Six Sweet Olive plants, a variety that has served us very well in the past, and a dozen San Marzano.  The latter are a bit of a gamble, since they ought to be grown indoors in these latitudes, but since our terrace is quite a sun trap, we thought we’d risk it.  There are a few more San Marzano plants to pot up, so I’ll have a look for pots once I’m properly awake.

We were afraid that we might have lost the magnolia Susan in last year’s drought, but here she is, flowering fit to bust.  Annie’s camellia over the fence is doing pretty well, though the rain has browned off a lot of the flowers.  The magnolia stellata and white camellia at the front has been been pretty good, but heavy rain and strong wind have taken their toll.  Next in line is the viburnum plicatum, and it is budding nicely.  Elsewhere in the white inventory, the spiraea are beginning to flower, and I see flower buds on the potentilla raised from a cutting nicked from outside the Tonbridge sorting office.

The Fritillaria meleagris are doing better than ever this year, I think.  

I gave the grass another cut yesterday, but I think the mower blade has had it.  It’s only a couple of years old, so given how expensive it was, I’m kinda disappointed.  I’ll perhaps have a go at it with a file.  Or more likely, I’ll look up the serial number and get one on line.

Claire

Claire would have been 101 today.  Here she is, back in 1979 in Brazil, conducting an impromptu choir of the Brazilian secretariat of the UPU congress.  Also in the rather poor photo are, I think, Pam and the late Pat Lalvani.

Claire was always game for a party, and her last year or so in lockdown must have been a sore trial to her: she died shortly before her 99th birthday.  Thanks to her generosity, there are fine new curtains at Forges-l'Evêque, and her stamp will be on a new reception area for our local Citizens' Advice operation.

Spring ctd.

Pleasant drive yesterday for lunch at a pub in a nearby village, with lots of new green foliage to admire as we went.  Quite a bit of flooding along the way, and there were sandbags near the door of the pub and quite a lot of standing water outside in the street.  Decent food, and splendid company with Celia and Andy.  They sent us home with a pot of French tarragon, which is now in a decorative pot ready to delight us later in the year.  

There was also some gardening traffic outwards.  We got Ben to split a huge iris sibirica last year, and the clumps have just been lying on the soil since.  They had started to sprout, so we’d to decide what to do with them: we already have a lot of them in the garden, so could accommodate only two more at a pinch.  I bagged up another six and put them out at the front with a ‘free’ sign on a stick.  Within 24 hours all six are off to new homes. It’s nice to think that, over the years, we have shared a lot of favourite subjects with friends and neighbours: one of the pleasures of gardening.

What a difference some sun makes!

After a succession of wet, windy days, I awoke on Monday to see sunlight round the edges of the blind, so sprung into action a little earlier than my rather relaxed usual.  By mid morning a couple of loads of laundry were spinning round in the breeze.  By lunchtime I’d walked down to the village to get some cash for the cleaners, and weeded the flower bed closest to the house.  By supper time the grass was cut.

Sad to say, the wet, windy weather was back on Tuesday, and so was my usual idleness.  As I write, Wednesday looks pretty dreich again.  Still, things look better indoors: our second lot of new curtains arrived late on Tuesday, so the dining room is looking much better.  I think I’ve chronicled the travels of the old curtains: Paris, Neuilly, Levallois, Ixelles, Dübendorf and Lagrasse before they arrived here in Disgustedville.  They may move on again, but for the moment their next destination is a carton in the loft.

An English Spring

The weather has been cold, windy and occasionally wet - drizzle, hail and sleet - so not really gardening weather, and it’s expected to get much colder in the coming days.  I’ve been trying to get some work done on the better days, and think the rose pruning is finished.  The grass has had a first cut and the cornus is cut down to encourage new colourful stems for next winter.   The weeds are taking over, of course, so it’s a good job that gardener Ben is coming to the end of his winter projects, hence about to start the care and maintenance rounds again.

We have a pretty good germination of tomatoes, and they have not protested at being moved from the seed tray to their first pots.  It’s a bit early to be thinking about beans, so we’ve a bit of time to clean up the raised bed and get a few more poles up.  Not sure what else we’ll be growing this year.  We’ve decided to give potatoes a miss: they’re a bit much like work.

It’s the time of year when the bulbs are starting to go over, and we’re starting to see new growth on subjects that go dormant.  The magnolia stellata at the front is in glorious flower despite the wind and rain, and the white camellia is also doing well.  The pink one at the back continues to sulk, so I think we may move it somewhere else and see if it does better.

Not sure what to make of politics in the land of my birth.  The party of government seems to be imploding, so I hope Labour has got its ass into gear before the Holyrood elections.  Darn Sarf, the latest Prime Minister seems to be making a slightly better fist of things than his predecessors, but he has not halted the undignified slide into populism.  The ‘Stop the Boats!’ slogan is beneath the dignity of any decent government, when what is needed is an orderly method for asylum applications.  The huge majority of asylum applications succeed, but they take far too long to process.  But there is no effective channel for asylum applications from outside the country, and no legal entry route for applicants.  The thing to remember, of course, is that immigration figures for those the country desperately needs vastly outnumber the poor souls trafficked into the country on small boats.  For example, during a recent stay in hospital, very few of the lovely people who looked after me were UK born and bred.

Claire Smith’s bequest finally came through, some six weeks after I presented the cheque.  One pair of new curtains now hangs at the front room window, and matching cushions adorn the suite.  I had originally planned to give the whole amount to my favourite local charity, but as it came to more than I expected, I opted to give us a tangible reminder of Claire’s generosity.  And in any case the charity will be able to claim as Gift Aid roughly the amount we’ve spent on the curtains.

Oh, and another sign of Spring: Mr Blackbird spends much of the day at the very top of the tallest tree, broadcasting his melodious message.