Mrs P February 25, 2021 No Comments The demise of SAD (hopefully) Search It’s a little known fact amongst those that know me, that I have for many years had the kind of winter gloominess that afflicts many. For me, it has been a creeping despair from the end of September onwards. I used to find it almost impossible to drag myself out of the house in the winter, whilst Mr P gaily boasted about being a ‘year round gardener’!  I say ‘used to’ because this year has been quite different and despite the general despair about the pandemic, I have actually wanted to go outside, even i ..read more

Mrs P February 3, 2021 Snow, Rain, Sleet, Repeat! Search Well after years of moaning that we haven’t had a proper winter and it was all down to global warming, this year has proved us wrong. From New Year’s day the snow lay on the ground for a full two weeks and there hasn’t been much let up since. When it hasn’t snowed, it’s rained and the water table is so high that there has been a river running past the hens and the pond burst it’s banks. All this at a time when we were trying to get some big structural jobs done in the garden. Before Christmas I managed to construct a replaceme ..read more

Mrs P November 5, 2020 Here we go again… Search Just as we all feared, here we are going into lockdown 2.0. This time around we are not filled with the promise of spring or the unexpected warmth of the sun. Gone is the belief that one day soon all this horror will be over. This is the lockdown that will really test our reserves of strength and resourcefulness. At this distance, there is no knowing whether we will be able to celebrate Christmas to any degree and so at the risk of sounding like my mum, I’m afraid we shall just have to make the best of it. Is this really so bad? At thi ..read more

Mrs P September 2, 2020 No Comments Welcome to the Gardener’s Arms Search When it comes to entertaining in the garden, we are pretty enthusiastic. There are many memorable occasions when we have doggedly continued an al fresco dinner party despite an untimely shower. Friends of ours are only too practised at packing for any weather if invited for a social function in the summer months. Memories will live on of the rather smart guest who arrived for a house warming party (June) in head to toe designer white linen only to be found drenched to the skin, hair plastered to her head and d ..read more

Mrs P September 9, 2020 Mists and mellow fruitfulness Search The abundance of fruit around the garden is always a reminder to take advantage of nature’s bounty by freezing, bottling and preserving in preparation for winter. In much the same way as the squirrel who watches me warily from the branches, we are getting ready to hunker down in our cosy home to see out the colder months of the year. As the seasons change it is also a prompt to take stock of the gardening year – to reflect on the successes and failures and cross our fingers that the weather will be more predictable next ye ..read more

Mrs P August 18, 2020 A time to reap Search Those of us who consider ourselves to be fruit and vegetable gardeners ultimately only have one aim and that’s to make sure that our harvest is sufficient to allow us to feel smug for the rest of the gardening year. If we can fill our freezers and store cupboards, swap preserving recipes with friends and treat our loved ones to the odd home produced meal, then none of it has been in vain. In the face of a world pandemic, this basic human need to provide food has become even more urgent and there are significantly more people enjoying the f ..read more

Mrs P August 13, 2020 Going ever so slightly potty Search I have already extolled the aesthetic virtues of hand made, traditional clay pots elsewhere in this blog so when the chance arose to acquire a fairly large number of these, dating from the 1880’s through to the 1950’s I certainly wasn’t going to turn them down. I set off with my beloved land rover Buster, who loves a challenge like this and after an awful lot of lifting and moving, brought the full collection home. Well I have to report that it has been a thoroughly joyous experience and I am expanding my knowledge of clay f ..read more

Mrs P August 5, 2020 The Elusive Mr P Search In the years since we starting planting our garden, it has become a lush oasis of foliage, fuelled partly by the copious amounts of chicken poo which form a major constituent of the composting process but also, in part, by our love of tall, architectural plants. Friends are always amazed by what appears, in winter, to be a fairly restrained planting scheme and in summer metamorphoses into the Okefenokee jungle. At this time of year grasses are at their late summer best, along with echinops, budleia, towering hydrangea paniculata not to me ..read more

Mrs P July 25, 2020 99 Red Balloons Search Today is my mother’s 99th birthday. This picture of her sitting at her potting bench was from earlier in the summer when lockdown meant that we could enjoy gardening together regularly. Amazingly she still lives on her own and still has a passion for gardening. She tells me that she started gardening age four which means that she has spent a total of ninety five years in various gardens.  When I was growing up we had a large garden of two acres in Surrey which my mother landscaped and maintained almost single-handedly. In those days ..read more

Mrs P July 21, 2020 Search Make a little birdhouse in your soul Our first outing, not exactly post-lockdown, but as soon as the garden centres re-opened, was to a really lovely nursery in rural Lancashire. It was a birthday trip for me but with no pubs or restaurants open at that time, we decided upon a romantic picnic admiring the undulating scenery towards Pendle Hill. The nursery itself has changed rather since our last visit, having been re-modelled on a Petersham Nursery kind of theme. It still has the lovely plants but it also has quite a lot of interior and garden items, beaut ..read more