This is me. A woman grappling with serious who am I and how do I want live the rest of my life issues. You’d think I would know by now. After all I am sixty three! But the great thing about getting older is the way it surprises you. By turning out to be nothing like you expected. So I don’t have all the answers. I don’t feel particularly grown up. I haven’t settled down and stopped wanting to do new things. And I’m always learning.
I’ve just been to one of Marina Christopher‘s Plantsman Days at Bury Court near Farnham. These happen on the last Wednesday of every month and there are so many reasons why they are worth going to.
First Marina Christopher herself. Who is smiley, approachable and incredibly knowledgeable. And yesterday, in her half an hour talk – which was very low key and down to earth – she changed the way I look at colour in the garden.
Second, Bury Court. It’s got a courtyard garden by Piet Oudolph and a front garden by Christopher Bradley Hole. What more need I say…..
Third, the plants. I’m adding these two (even thought I can’t pronounce them!) – Valeriana officianilis and Molopospermum peloponnesiacum – to my list of must haves.
Fourth, the lunch. Which was delicious.
So pastels then….
Beautiful but sombre
Yesterday was a grey day (again!) and – as Marina pointed out – pastels on their own can look rather flat.
But add a splash of vibrant colour and it all changes….
So I went home and looked at my photos and picked out the ones that demonstrate this new found fact.
Oranges and yellows give this planting it’s edgeLupins and peonies bring this scheme to lifeIt even works in my own garden! Prince Charles (the rose that is!) adds a shot of colour in the foreground
Does anyone else out there have that thing where it’s the middle of the night…. and you’re wide awake? And you look at your clock and it’s four am and you’ve been awake for what seems like hours. And after a while you get up, because your mind is insisting on doing a stockcheck of all the things that are worrying you at the moment. And quite a few that haven’t been worrying you, but are now. So you go downstairs. And you have a cup of tea. And eventually you go back to bed. And eventually you go back to sleep. Except for now it’s 6 am, and you’ve got to get up in an hour……
This happened to me on Friday night. Which was particularly annoying. Because after ‘the longest day of my life’ at the Chelsea Flower Show I needed my sleep more than ever.
But there was a upside to getting up at 4.30 am. As I went downstairs this was the view from the window on our staircase.
I was embracing the weather at Chelsea yesterday when Gardeners Question Time aired, so I missed it. But apparently there I was on Radio 4 – for all to hear.
And in the course of giving my considered opinion about the merits of the Chelsea Fringe, I threw in a casual reference to ‘symbiosis’. As you do…..
When Graham – who did listen to the broadcast – told me I talked about ‘symbiosis’ I thought he must have got it wrong. Because it’s not the sort of word I use in normal conversation. I’m not even sure I know exactly what it means. And I certainly had to look it up in order to know how to spell it…..
But he was right.
So there you go. It’s amazing what you can dredge up under pressure.
Clearly some of us are just meant to be media superstars……..
Remember that song of his. How did it go? ‘I don’t want to go to Chelsea.’ Well, as I got on the train to Victoria yesterday morning, for my third visit to the Chelsea Flower Show, that pretty much summed up how I was feeling. And as much as it pains me to admit it, I didn’t change my mind when I got there. Because I don’t know if you noticed, but it didn’t actually stop raining yesterday for the entire day.
Picture the scene. The skies are leaden grey, the rain is of the stair-rod variety. Under a sea of umbrellas as far as the eye can see the Chelsea crowd is wrapped in winter coats, scarves and gloves. And standing on the edge of Ulf Nordfjell’s show garden FOR SIX AND A HALF HOURS is me.
I’m there with fellow student Ioana handing out leaflets and answering questions.
Five minutes sheltering from the rain – in the shed!
We’re juggling umbrellas, boxes of soggy plant lists and flagging spirits. It’s cold, it’s wet and no I don’t know the name of the peony that everybody is asking about which isn’t on the plant list. It has to go down as one of the longest afternoons of my life.
A rainy evening in Chelsea
But two things made it worth the agony. One was Ulf Nordfjell’s garden which continued to look utterly beautiful in spite of the rain. And the other was the Chelsea crowd. Who were just lovely. Friendly, interested, funny. They ebbed and flowed in a constant stream of unabated cheerfulness. They were the only thing that kept me going. Although after a few hours of answering the same questions I began to get the strangest sensation that it was the same people who kept coming round again – the man in the raincoat with the beard, the interested wife with the resigned husband, the group of smiling ladies. It was as if they were on a loop and I was an extra in a horticultural version of The Truman Show.
So the questions were…. Where was Prince Harry’s garden? (Sorry Jinny Blom!) Where was Australian Garden? (Head for the dead tree at the far end of Main Avenue.)What were the pointy trees on Ulf’s garden? (Quercus robur ‘Fastigiata Koster’ commonly known as Cypress Oak.) What was the shrub clipped into mounds? (Enkianthus perulatus.) The beautiful woodland plant with the lavendar backed flowers? (Anemone ‘Wild Swan’.) Where was the Ladies? (I sent people off to the far corner of the showground, not knowing there was one right next to us!) Did I want to head off into the sunset with Cleve West? (I made that one up but you’ve got to dream, haven’t you!)
And finally, at eight o’clock, when the longest afternoon of my life finally came to an end, my lovely husband was waiting outside for me. And he suggested dinner at Como Lario, which is one of my favourite Italian restaurants and happens to be just round the corner from the Flower Show. (Who needs Cleve West?) So I drank red wine and ate wild mushroom risotto wrapped in pancetta, and felt the warmth returning to my feet, and after a while began to feel that maybe life wasn’t so bad after all.
This year I don’t just get to go to the Chelsea Flower Show once. I get to go three times….
So yesterday found me back again. With a load more people than were there on Sunday – and a perishingly cold wind.
If I’m honest I’d been a little disappointed when I’d had a quick look at the show gardens on Sunday afternoon. So I wasn’t expecting to be wowed. But I was wrong. I just hadn’t been looking in the right places.
The garden I had been most impressed by on Sunday was the Artisan Garden by Kazayuki Ishihara. It was small but perfectly formed, and I was really pleased when it won Best in Show for its category. It looked even better on second viewing.
Is there such a thing as ‘pot envy’? Because if there is I’m suffering from it.
And Robert Frost’s garden for Homebase was simply gorgeous.
But my favourite of all was Chris Beardshaw’s garden for Arthritis Research UK. It had movement and life and vigour. The planting was exuberant and bold. The choice of sculpture and hard landscaping spot on. As I stood jostled by the crowds I felt breathless with admiration. Definitely my Best in Show.
OK so the Queen might have been at Chelsea today. But the Kings were there first….
Yesterday afternoon Graham was at Stamford Bridge watching Chelsea beat Everton. And I was at the Flower Show getting a sneak preview.
KLC students are helping out on the show gardens of Ulf Nordfell, Christopher Bradley-Hole and Marie Louse Agius. So we were there yesterday for our briefing.
Briefing from Christopher Bradley HoleGussy, Katarina and Alex
I’m going to be working on the Ulf Nordfjell garden on Friday.
Some of us are fronting Christopher Bradley Hole’s immaculately presented garden.
And five years ago Marie Louise Agius was one of us – so it’s a real buzz to be helping on her garden.
I’ve just got back from the Chelsea Flower Show. The KLC students were there en masse for our briefing on the three gardens we are going to be helping on. And I am star struck. We’ve had Ulf Nordfjell, Christopher-Bradley-Hole and Marie-Louise Agius talking to us about their gardens. I’m still pinching myself to check I’m not dreaming.
But I’m going to wait until my next post to tell you more about Chelsea. Because the other thing I did this weekend was go up to The Idler Academy in Notting Hill to take part in their contribution to the Chelsea Fringe Festival. And that comes first.
Mint Tea and Sympathy was the idea of KLC alumni Angela Newman to offer garden design advice to members of the public from the Idler Academy bookshop. Current students join up with previous KLC students for two hour slots, and it was my turn on Saturday.
There are a few good things about this that I have to mention. First is The Idler which is one of those bookshops you wish was just round the corner from you. Friendly, welcoming, great choice of books you really want to pick up and read – and all this with really delicious tea, coffee, cakes, scones.
Second, there’s a really lovely little garden at the back of the bookshop, where you can take your cake and coffee – and the book you’ve just bought – and enjoy the honeysuckle and herbs. It’s a tiny little piece of gorgeousness – designed by Angela. And on Saturday between 1 pm and 3 pm it was a very pleasant place to sit and wait for the stream of people looking to Rachel Parker Soden (KLC last year) and me for advice about their gardens.
So where were they? We ate cake, we drank coffee, we chatted about the course. We had a really nice time. But how pleased were we when a man came out from the bookshop and approached us. We sat up straight, we put on our best smiles – we mentally prepared ourselves to offer words of wisdom. Only to learn that he wasn’t looking for advice. He was from Radio 4, and wanted to interview us about our involvement in the Chelsea Fringe Festival.
So we might not have talked to punters about their gardens. But we did get to talk into a big fluffy microphone. Which was another first for me. And for those of you who are interested you might be able to hear what we had to say on Gardeners Question Time this Friday at 3pm.
I’ve got a client…. a real client… a client with a garden…. a client who wants me to come up with a design for her garden. I AM BEYOND EXCITED……..
A couple of weeks ago I went to a terraced house in Hampton Hill to meet its owner Jill Watson. Jill is a good friend of my good friend Hilary. Jill wants somebody to help her turn her garden into a space that lives up to the inside of her house. And the person she wants to help her is …. ME.
It feels like this job is made for me. I know this part of the world really well – Jill’s house is only a mile or so away from the house I lived in when we were first married, the house where my son James was born. And it’s just up the road from Hampton Court where I’m doing my course.
And Jill’s house is lovely – inside it feels airy and spacious with a real sense flow. The materials used are beautiful, the colours restful and welcoming. The garden is south west facing and – on Friday morning in the spring sunshine – surrounded by trees bursting into blossom.
I love this time of year. It’s when my garden really starts to move up a gear. The weather’s been particularly kind to me, putting everything on hold while I was away for three weeks over Easter. Now the garden is madly busy, doing its spring thing in a great rush. And I’m having to pay attention and keep on my toes otherwise I might miss something.
This year the spring blossom seems more blossomy than ever.
And the tulips….
I might have rather overdone it with the pink and the purple.
But the ever reliable Ballerinas are doing their orange thing.
And the performers for the next act are dusting off their costumes and rehearsing their lines.
For the first time since Christmas I’m enjoying that rare and wonderful thing – a bit of time on my hands without a deadline to meet. And OMG – how good does it feel. If nothing else it’s worth doing this course just to appreciate not having anything to do.
I know there’s the Construction File to get started….. And there’s all the sketching, and watercolour and pastel and pantone practicing that I haven’t been doing over the past few weeks…. Then there’s trying to get to grips with the computer aided drawing programmes…. And let’s not forget Mint Tea and Sympathy at the Chelsea Fringe Festival, which some of us are helping with the weekend after next. And then there’s the Chelsea Flower Show (where I’m going to be handing out leaflets on the Ulf Nordfjell show garden on the Friday). So it’s not like I’m going to be bored….
But hey. The sun’s been shining. The birds have been singing. And we’ve been out in the gardens at Hampton Court. On Tuesday afternoon, (after we’d spent the morning presenting our designs for the Concept Garden Project,) we were rewarded for all our hard work with a session outside with Amanda to learn about pruning. It was one of the rare occasions when I didn’t have my camera with me. Big mistake. We wandered through the Wilderness Garden. It was glorious. You should have been there…..
But I did have my camera with me the week before when we went back to the Privy Garden with Debbie in our Garden History lesson. When we went to the Privy Garden last term it had been a cold, grey winter’s day. And I hadn’t been a fan. But you know what, I think I might have changed my mind…..
I’m adding these two (even thought I can’t pronounce them!) – Valeriana officianilis and Molopospermum peloponnesiacum – to my list of must haves.
Old Dog. New Tricks 