On By janeIn Xtreme Everest1 Comment

For the next three weeks I’m going to be writing for my Everest blog. But I’ll be reblogging here for anyone who wants to keep up with how things are going.

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Some of us are more ready than others…….

While Mary’s been going through all the kit, trying stuff on, and writing some really funny posts about it all – (although I’m a little bit worried about her obsession with the urinary aspects of our trek) – I’ve been doing other things.

So this morning the parcel containing my sleeping bag and down jacket were still by the front door….

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The bags with all my kit from Cotswold were on the spare bed where I left them a couple of weeks ago…..IMG_1309

AIMG_1303nd the new underwear I brought a few days ago hadn’t made it past the chair where I’d dumped it on my way in ….

I’ve been up to my eyeballs trying to get as much of the holiday homework done for my garden design course before I go away. And the last thing on my mind has…

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Will she, won’t she…….

On By janeIn The KLC CourseLeave a comment

All the most exciting stories like to end a chapter with a cliffhanger. And I’m no different.

We finished the first term at KLC on Tuesday with a one to one presentation of our planting plans for the Balham project to our client. We also had an assessment from Annie of the first stage of our Planting Combinations Project – which has to be completed over the holidays. And we had watercolour tuition and practice with Claire. So it was a big day.

The Planting Combinations project was set at the start of the term. It consists of ten different situations ranging from dry shade under trees, to an exposed site with heavy clay soil and extremes of temperature. For each of these we have to come up with a planting plan, draw an elevation (a drawing of how the planting would look if viewed at eye level) and a list of all the plants selected with descriptions, characteristics and specific requirements. We had to hand in the first four last Monday, with the other six to be completed over the holidays, and the whole project has to be handed in on the first day of term. Otherwise we don’t pass the diploma…….

Aaaaaaaaaarggghhhhhhh!

Because I’m going to be away for three weeks I’m panicking. Because these little blighters take a lot longer than you think they are going to. I thought I was ok. I had prepared the lists of plants for each situation over the course of the term, so that when we finished the Balham planting plan last week I could get going on the combinations. So I started working on them last Wednesday and worked pretty much full out until Sunday evening. By which time I had finished six plans, six elevations and two plant lists.

And not done anything else! While my sister Mary has been getting ready for our trek, trying on all the kit and writing some really funny posts about it (which you can read at twinseverest.wordpress.com) I haven’t even taken mine out of the carrier bags yet!

Yesterday I got my legs waxed, tidied the house and did my CAD homework (that’s computer aided drawing to the unititiated – which was me before this course started). In the evening I sat down to do one of the plant lists. And spent the whole time trying to find one of the lists I’d done at the weekend which in my brain dead state I must have failed to save. Because I looked and looked but it’s gone. So not only am I one list down. But I didn’t get to do the one I was going to do last night.

So the pressure is on.

Today I’m getting my hair cut and doing as many plant lists as I can. Tomorrow I’m concentrating on getting ready to go away: shopping for the last minute stuff, unpacking all the kit and making sure nothing’s missing, and seeing if it will all go into the not very big rucksacks we’ve hired.

We leave on Saturday. Return on Sunday April 14th. Then I’ve got a week before term begins to do four more planting plans, elevations and plant lists. It’s going to be tight.

So watch this space…..

Little and Large

On By janeIn The gardens at Hampton Court, The KLC CourseLeave a comment

On Monday we dodged the rain to make it outside into the Palace gardens as part of our garden history lecture. Wonderful Debbie Trentham – whose knowledge, enthusiasm and sense of humour has made learning about the history of gardens such a treat this term – took us out to show us the Privy Garden. We went to look at this recreation of Henry VIII’s private garden, recently restored to the way it would have looked in 1702 when William and Mary moved into the Palace.The Privy Garden

All very formal…. and a bit tight arsed for my taste. I suppose that was what turned them on in those days.  But see the pointy cone shaped things. Well those are yews. 

And if you look at the great trees that we see from the windows of the studio ……

IMG_0376…… those are yews too. And when they were planted they looked just like those little pointy things we saw in the Privy Garden. Which is an amazing thought.

These great yews are so ancient that there is real concern that they won’t last much longer. So then the big question will be what to replace them with. This part of the Palace grounds is known as The Fountain Garden because originally there were thirteen fountains here. Now only one remains. And very beautiful it is too….

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But the foundations of the other twelve are still in place. So when the great yews finally fail there is the possibility of recreating the original Fountain Garden in their place.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. It’s one of the great thing about gardens – that they don’t stand still. They have a life of their own. They develop and change and move on, even if you don’t want them to. But replacing these stunningly beautiful trees with fountains and formality seems rather tragic to me.

It’s the great challenge for the people who are responsible for managing these historic  properties. When nobody lives in a building their continuation is dependent upon their relevance as part of our cultural heritage. And the rules change.

But for now, go and see the yew trees while you still can……

Seeing Double

On By janeIn Xtreme EverestLeave a comment

My sister Mary and I are going to Everest Base Camp as part of the Xtreme Everest research project because we are identical twins. People seem to find identical twins quite unusual. But in our family they’re two a penny….

First there’s Mary and me.IMG_1174

Then there are my daughters Emma and Hattie.4988_105258842326_8005903_n

And let’s not forget our cousins Tim and Alastair.Twins

This photo was taken at a family wedding. It’s the only photo we’ve got of the four of us as grown ups.

As a family we seem to disprove many of the myths and theories about identical twins.

There’s the one about non-identical twins being hereditary and identicals being a fluke of nature. Ummmm. Three sets of identical twins in two generations – that’s a pretty big fluke.

Then there’s the one about twins skipping a generation….. I grew up believing this. It never crossed my mind for a single second that I might have twins. It was the biggest shock of my life. A nice shock but even so…..

And what about twins passing down the female line? Our mother and her brother both had identical twins. Another coincidence? It’s hard to believe…..

So we’re an odd bunch. But happy to be so.

Here are some more twin family snaps.

Mary and JaneIn the basket are Mary and me as babies. I’ve got no idea who is who! It’s quite odd looking at a photo of yourself but not knowing which one is you…

With Emma and Hattie it’s easier. Hattie is on the right and Emma on the left. (How do I know this? Because I wrote on the back of the photo when it was taken.)

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They were the most cheerful babies.

Mary and Jane's Christening

This is Mary and me at our christening with Mary held by our father and me by our mother. This is one of the few photos we’ve got where someone has written on the back. But we’d know which was which anyway because Mary has a bandage on her leg. The joys of being a twin – you get identified by what you wear. Even if it’s only a bandage.

Our mother always insisted she never dressed us in the same clothes when we were young. But there are very few photos of us up to about the age of ten when we’re not dressed in identical outfits.

How young our parents look. Dad was 27, Mum 26. They look a little nervous, don’t you think? And who can blame them….

Hattie and Emma's Christening

Here are Emma and Hattie at their christening. (Emma held by Graham, Hattie by me.) It’s 1989. Graham was 32; I was 31. We already had James. He had turned up 15 days late on December 7th, 1986. December 7th, 1986 was my 29th birthday. The birthday I already shared with Mary. We like to group birthdays in this family. It makes remembering the date so much easier!

Twins

This is the only picture we’ve got of Mary and me and Tim and Alastair when we were young. The one in the middle is younger sister Lucy. She’s got a few stories to tell about growing up with twins!

And then there are the obligatory bathing suit shots. First Mary and me ….  Another photo where we’ve got no idea who is who!

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It’s easier with Emma and Hattie…. Hattie’s in the hat!

So there you have us. Three sets of twins in two generations.

One of the questions we get asked all the time is ‘what’s it like being a twin?’ It’s a tricky one to answer. Because we don’t know what it’s like not being a twin.

But if it gets us to Everest Base Camp I’m not complaining……

Poets Corner

On By janeIn People, The KLC CourseLeave a comment

One of my early posts for this blog was about the first project we were set at the start of this term. We had to come up with ideas for the Chelsea Fringe, a festival which takes place in London around the time of the Chelsea Flower Show. My concept for a Graffiti Garden was inspired by a quotation from a poem that I saw written on the John Lennon Wall in Prague.

Ever since I came up with the concept I’ve been thinking about starting a collection of garden related poems and quotations. But it was when lovely Gussy, a fellow student on the KLC course, gave me a copy of the poem she read at her grandmother’s funeral a couple of weeks ago that I decided to include it and some of my other favourites in this blog.

Gussy has gardening in her blood. The garden of her family home, Mere House near Maidstone in Kent, has been opening to the public as part of NGS open day scheme for the past 50 years. It’s particularly famous for its snowdrops and daffodils (and for her mother’s cakes!) I’m really disappointed that I’m going to be away for their next open days on Sunday 24th March and Monday 1st April. (For the cakes as much as for the garden!)

It was Gussy’s grandparents who moved to Mere House in 1958 when her grandfather became  MP for Maidstone. They created the garden from scratch. And, as if this wasn’t enough to keep them busy, they also started a nursery and used to go to various shows, even winning some medals at Chelsea. The hurricane of 1987 destroyed the vast greenhouse they used for the nursery, but undeterred her grandfather started a company called Wells & Winter selling all those essential garden items like plant labels, stakes, books and gloves that gardeners can’t manage without.

Gussy’s grandfather is about to be 88 but he’s still propagating plants and selling them at markets. Meanwhile her parents have taken on the garden and all the hard work that goes with it. So gardens and gardening are most definitely in Gussy’s blood. She’s even married to a garden designer, and she works with her husband Rob for his company Naturally Creative Gardens…. when she’s not doing planting combinations and designing gardens in Balham with the rest of us at Hampton Court.

Gussy’s grandmother died at the end of February. This is the poem she read at her funeral.

Upon a day, a woman who had died
Came to the gates of Heaven, and saw outside
St Peter, writing in his book of gold,
The dreary lies that everybody told.

The woman waited, with averted head,
Until St Peter looked at her and said:
“Tell me oh traveller, with the pilgrim pack,
What loves and hates you carry on your back.”

“I love my garden, Sir,” the woman said,
“I loved my flowers, and now that I am dead,
I only ask that someone will be kind
To that dear garden I must leave behind.”

The key was turned, the gates were opened wide
St Peter and the woman walked inside;
And there, within the sunshine of the throne,
She saw the garden that she had grown.

I thought these were wonderful words to read in memory of a woman whose gardens and gardening had played such a vital part of her life. And it made me think of a poem I came across last year after my mother died.

It’s a sad job packing up a house when a parent dies, made even sadder for my two sisters and I because our father had died two months before our mother. But one of the things that was really comforting was coming across the books and poems that our mother had loved. I found an anthology of poems that she must have had from when she was girl, because her maiden name, Jean Simpson, was written in pencil on the flyleaf. The book fell open at a page marked by an old postcard with a picture of freesias, and daffodils and lilac. And there was this poem, written by Katherine Tynan …..

SHE ASKS FOR NEW EARTH

Lord, when I find at last Thy Paradise,
Be it not all too bright for human eyes,
Lest I go sick for home through the high mirth –
For Thy new Heaven, Lord, give me new earth.

Give of Thy mansions, Lord, a house so small
Where they can come to me who were my all;
Let them run home to me just as of yore,
Glad to sit down with me and go out no more.

Give me a garden, Lord, and a low hill,
A field and a babbling brook that is not still;
Give me an orchard, Lord, in leaf and bloom,
And my birds to sing to me in a quiet gloam.

There shall no canker be in leaf and bud,
But glory on hill and sea and the green-wood,
There, there shall none grow old but all be new,
No moth nor rust shall fret nor thief break through.

Set Thou a mist upon Thy glorious sun,
Lest we should faint for night and be undone;
Give us the high clean wind and the wild rain,
Lest that we faint with thirst and go in pain.

Let there be Winter there and the joy of Spring,
Summer and Autumn and the harvesting;
Give us all things we love on earth of old
Never to slip from out our fond arms’ fold.

Give me a little house for my desire,
The man and the children to sit by my fire,
And friends crowding in to us, to our lit hearth –
For Thy new Heaven, Lord, give me new earth.

I sat on the edge of my mother’s bed and read this with tears in my eyes.

If anybody reading this has poems or quotations that inspire them I’d love to hear them.

A bag of spinach – 4 more dishes

On By janeIn Mary's postsLeave a comment

My clever sister Mary’s great recipes – you need never go hungry again.

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So this weekend it was a large bag of spinach that’s sitting in my fridge asking to be used up….

Dish one – Friday night salmon and spinach fish pie (with lovely sweet potato mash!)

Salmon and spinach fish pie
It freezes really well as long as you don’t use frozen prawns (as they shouldn’t be refrozen)….

Serves 4 – 6|Prep 30 minutes|Cook 1 hour

250ml semi-skimmed milk
200ml fish stock (you can use water)
500g skinned salmon fillet
200g cooked and peeled prawns
250g fresh spinach
75g butter
50g plain flour
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill, or parsley will do
150ml soured cream
750g large floury potatoes such as Maris Piper, scrubbed and halved
750g sweet potatoes, scrubbed and halved
salt and white pepper

1 Preheat the oven 200C gas mark 6. Put the milk, stock and salmon together in a large roasting tin. Cover with foil and cook in the oven for…

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Planting Plans

Phew….

The Balham project is nearly done. And today we presented our planting plans.

So another lunatic, going through my presentation, talking to myself drive to Hampton Court this morning. And eighteen of us with five minutes each to show what we’re made of when I got there. No client today. She’s coming in next week. Instead we were presenting to Terry, the man in charge of the Hampton Court gardens.

So that’s not scary then….

Actually it wasn’t as scary as last time. For several reasons. One – we’ve done it before so it wasn’t quite so new and frightening. Two – Terry was much kinder to us than he could have been. And Three – I was fifth to present this time rather than sixteenth. So I got my bit out of the way quite early on and could sit back, relax and enjoy everyone else’s presentations. Which I did. Because they were really good……

The planting plan stage of this Project has been really challenging. It was a difficult site to choose plants for – dry shade on all sides and an awkward shape. And I kept changing my mind about the plants I wanted to use…. But in the end I had to make decisions and commit myself to paper. And I was really proud of myself. Because look…..

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My first planting plan.

And I did some sketches to go with it. To show what some of the planting combinations would look like.IMG_0487

Me…. Sketching…. And actually showing people my sketches. As part of a presentation.

Two months ago I would never have believed it was possible.

Which just goes to show what good teaching and not being hung up about getting it wrong can do for you. Because you don’t know what you can do until you give it a go.

(Maybe now it’s time to concentrate on improving the photography skills…)

On By janeIn The KLC Course2 Comments

Structure and Form

This week has been a quiet one on the blog front. Tomorrow is the day that all eighteen of us present our planting plans for the Balham garden project so I’ve had my head down. I know this will get easier as we become more experienced, but it’s really nerve wracking.

My planting plan uses shrubs to create year round structure and interest. So earlier this week, before setting off for Hampton Court, I went out into my own garden to have a look at how the structure is working in the winter months.

It was a beautiful morning, frosty and bright. IMG_0481The snowdrops were looking very pleased with themselves, shimmying up to the red stems of the cornus.

IMG_0470Without the foliage and flowers of spring and summer it was interesting to see how the trees and shrubs were doing on their own.

I’m using Fatsia japonica, Nandina domestica and Euonymus in my plan so it was good to see the three of them looking so sprightly.

And it was a really good exercise to focus on the structure and form in my own garden.

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IMG_0479I’m learning to see things with new eyes and I’m loving it…….

On By janeIn My GardenLeave a comment

Does what it says on the tin…….

On By janeIn ExtrasLeave a comment

One of the advantages of doing this course is being able to get tips from people who really know their stuff.

I’ve got a pair of Felco secateurs that are suffering from extreme overuse and lack of tlc. They’ve most definitely lost their edge. I’ve tried sharpening them but I just don’t have the skill. So while we were out working in the Twentieth Century Garden a couple of weeks ago I asked tutor Amanda’s advice. She suggested sending them away for a service. She told me she has two pairs so that while one is off being sorted she doesn’t have to manage without.

This got me thinking. About Felco secateurs. And why no other secateurs will do. And then I started thinking about other things that – once you’ve used them – nothing else comes close.

So I started compiling a list. At the moment it’s not a very long list. But I’m open to suggestions.

These are my Head and Shoulders Above the Competition products.

1.  Felco Secateurs

2.  The Swoe – this is a new one for me. And another recommendation from Amanda. I used it when we were in the Twentieth Century Garden and went straight home and ordered one online. You may not be into hoeing….. but if you are it’s very very special.

3. Those Steam Irons with a separate water tank thingy. I know it’s really boring to talk about irons. (Possibly even more boring than talking about hoeing!) But ironing is really boring. And these irons make a tedious job a lot more bearable, because they do the job so much better than anything else.

4.  Dualit Toasters – we’ve had ours for FIFTEEN YEARS…….. And it’s still going strong. When you consider that most toasters seem to break down after six months and even when they do work they don’t toast properly, this is even more of a miracle.

5.  Eve Lom Cleanser – my mate Judes introduced me to this amazing product fifteen years ago. (Now I come to think about it, at about the same time as I got the toaster!) It’s expensive but so worth it.

6. Sky Plus – I’m aware that this may be about to be overtaken by something better, if it hasn’t happened already. But until it does I remain a huge fan of Skyplus. It’s changed the way I watch television. Means I get to see the things I really want to see, when I really want to see them. And it’s so easy to use.

7. Daily disposal contact lenses – how would I manage without them?

8. Terrys Growth Booster Mascara – this does what it says on the tin. Honestly…..

So that’s my list so far. I’m sure there are things I’ve missed. But for now I’m enjoying thinking about what else might qualify. All suggestions gratefully received.