jane brocket

battle of the bulbs

 

There was a point last week when we realised we had a bulb battle on our hands. As a result of my bulb-buying enthusiasm in warm and sunny August/September, and despite having already planted a few hundred already, we found ourselves on a cold and wet December weekend with quite a few hundred more yet to be planted. There was nothing else to it: adopt a military approach, arm ourselves with spades and trowels, and blitz the bulbs by digging wide trenches and not taking any prisoners.

 

We have long used the Dutch strip method of planting; this is not a technical one you'll find in any gardening books, just that we prefer to use mini-Holland-style lines of bulbs rather than tasteful but very time-consuming naturalistic inter-planting. But this year we went for extra-wide trenches because we knew the light would fade fast, the rain would inevitably fall, we would sink in the mud, and the battle would be lost.

And this year the campaign was helped by the fact that I was out there as a bulb-rank-and-file-planting-private instead of bulb-directing-operations-officer for a change. It was lovely - excellent exercise and fresh air, and we even caught an hour or two when it was sunny and still, and long, long shadows were being cast.

And here we are, privates on parade, Simon with his spade, looking for all the world like illustrations from a Laura Stoddart book. In the end, after a battle royal, we won. Every single bulb is where it should be. Victory for the diggers.

warmth in winter

I was delighted last week to find lots of bright red, ripe chillis hiding in the foliage of the three 'Etna' plants that Simon had planted in a cool spot late in the season. Who would have guessed that chillis could hold on till December, especially with the recent appalling weather?

But I'm not taking any risks with frost now, so I picked a big bouquet of chillis for Simon and put it on the windowsill so that we can all admire the fruits of his faith in nature before eating them.

bulb

When I moved in with Simon 24 years ago, I promptly took over his garage with pots and pots and bowls and bowls of bulbs for forcing. Never had I come across such a good spot; I'd been forcing bulbs under my bed in rented rooms for the previous couple of years (a good indication of just how cold they were) but now I had all the dark, cold space I needed for hyacinths, tiny narcissi and even tulips. There was no question of Simon getting his car in there - it was more a matter of 'love me, love my bulbs'. (Not much has changed and Simon is still putting up with the bulbmania each autumn.)

We didn't stay long in the flat that went with my bulb garage but that first year produced an amazing array of indoor bulbs that seemed to go on for ever, and took up all the surfaces when they came indoors. I've never since quite reached those dizzying heights, but I have forced bulbs in every subsequent house we have lived in. This year I have found the second-best place, a mere 11 years after moving into this house. It's the cold, dark entrance space behind the front door which is never used as front door as we use the back door as our front door because the front door is always blocked by wellies and coats and shoes. This year, however, it is blocked with vases and pots of hyacinths and paperwhites. So little do we use this small space, that it was only when I was looking for some shoes yesterday that I suddenly saw just how much the bulbs have grown since I hid them there a few weeks ago.

There is nothing to beat the thrill of seeing something you have sown, planted or just sat above water start to grow. These fat 'buds' on the hyacinths tell me that all is well with nature (you can never be sure) and that my bulbs like their new forcing place. And now, after a quick photoshoot, they are back in the cool darkness, putting out more white roots that stretch down then curl round the vases and force the green stalks upwards. It won't be too long before I can bring them into the relative warmth and watch them flower. Amazing.

I've been reading Bulb by Anna Pavord (one of my tulip gurus, together with Sarah Raven) and it has some of the best pieces of practical advice about forcing bulbs that I have read. Plus the photos are brilliant, and the descriptions make you want to plant every bulb in the book.

bulbs at breakfast

One of the children asked me last week  what the phrase  'artistic licence' means. I explained, and pointed out that I sometimes use it on the blog. I might even have used a little yesterday. After all, I was only thinking about what I could do. Just as I didn't want to wear an enormous wedding dress (but, given the frock-horror I did wear, you'd never have guessed), I don't actually want a huge new bottom and wardrobe. But I do think it's amusing to imagine myself as an older version of the young Monica Geller in Friends, and those chocolates are good.

However, the reality is that I am gardening to balance the knitting. It was bulbs at breakfast (or shortly afterwards) today. I think I may even have woken up in the night panicking about getting my bulbs in the ground before it gets too cold (or is that another touch of artistic licence?). Anyway, I decided over toast and Marmite that all the hyacinths and at least a few dozen daffodils had to be in pots before my next cup of tea and the start of work.

It was cold and bright and perfect bulb-planting weather. I even potted up some white amaryllis hoping that it's about time to do so, but being too mucky and wellie-booted to come into the house to check when I did them last year.

Never mind, I'm happy to take some artistic licence with planting times, too. 

boots at breakfast

Forget Amazon Japan. Who needs to sit at a screen when it's gloriously warm and sunny at breakfast time? Instead, I pulled on Simon's big gardening boots and spent two happy hours tidying up the garden,

enjoying the soft, low sun, the pale blue sky and the fiery colours of our Japanese maple.

I cut down all the sadly dying and decaying sunflowers, keeping a few heads for seeds for the hamster and to illustrate the Fibonacci sequence to Alice and Phoebe (I think the hamster was the more impressed). I even found a couple of flowers still hanging on and doing their best to impress.

I love the garden when everything is just going over, tipping into dark colours and skeletal forms, but still with a few splashes of brilliant colour from nasturtiums and dahlias. I took photos of the remains of the red cabbages, looking eerily like fossils or something you'd find on a beach.

I waved dried-out stems of hollyhocks covered with seed pods over parts of the garden like a magic wand, hoping that a few will germinate next spring. But as hollyhocks are notoriously fickle, I also collected plenty to try again with later.

And Phoebe and I performed our annual ritual of picking and opening the reamaining runner bean pods, and being amazed at their beautiful colours and markings.

There are days when I see nothing in the garden. And there are days, like today, when I see it all. Just as well, as much of it it will be gone for ever so soon.

final flourish

As the clocks go back I need all the brightness and sunshine I can get to lighten up my day. This amazing dahlia (about 6" in diameter) is shining outside my study window. I half expect it to go on like a lamp when it gets dark far too early tonight.

my magic tree

My favourite nursery rhyme of all is 'I had a little nut tree' about the tree that bears 'a silver nutmeg and a golden pear' because I loved (and still love) the image it conjures up in my mind, although recently my illusions have been shattered by the discovery that the rhyme is about far more than the fruit of a magic tree.

Anyway, I think of that tree every October when I see the branches of our quince tree bending over under the weight of  what can only be described as truly golden fruit. Not just golden, in fact, but positively glowing.

Every year, as if enchanted, it produces masses of fuzzy, sweet-smelling, medieval-style fruit. It matters not that I have photographed quinces and written about them every year I've been writing a blog. It has now become an act of faith to do so. So here I am, celebrating our magic tree because that is what I do in October.

old habits die hard

'West London Allotments', Jane Brocket, 19 September 2009 

'Greenhouse and Garden', Stanley Spencer, 1937

Like drying onions in the greenhouse.

Like wanting to have my wish granted so that I could find out what is behind a high wall.  (Tom told me that the allotments were holding an open day at the weekend, so I hot-footed it down there and had a magical time wandering round some of the 385 plots behind the wall that has kept me out for so long.)

Like not being able to choose just one photo to show what the place is like. Like showing lots of pictures (because this is a photo essay, I've just decided).

Like not being able to resist pretentious captions (this is a photo essay, remember).

 

'Ripe pumpkins beyond the corrugated iron fence'

'Vine and marigold bower'

'Butts and barrow'

'The Good Gardener's Wicket Gate'

'Bollard and bridge and compost heap growth'

'Watering can installation with nasturtiums'

'Pears that round the shed-eaves run'

Like never failing to love a good allotment (or 385).

Like being happy my wish has been granted.

green envy

 

It's not pretty, is it? I don't mean my red cabbage which I think is beautiful despite the ravages of pests, but the feeling of envy. I've been experiencing quite a bit of envy and going green round the eyes over the last few days, and it's all because of other people's skills with growing and photographing things.

We watched Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers the other night and though I was very pleased to see that he has as many slugs and caterpillars attacking his veg as I do, I found myself horribly envious of his wonderful garden. It's a posh allotment in a way; a long, thin, urban plot with neat box borders and classical lines. It's a smart take on an old design, and I would give my eye teeth to have something similar beyond my back door.

On the subject of allotments, I was engulfed with more envy when Tom told me he and his 'A'  Level art group were off to the local allotments to make sketches and take photographs. These are spectacular allotments enclosed by a high brick wall and securely locked at all times. I've driven past them for years and every time I have wished that I could go inside for a peek, so was very jealous of Tom's foray in this secret garden. 

I was very touched when he showed me an 'aerial' view of rows of plants that he'd taken knowing it was my style and that it would appeal to me. But I was bowled over by the photos he took with his own eye - and by the fabulously eccentric and varied allotments that exist behind that high wall.

I had another surge of envy when I saw the organised chaos, the colours, the fruit and veg, the creativity and improvised structures.

For me, this is a suburban eden. Cue more envy.

But the greatest envy wave of envy came when I saw this photo in Tom's album (above - even better printed large on photographic paper). If there is one photo I wish I could have taken, it's this. It's a view of an allotment that I would never, ever see - and that, I think, is what good photography is all about. It makes you see things in a new way or shows you aspects of your world you'd never normally notice. I watched an excellent BBC Imagine programme about William Eggelston last week and was amazed by his photographs and could see that naturalness of vision is what it's all about. Damn it, I'm envious.

good blues

There are good blues and bad blues. I've got the good blues at the moment; a mix of real blues around me and the bittersweet awareness that we are coming to the end of summer and that autumn is round the corner.

To make a change from high summer hot oranges and pinks I painted my nails a shimmery, turquoisey blue which I'd call 'Mermaids' Toes' (if they had any) but which OPI call 'Mermaid for You' (I could spend hours in Sephora  reading the names of the OPI nail varnishes which are wonderfully creative and silly). This colour won the approval of Alice and Phoebe - a rare commodity these days.

My real sky-high sunflowers (as opposed to Tom, see below) look majestic against the vivid blue  morning sky.

The book I'm reading fits into my scheme, too. It's a good, absorbing read; I haven't finished it yet and am waiting for more skeletons to fall out of closets.

And at the end of last week, I discovered that I do have some of my very favourite blues of all, a tiny number of morning glories in my nasturtium and sunflower jungle. I'd thought they'd given up on summer altogether so was inordinately pleased to see them and have my faith restored.

I guess that's why I call it the good blues  [sic].