Escaping seasons of the mind

May 30, 2024

* I was invited to the press preview for and provided with a pair of tickets to Gardeners’ World Live so I’m marking posts from the show as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own. Be sure to check out all of my posts from the show.

In the last of my posts from last year’s Gardeners’ World Live I’m sharing a reflection garden which for me was one of the most thought provoking gardens at the show. It’s designed by Lilidh Matthews and John Tallis and is exquisitely beautiful, even more so when you understand the meaning behind it.

A series of increasing height corten steel posts form a circle around the garden representing time

There are eleven corten posts which represent the ubiquitous architecture of the cityscape, and the garden takes you on a journey through the seasons, illustrating the passing of time. This is done, not only by the change in height of the beautiful corten posts, but also through the changing colours of the planting again representing the seasons.

A closer look at two of the corten steel upside down L shape posts with purple and white planting beneath

Two further reverse L shaped corten posts, these are much smaller and the planting around them is yellow and green

“The garden was inspired by two facts:

90% of our lives are spent indoors. The central space portrays how we are trapped in a void of our own four walls.
Most suicides happen in the autumn.”

The cracks in the paving slowly grow closer together as you pass through the garden and arrive at the 12 o’clock point; a bench in summer where you can admire all the beauty of the four seasons.

entry and exit to the garden is across three calm stepping stones surrounded by water and edged with small box plants, the centre section of the garden is also paved with a raised central area

It is a stunning garden full of symbolism, but even without knowing the symbolism it would be a great place to spend some time and exactly the sort of space to nourish your mind.

I can’t wait to see the showcase gardens, beautiful borders and everything else that this year’s show has to offer. I’m planning to attend on the first day, and I just know my phone will be full of photos - I’ll share some shortly after our visit on Instagram, but will also start another series of posts from the 2024 show just as soon as I’ve sorted through all my photos!

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was as fabulous as ever!

Eight cards with a zing for spring

May 27, 2024

For my last card subscription box I was convinced I’d jumped ahead a season, though looking out of the window it was obvious I hadn’t - however I now do have the spring season cards from The Card Boys, and they’re good.

A BOAT BOBBING ON A LAKE IN A RICHLY VERDANT HAVEN — ARTIST: JESSICA SMITH

This month my strong favourites are the two designs by Jessica Smith and I’m opening and closing this post with her cards - one of which I’ve already used, there’s no higher recommendation is there than to actually share these cards with others. Though I’ll admit I’ve not been so good at that lately and have been accumulating quite a stash, but a pretty stash so it’s not all bad!

The simplicity of the design above is striking and I know that I’ll be struggling to part with both this one and the one below with the cheeky chirrupy bird on the coffee pot!

TWO CHERRIES WITH FACES - LOOKING AT EACH OTHER AND THE WORDS MON CHERI BELOW — ARTIST: ROSIE FODEN

Each of these cards will I’m sure come in useful for many occasions and while I don’t know right now what they’ll be - I think I’ll know when I know if that makes sense. And that may also depend on the day, my mood and many other things, so I’m going to resist putting a label on them right now, but the one below just screams ‘when life gives you lemons’…

And so that’s it for another box of cards, and I’ll be doing my best over the next few months or so to make appropriate use of my pretty stash, but with plenty of birthdays and more coming up I don’t think that’ll be hard!

PS Also while I’ve been writing this post I’ve realised that our dresser top really needs a good sand - it’ll go on MOH’s list!

Sunflower watch: sowing seeds into Wool Pots

May 25, 2024

I was given a free sample of these Wool Pots - an alternative to plastic plant pots - to try for myself, and so I’m marking this post as an ad, as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

It’s been a fair while since I’ve sown some seeds, and far too long really. There’s been a number of reasons why I haven’t, but one of the big factors was the lack of success the last time I tried - well, not with the seeds, but with the actual growing on. That was a lot to do with the lack of light in our old garden given the tree canopy, which because of lockdown was way behind its usual pollarding schedule.

And then we decided to put our house on the market, and our priorities were to sell the house, and naively I thought it would be relatively quick, so I wanted to avoid moving more plants than we needed to - and no, I wasn’t planning on leaving them for the new owners! All in all moving house ran over two growing seasons, and so when we arrived here in July planting seeds couldn’t have been further from my mind.

I don’t have a greenhouse here (yet), so it’s not ideal for sowing seeds but I was keen to get growing again. Dad also gave me some seeds for a multi-headed sunflower and so with seeds, wool pots and the will to get sowing, what could go wrong?

Four wool pots in each half seed tray, filled with compost and planted with sunflower seeds

And yes, the wool pots are well named - they are made of wool, and are pots!

They are knitted from washed wool… and while knitting plant pots sounds strange but the makers assure that Wool Pots are strong, naturally biodegradable, environmentally friendly and plants love them. The company aims to raise the awareness of the plastic problem in horticulture and let people know there is an alternative, and show them a solution. Wool pots are also proud members of the Campaign for Wool and are thrilled to be helping farmers find a new market for their wool.

Rather than bring the seeds indoors, which is an obvious way of giving them some heat, I kept them in the garage opting to use my heated propagator, and bring them out into the sun during the day, which was a fair bit of faffing but it did result in a majority germination - with five out of eight pots producing seedlings, though some were slower to germinate than others.

The start of some seedlings outside enjoying the sun

Four tiny seedlings starting to form leaves

As the days went on, the seedlings started to grow their true leaves, not just the seedling leaves. It’s worth noting that the wool pots should have space between them to prevent the roots merging into each other - the space enables ‘air pruning’ and will make it easier to plant them on when the time comes.

But my biggest concern now that they’d germinated was when to leave them outside, but thankfully the weather decided to improve to help with that. With the seedlings nestled down in one of my currently half-empty pots, and in a more sheltered part of the garden I braved it, and they all survived!

Five wool pots with sunflower seedlings, now developing their own leaves rather than seedling leaves

In fact they’re all doing really well, with more leaves developing and getting taller too. Now instead of bringing them out of and into the garage each day, I’m checking that they’re not growing into each other - and so far so good.

The five seedlings continue to grow outside - phew

I’m sure it won’t be long before I need to work out where to plant them so that they can grow to their full potential. And the best bit, is you can pot on the whole wool pot - I’ll share how I get on when the time comes.

* With thanks to Wool Pots for providing a sample of their innovative project for me to try.