News
If anyone mentions Buckingham Palace and gardening, it’s usually the famous summer garden parties which are under discussion. Now the Palace has added a different topic to the conversation with the recent opening of Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden at the Queen’s Gallery in London.
It’s happened already. I appear to be running short on growing space, and it’s only the start of April. For the last two years my seed sowing focus has been geared around growing plants for the books I have been writing. Both have had flowers at the heart of them and as a result my veggie patch has been a bit neglected. There have been lettuces and courgettes and plenty of fruit but edibles have certainly had to take a backseat. This year though the pull of supplying the kitchen with home grown produce is too strong. There are potatoes chitting on my living room windowsill waiting to be planted in the next week or so. I’ve had a delivery of hazel beanpoles and bundles of twiggy pea sticks from a local coppicer which will provide support for my broad beans, French beans, sugar snap peas and garden peas, and there are trays and pots of seedlings on every available sunny surface.
I’ve been eagerly anticipating the appearance of my first daffodil in the garden the past couple of weeks because it’s one of the key dates which marks my garden’s progress through the year. At last, Saturday’s sunshine turned a week-long stubborn hint of yellow into a fully opened flower and I could jot down an early March date in my diary.
I cleaned my greenhouse the other weekend. It’s a job I tend to put off; the mood has to take me and so far it hadn’t. Then a few Saturdays ago the sun appeared, tempting me outdoors. The burgeoning growth in my windowsill seed trays was telling me they would need a new home in the not too distant future too, so I knew I needed to get cracking.
February can be a frustrating month for gardeners. We’re usually champing at the bit eager to get sowing and planting, but often the temperature and light levels thwart our best intentions. The greenhouse is often a place of refuge at these times, allowing for a good potter about even on the dullest and chilliest of days.