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	May 2003
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Garden Notes May 2003

Hello again. I did not get to write up my notes for April, so here’s two months worth combined. It has been a busy time, in and out of the garden. I like this time of year for sharing plants, giving and accepting new ones. A new plant from a friend is worth a basket full from the garden centre.

FAIRY GARDENS

To many the very idea of having little garden spaces devoted to the essence of fairy and fey folk are just not good taste. Then there are folk (like myself) who thrive on the light and humour a garden offers. When I think of fairies in the garden I remember my great-grandfather Percy, his lawned garden with haunted, gnarled old apple trees. I think also of woodlands and the small enclosure of true wild growth with just a thin stitch of sunlight moving through the vegetation.

To (re)create a fairy garden you need: good humour, belief, and a liking for research. I have created several fairy spaces in my own garden, though none, I hope, are twee or seriously pink and fluffy. One little garden patch is a scree-type garden with many saxifrage and sempervivum, and other diminutive species, some with names such as elf. There is a half-buried rim of a broken pot with seashells appearing to be spilling out. This is our space for seaside fairies and enchantment. It also reminds me of the nursery rhyme, ‘Mary, Mary….how does your garden grow?’

My little sanctuary garden, full of woodland plants and knitted together green vegetation is a tiny place with atmosphere. No-one entering can possibly not believe a few fairies visit and guard this space.

What I would suggest if you are thinking of creating a fairy garden is to remember the plants they love: thyme, mugwort, daisies, foxgloves and pinks to name a few. Fairies love children and playfulness, quiet corners and leafy shade. No gnomes please, unless you really want trouble.

HERBAL SECRETS
It seems with so many books, magazine articles and websites devoted to herbs and their uses that any mystique has been rubbed away, and now just anyone can find a herbal recipe, remedy or even potion spell. There is such an amount of information and not all is accurate, with some misinformation or twisted folklore of various shades. It really is a tricky thing to understand herbs by reading alone. The only way to get to know plants, herb or no, is to grow and know it hands-on. There are so many herbs to try growing, so it is a good thing to decide upon your needs and really what you want to grow. Being ruthless is not always easy, especially if like me you can get into that one of everything pattern behaviour. Now I have such limited space I have been forced to refigure my ideas and so these days I grow things that are positively a pleasure to have and nothing that I will not fully appreciate.

To discover herbal secrets for you is a matter of selective and careful study. One approach is to choose an herb plant, a favourite or one that really appeals for some reason, and live with it closely. By live with it I mean observe, grow, pick, eat (if not poisonous). Do book and other research but find out what is true for you. You might like to keep a small journal or notebook dedicated to this one plant and write in this your thoughts and ideas. So, for example, you may select lavender and grow, harvest, propagate, taste, use in multiple ways (don’t forget to also invest in organically produced essential oil of your plant, if possible, and try this.) Books may tell of lavender’s calming effect but if it gives you a headache then it is not the remedy for your individual stresses (as I have discovered!)

A way into herbal secrets: be selective, study gently and over time discover. There still is much to learn.

AQUILEGIA

A flower that will always remind me of ‘old England’ is this perennial: Aquilegia or Granny’s bonnets. A detailed frilled cup, some quite spiked, the flower comes in shades of blue, red, pink and yellow. My favourite however is black and white: a variety named Magpie. Another favourite is Ruby Port, and this has happily seeded about my garden. These plants were depicted in medieval tapestries, as Aquilegia was a flower of the castle courtyard lawn. In these early days of garden design (no makeover shows to be seen), plants were grown as separate, spaced specimens like art objects in geometric beds. Since those times gardeners and collectors have discovered, bred and treasured so that there is a huge choice and just about any gardener, anywhere, can find an aquilegia that will enjoy their garden.

NATURAL DYES

For a long time I have wanted to try natural dyes, especially using plants from my own garden. Finally, I have got together the equipment needed: separate pan, thermometer, mordants. A clump of cow parsley appeared in our wild patch and so, after referring to books, I decided this one would be for the dye pot. The cow parsley yielded a bright pale greenish-yellow (not as disgusting as it sounds!) on cotton fabric. I’ll next try it on wool. And then to decide what plant to use next.
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Hope you enjoy your garden, thanks for your emails and comments. I have decided to no longer mail this out to a mailing list, so any requests to be added to a list may get overlooked. I do try to reply to everyone who emails with questions and responses and I hope things will be slightly less hectic in the coming months.

Best wishes for your gardening
Cathy

all copyright Cathy Cullis 2003

Garden Notes March 2003

Hello, and welcome to another growing year in my garden….

It is that time of year again, the slip of time between winter and spring when things and thinking turn upbeat. I am talking about a matter of days before spring’s arrival; stay inside and you might miss the tips of daffodils as they push through turf layers. We are headed for the days of collecting fresh cuttings, filling vases with new flowers. Time to be sowing and making plans reality.

When I look out of the window and see a neglected patch (which is how it seems now), I know I have to spend some time quietly working and tending. Finding that time can be tricky. But somehow it gets done, and by the end of summer I know I have achieved quite a bit.

GREENHOUSE
During the winter months my garden gets virtually no sunlight, but now the sun is returning. I’ve been sowing salad, herbs and annuals, digging over my small growing beds, making space for a new playhouse and shed. I get little pockets of time to be in the garden. The best place is inside my little sanctuary garden of woodland plants, but also I like spending time in my plastic greenhouse. It will be replaced by a better-looking model this year, I hope, but for now it does the job of helping me grow salad and stuff a month or so ahead of the season. So now I have lettuce and oriental spinach to eat. The latter tastes good in a houmous sandwich. I’m designing the new greenhouse, and one thing for sure is it is going to be different. My husband is going to build it, lucky for me he has good woodworking skills, but as for the whimsical imagination, well, that is my department.

WILD CONNECTIONS
At the end of our garden is a peep-style fence and beyond this a wild hedge of brambles and nettles. Beyond this is a drainage ditch, and I presume it has been there for many years and is now a home to wildlife. Beyond this ditch is another garden and a house; after some time of neglect new owners have just moved in and I am praying they don’t do cut down the old apple trees or disturb the overgrown shrubs. Because of this overgrowth, the age of trees, the wildness, I get the benefit of watching birds and squirrels and insects who have established homes. Many of the birds come into our small garden to feed from the window feeders. The same bright robin comes to feed every day, through the year. It is funny how so quickly a wild creature can become ‘our robin’, or ‘my owl’, or ‘my fox’, or whatever. As if perhaps that creature has chosen us, comes into our space because it somehow wants to check up on us, maybe in a neighbourly or even guardian-like way. Does this relate to anything of your own experience?

As I write my husband is working in the garden; it is raining and cold but the job has to be done. Close by our robin sits watching. He flits about, nervous, interested.

SALAD BOWL
Wild creatures do not understand land rights or boundaries, not in the way we know them. Food is anything edible, offered by opportunity. How odd to be human and getting satisfaction from growing a few lettuce leaves in makeshift comfort. Maybe gaining so much pleasure from growing a bowl of food comes from my urban roots. The more I think about the idea of growing food for enjoyment rather than necessity, the more bizarre it seems. Human life is peculiar, some times happy, often hard, threatened. Lettuce and philosophy: a heady mix.

My tiny garden is a space for inspiration, no matter the time of year. I have been writing quite a bit lately, mostly new poems. You can read more at: www.cullis.demon.co.uk

Next month I’ll share some more ideas and journal notes, and a few herbal secrets. Feedback is always welcome, and I try to reply to all (non-spam) emails.

Cathy
all copyright Cathy Cullis 2003

WINTER 2002-3

During the winter months I shall not be writing a regular newsletter.
Instead I am keeping an online diary or blog (web log) at:
http://undertheivy.blogspot.com/

I'll be adding pictures and features as I teach myself the html!

Please bookmark and visit when you can. I shall send a few reminders during the next months. Hope to remain in touch. My newsletter website with archive is still on this website.

Wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year

Cathy

GARDEN NOTES OCTOBER 2002

Walking along our local main road I’m noting the signs of autumn: leaves turning, seed heads, acorns under pushchair wheels. Just passed the allotments there’s a large acer tree and beneath this a bench. Upon the bench is a television set. Look again: it’s not old, a modern Sony set with plug attached. Why am I not surprised to see this sitting by itself under a tree?! Fact is today our surroundings are so full of machines and boxes this telly wouldn’t look out of place anywhere. Better move on…

CYCLES, SPIDERS AND CROWS

It is the time of colours and harvests, but also there is a movement of death. Gardeners learn that death is part of the cycle of the garden, and that it brings rewards. Leaves become leaf mould to feed the earth, old flowers give us seed, seeds wait and germinate. Tasks and rituals of the garden seem so very poignant, now you know there are only so many daylight hours. A few weeks and the clocks will be turned back an hour, the mornings will be dark, the evenings will be dark. The wind rushes the clouds, going nowhere fast.

I’m noting more birds visiting the garden and spiders. With spiders there can only be hate or indifference: surely no one loves them? There is a United Earth Summit of spiders in the garden right now, except the hairy jungle types have boycotted the event, thank goodness. Small and large speckled harvest spiders, daddy long legs, big old black spiders are spinning and web casting. I love spider webs that stretch right across the garden like crazy dew-embroidered hammocks. However, there is nothing alluring about getting web in your hair, unless it’s part of your trick-or-treat look.

This is my favourite time of year for Nature’s instant accessory: spider webs, colourful leaves, dew, apples, pumpkins, seedpods, and crows. Just recently whilst pegging out laundry, I found myself in a crazy little mood (as you do) and made up a song about the crows circling around. I was thinking about Jack O Lanterns and funky pumpkin men.

Only the crows know when the pumpkin is ripe
They caw and put a smile on it.
They make it sing and they make it laugh,
Only the crows know when the pumpkin is ripe.

When I sang this song to my daughter, she looked at me as if, yes, finally, Mother has really lost herself in caw-caw land. Ah well….

The crows here circle about in elaborate sequences. They never visit my garden. There’s just not enough to it, no plunder or secrets? Some times they remind me of science fiction battleships or pterodactyls. Some times the crows I see look so human in their walk, stance and chatter. Maybe this is why some very small children are enchanted to chase them across fields. The other day, up on the local playing fields, I watched a little girl aged less than two chase a crow that had to be the same size as her. This bird was a true mischief maker because he knew she was after him, so he would plop himself down for a moment, woodpecker about on the grass, then as soon as she neared lift off. The girl got ever excited and determined, called out to him and ran with open arms. One day I shall have to write a children’s story about a little girl who does indeed snare a crow. There, I’ve got the idea, now to get it to work…

BRANCHES

Here we have had warm, dry weather, but there are signs everywhere that we are in the midst of Autumn. Look at the changing colours of leaves but also their bearers; many trees are getting withered tops and are losing branches. After gales, bring inside a few chosen branches (you know the size that’s right) and decorate these with nuts, or fairy lights, or tiny pumpkins, or little paper ghosts. Or plant the branch outside in a sturdy pot and decorate with strings of popcorn to feed the birds. You may want to fill the pot with rocks and sand to prevent it from being knocked over.

HERBS INDOORS

I’ve got a deep cupboard full of drying herbs. Sprigs of this and that. Wish I had more, to be greedy. But also I like to display drying bunches, so I have a little peg rail in the kitchen. Having bunches of herbs here I can see each stage of the drying process: from sweet and green, to weird in their witheredness. Lemon Verbena goes curly and brittle. The oregano somehow blackened and I chucked this out. Camomile actually looks good, delicate with flowers retaining their white and yellow colour. I think I’ll get some florist wire and make tiny wreaths using this.

LANGUAGE OF WREATHS

During Medieval times, a marrying couple may often be witnessed kissing each other through a wreath or hoop of flowers. This was quite probably a country custom known and understood by themselves and previous generations.

A circle of flowers may represent fertility, abundance and everlasting happiness. Often associated with Christmas, the wreath is a kind of decoration that can be adapted for any time of year. For Autumn, you could put together a circle of apples, or pomegranates, a hoop of nuts, a circle of dried sunflowers, or a mix of bright seedpods and leaves.

LISTS AND PARTICULARS

Here’s a list from a friend and notes reader. Thanks Sharon
Favorite Herbs
1. Lavender
2. Sweet annie
3. thyme
4. cat nip
5. chives
Herb I don't like
MINT!!! cuz it takes over my whole garden!

Favorite Tasks
1. Harvesting
All other tasks my hubby does :)

Particular Things about the area to which I live
1. beautiful sunsets
2. rolling hills
3. lots of cows (Missouri is second to TX in most farms in USA)
4. wild rose hips brushes
5. wild bittersweet
6. first frost in Oct-nov
7. roses grow very well here
8. Rose bud trees every where
9. gravel roads... (we live off of one.. hate it...)
10.lots of wild life, deer, fox, wild turkey, ect
11.mild winters and hot summers.

I’ll share more lists each issue. Please send them in! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for reading
Copyright Cathy Cullis 2002

GARDEN NOTES SEPTEMBER 2002

Hello and thanks for all your feedback during the last few weeks.

Autumn never suddenly arrives, she just whispers in your ear, breezes in so slowly and turns the sun the colour of apple juice, the cloudy kind. Then the leaves turn and fall and you just know winter is coming next.

But how can I think of winter today. It’s such a bright and still morning. It’s not summer and it’s not autumn, it’s that moment of something else to walk within, never forgetting what is good with the world.

PUMPKINS
I don’t know how I’ve managed to get such a pathetic crop of pumpkins…. Last year I did well, growing both punkins and gourds, but this year….maybe I could blame it on the weather, or just the unpredictability of seeds. I know a good gardener never grumbles about her harvest but makes the best of a small batch. And I have my solo white pumpkin growing up by the fence and I’m looking forward to the great harvest of that one, feeling the weight of it in my hands. Then it will be displayed indoors like the treasure I think such wild fruit are.

If you have any advice on growing more pumpkins and fewer vines then please send it to me and I will share in the next newsletter. Thanks.

WHO"S THE QUEEN OF LISTS?

In a world of brief messages, left notes and abbreviations everywhere, a list can hold the same power as poetry. There are people who thrive on making lists and I am one of them. We list makers are dreamers who think writing lists might one day help us make sense of something we will possibly never understand. Wish lists, to buy lists, don’t lists and pure whimsy. Here are some lists:

Favourite herbs
1. lavender
2. thyme
3. rosemary
4. sage
5. basil
6. oregano
7. camomile
8. chives
9. Moroccan mint
10. anise hyssop

Favourite tasks
1. harvesting
2. planting
3. watering
4. watching
5. pruning
6. weeding
7. clearing
8. tying in
9. raking
10. potting on

Particular Things About Where I Live
1. black squirrels
2. most common wild flowers/ weeds: nettles and brambles
3. local bylaw permits cycling on footpaths
4. no one on the allotments has a scarecrow for me to tip my hat at each day that I pass.
5. most common front garden plant: rose
6. most predictable non-winter weather: rain all day followed by sunshine at 6pm.
7. first frost about mid-October
8. favourite local trees: horse chestnut
9. most common butterfly: cabbage white
10. most common pest: domestic feline.

FOR YOUR JOURNAL

You know what I am going to suggest: write some lists. Have a go at ones similar to the above. If you come up with anything wildly similar or different please share. If you don’t mind me including in a future newsletter please let me know. Maybe I can include a few anonymous lists for other readers to guess the location (particular things about where I live).

IN THE COMING MONTHS

Autumn is a time of distinct change. I feel I have never moved away from thinking of the year as starting now. And having a child at school reinforces this. I’ve decided to start studying a creative textiles course. This will keep me busy through the winter (a time I need to stay busy to keep bright) and beyond. I’m hoping the garden and my new creative work will positively feed into each other.

WEBSITE

Thank you for visiting my Under The Ivy web site. In the near future I hope to include art journal pages with newsletter issues. This I think would be a good way of showing how my ideas for the newsletter come about.

all copyright Cathy Cullis 2002

GARDEN NOTES AUGUST 2002

Thank you for your friendly and encouraging emails. Here we are, late but not forgotten. Truth is most times I go into the garden I think about what I want to tell you.

FROM MY JOURNAL

(Beginning of August)

It has rained. And it hasn’t stopped. Weather is so damp I had to remove toadstools from around lettuce and oregano growing in a raised bed. We have also had foggy starts, something you might expect in October here. My Grandmother assured me on the telephone the other day that we did, years ago, experience four seasons in the right order, during the months they are supposed to happen.

A gardener discovers things for herself leaf by leaf, may choose to leave a few stones unturned. She listens to the rain and feels it on her hands and face, it is not just something mentioned in a weather report. It really does alter the colour of things. Rain can cast shadows on the garden and bring it back to life.

(And later in the month)

The kitchen smells of roses and onions. I pick a new rose each morning, to dry in my herb cupboard upstairs. The dried rose buds will be mixed with lavender and used to fill pillows and bags. The onions are smaller than I thought they were going to be but just the right size for us.

The flower border is a crazy patchwork of deep, bright colours. I love it and the fact that there are just a few gaps so that this autumn I can squeeze in a few new plants. If a garden offers no opportunity to add or alter then it’s a dull situation. The coneflowers are lovely; I pick one at a time and they last in a vase for over a week. There are two perennial flowers that are called coneflower: Echinacea and rudbeckia. It all depends on where you are, I guess. I grow Echinacea though I’d love to have rudbeckia. I have a few American prairie flowers in my garden. This isn’t planned, I just like them.

WINTER INTEREST?
I’m beginning to believe gardeners need to stop putting their trust and hopes into one season, especially summer. Most gardens are designed and geared toward a hectic sunny season, embracing the light, the warmth of long days. But if you don’t get the weather you need to fulfil your dreams, what then? Far better, it may seem, to create gardens that celebrate winter and spring (without summer, autumn becomes ever unpredictable.) So I have just started to plant up a patch of my small garden to create a winter and early spring area. There will be a few winter-interest shrubs, and planting beneath these to include spring bulbs and spring woodland plants such as cyclamen, primroses, and lungwort…. oh yes there are plenty to choose from. I especially like dark hellebores, snowdrops, and violets. Anglesey Abbey National Trust gardens have an excellent winter walk open to the public throughout the year. We go to visit and it is always inspiring, but in late winter the winding walk is a quiet magical adventure.

WHITE
White is a colour I find problematic to use in the garden. It is not easy to blend in, and white flowers can look especially stiff and silvery next to warmer blooms. But white at night is a treat, if rather ghostly looking. I especially like the white nicotiana sylvestris, tall triffid plants with heavenly night scent. White flowers and white theme gardens will always be timeless and traditional. Moon gardens, open borders either crescent or full moon in shape, are a good way of putting together a collection of white flowers. There are many shades of white, and white into cream. If you want to group white flowers for best effect you have to determine which shade of white you want. This is not something for the spontaneous, let it happen as it wants gardener. Best as focal points or gently blended, white blooms look demure with strong greens and soft yellows and blues.

POPPIES
Some flowers appear in the garden as unrehearsed prima donnas. Poppies are real show offs. Oriental poppies have become fashionable in recent times, despite the fact they only flower for a short period to leave a gap in a border. But there are other types. For instance, the black peony-type opium poppy that we had earlier this summer was one of the best I've seen. It is the colour of dark beetroot; its petals are fine glossy silk and have the feel of luxury. But these poppies don’t last for very long, a few days or so go by and then all it needs is a gentle stroke of your hand, or a rain shower and the petals fall away. The seed head now revealed has its own precise beauty. This is a poppy to try. I may have a very small number of seeds to offer later in the year. It is easily grown from seed and seems to come true.

More next month. Thanks for reading.

All copyright Cathy Cullis 2002

GARDEN NOTES JULY 2002

Hello, and thanks for the many emails I have received over the last month. It is lovely to hear from you, and I am glad to be in touch. The weather here is barely mild, wet and dismal. But what else should I expect from an English summer? We always live in hope of brighter spells. I hear the news each day of heat waves in the US and wonder when they might come across.

JEWELS
My tiny sanctuary garden is mostly green with just a few soft or rich coloured flowers, like a sprinkling of glitter. It feels rebellious to have a green garden at this time of year, the height of summer, when bright and gaudy blooms could be centre stage. Gardening is about drama and setting the scene for whatever mood you desire. I have chosen green for my sanctuary, as it is a colour of all year, a colour of continuity.

In our main garden (still tiny) I have a flower border and here is where I play with colour, rich and vibrant. Out there the other day, admiring a dark purple dahlia, I realised how I like flowers that represent jewels: deep amethyst, garnets, copper topaz, fire opals. My first job after leaving school was working in a jeweller’s and being with exquisite hand made items; totally taking for granted what an easy time of it I had landed myself! This was at the end of the Eighties boom time, when men and women came into the store with envelopes stuffed with cash. How times may have changed. How the jewels in my life are more precious now.

AN ARTIST’S GARDEN
This past weekend I was fortunate to get some time to visit a couple of artist’s open studios. I visited one city artist who had an extraordinary home filled with rich oil paintings and decorative surfaces. Walls, an old metal bath, furniture, had all been painted in the artist’s distinctive, personal style. Of course I needed to at least get a glimpse of her garden. I heard the artist welcome visitors to step out into her back yard just as long as they helped eat the raspberries. There was a circular fishpond on the patio and around this, flowerbeds with broken coloured pottery pottery scattered over them like exquisite or crazy mulch. The garden was mature with wild edges and like many city gardens here it was narrow but long. A black and white cat led me along a tiny path, stopping every few steps to roll over and accept a tickle. At the end of the garden was the artist’s chill out retreat and what seemed discarded, weathered paintings propped against the fence. The garden fused with the house with its laid back and artful style.

FOR YOUR JOURNAL AND GARDEN
Inspired, I certainly want to add more artistic detail to my garden.
Does your garden reflect your creative and artistic self? How can you put more of your individual style into your garden? Think about taking one corner or area of your garden and making it absolutely YOU. Maybe you might plant a flowerbed of colours that personally inspire and lift your spirits. Decorative items don’t have to be purchased from a garden centre. Look for things in your home that might add a personal touch outside, even if only for the milder months. For example, you could display a collection of china jugs amongst flowers, decorate a raised bed with coloured tiles, or place a painting against a fence to act as a backdrop.

SUNFLOWERS
The jewels of summer and my garden right now are sunflowers. I am growing two varieties: moonwalker and earthwalker. Moonwalker has lemon yellow petals and a dark centre, and the tallest is now seven feet or more. Earthwalker is shorter with dark mahogany red petals, streaked at the back with yellow and a dark centre. I planted the sunflowers in my mixed potager and I’m sure the monwalkers are looking healthier and stronger because they have onions growing at their feet!

Sunflowers are native American plants and were introduced to Europe during the sixteenth century. Shaker settlers planted sunflowers around their homes to soak up the swamp waters and keep mosquitoes at bay. The whole plant can be used for something or other! I personally like to dry the flower heads. But you might like to pick the flowers before they open and eat in salads or steam and serve as an alternate globe artichoke. Hmm, I may sacrifice a few buds and try. The seeds are very useful for feeding birds and people, of course. To grow sunflowers successfully and not have young plants bitten off by slugs, I start mine in large pots and only plant out when they have become large, sturdy specimens. I really should have staked my sunflowers with stronger canes, as they are floriferous and getting top heavy!

A HERB HARVEST
This really is harvest time, as far as herbs are concerned. I am lucky to have a large, dark cupboard where I can hang and lay herbs to dry. Already I have several bunches of lavender drying, along with balm of gilead, lemon verbena, thyme, sunflowers, yarrow and others. I am aiming to dry a token amount of just about everything I grow, and with a small garden this is possible! I find dry herbs are maybe easier to use in some cooking, as their taste is more concentrated and less fluctuating. I will use my dried herbs to make dream pillows and to store for herbal teas. Harvesting herbs at this time encourages more flowers to come and extends the season, meaning colour in the garden for longer. Once I have enough harvested material I will think about taking cuttings from my favourites.

SUNFLOWERS IN LITERATURE:
FROM 'THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ':
…At these words they all looked around, only to find that they were indeed surrounded by field of tall stalks, every stalk bearing at its top a gigantic sunflower. And not only were these flowers almost blinding in their vivid hues of red and gold, but each one whirled around upon its stalk like a miniature wind-mill, completely dazzling the vision of the beholders and so mystifying them that they knew not which way to turn….
To read more visit:
http://www.literature.org/authors/baum-l-frank/the-marvelous-land-of-oz/chapter-12.html

Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing from you some time.
Best wishes
Cathy

GARDEN NOTES JUNE 2002

Hello again,
The past month has been one of sunshine and showers, celebrations and reflection. I was poorly for a week or so. Sat in my back room, feeling sorry for myself, I watched the rain batter down on the leaves in my tiny sanctuary. It was a beautiful scene. I don’t know what made me look in the sideboard drawer but I got up and opened it to find some garden gift vouchers that I had forgotten from Christmas! I’m not suggesting that feeling sorry for oneself pays off, but being slightly forgetful sometimes does. So, when I felt better, I bought the camomile plants that I had wanted to make a tiny circle of lawn, and a few flowers for my daughter’s little garden.

It is a damp, cool start to June here. Just about anything that is going to flower this summer has buds poised, waiting for the sun’s intensity. I love the look of yarrow now it had grown tall and has soft grey clusters of waiting flower heads. When I step outside my back door the first thing I smell is rose. This is an old-fashioned rose and deep cerise in colour. I have forgotten the name, though I am sure it is written down somewhere (you know how it is to keep too many notebooks?) I haven’t been doing as much in the garden as I might or could, but it seems to be taking care of its own growth. We did so much work during the spring months that it is good to have watching time.

Before I had a garden of my own, we lived for a time in a tiny flat close to the sea. I used to walk down to the beach, which was about a mile or so away. Then I would walk several miles along the coast and get the bus home. I’ve been thinking recently how good this was and how I might just miss being close to the sea. When I sit in silence here I get to hear the rush of a motorway in the distance. It is interesting how your own personal journey takes you to different climates and situations. Another time we had no garden, T and I were living in the dry heat of Arizona, USA. We would go for walks in the botanical gardens to gaze up at the tall cacti; this was especially magical at dusk. By the sea or in the desert, I found an alternate way to connect with the earth. These places are their own gardens that we can adopt and feel a part of, by visiting and appreciating. I think I am reminding myself here that Nature goes beyond the safe, almost-controllable boundaries of the garden. Oh and a holiday could be good!

The camomile circle I am sure you want to know more about this? I had decided the gravel area in my tiny sanctuary garden was functional but not interesting. Camomile, the non-flowering type, can be planted during the growing season and plants will soon knit together to create a perfumed, soft carpet. You can plant lawns and another nice idea is to make a raised box seat and plant the top with camomile. I have planted (she looks out of window to count) nine plants with pebbles surrounding to give them a little more effect. I will wait a while before sitting on it to let the plants establish. My daughter walks around and around on the pebbles, on tippy toes.

As soon as I had planted and completed I got anxious because I had done this work during a waning moon, and really any significant planting is best done whilst the moon is waxing. I do try to garden by the moon as far as possible and if this seems a little too esoteric then I have to say gardening by moon cycles is a very old and established country approach. I remember a few years back watching a television programme and on it a very elderly head gardener of a large country estate was showing examples of how cabbages sown and planted at the correct time had outdone the same variety of cabbage grown differently.

Back around to the camomile: so, I planted it during a waning moon and I am not about to dig it all up! Camomile is a healing herb and a great one for ridding of negativity. So I will just give my tiny lawn a little extra attention. The flowering type of camomile provides the gardener with lovely, fluffy daisy flowers and these can be dried to make tea. A friend of mine gags at the very idea of drinking camomile and I have to say that it is not my favourite cuppa either. I much prefer to blend camomile with other herbal teas such as rose hip and something lemony such as lemon verbena. Another good use of camomile, as a growing specimen in the garden, is to plant it next to any plant that is ailing. Rather like a kindly sister, camomile will soothe the distressed and hopefully perk it up a bit.

FOR YOUR JOURNAL:
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a warm summer’s afternoon and time to spend lazing in the garden? Well, a girl can dream. Find a few old journals/diaries (look beneath piles of books, laundry, inside suitcases you thought empty) and have some reflective reading time.

COLOUR SERIES
Back in March I suggested I was going to start giving some ideas about a chosen colour each month. I gave you Orange and then what happened?! Seems I have not kept up with myself. So here’s purple:

PURPLE

If you visit my garden, purple is obviously a favourite. (And I wear quite a bit, when I can find just the right garment.) I love tiny purple violas and lavender, and I only wish there were true purple roses. True purple has midnight blue as a close associate. Purple is a colour of night, magic, dreams and mysticism Purple is the colour of the senses alive and careful surprise. Not hot, nor cool. It is a colour strongly associated with healing. Think of purple sage, the best of the sages for medicine, some consider. Purple in the garden shows her drama when planted with pale yellows, whites and greens. Pink softens and sweetens purple. Too much pink and purple makes me feel giddy and reminds me of pot pourri mixes. I love purple pansies and purple hyacinths for Spring. Purple million bells, lavender, salvias and passion flowers for Summer. Autumn is the time purple gets a rest for me; this is the time I love oranges and earth tones. In Winter I love purple wrapping paper on gifts, purple cushions, purple paint, and purple notebooks filled with purple prose!

POEMS
I thought I would share another couple of daily poem fragments. If you are at all interested in the practise of writing a daily poem (not necessarily garden related) I would love to hear from you.

Thursday 6th June

Two crows talk with wings
spreading the gossip of their world.
They talk of rain clouds and sunsets.
They talk of the dance of summer,
even today when it feels as November.

Tuesday 28th May

The arum lily
is still yet dancing
whiter than a swan’s wing against snow.

The rose is gentle
patient white
yielding a magic of soft dreams.

---------
Final note: on a visit to a garden centre with a friend this morning I identified my cerise rose it is a Portland shrub rose called Rose de Recht.

Enjoy your midsummer and sweet dreams!

Best wishes
Cathy

GARDEN NOTES APRIL 2002

Walking along a country lane this morning I saw the wild alexanders flowering, wallflowers and dandelions, and the fat heads of tulips about to happen. I was late getting somewhere, trying to get a pushchair up a hill and directing a small child to not step into a ditch - but at least for a moment I caught a glimpse of spring's arrival. Busy days mean moments of pleasure, and that is enough to get me through.

We have had clear sunshine for over a week. No April showers, yet. I have been busy creating a new area of raised beds with a rose arch. This part of the garden will be for flowers, herbs and vegetables. Already I've planted an old fashioned rose, honeysuckle, sweet peas, snap dragons, sunflowers, cabbages, lavender, rosemary and my favourite violas. Many of these flowers will want to be picked and picked, so that they develop bushy growth - and more flowers. I'm anxiously inspecting each small plant for pest damage but so far so good. The raised beds and gravel path make a smart design but kneeling on the gravel gets my knees dusty which isn't so good when you garden in your pj's!

APRIL IS FOR ANGELICA
When working on a specific area it is easy to overlook the rest of the garden. I just opened my eyes to see how huge the angelica is growing in my shady courtyard sanctuary. Gargoyle has eyes (all four) looking up with wonder: the angelica has grown at least two feet in the past week. The major stem is like a juicy trunk of some tropical plant out of a painting by Rousseau.

Angelica archangelica is a native (to Britain) herbal plant, and unlike dry-and-sun lovers prefers a rich, shady place (the American near-equivalent is A. atropurpurea). It is a tall, fleshy creature with arching branches and attractive serrated leaves. The flowers come in spherical sprays of green-white and the whole plant is very fragrant. A biennial, it can be grown from seed but can be a bit tricky - make sure the seed is fresh. It is said that during the years of the Plague, an angel, who told of the cure-all qualities the herb has to offer, visited a priest. Every part of this plant can be used for medicine and/or cooking. The stems can be cooked and served with, for example, fish or pork and taste like celery (not to my taste). They can also be candied, by cooking and storing in sugar. The leaves can be used to make a tea to cure poor circulation, fever, nervous headaches, and to regulate periods. The roots can be used for something I forget what right now having never tried (!) and the seeds are used for flavouring drinks and work as a fixative in pot pourri. Whenever I've grown this plant it has always done well for me, even on poor light soil, and is a good choice for filling a darker corner of the garden. The flower heads are wonderful and I've only dreamt about somehow capturing them in a sheet of handmade paper, (but haven't).

Forget brash colour (for a moment) and go for the majestic, almost jungly angelica.

NORFOLK (from Journal notes)
East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden is a place I've read about and now I can say it's made a personal impression. One and a half miles from the coast and North Sea, it is a private garden set behind a modest-sized Arts and Crafts brick house. What I like about this garden is the combining of traditional with exotic. The owners display a love of scenes, drama, texture, and experiment with tender or borderline-tender plants. There are box topiary and parterres, monster-sized agave in pots with animal 'feet', strappy phormiums and scented hyacinths. Topiary watering cans the size of a five-year old, tiny box-edged gardens and avenues of trees make this garden into an Alice in Wonderland treat. The mix of spike with tight leaf really works. The Norfolk light has a honey veiled quality that warms the scene even with a cool winds…..I loved the desert garden, with circular rocky beds and the old church in the distance - a bold contrast of mood. I want to visit this garden in the summer when it will be in its full glory.

FOR YOUR JOURNAL
Describe (in words, pictures, colours, textures) three gardens you might create 'if only you could…'.

GARDEN NOTES MARCH 2002

Hello, it felt like spring today in the garden. I was out digging, moving plants (my number one obsession). We're making big changes now as I've given in and decided I can give up half the garden for a summerhouse (!). Well, I get new raised beds in exchange, so I can stop moaning about the gore (soil).

Thanks for your emails over the last month. It was good to know some of you liked my references to fairy folk.

NOTES FROM MY JOURNAL

2am I wake to hear the wind thrashing about the house. I'm awake imagining the stacks of plastic pots I should have put away somewhere are now scattered through the neighbourhood; a few are being worn by crows as some strange new fashion of their choosing. Later on I see the real mess of debris and tools strewn about (I never put anything away). The bird feeder that should be suctioned to the French window has fallen and cracked, so I go outside into my tiny courtyard and sprinkle seed upon the 'floating' Zen stone. Soon my tiny sanctuary is filled with birds, mostly small but a few long-legged thrushes come for a look around…..Now each day I see tens of birds and get through a lot of birdseed.

There were two squirrels in the garden, one grey, one black (strange local breeding!). The black one makes his manic darting moves across the garden. My attention is diverted for a moment and then dd shrieks: "The squirrel has a little man's head!" What I see is the black squirrel holding a sprouting tulip bulb. The little bugger. "Don't worry, we've got more," I say, making a mental note to go outside later and check the situation just in case this isn't the first to go.

SEEDS - ah yes, I love collecting little packets of hope. Now I will have my raised beds I can think about growing all kinds of things. I'm fascinated by how people relate to colour and how colours may affect mood, heart rate, and creativity…. Will I discover that growing red flowers really does make me eat more chocolate? About a year ago I borrowed Sarah Raven's book 'The Bold and Beautiful Garden' from the library. At the time I was going through one of my strange pastel phases (!) and the idea of growing orange and scarlet blazing borders didn't appeal. But now I'm really geared up to start experimenting with colour and growing trying combinations of annual flowers could be the best way. Pot marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, poppies, pansies, sunflowers, scabious, rudbeckia, are some of the flowers I will attempt to grow from seed. That's a lot of germinating.

COLOUR SERIES - ORANGE
Here's the first of my monthly colour prompts. The idea is to explore a colour and how you may feel and respond. How does this colour appear/work in your garden? (In your home, artwork, your writing?)

Orange is the colour of optimism. It is a colour that radiates a smile of sunshine, yet has sacred qualities. The Pot Marigold is a simple annual flower with orange petals that may be used as a substitute for saffron, and the plant has healing qualities. Orange is associated with spice, India, flames, the flame of summer, the torch of hope. Orange is not a colour easily associated with spring. It is a colour that does its performance art in the summer garden with lilies, roses, and sunflowers, nasturtiums, pumpkins, and otherworldly gourds. Singed by the sun, orange becomes rust, coppery bronze, terracotta, burnt toffee. Faded by the sun, orange softens to apricot, peach, flesh, a delicious iced dessert. Orange says: get ready here we go. It says: use the wisdom you have today and feel good about tomorrow.

I used to be wary of orange. But then I remember now I had an orange T-shirt that somehow looked good on me and I wore it summer after summer. People seemed shocked when I wore it, because it was a bold colour for me. Maybe I liked that. I remember seeing my favourite garden designer at a specialist nursery. He was sat at a patio table drinking coffee, and was wearing an orange denim jacket. Ah, I thought, you don't mind getting seen here.

For Spring Equinox, and spring to come, a poem by one of my favourite artists:

Sound the Flute!
Now it's mute.
Birds delight
Day and Night.
Nightingale
In the dale
Lark in the Sky
Merrily
Merrily Merrily to welcome in the Year…..
From SPRING by William Blake

GARDEN NOTES FEBRUARY 2002

SSSSH….IS IT SPRING YET?

What I would like to say is "Hey it's Spring, let's all go and see the bluebells" but I know some of you are still up to your knees in snow. Here we have the first signs of daffodils and there are snowdrops. I love those almost solemn flowers like tasteful dangling earrings. Walking along today and seeing snowdrops in other people's gardens I thought: if there were such a thing as snowdrop ice cream what would it taste like? Maybe vodka with a hint of bitterest lemon. (I get ice-cream fantasies especially and bizarrely during cold weather).

Last autumn I planted a handful of snowdrop bulbs but all I can see are thin wisps of leaves coming through the sticky mud. Snowdrops can take a few years to grow well, establish themselves. The best way to get snowdrops into your garden is to buy them 'in the green', with the bulbs already mature and making leaves. Make sure the snowdrops are from nursery stock and not dug up from the wild. Do you grow snowdrops in your part of the world? If not, what is the first flower of your gardening year?

Also in my garden is an early flowering honeysuckle shrub. A few weeks ago I wrote:

We are on the warm edge of icy. Half a degree less and there will be frost. On my table is a blue vase containing two woody stems of winter-flowering honeysuckle. These sticks have only a few mottled leaves but also tiny green claws of flower buds. One bud has opened. No, two together have opened, their yellow stamens touching. The scent is neither lemon or lime, but something finer. Ice lemon with mountain snow. And then the scent warms, like a delicate lemon sponge cake just out of the oven. The chance to sit in my warm room, to look out on the cold garden but to feel the essence of life outside of myself: that is what I am thankful for today.

FOR YOUR JOURNAL

Think of beauty and detail. Describe a single flower from memory.

GOING WILD

Dog's Mercury, Agrimony, Devil's Bit, Scabious….What does Dog's Mercury look like exactly? Well right now I have no idea but I still want to grow it and find out! I think I got intrigued by wildflowers when I was much younger and I collected Cicely M. Barker's Flower Fairy books. I wanted to be Belladonna! The darker fairies were my favourites. I like plants with gothic-type names, spiky suggestive tags. And so this year I'm planning a wildflower border. It will be a garden of wild herbal plants, and quite different from anything I've done before. You see, I'm still learning to let go and abandon the script and let the plants do their thing. So going with wildness is the ultimate challenge. To create a wildflower border you plan and plant the area as you might a regular, traditional herbaceous border. Or you can simply scatter seed about. But don't weed unless something takes over and threatens to kill off everything else. Stand back and let the plants do their thing and create their own colony. There will be a chance here to offer nectar food plants for butterflies. And I'll possibly include a bird table, feeders and houses.

This is just a small patch of land but it feels a good thing to try. My home and garden is built on land that was for centuries open field. Whatever I do, grass tries to get into the borders and take back the ground. It is good having a new garden but I have to remind myself: you are the first to ever cultivate this land. Coming from the suburbs of London, I am used to being in gardens that have been gardens for decades that have been dug and fed by generations.

The soil in my garden is heavy clay with stones and grit. I call it gore. The area here used to be one ancient riverbed. When things grow, anything except grass grows, I am amazed. If you read gardening books you will know that just about everything likes to grow in free-draining soil. But don't accept this means a plant won't adapt and cope with some other situation. I tell myself now: just be realistic and take a few risks - risks taken with a little knowledge and forethought cannot do harm.

TANSY (by Cicely M. Barker)

In busy kitchens, in olden days,
Tansy was used in a score of ways;
Chopped and pounded, when cooks would make
Tansy puddings and tansy cake,
Tansy posset, or tansy tea;
Physic or flavouring tansy'd be……

I've just gone into my daughter's room to borrow one of my old Fairy Flower books from her shelves. With the poem for Tansy is a delightful illustration of a yellow-clad fairy sowing tansy buttons to a green elfin's coat. I have forgotten how I used to read and read these books, and how much I loved the escapism. I don't think I knew that physic meant medicinal, but that does not matter. In the very front of the book I have written my name and a library number, as I was very particular about caring for my books and made play-library cards (this was when I was eight or so, not fifteen, but it may have been). This is one of those moments when I'm realising why I like gardens and the daintiest of flowers (my all-time favourite being heartsease viola tricolor).

When I wrote my herb garden newsletter I put together ideas for attracting fairies to your garden. (Has anyone still got this?!) If anyone has a resident fairy, elf or other little person please let me know and send photographic evidence as well if possible!

Chat with you again soon
Cathy

GARDEN NOTES JANUARY 2002

ICE, ICE BABY

(I wrote this last week, before our current mild spell)

We have been experiencing truly red-nose chilly weather. It has been white outside for several weeks. It snowed a few days before Christmas and my little son was totally excited, bashing at the window with glee.

During this freeze I am glad for at least three things: a good view of the garden from french windows, central heating, and online grocery shopping with home delivery. The first of these three is especially important to me, of course. I get to see my tiny courtyard sanctuary with white frosting, and frozen spiderwebs .

ZEN
Since my 'discovering' books on zen and gardens I have decided to re-design my courtyard garden. Some of the features are being moved into my herb garden, for example, my ugly but playful gargoyle. (To all gargoyle fans my two-headed ugly-one sends a personal new year's greeting).

I do not believe you can make a garden into a Zen space, it becomes this in time, perhaps. Take inspiration from the Zen philosophy and make a garden - that is a possibility. I am tempted to say no gardener can do a Zen make-over on their garden only on themselves. Trying to explain Zen is very un-Zen. I am working on an article for my zine and hope to share more with you there.

DAILY POEMS

I started writing a daily poem, inspired by my garden and/or the nature I see whilst out walking. These are like journal entries and can encapsulate a day of memories. Here are a few:

Too cold for summer leaves
bringing pots
into the warm kitchen
the scent of musky rose and cedar
and earth mingles
with furniture wax

(I wrote beneath this one: Tim is building a new dining table. He finished it for Christmas and unlike the previous table our plates do not slide about.)

Within her garden
the old woman rakes leaves
to make a tumult
of copper fire and earth

There is a large, quietly run-down house on a main road local to me. I walk past this house most days and I like to see the woman owner in her long front garden. She must be over 85 but keeps an immaculate lawn. She wears a faded powder blue raincoat and has a bent posture, and holds her head like a little bird. She always has a glimmer of a smile.

BONE STRUCTURE

When I was a little kid people noticing my bushy meet-in-the-middle eyebrows would say: "Ah but look at those beautiful high cheekbones!" I felt ugly and at the same time as beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor, whoever she was.

No matter how ugly you think your garden might be there are some redeeming features. That old gnarled apple tree that has such a mass of blossom in spring-time. Or the bright mosiac patio you made with your
kids. Or the pretty bindweed taking over the back fence. Or the sun across the lawn. There are many good things to see. Maybe not all at once. But over the course of a year you get to see a glimmer of beauty,
somewhere, somehow.

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