There’s an old saying that the shoemaker’s children are never shod, and looking around my garden this week I have started to suspect that it is suffering from Shoemaker’s Children syndrome. It isn’t a particularly large space, so there’s really no room for plants that don’t pull their weight, but somehow they seem to creep in anyway. For a start,… Read more →
Be careful what you ask for
Back when I was an engineer working on construction sites, I always hoped that we would come across an exciting archaeological find when the foundations were being dug – Roman remains, perhaps, or a buried stash of gold coins. Disastrous for the project programme, I know, but it would have been fun. Anyway, today I had my own little archaeological… Read more →
Mud, mud, glorious mud…
I am covered in mud. My tools are covered in mud. My boots have so much mud on them that the soles are an inch thicker than usual. I have spent most of the past week planting in the rain – 650 plants in three days! (There were three of us doing it, I hasten to add – I’m not… Read more →
Snowdrops on schedule
Last September I planted my first ever snowdrops, about twenty-five Galanthus nivalis bulbs. Not having been efficient enough to order them ‘in the green’ earlier in the year, I had to make do with bulbs from my local garden centre, and having heard the doom-and-gloom stories from other gardeners about how poor the germination rates are for shop-bought bulbs, I… Read more →
Christmas hyacinths (or not…)
What with the blanket of snow and ice that’s been covering everything in the garden for the past couple of weeks, I’ve had to look indoors for signs that things are still growing. Way back in September when the sun was still shining, I planted three hyacinth bulbs in pots for forcing, so that I would have flowers at Christmas.… Read more →