Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anne Boleyn, Hever Castle, italian gardens, rose
On an early autumn day in September Mellors and I joined his family at Hever Castle for a huge family picnic, to celebrate two engagements. There were 18 of us including two grandparents and Gemma the dog. We picnicked in the beautiful grounds and walked through the Italian gardens – three generations of gardeners together!
This rose is a favourite of Mellors’ grandmother.
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Scenes from the garden this week!
Grape Vine
Makwela
New apple tree
Barrel pond (tadpole penthouse)
Marigolds
Veg bed made from wine bottles
Ginormous squash (possibly a Tryffid)
Old apple tree
Tomato
Garden table
Shed & greenhouse
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Garden plan
Maze spelling out '250'
Gnarled roots
Rococo gardens
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bourton-on-the-Water, Cotswolds, Rococo Gardens
So! Back from the country. The Cotswolds was lovely – we stayed in this village called Bourton on the Water which is the last word in quaint. Sandstone cottages with climbing roses, wisteria or honeysuckle over every front door, duck infested rivers, cream teas and higgeldy piggeldy pubs. It was a big family holiday with Mellors’ parents and all his brothers and sisters and their husbands or wives. We hired two cottages and members of our party formed little groups to go exploring – some hiked, some cycled, some read books in the garden (guilty face) and some went to watch a cheese rolling contest! (Much more violent than it sounds).
One of the highlights for me was a visit to the Rococo pleasure gardens. Vegetable gardens for Mellors to admire, a maze spelling out the letters “250”, bee hives, gorgeous flowers, beautiful lawns, ponds squirming with crested newts …. finishing with a picnic in the sunshine. Fabulous! http://www.rococogarden.org.uk/garden_walk.aspx.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: central park, city garden, community garden, NYC
Mellors and I have just returned from New York, where we have been visiting family. Unsurprisingly we managed to sniff out some gardens in a city renowned for its skyscrapers.
First we took the air in Central Park.
Signs of spring in Central Park
Central Park
Tribute to John Lennon in Central Park
Central Park behind us we then we explored some city community gardens. The Lower East Side or ‘Alphabet city’ was for years a neighbourhood synonymous with drugs, crime, burned out buildings and garbage-strewn streets. But it is changing and one of the reasons for that change, say long-time residents, are the numerous community gardens, almost 40 of which have taken the place of many of the areas formerly debris-covered vacant lots.
NYC community gardens
Community garden in the heart of the city
Garden in Alphabet City, NYC
So now in place of discarded refrigerators, rotting tyres and rats, there are herbs of every variety (rosemary, thyme, sage, basil); flowers such as roses, pansies, marigolds, and mums, and vegetables including tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, peppers, mustard greens and spinach. In one garden there are even peach, cherry, apple and nectarine trees, as well as an enormous weeping willow tree. Visit the Sixth Street and Avenue B garden website for more.
NYC Community gardens
It’s not yet open to the public but we were fascinated to learn about Friends of the High Line, a non profit organisation who have saved an old railway line above the city and intend to rejuvenate the space for public use. The High Line comprises 6.7 acres of space atop elevated rail deck. One of the plans for the High Line, which was built in the 1920’s, is to create public parks and gardens. Check it out: http://www.thehighline.org/
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Where to start? Daffodils of course, always a dead giveaway. The Rhododendron bush has one or two tight cerise blooms. The apple trees (we have two now, one venerable old man and one cheeky young upstart) have buds. And on my walk to work today I noted blossoms (pink and white), birds singing like mad, my favourite tree (must stalk and pap for blog) showing its first flowers and proper hot sunshine that made me regret wearing a coat.
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After the usual excesses of Christmas it is quite a relief to be in calm January with not a party in sight. Mellors and I are doing our usual month off the booze which added to Mellors’ gardening savings should mean we can afford a greenhouse come February!
On Boxing Day we went for a much-needed walk around Wakehurst Place in West Sussex, not far from my inlaws home.
Some barnyard animal made of wicker at Wakehurst Place:
Wicker pigs
Their Millennium Seed Bank Project stores thousands of seed samples in a large underground vault. The building includes advanced seed research and processing facilities, and a state of the art exhibition about seed conservation.
Giant seed
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I am mostly thinking about Zimbabwe. My friend A is Zimbabwean. We went to university together in South Africa and we now both live in London. I am worried sick about her, and she in turn is worried sick about her family. A’s mother, father, brother, sister and law and niece live in Zimbabwe. Given the cholera I am grateful that they do not live in Harare or Bulawayo. A’s parents live in a rural area of Kariba. They don’t have a lot of options right now. I’ve watched helplessly as the country has slipped deeper and deeper into chaos. The sheer inevitability of the latest crisis is what makes me what to punch walls. No one has lifted a finger against Mugabe so a few more horsemen of the apocalypse have joined tyranny, starvation, gross human rights violations and police brutality. Now we hear that women in need of caesarians are being turned away from hospitals while cholera spreads throughout the cities. I am angry with the supposed defenders of freedom (the governments of the west, so quick to go to war elsewhere) and I am angry with the leaders in other African countries. Their failure to act against Mugabe has resulted in the nightmare unfolding in Zimbabwe today, now the country with the lowest life expectancy in the world. Mugabe is a murdering despot this and whole thing stinks of evil thriving while good people do nothing.
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O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof, there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe;
And all the daughters of the year shall dance,
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.
– William Blake
