Tuesday 26 October 2010

Early bird catches the worm


As long as I’ve been a garden designer I’ve felt a fraud for having never been to Columbia Road Flower Market. Friends have been trying to send me there for ages – so this Sunday I smugly got up early and went. And I think I was disappointed. Or rather, I was expecting more (bigger, louder, a ridiculous amount of flowers) - and in that way I probably missed the point. The stretch of market is very small, and in content it doesn’t really differ from other London markets (although it is mainly flowers), but the fabric of the area is good Olde London at its best – shops selling provisions, and hot drinks sold in cobbled back street courtyards. I half expected a bed pan to be emptied onto the street - but the only alarming thing to happen was a Lakeland terrier nearly eating Lindy the dog.


Wednesday 20 October 2010

Seriously?


Surely the most arrogant garden gate in London. What is the 'Tradesperson' going to do other than ring the bell?

Friday 15 October 2010

Treading the boards


Everything was turned on its head on Monday night at the Lyric in Hammersmith. I was laughing along to a morbid - and very funny - play called The Big Fellah, which is based on an IRA hero hiding in New York. The theatre itself is a total surprise if, like me, you only know it from the outside as an ugly lump of concrete - this is the cladding around a seriously lovely Victorian theatre inside. And on what may have been the last sunny evening before winter sets in, I was truly wowed by the roof garden. Voted by Elle Décor in the top ten most enchanting public gardens, the interval drink was a far cry from the sweaty underground theatre bars of the West end.
Definitely one to remember next summer.

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Homemade and proud


Now this really is the most rewarding way you could spend an hour. If you want to give a present that will warm the December cockles, plant pots of scented narcissi. It couldn't be easier - rootle out some old pots, put some drainage at the bottom (broken tiles, scrunched up parking tickets), and fill to within 5cm of the top of the pot with compost. Place narcissi bulbs pointy side up, as many as you can cram together (touching), and fill to just below the top with more compost. Give them a little water, and put them on a warm and sunny window sill for 6 weeks, watering them when the soil feels dry.

Show offs: plant a pot of them every fortnight and stagger the joy....

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Hidden surprises


My chiropractor bills are soaring. I have spent the best part of the last 10 days planting bulbs in my clients’ gardens. It is the most satisfying job – hiding hundreds of bulbs under the soil and knowing that they will push up in May to produce a picture of utter loveliness. I have been planting on a grand scale – 700 at a time – but this could all be scaled down to a window box.

Plant tulips now (depth of 15cm), to flower next Spring / early Summer. The trick is to bury them under a selection of plants that will look good from now until then (when those bulbs start popping up in May, you won’t want to be fiddling around pulling out dead stuff that looked good in winter and disturbing the tulip’s journey north).

My choice would be ornamental grasses – Stipa tenuissima would fit the bill for size. The joy of grasses is that they look good pretty much year-round – with Stipa, you ‘comb’ it through in February to pull out any dead grass, and that’s pretty much it. I would add colour with some small cyclamen planted in and around the Stipa, and then underplant with Tulip ‘Antricet’ – a distinguished dark red double tulip:

Stipa tenuissima:

Cyclamen:

Tulip 'Antricet':

As soon as the cyclamen have given up (March / April), carefully pull them out and fill in with some forget-me-not seedlings nicked from your mum’s garden…