Best of show

Despite the intermittent rain, June is bustin' out all over here in our little West Berkshire corner of England.
May is usually my busiest gardening month of the year, but this spring I've been resting on my laurels.  Except for a frequent circuit with the watering can, and very occasional weeding, I've let well enough alone . . . and my roses and peonies have rewarded me anyway. 

I spent most of May sowing a different kind of seed, and it's kept me so occupied that I've had little time for gardening, blogging or anything else.  (Like my generous roses, I hope you will excuse my neglect.)

As a brief explanation:  last September, I organised a Book Club for my youngest daughter and her friends.  This venture has mushroomed into several new book-related projects which started in April:  another Book Club, for 11 year olds this time, and two reading classes.  All of a sudden, I've been given free rein to develop what amounts to three different reading lists -- and not just for this spring, but for next year, too.  Reading for pleasure, reading for enrichment, reading to encourage more reading:  these are my only imperatives. 

It's a dream job for me, really.  As one of my best friends said yesterday, "You get to read all day and justify it as WORK."  Yes; exactly.

But it's a responsibility, too, and I really want to get it right.  I've always thought of the age of 11 as one of the golden ages of reading.  It's the age of unconscious delight -- of really getting lost in a book.  Most readers are outgrowing predictable texts and series books and discovering books with much more emotional and intellectual richness.  In England, at least, it's the age before cell phones and social networking -- and thus maybe the last, or at least the best, chance of turning a child into an avid reader.

I've often talked about book-love in this space, and it has been gratifying to realise that my blog-friends are a bookish bunch.  I can't resist, then, asking for some recommendations. 

What books (classics or contemporary; British or American) did you love best when you were 11, 12 or 13?  What books have your children or students loved best?

June blooms

Last weekend, I attended the high school graduation of someone very dear to me -- someone I have watched grow from a chubby little cherub to a poised and beautiful young woman.  She was the first baby in my circle of friends, and thus I am experiencing -- for the first time -- that particular generational changing-of-the-guard.

It is true that the graduate's mother and I dominated the dance floor all night long, but even though there is much life in us yet (it is to be hoped), that freshness -- what used to be described as "bloom" -- will not come again.  As pleased as I am for my young friend, I cannot help but feel a pang of envy for all of the choices and opportunities still open to her.

It's not that I regret the road I took, but I want the road-not-taken as well.  Is it possible to be satisfied and grateful . . . and yet a little bit greedy, too?

Urn and all

When it is dark, damp November,

please let me remember

this week of golden September.

Unlike Keats,

I would rather have

the living, dying rose --

yes, thorns and all.

Midsummer Magic

Watering the borders

nepeta (catmint) and cotinus (smoke brush)

Do you think that a responsiveness to nature is a genetic gift like any other?

Are some people born more attuned to the ebb and flow of the natural processes all around us? Are they more inclined to notice the beauties around them? Are they more likely to feel nourished by what their senses can absorb?

And why do some landscapes speak to us, while others don't -- or at least not so much, or in the same way.

I've never felt that I was particularly responsive to nature, but there is something about England that makes me feel like a tuning fork which is vibrating to the perfect pitch.

Last night I was watering the garden in the early evening . . . and there was this magical combination of hot sun, cool earth and the smell of water soaking through herbs and flowers. I wish that I could capture it in words: the deliciousness; the sensual quality of pure notes of rose, thyme, lavender and basil.

I always feel keenly aware of that moment when the sun reaches its peak, and then begins its slow, but inevitable, decline again. It has that gorgeous repleteness, but also that shadow of decay, like a ripe piece of fruit or a full-blown rose.

Another kind of magic:

the first ripe raspberries

Last November, we planted raspberry canes in the dull wet ground. They looked like lifeless sticks, and it was hard to believe that anything would or could fruit from them.

All through the spring, my daughter plotted the progress of rough green leaves and then tiny green beads and then, in late June, ripe red fruit. (It is midsummer, but autumn's apples and blackberries are already emerging, raw, hard and green.)

I wonder if gardeners find it easier to accept that the nature of life is constant change. Being new to cultivation, I am constantly surprised how quickly plants flower and fade or just lose their shape. Last week, the nepeta which was a perfect mound all spring had to be cut back. It had sprawled, and grown leggy, smothering a rose, a fuschia, a heuchera.

Today I read: One morning, Polly saw a crimson rose show its heart to the sun, only to fall in a cascade of petals by the end of the day. (from Love in Idleness, by Amanda Craig) Only a few days of sun and the ground has baked hard and dry. The roses fall apart in my hands.

Every clear, warm night we eat outside now. We try to follow Herrick's advice.

Drunken Bee

A drunken bee

sipping from The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild

My dear friend Elizabeth has been taking pictures of drunken bees in New York City, and she requested examples of the same from my garden.

Funnily enough, I already had this picture on the camera. But not so strange, really, because I have dozens of roses blooming at the moment . . . and they do tend to attract bees . . . and bee behavior seems to fascinate photographers. Tangobaby managed to catch an astounding close-up of one just the other day.

My bee is just a blackish blot, so you'll have to take my word for it . . . but this bee was so rapt, so avid and utterly absorbed, that it reminded me of a newborn baby at the breast. Like me, the bees prefer the sun . . . and when it is shining, they appear in clouds of buzzing bliss, like nectar-sugar addicts.

(This rose is in the middle of my herb garden, and I had to practically lay down on the ground, mashing mounds of chives and fennel, to get this view.)

And because I can't resist alliteration, and admire a writer who thinks to use the word "bibulous," a poem for my subject:

Bees

You voluble,
Velvety
Vehement fellows
That play on your
Flying and
Musical cellos,
All goldenly
Girdled you
Serenade clover,
Each artist in
Bass but a
Bibulous rover!

You passionate,
Powdery
Pastoral Bandits,
Who gave you your
Roaming and
Rollicking mandates?
Come out of my
Foxglove; come
Out of my roses
You bees with the
Plushy and
Plausible noses!

Norman Rowland Gale

The financial news still reeks, but my garden is fragrant

A glimpse of my garden in late September.

No matter what time of year, it can be chilly and wet in England. Because of this tendency to what I think of as the English "default" weather, the distinct outline of the different seasons tends to blur.

This year's wet summer has meant that even the trees which change with the autumn have clung to their leaves. We have conkers and blackberry bramble -- sure signs of fall -- but my garden is full of the blooms, and even the buds, more associated with summer. One season can bleed into the next and the only way to tell the difference is by what is coming out of the ground -- but even that method isn't foolproof.

"It's been a good year for fruit, but a bad year for grain," says my gardener. The tomatoes, which had showed early promise, never got enough heat to ripen and ended up rotting on the vine. But we've had a bumper crop of apples, and the roses have bloomed again and again.

After a dreary August, which kept gardeners inside and the butterflies away, we have had a good run of sunny days. It always seems to be this way. We get one more precious blast of glorious warmth before the dark door of October closes.

So as September slips away, I offer up a fond last look at summer.

"The Pilgrim"

I picked this rose because I am a sucker for a name, and I liked the American association. Too late, I learned that the "pilgrim" refers to Chaucer's pilgrims, and not the ones who took the Mayflower to the New World.

Never mind. It is a beautiful rose, and a really "good goer." I guess that pilgrims tend to be tenacious.

I can see this rose by looking out my kitchen window . . . and the colours echo my kitchen curtains, by design.

Except for some of the ramblers, which tend to flower only once, all of my roses repeat throughout their flowering season. The Pilgrim rose has been flowering since June, and it looks like it may keep going for a while. Another good repeater is Jubilee Celebration, the showy pink rose pictured below. The Jubilee Celebration is new to my garden this year -- and it is probably my favourite. The picture doesn't really do it justice, as the colour is actually quite complex -- a pink shot through with peachy gold. It glows in the sunlight.

It's a shame that this picture isn't a scratch-and-sniff.

The fragrance is described, by experts, as "strong and fruity,

with a hint of fresh lemon and raspberry."

This is the infamous rose hedge that I planted on a wet and windy Bank Holiday weekend.

There is a mix of pink Penelope shrub roses and pale yellow Malvern Hills climbers. Someday, if I'm lucky, the roses will cover the fence and hang in garlands from up above.

A lovely little willow tree, just out of the picture, casts its shadow.

At the foot of the garden, you can see the Chicken Pen -- home to Ralph and Lauren.

If you look carefully, you may just be able to glimpse Minstrel, our tabby cat.

He likes to lounge here, between the tall grasses and the Iceberg roses.

His days in the sun may be numbered. For this year, at any rate.

On the thorns of a dilemma

I'm always interested in what people choose to comment on. In a recent post, where I ranged far and wide over topics as diverse as what I ate for lunch and the Yemeni population explosion, several of you picked up on my stymied efforts to order roses from the David Austin website.

For weeks I had pored over my David Austin catalogue, finally settling on a short list: Penelope for the hedge, Malvern Hills to arch above it as a climber, The Generous Gardener as a climber for either side of the porch, Jubilee Celebration for the small bed that I can see from the laundry room, and William Shakespeare for the large "cottage-style" bed at the foot of the garden. As I needed a fairly large quantity of roses, it only made sense to order them off the website; and I will admit to feeling rather pleased with myself as I (more or less) quickly dispatched this task.

But then, to my dismay . . . I received the dreaded email receipt, informing me that my roses would arrive in November. NOVEMBER?? Apparently, I've missed this year's bare root season -- otherwise known as the most economical way to buy roses. A phone call to the David Austin premises in Shropshire yielded even more distressing information. I could buy POTTED roses at twice the price (and packaging), but many of my requests weren't even available.

Sinking heart . . . thwarted gardening ambitions . . . what to do?
Philosophical Question: Is it better to wait for what you really want? Or to compromise, and learn to like something else that you can get immediately?

Sadly, patience is a virtue in short supply around here. Once I had made up my mind, I wanted there to be a very short time gap between ordering these roses and seeing them bloom in my garden. So I decided to shop around. I visited three garden centres and one proper nursery, but didn't manage to procure much. I picked up three Penelopes, but I needed six more. I saw a few less than stellar specimens of William Shakespeare, and a few others of Falstaff -- who closely resembles his maker -- but still felt hesitant. I thought about mixing in some of The Dark Lady, but was put off by her liking for a more mediteranean-type climate. I didn't want my dark lady to languish in this clammy land of the hit-and-miss sun.

Happily, obstinance is a quality that I can summon at will and I refused to be defeated by the slim pickings in West Berkshire. I decided that I wouldn't give up my rose quest without first making the pilgrimage to Burford Garden Company -- garden centre nonpareil.

The fact that Burford is a favorite little village of mine was neither here nor there, of course. About 20 miles west of Oxford, Burford is just on the outer edge of the Cotswolds -- and about an hour's drive from where we live. My family has been going there for more than 10 years, and we have established a ritual something along these lines: feed the ducks on the Windrush river, eat lunch at Huffkins, visit the old-fashioned sweet shop, and perhaps a bit of shopping if the children are willing. Burford is good for country-style clothing, antiques, and the sort of decorative item that no one really needs. (Frankly, it is probably only the tourists who shop there.) We go to Burford to soak up the atmosphere -- the steep streets, the ancient leaning stone buildings, the glimpses of beautiful private gardens. Burford looks the way that England is supposed to look, and I suppose that I'm still susceptible to that kind of charm.

Here is a glimpse into my modus operandi: Not wanting to plant-shop on an empty stomach, I decided to visit Huffkins for some fortification. Not having brought something to read, I decided to make a quick detour to the Red Lion Bookshop. (I don't mind eating alone, but only if I have reading material!) Not having enough cash to buy a book and lunch, I decided to get three books -- you know, in order to justify putting it on the credit card. Also, I always like to support an independent bookshop. By the by, isn't it lovely when self-interest and altruism have a common goal?

Since I was in a quintessential English town, I decided to match subject to environment: and thus departed with The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth by Frances Wilson, Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes, and The Bolter by Frances Osborne. I dipped into The Bolter during lunch, and it is delicious, gossipy stuff. Licentious English aristocrats running amok. Thank goodness I am nearly finished with my long liason with Atwood, because I'm ready for a quick fling.

My justification is this: Even if I didn't find my roses, at least I didn't waste my day, right?

But as luck and Ethel Merman would have it, "Everything's coming up roses . . ."
I actually managed to find ALL of the roses I wanted at the Burford Garden Company. I suppose that's why, if you believe your Wikipedia, all of the *stars* shop there.

Once again, that vital combination of impatience and persistence has been rewarded. Nor was I put off by the bad weather . . . so determined was I to get my roses into the ground where they could really start flourishing.

Now does anyone have any tips for getting roses to grow faster?

Gardener's Hour

I was walking through someone’s beautiful garden yesterday and I suddenly had an epiphany: I am becoming a gardening enthusiast.

Where I used to be a person who would vaguely register “purple flower,” I am now a person who knows the difference between an “allium” and an “agapanthus,” and even realizes that they are plants suitable to a herbaceous border. Slowly, gradually, I have learned to recognize dozens of English plants and flowers. If I knew them before, it was only in a storybook way: “hollyhocks,” “lamb’s ears,” “dahlias,” “catmint,” “delphiniums,” “lupins,” “sweet peas.” Somehow I have crossed over from a person who loved reading The Secret Garden, to a person who wants a secret garden. I was thrilled when my peonies recently started blooming, and visiting the garden center for a plant shopping binge has been the highlight of my week. Believe me, it hasn’t always been this way.

I don’t remember a lot of flowers in Central Texas, where I grew up – only the rather boring, hardy varieties like pansies and marigolds. One suited to the mild winters; one suited to the arid summers. Bland, ubiquitous flowers. We had “lawns” of thick, coarse St. Augustine grass instead. Maybe some trees and a few shrubs.

A lawn is serviceable; it is frontage for your house; it is something that has to be mown and edged frequently. If you do take pride in it, it is because of the rigorous neatness, the vigorous greenness, the vanquished weeds.

A “garden” is something entirely different.

A garden is a creative enterprise; an aesthetic statement; a revealing form of self-expression. It is a constantly evolving project – full of delight, surprise and heartbreak. It may take years, even decades, of plotting and shaping; yet it can change overnight. A garden resists the control of even the most masterful hand, as it is constantly subject to weather vagaries and the self-seeding propensity of so many plants. It is never “done,” but always a work in progress. A garden is cyclical – and therefore, a source of ever-renewable small pleasures. I will be sad to see the wisteria, clematis and peonies fade with the end of May, but by June the roses will start blooming.

Many keen gardeners have a flower that they are particularly passionate about – and for me, that flower is the rose. The David Austin Handbook of Roses is like horticultural porn: seductive and highly thrilling. I drool over the descriptions, lingering lovingly over: “exquisite little buds,” “good, bushy growth,” “light musk rose perfume with a hint of myrrh,” “luxuriant healthy foliage,” and “richest velvety crimson.” Each rose is almost more beautiful than the last – and there are hundreds of them. I know that I can’t have them all, but I can still have lots. I fantasize over them, making wish lists. I like the old roses the best; the peony-like ones, with proper rose fragrance.

Being a word lover, I also love roses for their names. No doubt “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” but I can’t help believe that there is something in a name. “Alan Titchmarsh” and “Eglantyne” are both beautiful pink roses – but which one would you rather have?

I have no problem confessing that I get a strange satisfaction from rose names – both the beautiful and the quirky. I know that proper gardeners learn the Latin names of their plants, but I would so much rather have a “Falstaff” rose or a “Shropshire Lass.” When I was choosing a pale apricot rose to mix in with some lavender and purple salvia I could have gone for “Abraham Darby” or “Evelyn” or “Pat Austin” – but when I spotted the “Ambridge” rose, I knew that I had to have that one for Sigmund. (English readers will recognize “Ambridge” as the village in which “The Archers” – a long-running radio drama that Sigmund is devoted to -- is set.) Although I picked “The Pilgrim” for its delicate yellow blooms and strong climbing prowess, I still delighted in its American overtones. (I hope that it will be a vigorous adventurer, swiftly conquering the ugly garage wall it has been trained against.) “The Generous Gardener,” a pale satin slipper pink, will hopefully bring good luck in the new border. “Celsiana” and “Penelope” will be massed against the side fence. Old English names, like “Glamis Castle” and “Winchester Cathedral,” are mixed in with my herbs. At some point, I just know that I will have to establish my Poet’s Corner for roses: with “Jane Austen,” “William Shakespeare, “The Dark Lady,” “Thomas Hardy,” “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” and so many others to choose from.

Gardens really are about putting down roots. Because a garden can take years to properly establish, it is a long-term vision – an investment in the future. In July, we will have lived in this house for two years – nearly a record for our family. Even though we have spent nearly all of that two years renovating our house, I still think that I could happily “up sticks” if the right adventure presented itself. A house is a house. (And besides, I really need a bigger kitchen.) We have lived in lots of houses, but this is our first real garden. I can imagine that with a few more years of putting down roses, I may not ever want to leave.

After two weeks of glorious sunny weather, what I have come to think of as “default English weather” has returned: 50 degrees, damp, gray, soft, misty. I know that my newfound gardening outlook is starting to change me, because my first thought was thank goodness it’s raining, because the garden needs a good soak!