Chelsea Flower Show 2007
There’s nothing like a day out at Chelsea for titillating those gardening taste buds. Particularly if the ticket is a present and my companion is my sister. She has a good eye and a natural sense of design and balance. Chelsea would not be nearly so much fun if I went alone. You need someone to ooh and aah with, particularly in the Great Pavilion. Here you can find the best suppliers of every plant imaginable. If you have a large budget and a new garden to make, Chelsea would be a great place to start. If you have an established garden...
read moreOld roses: Rugosa Rose. Rosa Roseraie de L’Hay
We are lucky that our garden is big enough to let some of our old roses grow into large tree like shrubs. This rose is about seven feet tall and ranges across the width of a six foot border. It is one of the old roses that I bought from Sagger’s nursery garden in Newport, Essex. I wanted to plant old varieties of roses but knew very little about these. Roger Sagger is a great guy to turn to for advice. He took a lot of time to find the perfect rose for each aspect. Fifteen years later the roses have matured from the six inch sticklike...
read moreDeluxe scrambled egg recipe
Last Saturday morning I discovered that we had run out of bacon. I unearthed a pack of streaky from the back of the fridge. Weekend breakfasts are important at the cottage. They tend to be indulgent. Danny covered his disappointment with a practical suggestion. “Let’s crisp it under the grill and scatter it over scrambled eggs. It would enhance the eggs.” He stared at me for a second and quickly added. “I’d offer to make scrambled eggs but you are so much better when it comes to scrambled.” It’s true....
read moreThe Dreaded Lily Beetle
Three years ago my mother started to mutter about the Lily Beetle. It was attacking her lilies, chomping all her flowers when thery were just tasty shoots. I checked our lilies carefully. They were fine. Two years later the Lily Beetle reached our village, fifteen miles away. I didn’t notice the invasion. We had no lilies in flower that year. Lily Beetles are bad news. Generally in the first year you find the decimated lilies before you find the beetles. You never make that mistake again. They seem to have a great love life as you tend...
read moreBunty’s half remembered Asparagus and Ham bake recipe
Five years ago my friend Bunty mentioned this recipe to me. “If you are pressed for time. This asparagus dish is lovely. It is classy.” She twinkled so much that I knew that this was a good dish. I was not tempted. I love asparagus. Plain and steamed to a point where it still has a bite. Served with hollandaise sauce or melted butter. Why would I want to try a dressed up asparagus dish when I prefer my asparagus naked? Today I visited Fred Fitzpatrick’s and bought some excellent thinly sliced smoked ham. I grabbed the last...
read moreKill your slugs with milk
I am working in Saffron Walden at the moment in my friend Anna’s new house. It doesn’t have a fridge. A pint of milk doesn’t last more than a day. Two days ago Anna cleared the kitchen of various dead milk containers and put them on the terrace outside. One container was a transparent plastic cup, half filled with stale milk. The next day I was having a break in the garden and spotted that a lot of tiny curled things were in the cup. Initially I assumed that her little girls had put a handful of gravel in it. But something...
read moreHoney bees, emergency and the Snelgrove board
“There have to be three elements for the bees to swarm: a queen, flying worker bees and honey stores. If you remove one of these elements, they will not swarm.” Mike was striding down the garden towards the hives. Despite it being a showery day we were going to divide our colony in two as he suspected that the bees were preparing to swarm. I had mentioned that we had found queen cups and cells on some of the frames ten days earlier. These are special cells the bees make to breed a new queen. Although we had destroyed them and added...
read moreNon alcoholic drinks: Anne Mary’s St Clement’s Punch Recipe
On a hot summers day when I have been working in the garden I sometimes take a break and loll in the bower with an ice cold citron pressé. Half a squeezed lemon in a tall glass topped up with iced water and a dash of sugar. It is instantly thirst quenching and takes me right back to summer holidays in Brittany when I was a child. St Clement’s Punch is a much more sophisticated drink. Superb on a warm sunny day. Although it has a grown up taste, children seem to like it too so it is a great drink to make for a party or a fête. I...
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