August Depression

I’m depressed. In the Spring I have the optimism and excitement of the coming gardening year to keep my spirits up. My time is spent in planning and preparation and in my mind’s eye the garden will become a wonderful idyll- the culmination of my winters armchair gardening. Sadly I now survey the reality. The roses are going over and all need dead heading, a lot of the holly hocks are the wrong colour (a particularly vicious shade of shocking pink), the herbaceous border looks as though a bomb has hit it with everything too tall and collapsed because of the wind and the rain. In the vegetable garden my prize squash, which was doing extremely well and was going to drape itself picturesquely over an arch, was munched off in the night along with the cucumber designed to do the same thing on the other side. N.B. The new product which I sent off for at a cost of £15 called ‘Slug Buggers’ made out of wool, all very eco friendly and environmental, DOES NOT WORK.

However, luckily there are a few bright compensations. The water butts are full and that always makes me feel comfortable. The sweet peas have not been so good for years. The manure filled trench and all the rain have certainly suited them. I pick them every day and the smell is sublime. The broad beans have been delicious, the new French parsley and the English mint are romping and we have planted a packet of asparagus seed, every one of which seems to have germinated. So I won’t give up yet. When gardening spirits need a little restoration I always find it helpful to read about someone else’s garden and I recommend a book that I am reading at the moment by Katherine Swift called the Morville Hours. I used to read her column in the Saturday Times and missed it sadly when she stopped. She writes beautifully, intertwining her gardening writing with history, folklore and much else besides. This book is described as ‘a book about time and the garden: all gardens, but also a particular one-that of the Dower House at Morville, where the author arrived in 1988 to make a new garden of her own.’ Highly recommended.

How many little garden notebooks do you possess? You know, the little ones that you keep in your handbag (sorry gentlemen) and jot down names during garden visits and notes during lectures. I have quite a few, mainly filled with indecipherable scrawlings and unconnected, seemingly random flower names without dates or reference to where I was when I took the note. But here is a little gem from a visit to Christ Church picture gallery to see an exhibition of engravings. From a Durer engraving –Fortune 1495 (which must have contained an eryngium somewhere in it) I took this note from beside the picture. ‘Eryngium. In German sometimes known by its common name of ‘mannertreu’, translated as ‘men faithful’. Given as a herbal tea it was supposed to guarantee lasting faithfulness’. As my eryngiums turn the most wonderful shade of violet and the bees gather over them this interesting but entirely useless fact will increase my pleasure, and yours, I hope. Let’s begin to plan for next year.