Categories
Growbag Blog

Gardens, tea and above all, CAKE!

Caroline

June is prime time for brilliant gardeners and barmily generous householders to throw open the gates to their gorgeous borders; home-made water features and adorable cats. It’s garden visiting season!

Never mind the perfect show gardens of Chelsea, this is when you can find out how your neighbours tackle ground elder, and what return they get on their solar panels. Also, just how much early evening drinking is going on in British gardens. Every garden we visited on Sunday revolved around the nucleus of two chairs, table + BBQ console. Have we all been immersed in a summer sozzle-fest since April? Don’t feel compelled to answer, you know you won’t be judged by me.

Who wouldn’t suffer from Celmisia-envy when they clap eyes on this?

Garden visits are also good for people, comme moi, who don’t really do desktop research. I just ask the question. A quick natter with a host gardener on Sunday revealed the Anchusa ‘Loddon Royalist’ I lust for, is probably not a goer for me. If this gardening pro can’t keep them alive, I have no chance, but a visit to that same garden two years ago, prompted me to buy my now dearly loved Celmisia (New Zealand Daisy – cut back after flowering, it will come again in August). Look at hers – you want one too don’t you?

Round all of this off with towering mountains of home-made cakes washed down with tea in proper china cups and I put it to you that this is GB at its finest.


Laura

It’s all very well for Caroline to wax poetic about what a sooper-dooper thing it is to open your garden to the public, but please note that unlike Elaine and me, she’s never actually done it.

If she ever had she would realise that it has very little to do with knocking back Pimms on the terrace, and all to do with the sort of British steel that got us through the blitz.

What my Stewartia should have looked like

If your garden looks like mine – a little rustic – it takes a long running campaign to lick it into shape, then there’s the military ‘tick list’  regarding road signage, parking, publicity, plant sales, maps of the garden (my Blue Peter effort is  featured at the top of the blog), risk assessments, rotas, teas and of course, the Big One – CAKE, (most gardeners have yet to embrace a low-carb approach to their diet as they burn off all the calories shovelling soil and pushing wheelbarrows). 

Rosa moyesii ‘Geranium’ the day after the garden open day….

Then add the excruciating wait and sleepless nights wondering if your star performers are going to do their thing on the day. Last spring a devastating late frost burnt every single bud off my Stewartia, (aka my pride and joy) and the Rosa moyesii ‘Geraniumdecided it wasn’t going to open a single bud until the day after the Open Day. Neighbour Louise opens her gardens at the same time – and annoyingly her Great Plant this Month was stunning last year, right on cue.

But….. salvation in 2018, our village is taking a year off – phew! Then the phone rang. It was Elaine – she’d DOUBLED BOOKED her gardens this year and managed to invite a group visit to her Normandy garden the same weekend that her Eastbourne gardens were opening for the NGS (what a boon for her school that she’s retiring this year, the timetables may now make some sense). Would I help her out? Argh I’m baking a cake even as I write this. Thank goodness her garden is very much smaller than mine – although to be fair to her – it does prove the point that size doesn’t matter, it’s what you do with it……


Elaine

Small but perfectly formed I assure you, and anyway it will be my wonderful friends who will hold the fort whilst Laura just swans in and spouts a few plant names. ‘Meg’, my gorgeous climbing rose should impress; I’ve told the snails they must eat one whole leaf at a time, not nibble a little bit out of each; my Philadelphus is pumping out gorgeous scent –  and the teas are going to be FANTASTIC!

Rosa ‘Meg’ poised to wow the crowds

The stakes become higher when you’re opening your garden in France, let me tell you,  and your command of the French language reels between comic and shocking.  How was I to know that the words for ‘birch-tree’ and ‘whelk’ were so similar? That mistake raised a few Norman eyebrows, for sure.

Never have I been more grateful for a classical background, and good old Linnaeus with his Latin binomial system for plants.  It’s the Esperanto of garden-speak.

A Philadelphus is a Philadelphus wherever you are!

In France (and everywhere else, for that matter), Philadelphus is still Philadelphus (that’s Ancient Greek for brotherly love, if you’re interested), Allium is still Allium, Iris is still Iris and a Geranium is still a Geranium (when it’s not a Pelargonium, of course!)  So I waft about the garden, like a cross between Cicero and the cast of ‘Allo ‘Allo, spouting Latin and cod-French in equal measure, until it’s clear that the visitors would much rather wander among the flowers in peaceful silence.  And let us not forget that it was Marie Antoinette who, as the French patron saint of garden-visiting, famously said ‘Let them eat cake’!

NB If you’re not already a subscriber and you’d like a bit more gardening chitchat from the3growbags, please type your email address here and we’ll send you a new post every Saturday morning.

By the3growbags

We're three sisters who love gardening, plants and even the science of horticulture but we're not all experts. We'd love everyone even remotely interested in their gardens to be part of our blogsite.

11 replies on “Gardens, tea and above all, CAKE!”

This did make me laugh out loud over breakfast. Thank you ladies. Wish I lived closer to Eastbourne.

Aww Marion, thank you. Visiting NGS garden openings really is the most therapeutic pastime. I just hope visitors to my sisters’ event in Eastbourne experience that. They may just leave feeling confused and wondering how anyone can so thoroughly burn a cake. Have a super weekend where you are, Caroline

Thanks for giving me a laugh re gardening opening, mine open in 3 weeks….plug. Total empathy with those musings. This years’ trial was the Beast followed by rapid lush growth of everything it didn’t kill and now, new diseases, bugs and pests emerging daily. I look forward to joining the wine soaks at the end of that day and the rest of summer.
Cheers, Carol

ohhh Carol you’ve got it all ahead of you! Really visitors are wonderfully kind though aren’t they – the pressure is no doubt all our own, however that doesn’t make recuperative celebrations any less enjoyable. Good luck!

Yes Mike there is almost bound to be a Piglet lurking somewhere in Laura’s garden, and Tim makes quite a good Eeyore! :))

Love your comments on Open Days – coming up to our 4th NGS day tomorrow – shattered is not the word…but always worth it on the day and keeps us fit along with doing the S. Swans. I started opening 29 years ago because if was a fab excuse not to spend weekends away with the in-laws!
Anyone want some Filipes Kifsgate seedlings – they have gone berserk – seeded all over the place.
Poor Marie Antoinette…she loved her ‘Jardin Anglais’ but she truly never ever said ‘Let them eat cake’ – that was the Spanish wife of Louis XIV and she said ‘let them eat bread! Just as points of truth; Marie Antoinette’s favourite rose was r.Quatre Seasons and she adored cornflowers.

Hello Susie, thanks for putting us straight about the cake quote,Elaine’s great on Latin declensions but not so hot on French history apparently! Good luck with your Open Garden tomorrow, we’re open again in Eastbourne too so fingers crossed that the weather behaves… best wishes Laura

Hope your opening went really well-sorry I did not make it to meet Laura aka Elaine(!?) but you did have great weather.
Irene xx

Hi Sue, thank you for writing in. We love welcoming new readers to our weekly ramblings! And if you continue to enjoy our blogs, please do tell everyone you know about us. All the best and happy gardening, from Elaine (and the other two, of course).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.