Orchids and Coco yams

Isn’t all this sunshine nice, although the ground is becoming very dry the plants are loving the heat. You can tell it is almost Easter, but as I was walking around the garden all these things which it thought were dead were popping up....and I didn’t need to eat a hot cross bun or anything! Outdoor dahlias are a coming, as are a ginger and even the unprotected Musa Sikkimensis. Even my pineapple sage is re-growing so in a moment of summer love I have moved my protected bananas outdoors and am bracing to start planting at the weekend.

Im very proud of my Pleione, as its like a proper orchid! I thought I had killed it but it popped up again last week

I still have a million seeds to grow on, but am denting the number of plants in pots. I thought I had been good as I haven’t bought anything for ages but in a moment of weakness I had to buy a few more Eddoes and Coco yams, go on, be a devil I thought to myself as I saw them unexpectedly in Tesco and piled them into the basket, have a few more.. It’s amusing how Tesco sells Eddoes now, I’m hoping they are fresher than the dried up ones I bought a month or so ago, the Coco Yams are certainly red and raring to go.



lots of plants in the nursery, they look better when I remember to water them



We were very fortunate to have Beena and Stu stay at the weekend which was great as Beena came fully excited about gardening complete with bright pink gloves. ...gosh that lady gets excited about worms! So I now have some super sifted seed beds and beetroots that were sown with a lot of love.

Stu is a proper man who has piles of wood in sheds and everything, so I got him to do a design challenges. Ages ago I rescued an Islamic style table which was being chucked out on the street. It has a great shape which I thought could easily be turned in to a spirit house, so I set Stu free with a few Balinese and Thai books for inspiration. An hour or so later an old fence panel was recycled into the frame for a new roof, admittedly before the size was reduced it could have doubled as a car porch, but the eventual size was great. So all it needs is thatch....picture to follow.

We also checked out Kate, the belle of Camberwell’s garden. After banning her mother from her Friday night party she was allowed to come down on Saturday to clear the garden and it was very tiring sitting inside watching her reduce a fig tree from giant to well pruned bonsai which I’m sure will grow to be the centrepiece of a new flagship Mediterranean garden.  For an overgrown garden it actually was very on trend and I could tick the things off from a Sambucus Nigra to purple cotinus and Fig.

So back up the hill on the new land it’s all getting there, we were even talking about getting rid of the rubble pile which grows ever larger...I reckon we must have about 200 bags there so far, perhaps enough to turn into a grotto? A bank holiday project perhaps...

Sarracenia flava flowering, possibly the wierdest flower around

The powerhouse of the operation, seeds all poking through, you can sense my panic of where am I going to put them when they are bigger!