Herne Hill via Bali

I have been through a couple of very hectic gardening weeks and come out victorious (I hope).

As the end was almost in sight (one way or another) I have moved from just gardening at weekends to the odd weekday evening, and then the odd day off. No more do I have a greenhouse full of etiolated seedlings needing to be set free, no more do I have urgent patches of ground to clear, no more do I have a huge to do list.

Pond area all dug over and planted up, proper RHS textbook stuff!

This is a great relief as nearly all areas of the garden are now planted up with a lot of bedding type stuff..... I’ve put in a huge amount of Ricinus communis, Tithonia, Nicotiana, Dahlias, Zinnias, sunflowers and Mirabilis. Lots of tropical Salvias and stuff in the eating garden from brassicas to lettuces which we are now eating a lot of.  We even have a pumpkin terrace!

Pumpkin terrace...all a bit pre Cinderealla as it will look fab once they get going as they will spread everywhere

Lots of red and orange in the garden this year...I’m more of a big leaf jungly person than the twee cottage garden type, but last year we were a little lacking in colour. Colour in the tropical garden needs to be carefully managed as I do think less is more with flashes of vibrant colour, or odd flowers far better than a bank of nodding blooms. I do like vibrant colours but hope I’m not heading for a scarlet, pink and orange standoff....if so I can always say I am like Christopher Lloyd and ‘ignoring all the rules’

This week I have been completely obsessed with a book I stumbled accross, Tropical Garden Design by Made Wijaya. Such a good book and exactly my taste! I’m torn between trying to read and devour it all as fast as I possibly can, and drawing it out so it lasts longer.  In essence Made is a very successful and famous tropical garden designer but based, and probably most strongly influenced by Bali. In a way it’s a bit of a coffee table book as it has a lot of beautiful pictures and good ideas, including a lot of Bali style gardens but it is a lot more as it outlines design principles easily and simply. Go and order the book immediately!

Random Bali picture....i so need a holiday

 

Yesterday I ended the weekend by visiting three local NGS gardens in Herne Hill/Brixton: Half Moon Lane and Brixton Water Gardens.  All were very beautiful and interesting...not as intimidatingly hard core NGS as the previous Herne Hill one I had seen a few weeks ago, but all very worth visiting.

First one all very lush..cant quite decide if the hosta goes with the tree fern?

The first was a bit like gardening by numbers as the owners had the garden properly designed about 4 years ago and it was immaculate with the good design showing through. Although set in busy London it was like being in the countryside as it was green as far as you could see. Good lessons about having very thick borders as they completely hid the boundary fences.

I need a new pond which will look like this

This picture is especially for the inlaws to show how their garden could look if the back bordher was 10ft deep and not 2!

The second two were linked, with one focusing on tea and cake, which was a bit of a shame as it was also a nice garden but mostly hidden by the tea tent! These two were opening for the first time and you could feel the enthusiasm and joy about them. Great, well used gardens, and very ‘real’.

Giant snail shell...this was the last of the species, sacraficed to make a great bench and talking point

I thought this very sweet, Steven has banned me from doing the same so i need something else to hang in the trees, am wondering about cats or babys in those bouncer things...

I was particularly enamoured with the vast amounts of cake being served up by the kids in a large Indian tent. I assume it was their mother who was then very politely wandering around the gardening trying to collect and wash very lovely proper bone china tea cups...bliss!

Tea tent surrounded by very happy people full of cake! they are all so fat from cake that many people were unable to move for several hours