This Winter to Spring

This Winter to Spring season has re-educated me on a subject with which I’d lost touch over the last eight to ten years – the art of patience. In previous years, growth has been underway even as January began, but not so this year. My clay soil has been, by turns, rock solid in winter’s icy grip then within days so muddy and water-ridden that I would have been forgiven for imagining the stench of something rotting! It’s as if my garden has “damped off”. Plants that have survived quite happily in the soil for many winters have died, and others in permanent pots were doomed, probably as far back as December. One generous and happy exception is Dicentra, in pots and in the soil it is showing an unexpectedly firm resolve to perform in spite of (or maybe because of) the unforgiving gloom. Another welcome fillip is the remarkably good showing of miniature daffodils which have fared far better than their taller cousins, many of which have emerged “blind”, I haven’t yet completed an inventory of my plants, but when I do, I doubt if it will make happy reading.

Although the Echeveria brought back from Scilly a few years ago made a game attempt at survival after I allowed it to freeze solid in the greenhouse (an error for which I am still kicking myself) it eventually turned brilliant pink and collapsed from within. I managed to rescue five leaves and am attempting to root them. I know Echeverias are usually increased by rooting offsets, but there aren’t any and beggars can’t be choosers. If it fails, well I’ll just have to swim back to Scilly – oh I know I can go out and buy an Echeveria from any old garden shop and centre in the country, but it wouldn’t be the same – it’s a woman thing.

An Other World Experience
A programme that has been running on BBC 4 is hugely comical and a “must watch” not just for gardeners, but for anyone looking for a good laugh. Perhaps I missed it first time round if it was shown on a main channel, but it’s no less of a “hoot”. “Sissinghurst”, a programme dedicated to arguably the most famous garden in the world, looks initially like a spoof, but sadly, it’s no such thing. The two main protagonists appear to come from another planet and are keen, in their own small way, to dictate to THE NATIONAL TRUST!!! - an ambitious brief. These two, one a member of the “donor” family, the other by marriage firmly believe they can transform Sissinghurst into a going concern; funny, but I thought it already was. They both have an outstanding talent for “hubris”. (If you’re not sure what hubris is, just listen to the Prime Minister for three seconds if you can bear to) it’s an acquired taste as a form of comedy, but it leaves you gasping! I’m a long-time member of this august organisation, though not an uncritical one, but The National Trust’s involvement with Sissinghurst has secured the gardens survival. I have a sneaking suspicion that it would otherwise have disappeared under concrete, ended up as a theme park or, most likely, crumbled to dust. Don’t get me wrong – I like Sissinghurst and have visited on a number of occasions and been inspired by it, but for me it has the air of a Shrine. It feels like a garden too long dominated by a minute piece of its history, that of “writer” Vita Sackville-West (aka Mrs Harold Nicholson), controversial in her own time, but no more than many others braver and less privileged than she. One day I hope Sissinghurst will be released from this straightjacket and allowed to live and breathe in it’s own right as a garden of many ages and not just one – but that’s only my opinion and far be it from me to be controversial.

Great Dixter, on the other hand, lives and breathes in spades. I hope it never becomes a shrine to Christopher Lloyd even though he will always be associated with it (he was at least a decent writer!).