Londoners like to panic at the first glimpse of snow, to start bulk buying survival DVDs and punching each other at train stations – it’s a cherished seasonal tradition. But not it seems at the garden museum. We had our first coating yesterday, it gives me great pleasure to report that all staff and visitors remained dignified, calm and serene throughout.
All staff apart from me that is, I’m panicking and punching people as hard as I can. Our bulb order only arrived on November the 25th and we have nearly 1000 still to put in. With the meteorologists predicting ‘hard frosts and blizzards!’ for the next fortnight, it’s hard to see when they are ever going to get planted. I’m having this horrible recurring nightmare -I’m kneeling blue fingered next to a crate of unplanted tulips as the sun sets Christmas Eve. Harrowing.
Which is why I so grateful to the three volunteers who braved the 12 hour slush flurry yesterday and came in to help me plant. The sleet unfroze the ground, thank goodness, but it also made it very wet. So I decided we would leave the knot garden and surrounding areas, whose borders are delicate and prone to compaction, and focus on the more robust Wild Area and the free draining porch borders. We managed to plant 200 alliums and 185 tulips of various varieties and no-one’s fingers fell off and no-one died. A huge success.
On Sunday, when the weather was still cold and crisp, I took a tour of the garden searching for winter colour and seasonal cheer:
Hips with Wall
Rosehips in the knot garden. All plants used in this area were cultivated in 17th century England. We use a lot of species plants, whose flowering season is a shorter than their selectively bred offspring, and we don’t have the huge portfolio of plants for autumn and winter interest that the modern gardener can choose from. As a result these little flashes of colour are loved inordinately.
Mullein with Tomb and Wall
Great Mullein, Verbascum Thapsus, self-seeded in the dry garden. Now looking slightly ropey this plant has been flowering for longer than I have been working at the museum. I’m particularly fond of the shadows cast by the plane trees in this picture.
Grass with Fence
Calamagrostis x acutiflora. Grass doing what it does best – catching autumn light. For those who are interested, in the background you can see Lambeth Bridge and the mighty Thames.
Nice to read your blog. Hope you have managed to get all your bulbs in the ground. If only I were still in London, I would have loved to come and help! These days I find myself in Paris with only window boxes and house plants – and long for a proper garden and the feel of soil under my nails…