Spring in the Mencap Garden
“Live as though you’ll die tomorrow, but garden as though you’ll live forever.”
I won’t attribute the quote, because it’s one of those that has been knocking around for years and has been altered several times.
The social media started pinging on Julia’s phone this morning as members of the group that was going to go down to the War memorial started calling off because of the cold, miserable rain. As a newly retired lady of leisure, I was glad to see that she too decided not to bother. It was good to see, as she can be a bit driven and it wouldn’t have surprised me to see her turn out despite the weather and poor attendance.
She is already considering her options for volunteering when we move. My activity has been limited to finding a gardener to do some of the heavy work and starting to list some of the jobs that need doing. It’s a list that keeps growing. I’ve just been looking up the options available for terracotta paint. That is a sentence I never thought I would write. Until now I have only operated with three colours. Magnolia, blue, green. That’s all you need inside a house. This isn’t Chelsea and it isn’t New England. Only interior decorators and designers of camouflage need to work with more colours.
Nasturtiums Wilford Mencap Gardens
Of course, that means we have to decorate before putting the new carpet down. We need a new carper because the previous occupant had a dog and there is a dog bed shaped mark on the carpet in one corner of the living room. That’s why we need to paint at least one wall too – greasy dog marks on the pale wall. That’s why I prefer cats. They make lay out the occasional rodent corpse where you find it with your bare feet in the morning, but they are very clean around the house. And you soon learn to watch where you are putting your feet when you get up.
However, as I mentioned to Derrick in the comments – the main topic is where we put the rhubarb. I’m a simple lad at heart and I do like a rhubarb patch. It will go well with the tropical theme I am thinking of using in the planting. The potted damson tree and the fig will be going with us, as will the red cordyline and the New Zealand Flax. We will also take cuttings of the fuchsia (Tom Thumb) because it was given to us by friends when we moved in. Tradition is important, like my mother’s clivia. I don’t remember how long she had it, but we have a descendant, as does my sister and Number One son. Number Two son fled to Canada to avoid one. The trick is to observe the garden for a year before we make any decisions, apart from removing self-seeded saplings, dead conifers and ivy.
Worms at Mencap Garden, Wilford, Nottingham
And the answer to the title – the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now. having had experience of trees in gardens, I’m going to be careful about planting at the new place, I will however be sending more money to The Ribble Rivers Trust. They just won a prize. I don’t have a big enough garden to plant trees and I can’t afford to buy or plant my own woodland, so this is the next best thing.
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I bought red worms from the GardensAlive! company many, many years ago. They did well and multiplied over the years. There is a worm vendor at the farmers’ market here, too.
Some trees grow very quickly, especially some some evergreens. About a foot a year with sufficient water. Any trees and shrubs get planted in fall once the rains start here. Summer is too hot and dry.
Since you are a master soup maker, you might consider putting in a lovage plant. They are perennials, and the leaves are excellent in soups and stews.
Cats sometimes leave upchucked hairballs too. Can also be detected by one’s feet in the darkness. 🙂
Bare feet have the knack of detecting cold and unpleasant things in the morning. 🙂
I will add lovage to the list of things for the garden.
It can grow to a very large clump, and will need a little space around it.
I have a place in mind.
You give the garden the correct priority. Our plumber in Newark used to collect worms from our compost for fishing bait
That’s the trouble with worms, they tend to excite envy amongst people who don’t have compost.
I love the worms. The best time to plant a tree is when you are a child. And you watch it as it grows and you learn about being patient.
That’s true. Even more true because time passes so slowly t that age. I used to visit a rugby ground near Huddersfield and they had a very inconvenient oak tree not far behind one of the goals. Their oldest member could remember when it hadn’t been there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underbank_Rangers#:~:text=Underbank%20Rangers%20are%20a%20rugby%20league
The worms are wonderful. Can you steal them? You will need all you can get in your new garden.
They are behaving strangely at the moment – we think it might be the weather. We will have to see if they have some spare as we will need to get our wormery going when we move.
We tried a wormery without success. We really ought to try again.
I think it’s a question of scale. Our home wormery did not prosper but Julia’s was given to the garden by a local worm project and it is on a much bigger scale. I think the volume of soil probably helps. We also overfed our worms. I will approach the new one with more experience and less optimism. It may be A winning combination. 🙂