Five container plants for low-maintenance beauty, clearing, sowing sweet peas and marmite toast.

Hello friends!

It’s been a busy one…

Monday

I am sitting here laughing at myself that the corydalis I bought last week got planted immediately (as it should do) and yet my alpine strawberries, sown in FEBRUARY folks! have been languishing in teeny tiny pots, desperate to be planted and become productive, ever since then….until this morning when the renewed vigour and gusto that the prospect of school has handed to me foisted me into action and hey presto, five minutes later, ten little plants were in the ground and watered. I still have twenty more to plant but it’s a start, and about time too.

I realise now that these little strawberries had become a symbol of the STUCKNESS that Covid 19 plonked on me. Many people fought their way through the leaden cloud to blue skies above, and my god, I tried, but without success. Only now has there is room for some breathing space. And these little strawberries, whenever I enjoy them, will remind me of this time. I pick up some windfalls and make a list of things to hand over to someone with more strength, and a ladder or two (I’m talking removal of divine but rampant clematis from next door threatening to engulf my beautiful apple tree, and some other out-of-my-league jobs that need doing). I learned early to outsource things beyond my capabilities or time capacity (thanks mum!) and I have absolutely zero problem with paying someone to do things in the garden that are either dangerous, boring or time-consuming. By the way, if you are in need of professional help then now is a jolly good time to make that call - good gardeners and landscapers are getting very busy.

We manage to go to the cinema. Cinema in the time of coronavirus is a rather lovely experience; empty seats all around you and (unlike in the olden days) nobody DARES to make a noise, lest it should be mistaken for a cough. Top marks. The film (Tenet) is thoroughly mind-boggling and we both turn to each other afterwards and laugh about how confused we are.

Tuesday

The rest of the strawberries go in this morning, and I linger outside watching the bumble bees on the salvia (if you want more bees, then just get salvia…you’re welcome). Much watering happens too, because it has been so dry, and true to form, my hydrangeas are suffering. I pull out the bright petunias which were so amusing for a while back there but which just aren't doing it for me any more, and realise that my terrace has actually become what I set out for it to be…green, textured, COMFY, and crucially, zero fuss. The mixture is made up of lilacs (two, standard miniature in pots), ferns (always evergreen, in several pots), agapanthus (lots of these, filling two long concrete troughs flanking the middle section of the terrace, a bay tree, which is rather out of control and needs shaping, several houseplants (yes, they’re still outside) and of course the cyperus papyrus which have colonised our pool. The only flowers right now are the gladiolus callianthus which were sweetly given to me by a friend after I moaned about neglecting to plant any this year. So yes, the only colour I’m really interested in is green. Planting design (like interior design) is almost always mostly about TEXTURE before anything else, darling.

I collect seeds for the children because I want to teach them about dispersal, and yes friends, I cannot quite let go of the idea that one day they will have nature journals, and know things about the world that I had to google, secretly and shamefully in my twenties and thirties. I lay them out invitingly on a tray, along with their sketchbooks and paints in the hope that when they come home from school they will spy it all and decide to play. If this all sounds frightfully earnest, (and pie in the sky) that’s because it is…the lure of the television will pull all of us in eventually - they will stare at it, and I will close my eyes.

And then I drop the balls. Drop-off and pick-up times have changed…not dramatically (that would be easy) but in a very small way. I am late and one child is distressed. The weather is hot and I’m dressed wrong. I’ve had a phonecall from my daughter’s school telling me that she is sick. Then I miss a scheduled zoom call with someone in the USA. For the second time. Completely forgot about it. Zero reason or excuse. The guilt and embarrassment engulfs me like a tidal wave. And then there is the very real knowledge that also, it REALLY DOESN’T MATTER…that I am overreacting, that I need to stick with what’s important. But still. It sucks.

Wednesday

Once the children are in school I text a friend to see if she can meet for lunch. She can’t. So I lie down on the sofa and stay there until the alarm that I put on my phone for school pickup (see…I do learn) rings. I return with the children to an un-touched to-do list, an un-emptied dishwasher and breakfast leftovers congealing. It’s ok. I took a few hours to lie on the sofa and eat marmite toast. The sky didn’t fall.

No gardening.

Thursday

An early start has me bagging up the gnarled remains of a dead bit of plum tree that the Rotter had removed at the weekend. I keep some of the twigs as plant supports and put the rest in sturdy compost bags. It’s the sort of job only someone as anal as I am enjoys, and oh I really do enjoy this one, while I learn about the American election (at this time in the morning (when there are no neighbours to disturb with my weird US election/true crime proclivities) I can put my phone in my bum bag (yes friends, I have a bum bag, which I love to the moon and back) and listen to podcasts without earphones. This allows me to listen to the garden as well, and the sounds I love the most are the movement of jumping frogs in the undergrowth. My heart skips a beat every time I hear and see them. They are so beautiful these little frogs. I sweep the terraces and pick up windfalls, and then I water the containers - it’s been so very warm and dry this week. I peek into my shameful mess of a potting shed and pull out my rootrainers - these are plastic growing cells…very long ones especially for sweet peas. I wash them and set them up for tomorrow when I shall be sowing them. Here is how to do just that, if you fancy having a go at it yourself. Do bear in mind though, that there are several ways of swinging this particular cat, and others who are far more adept at it than I will ever be.

Friday

Sweet pea sowing happens today, and the act of pushing seeds into damp compost is thoroughly better-making.

I also make curry, and process vegetables from the veg box into edible format. Most cooking (for me anyway) is about this transformation. It’s pretty mundane work, but it does mean that things become inviting (peeled carrots standing, soldier-like in a jar, beetroot, grated, cucumbers sliced, salad de-gritted and ready to eat, cherry tomatoes halved, salted, oiled, vinegared….). I’m not sure I know myself any more - have I become a HOUSEWIFE? We were brought up, schooled, universitied never to use that word, and yet suddenly when lockdown happened, we all became literal stay-at-home-mothers and fathers. Certain foods became hard to get (remember that?) and we even had to become homeschoolers. If I’d known it would be like this, I’d have put my apron on and settled into it, but as with so many challenges, I raged against it, and fought it tooth and nail. Lack of preparation and the complete absence of any sense of an ENDING to it; Those were the stressors, rather than the actual thing itself. And look, I am still here, BAULKING…what possible good can that do?

This week has been brutal - my fault entirely; I have pushed myself to achieve, do, produce more more more than I ever normally would. There was no aha moment for me when the children went back to school, no delicious thing of listening to the clock tick..it was straight back to the to-do-list, and I had a chest infection. So perhaps I’ve learned more this week than I have during the last six months - that if I do not take rest, my body will force it upon me. I wonder how everyone else is doing?

All the good things

x Laetitia