Back to school, a new look for the terrace, compost and gerbil joy 🐭
Hello friends!
I’m so happy to be back in a new decade (and more importantly, a new term). There are a lot of very unsettling things going on in the world, and concentrating on caring for my small patch is somewhat soothing. Last week was pretty active on the gardening front too, although I had a full house of children with me all day every day. Quite a bit of stuff got cleared - perennials that had gone soggy or were lying prostrate over other things; they all got chopped in between meals (because mumming is basically just endless preparation of meals and snacks. Oh, and shouting, there is quite a bit of shouting that goes on too). Last week was also memorable because we brought home three rescued gerbils who took up residence in my daughter’s bedroom. The floor of this bedroom is covered now not only with clothes and shoes, but also a mixture of sand, hay and something called MEGAZORB, which we were told to buy instead of wood shavings, because apparently wood shavings irritate a gerbil’s eyes. Oh yes. Now look, I am not fond of rodents, but it has been impossible not to get a bit heart-melty watching these little things burrowing away and being gerbil-ish. They really are incredibly sweet and I have now taken to picking them up and kissing their little noses. I LOVE them! They came to us with the names Wesley Wayne and Winter (ADORE) but my daughter promptly changed them to Joey Ross and Rachel (UGH). I am totally captivated, despite the mess which I loathe, and I’m also convinced that the bedding which is basically recycled, dried wood pulp, will be PERFECT for my compost (see below).
Enough. Here are my gardening endeavours this week.
Monday
It’s the last day of no school, and I am determined to be NICE. The easiest way to be nice with children is to let them have lots of friends around and make a mess. So this is what I do; friends in the morning, and friends in the afternoon, with telly in between. It’s not a bad combination and allows me (while they are upstairs, looking at the gerbils) to rush outside and grab the remaining bulbs from the shed. I rough up the compost inside a large pot, once filled with gladiolus callianthus, removing any lingering corms. I tip out the top few inches of compost, put in fifteen or so tulip bulbs and cover them up. Done. It’s not too late to plant bulbs as long as you get a wriggle on. My general feeling about this is that it’s a bit crazy not to put them in because it MIGHT be too late; there are two outcomes - either that you plant them and they come up a bit late, or you don’t plant them and they are guaranteed not to give you any joy at all. Your call!
I haul the children out to the park where they spend an hour on the climbing frame, throwing their shoes and coats around and whooping with laughter as I jog on the spot to stay warm. Children are like little seals; nothing makes them cold. Nothing. It is baffling and jealous-making for a shivering, blue-fingered human such as myself.
Tuesday
Oh to come home from the school run and just sit and hear the clock tick. HEAVEN. You can spot a mother coming home form the school run to do just this a mile off. Her pace quickens and she has that look in her eye - the one where she’s plotting her next fifteen minutes, before she puts a wash on, or cleans the kitchen, or calls the plumber or whatever. The fifteen minutes where she’s just going to sit there and do sweet, delicious NOTHING. I have a cough. It started with a sore throat on the plane back from Spain and has morphed into a great fat nemesis of a thing. I cough until I want to vomit…there is nothing there to come up…it is so bad that my mind has inevitably gone haywire with the sleepless nights. It’s not enough to know that ‘it’s a virus’…I want to know what the virus WANTS with me, what it GETS from me. I go to the doctor and ask him these questions and he rolls his eyes and tells me to YouTube it. I make chicken soup and spend a fortune on manuka honey. F**k me manuka honey is expensive. It’s so expensive that the pots on the shelves are empty and you have to take the pot you want to the counter and the shopkeeper has to open a safe so you can actually buy a pot of honey. My friend (who is jolly knowledgable with this sort of thing) tells me to smoosh a spoonful of the honey with a crushed clove of garlic and the juice and rind of a whole lemon, and then pour hot water over it and drink that. It is like drinking a hot marinade and it makes me reek of garlic but it seems to be helping so I’m giving everyone a wide berth and hoping for the best. I go out and cut three long sprigs of sarcococca (christmas box) to bring indoors. It has an instant effect - joyful sugary scent. I am aware that some find it overpowering (in the same way that I sometimes can’t take too much hyacinth). And some even claim that all they can smell is cat pee. It’s a reminder of just how subjective all of these things are, but even at the risk of offending others, I put it in my kitchen, figuring that it might mitigate the garlic smell emanating from ME. No gardening.
Wednesday
Whilst I am pretty stuck with the whole life-admin thing (there’s just too much…too too much and I need a wife/secretary to help me), my garden is benefitting from my procrastination. The admin pile mocks me from the dining room table and I walk past it an out into the garden to get my shears. One of my intentions for this year is to learn to love my hotbin. A hotbin is an enclosed composting system that has the potential to create compost incredibly quickly whilst being able also to break down the kind of kitchen waste that would normally end up in landfill (like cooked food, meat, fish etc…stuff you would never normally put on an open compost heap for fear of vermin). Anyhow, I’ve had my hotbin for over two years now, and have never got to grips with its needs. This bin has many needs. It needs you to chop everything up pretty small, and it also needs you to mix dry stuff with wet stuff. In short, it needs rather more attention than a regular heap, and it’s not the best option if you have a lot of garden waste to process. I’ve been getting around this by shoving garden waste at the back of my borders to break down, but that’s not a permanent solution. The only thing for it is to chop things up small, so instead of just yanking my gone-over argyranthemum from their pots, I chop them down, from top to bottom, using shears so that the waste can then be mixed with bulking agent and put into the bin. I do one pot and then another in quick succession. I have six pots of this gorgeous daisy. They have been the gift that keeps on giving and I have loved every moment of them, but it’s time for a change.
My plan for the terrace going forward is to retire the daisies and the gladiolus (not forever, just for this year) and cultivate a very minimalist look with ferns in large pots. I’ll be using a few smaller containers for tulips, but once these are over, I’ll be keeping it super-simple. I’ll also be sourcing some of my favourite glechoma hederacea for my large hanging basket.
Thursday
11+ is doing my nut. Just saying. I need it to be over, soon. My ten year old needs more attention than a small baby and I’m here to give it to her but my goodness it’s exhausting. She wants to talk about things and I have to stop myself doing a Harriet Walter “Let’s talk about it tomorrow, over an egg” thing with her. The weather is frankly delicious and I behead and remove the last of the daisies, pulling their containers from the terrace and washing it down until it shines. I plant another pot of tulips too. This takes rather more than five minutes and I am thoroughly restored by it. I collect the children but not before I have taken delivery of two evergreen ferns to begin the terrace takeover. The rain comes and I swallow more garlic and honey marinade, realising that my throat isn’t sore any more.
Friday
I open the compost bin because I need some more to top up the pots on the terrace. I am fully expecting to see that nothing has worked but instead, glorious, worm-filled black gold comes out. This hotbin thing really is worth it in the end. It’s perfect for mulching, but a bit wet for my containers (my fault, need more dry stuff in there) so I spread some at the base of a few shrubs and top the pots up with compost from other empty containers. The rest of the bulbs will just have to wait until next week. I plant my two new ferns, then a very swift five minutes of weeding one small bit of flowerbed before I have to collect daughter from her second exam this week. This weekend we will look at the moon because apparently it will be amazing. If you’ve not had sight of Lia Leendertz’s Almanack for this year yet, I do urge you to get one. Without it I would be rather lost when it comes to my penumbral lunar eclipses.
All the good things, dear newsletter friends!
x Laetitia
PS you might have missed details of my new book! The Five Minute Garden is out in March and available to pre-order now!
PPS I’ve had lots of enquiries about the cloches I use to protect my bulbs from marauding squirrels and children. Here is the blogpost which has all the info.