A stroll through ancient woods, and a nose at other garden city gardens

This weekend we took advantage of the pleasant weather, and decided, that, rather than repeat the usual 'weekend with one child'* ritual of shopping in our local shopping center, lazing around, cleaning, and home based play for our baby son, we'd shun reckless expenditure, and instead commune with nature. Well, in other words, we'd go for a walk in the woods. Although my husband still managed to cram in a bit of retail relief at M&S afterwards.

We're lucky enough to have an ancient wood more or less 10 minutes from our house - it's home to some greats of the English countryside, including the Sessile Oak. Along its border is an old railway line, so overall plenty of potential for a pleasant linear walk, or, a more rugged, muddy ramble through the heart of the wood, taking in the ancient trees.

Of course, we arrived with our somewhat feeble buggy, and me in my sandals. So after a brief five minute stroll towards the heart of the wood, where we saw perhaps 10 or so ravens flying around, like watchmen over a lair, the buggy wheels started to complain, and we ran into cloying mud. Towards the railway line we then went.

Now, the railway line is raised (as expected), and runs alongside the wood, but also at the back end of a long row of some of the more, shall we say, exclusive residences of our town. Exclusive in the sense of posh, huge and well fitted out, but also exclusive in the sense of location: merging your (huge) back garden with an ancient UK site of special scientific interest.

Anyway, I digress. This track allowed us not only to contemplate the beauty of an English wood in late spring; squirrels fighting and chasing each other, ferns, nettles, huge towering trees, but also, we had a right good nose at the back gardens of the Garden City Nobility.

I came home full of inspiration for new planting plans for the borders, which, I feel, need more architectural plants, and variations in height and colour. I also noticed that there seems to be a consistent theme of 'cottage' gardening here, which is good to see. So, despite reports to the contrary, we're not yet a race of concrete and gravel loving desert gardeners.

Nowhere else in my extensive travels of this, and other European countries have I seen consistently beautifully cared for gardens like those I see in my home town. Even the pieces of common land, integrated into the newer housing estates are lovingly maintained by a mix of the local authorities and residents, and even those with the smallest section of 6x6 ft soil at the front of their flat do something with it.

There is something contagious about living in a garden city. Without being asked, or indeed, forced to do so, its occupants, young, old, rich and less monied seem to somehow uphold the values upon which the town was founded.

*The weekends where my stepkids are with their mum

Running a tight garden ship

Well I am pleased to say that thanks in large part to my husband's efforts, our garden can now be compared to the aforementioned 'tight ship'.

The lawn was mowed, the edges trimmed, weeding undertaken, and seedlings planted.

As if by design it rained today, in order to give the garden a nice soaking after the relative dryness of the weekend.

I am now watching the Chelsea Flower show on TV. I would love to get down there on my day off with my son in tow, but, alas, like too many things these days, babies and small kids are not invited.

A red sailing ship off the east coast of the
Ile aux cerfs, Mauritius, Jan 2003

Now don't get me wrong - I don't fall into the camp of parents that think their kids should have guestlist to a whole range of otherwise 'adult' occasions. I for one, would never force my son's presence on a couple who, say, decided they wanted their wedding to be an adult only affair, and as an ex business traveller, I can understand a little the frustration an exhausted business person feels when a mum with a babe in arms plonks herself next to his flatbed in business on the JFK -LHR red eye...I digress, but you get the picture....so,back to Chelsea.. short of potential accessibility issues with a buggy, I cannot for the life of me understand why I couldn't go there with my son. I mean it's outdoors, it doesn't rely on quiet, or long periods of standing still listening to people speak or perform....my buggy is brown, so it would camouflage in nicely, and my son is a lovely cute little child, who tends to provoke adoration in even the sourest of adults. Hmmmm. I think it's all a bit snobby. I suppose they think a buggy pushed by a mum carrying a bit of post preg weight might 'lower the tone' somewhat. Oh well. We'll be giving it a miss then.

gardening in the age of instant gratification

Is it just me, or does anyone else find that just sometimes, just for a tiny moment, you wish that things would grow, flower, show their full potential a bit quicker?

......waits for flaming from the orthodoxy of gardening.........

Ok, well what I mean, or what I am pondering this morning, as I sip my huge vat of coffee, is how, in an age of instant gratification, do we cope with those past times, those activities, those phenomena of life which errrr, take a bit longer, or make you wait, and yet, there is nothing much that modern technology can do to speed up the process.

More than ever, if we want something, we get it - and we demand that we wait as little as possible for it.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a polemic about a human condition I see as repugnant and alien to my own. When pregnant with my darling boy there were moments when I daydreamed the possibility of fast forwarding things a bit (in a way which did no damage to either of us of course, and on another post I'll explain why my desire was acute at times). And I, like other mums, am delighted when the little one shows signs of mastering a skill ahead of his age. Also, I'd love it if someone told me I could lose all my pregnancy weight in two weeks, and as for that pushchair I've ordered, well it would have been great to get it today...... But then I am getting sidetracked. Or am I.

In fact, I see many parallels between a growing child and a growing garden. A child wont do anything before it's ready - you can't force them to eat solid food when they're not ready for it, nor can you train them to walk before time. And the same with the plants in my garden. As exciting as it would be to see them all in their full glory, this cannot be achieved by any means known to me so far. Some will flower by the end of the summer. Some wont do anything till next year.

But then, I wonder, if the marching of technology continues, will this be the case forever? Will we, some time in the future, be able to expediate the growing of children, the time spent in utero, the germination, blooming of plants and flowers.

Wow, a heavyweight piece of pondering for the morning. What got me thinking about this? Reading Gardener's World magazine last night, nearly every single plant or flower I saw that I liked were the kinds of things I would need to sow this year, and see nothing much of until next year. I found myself ignoring their possibility simply because I would have to wait to see them at their best. And this is where the parallel between garden and child is lost. One does not sit waiting for a child to come into 'bloom' or become an adult, ignoring all that they do in between time, or seeing it as the means to an end.

Rather we relish every day of their existence, seeing newness and beauty in all that they do, and in a way, cherishing their innocence, newness, their fragility. Perhaps it's time I applied the same motif to my plants, and rather than waiting for the glorious flower of the agapanthus, delight in the green of its leaves, the progress of its growth.