Dead trees and a smorgasbord of mints

My Acer died. I'm pretty gutted. It was a really beautiful small tree (3 feet ish) with the most elegant structure and such lovely changing shades of leaf. It has been living in the inside left corner of the balcony - the most sheltered spot possible, as it didn't like to be blown around too much. Maybe it is the wind that got it, in the end. Or the January snow I wasn't here to clear. Or too much water. Too little? Or just old age. Perhaps the grape hyacinths planted around the base strangled it. There was no drama, no visible disease, it just didn't come back to life this year. Gently it went into that good night.

It was nearly as old as me. And that is pretty old. My mum gave it to me a few years back when she was garden-less for a time, and I can see it, in my minds eye, in all of the (many!) gardens we had through my childhood. A very familiar old friend. Mum assures me that it had a great innings, especially considering its been in the same pot forever. Can't help feeling a bit guilty though, killing someone else's plant. RIP.

On the plus side though, it'll free up a big pot for something new. Heartless. But true. Carrots perhaps..?

Bound for smaller pots, at least for the moment, are these lush new herbs:

I picked them up from the lovely folks at the Herbal Haven stand at last weekends London Green Fair. They were extremely bargainous and are all lovely, healthy looking little buddies.

So - to formal introductions, clockwise from top left, we have: greek basil (a surprising sturdy little bush of a plant), tarragon (which I want to cook with more), dill (ditto with the cooking), chocolate mint (very excited about this one! It'll be heading for an ice cream maker this summer), lemon thyme (I think. Can't actually remember what this one is and it's label-less... Any confirmations/contradictions welcome) and spearmint, (about which I have nothing extra to say. Sorry spearmint.)

It is probably just as well I only have a balcony. If I had a full size garden I would spend every penny I have on plants. I could have easily bought another 20 herbs from the Herbal Haven guys. It was so exciting to see such an incredible variety of herbs! This is probably less than half of their mint section:

Pretty cool huh.

I await the day when I have an entire section of an enormous herb garden dedicated to mint. Until then, I will tend my little collection of pots with a near smothering degree of attention. And dream of more space...

Sunny, summery. LOVELY.

It's been a while since I posted. For various good, bad and odd reasons, not least the biblical rains...

The balcony seems a different place now. Like when babies stop looking like babies and start looking like people, the onset of summer (we basically missed Spring, right?) has spelt a huge leap in the balcony's development. Helped also by the fact that it's such an absolute joy to be out there in this weather that I am smothering it in attention. Check out the overflowing beauties on the window side:

I am now (tragically or thankfully, not sure...) old enough to understand what my mum meant when in the rainy days of our childhood, in response to our moaning, we'd hear that "at least the plants are happy". One day I'd love to be a gnarled old farmer who can squint at the horizon and predict the seasons ahead, or refer back to weather anomalies decades past and recall the effect they had on growth and bounty. Though not there yet, it seems fair to infer, based on my own growing projects and all the green in London, that a very rainy month followed by a very sunny week doth some extremely happy plants make. Word. 

There's so much to write about! I'll select some choice cuts now and blog a whole lot more regularly to catch us up. 

So. I bought a saw! Might not seem an exciting move to most but it's opened a world of possibilities to me. I christened it by halving a set of fairly unattractive shelves from our bathroom. The 2 halves are now reborn on the balcony and have provided some much needed levels on the eastern wall, and some essential shade-eluding height on the front side. It's so satisfying to recycle crap from the flat like this. New levels visible in the photo above, along with some lovely (but flimsy) blue crates I plucked from a bin in Dalston. They make the odds and ends in ugly plastic pots a whole lot prettier.

I have been getting increasing interested/excited about the edible side of things, and can report that the perpetual spinach is both thriving and delicious. And seems to grow enormous new leaves every day! It has graced salads, stir fries, stews and soups, and the best thing about it is the utter lack of that funny gritty raw-toothed thing you sometimes get with cooked spinach. (I'm intrigued about the science of that - anyone?)

Having been told by books/seed packets/parents/strangers that I must wait to plant out my tomatoes until "all risk of frost is past" (This exact phrase, from everyone. Weird.) I'm hoping it's safe to assume the time has come. The hanging basket which has been dwelling sad and skeletal in the corner is now hung and proudly stuffed with 'tumbling toms'. Which look confusingly upright so far, but shall hopefully start on their artful tumbling soon...

I've added a few new herbs too, one is which is this amazing Vietnamese coriander. Which looks nothing like 'normal' coriander. I think its beautiful, with a sinuous sprawl so different to my other herbs, and snake like markings to match.

I'm finding growing vegetables and herbs ridiculously exciting! I want to do so much more. My rocket seedlings are sprouting, and the pepper plants are entering adolescence. I have a seed potato potted up (literally only one - space issues!) and have packets of courgette and pak choi seeds ready to be sown. It's going to be a delicious summer in every way!

Vegetables - the early days

I have had some spinach plugs sitting outside for a couple of weeks now. I think the deal with these guys is that you plant them straightaway, but that was not to be. I've been procrastinating a while, partly as I'd planned to build a wooden planter for them (last weeks weather thwarted me). I took one look at their squished little faces this afternoon and realised that today should be the day. The sooner they're potted up the sooner we can eat them! They are now happily stretching their legs...

I hope they have enough space in there. One of the things about growing veg in pots is that if you were to follow the spacing advice, well, you'd just have 12 pots of spinach and not much else. And tasty though it is, that'd make for a fairly monochromatic scheme... My mum reckoned I could squeeze a few into this pot, especially if I cut leaves before they're huge. Which is when they're nicest. A win-win spinach situation!

On the other side of the window, there's been some serious excitement in the tomato department. Serious. Two (two!) seeds have sprouted.

Out of a possible fifteen, but I have hope. Those two Toms might just be quick off the mark. The seeds are out of date (does that really matter?) and I've rarely grown much from seed so didn't quite trust the magic to happen. But it has. (YAY!!) The packet suggested a propagator but it seems my little-pots-in-a-big-tray-with-clingfilm version has done the job. Fingers crossed the other seed siblings will crawl their way to the surface and a fruity life.

I've got some rocket seeds to plant up too. The excitement of the tomato babies has definitely inspired me to plant more seeds. Also, it would obviously be amazing to have a greenhouse, but I kind of like having my version on the living room table - I get to see it all happen, clock the changes, and (crucially!) it prompts me to remember to look after them...

In other news, I had a visit from Monsieur Nutkins the other day. Balcony gardening renders me exempt from lots of wildlife damage (slugs are thankfully rare) but its nice to have visitors sometimes. I'm growing flowers for the bees (the poor bees!) and I might get a bird feeder. Nutkins hasn't wreaked any destruction yet, so he's fine by me.

Hello my bushy tailed friend. Don't you go nibbling my veggies!

Raindrops on roses

Rain is not one of my favourite things, but after the unseasonal dearth of it lately, its hard to resent. Though I've luxuriated in all this sunshine, it's been hard to ignore the drought warnings that have appeared. It's April! Drought? Here, now? Bonkers.

No-one could deny the smell of happy relieved plants when the heavens opened yesterday.

Trembling pearls of water caught in the curves of my aquilegia, soon to roll off.

Raindrops on roses. (Don't it give you that Maria feeling..?) Rain really freshens the colours of the leaves. I love their softly winestained edges.

The first buds on these freesias have only just burst into bloom. They were all I could smell out there!

I've lost more plants to the sun than I should have since living here. Going away without arranging a waterer or just being lazily forgetful over consecutive scorching days, I've felt horribly guilty discovering them wilting, parched and sometimes unrescuable.

I've been careful to water religiously through the recent dry spell, and have also been adding water retention granules into pots old and new as a backup. Pots are very vulnerable, they don't have the option of plunging their roots deeper to quench their thirst. I've trapped them 3 floors up and have a responsibility to keep them alive. Even when it does rain, some plants by walls miss out due to angle issues... I must be vigilant!

I remember my geography teacher talking about the drought of 1976, and how her father had collected the family's bathwater for weeks to keep his garden alive. We should all do that. There's so much waste. It'll be a serious jug relay though!

I feel sad for people with bigger gardens than mine for whom this hosepipe ban will spell disaster. (I will think of them happily whenever it rains!) At the same time I understand that all resources are finite and we need to be more mindful of this. There's some really useful advice on the RHS website about dealing with drought.

And check out the amazing dry garden at Hyde Hall - apparently they don't water it at all!

Progress!

Friday was long and hot and I was off work. I spent literally all day on the balcony, from my first cup of tea to sweeping it down at dusk. It's the longest stint I've had for quite a while. Ever, even! It's rare to have a completely free day that coincides with decent weather, at least at this time of year.

People look at how small my balcony is and can't conceive how I manage to find so much to do out there! But it's deceptive. Pots are fairly high maintenance and dry out fast, and then there's my plant buying habits - newbies have to be potted up, and I end up rearranging loads of pots to find them the right placement... Weeding and pruning too, and trying to remember to feed things occasionally. Because I love to be out there, I do go looking for jobs to do sometimes, tiny trims, bits of sweeping. Turning pots a few degrees... Or just looking at it all living, breathing, growing. All the little miracles.

At the moment there is no time for such leisurely pursuits, there's too much to do! It seems like in a matter of weeks its all gone from an almost-graveyard to full of fresh life. One of the major jobs on Friday was repotting my jasmine. It was desperately in need of a move and some more legroom, and has now had both. I've moved it to the end wall where we have our table. I've decided to focus on making that end nice first so we have a green and flowering bit to sit in. I've struggled to make clematis happy against that wall for years - I had visions of a generous frothing tangle of it but the reality has been a few tragic straggling vines that succumbed to mould and didn't come within a mile of my imaginings. So to hell with them! If the trusty jasmine survived it's old spot then hopefully it will thrive now its more sheltered and secure. As you can see in the picture above (jasmine in pride of place) we also have an ugly satellite dish that I'm determined to camouflage as much as possible, hopefully with lots of fast growing jasmine fronds...

I've also moved the big rose into that corner, and fashioned a raiser out of an old palette to hold up a couple of other pots. One of the things I want to really work on this year is having varied levels, not just a bunch of sad little pots sitting on the floor.

I also went plant shopping. (Again!) I'll introduce them properly soon but here's a sneak preview:

That smorgasbord of loveliness includes some vegetables. Very excited about them! Looking forward to my first homegrown meal.

Disarray. Rearrangement. Release.

It's strange getting used to daily watering again! This crazy lovely weather. Lucky us. The fabled Big Balcony Clear Out has reconfigured into a series of very brief efforts. So progress has been slow. But you know, every journey starts... Rome wasn't... ummm... and other such excuses for my idleness...

Anyway, patches have been swept. Much debris has been disposed of. Many many small plastic pots have been carefully stacked.... There's a way to go still but the bare bones are gradually appearing and I'm excited to see how much flexibility I'll have now. Some of the huge pots that were here when we arrived are finally movable, plants having either given up the ghost, or been so brutally pruned that they're released from their supports. With only one plant left that can't be moved I can now almost start from scratch placement wise. I need to remind myself of how much light and shade everything wants before I get carried away with the reshuffle - I'm sure I've been torturing some of them unknowingly.

This jasmine has been clinging onto tension wires at the front of the balcony for as long as we've known each other. Some overdue and ruthless cutting back has now effected a release. I think it will be happier in a slightly less exposed area. It's been pretty blown about over the years, a real trooper. I'm sure it's also desperate to be repotted and nourished - I shall give it a whole new world. The fresh growth is so bright!

More growth spurts over in the rose pot. This one is called 'Winchester Cathedral' or something similar. I lost the label. It's succumbed to various rots, moulds and bugs in the past, so I thought that cutting it back lots might make for a fresh and healthy start. So far so good - two strong new shoots are barreling up from the base. I would like to be ready to tackle said ills if they reappear, I'll look into it - there are obviously chemical options but I'd like to adopt some less poisonous weapons if possible.  Any suggestions welcome!

To round up a happy three thrivers, see the gorgeous green of my reanimated "Philadelphus Beauclerk" (I'm thinking I'll just call him Phil). It dried out completely last year, I thought it was a goner but look:

Back with a vengeance!

A tale of four garden centres

(I noticed that puns are all the rage in the world of post titles. So I thought I'd get involved. Sorry.)

I love a garden centre trip. I have really happy memories of them from when I was small - we lived near a large one - mum would let me choose plants, we'd wander around looking at everything and I was obsessed with the random sweet collection at the tills. There I had my first encounter with a kendal mint cake. They have a very distinctive smell, garden centres. Halfway between freshness and rot. But sort of delicious. Peaty and alive. And minty. Mmm. Forest Lodge, Farnham. Halycon days.

Since I've lived in London, I've usually gone to the Camden garden centre - a really nice place, and home to an excellent charity. Like most London ones it's not huge, but I've bought some lovely plants there. And pots. They have a good selection of pots.

I did have a brief visit to one of London's less salubrious options a few years back. On a birthday. If I had gone alone I would now doubt it's existence. Think I'd dreamt it. But my mum was with me and assures me it was real. Mum will likely appear a lot in this blog! She is my trustiest gardening buddy. Back to this unreal place. It's in Limehouse, at least it was. Hidden away behind the station. I don't know if we visited during a blip, but it was a bit like the Marie Celeste. Dusty and deserted. Plants either dead, overgrown or spilled. If we'd been prone to petty thievery I'd have gone home with quite a haul. While we wandered through this shadowland, we became increasingly convinced that we may stumble across the cobwebbed skeleton of the unfortunate owner, struck down and undiscovered in his forgotten kingdom. But we didn't. What we found, when we picked our way back through the tangle to leave, was a locked gate and a note in the bars (intended for those outside), explaining that said owner was in the caff round the corner, and to call for entry. Or egress as it was. Which we did. And once the happily alive old boy ambled up, we showed our gratitude by purchasing some twine. Seemed the safest option. If it still exists and you're in the area, hunt it out. It may not be the most fruitful garden centre trip, but I guarantee it will rate high in the realms of the weirdest.

And so to the original point! I went to a new garden centre this week. New to me that is. The N1 in De Beavoir town (an unlikely and excellent place name!) is smaller again than the one in Camden. But beautifully kept. I had intended to get some boring bits and pieces - coir fibre, compost, vermiculite. But 2 of the three they didn't have, and the bags of compost were too big to carry home. So instead I bought plants. Naturally. I'm determined this year to make a sensible plan for what I should get for the balcony, and then shop accordingly. I was also planning to not buy any plants until I've properly tidied up out there, and got things in order a bit. But temptation won, and I came home with a couple of new green friends. I was sensible though! I bought herbs. Herbs are innately sensible. Here they are. I've done a little before and after sequence for your viewing pleasure...

Don't they look happy in their new homes? And hasn't that sneaky switcharound made my hi-tech transformation sequence all the more magical? I love how the thyme makes a puffy little cushion. And the bay looks so healthy and happy. I also sowed some (slightly out of date but fingers crossed) chive seeds to keep them company.

Looking forward to watching them grow! And eating them. Which sounds a bit sadistic. Sorry herbs.