Familiar faces in March
Narcissus ‘Fragrant Breeze’ has beautiful wide cups in soft egg-yolk yellow - all the better for indulging in a long deep sniff!
After what seems to have been the longest winter, some familiar faces are brightening up the garden, and our mood!
Narcissus ‘Fragrant Breeze’ has beautiful wide cups in soft egg-yolk yellow - all the better for indulging in a long deep sniff!
A sweet little Easter tablescape of antique medicine bottles and a happy mix of Helleborus, Fritillaria, Narcissus, Tulips and Anemones
Colours and patterns galore: speckled Helleborus ‘Harvington Double White’, chequered Fritillaria meleagris and tiny yellow Narcissus ‘Minnow’
From the garden in February
A clutch of rain-splattered Helleborus feels like the sweetest gift on dark days
A clutch of rain-splattered Helleborus feels like the sweetest gift on dark days
An injection of brights from Rainbow Chard - citrine leaves, fuchsia and red stalks
Galanthus Nivalis - their delicately nodding heads are sweetly scented
Creative play - a small arrangement made with snippets from the snowy garden, in anticipation of spring
Flowers in lockdown
April. We gardened mostly. Re-scheduled 2020 to next year. A paschal moon rose. Lightening-jagged faultlines appeared in the soil after weeks of sun. The rain finally came.
I lost myself on a cool damp night
I gave myself in that misty light
Was hypnotized by a strange delight
Under a lilac tree
I made wine from the lilac tree
Put my heart in its recipe
It makes me see what I want to see
And be what I want to be
lyrics from ‘Lilac Wine’ written by James Shelton
April. We gardened mostly. Re-scheduled 2020 to next year. A paschal moon rose. Lightening-jagged faultlines appeared in the soil after weeks of sun. The rain finally came.
Driving from London to the farm it seems that only weeks ago the roads were carving through meadows of iced umbels, casting the first golden-pink light of the day on the wool of sheep in the fields. Now the woods are a blur of bluebells, the verges indistinct, a billowing daze of cow parsley, the occasional daub of lilac.
The cutting garden has become the epicentre of our lives during the crisis. It gives us a rhythm to hold onto, the anchor holding us steady. There is always much to do, so much more to be done. Creating and maintaining anything is fulfilling but caring for plants and relying on them for harvest is a great leveller too. And gardening is really just the constant draining and re-filling of essential tasks ad infinitum. It keeps your head down, keeps you connected to the earth. For Jess and I a fairly dogged work ethic is coiled into our DNA - we don’t stop, ever. And right now that’s something I’m grateful for. It’s a slower place - there is more time for eating well, for reflection and all that. But too much introspection isn’t good for anyone. Some hard graft, however – that’s always good for the mind (if not the body!).
New routines and rituals begin to replace the old. Today we’d be entering the third week of a relentless schedule of weddings and teaching that in normal times would last through until mid to late October. Every few days we say ‘today we’d be teaching this’ or ‘tomorrow we’d be cutting for so and so’s wedding’ I guess as a way to keep abreast of a reality that is no longer in existence. And who knows whether it will be again soon – I suspect not. And when it is it will be another time, it will be different.
We had this private little thing that we used to do in the studio before a big workshop. We would select one of the cones of incense we brought back from Japan and light it, the smoke would drift through the studio and out into the back garden. Jess, Yukiko and I would be going about our tasks but it was this moment of calm and centeredness. And gratitude - for our beautiful studio, for the flowers, for eachother, and for the people we would be lucky enough to share them with. We miss Yukiko so much.
Sometimes we talk about what’s ahead and sometimes what’s been and gone – reminiscing has become a bittersweet pastime. This usually revolves around food. Going to restaurants. Hardly essential but it’s what we miss the most at the moment besides parents and friends. Most other things are superfluous but eating a meal in a roomful of strangers is the one luxury I’d keep if I could. The intimacy and theatre and excitement of a restaurant is like nothing else. I am relishing reading The Restaurant: A History of Eating Out by William Sitwell at the moment. He is a wonderful writer. “One of the main attributes that separates us from animals is that we consume things for more than thirst or hunger. We derive pleasure from what we eat and drink. There is satisfaction in flavour, texture and the wider experience. Indeed, much of the story of eating out is predicated on the fact that it is fundamentally unnecessary. Whatever anyone tells you, we do not need to visit restaurants to survive - but they make survival considerably more enjoyable.'“
With the time now to spend far more of it cooking we are eating better than ever – healthy, nourishing food that is prepared slowly, whilst working our way through a delicious bottle of something, and reading a book at the same time. But the meals out ‘before’ have taken on a mythic quality in memory. I can’t stop thinking about a bowl of pasta at Campania & Jones – whilst excitedly planning our autumn workshop in Paris with Clementine. An excellent steak at The Brackenbury Wine Rooms when the Icelandic family owners took over the next-door table, with a gradually increasing number of small children and emptying wine bottles. That was one of the last nights before the lockdown and they were certainly making the most of it. Yukiko’s first bowl of kedgeree at 202 – that was just before too. I read this great article recently by Ruthie Rogers, owner of the amazing River Cafe. Yes, I thought - that explains it. Food is all about people. Flowers are too.
April saw many beautiful flowers that didn’t have homes to go to and that was regrettable. Although we did enjoy working on a few creative projects of our own and luxuriated in arranging flowers for the sheer love of it again. There were tulips, anemones, hellebores, narcissi, spiraea. Brown, gold and lipstick-red ranunculus. But above all we were in thrall to the iris. Silvery blue, tall, architectural – we adore them. I brought a bucketload home with me last week and am hoarding them until the petals shrivel at the edges.
At this time of the year you can feel the shift in energy in the garden, the sudden surge of momentum. After the rain the plants puff out immediately and then its as though they double in size day by day. Everything begins to flower at once. It’s like an orchestra. The symphony begins!
May is all about the most exquisite of flowers - the bearded iris. There will be camassia too, aquilegia, geums, sweet peas, corncockle, the first roses of the season. But don’t let me get carried away! That’s a whole new chapter.
Milky skies & netted iris
It’s a colourless February day - a milky sky and everything is just stone and silt, bare branches, low cloud.
But the birds are singing. Maybe I’m imagining it but it doesn’t feel as though the birds have been this vocal in a while. A few days lately it has been sunny, light, a glimmer to the air - you could have been lured into thinking it was spring. Not yet - we learned that lesson last year when all emerging shoots disappeared under a blanket of snow mid-March.
In the garden so much is happening now, even if it is just out of view, just beneath the surface. It makes me think of the metaphor of the swan gliding over a flat pond. All seems calm and serene, though below the water-line there is a wild mayhem of peddling and effort and churned bubbles.
In the GARDEN
It’s a colourless February day - a milky sky and everything is just stone and silt, bare branches, low cloud.
But the birds are singing. Maybe I’m imagining it but it doesn’t feel as though the birds have been this vocal in a while. A few days lately it has been sunny, light, a glimmer to the air - you could have been lured into thinking it was spring. Not yet - we learned that lesson last year when all emerging shoots disappeared under a blanket of snow mid-March.
In the garden so much is happening now, even if it is just out of view, just beneath the surface. It makes me think of the metaphor of the swan gliding over a flat pond. All seems calm and serene, though below the water-line there is a wild mayhem of peddling and effort and churned bubbles.
We harvest the first sparse offerings of the season. In tunnel one the Iris reticulata are flowering - ‘Painted Lady’, ‘Alida’ and ‘Clairette’, planted by Jess back when I was sheltering from autumn storms in Greece. The last two are sweetly perfumed and the darkest blue reminds us of our grandmother; it was her favourite colour.
The first few anemones are blooming too, so frail their petals are almost translucent. Lots of hellebores in muddy taupes, plum and black. Galanthus (snowdrops) including ‘Sam Arnott’ which we collected from the Chelsea Physic Garden last year after the annual talk by Joe Sharman. Also ‘Flore Pleno’ - very perfumed and with a rosette centre - and ‘Nivalis’; the name comes from the Greek words gála or "milk", and ánthos "flower" and the Latin nivalis "resembling snow". They are just heavenly - pure poetry. We dream of a bride one day ordering a tiny, intricate bouquet of snowdrops tied with silk; hard to imagine anything more beautiful, seasonal or meaningful than that.
Elsewhere the narcissus, tulips and alliums are shooting up, the ranunculus looking happy and healthy for the most part. We prune the roses back. Scores of new plants arrive weekly, seeds are sown - calendula, scabious, rudbeckia, phlox and Californian poppies. Successional sowings of sweet pea seedlings shoot up in their root trainers, flaming reds specially sown for a late May bride (whispered to, cajoled). Everywhere things are budding - the lilacs, honeysuckle, raspberry canes. Signs of hope and promise.
In the STUDIO
It feels good to be back at work after a few weeks away. For us January is a carefully guarded month of hibernation and recuperation. Time for catching up with friends, cooking and road-trips, reading the piles of books we collect throughout the year and that stack up beside the bed unfinished, long walks, drinking whisky by the fire in the evening. Jess returned from her travels in India, browner and somehow lighter too; the break did her good. This time away has become completely necessary to us to get the distance we need from the day-to-day running of the business, to re-set and re-energise, come up with new ideas. I used to loathe it, now I love this time of the year - the drawbridge up, the gentle pace.
Sometime around the 1st of February, every year, there is a surge on the wind that speaks of change. New beginnings; time to get back in the saddle. There’s always a lot to do before the season begins - staffing, logistics and design planning for spring and summer events, a backlog of quotes and proposals to work through, maintenance work at the studio, setting up systems to make things easier for us all in the heady months ahead. The studio remains closed but although it isn’t visible yet we’re gaining momentum behind closed doors. As always the pattern and pace of our work exactly mirrors what is going on in the garden
In the studio we dust off snips and press the first cuttings; preserving them to use later in the year for stationery and table settings. We open the doors wide and let the fresh air sluice through. Sit in the sunny little garden out the back, surrounded by pots of emerging tulips, muscari and narcissus. Throughout the month we’ll be ticking off jobs: sweeping and de-cobwebbing, plastering and painting a new wall, dropping off any unused props at the charity shop. It’s like getting into an old car and letting the engine warm up slowly. We’re looking forward to firing up and being off again - so many new and exciting avenues to explore this year.
Next month we are heading to Japan and then on to South Korea to teach our first workshop of the year on Jeju Island. If you have any tips of gardens to visit, or great places to eat in Tokyo, Kyoto or Seoul we’d love to hear your recommendations!
We’ll be posting a monthly journal from the garden and studio here on the blog this year, along with a photographic series of the gardens we visit and are inspired by (stayed tuned for some glorious Rajasthani gardens next week that are sure to warm the cockles).
We’ll also be sending out a quarterly seasonal newsletter with updates, upcoming events, pop-up shops, workshop dates and more. If you’d like to be kept in the loop please sign up at the bottom of this page. We promise we won’t send you any junk.
In the Ether
A few things we’re loving at the moment…
R E A D I N G - Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit, The Land Where Lemons Grow by Helena Attlee and Natural Selection: A Year in the Garden by Dan Pearson
L I S T E N I N G T O - Goldfrapp (Supernature) and Moloko (Things to Make and Do) and the Pardon My French Podcast with Garance Doré
C O O K I N G - Anna Jones’ Smoky Corn Chowder from The Modern Cook’s Year, and Dahl Makhani
B U R N I N G - cedar-scented incense sticks from Flint, Lewes and Cire Trudon’s Ernesto candle
A V I S I T T O - Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams at the V&A (on now until 14 July)
