I have never really gone for paganism.

Not that I am particularly squeamish but have never really found the time to indulge in unspeakable acts with goats or whittle arrows from mistletoe. I have never danced naked at Stonehenge (in fact my entire experience of naked dancing has been a bit limited: which will come as a great relief to all). Spells, chants and hexes have never been in my repertoire. Although I don’t mind a bit of drumming and I am pretty good on Greco-Roman pantheistic mythology.

However, I have welcomed in the summer by celebrating the ancient festival of Beltane on the Isle of Colonsay. The idea is, obviously, another one of those mayday things: in this case the moment when stock is released back onto the hills for a bit of free ranging. Being pagan (and Scots) it also involved fire: last year’s celebration got a little out of control as a sizeable chunk of island heather caught fire. This year was quieter and involved six teams of two climbing to the tops of Colonsay’s six highest hills and waving burning torches around. All this began with an alarm clock playing Iggy Pop’s The Passenger at 3:30AM (i). This is not a hour when anybody should be awoken: in certain circumstances it is okay to go to bed at 3:30 but not to get up. It plays havoc with one’s body clock.

We then climbed a hill in the teeth of a brisk wind and lit the torches. It was rather a marvellous moment to see the other beacons twinkling in the distance while the sun slowly rose. Here is a picture. The two bright dots are other team’s torches.

I then went back to bed.

I have mentioned Colonsay on these pages before and urged you all to visit (there are cottages and a small hotel for your comfort). Typically none of you listened and that is your loss as the weather was truly sensational: especially in comparison to the drearily continuous rain that has beset the south. (ii) As a result I have a slight suntan and you do not.

Show season is now upon us: I am writing this in a conservatory, inside an exhibition hall within the Excel centre. It is Grand Designs Live and I am running my own personal design studio populated by very industrious newly qualified garden designers dealing with the varied problems brought to our door by visitors to the show. So far I have dealt with a small terrace, an overgrown hedge, a bit of woodland, some very narrow borders, a large shed, somebody whose plant knowledge only stretched to marigolds and a sloping terrace. I have also delivered a lecture about vegetables (along with Cleve West) and done a cookery demonstration (lamb wellington with steamed vegetables followed by a chocolate fondant).

All in a day’s work.

Thursday I go to Malvern to frolic and tart around in the theatre there: this year, for a bit of variety, I am also doing a bit of stuff for Gardeners’ World (to be broadcast, presumably, on Friday). Which is nice. A thought must be spared for the landscapers, organisers, nurseries and designers at Malvern because the build-up has been thoroughly miserable with rain every day. Plants are reluctant to flower (Cleve West’s beech hedge has arrived at Chelsea devoid of any leaves: a naked hedge) and it has been very tough. I hope that there is at least some sunshine over the weekend. Go along and be nice to them all.

I have had a request for a better picture of my rather fine fruit cage, it would seem churlish to refuse.

While we are on the subject of fruit: I went to a fascinating orchard the other day. It was at the East Malling Research Institute in Kent where I was on an RHS Council jolly. There were fruit trees trained in all sorts of interesting ways: goblets, espaliers, cordons, things that looked like small huts and these fabulous serpentine shapes. Hatton Fruit Garden, it was called, open once a year for the National Gardens Scheme. You should go if you remember.

That is very probably enough for the moment from me.

I am listening to the infernal rumble of people shopping for home improvement items.

The picture is of some very young grapes.

(i) This has long been my alarm setting of choice. I find it strikes just the right note of urgency and cheerfulness. If it was an animal I imagine it to be a very reasonable minded opossum. Probably quite mature for its age

(ii) Warning: weather can change frequently. The value of your investment in weather can go up and down.

Since we last spoke I have mostly been talking. I know that to some of you this will come as no great surprise: “Huh” you might say “That is no great surprise, the man seldom shuts up with his drivelling and whiffle”.

You have a very good and valid point but let me explain….

When I first started on my journey as a gardener my days were spent very simply in the company of Radio 4 (or loudly, and very pretentiously: Wagner (i) ), the odd Robin and the whirring clunks of my own brain. Then I started employing the odd person and there was chatter but life was still mostly peaceful. Then people started asking me to design stuff instead of just put up fences and that involved pleasing gossip around kitchen tables. Then I was asked to give lectures: more words, more chat, more talk.

All of this still goes on which is lovely. The added extra that is nudging into my life are MEETINGS. In capitals. I spend a lot of time in MEETINGS. Client meetings, magazine meetings, show meetings and, above all, RHS meetings. I even had a board meeting the other day: it made me feel very grown up and slightly queasy at the same time. The saving grace was the supply of very good cakes from Patisserie Valerie.

This week in particular has been very talky. It began at Grand Designs in Birmingham where I made a good start by falling off the stage. In my eagerness to point at something on the screen I fell into a barely concealed void. I felt much like David Douglas toppling into the animal trap (ii). Except that, fortunately, it was not occupied either by a wild bull nor decorated with sharpened stakes. The Grand Designs audience is interesting because they are not really gardeners: most of them are more interested in home improvements, enormous 3D televisions, solar panels or catching a glimpse of Kevin McCloud. That is not to say that they are not appreciative but the questions are more straightforward.”Can I grow roses in my garden?” was one “How do I make a raised bed?” asked another. To those of us who have been doing this gardening lark for a while these seem so basic as to be not worth asking but there are plenty of people who are eager and curious and completely in the dark. The other advantage is that I can be pretty sure that I know most of the answers and am unlikely to be caught out too often.(iii)

Secondly I went to Gloucestershire to give a talk in aid of the Maggie’s Centre in Cheltenham in the company of the journalist, Bon viveur and twinkle toed dance floor diva, Stephen Lacey and internationally renowned garden designer, Tim Rees. Tim has the added distinction of having been my course tutor at the Inchbald in 1984. He is polite enough not to remember the time I fell asleep on my desk and dribbled of the pages of the Gertrude Jekyll’s winter planting guide (iv) nor to recall my frequent absences. The three of us talked and had lunch.

But the day was not over: I delivered another lecture on the way home. This time at Armscote Manor in aid of the Shipton Home Nurses. I was the Dan Pearson body double as he was supposed to do it and was suddenly confined to bed with a soaring fever. My halo is glowing so brightly that passing aeroplane pilots have to wear sunglasses.

The next bit of talk was in Wales at the Llanover Garden School where I shared the bill with the redoubtable Matt Biggs who talked about fruit. I talked about Triumphs and Disasters. Another very good lunch. I have been to Wales twice this year and on both occasions the sun shone, the hills glowed, the sheep wandered around picturesquely, the rivers flowed and there was absolutely no sign of any rain at all. I don’t understand what everybody is complaining about and suspect it might be something invented by the Welsh to keep out the English.

I have also laid out a lot of plants and tried to see all my clients as I am about to vanish into partial purdah for a bit while I begin to grow my Movember moustache. If I remember rightly the first couple of weeks are really horrible, I have one lecture to deliver on the 5th November (for the London College of Garden Design where I am championing a potentially iconic garden). I apologise now to anybody considering this as I will look a fright. But in a good cause.

The picture is of a particularly dramatic sunset hitting the branches of a gnarly chestnut. I am listening to nothing as I am in Cornwall loafing around and everybody else is having a Sunday afternoon snooze.

(i) I remember particularly playing the Ride of the Valkyries at top volume while digging a hole in the garden of Florence Welch’s (as in Florence and the Machine) mother’s garden. I imagine it was quite as annoying for the neighbours as Radio One.

(ii)David Douglas discoverer of the Douglas Fir, Sitka Spruce.Lodgepole Pine and others died in Hawaii in 1834 by falling into an occupied pit trap.

(ii) The answer to Question one is Yes.

(iv) I still have the book. With stains. And library label.

Many months ago Joe, Cleve and I went to Wisley at the behest of the RHS to chunter on about vegetables. The result has finally been released as part of the RHS Grow Your Own campaign. Quite how many people will be inspired to start scattering courgette seeds by seeing this film I am not at all sure. Probably millions: it may even result in golf courses being ploughed up and turned over to strawberries and the verges of the country’s motorways strewn with healthy berries. It can be seen on the RHS website or right here (right now (i)). As a special Blog readers only offer this version is very slightly different (ii), it is, as it were, the directors cut so you will be able to brag to your less privileged friends about how very special and different you are. It is accessible only to you lucky readers by using this super secret link.

The animation and rather superior filming and editing is thanks to my elder son Archie and Robin Reeder.

In other places:

Speeding is a bad thing: I have learnt this in great detail having spent four hours in a sparse conference room at a golf centre just outside Milton Keynes. It is a bit like being put in detention but more interesting. I learnt about various Highway Code things which I had forgotten and other fascinating facts. For example: in an accident the box of tissues sitting on your parcel shelf acquires the density, speed and velocity of a flying house brick. The same would, presumably, be the case for a nodding dog. We did not cover furry dice on this occasion: an omission I hope that we will not come to regret. 

It has been pretty much the last week for many Tulips. At least I think so as the sunshine is doing them absolutely no favours at all. I have been beetling around the place checking on the little loves before it is too late. One client has just gone away for three weeks and is likely to miss every single one so I thought that the only decent thing I could do was to go and appreciate them on his behalf. I love the overconfidence of tulips.

I have also been massively appreciating the Bluebells. We live next door to a deciduous wood which produces the most exceptional Bluebells through which we walk every morning. There is also some rotter who, in previous years, has driven a Quad Bike through the wood squishing flowers like grapes beneath a steam hammer. This is not generally considered a good thing to do.

Oh, and while I am on bulbs I might as well show you some Anemones from a couple of weeks ago.: these are under a huge beech tree in my mother-in-law’s garden and are always amazing.

The coming weekend marks not just the wedding of Young William and his thin fiancee it is also the beginning of Grand Designs Live in London. If you would like a ticket then please ask soon or else it will be too late and then you will be sorry. The show runs from 30th April right through to the 8th May culminating in a live performance by Three Men Went To Mow. There will be free garden consultations and many people demonstrating kitchen equipment. I am present on the 2nd, 3rd,6th,7th and 8th if you wanted to bring me freshly baked cake.

This short life is bejewelled with small diversions: in particular accidental website visiting. The first time this happened was way back in 1995 when many fewer people had access to the internet. My brother was one of those: I remember sitting looking at this new phenomenon accompanied by my small children. The film Babe (cute pig, grumpy farmer, evil baddies etc etc) had just come out so we decided to try a babe related website.

For your future reference, this is a big mistake if one is trying to protect the innocent minds of small children. Good idea if your life is short of silicone enhanced naked humping.

These little incidents keep happening: one of my favourites is when I am ordering oil. The supplier is called yobco and their website is co.uk. Every time I put in yobco.com and every time I am pleasantly surprised. Go and look for yourselves and marvel at the attractiveness of the photograph and supreme dullness of the layout. Also had no idea that there was a place called Holidaysburg and now wish to visit especially after seeing the picture of the skyline on Wikipedia

The main picture is of Quince blossom.

I am listening to My City of Ruins by Bruce Springsteen.

(i) If I may borrow the words of Mr Fatboy Slim.

(ii) It is only slightly different, but it is definitely shorter which has to be a good thing in anybody’s book.