Tulips Archives | James Alexander-Sinclair

Hullo. I have decided to venture into one of the dustier corridors of my life – this blog. Time was when I used to check on its progress every day, I would write regularly and comment on other people’s stuff. This was in the heyday of the blog but, as most things in the modern (or indeed ancient) world things move on and we all now spend more time on social media than wading through blogs.

Still, it advertises itself on my website and therefore it is important to update these things occasionally. I have noticed that most of my posts over the last couple of years have been about travel. I have been lucky enough to swan around the world looking at and talking about gardens. Obviously that stopped a year or so ago – soon after I came back from Seattle where the North West Flower and Garden Show was probably the last (1) flower show before the world ground to a halt. Now we are slowly emerging, blinking like naked mole rats, into the light of normality. I have been very lucky in that I have not stopped working and, indeed, have become ridiculously busy as people spend more time at home and decide to do something about their gardens.

So today I have decided to go on a public transport jaunt…

04:50AM: The alarm goes off and I stumble out of bed. An apple in one pocket, a banana in the other and I am out into the cold morning. Unseasonably icy but bright and beautiful.

06:15AM: Milton Keynes station as I am catching the 06:23 train to Glasgow. Day trips to Scotland are something I have been doing for ages but there are very few aero planes at the moment so train is the only option. Four and a half hours each way but the views are interesting, the trains virtually empty and, because I am old, I get a special deal on first class so things could be worse.
And I am going to Glasgow to see my Horatio’s Garden and that is very exciting.

06:45AM: I have been given a breakfast box and a cup of coffee. The latter is pretty disgusting but better than nothing. The former contains two doughy croissants (the sort of pale imitation that would drain the blood from the ruddy complexions of the Parisian guild of boulangers), a yoghurt and some cheese spread.

08:04AM: I should be working but instead am writing this as we hurtle through Crewe and whizz past Warrington Bank Quay

08:48AM: Drawing on a train is really shoogly. The train manager is making frequent announcements in a Glaswegian accent as thick as a slab of black bun (2) which makes the message (that we are six minutes late) difficult to fully comprehend. Outside the window the Lake District is sparkling. Sheep, drystone walls, the River Lune and the picturesque open cast Kendal Mint Cake mines.

09:30AM: Carlisle. We always used to stop here on the way to visit my grandparents in Scotland. The most exciting thing was a bakery that sold bright green, mint flavoured meringues. They were laden with artificial additives and were probably revolting.

09:52AM: The novelty of this journey is wearing off mostly because the train is swinging around and is making me seasick. We are in the borders where there are far too many conifer plantations. Dark and depressing when growing, worse when harvested.

10:36AM: The edges of Glasgow are never terribly alluring but the station is a good one. Quite odd though as all shops firmly closed – except Boots where I found a bargain box of Sushi for £1.00. It never seems quite right to buy food from the same place as once might buy corn plasters or condoms but I was starving.

11:20AM: Horatio’s Garden, Scotland is glinting in the sunshine. Fresh birch leaves, loads of Narcissii, Fritillaries en fete etc etc etc. The best thing though is seeing Sallie and the other volunteers, to see patients picking flowers in the woodland and everybody happy.

5:00PM: I am back at the station where I am greeted by some extremely stoned people lying on the ground and doing a lot of shouting. Nothing like a bit of local colour. I am given an Afternoon Snack box which is considerably weirder than ther breakfast offering – it contains a fruit scone and some chicken pate.

7:30PM: The Lake District is still sparkling as we trundle south finally ending up at Milton Keynes at about 11:00PM which, if I am honest, does not sparkle much although that might just be me as it has been a very long day… only another hour’s driving before bed.

I was listening earlier to Just A Minute. The top picture is Tulip Slawa

for some unfathomable reason spellcheck decided that at this point I was not writing the simple word “last” but “lasagna”.
for those unfamiliar with this – it is a Scottish cake traditionally served to first footers at Hogmanay. It is basically a fruit cake wrapped in pastry because (obviously) a fruit cake on its own will not provide enough saturated fat.

My apologies but I started writing this blogpost a year ago and then forgot to post it – as you will see if you decide to read on it is quite season specific and would have been a bit weird if I had put it out there in the spring. So I have waited twelve months and the moment has come round again: as things tend to do in gardening so the story is still relevant.

Another early morning start in order to get to Horatio’s Garden in Glasgow by 9.00am. Increasingly as I get older I am becoming a creature of habit and don’t like my routine being disrupted which is, of course, a very good reason for so doing. It is good for me to do different things otherwise I will become unbearable and cantankerous too soon.

So it is mind broadening to force myself out of a warm bed at 4:30am, to forgo my breakfast and to bundle myself out into the darkness in order to get to Birmingham airport for the 7.00am flight. Quick snooze, bumpy landing, Croque Monsieur and a cup of coffee in Starbucks and off to the Spinal Unit and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

I have been meaning to write about Horatio’s for ages and have failed spectacularly. The background story is pretty well known now (details here) suffice to say that from an appalling tragedy and extraordinary thing has been born and I am so thrilled to be part of it. It has been a truly extraordinary experience full of remarkable people. Moments of extreme joy, moments of mild anxiety and waves of powerful emotion – I have wept a lot over strange things like Corian worktops and pond coping stones. I think, no actually I know, that it has been the most moving and most important garden I have ever designed.

The greatest pleasure has been watching patients emerge, like blinking moles, from the antiseptic gloom of the wards and beginning to use the garden. Be it for sitting, for cake eating, for salad harvesting, bird feeding of just watching the flowers move in breeze from the Clyde.

So, as you can see from these pictures, we have built stuff (at the least the endlessly patient Kenny McFadyen from Endricks Landscapes has built everything), planted everything shrubby and herbaceous so it is time for……… the bulbathon…

I have been plotting this for a while (along with Sallie the head gardener). My part of the arrangement is to organise the delivery of 12,500 bulbs, her part is to find enough people to help plant them. That may seem, justifiably, to be a slightly uneven distribution of labour but she was amazing and the place was swamped with volunteers, doctors and assorted gardeners. My job was to direct and supervise and also to actually get down in there and dig some holes and plant stuff – yah boo sucks to those doubters amongst my readers who thought I was too old and fey for such on carryings.

For those interested in lists we have planted
Allium Mont Blanc/atropurpureum/Purple Sensation/cernuum
Anemone blanda/nemerosa
Chionodoxa Forbesii
Crocus Cream Beauty/Remembrance
Eremurus Cleopatra/White Beauty
Fritillaria meleagris
Gladiolus The Bride
Iris Katharine Hodgkin
Iris Gordon
Iris Kent Pride
Lilium martagon Hansonii
Lilium martagon Manitoba Morning
Muscari
Narcissus February Gold/Cheerfulness/pseudonarcissus/Actaea
Tulip Abu Hassan/White Triumphator/Ronaldo/Spring green/Negrita/turkestanica/China Pink
All of them in abundance…..

It was a glorious couple of days with shiny weather, smiley people and the wonderful sense of anticipation that comes with bulb planting. All that glorious flower wrapped up in a brown nubble of concentrated energy. Bulbs are so basic – plant them, go away, have a jolly Christmas, endure the dark days of January and then come back to four months of continuous flower.

A note from a twelve month later…
Well that worked – come the spring we had sensational tulips, cracking daffodils etc etc. Weeks of joyous bulb filled ecstasy. Every day something new happened and all patients and visitors were thrilled. What a start to the season.
So now November has come round again and we have had Bulbathon part two and have planted another 6,000 bulbs – I was worried that we would not have room for them but I was wrong, there is loads of new space that needs planting. Nine volunteers and various patients and staff rallied round and my goodness they worked hard. For the listy among you here is another – we also planted more of the same as last year.

Allium afflatuense
Crocus Barr’s Purple
Narcissus Cheerfulness/cyclamineus/Altun Ha
Tulip sylvestris/Ronaldo/Royal Pretender/Purissima/Jackpot/Armani

The garden has now been open for a year. All four seasons have passed and I still adore everything about the place. The volunteers are amazing – their energy and dedication is indefatigable the patients are complimentary about the garden, the staff are amazing and our little bit of Glasgow is so much better than it was a couple of years ago. This is a garden that will, over the next years, make hundreds of peoples’ lives better and that is something that makes me very, very happy. And has also made me start sobbing again..

I am listening to Kiss with a Fist by Florence and the Machine*, the picture is of various tulips in jugs.

*I built a garden for Florence’s parents in Camberwell many years ago. If I remember rightly we did a very neat bit of stone cutting around a drain.

Today I attended my first RHS Council Meeting. In diligent preparation, I read whole wedges of paper about importantly important things. Some of them are stamped Confidential in large red letters. Being in the Cabinet must be a little like this, except without the sexy red leather boxes and the official Jaguars. I was rather looking forward to the experience in a slightly scared, top diving board sort of a way and it did not disappoint. There were biscuits (of good quality although mostly plain and without chocolate) and superior sandwiches/fruit for lunch. I will add the provision of proper chocolate biscuits to my list of campaigns:along with my selfless drive to improve the fudge selection at Wisley.

Apart from that: it is September, my clients have returned from holiday and the incipient panic that I foresaw in my previous post (which is here for those of with short memories or who are new arrivals at this blog) is erupting into life. Joy all round.

Currently I am searching for a tulip: the never ending and ultimately fruitless search for the perfect tulip. Every year I buff up my shining armour, buckle on my trusty cuirass and venture off into the various catalogues and low dives frequented by bulbs. I like to find something new otherwise one becomes complacent and dull by falling into the same tried and trusted combinations. There are always a few without which I cannot live happily (most notably the incomparable White Triumphator and the knee trembling Ballerina: both lily flowered and divine). Apart from them I try and discover a new one that gets drizzled into the general mix of things. In recent years I have gone through (among others) Jan Reuss (which, interestingly, fades to the colour of an emerging Queen of the Night), Negrita, Orange Princess, West Point (very briefly in a fit of madness as a yellow tulip is a pointless thing), Tennessee, Flaming Spring Green and Dolls Minuet.

There are certain rules that should be observed, I think, when considering tulips (forgive me is this is getting a bit horticultural but I am certain that I will return to general nonsense about biscuits or prehensile strippers at some point very soon). Firstly, I think the simpler shapes are the most effective (although I am quite drawn to Antraceit and Black Hero which are slightly ruffled like mildly flustered turkeys). Secondly, they should , in most cases, be brightly coloured. Thirdly, that there should be lots of them: they do not enjoy moderation. And, finally, that most parrot tulips (in particular the ones which look as if they have advanced skin diseases) should be confined to pots. Ideally pots situated quite a long way away from me. Like Afghanistan.

Another part of me likes to choose things purely because they have interesting names which is not, I know, a very scientific way of going about things. Sometimes it is tempting to get them and then make the situation fit the bulb rather than the other way around. I am being courted by Cardinal Mindszenty who I imagine is a children’s entertainer with spotted trousers and an ecclesiastical bent. Chanson d’Amour because I have unexplainable soft spot for Manhattan Transfer (i). The species tulips have the very best names, however, who could resist batalinii Honky Tonk, vvedenskyi Latvian Gold (its got a double ‘v’ for goodness sake: how marvellous is that?) or platystigma,sogdiana and kolpakowskiana.

I am currently keen on Tulip Malaika, not purely for the similarity in name to Balalaika and Troika and Malfeasance.

That has been agitating me for a day or so among other things. The whimsical end of plant Taxonomy. That is about it really, my wife and daughter are in Cyprus so I am rattling around slightly going to bed too late and working for too long. I am also being plagued by telephone sales people. Now, I have a lot of sympathy for such people having done the job myself for quite a while when young, feckless and not yet a pillar of the community. I sold advertising space by cold calling the yellow pages off and on for a couple of years (until I got chucked out for grabbing the boss by his tie and trying to swing him round the room): amongst the publications who benefitted from my silver tongue were the Diary of the Association of Monumental Masons and the St John’s Ambulance (Bedfordshire) Yearbook. My point however, is that I rather resent being greeted warmly and asked how I am by telephone salesmen. They don’t care one jot how I am and should not pretend otherwise, I don’t particularly want to tell them:. On the principle that attack is sometimes the best form of defence I have just told a solar panel seller that I was not at all well with major problems with both my liver and bowels. I also informed him that I had a nasty rash on one leg and that a fox ate both my hamsters. Seemed to stop him in his tracks for a bit.

The picture is of Tulip Abu Hassan. I am listening to Cold Irons Bound by Tom Verlaine and the Million Dollar Bashers.

On the off chance that any of you were a bit bored, here are some old posts.

In September 2010 I was at Highgrove with various eminences.

In September 2009 the second episode of Three Men Went To Mow appeared and I upset part of the Dutch Nation.

In September 2008 I took a cherry tomato to London where a sad story followed.

In September 2007 I was recently returned from St Tropez and troubled by Geography

In September 2006 I was getting wet and tussling with ballcocks

(i) I am not going to try and explain the unexplainable but, in mitigation, any group that can sing the lines “Ooo wah, ooo wah, cool, cool kitty. Tell us ’bout the boy from New York City” without giggling has to be worth our respect.

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.

Sometimes it is the small and insignificant moments that give the greatest pleasures. Of course there are times of earth shattering wonder but they are, I’m afraid, few and far between. Instead there are the little things: new bread, finding an orange flavoured Revel on the dashboard, electric blankets, ripe pears, new underpants, a letter, an overheard song, a telephone call, a chance meeting, sunshine etc etc. One of the other things that I would like to add to this (potentially) very long list is finding a real and genuine email in my Spam filter: lurking like a red Jelly Baby amongst the Viagra, Fake Rolex, winning lottery tickets and a selection of accommodating Slavic ladies.

Apart from that it is turning into a week of rushing from one place to another or, if you need an idiom, from pillar to post. The origin of this phrase is, I believe, to do with pillories (where one stood in order to be roundly abused by the village toughs) and posts (where one was tied for a good whipping). Quite why anybody would want to rush from one of these to another I have no idea: if it was up to me I would prefer to dawdle along the way rather than hurrying along – it would be good to recover from one ghastly experience before launching into a bit of whipping.

As I mentioned last week I have had bulbs landing on doorsteps all over the shop and have had to rush about scattering. In the past two days, for example, I have either self-scattered or organised the scattering of somewhere in the region of eleven thousand bulbs in six different places ranging from the far Cotswolds to the nether reaches of lower Leicestershire. I am rather hoping that I never have to handle another tulip but I fear that might be wishful thinking on my part – is is probably preferable to dealing with a large and ancient septic tank which has been another of my tasks this week. Amongst other gardeny things that have happened is the planting of about six hundred yews, twenty five metres of 2m high beech hedging, three laurels and one Sisyrinchium striatum. I was hoping to plant roses as well but the rose supplier has disappeared without trace (see past crossnesses and grumpling in previous posts) and has not answered telephone calls or emails for over a month so I have had to go elsewhere.

On the subject of grumpling there has been much of it going around: especially when it comes to Mr Titchmarsh’s new programme where he swans around various gardens explaining history and heritage. All well and good: interesting facts, nicely made, pretty pictures and the odd black and white photograph of chaps with good whiskers. The programme then darts off to other places to talk to other people – like the terminally enthusiastic Tom Hart-Dyke (who, for those interested in genealogy, is a cousin of mine) or the excellently bearded Graham Alcorn at Ascog Fernery on the Isle of Bute (who is not a relation but who I know from Mount Stuart).

Where the complaints seem to gather is when AT stops talking and explaining and suddenly starts making something in the style of whichever garden he happens to be in at the time: for example: a turf seat, a bit of trompe d’oeil, an ace of spades planted with Thymes or an example of false perspective. It is quite an odd concept but you can understand how it happens: as I mentioned in a comment on Helen’s blog it would have involved a BBC committee deciding that all this wandering around big gardens it was maybe all a bit high falutin and elitist and what was needed was a bit of practical help for the average gardener. It is an attempt to make everybody happy which, as every government from the Romans onwards have discovered, is very difficult and usually only succeeds in mildly annoying most people.

People get remarkably worked up about garden television – a quick look at the BBC Messageboard will illustrate this marvellously (although make it a quick look as there are some extraordinarily vitriolic folk out there). I am sure that there is not as much fuss about, say, programmes about history or antique furniture or beaches or fluffy bunnies or whatever. But it is really just a programme about gardens and the intention is to mix a bit of entertainment with a bit of information. For most people it succeeds, Alan is (whatever you may think of his jaunty hair) an excellent presenter and as it is the only garden programme we have then it is better than nothing.

Tomorrow we are filming the Three Men Went To Mow seasonal extravaganza: we are as yet uncertain exactly what form this will take but hope that inspiration will strike before we all freeze or get ejected. On Friday I am lunching at Wisley with no lesser being than the Director-General of the RHS: last time I did such a thing, with the previous incumbent, she had resigned within a month. Let us hope that history does not repeat itself otherwise I may well end up in a pillory.

My shoulder is fine (thank you to all those who expressed concern and interest) and is now being subjected to physiotherapy which involves a certain amount of constructive pain every week and some tedious exercises in between sessions.

I am listening to Spor by Warrior Dubz.

The picture is of some Crocii.

In 2007 my posts were mercifully short.