I am now running precisely a week behind – which is not bad considering.

Last Thursday I went to the very pretty town of Stamford in Lincolnshire. Honeyed stone and winter sunshine – very pretty. The reason for the visit was to get together with Nigel Colborn to thrash out the meat behind our nascent stage show called Green with Envy.

Think of us as the horticultural Ant and Dec.

The plan is to perform a hybrid lecture/advice session/anecdotal moment show at theatres around the country. There will be stunning photographs, jokes of dubious taste, much rushing around, sound gardening advice and general disobedience.

The audience will be reluctant to go home at the end of the evening.

At least that is the plan…

We already have bookings and the whole thing begins on the 1st March at the Arts Centre in Stamford – hence the need for rehearsal.

It will be fun for both audience and performers – hurry now and book your tickets early to avoid dreadful disappointment.

The dates so far are:

March 1st: Arts Centre, Stamford – www.stamfordartscentre.com

March 20th: Garrick Theatre, Lichfield – www.lichfieldgarrick.com

April 18th: Bacon Theatre, Cheltenham – www.bacontheatre.co.uk

May 2nd: Forum 28, Barrow in Furness – www.barrowbc.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=120

May 3rd: Lowther Pavilion, Lytham St Anne’s – www.fylde.gov.uk/Category.aspx?cat=1452

June 27th: Ludlow Festival

I am listening to the very smug Nigel Havers reading his autobiography on Radio 4. The picture is of the River Welland looking picturesque in Stamford.

I promised you new and possibly momentous news and I do not wish to disappoint the two blokes and a dog who hang around here waiting for something to happen.

It is very exciting. Although I have been fearfully disorganised/busy and should have published this on launch day a week or so ago. I feel a bit like the chef expounding about the flavour of the cake just after everybody had been distracted by the girl emerging from the top.

But I am going ahead anyway so please clap politely…

The news is a brand new, shiny and pretty innovative thing called intoGardens. It is a mixture of many things – sort of like sphinx or a manticore or the telekines, but much prettier. And with fewer bolt on animal parts.

It is a mixture of App and magazine,website and game. It is something completely new and ridiculously gorgeous – and, although I must admit I am occasionally prone to exaggeration and the odd flight of fancy I do not think that in this case I exaggerate unduly. However, I will admit to a certain pride and parental bias.

We have fabulous pictures, writing (from good people such as his excellency, Nigel Colborn and her magnificence Jean-Ann van Krevelen), gardens (one underwater, a couple in England and another in Elba), some fruits (including Mr Diacono), practical help (of both vegetable and ornamental varieties), soap operas, video content and audio book extracts. And you can buy stuff directly from within the App just by hitting a button. Whoosh.
Or Whoooooooooooooosh if you have a slow Internet speed.

It moves and talks and sighs romantically at you over lowered lashes.

This is, of course, not a solo effort as I have inveigled various gullible types to contribute and help out. Most notably Tiffany Daneff who is the editor, Ubinow (the developers) and Archie (my elder son) who is in charge of making sure all the assembled stuff is assembled in the right order. My thanks to everybody and, in particular, to the rest of my extremely tolerant family.

If you happen to have an iPad you should download it (for a mere £2.99) and if you don’t then there is a film of what you are missing here. You are missing a lot.
It will be published quarterly for the moment. We also have impeccably groomed Facebook and Twitter feeds

I am sitting on a bus travelling between Seattle and Vancouver while watching a film called Too Many Crooks which stars Terry-Thomas, Sid James, George Cole and Bernard Bresslaw. Terry Scott (as in Terry and June) has a short role as a plump policeman and Nicholas Parsons is a Tax Inspector.

(i) The backyard musical was a popular genre in the 1940s. Most of them starred Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Tupically a bunch of kids need to raise money for some good cause. They are let down by some impresario at which point one of them says “Hey, I got an idea. Let’s do the show right here!”

There is then much rushing around transforming the horse barn/old shed/school hall/whichever into a theatre and then they put on a show which is received with tumultuous appreciation and it all works out just fine. In Strike up the Band , for example, which culminates in a Busby Berkeley Conga.

There may be some chaste kissing as well.

At intoGardens we hope for all these things.

I know that I have, again, been horribly neglectful of this blog. Nearly two months since my last confession. Apologies to those that noticed. In the intervening time I have been doing various things that have now lost their immediacy and probably do not deserve your full attention. I have also, because it is August been pondering stuff – not in a terribly deep and world changing way, just because I have to fill my brain with something while staring out of windows or waiting at traffic lights.

Here is a short list in no particular order-

The most important is that there is a new episode on intoGardens out for your amusement and delectation. You have never heard of intoGardens? my you are so out of the loop. Go, now and get an iPad and download it immediately.  You will find wildflowers, bees, food, weeds, ponds as well as Monty Don reading from his book and sundry other things to make you oscillate with pleasure. There are also new magic parcels on the iPhone App. What? surely you have not missed that as well? My goodness you are about as hip as the Venerable Bede. It is now also available for Android phones as well. For all the details go here, now.

Why do I often end up sitting next to very large men on trains who take up more than their allocated space? They somehow overflow the seat with wavelets of excess which make me feel squeezed and small. Is it acceptable to get up and sit in another seat or is that a terrible faux-pas likely to unleash deep anxiety ?

Matching ties and hankies (or ‘Pocket Squares’ as I believe they are called in the trade). I think this is probably okay if the tie pattern is relatively understated. Polka dots perhaps. It is not acceptable if the tie is a kaleidoscope of mauve and green. Many years ago I had a blue and white Paisley pattern shirt with matching tie (for formal occasions) and cravat (for casual engagements). The cravat was fastened with a gold ring. I think my mother bought the combination in Guildford. I looked like a miniature member of Manfred Mann.

Transparent white gauzy trousers which allow people following you up the escalator to know not just the colour of your underwear but the exact seams on your gusset.

Bricks – this may seem like a dreary subject to many of you but I have long been interested in bricks. The names, for a start, are interesting Stafford Blue, Common Flettons, London Mixed Stocks, London Yellow Stocks, Waterstruck bricks, wirecut extruded, cherries etc. Some people take this much farther than a random thought and there are places on the internet populated by people obsessed with bricks. Interestingly somebody once told me that there are two products in particular that are uneconomic to transport very long distances. One was bricks – as they are so heavy that you cannot get enough on a lorry – and the other was lavatory paper because it is so bulky.

I wonder who discovered cheese. Obviously it was due to some sort of accident when the milk was left unattended. Like Alfred and the cakes.

Phonecards – I was casually gazing at a telephone box the other day while waiting for a tractor to cross the junction and remembered the Phonecard. A green plastic card that supplanted the search for 10p bits that preceded making a telephone call. You could buy them in newsagents for a pound and I believe that they became valuable currency in prisons (up there with tobacco, stained copies of Razzle and Ketamine). They probably don’t exist any more.

The summer has been rather lovely: warm and peaceful. My parents-in-law have a venerable swimming pool that was installed during the long hot summer of 1976 (a summer I spent not revising for my A Levels as it was too nice and I preferred to lie under trees snogging and being pretentious). We are fortunate that we live very close so I have swum almost every day this summer. I am not a very good swimmer and get exhausted quite quickly – I would be rubbish at rescuing struggling damsels and floundering pets – but made the effort and it has to be the most boring form of exercise ever invented. There is nothing to look at and nothing to divert the mind. Dull, dull, dull. At least if you are bicycling or running you can watch the world go by or listen to the radio. I do about five lengths before I give up. I also try and swim naked as often as is decent, no idea why but it adds a frisson.
Maybe I am a closet naturist: I will have to discuss it with my friend Cleve West who often goes on naturist awayaday weekends.

“Miss Stevens , I must say you’re a girl in a million”
“That’s a routine compliment but I’ll accept it.”
Cary Grant to Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. And her reply. I worry sometimes that I spend too much of my life thinking about Grace Kelly.

The RHS more or less closes down during August and there are no committee meetings or anything. Oddly, I have rather missed it and was pleased to be going to Vincent Square to select the show gardens for next year’s Chelsea.

I have a new Olloclip. This is a fiendishly clever little lens that goes on an iPhone and means that you can take macro pictures of whatsoever you might wish. Like the rather vulgar picture above of a pouting dahlia and the other one a bit further up of an Eschscholzia californica (which, incidentally, has to about the most difficult plant name on the planet to spell).

I have had some quite good lunches.

So the Duchess of Cambridge has given birth, how marvellous for all concerned. My only worry is the naming of said baby: personally I have been advocating Prawn as the perfect choice because, and I am sure this does not really require explanation but people have been giving me slightly blank looks when I hazard this opinion, he will then become King Prawn. Alternatives include Crimson. Kong, Burger and Speech.

So that is probably enough random drivellings for one day. I am listening to Gillian Welch singing By The Mark. The picture is a bee sitting on a Succisella.

In some ways it seems a bit weird to be beginning a garden diary in January. I know there is all that “new year, new beginnings” stuff to take into consideration but I think that is basically a load of old tosh. New Year’s Eve has, ever since I can remember, been a bit of an anti-climax. True there have been exceptions (the Milennium being the most notable as it was the first time all my children were old enough to stay awake without pinching) but whatever the celebrations it doesn’t get away from the simple fact that January is grey and cold and lethargic. I find it very difficult to get energised and generally feel rather sleepy. So, in order to try and get everything moving again I thought that maybe the time had come for a bit of a blog-fest. I don’t know whether this will work but I can at least try. If nothing else it will give me a chance to pay Jane Owen back for criticising the size of my Christmas card on her blog (which is at timesonline.typepad.com/gardening/).

(** Note from the future: in 2010 her blog is no longer there but here. Sadly she is terribly lazy and hardly ever writes anything at all preferring to spend her time hobnobbing with academics and caring for her extensive collection of fur knickers**)

What have I done this week ? apart from assorted drawings I have written a couple of entries for a book called 1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die which is being edited by Rae Spencer-Jones for publication sometime. I also went to the press launch of the RHS Shows (Chelsea, Hampton Court, Malvern etc) which was kinda interesting. Jolly folk milling around – had a good lunch (eating outside in St James’s park with Stephanie Donaldson). Not enough stuff about the Malvern Spring Show – which promises to be very exciting and interesting. I declare an interest because I am working there for all four days (working=cavorting around the stage having a ball). I will elaborate but feel I have probably written enough for now.

In order to try and lift the spirits here is a very unseasonal photograph of a ginger.

Been away for a week or so alternately basking and dripping on the very, very lovely Isle of Colonsay. My hearty recommendation to anybody looking for somewhere to go – great hotel (www.thecolonsay.com). I have a slightly ulterior motive as I am also helping with the garden at Colonsay House (www.colonsay.org.uk) which is open during the summer. Lots of highlights especially driving my newish Landrover at speed through the largest puddle in Scotland having neglected to close the windows. Lots of squealing children. It was also my birthday while we were there – I am much older than I used to be.

Bit hectic since I got back – lots of rushing around including a presentation to some charming people from Marks and Spencer at Barnsley House. As I am sure you know this was Rosemary Verey’s garden but is now a spiffy hotel. I went to the garden about ten years ago and have not been since. Last time I found it a bit disappointing as all the iconic parts (laburnum walk and potager) seemed very small. They still are and the asymmetry of some of the views is slightly annoying.

Went to look at my borders at Cottesbrooke Hall on Tuesday which are just beginning to grow into themselves. Still a bit of necessary tweaking but getting there. Over the past couple of years we have pulled them apart completely, dug them over and replanted. No matter how good, gardens need a good kicking occasionally to stop them becoming complacent. The biggest change was removing the venerable old Yuccas that marked the paths. Exciting things are happening at Cottesbrooke: at the moment Arne Maynard, Angel Collins and I are all doing stuff there.

It is a very pretty house as well (www.cottesbrookehall.co.uk)

I am listening to The Magic Numbers and the picture is of Colonsay.


As this week marks the opening of the Garden Museum’s Fashion and Gardening exhibition I thought it would be a good moment to make a confession.

For most of my working life I have been used to waking up,checking the weather and more or less climbing into the first clothes that come to hand. With or without an extra sweater or a thermal underpinning. Occasionally this includes shorts but this happens much less frequently than before and never in a public place.

At one point I used to scavenge gardening clothes from my mother-in-law and could be seen skipping about in odd shaped trousers and slightly girly shirts.
However, deep down I am a bit of a sartorial show off and rather like an outfit. At various points in my life I have built trellises while wearing a kilt ( tricky preserving decency whilst climbing a ladder), visited nurseries while clad in tweed plus-fours and laid paving while dressed as Eric Von Stroheim in long boots and jodhpurs.

Now that I am older this compulsion has tempered somewhat although I am a sucker for a good suit. In fact this is in danger of becoming a compulsion ever since my accountant said that I was allowed one new tax deductible suit a year. As a result I now have an expanding wardrobe of decidedly unhorticultural gentlemen’s suitings:

A black linen Paul Smith suit for Judging at RHS Shows.
A rather snappy single breasted blue number for the summer.
A natty birdseye and a dark grey check ( with double blue line) for whenever.
An inherited three piece dark birdseye from a grandfather.
A tweed number that was made for me when I was about 25 and which I still fit (although the trousers hold themselves up without braces due to my slightly expanded shoreline)
Another inherited tweed suit.
A three button blue suit in brushed cotton: warmer than some and quite informal.

I also have, gleaned from various places, four morning coats, a knickerbocker suit in blue velvet and white ruffles (which is very van Dyck and I have only worn once), an Egyptian djellaba (good for hot summers)  and two sets of evening tails.
This last is the whole Fred Astaire white-tie-and-tails kaboodle and I long to have an excuse to wear it but I am very seldom invited to formal balls or the presentation ceremony for the Nobel Prizes. Perhaps the Society of Garden Designers (at whose awards ceremony I was officiating last week) should upgrade their dress code. That said it was a very sparkly occasion where a great deal of alcohol was consumed. Andy Sturgeon not only won three awards but every time he did he was dragged off to pose for photographs with some very gorgeous girls wearing low cut dresses. If he had been wearing proper evening dress then these encounters would have been less raucous and would have involved an exchange of dignified bows and coy curtsies.

Next week I am going to the tailor to commission, I think something in Prince of Wales check.

So that is my confession: the outing of a closet dandy. I sometimes think it would have been fun to be a Fop but all that powdered wiggery might be a step too far for anybody.

The picture is of a mossy tree trunk with foxglove seedlings.

It is quite busy round here.

I have been to Cornwall to film a little bit for Gardeners World (mostly because my friend Joe Swift is in France eating cheese and swilling down the cheeky Bordeaux). It is, I believe, serving as a brief intermission between the wise words of Mr Montagu this Friday. Lovely garden near St Michael’s Mount. We had lunch in a pub there (thank-you, licence payers) that served good crab sandwiches: although I think the use of Ciabatta instead of thinly sliced brown is an insidious urban habit that should not be allowed.

I have been thinking a bit about names over recent days. So much of our lives is governed by nomenclature. If things did not have names then we would be a bit scuppered. “Pass me the whatsis” or “Nobody move this is a thingamajig”
I have always wanted a shorter name. Not because I have any particular objection to the one I have (although it is always annoying trying to explain that half of my surname is actually a christian name, not my Christian name but somebody else’s) but because I would like to have the sort of name with which one could answer the telephone. In a gruff and businesslike voice.

Scenario One.
Ring, Ring. Ring, Ring. Ring, Ring.
“Alexander-Sinclair”
Doesn’t really work does it? Too many syllables.
Likewise “The name’s Alexander-Sinclair, James Alexander-Sinclair” would not quite have the same knee-watering effect on women.

This would be better:
Scenario Two.
Ring,Ring. Ring,Ring. Ring,Ring.
“Gadd” or “Frond” or “Carder” or even, “von Harnstadt”
Snappy and authoritative. Instant obedience from a multitude of subordinates.
It is one of the main reasons why I never became a titan of industry or a private detective, you can’t say Alexander-Sinclair, Private Eye. It lacks snap.

That and the waiting around while peeing in an old Red Bull can (the detective, not the industrialist: although in certain boardrooms it may be de rigeur).

Gardening is quite dependent on names. Sometimes people complain that there is too much unnecessary Latin in the world. There isn’t but, even if there was, it is one of the few places left where Latin is actually useful (although my father talked Latin to taxi-drivers in Rome and they seemed to get him to the right destination). I can see that I would (deservedly) be prodded with sharp sticks were I to start pontificating about Bellis perennis rather than a Daisies. But there is emotion and poetry in Latin names while English equivalents (quite aside from occasionally being grossly misleading) seem a bit, well, doughy.
Not always, but sometimes.

I prefer Nettle to Urtica dioica – which sounds like a fungal infection.
But I love the sound of Verbascum bombyciferum, Zauschneria californica, Pittosporum or Sanguisorba canadensis.
I could go on but will restrain myself and thus earn your undying gratitude.

August is usually a somewhat torpid month – I may well have written on the subject last year – but not this time. This is because, just beneath the surface, things are roiling. I have mentioned “the thing” before but it is now becoming reality. After many months of quite hard work.

My next blog will be very soon and will bear news of great moment and significance. Kindly wait patiently with polished shoes and neatly brushed hair.

The photograph is of some of Cleve West’s dangling raspberries.

I am listening to Over The Border by Saint Etienne.

My life for the past week has mostly been spent in waiting rooms.

Train waiting rooms used (many years ago before most of you were born) to be very comfortable with roaring coal fires and little shops that sold tea and buns (qv Brief Encounter). There used to even be a small bar on Sloane Square Underground station where you could knock back a swift half in between District and Circle lines. They are now mostly quite uncongenial with rudimentary heating, pierced steel benches and the slight smell of cat pee (although how that happens I have no idea: unless Network Rail sprays it around out of a can with the precise purpose of stopping vagrants setting up home in the corner). The notable exception is Plumpton station in Sussex which has leatherette sofas and low tables. Mind you it has also always been closed when I have passed through so it might just be a big tease.

Dentists waiting rooms, in my childhood memories, consisted of dark wood coffee tables with neatly lined up copies of the Illustrated London News- a magazine that does not really exist outside such places – and an ominously loud ticking clock.

All hospital waiting rooms have the same high backed, wipe clean chairs that are perfectly comfortable for the first two hours but get a bit wearying thereafter. By my calculations (and Mathematics is not my strong point (i)) I have spent about 17 hours in such rooms over the past four days. The reason is very dull: I had something called a basal cell carcinoma just under my eye. A very benign and uninteresting condition that happens to lots of people: especially gardeners and cricketers. However, it still had to be dug out  with a sharp spoon and examined and stitched up and stuff which involved a great deal of waiting over four days and about three pints of local anaesthetic administered through umpteen different injections. The waiting continues today as I am just off to have the stitches removed: always an entertaining way to spend half an hour.

But better out than in, as they say. Wear sunscreen ,people, and ensure your children do as well. I now look a little like the survivor from a Prussian duel (especially as I have just had a severe haircut) with a long scar running close to my eye. Very dashing if you like that sort of thing. In order to make full use of this, I am buying into the full stereotype by being measured for a tight Hussar’s jacket, shiny boots with clickable heels and I am changing my name to Helmut von Schnickenschnick.

I have also been to visit York Gate. This is a garden of which I have heard lots and seen many pictures but never visited. I even wrote a series of  questions on the subject of the garden for a radio quiz a few years ago. Nigel Colborn and I were in charge of quiz mastering and one of the contestant’s specialist subjects was York Gate. Amongst the questions were: The pond at York Gate was constructed to mark which occasion in the Spencer’s lives? Answer: Frederick and Sybil’s 25th Wedding Anniversary. Thank goodness for the internet. The garden, in reality, is delightful. Very compact (only an acre) and beautifully looked after by David Beardall the head gardener – as was I: we had a delightful afternoon topped off with cake made by his wife, Tina. It is owned by Perennial, the horticultural charity which looks after distressed professional gardeners so it is expedient for all of us to rally round – just in case. Go and visit if you find yourself mooching around Leeds.

The picture is of the view from Westminster Bridge. I am listening to Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time) by the Delfonics.

(i) I failed my Maths ‘O’ level five times which was somewhat of a record. Eventually I was smuggled off to a different school to take a CSE in which I scored a triumphant Grade 1. The questions must have been extremely basic with nary a whiff of the Quadratic Equation. One of my major humiliations in Maths was at about age 9 when I was convinced that I had worked out the answer to a question. My hand shot up “Sir, Sir!” I carolled like a smug little swot “Please Sir!”. The Maths master (who had already marked my card as a bit of a dodgy character and one unlikely to justify his decision to go into teaching rather than brewing or Estate Agency) fixed me with a hopeful eye “Yes, Sinclair?”

“The answer” I chirruped (ii) “is two tooths”. Even to me this sounded a bit wrong. “or two teeth, Sir. You know” said I wildly writing in the air with my hand “2/2”.

Hysterical collapse of all parties.

“2/2” sneered the Maths master (whose name, I have just remembered was Johnson and  had a line of Parker pens in his breast pocket) “as everybody knows does not exist. 2/2 =1. And anyway the answer to the sum is 342” (or something like that). From that moment on I realised that Maths and I were not only never going to be bedfellows but we would probably never even shake hands politely. Thank goodness for the pocket calculator.

(ii) I did a lot of chirruping in those days. Especially when in the choir for which duty I looked gorgeously angelic in a red cassock and starched ruff.

Those who have read this blog before will be fully aware that I love a jaunt. An unnecessary number of past blog entries have involved me wittering on about mooching through Moscow, charging around China or even just sauntering to Scotland or waffling about Wales.

Today I am off again but with not much horticulture involved. Previously I have gone to give talks in Canada or lectures in the US but this time I have an important mission to accomplish.


Saturday.11:50 – It begins, as many of these things do, at Heathrow airport and an aeroplane. I booked a BA flight in January and it has now been shifted to American Airlines who appear to have a cabin crew of little charm but I guess it is just an overblown taxi and that sort of thing doesn’t really matter. The days of cocktail shakers, armchairs and stewardesses dressed like debutantes are long gone. I am sitting on it for a long time – about eleven hours – as I am going to Los Angeles, a city which I have never visited before.


18:40: Just as an aside, is the Mile High Club actually a thing? I ask purely from idle curiosity and a grudging admiration for anybody capable of such contortions in such a tiny and inhospitable cupboard.


21:00 I am quite bored. I have got to that time in a journey when one has had enough of films, your ears hurt from headphones and you crave fresh air. The plane has been in the dark for the whole journey which is quite disorientating. We are presented with a strange concoction for lunch. It looks like a collection of rejects from a toddlers arts and crafts workshop.

My neighbour understandably asks the cabin crew for some sort of elucidation.
“Excuse me” he says “what is this?”
The stewardess looks at him disdainfully and says
“You know, I really don’t know “.

And that is it: we chow on down regardless and discover that it is noodles with cashew nuts and other stuff.

18:00 WST: Dinner on roof of hotel- my sister, my brother and his affianced. I am here for the wedding. I am very tired and looking forward to my bed.

Sunday. 07:00: Enough sleeping we are off on a wander around West Hollywood. First impression is that Los Angeles is very big and sprawly – I understand that this thought is neither original nor particularly illuminating. There are some cool buildings up in the hills.

We did the thing where you go and read the stars on the walk of fame: what struck me in particular was the number of Stars for people I had never heard of- shows how easily one can be out of sight and out of mind. Even the ones with remarkable names…Wink Martindale? Irish McCalla? King Baggott? Morris Chestnut? Xavier Cugat? Bronco Billy Anderson? Spanky McFarland?

14:30: Off to Griffith Park. It is hot and crowded but there is a breeze up there with great views to the city below and of the Hollywood sign on the hills – it would have been a bit silly to come all the way here and not see it. It may not be terribly obvious in this photograph but it is there. I am standing by the observatory where they filmed bits of La-La Land: nice place, pretty dreadful film.

Dinner in a loud diner called Bernie’s Beanery where we eat hamburger served by attentively tattooed waitresses.

Monday 10:00: We are going to Huntington, a big old Botanic Garden in Pasadena. It has all the things that you would expect from a botanic garden – roses, herbs etc but, as this is California, it has an amazing Desert Garden. I have always been partial to a cactus (as you can see from this impassioned appeal I did at Chelsea Flower Show a few years ago) but this was something else. Spiky buggers In glorious abundance. All laid out thoughtfully and en masse, some flowering but all architectural and exciting. I really loved all of it and it has completely changed my perception of Cacti.

There is also a Japanese garden and the biggest Chinese garden outside Beijing.

14:00 Los Angeles County Modern Art Museum. Great building, ace views, good selection of art including this fabulous model city with trains and cars by Chris Burden (Metropolis 2)

19:00: Tomorrow we go to the desert and the purpose of this little jaunt becomes clear…..

There will be at least one more part to this story – bear with me.

I am listening to Mistakes by Sharon von Etten. The picture is of more Cacti.

I know this is a very dull thing to say but I am jolly well going to say it anyway…

My goodness, how time flies past.

Another year, another Garden Media Guild shindig under our belts. This year, as you may already be aware, Three Men were officiating. We made a short film and then tarted about for a bit which is always a jolly a way of spending an afternoon. As you are also doubtless well aware, Mark Diacono won three consecutive awards which was very gratifying. If you like that vegetably sort of thing.

I managed to stick a piece of paper on his back saying “Kick Me” and noticed Lia Leendertz sharpening the toe of her Jimmy Choos as I left.

There was then the usual drunken shenanigans in the pub where the usual suspects fell over to general hilarity. If you are interested you can watch the whole ceremony (apart from the falling over bits) here. As always it was a very jolly occasion with a lot of moustaches in evidence. Movember is now over and we have raised a shade over £20,000. I am terribly proud of everybody: we exceeded my wildest expectations. At the beginning I just thought it would be quite fun and we could raise a few hundred quid, thank you to all who participated and especially to those who coughed up the cash. I made a short film to commemorate the occasion, the music is by Nick Riddle who snuck into our team with fraudulent bonafides: he is not a gardener but we forgive him because of the excellent whistling and faraway look.

Apart from all this glamorous swanning about at awards ceremonies and growing whiskers there has been work going on: well, if you count wandering around looking at rocks work. These are very big rocks and there are lots of them: the reason is that we are rebuilding a quarry.Let me explain, in one of my gardens is a big scrape in the ground – about 35 feet deep at its steepest – which used to be a quarry. The idea is to make it look sort of quarryish again by reinstalling big lumps of stone which will then be interesting to climb on and could be planted with ferns, trees and general stuff.

So Tuesday found me wandering around a vast site in Oxfordshire choosing monster rocks. I do love this sort of thing, I come over all Tonka truckish at the sight of large diggers and deep mud. Which is quite odd as I have never been very interested in cars, I had Dinky Cars but was never much of a Brrrm, Brrrm kind of child. I am left unmoved by Ferraris and Formula One but get very excited by a large digger and a deep trench. Anyway, we chose a selection of rocks which are now being slowly transported across to Gloucestershire, doubtless much to the annoyance of the traffic on the A44: my apologies if you find yourselves stuck behind a straining tractor.

I have also been to the RHS Garden at Hyde Hall. I had never been before and, now I am responsible in some small way for its upkeep, thought I had better show my face. It is the newest RHS Garden and is very much under development (there is a handsome newly dug lake), lots of trees are being planted, borders hewn from fields, the Dry Garden is being extended and new car parks built. I may not have chosen the best day for a visit as it was markedly chilly. The wind howled across battering the collection of christmas trees decorated by local branches of the WI which stand amongst the borders: I suspect that tinsel will be being picked from trees across Essex for months to come. Still, it was interesting and bracing and we got turkey for lunch. Oh, and the best bit was the live willow weaving. They have groups of pollarded willow in the borders that have been bunched together and tied into various shapes: very effective and sculptural.

Before you go, here is another film: this was made by a very clever fellow called Sebastian Solberg about Jeremy and Camilla Swift’s extraordinary garden in Wales. I arrived there after going to a memorial service (hence spiffy tie) and was immediately sat down and required to spout stuff. It is an extraordinary garden varying from pretty orchards to ruined hovels via high Classicism, steep woodlands, theatres, turtles and the Kingdom of the Moor. It is open for the NGS at some point: but for goodness sake, take a raincoat, it is Welsh Wales, after all.

http://vimeo.com/32222906

I am listening to Wild america by Iggy Pop. The picture is of the aforementioned willows at Hyde Hall.