little green fingers

Badges, parenting blogs and Royal Doulton

Did you see it? To the left... scroll down a bit, no a bit more.  Bingo!  Yes, that's right, I have a badge on my site.  This is rather unusual for me.  I like to think this is because I try to retain a clean and sophisticated look to Little Green Fingers, but if I'm honest, it's also because no-one's actually given me a badge before.  Everywhere I look I seem to see 'Best blog ever', 'Blotanical award winner', 'E for excellent' and 'You really are just so delicious I might explode' badges - except of course on my own site. 

But now I too have a badge, and what's more it's actually rather a good one. I've made it into the 'tots 100 top parenting blogs'.  I have a feeling it's not considered 'cool' to be excited by such things, but since I spent my savings as an 18-year-old on an antique Royal Doulton dinner service, I think 'cool' and I have long since parted company.

And anyway, I am excited because this is rather an impressive list, compiled on a frighteningly rigorous basis every month by Sally Whittle of Who's the Mummy.  It includes some very good writers and enjoyable blogs and is my own first port of call when I'm looking for a good parenting blog fix.

What's more I'm happy because, let's face it, I do write about gardening and as much as I like to think this is top of all parents' agendas, it might not rank quite so high as schooling, childcare, labour pains or, well... almost anything.

And I have to make a fuss about it now because it's updated monthly and, at number 83, I have a feeling I'm in the relegation zone.

PR baiting, three-day-headaches and gardening as therapy

An old press contact of mine wrote to a number of ex-PRs this morning on Facebook pondering why so many of us chose to become garden designers.  My answer was that gardening is particularly good therapy to cope with years of abuse from journalists.

This is in part true - PR baiting is a sport enjoyed by many members of the press and I have spent years trying to get Amnesty International to take note.  These days I suffer no such cruelty, but gardening is still a form of escape - it's just that these days it's from the family.

Don't get me wrong - I adore evey single member of my little tribe, life would be empty without them, but just occasionally I need to remember that I exist beyond the role of wife, mother and domestic servant.  

Sometimes I do this by putting on snot-free clothes and racing off to London to drink and gossip with friends for the evening.  However, the more cost effective option, and one less likely to give me a three-day-headache, is to don my wellies and spend a couple of solitary hours gardening.

Of course, this does appear to rather go against my general mission of getting the kids hooked on gardening.  However, I am hoping that, when I reappear after an hour or two, relaxed, happy, a spring in my step and a healthy glow to my complexion they may well think, in When Harry met Sally parlance, "I'll have what she's having". 

Hampton Court Gardens, High Fidelity and glow-in-the-dark aliens

 
I'm not very good at top 10 lists. I didn't even manage my list of five celebrities that, you know, you're allowed to, well... didn't you see that episode of Friends? Anyway, I only ever get as far as George Clooney and John Cusack before I run out of inspiration. I think, as Nick Hornby ably demonstrated in High Fidelity, lists are really a boy thing. Still, if I did manage a list of top 10 gardens for kids, last week I would have found a new entry - Hampton Court Gardens.

Firstly, I should clear up any confusion.  I'm talking about Hampton Court Castle in Herefordshire, not the great Palace by the Thames.  Although, the latter is also very lovely, I have been rather embarrassed to return having once driven the wrong way out of the grounds when helping set up a show garden.  What I really love about the British public though is everyone is far too polite to comment on a Renault Clio blithely driving through the long borders...

Anyway, back to Herefordshire. Hampton Court Gardens are part of a rather splendid 15th century property, although one that has been so carefully restored, it does look a little like a Disney palace in places. The gardens were replanted back in the mid 1990s and are beautifully designed, carefully maintained and, most of all, fun.

Like its more famous cousin, the most exciting part for the kids has to be the maze.  However, I will see you your maze, and raise you a four doored Gothic tower at the centre (oh yes, that's right, you have to find the only door that opens) complete with underground tunnel leading to a sunken garden, with a waterfall you can walk behind (change of clothes vital especially when you have children who appear to think 'how wet can you get' is a great game).

Needless to say, last week we had to visit the garden twice and go through the tunnel about 10 times.  Warning though, the tunnel seemed to have no lighting at all and I was rather grateful that the aliens on Oscar's space-inspired raincoat lit up in the dark.

From a more horticultural perspective there is a walled vegetable garden with all manner of sunflower walkways, runner bean arches, meadow pathways and weird and wonderful looking edibles, plus an ornamental walled garden, 200 year old wisteria tunnel and a Dutch garden.  There are also substantial grounds with some beautiful trees for general running around mayhem and a river with bridge for playing 'Pooh leaves' (our own autumnal variation on the traditional game).

I even liked their signage...

 

The seven ages of plant

I have an issue with an aster.  It's in my garden and it really shouldn't be.  I mean I know it's my fault.  I brought the thing.  In fact I bought two, on impulse, at the local B&Q a couple of years ago. 

But now they've quadrupled in size and, in an overexcited period of plant propagation last year, I stupidly managed to divide them.  Now I have six of the monsters and I can't help feeling like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia.

Of course I should feel free to whip them out or 'gift' them to an unsuspecting friend or relation, but here's the problem.  The kids love them.  Well, why wouldn't they?  They have 'proper' flowers - and lots of them, all in a garish shade of purple with bright yellow centres.

Which has got me thinking.  According to Kate Fox in Watching the English, your garden is a reflection of your class (lavenders and box hedges for the aristocracy, lots of bedding - of the non-duvet kind - for the middle class etc).  But in the same way, does your choice of plants reflect your age? 

From my experience, kids will choose flowers over foliage most of the time and the nearer the blooms get to those in Mr Men books, the better.  Daffodils, dahlias, daisy-like blossoms and tulips are all sure winners.  In fact my son likes tulips so much, he does an impression of one.  It's actually quite good...

It seems to work for other age groups as well.  In a Blogging from Blackpitts post this week, JAS admitted to a growing fondness for alpines.  Is it a coincidence that this penchant emerges as he reaches his half century (yes, I know he doesn't look it, but you should see the portrait in his attic)? 

Do you fall for ornamental grasses in your twenties and discover the joy of veg beds in your thirties?  And is it obligatory to fritter away your pension on dwarf conifers?

As for the asters, I foresee an unfortunate accident with the lawnmower...

Waiting for hedges

Hedges frustrate me.  The trouble is I'm not a patient soul.  I want everything NOW or better still a week last Thursday.  Hedges, unfortunately, don't fit with this sort of timescale.  Unless you are prepared to take out a second mortgage for some pre-grown sections, you are left with only two options.

First, you can plant a fast grower.  Privet is a good example of this and is something I would not wish on my worst enemy.  We had a privet hedge at our last house and it reminded me of those intensely annoying candles that relight.  No sooner had you finished a laborious day's hedge cutting, than it would spring up again needing another trim.

Second, you can be terribly sensible and plant something like yew - a gorgeous backdrop to any planting, stately, majestic, only needing an annual cut - and very, very, very slow.  Here most gardeners will tut and say "No it's not, you'll have a fine hedge in only five years time".  Five years!  Can you imagine waiting five years to have your bathroom plumbed in or your kitchen finished?  Exactly.

The only people less patient than me are the children.  This is rather unfortunate as one place I have planted a yew hedge is on the boundary of their new gardens.  I pointed at the collection of small, weedy looking plants, barely a foot high and said, in my best Mary Poppins chirpy voice, "Look, you've already got a hedge!"

They gave me a look which said it all.

However, today I have found the solution.  I was walking past the veg beds when I spotted the perfect hedge to span the wait.  It's about two foot high, comes in either a vivid green or beautiful shade of purple, is incredibly cheap and the kids can plant it themselves.  Oh, and it's edible.

OK, so it's a line of bolted lettuces, but I still think it looks better than most things in the garden right now.  And, yes, it's not going to last very long, but then you have the fun of resowing it throughout the growing season - and even changing the shade whenever you fancy.  I am calling it the Peter Rabbit hedge, because I feel he would have approved.