My back garden before I got the spade out.

Dahlia 'Karma Choc'

Bergamot

Dianthus 'Memories'

One Gorgeous Peony in the middle of a hurriedly put together arrangement

Hellebores in one of my favourite arrangements ever - I loved doing this one..  

Over to You...

I'd love to hear your stories of gardens you've left behind or of the plants that you have a special connection with.  

Just leave a comment if you feel so inclined.

About a year ago, I was expecting to be moving house in January. The sale of our house was going along relatively smoothly and we had had an offer accepted on a lovely cottage.  So, naturally, my thoughts turned to the garden.  How many plants could I take with me?  Would it be bad form to take everything?  I decided that it would, despite the fact that our buyers weren't really interested in the garden or any of the plants. 

I spent quite a few days ruminating over this question and I eventually found myself with spade and fork in hand on a cold December day staring at my first choice for relocation.  I loved this plant and it had to come with me.  So, I began to dig up my garden - quite a bit of it.  

The reason I'm telling you this is because I learned a salutary lesson as I identified the chosen few.  You see, as I started to remove these precious friends, I was transported and taken on a trip down memory lane.  Each plant provoked emotions, conjured stories, memories, associations that I had forgotten about and I realised to my horror that I‘d been taking my precious garden for granted!  In some ways I had lost touch with it and I felt sad that my attention had been so diverted for so long. 

​So, Where to Start?

I started with a Dahlia 'Karma Choc'.  I'd spent a small fortune on beautiful Dahlias that year - primarily for cutting. They were so voluptuous - velvety, burgundy, sunshine yellows and purest whites. I couldn't be without them.  'Karma Choc' had been a gift from a good friend and as I thrust the fork into the soil and eased up the yams, I was thinking of my friend - her wicked sense of humour, her common sense down-to-earthness and her compassionate and generous heart.  I was smiling but sad and I knew there was no way this Dahlia was being left behind.  


​Next up was the Bergamot. What a stunning flower and so beloved by the bees and hoverflies. A plant whose leaves and petals can be eaten in salads and drunk in teas and that looks wonderful in a vase for days.  
I dug up 5 plants and was suddenly reminded of my customer and friend, Joan, who mentioned to me only a few weeks before that Bergamot was one of her favourites but she had never been able to grow it. I chose a particularly healthy specimen and planted it in her garden a few days      later while the weather was still kind.  I thought how I would miss her and her beautiful garden when I moved and hoped that she would think of me when the Bergamot came into flower each year.           


​Then there were the Dianthus – several lovely varieties planted for their edible flowers that last for ages in a vase.  Just a few cut to differing lengths in a posy vase and placed on the chest of drawers or dressing table -  what a lovely  welcome to the day. 
They have that lovely old fashioned look about them that always
reminds me of my Nan.  They’re the sort of thing your Nan would
grow.


​Happy Memories

Speaking of my Nan, I couldn’t walk away from my peonies.  
One of my Nan’s favourites and therefore one of mine. 
These are the flowers of my early childhood.                                                          
I marvelled at the tightly clenched buds that refused to
reveal themselves for weeks on end as I walked up the path to my Nans front door.  One day I would find that they had suddenly capitulated and sprung open to flaunt themselves as if walking onto the stage at the BAFTAs.  “Look at me!” they shout “Aren’t I gorgeous darling?”
 
I needed two large pots for the Rosemary and Sage that were amongst the first plants I put in when we moved into the house eight years earlier.  They had been so happy side by side and were quite big.  It was hard work digging them up, carefully separating them (which in itself felt cruel, like separating twins at birth).  It had to be done – how could I leave behind two of the most useful plants in the garden?  Two plants that add so much to your cooking and stalwarts of the herbal medicine chest.  They produce such lovely edible flowers too and the bees and ladybirds both adore them.   I use them a lot in flower arranging.  They had to come with me.
 
A few days later, I thought I’d just about finished digging up all the    plants I wanted from my front garden but then I realised I had            overlooked the Hellebores!  How could I have done that?  The most photographed and beloved of all!  I had two large clumps just outside the front door; given as divisions by my partners Mum when we moved in. 

They were so healthy and flowered so profusely for so many weeks. 
​The most demure of flowers – such a contrast to the peonies.  I added them to the rest – all potted up, waiting patiently in the holding bay that my front garden had become, not knowing their fate, with no idea of what awaited.  Just like me.  In limbo, hoping that the wait would be short and the winter would be kind. 
 
I was now leaving this place and this garden and I wished I’d paid it more attention.  I was reminded of the good friends I was leaving and of the many hours of love I had poured into this garden and I felt sorry – I felt like I owed it an apology.  I needed to offer up some gratitude to this garden that had nourished my soul so deeply for so many years. 
​
So, that’s my tale of the plants I couldn’t bear to leave behind.  It is my hope that by sharing this story with you that you might be encouraged to look at your garden afresh and remember why you love it. Maybe even re-connect with some of your old plant friends that you perhaps haven't spoken to for a while - keep the love alive and remember what your garden gives you and how nourishing it is; how much it feeds your soul.   
 
Remember to garden with LOVE in your heart. ​
​

The kitchen garden at Trafford Hall near Chester where I was Head Gardener for over eleven years.

Scented Pelargonium makes a beautifully fragrant floral sugar that you can use for meringue, cakes and biscuits

Crown Jewels Salad

My very favourite soup - courgette made even better with chive and wild garlic flowers

The yummiest ice cream ever - lavender and honey with rose petal sorbet. 

Hello Gardening Friends!

I've often been asked how to make a veg plot prettier without sacrificing productivity.  The assumption seems to be that flowers are a frivolous addition, not useful and certainly not worthy of a place next to the leeks!  In today's offering I want to show you that flowers not only add to the aesthetics but that they also add to the productivity.  Firstly, they can be used as companion plants and secondly, they can be used as a crop in themselves. There are lots of flowers that are edible and today's blog will illustrate just how fabulous they can be when used in your cooking. (If you want to know about companion planting never fear - there'll be a post about that soon).

I love an ornamental kitchen garden – ideally one that nestles within an old walled garden; sheltered, warm, tucked away, private, secret; a delightful surprise, bursting with colour and humming with its own vitality.

I guess that this is a garden that many of us have aspired to at some point in our lives.  This is the vision that prompted me to become a professional gardener in the first place and maybe this is your grand scheme now.   If so, read on, you may find some inspiration.                                                    
We may not have the walled idyll of the grand 18th century estates, (think Chatsworth,  think Pride & Prejudice – you know Colin Firth and all that), but we can all create a kitchen garden that is both productive and beautiful –  even in a small space.                                           

 What’s more the beautiful can also be edible. 

One way of achieving this is to either grow edible flowers and herbs alongside your fruit and veg, or if space is at a premium, just go for the flowers.

I'm a HUGE fan of edible flowers . They play a big part in my garden at home and in the food I eat.  I also use them to make gifts of  jams, jellies, biscuits and chocolate. 
                                                                  
I love the colour, texture and floral notes that flowers add to my cooking and baking: a summertime salad of nasturtium, borage and calendula, (see picture left), chive flowers on my courgette soup, lavender + honey ice cream (my favourite) and rose petal sorbet;  all visually stunning and really delicious.  It’s all really easy and yet feels so very special. Just imagine your summer al fresco lunch with flowers taking centre stage – fab!                                                                                                                                                                         
Whenever I run The Floral Kitchen workshop, everyone is surprised
and wowed by the onslaught on their senses.  Each recipe we make delights the eyes and nose and offers varieties of texture and flavour that are all new and exciting.            
                              
What's  more adding flowers to your diet also adds colour. This is important nutritionally as well as aesthetically.  Flowers make food look appealing but the often vivid colours also mean they contain good things too – like anti-oxidants, vitamins and trace elements.  A colourful meal is often a healthy one.

So, next time you settle down in your armchair to plan your ornamental kitchen garden, why not include a few edible flowers? The bees and hoverflies will be delighted and so will your eyes and taste buds come dinnertime.

Until next time…….


Want to know more?  Click on the link in the left sidebar to download a list of safe to eat edible flowers complete with notes on how to use them and how to grow them yourself.

PS  A word of warning though – not all flowers are edible and some can be deadly . Foxglove, Aconite and Lily of the Valley spring to mind.  You need to be cautious and only eat what you know to be safe. 

Over to You:

What are your favourite edible flowers and what do you like to make with them?  I’d love to hear your stories.  Just drop me a line in the comments section below.




 

Someone recently asked me why I’m a gardener.  For a little while I couldn’t answer, but as I rambled on, searching my poor brain for the right words, it came to me: I’m a gardener because gardens are amazing places and they are so very, very important and so it follows then that gardening is important and therefore, I am important.  ‘Important’ is far too small a word – I’m talking noble; I’m talking heroic!  I always wanted to be a hero.

I’m not exaggerating. What do we do in our gardens?  Relax (we need to do more of that), enjoy playing with our kids, laugh with our friends (quality time – a precious commodity), delight in the scent, colour and shapes of flowers, gasp in awe at the power of that tiny seed that is now a tomato in our salad, gaze in admiration as birds, bees, butterflies and all sorts of critters manage their daily feat of survival.  Amazing stuff, yes?

We often read or hear that gardens help us connect with nature – this is true and also very important, but for me what is even more powerful is the way that in our own garden we can connect with and express our authentic and creative selves.  In a world where we spend so much of our time acting in roles where we often experience huge cognitive dissonance or simply have to suppress our most important needs, at odds with the world and ourselves, gardening in our own space; just being in our own living, breathing, buzzing, and fluttering space, re-wires our brain and re-connects us with who we are and what is important.

I’ve been gardening for a living for nearly fifteen years but gardens have always been a meaningful part of my life; ever since I was a small child aged six who dragged her poor Nan around her garden asking the names of all the flowers.  Those flowers are in bloom in my garden now – my inevitable favourites; a tribute to my dear old Nan who was so patient and tried so hard to answer the searching questions of an inquisitive six year old.

I’m picturing my Nan now and I’m transported back to childhood and those summer days in the garden  – treasured memories. I’m sure you all will have experienced this and felt the touch, heard the words and seen the face in your mind’s eye of a lost loved one through garden memories; a special kind of re-connection.  As I said, amazing stuff.

 So, you see, when you do gardening – in your own garden or in someone else’s - you are actively engaging in a process of connection that is hugely powerful.  Put very simply, gardens are places where we can connect (or re-connect), with what is important and meaningful to us; within us; deeply within us.

What’s more, if we garden with wildlife and the planet uppermost in our thoughts and actions, we also help reverse the damage that our 21st century lifestyles and economic systems are inflicting on the planet. We can create valuable habitats and feed bees, butterflies and ourselves.  We can heal the planet.

Our gardens, then, are places of connection, healing and nourishment. To actively nurture such a place through the activity of gardening, I would say is truly noble, even heroic. 

This is why I am a gardener. 

Until next time…..enjoy and love your garden.

Jo

What does your garden give to you?  I would love to hear your thoughts and stories. Just drop me a line by posting a comment below.

Enjoyed reading this blog? You can get my blogs sent straight to your inbox by subscribing to my fortnightly (ish) broadcast email.
Just click here (you will be taken to our  'Get in touch' page where you can leave your details in the comments box).  Thank you!