Fairy Dust

Adam Frost describes self seeders as ‘fairy dust’ - you let them do their magic. We had a very exciting day in the Museum of Homelessness this week, sprinkling fairy dust around our apple trees and we can’t wait to see the results of that magic.

I can see it might sound a little confusing - after all the whole point of self seeders is that they pop up all over your garden but our self seeders have actually come from someone else’s garden. A few weeks ago I asked Anne Harrup, the founder of Natural Surroundings in Norfolk and the subject of next week’s plant story, for some advice. The vegetables haven’t thrived quite as we hoped - it seems its not just humans who like to eat them …

So we’re looking to make a different plan for those raised beds next year. Jess, the co-founder of the museum, really fancies a cutting garden which is a great idea and I am very excited. We have a green house this year so we will be able to start some things off a little earlier. Then we discussed planting a bee or butterfly garden, inspired by what I had seen when I was recording at Natural Surroundings. If you listen on Tuesday you will discover that attracting wildlife is Anne’s life’s work and her 22 small gardens follow the 9 principles for a Wildlife-friendly garden. I will share them on the episode page next week.

I knew I was going to be in Norfolk this past weekend so I asked Anne if perhaps I could pop by and buy a few starter plants for our new gardens. However Anne had a much better plan and when I arrived, she grabbed an old compost bag and a couple of trowels and we headed out into her gardens in search of some fairy dust. I dug up numerous self-seeded honesty. My husband, who is the most supportive of the Our Plant Stories support crew but who would not describe himself as a gardener was given a fork and instructions from Anne on how to dig up some teasles! Meanwhile she disappeared and came back with evening primrose and red campion and hemp agrimony, ox-eyed daisies and forget-me-nots to name a few. They all went into the compost bag with me desperately trying to keep up with the plant identification!

On Tuesday I took that same bag to the Museum of Homelessness. Four of us, sat on the gravel path, unloading the treasures, sorting them and identifying them and then planting them around our apple trees just near the pond. However I also kept back one of each of the plants and have put them in a square meter raised bed, labeled, as a kind of plant library, so we can more easily observe how they grow and identify them when they pop up in other parts of the garden.

The generosity of other gardeners both with their plants and their knowledge always fills me with joy. Next week we have the community gardeners from Kew coming to visit and I am sure we will be picking their brains for ideas too.

A quick update on the painting - it is all done and I love the deep forest green which is on a couple of the walls. I have put up the sage green blind - much measuring and re-measuring but it appears to be working. And as you read this on Friday, the new flooring should be going down. Job done, I spent yesterday with my mum and it was lovely to see her joy as we found conkers in the park, it really doesn’t matter if you are 7 or 97, or any age in-between, there are some things which just spark joy.

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My favourite colour