A day out with the NGS, some filming in Berkshire and a deadly fruit attack...

It's been raining like crazy here - but at least the wind has died down. The garden is lush and lovely but mostly green still, other than the tulips which I just love and must remember to plant more of come November. 

Cow parsley which self seeds each year

Tulipa Orange Princess

The warm wet weather is the signal for the pests to move in - my Heptacodium Jasminoides has developed holes in the leaves but so far I have been unable to find the culprits. I will need to keep a close eye out for aphids, too, which caused major damage to both it and my Red Devil apple tree last year. 

Before the attack

The worst thing though is the total devastation caused practically overnight to my cherry tree - I don't know who to blame - the pigeons perhaps - but the crop of cherries which in flower made the tree look like a comedy clown's  outfit has been 99% demolished. I hope the culprit has a tummy ache!

After the attack

Last week I was filming for a new project about people and their gardens - more of that coming soon - with Lady Catherine Stevenson, former High Sheriff of Berkshire and self-taught plantswoman extraordinaire.

Lady Catherine is a seed addict - she has trees in her garden which she has sown from seed - and you can visit her garden in late August as part of the National Gardens Scheme.

Paeonia mlokosewitschii - 'Molly-the-witch'

Her garden is just starting to unfurl its secrets including a fabulous Ceanothus Puget Blue, a spectacular if unpronounceable Paeonia Mlokosewitschii, and a host of herbaceous perennials and cottage garden favourites. I thoroughly recommend a visit. You can see more images from the trip at the Nice Tree Films Pinterest page.





Meanwhile a busy weekend was spent helping out at another NGS garden on the Hackney Islington borders - only the second year this one has opened, and a huge thank you to all 92 people who visited.


This garden, owned by journalist and fitness trainer Jane Taylor of If Ginger Can Do It, was designed by Carol Whitehead 

Carol Whitehead, garden designer

who transformed what used to be an uninspiring urban plot dominated by a huge and ugly concrete stairway accessorised with bindweed and fox poo, into an oasis full of surprises large and small, including a stunning Tetrapanax Rex which wouldn't look out of place in the Kew palm house. 

Abutilon Suntense

Tetrapanax Papyrifer

The garden is now 6 years old, and an unbelievable living testimony to the transformative power of plants.

The sun shone, home made cakes were enjoyed, new plants discovered and new friends made. Roll on next year.

Bergenia

Owner Jane Taylor and visitor

Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst...

Last year was the wettest year in the history of the universe. Or the world. Or since records began a few decades ago. Anyway, it was bloody wet, and cold, and windy.

I hate the wind. I hate it more than any other kind of weather. From the days when I used to report for ITV Central News, I have hated it. Any other weather is cope-able with - not always pleasant, but you muddle through. Travelling back from the Namib-desert like conditions at Silverstone racetrack in 100 degrees, with a sulky work experience student, in an car blessed with no air con -  hey, no sweat. Standing for hours in the rain at Kemble airfield while your shoes take on the all the absorbent qualities of blotting paper and your legs develop rising damp - hey, all in a day's work... Trying to pronounce the words of your carefully honed piece to camera in temperatures so low that your lips start feeling as though they have had several injections of pethedine - hey, all part of the service. But the wind - it messes with your head. Literally. And a messed up head is not what you want when you're about to go live from outside court on the lead story into the evening programme.

I have moved away from the rigours of live reporting,  but I still hate the wind. It's the meteorological equivalent of an annoying toddler (I know what they are like - I've had two), poking you for attention every few seconds. It scorches and dries and causes things to collapse including my new found springtime get up and go.

What's it actually for, anyway? Apart from Ben Ainslie, who needs wind? It's so...spiteful. And irritating. And boring, day after day, with its coterie of companions - usually in the form of clouds like bad tempered candy floss and hail stones the size of marbles.

Oh, to live in a country where the climate is reasonably predictable, calm and pleasant for at least 5 months of the year. But no, the doomsday scenario that this 'summer' could be *whispers* as bad as last  year's is starting to loom. The Met office people have been on the news, weakly assuring us that it's 'too early to write off summer yet. YET! It's almost enough to turn one into a Daily Express reader.

Last year my only consolation was that a. Glastonbury wasn't on and b. it was gloriously, miraculously, wonderful for the Olympics and Paralympics. Meanwhile the garden got on with itself, some things suffered, some things rotted, and whether or not it's the weather's fault or not, two of my three new apple trees have no blossom on them at all this year. Not a jot. So what to do? My hunch is that this is pretty much what English summers used to be like when I was a kid. Generally disappointing, with the odd fabulous two or three days which occasionally happened over a weekend, if you were really lucky. And then we got suckered into thinking things were better than that thanks to a run of hot summers in the nineties and noughties - with endless stories on the news about droughts, struggling farmers and soaring ice-cream sales.

So I have decided it's time to change my attitude. The weather is what it is, it's getting less predictable and more extreme, and we're all going to have to get used to it. So, my mission is to learn to love the wind, to embrace it, to take on the mantra that there is no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing. Anyone up for a spot of kite flying?