August in The Garden
By Anne-Edge Rowe &Ivor Spade
From Forum
Magazine of Chester City Council
August in the Garden by Anne Edge-Rowe & Ivor Spade
Ivor has declared that summer has now arrived. Why? At long last our great hedge cutting epic has ended. The time it took was measured in lager cans, i.e. the time it takes to drink one multiplied by the number consumed!
Ivor says a tried and tested method for deadheading is a pair of secateurs in one hand and a glass of your favourite tipple in the other. Can't go wrong. Well at least until you fall over. (Anne prefers Ribena fortified with a healthy slug of black navy rum which is smuggled into the country by her matelot friend, who is the skipper of a coal barge on the Rhine, who she tells me she met when she was at 'Finishing School' in Switzerland. I'm not sure I believe her but the bit about the rum is true. Ivor).
The hedge cutting had been put back a week. Because hotly following on the heels of Ivor and Titus from their stay in Bagillt, came two farm trailers carrying tons and tons of sea kelp, which they assured me was extremely good for the garden (or so the man in the pub said).
I was not amused and left them to offload it while I disappeared off to the Shrewsbury Flower Show. On return, you could tell we were nearing our house by the "smell of the sea" and the curling raucous seagulls. The truth is, while they were away they didn't succeed in catching any fish, which may have something to do with the fact that they managed to find Cecil and Myrtle's pub. This turned out to be called the Cod and Duck. The locals were so friendly that Ivor and Titus stayed there for the whole week, only emerging in the early hours to crash out in Pandora's caravan.
When I was at the Flower Show myself and the Garden Club members bought our daffodils, tulips, lilies, fritillarias, and a superb chocolate cosmos. Ivor has been fancying one for ages. He's going to keep it in a pot this year so that he can take it in for the winter to avoid frost damage. Chocolate Cosmos is one of the plants of the millenium. If you like the smell of chocolate this is the plant for you.
Ivor's promised to dig some of the sea kelp into the seed beds before we plant out the spring cabbage, lettuce, winter spinach and endive. Now's a good time to take cuttings and/or move any evergreen shrubs such as hebes which have outgrown their position.
Ivor's passion for topiary waned a little during the year. When he finally became interested again. His duck of last year was transformed into a flamingo. Although he decided that it needed to be sitting down, he hadn't the height to display it standing on one leg, and with the mistral that flows through our garden it was in grave danger of toppling over anyway.
Next month we'll tell you all about our holiday visiting the "Lost Gardens of Walmington on Sea" which Ivor won in the raffle in the "Cod & Duck"
Good gardening
Anne & Ivor