Anything La Bella Italia is the New Cool.

Glam gardening is the fashion of the new millenium.

I decided this, dear Reader, based on rather slender evidence but everywhere I look, I see confirmation of these two conclusions. Time was when anything from France was the height of sophistication and style but these days it is Italy that is in vogue. Italian gardening, Italian cooking (anything with olive oil and sun dried tomatoes), to Italian shoes and handbags, to clipped cypresses and tiled entranceways – all add up to Italian style. And we want it, indoors and out.
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I have never forgotten nursery colleagues of ours saying that they grew daphnes and lemon trees “because pretty well every garden has at least one of each”. In the case of daphnes, it is a continuing market because they need replacing now and again and there is always room for one more.

For most people, daphnes begin and end with odora – the fragrant and delightful shrub in flower now. In fact there are about fifty different species, although the number commercially available in this country is closer to four or five and there are probably a thousand odora selections sold to every one of the others.
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When our children were little, we used to read them a small book called “Noisy Nora”. Her refrain was, ‘ “I’m back again,” said Nora, with a monumental crash.’

I am back again, dear Readers, although perhaps not with the monumental crash.
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I just love bureaucrats. They are such a wonderful source of ridicule. Farming readers will be busy jumping through the same hoops as nursery people and even section maintenance operators – undergoing mandatory courses in agrichemicals in preparation for the January deadline after which one won’t be able to buy many basic chemicals unless one has the magic certificate.

Mark obediently trotted off and did his course last year (if only I could remember where I filed the certificate….). In principle you can’t argue with the logic of attempting to educate people in the safe use of chemicals. There are dangers and pitfalls in their usage and countless tales of abuse and bad effects. So while Mark prides himself on being a relatively safe operator, he didn’t really complain.
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Winter struck with a vengeance this week. There can’t be much more to blow down. Leaves, twigs, branches, the odd small tree, every container plant – they are all lying around waiting to be cleaned up. Then it turned so cold that I didn’t feel like venturing out between showers. Next came the frost and it remained cold. Sometimes our long autumns lull me in to a false sense of security and I never fail to be surprised by a wintery blast.

I was rung by a journalist working on a story about winter gardens and it made me focus on what we strive for in the winter garden. Despite my reluctance to brave the cold, we garden for twelve months of the year here. In spring it tends to be a pretty tree and shrub garden with the addition of lots of spring bulbs. In summer we aim for the lushness of the subtropical look with touches of the English herbaceous tradition. In autumn it is the detail of the autumn bulbs along with the splashes of colour on the plants which colour up well (the metasequoia was a breathtaking orange this year).
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