Mud wrestling

The speck of sun at the beginning of the month led to an ambitious order of bare root roses in the sale. Needless to say, immediately after the despatch notification pinged onto my phone the weather closed in and returned to unremittingly dreich. Thankfully, a commitment in Edinburgh delayed the inevitable for a day. For reasons known only to the LNER app, only one train seemed to be on offer so I found myself in town with several hours to spare (having noted en route, plenty of half full trains still clearly coming in….). Fortified by a quality scone at the Fruitmarket Gallery (which made up for a deeply confusing exhibition) I decided to wander down Canongate to Holyrood (for I was off to see an MSP at the parliament with some other left leaning ladies, sceptical of the merits of placing males in the women’ prison estate). After the initial shock of finding the Fudge Shop closed (this featured heavily on “healthful” walks in my university days) I stumbled across a small open garden in Dumbar’s Close (link for their website https://hiddenscotland.co/dunbars-close/ ). Early yet, with just a few bulbs coming into flower, but very pretty and tranquil. After a good snoop round, and a gander in the rather fine shoe shop next door, I decided to take a short cut past the plaza in front of the council buildings. This was deserted save for two chaps perched on the roof and a cross legged lady in front of the (now paint spattered) door. In a rather disappointing return on the effort the protest was being observed by two rather bemused tourists and three distinctly sceptical looking locals who were chatting to the attending polis in the traditional arms folded stance of the sceptic… Anyway, the meeting went well in the end and I fully intend to continue making a nuisance of myself (but not in the manner of Jackson Pollock).

The next day I donned the gardening breeks and went to survey the area I had earmarked for some of the roses. It did not look promising. Two sanguisorba had run amok suckering all over and what space remained was infested with triffid like buttercups. There was nothing for it but to dig almost everything out and start again. This sounds so easy….. Alas the bed, by the top pond, seemed to be filled almost entirely with leaden, slurpy, clay running down to the very centre of the earth. As a warm up I wrestled out a barrow load of buttercups with foot long roots that had clung to the “soil” like cephalopods resisting arrest. The fibrous roots of sanguisorba presented a further challenge. These were woven through the dense blue clay for a full two spits depth, undermining a couple of sad looking peonies. There was nothing for it but to haul out the clay, roots and all, in giant, slithery slices and dispose of it. By the end of the day I had done little more than create a vast, slithery sided trench. As the light faded I trudged past a ramshackle refugee camp for displaced peonies and primula and consoled myself with cake.

It took the best part of a week in the end to haul away rooty clay, barrow up replacement compost and leaf mould from the other end of the garden and attempt to dig it through the remaining layers of heavy soil. And after all that this only made space for two of the five! The space I had earmarked for a third of the peachy pink ones turned out to have been planted up with lilies (which I’m afraid I disturbed and cut into so they might take a year or so to recover) but a brutal approach to an elderly lupin thankfully delivered a much needed gap site. Mum then chipped in and cleared the weeds from some spots in the long border for the white ones. By the end of Mother’s Day we were done (and I was done in…). Keith had missed most of the trauma (being away at the footie) but Lachlan had come down to cook fur dinner and revived the walking wounded with gin and truffles.

Since the “Passchendale Push” I have been a bit scunnered with gardening to be honest. I managed a desultory wander round to admire the primroses and cheer on the kerria and pussy willows, but my heart wasn’t in it. To justify lurking indoors cake production has ramped up (the recipe for the lemon one has been uploaded, I’m still playing with the fruity fellow) and I have finally finished off all but two of the remaining seville oranges. (By way of a change I’ve made a chocolate orange curd which, if I don’t scoff it all with a spoon, will make a rather fine cake filling.) Hopefully the sun will reappear before I go up a size…