While on the subject of spring and seeds, last weekend I went back to the gardens at the Villa D'Este in Tivoli. The connection is simple enough. The Wisteria buds are at that perfect pre-bursting stage when everything about them says "I promise". And back at home, among the germinating seeds are f...
I've been doing this almost every single year for the past, oh, 35 years and it never fails to amaze me. You bung the seeds in to damp compost, you keep them a bit warm and -- Bam! -- new life. Keeping a lid on my impatience can be hard, and in my current set-up is especially dangerous because ther...
Small volcano cones of soil particles have started to appear on the rough ground where the dog and I walk most days. The ants are waking up. What with the pink snow of blossom under the cherry trees, spring is definitely here. The ants' spoil heaps seem entirely appropriate at the moment, the right size for their builders. Later in the summer there will be highways, cleared of any and all debris, snaking for five or ten metres through the herbage. Some of them will be busy with ants going back and forth harvesting seeds, others completely bare. Then they'll switch around as new harvests become available.
In the days before the Palm Pilot, being a bleeding edge, hip kind of guy, I had a Psion organiser. And a Filofax. And to tell the truth, I used the Filofax much more than the Psion. It was easy to scribble in cramped places, using odd stumps of pencil. It was reasonably easy to find a phone number...
Another perfect Saturday, sunshine and blue skies. A clarion call to the garden centre and the terrace. On the way to the garden centre I was distracted by the need to do weekly shopping at the supermarket where, Lo!, two-year-old olive trees were on sale at 5.90 each. So I bought two. Then to the...
