By Victoria Plum
I have a National Garden Gift Voucher in my purse. With it I can spend £5 in any participating garden centre. I won this at the Reepham & District Gardening Club summer show for one entry. Just think how much I would have to spend if I had made more effort and won two, three or four classes, or even more!
My gardening apprentice, Bruno the standard poodle, has wreaked havoc with my rhubarb, irises and tree peony. I think I can rescue them soon when the ground dries out enough to put the soil back. Perhaps he has unearthed seeds of rare things which might flourish in the future! I am a half-glass-full sort of person.
Bruno in front of newly erected garden defences. Photo: Tina Sutton
I have sent the bones he has found off to Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse to be preserved alongside those of the West Runton Mammoth. (Have you noticed the small mammoth roundel on the Felthorpe village sign? It’s there because the good folk of Felthorpe reckon the mammoth probably passed through the village on its way to the coast.)
I have paid £10 to join the Norfolk Gardens Trust, following the talk at the gardening club from their representative last year, and via it I enjoyed an exceptionally interesting Zoom talk on botanical illustration, a particular interest of mine, and also in person at Bawdeswell Village Hall a fascinating talk about the restoration of artist-plantsman Cedric Morris’s garden at Benton End in Suffolk − at this event there were home-made chocolate brownies that were even better than mine.
Bring your keen gardening friends to the next gardening club meeting at Reepham Town Hall, Church Street, Reepham at 7.30 pm on Tuesday 18 February, when Sarah Hammond will tell us about English peonies.
I have never grown peonies at all apart from the one I mentioned above. That one came as a surprise bonus in a pot I bought from a Norwich garden visit with an exotic and short-lived salvia in. I recognised the leaves when they came through after the salvia died and hoped it would be one of those gorgeous, exotic, red or luscious pink tree peonies. It wasn’t; it was the common yellow one, but pretty leaves anyway.
Remember to pot up any surplus plants you find when tidying your garden for the plant sale in May. I will be buying them to fill the gaps Bruno has created in my garden.
Good gardening in 2025!