By Victoria Plum 
By Victoria Plum
I’m told that the frantic boiling of extra kettles marked the March meeting of the Reepham & District Gardening Club, successfully held in St Michael’s because of work under way at the town hall, when a magnificent 45 people turned out to hear Bob Coutts’ engaging talk on gardening for spring.
He is the retired head gardener at Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk, and if Covid had not prevented me from attending I would have liked to ask him his view on the current exciting changes on that vast estate.
The owner – Hugh Crossley, 4th Baron Somerleyton – is instigating the WildEast initiative to encourage anyone to become involved by allowing both small and large areas of land to be left for nature. These could be gardens, schools, parks, stations or odd corners of difficult-to-manage land.
He sees that land has become overmanaged with tidiness and order continuously pushing back nature.
The aim of WildEast is to allow 20% of East Anglia to be “wilded” in this way – this is in addition to the huge plans for rewilding and regenerating a large part of the Somerleyton Estate.
There is a mass of information online about this project – we are so lucky to have Somerleyton and Wild Ken Hill on our East Anglian doorstep.
Meanwhile, in my garden, I have adopted a friend’s habit of seed spreading.
When tidying up, if I find a seed head of something I like, I crush it gently in my hand and scatter widely. That way the seed has a chance of landing somewhere it will be happy and thrive.
I have tried for several years (with several packets of seed) to ensure that Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist) becomes naturalised in my garden – unsuccessfully until this year, and I am pleased to say I now have many self-sown seedlings.
I will pot up a few of these, along with other bonus plants from my garden, ready for the gardening club plant sale in May.
Next month, on Tuesday 19 April, sees the club’s annual general meeting at Reepham Town Hall at 7.30 pm, followed at 7.45 pm by Ellen Mary, who will tell us about “Plants and Nature for Wellbeing”, which should prove interesting, even though I think we already know that plants and nature help our physical and mental well-being.
Above: Self-sown Nigella seedlings in my garden. Photo: Tina Sutton
Geoff Fisher