IN WHICH I TRY TO PRODUCE A BLOG POST REALLY WORTHY OF THE NAME, WITH MIXED RESULTS

So i know that at least one of you has remarked the general paucity of posting over here in the last few weeks. And my last two posts have begun "So I just nicked this off x". 

I was determined to do better. I said to myself, I wanna make a post to make my readers proud.To make Vp weep tears of pride. To make Arabella Sock snicker. 

Off I went at 9am this morning, to capture the Titan arum for you all, in glorious technicolour. Before anyone else had got there. Including even the Daily Telegraph, who was hot on my heels with his big ole wide angle lens. 

So I did my bit, and came proudly home ready to upload Baklava Shed's very first Moving Images. 

Only then did I realise my filming was irredeemably, irrevocably sideways. 

Sorry! Try better next time! In the meantime, crick your necks, and be glad you can't smell it (Ryan!). I absolutely love the way the other lady sniggers after I say "have a little sniff" at the end.....

*ps by 'the smell of a fishbox', I mean a scent I remember from my childhood, when my best friend's dad was a fisherman. His car and their hay loft always reeked of this terrible ammoniac smell of beyond decay. 

THINNEST VEG GARDEN YET

Just pinched this from Richard the Guerilla Gardener's wonderfully informative (and constant, unlike some of us) Twitter feed. 

Anyone not yet on Twitter, come on, it's fun! even if you just listen in and never make posts yourself. You get little nuggets like this video, too.... 

OH WHAT A BIG ONE

Just nicked this off Kew's facebook page. We anticipate full frontal odoriforous assault in the next few days, stay tuned

THE SECRET GARDENS OF CAMBRIDGE

Dahlias, eh? 

Last night I was sitting out in the gardens here in Cambridge at dusk and I saw this great big shape scuttle across the garden. At first I thought it was a rat, and then I suddenly realised its hips were too big. It was a hedgehog, racing along, undulating over the lawns. Sniffing. 

Anyway that made me laugh. 

The funny thing about Cambridge gardens is that they are all behind great big tall hedges and fierce iron gates and wooden structures that stop you looking in. I saw one gentleman being politely directed away from King's Fellows Garden yesterday and then I realised it was Ian McEwan. What about that? Even he isn't allowed in. 

So you spend your whole time peeping over things and round things to try and get a view. And even then it's just a tantalising one, with no sense of the whole perspective, just leaving you with a rather disappointed feeling and a bit of a cricked neck. To be honest, a bit like Chelsea show gardens. 

Anyway this is the kind of thing you are faced with: immaculate herbaceous borders behind tempting walls with delicious skyline scenery, but no way in. 

(this is a tiny glimpse of the much-loved Clare College Scholars' garden, thought to be one of the best)

Anyway it was pissing me off, so instead of showing you lots of awkward views of halves of gardens, I posted the dahlias, from John Brookes' Denmans. Which don't hide their love away at all. Which is how I like it. 

DARWIN'S CATS

Some of you will know that I spent last winter working on a book about Darwin's relationship with his dogs, which was warm, passionate, and ended up with the beloved pets making an appearance in some of his most important books. 

I am at a Darwin conference this week (which means I get to loiter in lobbies next to Richard Dawkins and weirdly, Ian McEwan) thinking a lot about animals, humans, parenthood, love, affection, loyalty and evolution. In which context I found out that Arabella Sock had lost one of her two darling cats, Luka. 

I am really sad for her. In a sort of tribute mood, I found this section from my book, which is what I would like to be like myself, really. Darwin wasn't especially a cat person, which is what makes it even sweeter. 

"Whilst dogs were always Darwin’s favourites, Henrietta Darwin wrote of her father’s tolerance towards her own pets,

'He cared for all our pursuits and interests, and lived our lives with us in a way that very few fathers do… He had no special taste for cats, but yet he knew and remembered the individualities of my many cats, and would talk about the habits and characters of the more remarkable ones years after they had died.'

Darwin saw each animal as having its own separate being, its own 'individuality'. His celebration of Henrietta’s remarkable cats suggests, just delicately, that if we had asked Darwin if cats had souls, he might have answered, as much as any other creature does." 

BRITISH MUSEUM PART 2

So as a couple of you may remember I was off to do a talk at the British Museum about the India landscape installed for the summer by Kew, to tie in with exhibitions at the Museum about Indian art. 

I was very nervous, and deservedly so because more than 30 people came. I'm in the black, with the weird microphone necklace hanging around my neck (felt a bit like a medieval instrument of torture. A bit.) We looked at the planting, which varies from Banyan to Meconopsis, and talked about great botanists associated with India, including my favourite, Wallich (of many different Wallichiana/ Wallichii fame). 

I didn't feel like it went all that well, I have to admit. Though people were complimentary afterwards. On the other hand, it was very satisfying to have actually done it. And it was the first time I'd done something like that - in such a small space. At Kew, we have acres to impress people with. My immediate thought was "Oh I wish I could do it again another day, I think I could actually make it good now." 

Well I don't have a chance to do the same garden tour again, but on Friday I am going back to the British Museum to give the lunchtime lecture. It's about Joseph Hooker and Charles Darwin and Indian plants, and if anyone wants to come along I would be so delighted to see you. 

You could make sure to ask me some nice easy questions, too. Eeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkk.

FUTUREGARDENS

Well I do apologise to those of you I offended in my previous post by my Sapphically lovesick ramblings about Dr Nikki and my use of the word 'brill'. Now, down to the serious business.

It was fascinating to see how many people turned out for the press day of FutureGardens. All the people who are committed to trying to create interesting new outdoor space seemed to be there. It was interesting to see the way people paired off to pursue serious critiquing. Anne Wareham and Charles Hawes were doing the rounds and waved cheerily; Corinne Julius and Stephen Anderton took notes and talked like show judges, in private low tones; James Alexander-Sinclair and Therese Lang, the last pair of the day, looking over what they'd achieved as organisers. 

I personally really try hard not to see images of a garden or landscape before I go and visit it. I just hate having preconceived ideas. So as on the 10 o'clock news, I must warn you to turn away now if you don't want to know about these gardens. I think there is something big to be said for just turning up and looking. 

On the other hand, if you need persuading, or you've already been and you're interested to know what someone else thought, carry on! Blog beginners, please remember, that as ever you can click on the pics to see them bigger. 

Let me start with one I completely adored. This is Tony Heywood's. You may know Heywood's work already, or be totally new to it, but I defy you not to have an opinion. For me, I find it 100% enchanting. It's like a cross between a Hollywood filmstar's garden fountain and a strange deserted coal beach in the North East. Wizened trees he got from the National Trust and some 1970s conifers complete the picture. Bizarre and beautiful. For me, worth the journey on its own. For others, bleurgh, and where are the plants? (Apart from the ones he's spray-painted blue that is.)

Now, this one I hated. I really didn't get it. Peter Thomas designed it, who is well-regarded, so perhaps I will put this down to my personal not-getting-it. I hated the execution of it, really - I thought the blue plastic frames were too flimsy and I hated the colours of the plastic balls which I thought were too much like something bought from a shop. The idea of all these children working so hard to produce the painted butterflies which hang from the frames offended me. (Directly opposite to how I felt about the plasticine garden, in fact, where I adored the communal aspect of the work, which reminded me of Anthony Gormley's Field for the British Isles.)

I've shown you some of the most outrageous ones, as they are the ones which have stayed with me, I feel, a few days later. But there are other, quieter, more contemplative takes on the conceptual garden. This one I enjoyed, but didn't find especially exciting. However, I think a lot of people will really love it. It's called "Nest", by Jane Hudson and Erik de Maeijer.  It has a gentleness and an attention to materials that's very striking, with a wonderful woven fence and this incredible oak planking (which makes you immediately go 'how did they afford that on a £25k budget???). She is an RHS judge so knows how to put together a good scheme, and I'll be interested to revisit and see how it changes as it's one of those where the planting looks reasonably intriguing. 

And there was this, by two young graduates of Falmouth's increasingly prestigious garden design course (partly a Beardshaw production I believe, for those who care about such things), Maren Hallenga and Hugo Bugg. In many ways one of the most conservative of schemes, it bisected the whole space with this glorious log wall which had rusty steel circles making porthole views through it. Birch trees created dappled sunshine, and ponds full of old cutlery shimmered in the summer light. And, the planting of natives like stinging nettles next to gauzy astrantias really worked. They want to do a show garden at Chelsea next year (not ambitious then, are we?) so good luck to them, I think they have the kind of attention to detail and general balance of skills to do a good job. 

I was perplexed by Andy Sturgeon's entry, I have to admit, though its rusted iron plates had a sombre quality that I kept returning to - especially so close to the anniversary of D-Day. I would happily sign up to ban birches as standard default modern tree for an interim period of perhaps three years, by which time people might have thought up something else to use. Though I guess the whiteness against the red does really work. 

I wished the plates hadn't been quite so close to the back fence really; but this garden will come much more into its own over the course of the summer as this Richard Serra gesture is planted in what looks like grass, but is actually baby wheat. As the wheatgrass grows up, it will turn golden in the sun, and the rusted rectangles will sit in a miniature English field. I will still be thinking of Normandy and war, I think, but I will enjoy watching the change come about. 

And lastly I really got into this one, after a conversation with the designer, Marcus Green. And after being slobbered on by his gorgeous dog Cosmo. He made the garden after many walks in the Northamptonshire countryside with Cosmo. The idea was to try to map in the garden some of the lines of energy created by the dog running through the fields. Anyone who has ever watched a dog running through young wheat knows how exhilarating it is, for the human being and the dog, and I loved the way he'd used native grasses such as the wonderfully-named "Yorkshire Fog" to create those characteristic 'crush' lines of animal tracks. Delicate, energetic, ley-liney, it really grew on me. 

So look that's my brief report - I hope to read more from everyone else after their visits, and also to go back myself, and continue thinking about what I've seen. I have only one question about the whole exercise: I hope that lots of people find the £12.50 entrance fee good value for money, rather than extortionate, and recommend it to their friends. Here's hoping. But what do others think about that entrance fee? 

Eek totally forgot my best pic of all. It's E17's Martyn Skywalker on his home planet of Tattoin, just coming from a day's moisture farming. 'The only Alexander-Sinclair I know of is old James ASinclair," he's saying as he ponders a weird message from a 'Princess Lila" that he found in a robot left in one of his fields earlier. I just hope he's keeping an eye out for Stormtroopers...