Garden Gate Flowers

Toad in the Hole!

Much of the joy in growing flowers, is derived from being a part of the natural environment. What a way to start the day, cutting flowers in the early hours of the morning, to the accompanying hum of bees and hoverflies on the cosmos, Ammi and Antirrhinums. Or spying a field mouse nibbling away at leaves amid the Gaura.

The range of species in the garden is far wider than I often realise, from insects to small mammals and we even had a green woodpecker on the lawn this morning. Most do not need any overt assistance from me, but one inhabitant did need intervention when he took up residence in the biennial seedlings.

I first noticed it when one of my pots had suddenly lost its covering of green foxglove seedlings. It was puzzling as slug damage has been negligible in the dry spring and summer and this was just one pot in a tray of forty that had suffered damage. On closer inspection I realised a toad had taken up residence in the pot. The tiny pot suggested this was a young toad. I assumed he was drawn to the moist potting compost, so I did not like to disturb him. He seemed happy enough. Live and let live, and all that.

I regularly see Common Toads around the garden – often buried in a raised bed and only moving when I disturb them when I am hoeing or weeding. I have not, as far as I am aware, injured one yet, and I was not intending to start with my seed tray tenant. Toads eat slugs so they are good allies in the war on pests and their presence suggests a healthy ecosystem.

Next day Toad was sitting on top of the seedlings and it dawned on me that he was actually trapped as he probably dropped down from the raised bed, into the storage box housing the seed tray. It is one of the differences between Toads and Frogs that Toads (like White Men in the 1992 basketball comedy) can’t jump. They just kind of bumble along, which my young interloper demonstrated, as he gamely tried to reach for the top of the box, but kept falling over like a late-night drunk who thinks he can climb the drainpipe.

Taking pity on my gardening ally, he happily took a ride on the trowel to a safer part of the garden where I hope he is continuing to feast on slugs.

Could someone let me out please…

Catching the last trowel home

And the award goes to…

Mrs B and I spent half term in Scotland, which was warm and wonderful, and we basked in the unseasonal combination of sunshine with (almost) no midges.

But it was a lot hotter in the Midlife Garden (now rebranded the Garden Gate Flower Plot) and on our return from the Far North, I was amazed at the transformation in the raised beds and cutting patches. Every seedling seemed to have trebled in size and was blooming. The dahlias that I had transplanted the day before we left, now had buds on them. The Cerinthe had grown long and elegant stems and the Ammi Majus, were over eight feet tall and covered in white umbels.

The survival of these flowers is entirely down to our colleague Kate who spent long hours watering to keep everything alive. No surprise her efforts have been rewarded with a nomination for Employee of the Month. The award is, as yet, an unofficial one, as we are a fledgling organisation (or should I say seedling perhaps) with three of us involved on a regular basis: Myself, Mrs B and Kate, although other members Kate’s entourage are occasionally involved, such as mum Sue, and husband Sam. Not to mention her youngsters one of whom was saleswoman of the month after coercing punters into buying all our bouquets at the Frome flea market last year.

Kate heads up the PR and Marketing division, running the Social Media content, promoting the business, and finding exploring new outlets for our product. And in between ferrying kids to school, she even manages to chuck a few seeds into her own flower patch to produce more stems, so it cannot be a surprise that she has had a disproportionate number of Employee of the Month nominations.

Mrs B has assumed the role of Presentation and Quality Assurance. As The Face of GGF, nothing leaves the premises without her approval. In the early days, she trained the workforce in bouquet design, and she is also head wrapper, folding brown paper with Origamian precision to present the flowers at their finest.

And what of the Midlife Gardener himself? Well, I guess the clue is in the title. I am the ageing horticulturist bumbling round his garden, growing the stems, talking to them, and cutting and conditioning them every week. Sowing and growing takes time and might seem mundane, beside the glamour of Presentation and PR. But for every John and Paul there has to be a Ringo on drums; and Best and Charlton could not have done anything with a football if Nobby Stiles had not been there to do the donkey work. We are all part of a team in which there is no “I”.

But with a bit of creativity, you can find “me” – which is what Kate replied when asked who Employee of the Month should be. Well done, Kate, the GGF EOFTM, goes to you.

Again. (sigh)

Beautiful bouquets. Passed by Quality Control

Tulip Maniac

Contrary to TS Eliot’s assertions, this year April has been the kindest month. Dry and sunny, without being too hot. I read that bluebells have been flowering a fortnight earlier as a result of the weather patterns over the autumn and winter adn we saw plenty of them at Easter in Devon. Particularly pleasing as they were more often English bluebells, rather than unscented Spanish bullies that we tend to see around here, and which are resident in the Midlife Garden.

While it has been a good year for the Bluebells, our tulips were not as numerous as last year and it seemed they finished earlier too. I was correct in sayign numbers were down, but I was mistaken in thinking they gave up sooner. Checking my Google Photos, April was the only month we were cutting tulips in 2025.By May, they were blown, despite purchasing bulbs that the supplier assured us range in flowering time from March to May.

One month is worth it, though. And while there might have been fewer blooms, we really made those tulips work. Throughout April we were supplying bunches to our lovely local farm shop outlets at Kimbers’ and Buffalicious, where they have been enthusiastically received. It was hardly the Tulip Mania of the 1600s, but they sold well.

As we cut the last tulips, Mrs B expressed concern that we were running out of flowers all together. But she need not fear, as nature (and a reasonably well-organised gardener) finds a way, with Hesperis and Honesty stepping up to the floral plate and (whisper it low) the mighty Ranunculus are finally showing some buds.

Branch Lines

It feels that spring is upon us. Warm weather around Easter, has seen a positive reaction from seedlings and early perennials in the longer days and strengthening sun.

I fund myself looking to the trees around me for the tell tale signs of spring. The Ash and the Oak on our lane are full of incoming migrants, such as chiffchaffs and blackcaps, filling the air with their distinctive songs. I suspect the Ash is coming into leaf first, which is unusual, and suggests the prospect of a wet summer, if the old rhyme is to be believed:

‘Oak before Ash: in for a splash. Ash before Oak: in for a soak.’

We had scaffolding on the house last week to enable some work on the roof. Standing next to the chimney piece, I realised just how tall the oak is. A wet summer, or slightly leaky roof, would be the least of our problems if any sizeable part of this tree fell our way.

But it is a feature of our lives just as other trees are. The Amelanchier, which we transplanted to the Spursy border a few years ago, has been in delicate blossom these past couple of weeks. It reminds me of the Old Place, as my mother particularly valued it. In contrast, I have never been a big fan of a Magnolia: the blossom is too blousy for my taste and, when fallen, it litters the place like discarded fish and chip wrappers. The Amelanchier is far more delicate and refined.

The Whitebeam that we placed in the back garden also reminds me of the Old Place. My father bought a White beam soon after my mother died. At this time of year, the soft silvery green buds anticipate the bright green leaves about to burst forth and delicate white flowers. It almost shimmers in the spring sunshine.

Elsewhere in the Spursy border, the three silver Birches are a major feature. They are currently covered in catkins, which contrast pleasingly with the shiny bark. They remind me of childhood trips to my grandmother on Ashdown Forest in Sussex.

I think we are drawn to trees by their longevity. Most of them will be here long after we have passed. I often take pictures of them and none is more photographed and studied by us (and others) than the Tulip Tree (Liriodendron Tulipifera) down the road on Crawford Lane. Commonly known as Josh’s Tree, it was planted in his memory by members of our village book group. It is positioned on one of the main thoroughfares for dog walkers and has plenty of space to grow to its ultimate height of more than twenty metres.

A group of us dug it in during lockdown in a comical example of failed social distancing, which ended with the passing of an iPhone from unwashed hand to unwashed hand before one of us worked out how to take a selfie. I am pleased to report that we all survived the experience – particularly the tree.

Hardly a month or even a week goes by without me taking a photograph of it and thinking of my boy. The tree will not actually flower for at least another ten or fifteen years, but just the shape and colour of the emergent leaves in the spring are a joy to behold, like small candles on the tree’s elegant arms.

Like the Oak and the Ash, it bears witness to our lives and, in a small way, the Tulip Tree will retain memories of our boy.

Buttercups Runneth Over

In January I reported on my continuing efforts to grow Ranunculus. Commonly known as Persian Buttercups, these flowers were initially a breeze for me to grow, but more recently they seem to just die for no reason. I have no idea why.

But this year, I seem to have cracked it, thanks to some info sourced on the internet. The method involves starting the corms packed tightly together in a shallow seed tray, barely covered by compost. Given a light watering, within a few weeks there were small shoots coming through. I transferred them to 9cm pots and now every single corm is flourishing. All 101 of them. It seems too easy. I do not have the early blooms that I have tried for in previous years (and often failed) but maybe it is worth the delay.

Last week, we were in a ‘collab’ producing flowers for Ellie’s wedding (daughter of our good friends Steve and Lesley). It was joyful affair and we felt honoured to be able to contribute to the day in such a positive way. Being so early in the year, it was touch and go as to what stems we would be able to provide, but in the absence of any early ranunculus, the Garden Gate tulips came good, doing much of the floral heavy lifting. But ranunculus was there too, albeit stems that had been sourced from a Devon flower farm by our collaborator, Nat, Ellie’s sister-in-law. Nat was the primary organiser of the arrangements and utilised the ranunculus to create some wonderful bridal bouquets and buttonholes. She had also made some awesome dried flower rings for the smallest bridesmaids. It was a pleasure working with Nat.

I have said it many times, how gardening and horticulture teaches us about patience and humility. Our flowers bloomed because of some careful planning, nurturing and, above all, time. We did not have to shout, swear or use excessive force to get the results we wanted.

Although we might not have had ranunculus in time for the April wedding, we are quietly confident of a good crop of them in due course. As the Middle East is in danger of being bombed ‘back to the Stone Ages’ by our one-time allies, it seems ironic that I am about to produce my best crop of Persian Buttercups.

Making Your Bed and Lying

As followers of the modern geopolitical Zeitgeist, last week the Midlife Gardener (in the guise of Garden Gate Flowers) stole a march on The Donald by taking over Greenland. Or, more accurately, some Green Land. It is not ours (never has been, never will be), but here at MLG we do not quibble over the Art of the Deal or tariffs; and we don’t issue threats or sarcastic tweets; we quietly take our neighbours’ land for pure commercial gain. We don’t bleat on about security, but instead we consult with the landowners first and only move in when they invite us. So, it is a big thank you to Tony and Pippa (our local Green Landers) for offering us this extra territorial arm of Garden Gate Flowers.

The territory has no rare earth minerals, oil or gas, so we had to bring our own raw materials and natural resources in the shape of two tons of Revive Soil Conditioner, expertly delivered by Kevin (Wally) Watson to Garden Gate HQ. It was still hot and smokin’ as we shovelled thirty-one barrowloads of the black stuff to cover the cardboard mulching. Unlike the proverbial horse shit being spewed in Davos this week, we have ordered a trailer load of the real thing, so our beds will soon be well made and ready for planting.

The first occupants of this promised land are likely to be MAGA Snapdragons. You guessed it, we’re Making Antirrhinums Great Again. This particular type is Snowflake, which could confuse one world leader. Is this ‘Green Land’ or ‘Ice Land’?

But we wouldn’t make that mistake. We’re not THAT STUPID.

Not Going Cheap in the Sales

January means planning the spring planting but these days, fewer seed catalogues are landing on my doormat. Either the postal service is getting worse, or the seed companies are going electronic. Either way, instead of browsing catalogues, nowadays I am surfing the Web for my gardening fantasies.

I have plenty of seeds left over from summer, so have only needed to supplement them with a few from Ben at Higgledy Garden. But the internet is a dangerous place and leads me into horticultural temptation. After the losses of ‘dahliagate’ I was minded to order fresh ones to swell the depleted ranks and while I was browsing those tubers, I could not resist ordering a bulk batch of ranunculus.

My relationship with the Persian Buttercup over the years has been tempestuous, to put it mildly. The first time our paths crossed, at the Old Place, we managed to produce a fine crop of the multi-layered rose-like blooms. It seemed so simple: stick them in a pot in the autumn greenhouse, and by early summer – Boom!

In subsequent years I have tried the same formula, but it just hasn’t worked out. They have thrown up a few, sometimes weedy, green leaves, but each time they have wilted and died in the pot before spring could arrive. And this autumn I put them in 9cm pots and they never even bothered to germinate or shoot. Just rotted. I desperately want ranunculus in my life, but each time I try, they just swipe left.

I am clearly doing something wrong. Reading their biog, I see that they like the paradoxical “damp, well-drained soil.” So, they do not like being dry, but at the first sign of too much water, the corms will melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Mrs B laughed when she knew I had succumbed to the Temptation of Ranunculus once again. The words of Soft Cell, she regards my attraction to ranunculus as a so so love; the standing joke of the year. For my part, I tried to make it work and although they didn’t even germinate last time, I wanna make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Despite my best intentions and ferent hopes, deep down I know that, even if they do manage to produce a few green shoots, I it is likely to be another case of Say Hello then Wave Goodbye.

In the Green Mid Winter

The Winter Solstice.

Winter Table Decorations for the Local Farmshop Cafe

Eight and a half thousand people gathered to see the sun rise behind the Heel Stone and send its first rays into the heart of Stonehenge on the shortest day of the year.We assume the Ancients celebrated the Solstice because from now daylight hours will start to increase. In the middle of winter, we can just begin to feel a little hopeful, with spring just over the horizon.

Like an ancient pagan, I invest more hope in the solstice with each passing year. I will be looking at the garden for those green shoots which might be groping for the lengthening days. Goodness in the dark days of winter. For me, those green shoots would normally be garlic and onions, but in a change of tack in the Midlife Garden, we have not planted garlic this year.

The other day I saw tiny little bulbs sprouting on the top of three of the Allium Ping Pong I planted last year. In 2025 they only partially flowered, because of the dry summer. Instead, they have produced a plethora of baby bulbs. So, I have stuffed them into pots – and, with any luck, I hope to plant them out in the early spring, when they could provide some colour and, perhaps, some income.

Elsewhere in the garden, I am hopeful the five hundred tulips have settled in and are not rotting under the heavy autumnal rain. Whenever I see Monty Don planting tulips, he bangs on about the need for ‘free draining soil,’ as he shovels grit into his pots. No grit in my tulip bed, but I remain positive.

Free drainage is not a great feature of our clay soil, which was one reason I did follow Monty’s advice with my Dahlias. I lifted them before the frost, even washing the soil off them, as per MD’s advice, and left them in the greenhouse to dry off. Whereupon the hard frost bit them, panicking me into wrapping them up and storing them in the garage. But, as they were still a bit damp, I only succeeded in creating the perfect conditions for many of them to rot. Maybe next time I’ll follow local advice and leave them in the ground, well-mulched. Where, I guess, the rain can rot them instead.

It would be easy to get disheartened when stuff wilts, rots, or dies in the garden, but gardening, by definition, is a pragmatic and uplifting activity, even in the depths of winter. In the greenhouse, there are plenty of seedlings doing well, with sweet peas just coming up and antirrhinums standing strong in their pots, ready for the new season. They might not be flowering by the first wedding of the year on 2^nd April (fingers crossed for the tulips on that one) but they will be going strong for a bride’s bouquet in July.

And that is what gardening does: it encourages us to look forward, with patience and positivity, and in the meantime, it keeps us stimulated and busy.

Training Day

The summer has been a steady learning curve as we have developed our cut flower production systems of growing, cutting, arranging and marketing. So, always looking for knowledge to help us on our way, Mrs B and took the opportunity to attend the horticultural equivalent of a Ted Talk. Otherwise known as the monthly meeting of the local gardening association at the village hall, October’s guest speaker was a cut flower farmer from a neighbouring county who promised to share the secrets of her success.

As non-members we paid our £2 per head for entry, a cost that would be covered by the Garden Gate Flowers training budget. There were over forty keen gardeners in attendance. The presence of Mr B and me reduced the average age by about ten years while my own attendance doubled the number of men

We were encouraged to buy raffle tickets, hoping for one of several exciting prizes. On the Table of Wonders I could see a hand-painted greetings card and a large bar of Toblerone, but for me the top prize was the large ball of Nutscene natural jute twine. You know when you have a reached a tipping point in your life, when a ball of string beats a bar of Swiss chocolate.

On another table, the members had brought in one ‘stem’ from their garden for the monthly competition, voted on by all present. Someone told me there was a time when the category of ‘something from the garden’ had a wider brief, resulting in countless jars of produce. Apparently the (now sadly deceased) previous Chair became so fed-up with repetitious entries of pickles, jams and jellies, she momentarily lost her patience and muttered an expletive under her breath. Overheard by another member, she is now privately known as “Mrs Fuck-Chutney”.

I think Mrs F-C would have been more accommodating of the entries this month which consisted of a range of roses, dahlias and a fine deep purple aster. But before we could vote, the lecture began. The speaker was a seasoned performer, winning over the audience with some well-placed flattery. Like Bono from U2 telling every gig audience they’re the ‘best ever’, our speaker knew how to work her particular crowd, complimenting them on the large turnout; noting their ‘stunning’ fashion sense; and then, rather bizarrely, telling everyone what wonderful toilets their hall has. She bracketed them alongside Gloucester Services in her top ten of public toilets. High praise indeed.

With the crowd eating out of her hand, she was able to flip through the rest of her Powerpoint, giving us pictures of her various pets, skipping the slide on accounts (“boring” she said) and getting to the nitty gritty of what to grow, how to grow it and what lessons she has learnt over the years.

It turns out, she has been doing this for six years but, after flogging herself every weekend going to farmers’ markets and stalls, she has decided to rein it back in and just do occasional bouquets for local delivery (as well as Ted Talks to gardening clubs). It was reassuring to know that GGF is doing the same things that she does. It appears there is no great mystery to it, although she did take great delight in sharing the “secret” way to wrap flowers. It turns out that this is how we wrap ours too, so maybe not that big a secret.

The talk ended with a discussion of seed suppliers (General consensus: Higgledy Garden, Good. Sarah Raven, Bad).

The talk was running twenty minutes over the hour, and we all felt we needed to get back home for hot chocolate and digestives, so it was left for the current chair to thank the speaker and make the draw. We did not win the ball of string, but we did depart with some stems of hollyhock which another member had brought it. No one seemed that interested in the hollyhocks until they heard the colour of the flowers was ‘blood red’ at which there was a noticeable stirring in the audience. Gardeners love a freebie – especially if it is a good claret.

We left having learnt a little but reassured that what we are doing a lot right. And we might have even have some hot red hollyhocks next summer.

Migrant Hostile

It seems every garden needs a dog these days. It is a trend led by Monty Don, who took it to another level this year by creating a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show that was designed for, and by, his dog Nell. Badger, our own canine horticultural expert, watches Monty Don on Gardener’s World and barks angrily whenever he sees Nell. I suspect Badger shares our view that basing your garden design on the random wanderings of your dog is taking the whole thing a little far.

The Midlife Garden has not been designed by a dog, but Badger’s influence on it is clear. He spends long hours patrolling the beds and borders, on the lookout for frogs, rodents and, on one particularly disturbing evening, Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillars. Thankfully he rarely, if ever, catches anything but his regular rootling through shrubs has created well-worn paths under the Peonies and Persicaria. So, in some sense, I have designed my planting around his habits. In our own scaled down version of Elephant Walk, I realise that planting anything on his path is ill-advised, as evidenced by the crushed Nicotiana and broken Bells of Ireland.

But Badger doesn’t confine himself to the dense jungles of the borders. He roams the lawns and paths in his efforts to evict other interlopers, of which the worst offenders are pigeons. Mrs B wonders if Badger picks up on her own annoyance at the half-arsed efforts of pigeons building nests in the pyracanthas or apple tree. They lay three twigs on top of one another and call it home, but they make such a flapping fuss about it. If Badger really does feed off Mrs B’s anger, he takes that anger, distils it, pressurises it and vents in a concentrated stream of apoplectic rage every time a pigeon lands anywhere near the garden, let alone actually in it. To Badger, pigeons are unwanted migrants, treating our trees like hotels, and like a Tory councillor, he wants them out of our Back Yard.

He does not spend ALL his time barking and getting angry. He is generally a calm dog, but not everyone would share this view. Certainly not the middle-aged woman we met the other day with her long-legged terrier cross. Badger and I were nearing the end of a relaxing walk when we came upon them. Badger was off the lead, and for a moment I thought he would maintain his relaxed demeanour with the other dog which was being tightly restrained by its tense owner.

Badger did his now customary nose to nose meet and greet, swiftly followed by a mouthful of snarled invective as he leapt at the larger dog. The owner pulled it away and I grabbed the now simmering Badger. She questioned why my dog was not on a lead, which was a fair point, and I apologised, sounding like a woolly-headed liberal parent making excuses for his “boisterous” child (for which you can read “spoilt”). But she was not in a mood for apologies or placations.

“Drives me up the FACKIN’ wall”, was her response as she strutted away.

I drew two of conclusions from the interchange. One: she is not from round here. And two: my dog is a foulmouthed little tyrant.

Like the master of quick wit and ready repartee that I am, I had the ideal response to the potty-mouthed newcomer.

“If dogs are like their owners, we appear to have got our dogs mixed up”, as I offered her my foul-mouthed dachshund.

But, like the comedian who thinks of the ultimate putdown to an annoying heckler, but only when he is on the bus on the way home, I came up with my witty rejoinder when I was back in the Midlife Garden, talking to my flowers, while Badger licked frogs and shouted at pigeons.

Never found out what was cornered behind the herb trough

Garden Gate Flowers

Toad in the Hole!

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And the award goes to…

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Tulip Maniac

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Branch Lines

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Buttercups Runneth Over

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Making Your Bed and Lying

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Not Going Cheap in the Sales

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In the Green Mid Winter

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Training Day

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Migrant Hostile

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