This week’s Cultural Wednesday took Mrs B and me to Barrington Court. Our first visit to Barrington was with Josh, so it felt apt to be here on what would have been his 33rd birthday. I remember enjoying wandering around the gardens and on another, subsequent visit, I we watched a small child staring into the ornamental pond, yelling “Oh my God! Oh my God!” at the top of his voice, entranced by an enormous Koi Carp that lurked between the lily pads.
This week there were no child-eating Carp in the pond, but there was an impressive range of shrubs and flowers in the well-ordered borders. It being a school day, small children were notable by their absence, and so we could amble around the well-laid paths enjoying the warm sunshine in the company of folk against whom we ranked at the lower end of the age range.
But we are beginning to feel our age (‘midlifegardener’ is an increasingly tenuous nom de plume) and further evidence that we are becoming our parents, is provided by our increasing habit of attempting to name every plant we see. I am surprised by our degree of success. There was a time when I had to Google them or just describe a plant as “that pink flower with the green bits; well behaved plant or whatever”. Now, “physostegia” just trips off the tongue. I know my Eryngium from my Echinops and Veronicastrum from Verbena Bonariensis.
This fluency in horticultural Latin feels to have happened suddenly, but it’s no coincidence that it manifested itself as we embarked on our cut flower journey. I guess we need to know exactly what we are growing in our garden, and now we can identify them in the National Trust’s gardens too. With knowledge comes power and confidence and the MLG side hustle is starting to turn into a pivot, evidenced by the creation of Garden Gate Flowers (BA22), with our lovely neighbor, Kate. We have a regular Friday stall at Galhampton Village Hall, and we take orders and offer a delivery service to the village. There are tentative enquiries about weddings, including a “DIY, Rustic Festival” style wedding, which matches our vibe perfectly.
You can even find us on Facebook and Insta so we really do exist.
Who knows where this will lead us? Up the Garden Path, through the Garden Gate…
Veni, Vidi, Vendidi.
I came, I saw, I sold.
Midlife Gardener 
When my parents visited India ,about 12 years ago I think. They were told the best way inton the Taj Mahal was through the garden nurseries at the back. As they went through the nurseries they were accosted by some of the gardeners who were very keen to show them around. Despite my parents non existent Urdu and the gardeners basic English they were all delighted to find a common language in the latin lant names! X
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