Sandra Lawrence

Squirrelled Away

Don’t get me wrong – I like to see a fluffy-tailed Tufty scampering about the grass as much as the next Event Gardener, but sometimes that’s not very much. In the summer the bunch in my garden seem to delight in smashing my favourite pots, uprooting box-cuttings and replacing tulip bulbs with monkey nuts. In…

Here be monsters..

Ever had one of those plants you forgot you even bought? This one was hiding in plain sight – a box ball, in an urn. I’d bought it when some people were coming round, plonked it in the urn for instant sophistication, had it roundly admired, then enjoyed it so much I forgot I’d never taken…

Jolly Good Biscuits!

The other day I picked up an old gardening magazine, My Garden, from 1947. It’s a curious little beast, about A4 size in today’s measurements and, given that Britain was still heavily rationed, an austere read in comparison to the glossies we read now. Mainly text, there are a few illustrations, some black and white photographs…

A Honey Hit of Sarcococca

My front garden’s going through a bit of an ugly duckling phase at the moment. Last year I took out a bunch of really ghastly, mildew-infested drudge-shrubs. They did not want to go. My muscles are still aching from the toughness of the roots. I replaced them with a row of yews, under-planted with tête-a-tête daffodils that…

The Kitchen Garden at Hampton Court

When ‘food’ is mentioned in the same sentence as ‘Hampton Court’ what generally springs to mind are Henry VIII’s massive Tudor kitchens, groaning with hogs heads, venison and enough pies to satisfy an army. An army that when not actually fighting potential invaders, spent much of its time playing at it, jousting in the tilt-yards…

Forcing Lily of the Valley

Such a harsh word. Pretty much any spring bulb grown indoors this time of year is ‘forced’ – hyacinths, crocuses, daffs – none of them really want to come out for Christmas, but they’ll show their faces, not too grudgingly, if they’re treated nicely. I first came across the idea of forcing Lily of the…

The Most Festive Event of All

One of my favourite harvests isn’t actually from my allotment’s plot at all. It’s from the the hedges that surround the site, from the garden and from chatting up the people who sell me my Christmas tree (lovely folks at Kidbrooke Homebase – a jolly, friendly bunch to whom I return again and again for customer…

When life sends sycamores…

…Make Leaf Mould. Okay, so suddenly the allotment looks like this: There’s a long, steep, grassy sward down one side of the actual plots, which always gets covered in leaves, most of which just get left, but I try to sweep mine up as they tend to blow onto my plot and kill the grass…

The Giant Autumn Leaderboard

Okay, so it’s got to THAT time in the year. The allotment is far from over for the winter, there are several crops still growing and a couple of new ones still under the ground for next year. But it’s definitely a good time to take stock, so I’ve decided to go through every crop…

The Leeks of Doom

At first I didn’t realise there was anything wrong. I mean – look at this – looks fine, yeah? Okay, so it wasn’t going to win any prizes but it looked at least supper-worthy. Looks can deceive, however. I started noticing strange, wiggly-looking leaves but still I wasn’t too worried. Then it came to teatime this…

Christmas at Kew

Thought I’d take a little time out from my giant autumn roundup to visit the Royal Botanic gardens at Kew for their annual Christmas Festival of lights… It’s a combination of imaginative lighting through the trees, illuminating the elegant garden buildings and strange installations. This year is curious because many leaves on deciduous trees are…

Giant Autumn Roundup: Quince

One of the big surprises of my year was the sudden fruiting of my Meeches Prolific quince after 14 years of nothing. Whether it’s finally drilled down to some water on the hill of doom, whether it’s finally found a pollination partner or whether it’s just decided to stop sulking and grow up, I got…