The Lost Gardens of Heligan 08/07

Just when I thought it impossible to get more into plants, we paid a visit to the Lost Gardens of Heligan near St Austell in Cornwall. This is the inspiration for the better-known Eden project and as such is evidence in plant form that the original is always best.

Unlike the Eden Project, which began as a very intriguing experiment in growing plants under giant grenhouse domes and has become akin to a walk through a particularly busy garden centre, the Lost Gardens of Heligan are an example of the types of highly exotic flora and fauna that can thrive in this country given the right conditions.

But it is the extraordinary story of Heligan House that really captures the imagination. For hundreds of years the Tremayne family stocked and maintained the gardens, travelling across the globe to find the rarest and most exotic species available. They planted whole swathes of tree ferns and established a jungle in a valley in the grounds where they grew bananas, palms and even giant California Redwood trees.

Then the First World War arrived and half of the 22 estate gardeners were sent to the trenches. Heligan House was commandeered as a convalescent home for officers and then let out to tenants.

After a period of neglect, the gardens were forgotten about and became overgrown. They were rediscovered in the early 1990s and restored to their former glory on a shoestring budget.

Tim Smitt, one of the three men to lead the restoration of the gardens, then went on to create the Eden Project. I can't help feeling this would also benefit from a few decades of neglect, if only to rid itself of the school parties that swarm over it. Perhaps some pesticide would do the trick.

http://www.heligan.com/

More patio

The patio's been finished for a few days now - the front was completed on Sunday and after a marathon final push which involved, among other things, finshing the front path and spreading a ton of gravel, all that remains is to fill the gaps between the bricks with sand. Easier than it sounds. You think you've done it and then go back the next day and it's all disappeared.

Still we're enjoying our newly renovated outside space. Still can't believe it's now finished, after years of putting it off.

Here's a picture looking at the house from the end of the garden.

Le patio

I apologise for the ack of updates over the past few days. I have been laying a patio, or to be precise, I have paved the outside of the back of the house. Had I not run out of sand I would also have paved the front. No. Had Jewson's been able to deliver after I had run out of sand then I would have paved the front.

It looks amazing. I know that's blowing my own trumpet, but you should see it. Ground Force couldn't have done a better job. Have some of this Dimmock!

Of course as with all matters involving hard graft building type stuff, I couldn't have done it if it wasn't for my Dad. He helped me get the levels and started me off on the bricks. That was after we spent about three hours trying to remove a tree root that seemed to grow vertically down.

The picture I'm attaching is as it looked this morning, before I added the finishing touches, like the shingle. This is the side of the house. There's a massive area round the corner. Still got to decide where to put the palm trees. More pics to follow.

Jump and mow

One would expect Lawnmower sales to follow a fairly predictable trend, possibly ticking up at this time of year as older machines that have been neglected all winter expire on their initial outings.

That could all be about to change now a Suffolk man is breeding wallabies, which, it turns out, are particularly suited to cutting lawns. What you rather have? A coughing, spluttering, deafening, engine-powered monstrosity with sharp blades in a day-glo colour, or a miniature kangaroo? The competition is so biased on the cute factor that it isn't even fair.

The price, at £150 for a male and £600 for a female, is even competitive, when you consider some mowers can cost upwards of £1,000.

I would have thought the only reason that the entire gardening population isn't off to get a wallaby to replace the lawnmower is that there is a minimum lawn-size required, of half an acre, to sustain a pair (they're social little things and have to be sold in pairs).

So the lawnmower isn't totally dead yet. But wallabees are definitely a growth industry.

Nice day, shame about the soundtrack

Look at this. It's what I'm looking at right now, sitting at the bistro table, with a perfect vista of the garden. From this angle you can't even see the building site next door. It looks like paradise.

But it doesn't sound like it. A minute ago I got an earful of some bloke shouting "Ronnie! I love you!" I have no idea who Ronnie is, nor do I have any inclination to find out. But I could, just from looking at the TV. because judging by the duff duff-duff-duff duff duff that signals the end of EastEnders, that must be exactly where I will find Ronnie and the person who loves him/her.

Thats the great thing about neighbours (the real life versions, not the soap). You can't live with 'em... On the one side I've got a couple who seem to want to double the living accomodation in their cottage with an extension and even a cabin at the bottom of the garden.

On the other side of the fence next to me, I have someone who has clearly decided to make it her aim in life to faithfully follow every soap opera ever made. Even on a sunny Sunday afternoon, with the temperature in the early seventies and her windows wide open.

This afternoon alone I've endured the Emerdale, Coronation Street and EastEnders omnibus editions. I wouldn't mind if I was deaf.

I would tell her to get a life, but she's probably too wrapped up in the lives of fictional characters to hear me. I feel like I know them already, and it's only been an afternoon.

Cat fight

First it was the badgers. They came in the dead of night and snuffled my lawn into pieces. I tried all solutions. Pee where they entered the garden, electronic countermeasures, which didn't work.

Then one day they stopped. It might have had something to do with the rose branch fence I erected or the fact they'd dug up all the worms. But one day the holes stopped appearing in my lawn.

That was last year. This year it's cats. They have been using our garden as a toilet ever since the big tom we christened Haggis stopped coming to visit. He lived a few doors down but it was clear from the outset that he regarded our garden as an extension of his manor, and there wasn't a cat in the neighbourhood that would dare set foot in it.

The power vacuum since he left is tangible, and now every cat seems to want a piece of our garden, mainly to use as a crapper, because as is well known, cats don't crap in their own back yards. They crap in ours, because we don't have a cat to defend it.

The only answer is to get a cat of our own, but to be honest I don't much care for the bird-eating felines. Trouble is, it's either that or their shite. There is another alternative. Maybe we should make the garden a haven for all cats. We'll leave food out for them, the place can become their lounge, or pub, or social club. Surely they wouldn't crap in their own social club?

But then we'd need a bouncer. Come back Haggis, all is forgiven.

Bring on the salad days

I think we can safely say that spring has arrived. Plants are sprouting across the garden and I've made my first trip to B and Q.

It was a tight squeeze but I managed to fit a massive planter, stepping stones, a couple of boulders and some decorative pebbles in the Smart. I had to go back for some compost and sand, but that's still only two trips.

One day later and the stepping stones are in the lawn, the planter has a palm in it and I've completely redesigned the flower beds. Thanks to the additional boulders the Buddha has got quite a nice view, and across the lawn he now has a pond to look at.

Once the bamboo grows up and providing I haven't killed off the bananas, come summer the place will look like a clearing from the Jungle Book.

I'm Baboo.

The Buddha

I have bought a Buddha. I don't know why, the idea just came to me. It seemed like a nice addition among the bamboo and palms. Little fella, about a foot tall.

It was a smooth transaction - we nipped off to the local stone statue place and there among the lions and snails and gnomes was the Buddha enclave. All shapes and sizes, some fat, some a bit thinner with four arms and curly hair. The fat one looked the cutest and he was smiling, which has to be a good sign.

Got home, dumped him in the garden, went to the pub, pleased as punch.

And that was where I learned the sinister truth. You don't just buy a Buddha. You are supposed to be given a Buddha, and it has to come from a special place, like a Tibetan monastry, where he will be blessed and bring you good fortune. It will also make sure he doesn't being the 10,000 evil spirits into your home that an unblessed Buddha bought from the local stone statue place will carry with it.

Dave knows. He bought a Buddha and two days later his girlfriend had a scooter accident. That was 10 months ago. She is still on crutches. They got rid of the Buddha.

This was serious stuff. How could I have been so stupid? It made sense, I hadn't just bought a piece of stone, I had bought an effigy, an image incarnate of the great Buddha, revered and worshipped the world over, and there he was sitting in the flower bed.

A quick Google later and the outlook wasn't so bleak. By some miracle we hadn't bought the scary Buddha, we had bought the fat Buddha, an altogether more jolly soul, less hung up on life and less inclined to zap you with evil spirits at the earliest opportunity.

Nevertheless, he demands respect. So at 10pm there we were, placing Buddha on an upturned flowerpot, having positioned him towards the entrance to the house, facing the rising sun. And we rubbed his belly, which is essential.

Now he has his own boulder upon which to sit (we couldn't find a mountain). He seems happy. He gets a belly rub every time I'm passing, and he's got a nice view from his boulder. I can think of worse places for him so I'm sure he can too.

I can see a long and bright future ahead for us, and it looks like the flowers have perked up since he arrived, but it is spring so I'm not putting it all down to him.

I hope he doesn't mind having his picture taken.