What can you find in an English garden?
Season 4, Episode 41, August 17, 2022
Well, the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak.
What’s the garden equivalent of that saying?
The garden fairy’s out of the foxglove?
The bee has left the hive?
The spade’s turned over the soil?
The corn’s been shucked?
Someone spilled the beans?
We’ll go with “spilled the beans.”
We spilled the beans about why we recorded those last two podcast episodes earlier than we normally do.
It’s because Dee went on a garden tour of the Cotswolds followed by a short hop over to Amsterdam to visit the once-every-ten-years Floriade Expo.
Now she’s back home in Oklahoma so we talked about her trip on this week’s episode.
You will definitely want to listen to this episode to hear about the flowers and veggies she found in English gardens. And you don’t want to miss her most excellent description of the classic full English breakfast which she enjoyed in her own way each and every morning.
A few other tidbits and links you might like…
Dee always wears gloves when gardening except that time right before her trip when she didn’t wear gloves and got bit by an assassin bug. Ouch. Really ouch. And swelling too.
Dee loves the Atlas nitrile gloves. I’ve taken to wearing disposable gloves when I weed because those little sticky seed pods from mulberry weed don’t stick to them. We both wear leather gloves when trimming trees and shrubs.
I’ve ordered bulbs for fall planting. Time for you to order some too!
My order included Allium schubertii (available at Brent & Becky's Bulbs) and Crocus tommasinianus 'Hummingbird' (available at John Scheeper's Bulbs) and a few other bulbs. Dee’s thinking about ordering more reticulated irises, like Iris histriodes 'Katharine Hodgkins' (an older variety from Old House Gardens).
For our flower topic, Dee talked about the flower she saw growing in almost every garden on her tour — dahlias. Then she promised (and delivered) the link to the
zinnias vs. dahlias podcast episode we recorded last year.
Which reminded us that we recorded this current episode on the 15th, which is when I post for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. Here are the links to my bloom day post for August and to Dee's bloom day post for August. You must go look at my post to see the first bloom on Concert Bells sunflowers, a national winner from All-America Selections.
You must!
In the veggie part of our podcast, we talked about potatoes and Smart Pots again because Dee ate a lot of potatoes in England and I dug out my first harvest of fingerling potatoes, grown in Smart Pots. So good.
Right as Dee was boarding that plane to take her England, I bought the audio book edition of Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland by Lisa Schneidau (only an Amazon Link this time, Bookshop doesn’t seem to have it) so that’s what’s on our bookshelf this week.
It fits in nicely with our theme of “what can you find in an English garden.”
I liked the audio edition of this book enough to buy the paperback edition. I also ordered the author’s other books: Woodland Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland (Feb 1, 2021) (Amazon Link) and River Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland (Amazon Link) (Coming out October 1).
Check out Lisa Schneidau’s website for more information about her storytelling.
Continuing with our England theme, we talked about the Tower of London Wildflower Superbloom for the Queen’s Platinum jubilee, which Dee unfortunately didn’t have time to see during her brief time in London, plus The Queen's Green Canopy project which we’ve talked about before.
It wouldn’t be right if Dee left England without a few more plants on her “must-have” list. Top of her list is Peacock Neon Purple Phlox paniculata which she saw at Highgrove, Prince Charles’s garden. She isn’t sure it’s available right now in the U.S., but she’ll keep looking
(Added: Dame Miriam Louise Rothschild was the entomologist we couldn’t think of. Prince Charles consulted with her on some of his meadow plantings.)
Is there more? Yes! Dee and I’ve decided my oldest sister needs to plant a sunflower house for her grandkids, inspired by Sunflower Houses by Sharon Lovejoy (out of print!)
All that and more in one 38 minute episode. Can you believe it?
As always… you can support us by using this affiliate link to Botanical Interest Seeds. If you buy something from them after using this link, we earn a small commission at no cost to you. This helps us continue to bring this podcast to you ad-free! Book links and some product links are also affiliate links.
We’d love to get a few comments going! How about this prompt… have you ever been to England? If yes, what was your favorite garden there? If you’ve never been, would you like to go and what garden would you like to see most?
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And the blah-blah-blah…
For more info on Carol and her books, visit her website. Visit her blog May Dreams Gardens.
For more info on Dee and her book, visit her website. Visit her blog Red Dirt Ramblings.
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