I've been looking at the easy plants which will help me simplify my garden (see April 17) Alchemilla mollis and hardy geraniums are two which are really the basis of this garden - troublefree and gorgeous for months, forming mounds which give the garden a billowing and relaxed look.

To punctuate these forms I need tall, elegant spires - foxgloves do the job beautifully, but they don't always come back - or at least not in the same places, being biennials, and it is a lot of work really, growing them on each year to plant out. With results like this photograph from three years ago it seems worth it - but they only look like this maybe one year in three.

I am thinking of trying delphiniums instead. Risky, here in the wet and sluggy west of Scotland, but I am about to send for '36 plus 6 free' plug plants (why don't they just say 42?) to give them a try. You seldom see them in gardens here - there may be a good reason for this! - but I have heard of one gardener who succeeds with them, so will seek her out for advice. I think provided I am vigilant early in the season they may do well, and rather than diminish each year, as the foxgloves seem to do, they should increase and make bigger, more slug resistant clumps.

A five year old boy I know called them 'boxing gloves' and when he was gently corrected stamped his little foot and said 'Oh no, I wanted them to be boxing gloves!' The individual flowers are sometimes more elegantly referred to as 'fairies' thimbles'.  Delphiniums, though wonderful, don't taper so elegantly at the top as the foxglove (in fact the tops look more like boxing gloves! Well Andrew will love them.)

Any growing tips welcome....

For a look at three gardens in our village last June, type in    living.stv.tv/105142-gorgeous-gardens-raising-cash-for-charity/ and click again (clumsy isn't it). There is a clip from a television programme which the Scotland's Gardens Scheme arranged to promote our Open Gardens days (this year on 26 and 27 June). It was a lot of fun, though right now we are looking at big patches of grass which have died out for no reason that we can fathom, and thinking, will it look OK by June? We're raking and seeding and wishing it would get warm enough for the seed to germinate.

This month's Coast magazine is also featuring the garden - all this fame!! The photographer who came to do it, Andrea Jones was lovely and it was fascinating to see the garden through another artist's eyes. And the writer Paula McWaters made me laugh with her punchy opening line 'What gets Freda up in the morning is the thought of Cedric Morris. Not the man, but the annual poppy that is named after him'.

Offering to open the garden to raise money for charity led to a lot of new things and new people in my life....

The hardy geraniums are fabulous plants - easy, long flowering, perfectly hardy, disease resistant, beautiful and come up year after year - what more could you ask of a plant? They form lovely mounds around the garden - that 'billowing' look, which I like to contrast with spires of foxgloves, tall alliums and veronicastrum.

I can hardly believe I grow 19 different ones in my quite small garden! (I've just been out to count). My favourites include 'Ann Folkard', magnificum (see yesterday's photograph), 'Rozanne', 'Patricia', psilostemnon, lancastriense, 'Max Frei' and 'Mavis Simpson'.

'Ann Folkard', pictured, spreads for yards around, weaving its way lightly through and over other plants. It has a very long flowering season and is always covered in bees. I adore the zingy magenta with the limey green of the young leaves.

The longest flowering has to be 'Rozanne' - a delicious blue, much more compact than 'Ann' - it flowers from June till October - amazing.

The little wild geranium robertianum - Herb Robert is allowed to grow in and out of things at the back of borders, and I grew geranium robertianum 'Celtic White' from seed. Very dainty it prettily sprinkles all over the place, and crossed with the red to produce a delightful pink form.

next posting opening the garden for charity

 

If I am seriously trying to simplify my garden, I need to look at the plants which do best here and see if I am making the best of them.

The easy ones that is. The ones which don't need staking, spraying, feeding, protecting from frost, frequent dividing and general cosseting. Are they interesting enough? Exciting enough?

I couldn't garden without alchemilla mollis which meets all these criteria. It's called Lady's Mantle because each leaf after rain, lookd like a pretty shawl with beads all around the edges. The flowers are a fresh lime green, and frothy, giving a relaxed cottage garden look for a couple of months. As soon as the flowers start to brown, you can cut the whole plant close to the ground and it will very quickly send up a clump of fresh new leaves which will last till the autumn. It does however seed itself around, but, if you catch them quite small, they are not hard to remove. I always allow some of the self sown seedlings to stay - the composition is then different every year as the balance changes between groups of plants, and when I need space for a new purchase, it's usually an alchemilla that has to go.  They weave through my garden like a unifying band and if you have a big space to fill you can't have too much of it. It tends to collapse a bit after heavy rain but does recover without any help from me.

All in all a star plant!

next the hardy geraniums

There is a delicious scent in the air here! Unpolluted by deisel or petrol fumes, our air is clear and smells mostly of forest and sea, but in the last few days the sticky leaves of the balsam poplar are opening and although the trees are 30 or more metres from my garden the perfume of them is very strong in the air all around the house. If the said trees were not surrounded by thickets of brambles I would pick a stem or two to scent the room, and perhaps try to root a piece - it's said to be easy - and I could then grow one myself for future pickings.

Meantime I am enjoying the scent of tiny narcissus in vases in the house, and have you noticed that primroses have a light, sweet smell? Try a few in a small glass on the bedside table. I'm anticipating the perfume of the honeysuckle which is looking promising all along the fence, and of the sweet peas starting to climb the wigwam, and of the night scented annual stock which I will sow tomorrow. Scent is a wonderful sensual pleasure in a garden.

Now, how could I get to that tree....

There is beauty and power in something reduced to its simplest form, and that is exciting to me. Consider the powerful effect of the tree if you were sitting in this room by architect John Pawson, master of simple. It is more potent as a living thing than a whole forest of trees....simple can be strong, beautiful and exciting.

In the aptly named series Beautiful Minds on BBC4 James Lovelock creates a model which he calls daisyworld which reduces a complex theory (of our planet as a self sustaining system) to something which we, the layperson, can understand by making it simple. Simple as in comprehensible and simple as in reduced to its essence. There is beauty in that.

Beauty and simplicity are very closely linked for me, and beauty sustains me.

I 'll open another category on the blog - Simply Beautiful - where I shall occasionally post something I find exciting because of its simple beauty. Thanks Lynne.

 

In actual fact nothing is simple. I can remember as a quite young child it snowing, and being awestruck when my father showed me, in a childrens' encyclopaedia, photographs of much magnified snowflakes and no two were ever alike !Perhaps it is because we would be very uncomfortable in a permanent state of awe - overawed - that we seek to believe that some things are simple, and predictable.  It gives us a sense of stability and permanence which might not stand up to serious scrutiny, but is probably a requirement for sanity. (Volcanic eruptions happen, as we know.)

I have just ordered 'Snowflakes' from amazon to have in the house for the children who visit, in memory of my Dad. You can see the exquisite photographs from the book at www.SnowCrystals.com   I do love snow still, and am working on a painting of snow falling, seen through the large windows of a friend's house.

Spring has at last sprung. It's reassuring somehow to see all the reliable favourites come back. The white daffodils are called 'Jenny' and they remind me of Piglet's little ears flying. The yellow ones are 'February Gold' - better late than never. I don't have a name for the primrose - I love the little dot on each petal and its dainty colour. The tulip I have not grown before. It's called 'Czar Peter' and has very exotic markings on the petals. Viola labradorica seeded itself in some chippings - it spreads itself prettily around. The chequered pattern on fritillaria meleagris never fails to amaze. One of the lovely things about the spring flowers is that I seem to have time to really look closely at them - everday miracles!

Does anyone remember this Charlie Brown cartoon by Schultz? I'll post it when I find it, but picture Charlie Brown standing with his head hanging, and his arms limply by his sides. He is saying to Lucy -

'This is my depressed stance. When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this.'

I do have my 'Country Living' garden moments, and very sweet they are! Perhaps my very favourite time is to sit on the front porch in the early evening with a few candles in jars and a drink, music drifting from inside the house, just looking. The garden was designed from this vantage point, literally on the back of an envelope, and most decisions about it are taken when sitting here. But mealtimes in the garden must come a close second. The late afternoon sun slants across the front garden and turns everything to gold, the very air is golden - magical...

Gardening is about creativity and relaxation - mental relaxation, and physical relaxation when the menial tasks are done and I am sitting admiring the flowers. (I do a lot of sitting looking.) Gardening is one of the few things I do where I am not thinking about something else at the same time - painting is another. Click here for my website www.fredawaldapfel.squarespace.com if you would like to see my paintings which are very much inspired by the garden.

I try to create a sense of abundance and generosity. Someone once said the garden was 'billowing' and I loved that. It's also been described as 'flowing'. It is very much a summer garden. Colour, form and texture are the main elements in the compositions I create. I am sustained by the beauty of the garden - it's hard to feel down when surrounded by beautiful, growing things.

Let's face it, a garden is a lot of work. Endless work, repetitive work, hard physical labour. The dream has to be kept in mind to get through all this, in the face of diseases, unexplained deaths, insect attack, bullfinches, hungry deer, the wrong weather - too hot, too cold, too wet - (and here in the west of Scotland, midgies!)

I'm a fan of Country Living magazine and remember a summer or two ago, the postman handing me the June issue when I was in the garden. There on the front cover was the idyll - sunshine and delicate shade, the embroidered cloth, afternoon tea on dainty china, jug of frothy flowers and homemade lemonade, with roses tumbling all around. I was dressed in full waterproofs - coat and trousers, wellington boots, gloves and, final indignity, a midgie net over my head! Have you seen these things? I swore I'd never wear one of those but.....'Country Living?' I thought, 'Which country?' I could have wept, but didn't. That time anyway.

The flower is Geum 'Mrs Bradshaw' among alchemilla mollis - opposite colours for a zingy effect.

next posting - some of my idylic moments in the garden - I do have them, and Lynne has asked me a brilliant question (see  comments in previous post) which has got me thinking along new lines - thank you, Lynne

Inspired by Sarah Raven's 'The Cutting Garden' I have a cutting patch - here I grow annuals for cutting for the house. Cornflowers, larkspur, poppies - especially poppies, marigolds, nigella, nasturtiums, delicious night scented stock, sweet peas, cosmos - it varies from year to year and I have a lot of innocent fun with it, trying out something new and playing around with colour combinations. It is simple in layout, about 4m x 4m with crossing paths of bark and a sweet pea wigwam of canes in the middle (last year I painted them lime green with dark purple sweet pea 'Matucana' one of the strongest scents). There is a little touch of grandeur in a box ball at each corner. The flowers grow in short rows and I have planted alpine strawberry 'Mignonette' around the edges - sweet with breakfast cereal and a nice start to the day to go out and pick a few.

The layout is simple and the flowers are simple common annuals, but because of our climate and a huge population of slugs, hardy annuals only succeed with me if sown in the greenhouse and potted on before planting out in May when they are a reasonable size.

I love growing things from seed and every year grow hundreds, forgetting of course how much space they take up in the 6 x 8 greenhouse, and how much time when they need potting on - there always comes a point when I can hardly get up the middle of the greenhouse. I sell plants too, in a small way, and little posies of the flowers, at the end of the drive - it's a great pleasure and I've met lots of lovely people through doing this.

This 'simply' blog started partly because of another, among gardening friends. I stated on that, that my aim in the garden for this year is to simplify. My garden has got way too complicated (for someone who claims to like simplicity!) - too many plants, too many bits and pieces, piles of sticks, broken down cold frames, self sown seedlings which sometimes look good but sometimes just create a muddle. My friend Pat said 'It can't be done, but good luck!'. Well, nothing gets me going like a challenge, and the fact that in 11 weeks time the garden will be open to the public for a weekend.

I felt some DECLUTTERING coming on - yes, that word  had to appear sooner or later in Live Simply/Simply Live....

I got a little fire going in the bin type incinerator - perfect day, dry and not windy - and started to burn. First the piles of old wood under different hedges - 'might come in useful one day' bits, you know the kind of thing - now half rotted and not even useful to get the fire going. Then the falling off bits of cold frame, then the Christmas tree - that got it going! Then the old gate, then a bundle of grubby canes and bundles of sticks, a few fence posts, a tree stump, and other miscellaneous bits. TWO DAYS it took! How could I have collected that much rubbish in my small garden? But oh, the satisfaction now, and the virtuous feeling of putting the couple of inches of ash in the compost bin.

Next the broken and cracked pots - smashed them all up for crocks - what a racket - tipped them all into the big black ceramic flowerpots that will be planted up with summer bedding.

Now that the slash and burn phase is over perhaps I'll get on with something more delicate, like sowing these Shirley poppies again....I do love them.

What does 'simple' mean?

There is simple as in reduced to essentials, plain, homely, frugal, basic, - not complicated.

There is simple as in effective and efficient, economical, functioning well - not cluttered.

There is simple as in self explanatory, understandable, clear, transparent, honest - not obscure.

Simple is often used to mean natural, as nature intended, - not contrived or man made. 

Simple can be sophisticated - Japanese gardens, Swedish design, minimal music - an appearance of simplicity, but richly overlaid with meaning and cultural references. Very contrived. Totally man made. 

Simple can also, points out Kevin McLeod of Grand Designs 'be hugely expensive'.

Raymond Blanc talks of 'complicated simplicity' - I think he may be referring to the army of staff at his command when he creates a 'simple' dish on his new TV series!

There is also simple minded and the simpleton, not expressions often heard today.

Such a wide range of meanings for one innocent word!

I plan to take a look at what I mean when I'm referring to my own taste and preference for 'simple' in my life, and since the time is right I'll start with my garden....

The photograph is from my own copy of 'Venezia - Food and Dreams' by Tessa Kiros. (Thank you my thoughtful and generous friend Maggie.) This just made me laugh out loud - it's something to do with the ordinariness of the coat, and the slightly slumped posture! Wonderful - a fallen angel....

This book is a treasure - it has everything from evocative photographs to vaporetto etiquette, to recipes with instructions like 'saute the chopped vegetables until they smell good' and cook the chicken 'until it changes colour and has browny bits here and there' - the assumption is that you are giving it your full attention and tasting and smelling and experimenting a little - all very sensuous.

I have to make something from this book and I think it will be ice cream. The best ice cream I ever tasted was in Venice (the Zattere, almost facing you as you get off the vaporetto). Like the tarteau pommes, I always thought it was too much trouble and fuss, and I don't have an ice cream maker and all that in and out of the freezer and whisking, but....for Gelato di Amaretto, or Gelato al Limone I might make the effort, and I might just make the little S shaped Bussola biscuits ('kept in lingerie drawers because of their beautful smell! - only in Venice could I believe this tale', says the author) to go with it....simple enough to make this dream come true.

If Live Simply is a goal, Simply Live is a way of being. Being in the moment, experiencing 'lived time' in the words of John Thorne. (see 6 Apr)

I am getting into the habit of asking myself now and then, throughout an ordinary day 'Is there a simpler way to do this/think about this/respond to this?'  While I was washing my hair the other morning I realised I wasn't there, in that moment, I was too busy planning the next ones. In my mind I was planning the rest of the day, making a list of the things I needed to do. I thought 'I am not actually living this moment, how mad is that?' I looked at the clear sunlight coming in the window, smelt the shampoo, enjoyed the feeling of the clear running water, massaged my head gently for a moment - this always makes me take a huge deep breath for some reason - felt the softness of the clean towel. Of course I still had to plan my day, but that moment was so luxurious and comforting - and I nearly missed it!!

I describe myself as an artist trying to live a simpler life (but not too simple!). My aim I guess is to find my own position on issues which concern me - like what I eat and how I shop for food. Of course I know, vaguely. But by clarifying and articulating my thoughts I might find that elusive 'balance' I seek.

I have found that writing the blog is helping me to do that. One topic, and one aspect of that topic at a time. Simple. Slow. (Or at least slower than the rest of my life.)

While living abroad in a hot climate I began to teach myself to type - and quickly got bored with the repetetive bdb bdb kind of exercises and decided just to type what I happened to be thinking. Well, because I was a complete beginner, and therefore slow, and because of the heat which was just too much for me, I had to slow down my thinking too, and found this a very interesting experience. (My usual mode being multi tasking/superfast..) I found myself creating a kind of a diary, and having insights that I may not have had had I not been forced to slow down my racing thoughts.

So simple is not about back to the land and grow your own for me, or brown rice and sandals (actually I love brown rice). Neither is it trying to find some utopian existence, or nostalgic hankering after supposed good old days. Nor is it about saving the planet. (I'm a fairly confident person, but sorry, I think saving the planet is probably beyond me.)

It is also not about denying the richness, wonder and attraction of complexity, but that is another subject....

Someone once said 'Happiness is a clear mind'. That is what I am after. That clarity.

Living simply is a goal, something to attain, an attitude to be acquired, by using my rational mind.

next posting 'Simply Live?'

I HAVE ALSO:-

Decided that the best action I can take for the planet is to buy local more often - that means seasonal and low food miles - thank you Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth, and John Naish in Enough, who quotes a phrase I must use sometime....'I have reached an elegant sufficiency and anything additional would be superfluous'!

Realised I do have many good eating habits - three meals a day, protein at every meal (Potatoes Not Prozac) and making mealtimes special with music, candles, flowers and good company where possible. I also set an attractive table when it's just for me.

I plan to find time to put together recipe folders for my daughters with recipes from my mother and aunt.

I think I now have a more balanced view of food and eating -  one that is true to me and who I am, and I can now ignore all the media and supermarket hype and pseudo scientific advice, and not feel flung hither and thither by all the conflicting information out there.

I have also got a 'manifesto' on my fridge which is fun and inspiring to remind me every day what a JOY food is, and to be grateful for it all.

next I think I'll take a closer look at this innocent little word 'simply'....

I have been writing almost daily since 23 March under the heading Simply Eat. So what has it all been about? I quickly realised that what I am doing is trying to clarify my own thoughts about the subject of food. It is such an important thing, eating! I've been asking myself 'What are my issues on this topic and what are my feelings about these issues?' I've looked at what when where why and how I eat and learned a few things along the way. I have takens some decisions to make changes, and I am making plans.

I HAVE:-

Been eating lots, losing weight and enjoying the process thanks to Zoe Harcombe ('Cheat but not too often and not too much')

Made a few resolutions about what to eat thanks to Michael Pollan: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And I'll follow The Great Grandma Rule (see 30 march).

Decided to make great cakes, but only on special occasions, and only when they will be shared.

Become interested again in cooking. I have ambitions to make the wonderfully named Janssen's Temptation, and Imam Biyaldi, which means the priest fainted - with pleasure, one hopes - and a plaited loaf I used to make which looks like something from a Harvest Festival (or Harvest Vestibule as a four year old of my acquaintance called it!)

Decided to use just one cookbook for now (Zoe Harcombe's) and indulge in a few new cookbooks which are kind of travelogues and cookbooks for enjoyable reading and occasional really special meals....

I found this printed on the window of Peckhams lovely food shop in Byers Road in Glasgow. I have copied it and put it on my fridge door. It was written, mostly, by Tony Johnston managing director of Peckhams. Tell me if you like it....


Make more time for breakfast, it's your body and mind's daily foundation.

Don't diet! Just eat good food in the right quantities.

Ensure it is real bread, not a product from a chemical lab.

A little butter is a wonderful thing. Always use real butter, there is no substitute.

Use tea leaves and coffee beans.

When will we accept that you cannot better nature.

Eat chocolate! Real chocolate! Only eat less of it, then you will appreciate all its qualities.

PICNIC WHEN POSSIBLE.

If you do eat meat, respect the animal it came from.

Indulge yourself now and then in an extravagance - it's good for the heart.

Don't be frightened to cook; even mistakes can be delicious and the memories amusing.

SOUP IS WHY COLD NIGHTS WERE INVENTED. Served with warm croutons or oven warm bread, your soul will be saved.

Your kitchen is the heart of your home.

Don't switch on the TV, just light the candles.

Have a wild passionate affair with fresh herbs.

Cut down on sugar and salt and let the product speak for itself - you will like what it is saying.

Cheese, like wine, is there to be discovered, savoured, shared and enjoyed.

EAT CAKES NOW AND THEN. They are not wicked or sinful, they are simply a perfect way of rounding off your meal.

Always experiment, you never know what you are missing.

Don't eat fast food, slow food and long conversations are the secret to a peaceful and balanced life.

FOOD IS A GIFT - APPRECIATE, RESPECT AND ENJOY.

Amen....

 

 

 

A brief mention of three very different books about food.

I bought 'Potatoes Not Prozac' in 2003 when I wanted to get to the bottom of my sugarsensitivity/cravings and learned a lot about how body chemistry affects mood, and how food affects body chemistry. My three meals a day and protein at every meal habit came from reading this book - no more mood swings and sugar highs and lows. Excellent, and groundbreaking at the time.

The Slow Food movement began with a protest against McDonald's opening a branch by the Spanish Steps in Rome in 1986. The book I bought in 2005 is called 'In Praise of Slow' - charming and persuasive - quotes William Dean Howell - 'People are born and married, live and die, in the midst of an uproar so frantic you would think they would go mad of it'. The surprise is that he wrote that in 1907 - so nothing new there then! (There is a nice chapter on Raising an Unhurried Child....)

The third book is one I don't own yet. It is called 'Venezia: Food and Dreams' and is so gorgeous! Gold edged pages, sumptuous photographs, part diary, part travelogue, part cook book. I saw it in the wonderful shop and cafe Kember and Jones in Byers Road in Glasgow - itself a feast for the eyes, where everything seems to be made with such care, and look so exquisite....the book is as tempting as the food - an indulgence! Good for the soul now and then.

Do you have any recommendations for me?

next posting - a fun manifesto

 

People are the important ingredient of a good meal, says Janet Luhrs. I agree.

'Dinner is not something we rush through to go bowling. Dinner is our recreation'. Tim Curtis in 'The Simple Living Guide'.

Eating round the table, talking round the table, children round the table. 'Posh Night' when we have to mind our manners. Reading a funny poem about manners from 'Read Me and Laugh - A Funny Poem for Every Day of the Year'.

Eating chocolates, dessert, ice cream and cake, and drinking wine over Easter weekend and not putting on weight - simply loving this Harcombe way of eating! - Chocolate rabbits, bunnies and eggs are allowed on Zoe Harcombe's diet. On page 167 she says 'If you are going to have a box of chocolates for lunch, then make that your lunch'. It's an option!!
(but not too often....)

Now there's a novel idea! I hardly ever cook. I thought I was very clever - when my husband showed an interest in cooking, I taught him all I knew and left him to get on with it. Likewise my daughters. They all enjoyed cooking and had a flair for it - lucky me! (I was tired of cooking every day.)

But many, many years later I begin to feel - maybe I am missing out on something. I wonder if I would be allowed back in his kitchen.....

It was baking that Tarte au Pommes that did it (see 27 March). It took hours. But I was absorbed in what I was doing and quite enjoying myself. Having all the right ingredients and equipment was part of the pleasure. And what else would I have been doing with that time?

In 'The Simple Living Guide' Janet Luhrs talks about how cooking is a very sensual activity 'stop, taste, feel, smell, see...experience every delicious moment...hmmm. a little of this, a little of that, taste, taste, stir, stir.' With a glass of wine in my hand, some good music and just enough of a challenge to keep me interested, I can imagine doing this now and then, just for pleasure. Ideally in the evening, preparing something to be eaten next day, so no pressure of time or of hungry people waiting for it to appear.

John Thorne, cookery writer says 'To live, after all, is to experience things' and explains that if we are mindful about what we are doing, if we are there, then we actually gain 'lived time'.

He talks of a generation who consider time spent in the kitchen wasted time. 'to live, after all, is to experience things, and every time we cook an onion, lower the flame under a simmering pot, shape the idea and substance of a meal, we actually gain rather than lose lived time. Such minutes are not only full and rich in themselves, but they brush a lasting patina of lived experience into our memory.'

What a beautiful description of mindfulness! I love the expression 'lived time' - after all, what other kind of time would you want? Unlived time?

Simply Live.

I do actually shop in supermarkets and buy some good food there. I appreiciate the convenience, pick up some bargains, try to shop when it's quiet, have a list, and as Laura suggests keep to the edges. But it is sometimes SO hard to filter out all the nonsense. You have to be strong to shop in supermarkets. It is never simple.

next posting - cooking as an act of love....