May… I have your attention please?

Firstly happy Beltane to each and every one of you! The year is shooting past, the seasons are no respecters of what’s happening in our world and roll on regardless.  Whilst we keep to our houses, looking after our loved ones and communities. Denying ourselves pleasures we had previously taken for granted to save the lives of those we care about and others we have never met. The plants carry on regardless, they have no need of our admiring glances to achieve what they set out to do. It is definitely us that needs them and this unforeseen situation is really bringing that home.

In just a month I have noticed the air is clearer, we have all seen the films of wildlife reclaiming the streets, a plane flew overhead last Thursday and it was so incredibly noisy it made me realise exactly how much our world has changed.  Two months ago how many of us would have even blinked at that noise.

Part of me is celebrating this rapid change, I’m one of the lucky ones who’s life hasn’t changed massively.  I had chosen to live a relatively isolated life before lockdown. My work means that sometimes I can go days without seeing anyone, unless I go shopping. Even for me though there are undeniable and difficult changes to deal with, however every day I count my blessings, I have a job, I have a house, I’m no longer in an abusive relationship, my family and people I love are safe.

I’m aware though, very aware, this is not the case for all of you, this time is SO challenging, SO difficult. If you’re struggling right now know that you’re not alone. I’ve had terrible days even in my lucky position and reached out to friends and family and received support. Sometimes just vocalising that you’re struggling is an incredibly difficult thing to do but if you are reach out to others, especially twitters gardening community, you are not alone!

Its with these thoughts foremost in my mind and the fact that had life been normal we would have been sharing our work here at Ulting Wick with potentially thousands of you over our open days this spring. Raising lots of money for various charities supported by the NGS and hopefully giving you all a lovely day out, that I’m writing this months blog post. It feels like we have all slipped into a parallel world of what ifs, a Stephen King story (think The Langoliers or The Stand) I know you’re all still out there even if I cant see you!

With this in mind the NGS gave us a wonderful opportunity of sharing our hard work with you all and commissioned a beautiful film to be made, we hope you enjoy it and of course support the NGS in any way you feel possible!

Ulting Wick Spring Display 2020

I’m trying to continue with as much normality as possible, I’m not giving up on my plans for the future, just tweaking the timelines of them and I hope you are too! Making plans for the future is SO important. You don’t have to set dates or times in stone, in fact its better if you don’t.

With regards to gardening I’ve started to treat the Box at work for Blight, keeping a sharp eye out for caterpillars. We are trialling 2 products from Grazers this year. One is to combat Lily Beetle, we have already used this on our Fritillaria and have started on the lillies themselves now. Its going to be at least a season before we can confidently report on results but so far so good! The second product is to combat Box Blight, again it will take a season to give you the results on this, so watch this space!

We are using Dalefoot Tomato compost this year in our glasshouse pots which gave great results for myself and other gardeners last year.

At home I’m hoping to be getting involved with Hoselock’s home compost feed maker and possibly something from Henchman (more info to come soon!)

In the meantime at home I’ve built a terrible auricula theatre from old pallets and ordered another 8!

I need to start sowing seeds now as I’m terribly behind! I do however have these lovelies flowering away….

Let me know how you’re getting on!

I have my glove review pretty much all finished up too and I’d like to write up a few garden visits but I’ve been hum-ing and haa-ing over this as it kinda feels a bit like temptation? I don’t want to encourage anyone to ignore lockdown and go looking for garden solace but equally I’d like to be able to share beautiful places and plants with you

Let me know how you feel about that please!

Finally, continue to take care and stay safe x