My apologies but I started writing this blogpost a year ago and then forgot to post it – as you will see if you decide to read on it is quite season specific and would have been a bit weird if I had put it out there in the spring. So I have waited twelve months and the moment has come round again: as things tend to do in gardening so the story is still relevant.

Another early morning start in order to get to Horatio’s Garden in Glasgow by 9.00am. Increasingly as I get older I am becoming a creature of habit and don’t like my routine being disrupted which is, of course, a very good reason for so doing. It is good for me to do different things otherwise I will become unbearable and cantankerous too soon.

So it is mind broadening to force myself out of a warm bed at 4:30am, to forgo my breakfast and to bundle myself out into the darkness in order to get to Birmingham airport for the 7.00am flight. Quick snooze, bumpy landing, Croque Monsieur and a cup of coffee in Starbucks and off to the Spinal Unit and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

I have been meaning to write about Horatio’s for ages and have failed spectacularly. The background story is pretty well known now (details here) suffice to say that from an appalling tragedy and extraordinary thing has been born and I am so thrilled to be part of it. It has been a truly extraordinary experience full of remarkable people. Moments of extreme joy, moments of mild anxiety and waves of powerful emotion – I have wept a lot over strange things like Corian worktops and pond coping stones. I think, no actually I know, that it has been the most moving and most important garden I have ever designed.

The greatest pleasure has been watching patients emerge, like blinking moles, from the antiseptic gloom of the wards and beginning to use the garden. Be it for sitting, for cake eating, for salad harvesting, bird feeding of just watching the flowers move in breeze from the Clyde.

So, as you can see from these pictures, we have built stuff (at the least the endlessly patient Kenny McFadyen from Endricks Landscapes has built everything), planted everything shrubby and herbaceous so it is time for……… the bulbathon…

I have been plotting this for a while (along with Sallie the head gardener). My part of the arrangement is to organise the delivery of 12,500 bulbs, her part is to find enough people to help plant them. That may seem, justifiably, to be a slightly uneven distribution of labour but she was amazing and the place was swamped with volunteers, doctors and assorted gardeners. My job was to direct and supervise and also to actually get down in there and dig some holes and plant stuff – yah boo sucks to those doubters amongst my readers who thought I was too old and fey for such on carryings.

For those interested in lists we have planted
Allium Mont Blanc/atropurpureum/Purple Sensation/cernuum
Anemone blanda/nemerosa
Chionodoxa Forbesii
Crocus Cream Beauty/Remembrance
Eremurus Cleopatra/White Beauty
Fritillaria meleagris
Gladiolus The Bride
Iris Katharine Hodgkin
Iris Gordon
Iris Kent Pride
Lilium martagon Hansonii
Lilium martagon Manitoba Morning
Muscari
Narcissus February Gold/Cheerfulness/pseudonarcissus/Actaea
Tulip Abu Hassan/White Triumphator/Ronaldo/Spring green/Negrita/turkestanica/China Pink
All of them in abundance…..

It was a glorious couple of days with shiny weather, smiley people and the wonderful sense of anticipation that comes with bulb planting. All that glorious flower wrapped up in a brown nubble of concentrated energy. Bulbs are so basic – plant them, go away, have a jolly Christmas, endure the dark days of January and then come back to four months of continuous flower.

A note from a twelve month later…
Well that worked – come the spring we had sensational tulips, cracking daffodils etc etc. Weeks of joyous bulb filled ecstasy. Every day something new happened and all patients and visitors were thrilled. What a start to the season.
So now November has come round again and we have had Bulbathon part two and have planted another 6,000 bulbs – I was worried that we would not have room for them but I was wrong, there is loads of new space that needs planting. Nine volunteers and various patients and staff rallied round and my goodness they worked hard. For the listy among you here is another – we also planted more of the same as last year.

Allium afflatuense
Crocus Barr’s Purple
Narcissus Cheerfulness/cyclamineus/Altun Ha
Tulip sylvestris/Ronaldo/Royal Pretender/Purissima/Jackpot/Armani

The garden has now been open for a year. All four seasons have passed and I still adore everything about the place. The volunteers are amazing – their energy and dedication is indefatigable the patients are complimentary about the garden, the staff are amazing and our little bit of Glasgow is so much better than it was a couple of years ago. This is a garden that will, over the next years, make hundreds of peoples’ lives better and that is something that makes me very, very happy. And has also made me start sobbing again..

I am listening to Kiss with a Fist by Florence and the Machine*,  the picture is of various tulips in jugs.

*I built a garden for Florence’s parents in Camberwell many years ago. If I remember rightly we did a very neat bit of stone cutting around a drain.

I did the Bonariensis thing and it looks much better but I have also developed a theory about nettles. Lurking amidst the sandpapery square stems were some of the largest nettles ever seen by man (allow me a small exaggeration – it is my privilege) and I think that the autumn nettle gives out a much worse sting than a summer nettle. Especially the really little leaves just coming out of the ground – perhaps they are bitter and resentful or maybe they had a tough childhood. I got stung four or five times (before arriving at the obvious solution and reaching for my gloves) and could still feel it six hours later. Did you know that nettles are good for lactation ? and even more interesting the word for a herb that has this effect is called a Galactagogue. Also the process of Urtication (flogging with nettles) is very efficacious in the treatment of rheumatism (although I suspect it may be a simple case of pain transference). My final nettle fact is that the sting of the New Zealand tree nettle can kill a horse.

Good news is that the computer engineer has moved out and all is well with the A-S technology. Also I collected the vast majority of my bulb order this afternoon and my barn is now rather satisfactorily covered with piles of bags labelled with different clients’ names.

I buy my bulbs from Jacques Amand in Stanmore (www.jacquesamand.co.uk). Stuart Chapman is in charge of counting and despatching thousands and thousands of bulbs in hundreds of varieties every autumn – every time I see him he looks as if he is being hunted by a pack of wolves. You can tell where he has been in the warehouse by following the half drunk cups of cold tea. Still I got most of what I need (in spite of bad growing conditions this year – there are no white Eremurus to be had) and the rest will follow shortly.

I am listening to Sunday Morning by the Velvet Underground and the picture is of Naploeon’s tomb.

Seems ages since I last wrote this – my apologies to the many people who have, no doubt, been pining for a new episode. Had a wonderful three days in Paris: weather perfect, food great etc etc etc. We stayed at an amazing hotel

which is run by friends of mine: it is called L’Hotel near St Germain. Extraordinary building based around six storeys of tubular hall, extremely comfortable, perfect service, delicious food, Oscar Wilde drew his final breath – go there. www.l-hotel.com

Since getting back life has been a little irritating as my wireless network has been behaving very badly which is deeply annoying. I seem to have an engineer living here permanently – I am particularly peeved with Apple whose stuff I adore but who seem to have a problem with their shiny new iMacs and wireless thingies. (This is getting a bit nerdy, isn’t it ? I will shut up on that subject.)

Went to see a potential new client in East Sussex/Kent on Wednesday. Glorious sunshine and finally a bit of a bite to the temperature- the leaves are beginning to turn and our morning walks through loose frost are beautiful.

This is a picture of Thurrock services where I stopped for a tepid expresso and a leaden croissant.

Autumn is with us – which is more than can be said for my bulb order which is in transit somewhere. I am having bad luck with lorries as another delivery (containing lights for a garden) succeeded in demolishing the client’s front gate – which is particularly galling as it has been recently (and painstakingly) rebuilt.

Still everything still looks beautiful out there – my Nerines are particularly striking (especially the buds) and my Geranium psilostemon (which we cut back hard about six weeks ago is flowering like a teenager).

Today I intend to decimate the Verbena bonariensis which, though divine most of the time, has now become a little tedious as the first flush of passion passes. Beneath a large group of Verbena lies a block of box hedging that I planted in the spring and have not seen since July – I feel it might appreciate a little fresh air.

I am listening to En Fuego by the Latin Project and the picture is of the aforementioned Nerines.