Horses for Courses
In which I am the horse and the course is with Sarah Raven at her inspirational garden, Perch Hill.
I arrive on a rather unpromising and wet and windy day in March.
The garden is glistening with droplets, impossibly green and hovering on the verge of flower burst. The tulips are two weeks behind when they would ordinarily flower, but nonetheless, it is still achingly beautiful here. You can see the bones of the garden, the hazel and birch structures that will be supporting cascades of blooms in a few weeks time. The beautifully tilled soil is weed free and a rich dark brown. Lovely paths, some functional and some that wend and weave. I tighten the strap on my sou’wester, follow the trail and step inside the greenhouse…
…And what a sight for sore eyes! After the wettest March for 40 years it takes a moment to adjust to all the colour and the fragrance. And in a sudden rush of awareness I realise how deeply I long for the garden to be full of life again. The grey skies outside amplify the colours. Primroses, anemones, jasmine, butterfly ranunculus, tulips, violets, scented geranium, paperwhites it’s a delicious cacophony. I eat a piece of blood orange polenta cake which seems to perfectly complement and complete the olfactory greenhouse experience.
The morning is spent learning about “cut and come again” flowers. Sarah has made a study of what yields the best crop per square metre, the measure is by the “bucket load”. I always new cosmos was an amazingly productive cut flower but when you compare her to some of her contemporaries she really is a superstar. I am sowing an apricot variety, Cosmos bipinnatus “Apricotta” with high hopes!
Just as I begin to tumble into an imagined cutting patch we break, lunch is served in the greenhouse…Sangria Chicken served with Pomme Anna and Perch Hill salad followed by vanilla panna cotta with poached rhubarb and homemade pistachio shortbread. The sort of lunch you dream of eating the day after Boxing Day when you wish spring would hurry along.
After lunch we head to the poly-tunnel with Josie Lewis Sarah’s Head Gardener. Warm, and filled with tray after tray of neatly labelled green shoots. I could almost feel things growing, in fact I think I may have grown a fraction standing there listening to Josie’s tips. I like poly-tunnels, they have a unique atmosphere, I especially like the difused light the plastic covering creates.
We are blown like dandelion seeds towards the composting bins and then on to the cutting garden. I am smitten with the idea of bulb lasagnas in the cutting patch and I am itching to pot my dahlia tubers up. We spend some time talking about dahlias, sowing seed and propagating. We return to the beautiful greenhouse one last time…
