sofa gardening

It's been raining, 31.1 mm in the past twenty-four hours according to the rain gauge, which has just been degunked and fitted with a new battery.  That sounds about right.  The large puddle that forms in the front drive, my quick visual check for how much rain we've had, filled this morning and spread to cover almost the full width of the drive.  We were lucky yesterday, in that it began to spit as we left my cousin's house but only really settled into proper rain as we arrived at the station.  In London it rained steadily, but there was a shelter by the bus stop, and by the time we got back to Colchester it was pouring, but being Sunday we'd got a parking space close to the covered part of the car park.  I consoled myself during the long waits for the bus and then the train that at least it was better than flogging round the M25 in the pouring rain and the dark.

I don't mind the rain as much as I would otherwise because I have a cold.  Just a slight, niggling cold, with an intermittent snivel, a hint of a sore throat, slightly stiff joints, the occasional headache, and a strong inclination not to do anything.  Since normally I am charging about full of projects, and reach bedtime with a vague sense of surprise and disappointment that the day has run out when there are still so many things left to do, I tend to believe my body when it says it doesn't want to do any of them.  Fortunately, today I don't have to.  I felt an additional sense of relief when I considered that it was Monday, and I wouldn't have to go and work outside with my cold at the plant centre, or stand at a potting bench in a polytunnel for eight hours.  Remember the gardeners and arborists, the garden centre workers and landscapers, for whom rain isn't just something they run through grumbling with their newspaper over their heads as they dash into the office.

I have been leafing through Anna Pavord's book Bulb.  It was first published in 2009, and my next birthday and Christmas both passed without a gift wrapped copy arriving in my lap.  Since then I have been stalking it on Amazon, trying to catch the moment when clean copies are available as remaindered stock.  Bottom fishing in books is a sport in itself, as long as you don't mind missing the odd one.  I got my copy of Bulb for three pounds plus Amazon's standard vendor's p&p charge of £2.80, when the full list price was ten times that.  On the other hand, I held off too long for Charles Quest-Ritson's history of Ninfa, and watched in disappointment as the price of second hand copies shot up from over twenty pounds to well north of a hundred.  Bulb, by the way, is now back to over twelve pounds for new copies.

I'm enjoying Bulb so far, in an unfocused, coldy way, skimming through each section to see what's covered and looking at the pictures (which are excellent) rather than concentrating and committing to memory which crocus need the sharpest summer baking.  I've already learned that arum tubers are particularly rich in starch, so much so that in the eighteenth century they were commercially processed to make laundry starch.  That would explain why some wild animal is so keen on digging up my arum roots in the back garden each winter.  On the other hand, she warns that Gladiolus papilio likes to be cool and must never be short of water, and I have been pleased and surprised this summer to discover several flowering in the middle section of the long bed, one of the driest and hottest spots in the entire garden, where I'd entirely forgotten I'd planted them and certainly didn't give them any extra water during the dry spells.

Bulb is based on her own notes kept over the years of plants she has actually grown, or tried to grow, which tends to make the most engaging kind of gardening book.  I would much rather read from an experienced gardener how they have tried this and that, in these and those conditions, and had the following results, than a rehash of received wisdom by someone who hasn't done it themselves, or at least not successfully.  But even your own experience will only get you so far. Most people don't get to work on that many different gardens for any length of time, maybe two or three of their own, a few more if they are professional gardeners.  When you think of the number of variables that affect plant growth and the sheer range of ornamental plants grown in Britain, it's difficult to say for sure exactly what the key factors are leading to triumphant success, or the sad and sorry death and disappearance of your plant.