FEBRUARY - MARCH 2021 REWILDING CONTINUES at RED KITE BARN AND CURVED HOUSE…
REWILDING THE RED KITE ESTATE. Conker in the foreground, trees to re-plant and beginnings of the lake dug to create wetlands for beavers and birds
My crazy family, hound-of-little-brain, and elegant feline, are my first loves. Travel-barred in lockdown, other passions have come to the fore. One, long-held, is, the noble equine. The other, is for Things -Wot -Grow. In particular, Trees. Which are a lot cheaper to look after than horses it must be said. Lockdown takes much away from us, but it also gives us the Gift of Time. The little voice in my head which has always said “you don’t deserve it”, cleared its throat in December and squawked “you do and damn the cost. Because if not at 56 - when?”. So that’s the horse purchase dealt with. As for the trees…
MIKA - HOUND OF LITTLE BRAIN
ELEGANT SMALL
Up to last year, my one significant arboreal other , was the ancient Horse Chestnut around which our Curved House in Clapham spreads. Some of you may have seen her majesty featured as an architectural conundrum on Grand Designs nearly 20 years ago. This year, 2021, my central Plus One has swollen to a veritable partouse with the further One Thousand Four Hundred and Ninety Nine other native upland trees: copper beeches, aspen, dogwood, hawthorn, willow and wild cherry, we planted on the Red Kite Estate in November, some as forest and some as hedgerows. As for the equine habit, in an orgy of careless acquisition, not only did I acquire Frank, both a horse and chestnut (see what I did there) a skinny urban thoroughbred with a heart of gold but am adopting Huckle, Berry and Flynn 3 shaggy rescue Carneddau ponies from the wilds of Snowdonia. These boys I plan to rehome (wild) on the Red Kite Estate when we feel confident four legs will co exist with two in our re-wilded utopia.
HORSE CHESTNUT - My one significant other AND CHESTNUT HORSE - Frank
In a rare moment of good humour, David says they (the ponies not the guests) will find life in the Cambrian Mountains like a holiday in St Tropez after Snowdonia, [ he is a Southern Welshman] and that they will have to bring their sunnies in their nosebags. The guests, methinks, will be under no such illusions and find the weather a bit under par for the Cote D’azur. But since ‘80’s when David was unwokely ribbed by Men from the “Hice” as “Evans or Williams or Hughes or whatever your name is”, Wales as a destination has had a renaissance, helped by the advent of specialist waterproof clothing. Holidays in Cambrensus are a far cry from the school adventure one I had in Llandrindod Wells, 40 years ago, when the only technical barrier to water into my cagoule was surface tension. As a drenched bespectacled Asian teen who didn’t like cider [ or adventures] and had the wrong footwear for every occasion it was horridious. But times have changed and now there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.
I now need to add to my list of loves, a sub-clause of woodland bulbs about which I have gone lockdown fever mad. They are such fun and so much less arsy than delicately rooting seedlings. The best toys ever, cheap as chips, recyclable, colourful, with endless permutations including the extraordinary fact that you don’t even need soil to grow them, [“ hand-grenades - yours to detonate”]. Bulbs don’t like good soil , don’t need sunlight crikey - what’s not to like? This gives rise to endless options of terrariums and indoor gardens and altogether comprise best ever fun with your clothes on. Especially when you have two crazy potters working in your garage making and breaking pots to plant in all the time.
Bulbs regenerate AND reproduce so you can give them to friends [if you have any], dig them from the garden to make living floral arrangements for your Sunday luncheon table, [ so impressive] and then, unlike cut flowers, shove them back in the soil where…they happily photosynthesise till the leaves retract back into the bulb. And they spring up next year complete with a little bulbette family. Snowdrops are particularly cute about this This is the theory, I have yet to see if they survive this quite vigorous floristry treatment, but early signs are good. Here are two woodland mixes I have done this week, one in a huge old shell, the other in a rusty wine cooler. They literally took 10 minutes to throw together and most of that was looking for the planter.
You can use moss to cover up the bulbs without soil { we have loads at RKB}. It certainly looks cute in glass but I actually used soil into my arrangements as the container is solid AND you can stick in lots of budding twigs, and recycle the slightly dried out botanicalss that you have bought in old Freddy flower boxes three weeks ago.
Though there has been lots of false dawns, it is the end of March, and I vote it is the year to give into your passions even though I have found in doing so I feel a bit more distant to my family. I have definitely had the most fun with the bulbs. There are flowers enduring both in the woods, and Londres, which is no mean feat with the sheep, squirrels and weather to combat. So that’s a tick.
Whether or not that amounts to success I don’t know. I planted hundreds and probably have fifty flowers. But the interaction charmed a winter of discontent for me, (and has already got me planting summer ones). Bulbs, Frank and a lot of trees sum up the first three months of the year. But if you want to hear more about the agony and ecstasy of my hunt for my first snowdrop … read on.
CANT GET OUT OF THE DOOR FOR BULBS ! CRAZY BULB LADY
