Marching on

Spring.

The verb ‘to spring’ from the Middle English sprygen - ‘to burst or flow forth, to sprout, to emerge, to happen, to become known’.

As a noun, from Middle English spryng (“a wellspring, tide, branch, sunrise, kind of dance or blow, ulcer, snare, flock”), from Old English spring (“wellspring, ulcer”) and Old English spryng (“a jump”), from ablaut forms of the Proto-Germanic verb. Further senses derived from the verb and from clippings of day-spring, springtime, spring tide, etc. Its sense as the season, first attested in a work predating 1325, gradually replaced Old English lencten (“spring, Lent”) as that word became more specifically liturgical. Compare fall.

I’m into dictionary definitions the way some people are the shipping forecast. “Viking, North Utsire; southwesterly five to seven; occasionally gale eight; rain or showers; moderate or good, occasionally poor.” Something comforting and peaceful about them.

Spring the season, on the other hand, drags her feet. While winter finally dawdles off, spring makes us wait for her like an impatient lover. Predictably wistful, too eager, looking for signs. The usual thing - watching the clock, worrying if we dressed right. She comes closer inch by inch, painfully slowly, giving in by tiny increments.

When the camellias begin to flower you know you’re in with a chance.

March is first base. The beginning of something. 

In any case, it’s a busy month. A month of preparation, planning ahead.

In the garden ‘the big chop’ ensues - cutting back the perennials and giving everything a good old haircut to allow the fresh green shoots to emerge.

It’s cathartic, and extremely satisfying, to strip away all the dead growth and take everything back to ground level.

The beds are given a lovely thick blanket of mulch to enrich the soil around the plants, suppress the weeds (to a certain extent) and to keep the soil damp and cool as the earth begins to warm up.

One Saturday a friend comes over to help for a few hours of (what he thinks will be) ‘therapeutic gardening’.

He brings sweet pastries and we drink coffee in the sun and it feels like spring.

Later, in torrential rain, we tackle the compost bays. Knee-deep, spades in hand, we apologise for the turn of events.

“Never happier than when shovelling shit”- his cheerful reply.

Me neither.

We compost all the perennial offcuts under last year’s food and flower waste. Excitingly we finally have our first big batch of lovely rich, crumbly compost.

It’s very satisfying to have finally cracked this and to be able to properly make use of our household and business green waste.

Certainly not glamorous but it might be one of our proudest moments so far.

I should have taken a photo to mark the occasion. Then again, perhaps not. We got home looking a tad feral.

The annual seeds are sown.

In trays there are Malope, Nicotiana, Helichrysum, Limonium, Tagetes, snapdragons and various perennial seeds.

Direct sown in our tunnels are scabious, cornflower, nigella, California poppies, Nasturtium, Omphalodes, Agrostemma, Phlox, Callistephus, Flax and Gypsophila.

The flowers are coming through now. Slowly. Another couple of varieties every week.

We’ve had a long spell of cold, dry weather and the season is slow to get going this year.

Narcissi, scilla, muscari, anemones. Some incredible hellebores.

We cut a little bunch of narcissi from the polytunnel and put them in a jam jar.

They drive around with us in the van back in London, through rainstorms and dazzling sun, the typical kaledioscope of weather on any given spring day.

They smell like vanilla.

In London the magnolia is in bloom.

After weeks of grey the streets are suddenly awash with these extraordinary blossoming trees.

It’s enough to make you fall in love with the city all over again.

At the studio we have a huge overhaul and spring clean in preparation for the new season.

All the doors are flung open, the windows polished, every cupboard and box is emptied, sorted, dusted and refilled.

An exciting delivery of beautifully aged reclaimed oak arrives all the way from Austria which we are using for cladding - a project we have wanted to do for a long time - and we spend an enjoyable couple of hours admiring each piece and deciding the order in which they’ll be fixed.

Arranging from the garden at this time of the year is very much an exercise in restraint. In making a little go a long way. Right at the beginning of the season still, you may only have one or two stems of each variety. It’s a bit like having nothing in the fridge and having to be inventive to make supper. Actually I love suppers like that. And flowers too.

x2 Forsythia branches

x5 hellebores (four different varieties)

x1 primula

x5 Vinca minor

x1 Fritillaria ‘Ivory Bells’

x 8-10 Scilla mischtschenkoana

The latter is white squill. A exquisite pale blue flower. We underplanted the bulbs beneath some rambling roses and they are naturalising beautifully, more and more every year.

Also at the studio, planning for our 2023 flower school begins in earnest. We like to start with a big brainstorm of ideas and then streamline from there.

‘Workshop flow’, Jess calls it.

We want each one to be different, to celebrate the materials of that particular moment in the year. We love working out how we can give our guests the best experience - what we’ll talk about, what we’ll make, where we’ll gather and sit and photograph, what we’ll eat, drink, listen to.

We have some great playlists this year. Classical. Jazz. Folk. Country.

See you next month! Excited for Easter and all the flowers to come.

Thank you for reading.

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