This endless winter is eating away at the days, leaving me less and less time to get ready for the coming season. Work on the garden is at a standstill for the third significant spell this winter. The sharp frosts are slowly playing havoc in the greenhouse too – it’s hard to keep botrytis at bay with everything barely above zero.

But the garden always has a moment of joy waiting for me, somewhere. Last year I collected loads of Tulipa sprengeri seeds, put them in a small bag with damp vermiculite in the greenhouse for a few weeks to bake, then moved them to the fridge in November. Every single one has germinated – in the fridge, in the dark.

Actually they’ve partly germinated – just the radicle, or baby root is showing. I’ll find out soon whether it will produce a shoot in the first year too, or lie dormant with just a root till next year, like a Trillium.

So I’ve sown them today, some in single plugs, some spread with the vermiculite onto pots of compost. Some are in the greenhouse and others are in the ‘Alpine House’ (the little greenhouse with missing panes of glass). It would be fantastic if these grow – it’s one of the most beautiful species tulips imaginable.

I was going to mention ‘green shoots’ showing in the garden, but can I still say that or is it banned? I still can’t quite get over a BBC interviewer asking Baroness Vadera if she understood that her comments about ‘green shoots’ had been ‘deeply offensive’. Misjudged and thoughtless, yes. But deeply offensive? Don’t be silly. Shame is, that it’s rather spoilt the idea of ‘green shoots’ in my garden as just a simple visual pleasure….

February 7, 2009  
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