Comforts

Monday, January 23, 2012

This lovely thing is soothing my heartstrings right now. I made it in October last year, having bought rather too many hellebores.

I wish I had made more – it’s one of those all-year-round pots to which you do precisely nothing, and it sits around looking gorgeous in spite of that.

Bruised, sober, ever so slightly funereal…but with bulbs in it, symbolising hope (?)…okay, I’ll shut up now – suffice to say, we are one year on from this. Tricky.

Here’s how you do it:

So here’s the thing -

I love cyclamen and pansies as much as the next person

…and I have buckets of them everywhere…

…but right now I’m in the mood for something that’ll go the distance with me…

Here’s a lovely pot that will remain lovely all year round. I’ve been growing hellebores in pots and window-boxes ever since I began gardening and they are completely low-maintenance and trouble-free. I’ve added some bulbs to this pot for spring zing, but a hellebore and some pretty ivy is enough for me…enjoy.

You need:

1 gorgeous hellebore…they’re on sale now and there are a squillion different permutations
3 little ivy plants
5 dwarf daffodil bulbs
A pot (mine is 30 cm diameter)
Some multi-purpose compost, mixed half and half with John Innes no. 2, because this pot is not a flash-in-the-pan part-time lover…it’s a keeper.

Simply fill the pot with compost half full and put a circle of bulbs around the edge. Place your hellebore in the centre and fill in the gaps, squidging your ivy into the sides as you go. Don’t worry about the bulbs getting through…they always manage somehow.
Water it thoroughly and enjoy x

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A January Kiss

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

I had something all ready to make for a shiny, happy New Year project, and then I went outside and did something else instead….

Nothing new there, except that the something else was picking up rotten apples and clearing away brown, soggy leaves – not exactly the kind of thing you spring out of bed for, and yet those two hours of raking, sweeping and clearing have been my favourite for a long time.

My book, in its proper book form, got delivered to me recently…that was a pretty damn great moment I can tell you. And yet with the inevitable stroking of the shiny new pages, and the hugging of the thing, and the tears of joy shed (yes, I’m a bit soppy), there were still the (guilt-inducingly high-class) questions:

“Will anybody read it?”

“Will they like it if they read it?”

“Will I ever write another one?”

“Will anyone ever give me another job?”

…the list goes on and on

 

…And then there was my daughter beginning another term at nursery, and flinging her arms around me afterwards and saying “I need to go to school AGAIN!”. That was a rather fabulous moment (I can’t remember ever feeling that way about school). And yet, there were the questions:

“Will things always be joyful for her?” (to which I know the answer is ‘No, not always, that’s life’.

“Are all the other children being kind to her?”

“Is she being kind to all the other children?”

“Am I doing enough?”

etc…etc…

So yes, the rotten apples, which were so soft and yucky that they kept exploding in my hands, and I have come away smelling like cider…the sweeping, the slow, steady, physical act of clearing…of doing something simple and silent and alone, with no questions….That’s been my favourite moment so far this year.

There are daffodils and hellebores out, and sarcococca, and snowdrops coming up…

And hey….it’s getting LIGHTER!

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Honeysuckle, but not as you know it

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Plant eulogy alert:

This is Lonicera x purpusii ‘Winter beauty’ (Winter honeysuckle).

It’s flowering right now, and has been since the middle of November.

Last year it came out at the beginning of January #weirdweather

It is quite the most exquisite thing when it’s flowering…these fairy pale cream flowers (usually covered with frost) and the scent, which is subtle but oh-so-special…a mixture of sweet floral with that element of what I call ‘choke’ -

…that tea-like dryness – which ALWAYS takes whatever it is out of ‘lovely’ and into ‘Wow. Want it. Gotta have it’.

A properly special thing to bring indoors when you want something deliciously special in terms of scent.

Is it too punchy of me to say you NEED this plant?

You NEED this plant.

Mine has been planted out into the garden after a couple of happy years in a large pot on my old balcony….so you don’t need a garden.

True…it doesn’t do much for the rest of the year…not parTICularly gorgeous in form but I promise…all will be forgiven…

…with just one delicious WHIFF.

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Post-party paperwhites

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

More bulbs, I know, but hey, this is seasonal stuff…and I’m not going to argue with that.

I usually put a load of paperwhites (little daffodils, highly scented and prepared to flower indoors over the winter) into containers in late October for Christmas blooming, but, as with the rest of what I’ve been doing this year, everything went a bit squiffy this autumn because I’ve been finishing my book…c’est la vie.

The last paperwhites are available right now in the shops. You can put them in ordinary compost or bulb fibre, but I like growing them in deep vases which reduces the need for twiggy support (indoor stuff tends to flop over eventually because we live in the warm).

You need:

Some paperwhite narcissi bulbs

Some glass vases

Some sort of ‘mulch’ (stones or marbles or gravel) I’ve used slate, which is…yeah, ‘interesting’ and not the prettiest thing on the planet, but I happened to have it to hand.

Method:

First, wash your mulch (my slate chippings were covered in dust, which would turn the water brown (no thanks)

Fill your vases with a layer of your chosen mulch (6-8cm is ample) and then fill with water so that the water comes just level with the top of the mulch.

Now place your bulbs a-top your stones or whatever. Soon, their clever roots will ‘feel’ that there is water below, and start growing downwards. The long stems will grow upwards, supported by the sides of your chosen container…..and then there will be those blooms….and that scent…Delish

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Take back your mint…

Friday, December 2, 2011

…Take back your pearls….

It just turned chilly enough for me to wish I was on the beach wearing a bikini.

…and mint is THE thing to evoke the freshness of summer.

Here’s how to have it over the winter.

You need:

1 mint plant (do you already have one? You probably think it’s died…It hasn’t…It’s just having a bad hair day, because it’s winter).

1 pot, with holes in the bottom

A bit of multi-purpose compost (peat-free please)

Some horticultural grit, or pea gravel.

Method:

Take your plant and knock it out of its pot, or yank it out of the ground (whatevs, just get a nice bit of root…long and squirly).

Cut the root into small bits, about 2cm long.

Now fill your pot with compost, just a couple of centimetres shy of the rim, and lay the root pieces, 2-3cm apart, on the surface.

Cover the root cuttings (for that is what they are) with grit or gravel, water the whole thing, and leave it inside your kitchen windowsill.

Magic will happen…and soon (the above photo and the one below were taken exactly 14 days apart) There is nothing quite so lovely as seeing those pale green hairy leaves peeping up at you – just keep the thing watered and you’ll have mojitos for Christmas.

 

 

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Hey, you!…yes YOU!

Friday, November 25, 2011

My publishers have produced a calendar…and very pretty it is too.


It’s to get people in the mood for my book, which will be out in March…

…Would you like one? Or two? Or three?

I’ve got hold of some and I thought I’d sell them for charity.

It’s a useful piece of kit…You’ll never turn up to work on a bank holiday, or forget Valentine’s day with one of these babies.

Be warned, it does have my mug on the front, but that’s the bit that faces the wall when you’ve hung it up, so phew, basically.

Just donate what you want by clicking the button below (minimum donation of £3 per calendar please, to cover my costs), then email me (Laetitia AT laetitiamaklouf.com) with your postal address and how many calendars you want, and I’ll send one out to you quick-sticks!

I’ll be sending the profits to RSPCA who help animals out of truly hideous situations, so please give generously…it’s Christmas.

THANK YOU!

…and if you’ve never, ever shared or re-tweeted or told someone about a post before…then please make this your first time…I’d love to raise LOTS of money for this wonderful charity xxx

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Violet’s Spoon

Monday, November 21, 2011

 

I never knew anything called ‘stir-up Sunday’ existed until I saw it on Twitter.

Is it an American thing? Why have I missed it? Possibly because my mother (very sensibly) buys her Christmas Cake from a SHOP.

Anyhow, I’m a sucker for family stuff like this (well, I’m in the first bloom of motherhood aren’t I)…so I did the cake thing, and we stirred….

and wished with eyes tightly closed…

And because it is a CEREMONIAL type of stirring, I dug out Violet’s spoon.

Violet’s spoon was given to me by my cousin Paula when I got married. It belonged to her grandmother (Violet) and is more a weapon than a spoon really.

It is vast and long-handled and great for doling out food when you’ve got friends round, because you can serve someone at the opposite end of the table without getting up from you chair….(very lazy).

I love it.

…so as I was stirring and wishing, I knew I had to celebrate the spoon a bit more…

You need:

A spoon like Violet’s (or, obviously, any shallow bowl-like thing). See here for more suggestions

Some sempervivums or other succulents. I have babies a-plenty from this project, but you can find them in the better garden centres (the ones that haven’t removed every single plant and replaced them with yawny christmas things).

Multi-purpose compost

Horticultural grit or gravel

Method:

Carefully select a few choice rosettes, nipping them from your plant with your fingernails – (the babies shooting outwards from the main mother rosette are perfect for this, but if your plant doesn’t have any then just carefully pull a whole rosette off your plant, remove the bottom two layers of leaves so you get a ‘stalk’ and use that.)

Put a small amount of compost in the spoon or whatever you are using, dampen it slightly with water so that it’s moist but not wet (turn the whole thing upside down and squeeze any excess water out through your fingers if you add too much).

Now just poke your rosette or rosettes into the compost, and finally fill in the gaps with gravel.

Display. (I will be displaying Violet’s spoon indoors in a bright place over the winter, and then re-planting the semps outside in the spring).

Watering. I’ll be watering Violet’s spoon with a tiny smidgin of water every couple of weeks, but only because they’re indoors. My outdoor ones get nothing at all…ever.

 

My thanks to English Mum for posting about stir-up Sunday…Her cake recipe is here and looks fabulous. I used my favourite cake book of the moment, Pam Corbin’s River Cottage Cakes, because I happened to have it in my handbag when I was a the supermarket (yes, you read that right…it is hand-bag size). Her Christmas cake recipe is called ‘The Mother Cake’ – brilliant name.

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Cyclamen wedding cake

Friday, November 18, 2011

 

All of us…(oh, not you then…?) okay, but MOST of us have one of these thingys lying around…. a wire cake stand, that is…

After the initial ‘ooooh, that’s purdy, I’ll so USE that for all the, CUPCAKES I make!’, mine ended up in a cupboard just TAKING UP SPACE.

So I thought I’d use it for some kind of confection of cyclamen, which, let’s face it, are the only thing widely on sale right now everywhere.

You need:

A cake stand like mine, preferably one that’s annoying you.

Cyclamen. For my cake stand, I used 6 little plants (all on sale, because they were in a sorry state, and I had to save them). You could also use little ferns, or little pots of ivy, or pansies.

Multi-purpose compost

Sphagnum moss, which comes in sheets – perfect for lining anything that is holey, and prettifying anything that is ugly.

Method

Line the wire stand with moss so there aren’t any gaps. Now remove the cyclamen from their pots and squish them in, using extra multi-purpose if you see any gaps. Water it and disPLAY. I put a candle in the top bit, but chocolate fingers would be even better (or of course, another cyclamen).

You’re going to need to put the whole thing on a big plate or tray to catch any bits. Keep the plants watered so that the compost remains moist but not sopping. I take the whole thing outside and let it drip out before I return it to the table. I tend to water cyclamen quite carefully because if you let big droplets linger on the leaves or stems then they often rot. To avoid this, I use a watering can with a thin nozzle and stick it under the leaves so that I only get water on the compost.

And last but not least, remember to dead-head. This will give you more flowers….

…and you’ll like that.

x

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Girl….PLANT the damn thing!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Still feeling Novemberish, so more Kelly Rowland in my head…

I’m a procrastinator (like all the best people)

I always wish I could wiggle my nose and have stuff done in an instant.

I spend MUCH more time dreaming about what it would be like to wiggle my nose and get stuff done than it takes to DO that actual thing.

These erysimum (wallflowers) for example, have been languishing for weeks on my garden table. I got off my bottom and planted them today….(It took me TEN minutes).

…because I knew if I didn’t then I wouldn’t get this:

…and that would be a shame.

I feel better.

x

 

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Potted Sunshine

Monday, November 14, 2011

This weird warmth highlights the fact that temperature has nothing to do with my feeling iffy at this time of year…it’s all about light levels.

So here is another better-making series of things, for when you’re feeling a bit Novemberish.

This time I’ll be adding some non-planty stuff to each post…because there are things I like OTHER than gardening….(just saying).

There’s a voice in my head…it sounds a bit like Kelly Rowland (no, I don’t know why)…and she’s saying:

GIRL….

….plant some bulbs.

You do this by getting hold of some bulbs and burying them in compost….IT’S THAT SIMPLE…..really.

I have been VERY naughty and bought some READY PLANTED ONES (It’s okay, no-one will know – these are Narcissus ‘Geranium’) and put them in a basket with my faithful friend sphagnum moss. I found these at Clifton, where I was lurking today. Looking at this basket reminds me of Easter. I like that.

…get your toes done.

An instant heart-gladdener. I know it’s winter, and nobody sees my toes….but I see them, and, well, I’m SOMEBODY. Colour: Chanel 307 ‘Orange Fizz’, because it sounds like a petunia cultivar, and it makes my feet look tanned. I like that.

 

…do something nice.

I went here, and clicked on ‘donate’. Seeing the pictures made me giggle, and doing something (however small) about godawful cancer made me feel good. I like that.

 

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