Quick topiary for valentine's day

This is a recipe I wrote for my second book ‘Sweetpeas for Summer’. Back then, sustainably sourced flowers for Valentine’s day were hard to come by; sterile, unscented roses shipped in from Colombia or some such place were the norm. How things have changed and it’s now joyfully easy to get a bouquet of British flowers for your loved one, should you so wish. Thing is though, I value permanence above all things, which is why I’m quite into this idea for a Valentine’s gift with a difference…it will last for as long as you look after it, and if you get bored of it, you can just plant it out in the garden and let it romp up a trellis, reminding you how much your love has grown.

Quick valentine’s topiary

You will need:

A small pot of small-leaved ivy

A wire coat-hanger (or if you want a larger affair you can just use thick wire

Some pliers

A pot (20cm diameter is the one to go for if you’re using an old coat hanger)

Peat-free multi-purpose compost and fertiliser granules

Method

First, make your frame. To do this, use your pliers to un-bend the hook bit of the coat-hanger and untwist its ‘neck’. Then fashion this piece of wire into a heart-shape with a two ‘stalks’ about 7-10cm long at the bottom.

Fill your pot with compost and plant your ivy plant slightly forward of centre, gently spreading out and untangling the stems as you go, which will make it easier to cover the frame.

plunge your frame into the centre of the pot, take half of the ivy tendrils and start twisting them around the bottom of the frame. if they don’t stick, then tie them in with a bit of string. Then do the same on the other side. As the plant grows, just keep twisting the ivy around the frame until it is completely covered. You can prune out anything you don’t need. Keep the pot watered and every year, remove the top few centimetres of compost, replacing it with new, to keep the plant happy and healthy.

x Laetitia

Comforts

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

An Autumn Table (with dinosaurs)

I get quite excited by autumn (principally because it means Christmas is coming, but also because colours start getting juicy).  Here's a simple autumn table that you can make in ten minutes and will be quite happy for weeks as long a you give it the odd night out(side).

Dinosaurs, birds and gourds are optional of course, but I find them necessary to keep The Babety occupied at mealtimes - anyway, I feel vindicated in my use of plastic animals because the ever-chic Miss Pickering does it too (but better).

You need:

1 long tray - I use a black plastic one that I got with a window-box

1 small pot of very beautiful small ivy

3 pots of cyclamen

1 small bag of sphagnum moss

5 small terracotta pots - make sure they can hold the cyclamen without any plastic pot showing

A small amount of multi-purpose compost

Make sure everything is watered well before starting

Method:

First, put the tray on your table and line up your five pots along it.  Now divide the ivy into two by carefully teasing it apart.  Re-plant each piece in a terracotta pot with some dampened multi-purpose compost.  Plonk them second and fourth in your terracotta army and then simply drop the cyclamen plants into the three empty spaces...(you could bother to plant them up, but I don't because, well, laziness, and the fact that I might wake up one day and want white instead of pink....it happens).

Now tear off bits of sphagnum moss and arrange them around the base of the pots so no tray is showing, and finally, arrange your ivy tendrils artfully around the pots.

That's it...you're done.  Water as and when needed, and in-situ (hence the tray)...just stuff your finger in the compost and see if it's dry or not.  The whole thing would, as I said, benefit from the odd 'night out'...not on the town, but in your garden, or in an un-heated room to keep the cylcamen perky for longer.  But honestly, as long as you dead-head them when the flowers are over, and you don't live in a sauna, they should be just fine.

This bit of loveliness will last brilliantly well into Christmas, when you will, I'm sure, want holly and stuff.