Now this is how you garden....

One of the things I would have loved to have inherited from my Mum is her green thumb. I'm still hoping it's latent, but it's starting to look rather unlikely. Here are just a few photos of her garden, which she didn't even have chance to tend as she was putting her feet up in the hospital and not even babysitting...





















































OK, maybe not this photo.....








Every female on my Mum's side of the family is a magician in the garden, speaks fluent latin with respect to plant names, and has an obsession with garden shows, cuttings and compost verging on the obscene.

An example. During our stay my Aunty Jane and Uncle Phil drove over to visit. There was a phone call from the hospital to say Mum would be discharged at some point that afternoon, and there was a chance I might be at the hospital and unable to let my Aunty and Uncle in to the house after their long drive. Obviously you can't leave a huge great sign on the door saying 'dear Aunty Jane the key is under the mat', or as a friend of mine wrote 'if you're the gas man the key's by the milk bottles', but I was confident enough to know that if I wrote 'the key's by the Clematis Jackmanii' they'd be inside on their third pot of tea by the time I pulled up with the invalid.

And yes, I do know what a Clematis Jackmanii is (see purple flower below) the trait as I say, could be latent.























I'm starting to wonder if maybe this gene hasn't skipped a generation....