Delightful Things 3

Stones, planting, cake

Delightful Things 3

Hello everyone!

This is a free-to-read letter for my followers here on The Garden Collective, in addition to my monthly piece for subscribers. It's a scrapbook of delightful things and I'm so glad you're here.

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One Good Thing

*One of the giant, hulking stones at Avebury*

I finally went to see the extraordinary stones at Avebury and was utterly blown away by the strange juxtaposition of these ancient monoliths, hauled up to standing by the true grit, determination (and obsession?) of a group of our ancestors of whom we know so. very. little.

A full account of this experience, including my visit to the Manor garden is here.

Two other things I'd love to do over the next few weeks but probably won't have time to:

A Hellebore tour at Ashwood Nursery

Hazel Structures Workshop at Hortus Poeticus

Planting

I finally planted the silver birch that I spoke about in my Liminal Loveliness article for The Garden Collective. The planting of this beauty had been delayed by the late delivery of the giant pot that I ordered, and the fact that my stupid back prevents me from lifting heavy things without assistance.

Anyway, it's finally in place, and the perimeter is planted up with a circle of fritillaries, primula, miniature irises and snowdrops, all bedded down with moss. Heaven.

Also planted: three lovely clumps of miscanthus that came out of Butter Wakefield's meadow and which went straight into mine. It's my intention to get much more granular with my meadow (which was bought on a roll and installed before I could swot up on every character it contained). I am looking forward to curating this patch, adding and subtracting from it over the years, and learning in the process. Part of this has involved pressing and mounting some of the flowers and foliage as it appears. I'm uniquely bad at this I realise but here is an oxeye daisy.

A recipe

I have now made this cake three times since I got Skye McAlpine's Christmas book. It is, for me, everything I want in a chocolate cake. More of a pudding (as it is flourless). Very, VERY delicious, with a tiny amount of chewy crunch on the top because of the meringue element. I don't use orange chocolate but I think if you like your chocolate adulterated by orange you are probably PROPERLY GROWN-UP; I am not.