Feeling like a champion

I was feeling a little despondent but consoled myself that we were in it! Amid juggling paid work, volunteer commitments, running a household with a huge garden, back to school and our wonderful social lives I'd managed to get the forms in to enter the 2012 Royal Canberra Show.

My champion ribbon!

It had been a late night and I'd been struck by a virus. I dosed myself up on coffee and cold and flu tablets and we worked into the night, baking, pasting, preparing. Imogen made cupcakes but I gave her the wrong size tin and a terrible untested recipe for glace icing. We'd spent all our time working out how to get the cupcakes out of the tin without patty pan papers and neglected the glace glory.

Then there was the eggs. I collected the eggs for weeks then Imogen generously gave away half a dozen to a little friend and I used some for birthday baking confident our hens would keep laying three eggs a day.
Then they stopped. I realise now that hot weather of course, makes hens go off the lay!

We begged some eggs from the farmer around the corner so that we could at least lay claim to local produce but they were old and didn't match our pristine half dozen. The girls prepared their 'healthy lunch box' entries for the cookery section of the show - a new category. I rose at dawn and picked my herbs fresh with dew.  The refrain from the traditional ballad; parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.  I trimmed off any blemishes and artfully arranged them in a nice container. I was only entering the 'collection of four distinct herbs; clearly labelled' section to be a role model. How could I expect them to enter the show without making an effort myself.

Four different kinds of herbs

I raced out with my special pass and merged into the excitement of Harvest Hall as cooks, bakers, gardeners and growers joined together to show off their creative Cornucopia. I parked my car and delivered all the entries. The smell of livestock hit my nostrils with an organic splash of urea, hay and nitrogen. The excitement as city meets country. I saw Dave the demon horticulturalist who placed his entries and urged me next year to take the day off work and school so the girls could see the judges inspecting and measuring the vegetables and tasting the preserves.

I felt a great sense of achievement that we had entered the show as competitors. Inspired and encouraged by Dave and Libby who give it a go every year. It was with some disbelief that a day or so later Craig phoned me to say the gentleman farmer of Crookwell and his beautiful wife were first on the scene to see my champion ribbon. Not just first prize but champion! The girls also won Highly Commended for their healthy lunch boxes thank goodness after my stuff-ups with the eggs and the patty cakes. I have been over the moon ever since.

We couldn't get to the show until Sunday but everything was on display in all its glory including a friend's son's prize winning army cake entitled World War Three. Apparently his brother's gummi bears armed with bazookas on the milk arrowroots didn't get a prize but were a popular favourite. I ran into teachers from the school and they were excited that so many people in our community had entered and won prizes including the championship dahlia exhibitors. I recognised the dahlias from the front office of the school. One of the employees brings in exquisite vases of dahlias and seasonal blooms which perfectly suit the art deco foyer.

Champion for best collection; garden produce

It was an afternoon I will not forget in a long time and now we know the show is far more than dagwood dogs, expensive show bags and dizzy rides. As I watched the parade of bulls from Longreach to Hurlstone flanked by hundreds of pony club competitors I knew the show is where we celebrate town and country.

Six brown (but local)  interlopers; Our hens went off the lay

Award winning dahlias

Sculptural in their form; dahlias

Breathtaking!

A very hot and tired grumpy little pumpkin

Pretty in pink

It's interesting how the people who inspire us and touch our lives are often at the periphery and not those with deep kin or emotional connections. Yet they stay in our subconscious. They invest in us with their wise words or a generous act of kindness or simply inspire us at a personal turning point with their courage, grace or flair. In turn we give the same gift to someone else.

There are many people who've influenced me along the way and I've met one such person recently. I hope she won't mind being described so enthusiastically but she really is the personification of Flora's charm and grace and she is of course, a gardener. This wonderful gardener whom I shall call G is a mature lady and proves my thesis that beauty knows no age but comes from the heart and the soul. To me beautiful people are those who suffer some pain but live their lives with grace and optimism.

My strelitzia from Aldi

Purple carrots for Christmas dinner with knobbly bits

I adored my artichoke blooms

It began with a small cut glass vase filled with different types of roses or peonies or hyacinths. Each week something gorgeous from her garden brings floral beauty to our boring office cubicles and when she leaves G gives me her little posy to take home and enjoy over the weekend. The first time I received a gift of flowers from her I was in shock at her gesture but we began to speak a different language in our workplace as G described her garden and showed me photos of her own backyard garden of dreams. Although our workplace is a far cry from those dark Satanic mills it's been wonderful to see G bring her flowers and object d'art such as little vintage plates into that somewhat soulless environment.

Italian arum 'lords and ladies'

At the coast: our tuzzy muzzy 

Gardens give many people solace and G has created an idyll from a bare patch of suburban dirt despite suffering severe pain due to injury. I favour foliage and I have always steered away from 'frilly' flowers and roses in particular because I can't bare a black-spotted spindly rose in a poor landscape design. G's designs show how it's all done properly with a profusion of cultivars and sympathetic companion planting including lots of silver foliage such as lavender and salvias. I've turned and I'm going to create a profusion of pink in my side garden - it's what's been missing all along! I can't wait to replant my 'naked lady' amaryllis bulbs in this pink and mauve setting. I rescued several amaryllis from another spot and they will look fabulous. I'm also going to brave bluebells and a daffodil maze under my birch trees all inspired by G's garden plans. I'll give my geraniums a go spilling out of an urn and creating a ground cover facing a hot north. I already have magnificent Russian sage flowering at the height of summer and completely drought hardy which will look beautiful with geraniums, pelargoniums, lavender and roses. Marjoram, coriander, dwarf nasturtium, parsley and pyrethrum as well as borage and comfrey are recommended. The lavender oil apparently acts as a mild fungicide but the silver foliage also creates a complementary planting scheme.

Russian sage
I've had to teach myself organisational skills throughout my life mainly to cope as a parent. I love being organised... not to the point of perfection though. While I have my house in order G. has shown me a way forward to get my garden in order which I'd never really considered. It's simple, so obvious but quite brilliant.

The garden journal

G has a meticulous garden journal and in 2012 I plan to follow suit. It details her garden designs and then outlines every planting with notes on care and maintenance. In the left hand page G pastes notes from seed packets and plant labels. Although my garden is not extensive, I forget what I've planted where and I love the idea of tailored reminders of when I should be cutting back or feeding. G has an extensive collection of bulbs which she has documented.

Her neat pages are coded and show a planting scheme such as shrub roses, carpet roses, lavenders, white crocus, Duck egg blue Ixias, romantic blend ranunculi, white rain lilies, nerine, Gold Autum crocus, Autumn snowflakes, Siberian Iris and Ixia. Chives mingle with tulips as chives are thought to help prevent blackspot and mildew and repel aphids. Her standard roses include Princess de Monaco, Burgundy Iceberg, Pink Iceberg, white Iceberg, Princess de Monaco and Jane McGrath Floribund bush rose pink.
Let's face it G's a rose fiend! A table tracks height and width for her bulb plantings, watering, frost tolerance, flowering time, fertiliser and after flowering care.

G chooses her roses for their repeat flowering and their scent. Very important she tells me. Her companion planting and landscaping favourites to complement the repeat flowering roses are violets, daisies, salvia, climbing star jasmine and lavender. G loves her Iris and collects many different types. She also has some English snowdrops.

Gardens Illustrated, galanthus and Nympha

The Galanthus craze has taken off to nearly rival tulips.  My horticultural world has been opened up by the pages of Britain's Garden's Illustrated. Any other gardening magazine I've every read pales into comparison. Check out beningtonlordship.co.uk a gathering place for galanthophiles.

Snowdrops are a sign of hope that winter is over.

Over the holidays with time to read I've also been inspired by the ancient gardens of Nympha in Italy and plan to visit that ruined village and restored garden one day in the future. I particularly adore the giant umbrellas of rhubarb-related plants that line the stream flowing through Nympha.

In the short term I am heading to Japan in just a few months and have booked accommodation in Kyoto so I can visit the bamboo grove in Arashiyama on the outskirts of Kyoto and of course the many sacred temples and gardens. Moss gardens, zen gardens maintained by monks, a temple tea house and all in the height of the Spring cherry blossom season. It will be the trip of a lifetime.