Cheery Spring thoughts, daffodils and the power of yellow (even if you think you don't like it)

Plus: what not to do in your garden this month and a book giveaway

Pottering around, I realised I was wearing what would have appeared to anyone else a great big foolish smile on my face. Those daffs were making me very happy indeed.

This week, I was going to take a deep-dive into peaches…

…the colours and hues, not the fruit which is controversially Pantone’s Colour of 2024.¹ But, after one of my regular and inspirational Substack catch-ups with my friend Mark Diacono, I was inspired to change it….. so I’ve saved that draft for a few week’s time. The peaches will come!

Instead, we’re going to be taking a look at yellow, and those wonderful narcissi that are cheering up Spring with a zing of mood-boosting, energy-sparking colour therapy - if you’re a self-confessed yellow-in-the-garden-hater, please do bear with me. Who knows, you may even end up changing your mind? I’d love to know if that happens - would you let me know?

I’ve also got another book giveaway for you - one of my plant bibles in fact. There’s also an update about the Garden Book Club read-along, which will be starting in a few week’s time.

We’ve also got the regular What To Do and What Not To Do in your garden this month - subscribers have alerted me that that there’s now more of this appearing on Substack, and I know you’re here to read something new and that’s what I committed to right at the beginning of this journey some two and a half years ago now, so I thought I’d hold a poll and let you decide!

Please do let me know whether you’d prefer if I skipped this monthly feature - your feedback builds The Gardening Mind and is fundamental in shaping it, so your opinion matters.

Email feedback as ever is also super-welcome, as are Direct Messages, on which I can now chat to paid subscribers - in case you’re looking for it, look for these areas:

There’s been a lot that’s happened over the past week:

• I’ve set out Task 3 of the Small Garden Design course here, and I’m hoping you’re enjoying thinking about what I’ve asked you to do. There’s no rush on this - give yourselves a couple of weeks to really get your head around what should go where, and, when you get it to where you want it, remember not to throw away all your previous versions.

  You can follow this Small Garden course in your own time: there’s a round up of all the areas I’ve covered so far in this link

• We had some extraordinary video footage of the Show Garden in China, - you can watch it here and see for yourself the mind-bogglingness of it all. In case you’re new to The Gardening Mind, the fact is that we've designed a show garden for the 2024 Shenzhen Flower Show, and I thought we’d try something different. Why not do something that’s never been done before, in a country thousands of miles away, where we can’t even get to until next week? So it’s all being built without us there, and it’s all brand new technology…..

  Here’s more of the story behind the crazy idea:

  How to design show gardens and small gardens

• We had our regular Show Us your Plots session last Sunday on the Chat - if you haven’t yet joined in, please come and say hello - we’d love to see you there. Look out for the next post which starts off with “It’s Sunday 10th March and it’s time to SHOW US YOUR PLOTS!”

• Also on the Chat is the ridiculous Chit-along, where we're comparing photos of our potatoes as they sprout. Yes: truly nail-biting stuff. You can join in here.

• A reminder of our IN REAL LIFE meet-up in June - details later in this post.

• Each week, I release one post from behind the paywall: here’s this week’s escape:

  How to choose Spring bulbs and other spring favourites for your pots next year

  

Let’s kick off with this week’s book giveaway

I love this book so much that I’ve bought another copy to give to one subscriber - just let me know in the Comments if you’d like your name to be put in the hat.

It starts off with these words:

“Canon Hole, in his delightful Book about Roses written in 1874, sums up the whole subject thus:

"He who would have beautiful roses in his garden must have beautiful roses in his heart. He must love them well and alwavs. He must have not only the glowing admiration, the enthusiasm and the passion but the tenderness, the thoughtfulness, the reverence, the watchfulness of love."

It is because I share such feelings about Old roses that I have chosen to work with them and I have written this book in order to share my enthusiasm and fascination with other people.

How could you not read on?! It’s called