As you can tell by the pictures above, for the third year running I’m besotted by Belle Epoque. She is just the most glorious, sumptuous diva of a tulip, and I know some people have had enough of her - but I just can’t find fault. She comes up all neat and tidy and peachy, quite prim, and then lets it all go, opening out voluptuously in streaky shades of dirty apricot-pink, getting better with age. Right up until the end she is fascinating to look at, with petals like water-marked beige silk before they finally drop. I planted hundreds of bulbs the year before last, and they came back very successfully for a second year, and I added a few more in pots. Some, as you can see above, have broken, displaying the most beautiful flamed markings that make you understand exactly why Tulipmania happened. Unfortunately I think it means that they, like us, are infected with a virus - which brings me neatly to my next point: the issue that can’t be avoided.
We are now in week four of coronavirus lockdown in the UK, and what a strange world we have been catapulted into. Living day to day life in a little bubble in rural Berkshire, I have to keep reminding myself of the reality that is unfolding in the wider world. This global nightmare isn’t going to go away in a hurry, and I don’t think I have ever been so thankful for my garden, which is a constant source of pleasure, distraction and focus. I have to say I am enjoying the slower tempo of life, and it has made me realise that my insane rush through life had become habitual - to the extent that even if I was up to date with everything I would still be in that treadmill mindset, and had truly forgotten how to relax. I would weed the garden at 100 miles an hour because that task had to be squeezed in to a tiny sliver of time. Now I weed slowly and mindfully - I might do a small section at a time and really enjoy doing it meticulously. I am sowing more seeds than ever - surely the most therapeutic thing for anyone in this uncertain time - and I am actually sitting in my garden. Sitting there and looking, thinking, even slightly dozing from time to time. I am intensely grateful that I am able to absorb myself so fully in the practice of gardening. And I have made myself a promise that even after everything returns to ‘normal’ I will try and hold onto this slower, more mindful way of living and give myself time to garden slowly.
