A Case of Mistaken Identity

'Diamonds and Rust' by Tony Smith at RHS Hampton Court 2011.
Brings new meaning to smoking grass

Small son has been helping with the gardening. Mistook runner beans for bindweed. Runner beans not looking quite so fine and healthy anymore.

It is a pity. They were romping up an arch over the path as a catch crop, growing ahead of the roses and clematis that will eventually cover it. All very on trend. The idea was to create an exciting and decorative edible tunnel with a nod to Victorian ornamentals. Fortunately some escaped the depredations of well meaning infants so the vision may yet be realised.

Just back from a lovely day at RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, I had supper in the garden and, mangled bits aside, for the first time it seemed like it is not doing too badly. The roses are flowering, I am very excited about the Hemerocallis that I got from Waddesdon Plant Centre earlier in the year and the designed bits outnumber the randomly-gone-to-seed bits for the first time since we took it on as a chest-high carpet of thistles and goldenrod.

Shortly following the runner bean incident, I visited a friend. Making lunch, her mother popped into her garden for bay and came back with laurel, Prunus lusitanica.

Don’t really want to do that.... It is on a par of being almost sure that that mushroom is the edible (or hallucinogenic) one and getting a bad case of tummy ache or death. (Although to be fair my Poisonous Plants book says it happens all the time with laurel. Spot of cyanide in the supper. Lovely). And it is a bit Darwin award-ish to get in wrong in a garden where these things are usually better labelled than in the wild.

And back on the home front, someone told my sister the other day that they didn’t need to know her name. They knew who she was because she looked like me. Sure, there are a few similarities but this form of identity amalgamation didn’t go down too well. Make no mistake, people. We are all individuals.

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