The 500th Slow Life Blog

It’s taken 29 months to reach the 500th Slow Life blog posting, which is an average of 4 a week and about 150,000 words. Slow Life began as the story of our quest for self-sufficiency; we were sunny optimists then. Now, we are older, wiser and a good deal poorer. It hasn’t been difficult to stick to our pledge never to shop in a supermarket, but the farm has had to go, and with it all the animals, leaving us only with our vegetables, which have the great advantage that if they look sickly, you don’t have to call out the vet.

Looking back over 500 Slow Life blogs it’s striking how we’ve been swept along by events, by the opportunities to take part in TV programmes, by the chance to design gardens for flower shows. The gardening shows have led to a close association with Japan, where everyone strives to live the Slow Life, with varying degrees of success. There’s no doubt that the ideas behind Slow Life are also becoming more popular in the UK. The Slow Food movement (http://www.slowfood.org.uk) recently announced that their membership has increased to 30,000. Less than one tenth of the RHS, but moving in the right direction. Everyone is striving to improve their work/life balance, and when I get the time, I will do too.

The Psychedelic Cactus

My thanks to the RHS for recommending a mind blowing plant. The plant is Lophophora, a type of cactus. This is how the RHS Journal describes the effect of eating the dried fruit of the plant:

“The result is a feeling of ideal content, the mind remains self-possessed, but there is an intoxicating orgy of glorious visions in which are seen the most marvellous colour effects”

The RHS say that it’s popular with Mexicans and Native American Indians and that it has the alternative names of Muscale Buttons and the Whisky Plant. A quick check on Wikipedia reveals that it’s perfectly legal and that it inspired Ken Kesey to write his novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” – as he said – “it was after choking down eight of the little cactus plants that I wrote the first three pages”. Life in the potting shed may never be the same again.

And just in case anyone from the RHS should read this and reach for their lawyer, the quotation above comes from Volume 33, page 457 of the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Cath’s Garden Plants- “Best in Show”

After Crug Farm’s triumph at Chelsea, another of our plant suppliers, Cath’s Garden Plants, has won a Gold and “Best in Show”- this time at the RHS “Gardener’s World Live”. Cath’s Garden Plants are just up the road from us, at Sizergh, on the outskirts of Kendal. In the old days they were known as Heaves Nursery and were a specialist wholesale nursery. They supplied a good proportion of our perennials when we were first getting started 11 years ago. At that time their prices were so reasonable that we wondered how they could do it. I think its fair to say that if it hadn’t been for the good value they offered we wouldn’t have been able to afford to stock the garden. Quality will out- they now have a retail side and prices have caught up- but they are still bloody good value- and, as we now know, the best in the country to boot.

“Graceful Dahlias” 1910 Style

An item in this week’s Country Life headed “Graceful Dahlias” began as follows:

“It is interesting, and not a little curious, to note the change in public taste concerning the dahlia. Ten years ago the large, double show and fancy varieties with their symmetrical dense heads of cone-like petals, were most in demand, yet they are seldom seen at any exhibition now. At the Royal Horticultural Society’s Hall on Tuesday last Dahlias were very largely shown, yet very few of the type mentioned above were to be seen”.

This is curious, I thought. Why is Country Life, which is normally so sniffy about dahlias suddenly taking them to heart? It was then that I noticed that the article was headed “100 Years Ago” and was in fact a re-print from the edition of 3rd September 1910. During the last 100 years dahlias have gone in and out of fashion and it is only in the last ten years that they have become acceptable again. Well, in the case of Country Life readers acceptable if they have dark leaves. It would be interesting to know the names of the varieties being exhibited at the RHS Hall in 1910- such are the changes in fashion that I doubt if many of them are available today.