A Good Read and a Useful Tool

There is always too much to read and never enough time to read it.  During winter it is always my intention to make the most of the short, dark days by catching up on my reading.  Gardening books tend to be too large to accompany me on the commute to London; imagine trying to heave the RHS Encycolpedia of Garden Plants out of your bag and on to your lap and you get a picture of quite how absurd it would seem – not to mention adding considerable tonnage to the weight of the bag!

Some of my gardening books ...

Beth Chatto’s Garden Notebook is one of the few exceptions to the rule, being a light and relatively slim hardback; it’s brightening my morning commute no end.  As far as most of the other books are concerned I find that, having failed to plough through them during winter, they sit on the book shelf with their spines a constant reminder of my neglect; I tend to plunge in and out of these at moments of need, searching desperately for the essential nugget of information that will assist me in pruning, propagating, preparing and planting (and p words I’ve missed???).

… and some more.

Beyond reading, I’ve also been on a quest to find a supplier of Lathyrus vernus ‘Alboroseus’.  I was just entering the name into search engines to see what came up but I then popped on to the RHS website and found the Plant Finder tool.  I found this to be a really easy to use tool, I just entered the search criteria and was presented with a list of nurseries in my local area that stock the plant. Happy days indeed!