Cosmopolitan climate

I was chatting to the man that runs the tree nursery. I was after a couple of roots of copper beech to fill a gap in a hedge.

“You’ll find it hard to find copper beech roots in Suffolk now. You don’t see young beech hedges, do you, if you think about it? There’s only the big old ones and they’re quite a rarity. We’re too dry. Too hot and dry. No point in selling them.”

Of course he’s right. It was the dry heat of this summer that had cooked the small pieces of hedge in the first place.

Although that summer now feels like a lifetime away, in terms of gardening, the ground’s still dry.

Last week, I fell for, ‘10 tulip bulbs for a pound’.

When it came to putting them in, half a hand-depth down, there’s barely any moisture. The bulbs effectively dropped onto dry earth.

I have a good friend that used to live nearby. She’s from the US. Witty, kind and bright, a Wellesley girl, and in the old-school American way, she celebrates the start of each evening with a cocktail.

It would most often be a Friday when the families got together, and usually, she’d make a cosmo. Short, punchy as hell, always with lime juice rather than lemon, and poured through just the right amount of ice.

You only needed one and the week became a whole lot less stressful. Of course, we had two. Usually.

Time came for her family to return to the States and, amongst other things, she gave me custody of her cactus. It was an impressive specimen, I think it used to live on a side-table in her hall.

She knows that I love the garden. What she didn’t know then is that I am completely and utterly useless with houseplants.

The cactus lived happily on the kitchen table for quite some time without needing much attention.

Then came an evening and, sitting at the table in close proximity to it, we noticed that a thread of cotton had become tangled in the spines, pressed close against the body of the cactus.

Couldn’t pick it out - too prickly; failed completely to hook it out with a wooden cocktail stick.

Refreshment had been taken by the time we decided that the best thing to do was to set light to the thread, like people used to when removing a stray piece of cotton from a jacket.

Who knew that cacti burned so well? Within seconds it was engulfed in flame, impossible to pat out because of the spikes (we tried). The only option was to fling a tea-towel over the top, grab the pot and take it outside where it could be properly drenched with a bucket of water.

In the cold light of morning, the cactus didn’t look at all pretty.

Determined not to give up on the (possibly) still living thing that had been entrusted to me in love and friendship, I planted the remains in the very most sheltered part of the garden.

Remember those films showing plants that regenerate after fires in the desert? Well, the cactus did. Eventually, the burnt stump fell off and new growth took over.

It produced two stems and it lives safely on in the garden, hopefully ever after.

What it confirms about an East Anglian climate, best not to contemplate.

Afterword

Dearest SK. You will imagine, I know, how many pics I took in an attempt to make the cactus appear less phallic. I’ve failed. Two woolly willies it is. Happy Thanksgiving xx