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 ...