Gardening with Liz Fielding

Gardening

A little while ago, after my husband of 45 years died, I downsized to a ground floor apartment near my daughter.

I was very sad to leave behind a pretty walled garden in Wiltshire – my husband made this wonderful gothic window for me – but my new home had a small courtyard garden. 

It had been sadly neglected. There were a couple of buddleias, a clematis montana and a hydrangea. I was about to say "and nothing else", but of course that's not true. Here's a glimpse!

The first thing I did was call in someone to clear the garden and paint the wall. Then I started planting.

Roses of course. White and yellow. The yellow has done better. I planted the white in a shady spot and it tries, bless it, but it's not happy. 

My biggest problem is that while one end of the garden spends a large part of the day in the shade, the other half bakes – particularly last year when we had such high temperatures and a hose pipe ban. The trailing rosemary loves it, but a lot of plants really suffer.

The shady end of the garden is a problem, too.

Dry shade – the two words all gardeners dread. 

The daffodils – my favourite little tete-a-tetes – do well there. As do the heucheras. I have to top dress with ericaceous compost every year to keep the azaleas happy, and I've planted wild garlic under the larger of the buddleias as they tolerate the shade. 

I'm very fond of euphorbia. The fancier ones tend not to survive here, but the one that grows wild always puts on a great show; that wonderful acid green in spring to complement the bluebells. But it's a thug and is going to need a bit of clearing this year. 

 

I've planted an evergreen winter flowering clematis (Winter Beauty), myrtle – growing but not much in the way of flowers, sadly, although I've cut back the buddleia and now it has more light.  A "flame of the forest" is looking good this spring. For the deepest shade, I've gone for ferns, although it was so hot last year that they shrivelled up and are only just coming back.

I planted a load of anemone blanda – love that electric blue. And there are foxgloves and lupins in there. And I have pots, too.

I went to a talk about sustainable gardening at my local bookshop by garden designer Marian Boswell last month. She doesn't water. If it dies, it dies and I suspect that's the way it will be for all of us very soon.

 We need to find plants that can not only tolerate our wet winters but our increasingly dry summers. (Actually the winter was very dry, too.) All suggestions, welcome.

Meanwhile this is it when I love it the most. In late spring, with the tulips and clematis.

I recently moved into a lovely ground floor apartment in West Sussex which has a slightly neglected courtyard garden.  I have been busy bringing it back to life and recording my progress.

As you can see, since I moved in two years ago, I've made quite a difference to that scruffy bed I was confronted with! At the moment, I'm marshalling bi-annual plants and new bulbs for the spring. I'm going big on tulips, and I've grown wallflowers and antirrhinums from seed. I just need to take some more cuttings and plan my hanging pot herb garden.

 

Liz Fieding 

Liz Fielding met her husband when they were both working in Zambia and were keen members of the Lusaka Theatre Club. He was playing John de Stogumber in St Joan, and she was the pageboy to the Earl of Warwick. He swore it was the purple tights that got him.

 

Years spent in Africa and the Middle East provided the background to many of Liz's romances. Her first, An Image of You, was set in Kenya, in a place where they had spent many happy weekends on safari. It was plucked from the slush pile because the feisty feminist heroine made her editor laugh. Emotion touched with humour has been the hallmark of her work ever since.

 

After writing 70 books for Harlequin Mills and Boon, Liz has now turned to crime, signing with Joffe Books for three "Maybridge Mysteries", the first of which, Murder Among the Roses, is published on 18th April.

 

 Liz Fielding on the web:

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Murder Amongst the Roses, the first Maybridge Mysteries cozy crime, is published on 18 April 2023 by Joffe Books.

MEET ABBY FINCH. SHE’S THE BUSY MUM OF THREE, AN EXPERT GARDENER AND THE STAR OF YOUR NEW FAVOURITE COZY MURDER MYSTERY.

In the peaceful Cotswolds village of Maybridge, you wouldn’t expect to find a dead body in the rose garden. And certainly not two.

Abby is horrified to discover the bones of a baby buried under a rose bush. It’s in the garden of her soon-to-be ex-husband Howard’s family home.

She immediately calls the police. But she can’t get hold of Howard. He’s off on a jolly with the woman he’s got pregnant.

And then, just two days later, Abby finds Howard himself.
Lying dead in the very same rose garden.
Throat slashed with her own garden spade.

Now Abby is the prime suspect . . .

Fans of Faith Martin, Jane Adams, Frances Evesham, M.C. Beaton, Clare Chase or Jeanne M. Dams will love this addictive cozy mystery!

MEET THE DETECTIVE
Brilliant gardener and the busy mum of three, Abby Finch’s dreams of winning gold at Chelsea Flower Show were put on hold by an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. But she wouldn’t have it any other way. These days she’s kept on her toes looking by her beloved family, running her own business and dealing with her imminent divorce. In an effort to keep things cordial, she’s allowed her ex to bully her into restoring the garden of his family home. Thankfully she’s surrounded herself with a great group of friends to lean on.

THE SETTING
Pretty Maybridge is a charming village set in the sheep-dotted Cotswolds hills, with a long history stretching back to Tudor times. It’s the type of place where everyone knows each other, but there's a wonderful bookshop on the corner of the bridge, a popular riverside café and a bustling market at Christmastime. And with Bristol nearby and a big supermarket round the corner.

Buy on:

Amazon Kindle            Amazon UK           Amazon Aust

Watch the trailer for a teaser of the story...