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Life still in Cogges
VAL BOURNE praises an old county friend and the newest trend
The best news at the start of 2008 is that the Cogges Farm Museum in Witney has survived after another scare. Set near the heart of the town and funded by the Oxfordshire County Council, it is a tremendous resource.
The Victorian walled vegetable garden represents a time capsule and the Head Gardener, Chris Munday, works his own brand of magic on a tight budget. Witney residents can walk there, lucky things.
The best way to ensure its long-term future is to make a visit as funding is only assured for one year. You could also help by telling others about Cogges because their budget for advertising has been minimal, so the number of visitors has inevitably dropped.
You could also help by fundraising and they are desperately in need of a Friends' Society. So please visit. Call Cogges on 01993 772602.
On a completely different tack, I am not known for my perceptive ability when it comes to spotting trends. I can remember laughing hysterically at Tomorrow's World when it suggested over 30 years ago that we would have a plastic card to insert in a hole in the wall instead of cash. I can also remember telling my brother, who worked in Japan, that karaoke would never catch on here thank you very much. Mobile phones also fell on deaf ears. I go out to escape from people and the telephone, a habit I perfected in childhood.
But I have recognised a significant gardening trend, although I have to admit it's taken me several years to catch on. It's all to do with mail order plants.
Before the advent of the garden centre and the plastic pot, I well remember my grandmother's plants arriving in large boxes packed with newspaper and straw, either in spring or autumn. I absorbed her excitement second hand. When we visited the nursery I would look in awe at the low fields which were sculpted into the ground, because most of the top soil had been shipped or posted off over generations. Then the garden centre sprang up in the 1960s, replacing Woolworths in the affections of speculative gardener-shoppers like me. Mail order declined quickly and for the next 30 years most plants sent by post were poorly grown and small. Frankly, many were not worth the postage.
However, the Internet has wrought important changes in the nursery world. Now millions of plants are bought by mail order via the net. They can go all over the world, subject to rules and regulations, and the quality of plants is once again extremely high.
I have gone one step further and actually ordered plants on line - from Beth Chatto's nursery at www.bethchatto.co.uk.
Simply clicking and putting in a number and having it added it up for you is much easier than struggling with a form. I can also recommend Claire Austin (www.claireaustin-hardyplants.co.uk) and Long Acre Plants www.longacreplants.co.uk).
So if you are planning some additions to the border the quality is there, as good or better than it was all those years ago. The excitement of a straw-filled box hasn't diminished either and now I'm a grandmother myself!
11:34am Thursday 14th February 2008
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