With a bit of help from her dad, Eve Jones has transformed her roof garden into a little patch of Oxfordshire. But how can she explain the absence of the begonias?
I’M worried about my begonias. Historically, they’ve been my greatest asset so I’m obsessive about their upkeep. However, I’m afraid, this year, they’re going south. Last winter, I dug up my bulbs, dried and wrapped them in tissue paper, bedded them in a Fortnum’s wicker basket and then, in April, replanted them so, come summer, they were glorious. This year, carelessly, I left them out (to be fair, they’re easily forgotten given that the one window that looks out to my roof garden is above the loo and it’s only men in the flat having a wee that see out there in winter). I’m not sure whether begonia care is something a 30-something should or shouldn’t be worrying about. It may be considered premature aging but, nonetheless, their potential demise is of very real concern.
I suppose I always thought of gardening as an old lady’s thing – a Laura Ashley gardening gloved, grey top-knotted, rose-tending granny business – until my dad (who does not have a grey top-knot) turned my roof into a secret city oasis. Suddenly, I found myself listening to Gardeners’ Question Time on Radio 4 while insisting to myself I was a young, urban garden hipster. The reality lies somewhere in between, being born from green genes and a simple, physical need to have some privacy outside because despite a surprising 47% of London being green space, the problem is there’s always some other bugger in it.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der April 2018-Ausgabe von The Field.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der April 2018-Ausgabe von The Field.
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Rory Stewart - The former Cabinet minister and hit podcast host talks to Alec Marsh about the parlous state of British politics, land management and his deep love of the countryside
The gently spoken 51-year-old former Conservative Cabinet minister is a countryman at heart. That's clear: he even changes into a tweed waistcoat for the interview, which takes place at his London home and begins with a question about his precise career status. Having resigned from the Commons and the Conservative Party in 2019, the former diplomat and soldier has reinvented himself, first with an unconventional but promising run as an independent for the London mayoralty (abandoned because of COVID19 in 2020) and then as a media figure, co-hosting one of the country's most popular podcasts, The Rest Is Politics, alongside Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor.
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