I thought Her Outdoors would be happy to see one of her friends, or what I thought was one of her friends. Since we moved here to Portugal we haven’t seen many of them. We have so many places for them to stay now that I thought they’d both be …
After visiting the Algarve in 2013, Sundance and I loved it so much, that after extensive research, we decided to buy a holiday home. We now treat it more as our main home, spending more and more time here. If you have visited Portugal you may have noticed that ornamental …
Until now I’ve associated succulent plants with the spindly, sad specimens my mother had on her window sill. They appeared lifeless lacking the excitment and colour of other plants. But when I inherited this garden in Portugal, I discovered, they didn’t need to be indoor plants with all the limitations of a …
Trichocereus pachanoi… doesn’t that just roll off the tongue…. is it the name of a dinosaur; an Italian dish perhaps? To me, with my burgeoning passion for succulents, it is the San Pedro cactus, which grows like a candelabra tree and no spikes. Inspired either by the romance of those iconic giant cacti featured in the westerns I watched as a child, or more likely by the enthusiasm of Lyn Kimberley of Desert Plants of Avalon growing her weird and wacky cacti in the Emerald Isle I decided now was my opportunity and San Pedro was the one! My new found passion for succulents was taking off.
A Growing Passion
Lyn had grown one from seed in Ireland and was now getting a spectacular display of huge white, scented flowers, albeit 15 years later. Surely it would thrive in our Quinta garden in Portugal, whose climate is much more akin to Peru where it originated. Now I’m patient, but not that patient. I didn’t want to wait 15 years, so headed down to our local garden centre. There they had a few largish columnar Cactiwith lethal spikes, but no San Pedro.
Ever on the look out for inspiration from neighbouring gardens, however, I had noticed a rather huge and lovely specimen a few houses along from there. On closer inspection I saw a branch had broken off and was caught in the upper branches. Much to the embarrassment of Alan I called to ask if I could have it. The front door looked rather grand as if it wasn’t used so I went round to the side and shouted ‘Ola!’ in the open kitchen door. A little old lady appeared looking suspiciously at me, or it could have been me that looked suspicious… I’d practiced what I was going to say in Portuguese and while I was speaking suddenly a huge grin appeared on her face. Was it a smile at my attempt at speaking Portuguese or, as I prefer to think, was it her delight in finding someone who really appreciated her garden?
Her husband was called and along with ladder and broom handle, not only got that piece down but also broke off another piece especially for me. They were the size of leg body parts and just as heavy! Result… or so I thought! When I got them home, I found it was not in fact a cactus at all but Euphorbia ingens! I’ve dried them out and planted them in a sandy soil mix hoping they will ‘take’.
We have a number of palm trees around the garden, but the one right in front of the house was unsightly, made a mess on the paths when it shed it’s fruit and was quite noisy in windy conditions. ‘Her Outdoors’ decided to call in the professionals as trimming palms …
Before moving to Portugal we lived in Barton, a quintessentially English village, 3 miles from Cambridge. Each year they have a village day, the main part of which is the Barton Gardeners Annual Show in a marquee on the village wreck. The villagers can exhibit their work from flowers to photographs, from vegetables to cakes. Competition is very keen for the several trophies presented for the best exhibits.
In 2013 I was recruited to shoot the evening entertainment which was provided by ABandandADJ.
One of the first projects I worked on when I moved down to Cambridge in 2009 to live with my new partner Angela, was a joint building/AV production. Hence the “21/2 Minute Home Office“. The main aim was to build myself a space that was my own. So, if ever I was in …