The Curious Gardener, By Anna Pavord - A Review

The Curious Gardener is a collection of Anna Pavord's articles from her column in The Independent. It is set out by month with a few relevant articles and then a "what to do now" section.

Autumn in Stuarts Park

Stuarts Park, Middlesbrough, is somewhere I've written about a few times. It's a lovely period park that has been getting slowly restored over the last few years and I spend my lunch time there as often as I can. The upper ponds area of the park is one of the recently restored areas and is starting to look really good now that the mud slick that has surrounded the ponds for the last few months has started to give way to grass. There is a lovely selection of trees there including one of my favourites, the weeping willow. If I ever have a garden big enough to accommodate a large pond, then it will definitely have a weeping willow planted next to it.

Garden Visit - Jardines De Alfabia, Mallorca

The other half and I recently spent a relaxing, child free week on the Balearic island of Mallorca. Many will cringe at the mention of it, picturing horrific clumps England transplanted, numerous St. George's crosses and all, to a sunburned collection of cheap all inclusives and "English Bars". Past experience had led me to believe much the same thing. What we discovered away from all of this however was a very pleasant coastal village called S'illot. There were a few hotels and the odd Anglicised pub, but there was also a fine selection of Spanish Bars and restaurants offering local food and drink, which is just the sort of thing we like when we go away. Needless to say, I ate like a pig and we drank a very pleasing amount of local beverages. I still find it incredible that you can buy a carton of very nice Spanish wine for less that 2 Euros... Anyhow, enough of that, on with the point of this post.