Podcasting serendipity

Liz’s response to my email invitation to meet for lunch

I have written before on this blog about serendipity and in that case it referred to a North London garden that is going to feature on the next podcast episode: Mona’s Corokia. This week serendipity struck again for the same episode! I contacted an old school friend because I was going to be in Cambridge where she works and I thought we could meet-up for lunch or coffee. I was a little shocked by the reply - pictured above. It turns out Liz is on a 6 week visiting professorship, staying on the South Island of New Zealand which is in itself exciting but even more exciting for me is that she is just down the road from Larnach Castle.

You may be wondering why Larnach Castle is significant to an episode about a North London garden but it’s because Mona Abboud in London is growing New Zealand plants and holds a national collection of Corokia - a new Zealand native plant. Don’t worry if you haven’t come across Corokia before but take a look at Mona’s webpage - it will help you to have a picture in your head when next week’s episode goes live. It was awarded ‘Best Back Garden’ by the London Gardens Society. When I was searching for someone who might share Mona’s passion for Corokia, I turned to New Zealand and a gardener called Fiona Eadie who has written a book called 100 best native plants for New Zealand Gardens. She also happens to be the Head Gardener at Larnach Castle…you see serendipity.

I was disappointed to miss lunch with my friend but I also saw an opportunity! Could Liz take some photographs for me of Larnach Castle? Luckily Liz wrote back that she is: “very excited to have an assignment” and hopefully next Monday, when the weather in Dunedin is predicted to be good, she will head off to take some pictures. I am hoping she may also spot Fiona! Watch out on instagram ourplantstories_podcast next week to see what happens.

Mona is passionate about Corokia and keen that others can see, not just how it can be a hedging replacement for Box (with all its associated blight problems) but that Corokia can bring colour and shape to all of our gardens. She is so passionate I hope some listeners will be doing some google searching at the end of the episode.

As I sit in my office I can see that the large camellia bush in a neighbour’s garden is coming into bloom - it has enormous beautiful pink blooms. If you haven’t listened to the episode of Our Plant Stories featuring the story of the Camellias arriving in Australia you can take a listen here and there are of course lots of pictures and masses of growing advice on that page too.

I feel very aware that this slightly quieter moment in garden terms is the time to find and record stories before gardeners move into the full throttle phase. So I have been spending quite a lot of time researching and without giving it all away we will be redressing the flower v vegetable balance in this second series. We will also and this I am very excited about, be featuring one of my very favourite flowers - Dahlias. Inspired by my initial conversation with a dahlia grower this week, I picked up a packet of Dahlia ‘Bishop’s Children’ seeds yesterday. I know instagram is always full of people talking about their dahlia tubers but if you haven’t grown dahlias this way before, I would really recommend it - we could have an Our Plant Story sow along! Take a look at this Sarah Raven video for a bit of inspiration.

Enjoy your week

Sally