An intensely blazing black smoke affair with flames striding eight feet into the atmosphere in the upper mountainous reaches near Christchurch in South Island New Zealand. But the most spectacular fire-filled display was in the upper reaches of the isolated, topographically challenging Andes of Colombia and Ecuador – the entire Eastern slope of the Andes was sizzled in literally seconds.
What’s going on eccentric Tom? What are you doing now? Well readers with the amount of dead material in the World Garden resulting in part from the worst winter since 1982, now bone dry from a scorchingly rainless April – I thought I’d have myself a little experiment. Throw into the hot mix that I’m also a certified pyromaniac – which adds to the heat filled, hair singeing (especially on the eyebrows!) experience of it all – And it’s really been quite exhilarating in an eye opening vertical learning curve kind of way!

Burning off the Eragrostis curvula (African Love Grass) & Red Hot Pokers of Africa, the badly frost damaged Phormium tenax cultivars from New Zealand & The Pony Tail Grass (Stipa tenuissima) from the Andes of South America – not only saves on the hassle endowed time of cutting back the dead material and loading into a barrow then dumping it on a far flung rubbish heap but puts back rich potash into the ground, rapidly burns all of the dead material especially in the central crowns of the grasses, Phormiums & Kniphofias –cleaning them out, but also in the case of the grasses increases the rate of germination they love to be burnt and in the wild this is a natural part of their cycle. It’ll be fascinating to see how they recover! ‘Please recover lovely singed plants’.

What the neighbours think – i don’t know! Tom the plant nut or nut full stop, with the sun setting on two balmy evenings this week armed with a shovel & the garden hose for an ‘emergency control’, with half the World Garden seemingly ablaze – running around the oceanic pathways with a hefty gleeful smile – which the joker from batman would be envious of!!! Everything readers I reassure you was under control except when the intense blaze in Eastern Africa threatened to leap frog the Mediterranean Waters and take out Syria.

As they say - dear faithful most supportive readers of this column – DO NOT TRY this at home!!

Big Hugs,

Tom the Pyromaniac

I’m sure my dried retinas, beyond the haze of SW Australia saw a dust devil!! Despite the lack of God’s Tears the growth & spring flowering has been rampant. One entity we can’t complain about recently is the lack of ash for the garden! –good for swelling up your apple crop!!! We're not short of bulb action too - they have been storming away and I’m confident that the majority of the Daffodils will hold their own till the first May Bank Holiday weekend – weeks later than last year!!

Speaking of bulbs – From the pale blue Ipheion uniflorum of Uruguay to the dashingly saucy deep yellow – white of the tuberous Iris Bucharica in Afghanistan – the bulbs at Lullingstone are flying away. But by far the seductive poll position sitter this week has been the “Crown Imperial Lily” – also known as “Tears of Mary” in its native cliff and rocky endowed land of W Iran. I have both the yellow and deep orange varieties. And it’s the latter that really kicks your horticultural socks sideways – fabulosus in fact! The “Crown Imperial Lily” has been cultivated in the UK since the Sixteenth Century and was one of the earliest bulbs to be grown in our British Gardens.

They’re such aristocrats – and have never looked so good at Lullingstone – attaining almost 4ft in height. The lance shaped glossy leaves appear quirkily at intervals along the stem with a prominent whirl of downward facing orange flowers at the top of the stem, topped by a ‘pineapple style’ – ‘crown’ of small leaves – hence the common name of “Crown Imperial Lily”. A real funkster! The other common name of “Tears of Mary” refers to the great drops of nectar at the base of each petal – Christian tradition says that of all the flowers only the proud Crown Imperial refused to bow its head at the crucifixion – it has bowed and wept ever since! What a plant, readers!!! The flowers produce to my nostrils anyhow a rather distinctly ‘foxy’ smell that’s reputed to repel mice & moles - but I can’t vouch for this!

On the husbandry front –Fritillaria imperialis is easy to grow – in a well-drained pretty rich substrate in full sun or in the shade of deciduous trees or shrubs – not bad in containers but best in the open ground. Go on readers feel like a king or queen coz when you flower this plant you’ll positively glow like royalty.

...to a stunning warm Springtide morning at 11.30 am on the dot – no less. With the smell of freshly cut moist grass blending delicately with the Kentish air particles - a lady called Gemma Gardiner – a lovely young professional masseuse came to revitalise my lower back. Banish a dull sciatica based pain I had, care of years of digging away like all gardeners must have, coupled with a stupid incident in Bolivia in December 2008  - when whilst looking for the world’s tallest flower spike – Puya raimondii – I drank some tap water and became ill – knocking my lower back out of sync with powerful vomiting convulsions. What a doughnut! Survived 9-month captivity ordeal but undone by a glass of tap water – never has my health been threatened so much!!  And although my lower back feels heaps better now – recently what with getting the World Garden ready for Spring – twinges and tingles and numbness have subtly reared their ugly head.

Gemma’s great, and upon unfolding in Lullingstone’s steamy ‘Cloud Garden’ Greenhouse her padded massaging ‘bench’ – dousing her athletically toned hands in Holland and Barrett Almond Oil she vigorously set to work on my right buttock region! The combination of a hot and humid rising in Celsius greenhouse with sap rising, rampant bursting growth and kaleidoscopic flowers all around me was wonderful. Peeping through my circular padded head rest I could see my Brazilian rainforest girlfriend still flowering after 3 weeks, Hippeastrum papilio – “The Butterfly Amaryllis”.

And as Gemma sunk her penetrating fingers deep into my buttocks my body totally chilled out and spread out as if I was in horizontal star jumping mode!!! It felt amazing readers, despite occasional deliberately induced bouts of deeply throbbing pain – and I’d thoroughly recommend you get a masseur or masseuse to banish those gardening back ghouls. The relief is award winning.
It was a magical spine tingling morning. Bloggers what’s going on – I’ve hardly wittered on about plants this week – the masseuse must have been good!

Happy Springtide Massage Gardening to you all.