A piece in praise of happy garden accidents. The plants you sort of pick up on the way. In pride of place on the roof terrace we have a lurid pink geranium I bought on impulse outside a Budgens a few years ago. Now it’s happily covered in bloom every summer.
There is a large pot of hanging begonia, scarlet like 50s film-star lipstick, that we picked up at the local farmers’ market (Henri, to be fair, was unsure). There are other assorted lupins and coloured African daisies. The list goes on. Pots that shouldn’t go together somehow shine.
This year’s summer window boxes are a mix of crazy colours, incorrectedly labelled at the garden centre. Lots of shocking pink, bright scarlets, deep reds, with mixed lobelia spill from our bedroom and living room windows.
Perhaps oddly, they make me very happy. It is almost a reminder of municipal planting. Colourful echoes of 70s summers in Paignton or Torquay. Perhaps a bit common, like me.
It’s maybe also why I am so drawn to nasturtiums spilling over on the allotment, prone to blackfly and attractive to slugs and snails but generous, prolific, gaudy flowering. A happy statement of intent.
In much of my life my gardening proudly reflects Dudley and Lilian Drabble, my foster parents – this piece is written on Father’s Day – who also gave me books and safety. But somehow, sometimes, almost subliminally, my other roots show through.
Before work most mornings, I potter about the terrace, admire the sprawling Bengal Crimson rose, perhaps rub a scented leaf or three, soak it in. But there is also a special joy to be had from a pot of garish pink or a window box of miss-matched flowers making room for each other.
But now, please tell us, are there any odd garden mixtures in your life, and maybe if so, what and why?
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com
