Planting hope

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow, " said Audrey Hepburn apparently, in her humanitarian phase. It’s a concept that all gardeners understand and I can't think of a better one for the first Sunday of October.

I promised myself there would be no excuses this year, and I'm overjoyed to report that the bulbs have finally made it out of the kitchen. Some years they have made a brief trip to the shed and are unearthed in January, looking rather sorry for themselves. This year there are daffodils going in in guerilla gardening style in the grass verge outside, a scattering of alliums for late spring in the borders and some tulips in pots by the door. Kneeling in coldish soil with a trowel and a mug of coffee going lukewarm on the garden table, I thought once more about how bulbs are an act of faith