The Mysteries in the Mulch

On finding treasure, terror and trespassers

There’s an anemone coming into bud in a pot in my garden. I have no idea how it got there.

As far as I can recall, I have never planted a spring-flowering anemone, nor have I inherited any from the previous owner. But undeniably, there it is.

I don’t particularly like spring-flowering anemones. Japanese anemones? Oh absolutely. I adore them. I love ‘Frilly Knickers’. Every garden should have ‘Frilly Knickers’. I’ve gone on and on about my ‘Frilly Knickers’. But spring-flowering varieties? Meh. Spring has many more exciting flowers to offer, I think. Goodness knows you’ve heard me bang on about enough.

So who is this interloper? Where did it come from? When, for goodness sake, did I put it in a pot? The fact it has been potted up must indicated that at some point before coming across it yesterday morning, I have seen this plant before.

The last few days have been full of garden surprises. Not only the mystery anemone, but also, the mystery baby.

The garden before I gardened it had one thing in spades: bluebells. Who planted the bluebells? Who knows. But however much time has passed between then and now, the bluebells have taken over the right-hand bed like a haunting. Despite almost two years of digging up, they keep coming back. One must admire the science of naturalising bulbs, and I do - I admire their resilience - but I dislike their colour.

So once again on Friday I summoned the Furies and raised my spade in resistance.

I love digging, don’t you? I know, I know, “no dig” and microbiomes and ecosystems and things, but there’s nothing so satisfying in the garden, I think. So I’m happily digging away, yanking out bluebells left and right, and cursing their evolutionary genius and evasive tactics, when out of the earth appeared a small plastic baby.

I gave it a bath in a Tupperware full of hot water and washing up liquid, and looked again. What is this? At first I wondered if it was a Christ Child who had unwisely crawled away from a nativity scene. It’s spread open arms of welcome certainly echoed the posture. Then I thought it must have been part of a child’s toy, and said child had lost track of said plastic baby during a romp in the garden. But what kind of toy is this kind of choking hazard?

Either way, from out of the fertile earth of my garden had sprung this little being. A talisman, I thought.

So, inspired by the Latin American folk art tradition of ‘nicho’ (or ‘niche’), I spent Sunday morning fiddling around with a box frame that I’ve had lying around forever, pretty paper from Choosing Keeping, pressed pansies, and dried hydrangea blossoms. Et voila, as they say.

I asked in a Note ‘what is the weirdest thing you've ever dug up in your garden’. It was intended as a rhetorical question because I was certain nobody would respond with anything weirder than ‘a talismanic plastic baby’. Boy, was I wrong! It turns out there are some genuinely terrifying things slumbering beneath our flowerbeds. Here are the responses:

Sally: “A hand grenade ! Phoned police and the bomb squad came round…”

Lou: “A dead dog wrapped in plastic. I thought it was a corpse. This is seven years after moving in.”

Lions: “Rubber snakes. More rubber snakes than would ever seem possible.”

Elliott: “At the bottom of this garden, underneath the potting shed, there’s a car! We were digging footing and scraped the car roof. Weirdest thing I have ever found! Although I did find a cache of ammunition at a previous property.”

Bee: “A Derringer.”

Lisa: “Cow skull (under the compost heap 🤔) just after we moved in”

Linda: “A bit of a Victorian flour mill”

I take various lessons from this:

1. I am very glad to have only found a small, plastic baby

2. When planting flowers, beware of explosives

3. If/when storing guns, ammunition, and explosives, pop them in the flowerbed but don’t forget to dig them up when you move

4. Sometimes when you can’t find a parking space the only option is to bury the car under the shed

5. Some things found in the garden can make fun talismans, others require bomb suit and helmet for disposal

Thank you so much to Sally, Lou, Lions, Elliott, Bee, Lisa, and Linda for making me absolutely hoot with laughter. And also for putting the discovery of The Baby into perspective.

[Update: it’s not an anemone, it’s a ranunculus… so. That’s that mystery solved… In my defence it doesn’t look like a ranunculus, it looks like an anemone… anyway.]