War Footing

& a clay-friendly border

The world is on a war footing, and I am planning for a claggy border.

I told you about my potential move to Gloucestershire and its daunting clay in my last post - I have no real update. The draft tenancy agreement is still awaited. But in the meantime, Poland is preparing to roll out military training to all its male citizens, and France is considering expanding its nuclear deterrent to protect Europe more broadly.

Happily, many of my favourite border plants - the ones I would have chosen whatever the site - appear (at least on paper) to be content in clay. Roses, (the key plant, really), hydrangeas, viburnum, fuchsia, phlox, anemone, lilac, astrantia, erigeron, geranium. That’s a pretty good start to an English cottage garden border, if you ask me.

Curious about my exposure to bombing raids in my new (hopefully) locale, I googled ‘military bases Gloucestershire’. Bad news, on that front. My potential rural idyll is only 25 miles away from Imjin Barracks. Wikipedia tells me that Imjin is “home to the headquarters of NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC)”. I don’t know about you, but if I were the aggressor in a war against what remains of NATO once Trump finally ends it, I’d probably want to bomb that pretty early on.

I don’t know where the tap is - or even if there is one - on the outside of the cottage (forgot to check) but I think the priority spot for planting a border will be allllll the way along the front of the ha-ha. It seems the natural choice. It gets tonnes of sun, and is sort of the natural ‘back’ of the garden. Not to mention, the whole back of the house is glass sliding doors so this proposed border would be my primary view. I don’t think it’ll too badly block the lovely, bucolic view of the sheep when they’re in the field opposite. Perhaps it will when it reaches its height in late summer, with towering anemones and huge rose bushes, but let’s be honest, that would all take a few years to get going. And anyway, their gentle baas will still, I’m sure, provide a pleasant soundtrack to life even with the sheep-filled vista slightly obscured.

Learning about the Second World War in history lessons at primary school, I often wondered what my role would be in WWIII. I always knew I’d live to see it, I don’t know why. As a child I had recurring nightmares of my brothers being called up. I hope they’ve both aged out by now. But still, after finally bringing myself to listen to some of the audio from the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy I wondered whether I should research volunteering for the armed forces.

I quite seriously wanted to be a military lawyer for a minute when I first started training in law. But I was a sort-of-career-changer (having worked for two years in public relations after graduating from uni) and for some bizarre reason there was a, like, 32-year-old cut-off for applications (why should it matter that a lawyer is older than 32? Surely the more experience the better?). Not much I could do about that. So long to my dreams of living out a UK version of ‘A Few Good Men’ (Aaron Sorkin, I love you. Call me).

Two weeks ago, Trump fired the most senior lawyers at the top of the US Army, US Navy and US Air Force. Everywhere in legal reporting right now you will read the line from Shakespeare’s ‘Henry VI, Part 2’: “The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.” Shakespeare was a genius, but in writing these words - I think - his brilliance and pith reached its zenith.

Good lawyers stand in the way of tyrannical rule. Good lawyers protect democracies, they defend freedom of speech, they preserve human rights. They are the first to understand when governments are breaking their own laws, breaching international laws and treaties, violating natural law. Good lawyers bring these matters into the light, challenge them, advocate for better. Good lawyers write good laws for good wars - humanitarian law, the Geneva convention; the law of war.

Kill all the lawyers, and the corrupt element, the bought-off, the blackmailer, the power-mad, the devoid of humanity, the pillager, and the murderer can take all. Shakespeare knew it.

My attention is divided now between my imaginary, Gloucestershire border and my current, London borders. Unable to begin ordering plants for Gloucestershire’s clag, this week I have ordered rosa ‘Leo’s Eye’ (duh, because of the name but also such a colour as I have never seen, described as “orange vermilion”) as well as rosa × odorata 'Mutabilis'.

The latter I saw on the Peter Beales stand at Chelsea last year. I loved it. I enquired about it and was told by the highly expert member of staff that I ought to try something else. This was a difficult rose, they said. Not for beginners. Perhaps I ought to have exerted myself at the time. ‘Excuse me, Sir, but I don’t think you realise you are addressing an exceptionally talented amateur gardener and that, in my hands, any rose would flourish and bloom’. It is easier, though, just to wait until one feels that the civilised world is on the brink of collapse and that why the heck not give it a go, and then order it online where no one can question one’s credentials.

I think it’s good to keep planning for my current garden while I wait to receive the tenancy agreement. After all, there is every possibility that the Gloucestershire house - like the two Devon ones before it - won’t work out. And perhaps, given its proximity to NATO’s Rapid Reaction base that would be no bad thing. Probably not much will grow in Gloucestershire clag once it is contaminated with Russian radioactive fallout.

Here in London the pressing issue is the front of the borders. As you know, a great deal of time has gone into the back and middle of the borders, and my uncharacteristically prompt planning and planting means there are promising iris leaves starting to peep out all around. But the front is a problem. My plan is, ultimately, to have them all spilling over with nasturtiums, inspired by Monet’s central avenue at Giverny and Sarah Raven’s stand at Chelsea 2024. But of course, nasturtiums are still a while away from being useful in this way.

I have thought long and hard about this, and I think the answer might be alchemilla mollis. I have mentally auditioned several others. Vinca (wrong colours), nemesia (too intense and noisy), geraniums (wrong colours), erigeron (wrong colours), geums (clumpy, not creepy. See also: heuchera). I want something that will sort of bubble up to the edges of the raised beds, and then slowly spill.

I also think the zesty lemon/lime of alchemilla mollis will work with the fruit salad peach, clementine, marmalade, ginger, paprika, sunset, and I think its character is creepy/bubbly/sloshy enough to meet requirements. But I’ve never grown it, nor worked with it, before, so I’m only about 48% confident in my decision.

Of course I plan to grow food in Gloucestershire, there’s plenty of room in the little fenced off mini field beside the lawned area. Of course in war, growing food is a necessity not a pastime. I wonder if I’ll be digging for fun or for victory? Will I be wielding my spade standing on the edge of a ha-ha, or a trench?