I Quit! January 22, 2009

OK not really, but after seeing the photo (left) the thought did cross my mind.

After pointing people in the direction of the Guardian’s gardening blog I thought it would only be right (no pun intended!) to balance up the political commentary by seeing if one of the other daily papers ran their own gardening blog too. That’s when I stumbled upon this photo of the ‘world’s largest hanging basket‘ (apparently) in The Telegraph which was installed to advertise a new boutique hotel in London.

While the paper doesn’t have a blog there is quite a useful gardening section. As you might expect it has an in-depth feature on the best Wellingtons and gardening style with Trinny and Susannah. Oh, I shouldn’t laugh … and yet!

As for the basket itself, it’s an impressive site. But the hotel claims it will change its decor in harmony with the seasons so surely this should be a semi-bare mud bath with a couple of ropey cyclamen struggling to give some colour, rather than the overflowing colour-fest they’ve come up with here. I should be a consultant me.

Guardian Garden Blog January 21, 2009

I don’t get much time to read newspapers so I tend to get most of my news from their online versions (we can discuss the guilt associated with not contributing to their production some other time). What I miss about this online blitz are the incidental stories that draw you in and get you involved in a topic you didn’t think you were interested in.

However online sites are doing a better job these days of replicating the style of their newsprint versions and consequently I generally end up reading much more than I used to.

So this is how I stumbled upon the new Guardian Garden Blog which now accompanies their sister paper’s Allotment Blog. It’s always nice to be in at the start of something, and although the focus will likely be on traditional gardens there’s bound to be a few pieces of inspiration along the way. Organic tofu and knitted sandals all round!