Orto di Casa Cecconi

My first allotment, and then one thing leading to another…

L’orto di Casa Cecconi Plants Recipes Me & Kew One Year at Wisley

Year: 2013

  • Animals and the plants they eat… (Week 16, Wednesday)

    … and live amongst. No, this is not about pests, rather horticulture at London Zoo. Had you ever thought of zoos as places for horticulture? I hadn’t. That is, until a month or so ago I heard Kevin Frediani, Curator of Plants and Gardens at Paignton Zoo, talk at a conference. He mentioned that while…

  • South Canal beds: inside and out (Week 16, Monday)

    Students do not get to take any leave while they are in class term, so they go on holiday when they are out in the gardens, that is how South Canal beds and I are on our own once again. So far so good, we have got to know each other rather well and we…

  • 6 weeks to go: down the memory lane (Week 15, Friday)

    It’s one week I have been back to the beds and I managed to bring the weeds back under control. Just to check that was the case, I did a complete round of the beds, picking the last bits here and there and moving some of the sprinklers (thanks goodness, it’s two of us and…

  • Oxalis repens (Week 15, Thursday)

    I have seen so much of it this week: Oxalis corniculata var. repens (looks like it is mushrooming all over the place and setting seeds within a few days!) that I have had what I call a “genius idea”: what if we made use of it as ground cover? It is hardly visible, because it’s purple on…

  • Atropa belladonna (Week 15, Wedesday)

    Weeding around an overgrown Oemleria (and you know that an overgrown Oemleria is a swallower, don’t you?) I found inside it a large herbaceous plant with beautiful purple, bell-shaped flowers and entire, ovate leaves. A little bit of research online did not provide a match, and my colleague also had no idea what it might…

  • Holly Walk (Week 15, Tuesday)

    The Ilex collection at Kew is the largest of mature cultivars in the world but I must admit my prejudice: I find Holly Walk rather depressing, it’s my least favourite place in Kew and not only because it is an area under renovation. I’m not a fan of evergreens, or hollies, and this is 1…

  • Back in the beds! (Week 15, Monday)

    I am back in the beds today and I think nobody could fail to notice the vast smile on my face & the jolly greetings I was dishing out, even first thing in the morning. Not I for one: it surprised me, how much happier being outdoors made me feel! Three months gone, so the…

About Me

M.Paola M.Paola, that’s me

I got my first allotment in the UK in 2007 and started gI got my first allotment in the UK in 2007 and started growing my own food. Learning as I went along was not enough, so I studied horticulture. Faced with the horticultural warfare, I became a conscientious objector: I use no chemicals and support organic principles and regulations.

Brexit gave me a new life in the Netherlands, three new plots by a nature reserve and an MSc in sustainable food systems.

I write in my personal capacity and, as a language perfectionist and a non native speaker, I keep reviewing my entries’ text for clarity.

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