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

  • Dips and bumps on the way (Week 5, Tuesday)

    The David Nash at Kew exhibition has just closed, so sculptures and installations throughout the gardens are being dismantled, leaving behind rather large pits in the ground that need filling. So I am learning the art of filling holes, as part of our team days 🙂

    The main issue with filling holes is to make sure they do not sink, leaving unsightly and potentially unsafe dips and bumps where people walk. Therefore, one has to make sure the filling is quite compact. In order to achieve that, a process was developed:

    • Soil is taken in with tractors and spread in layers;
    • The layers are treaded on, with a typical heels-in walk to ensure that the most weight is applied (if you see us going round in circles and walking funnily, that’s why);
    • The layers are raked with a landscape rake to ensure they are even;
    • The pits are thus filled up to slightly above the surrounding ground level;
    • The soil is levelled carefully;
    • Grass seeds are sown and raked in gently;
    • The area, in particular if large, is fenced off to allow grass to grow undisturbed.
    Soil is taken to the pit
    A layer of soil is treaded on

    A layer ready for raking
    Checking the filling is level

    Grass sown , area fenced off

    I did gardening at the weekend as well as during the week, and that meant I was so unbelievably tired, probably the most tired I’ve ever been, and therefore felt overwhelmed and started questioning my new career.

    For someone that is used to work mainly in an office, for how much one can love it, physical work is demanding and takes some getting used to. I needed to pace myself throughout the task, as I felt that my muscles were not going to take much more, and because I was trying to conserve energy, it was even difficult to join in the team banter.

    It is getting better now, my colleagues were very supportive, apparently everyone gets very tired if they do not get proper rest it’s not only me being a relative newbie – but that is definitely something to take into consideration: you can get quite disheartened from sheer fatigue.

  • A typical day of maintenance (Week 4, Friday)

    Today it has been a typical day of  garden maintenance.


    For a start, we continued our collective effort to eradicate Smyrnium. The Smyrminators, we call ourselves nowadays, having spent almost every morning from 7.30 to 10 clearing the various areas of the gardens from this highly invasive weed, which tends to smother the lovely bluebells (themselves a bit of a noxious weed…). Smyrnium plants need to be pulled out whole, including the tuber (which has a habit of lodging itself in between roots so that if you are not careful you’ll leave it behind) or it will re-emerge, flowering (and setting seeds) low to the ground, difficult to spot and impossible to mow.

    A biennial plant, it will require to be weeded again next year. In fact, young plants have tiny tubers, which are difficult to pull out. But there’s plenty of them: they look similar to parsley.

    The second part of the morning, my colleague and I spent filling in a dip left by a tree that was removed a short while ago, and we sowed grass seeds to bring it back to lawn. From a frosty start, the day had turned lovely and it was a pleasure to work outside.

    After lunch, I was given the task to rake lines in the gravel at the Japanese landscape: something new to me! There is a special heavy rake to draw those lines, which are meant to represent ripples in water.

    I tried to approach the task with zen meditation in mind, but under the baking sun and with limited time to finish the patterns, my peace of mind turned rather soon into pressure…

    … in particular as the landscape is a major tourist attraction, and there are always plenty of people around.
    Most visitors are very appreciative of the raking, and often stop to have a chat. Seeing me all set on not leaving footprints, one visitor cracked into a joke: “Do you know you are not supposed to walk on the gravel while raking it?” That drew a smile: “I haven’t quite mastered that yet!”

    By then the task was complete and I had a little time for weeding. I do like weeding: the surprise of finding unexpected seedlings, and trying to identify the weeds I’m pulling, makes it more interesting for me.

    My find for the day was a seedling of Quercus ilex, likely from the big specimen just outside the landscape. I had identified it just the other day, as one of the plants for my ID test.

  • Ashes to ashes (Week 4, Thursday)

    Today we found some ashes scattered under a Pyrus while weeding. And then again under another tree.

    I knew that ash spreading was allowed at Kew because as soon as I started working here a friend suggested I go and visit her mum in the conservation area (which, unfortunately, I have not been able to do yet).

    But finding them when we are there to clean the beds up and it is work, it feels like it is too mundane a place to find something that has that certain sacredness to it, if nothing else for the memories of all the loved ones: a rather weird experience and one does not quite know how to behave around them…

    I guess the perspective of those scattering the ashes is quite different: they will enjoy the remembrance of their relative (or pet) resting in such a peaceful, beautiful place, almost the stereotype of beauty itself.

    In fact, I myself experienced that sense of awe you get when in the presence of sheer beauty just this morning, while weeding Smyrnium in the dappled shade, and I wondered whether Kew might be an earthly representation of the garden of Eden…



    Shortly afterwards, I read @giacecco’s blog post, in which he too mentions Kew as an image of paradise. And the scattering of ashes probably testifies to other people also feeling that way.


    A totally different finding was my favourite Lamiaceae, a weed I usually pull out from the allotment and plant in my (wildflower meadow) front garden and whose name I had not found before. It’s

    Ground-ivy, Glechoma hederacea, ± softly hairy creeping and rooting per herb, with ascending lfy fl-stems 10-20 cm tall; lvs 1-3 cm wide, kidney-shaped, blunt-tipped, toothed, long-stalked; fls in 2-4 fld whorls in lf-axils; calyx tubular, ± two-lipped; corollas 15-20 mm, pale violet (or, rarely, pink) with purple spots on hanging, three-lobed lower lip; upper lip flat; tube straight, tapered to base. Br Isles, vc (but NW Scot r); in wds on all except poorest soils, scrub, hbs, gslds. Fl 3-5.*

    PFAF says the leaves have edible uses, was apparently used in beer-making prior to hops, it’s good for bees and highly invasive.

    ” We come from earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden.” (anon)

    (had written that yesterday – when I first became aware of it – but had to move it here, it was so appropriate to today’s experiences…)

    *  [Rose F., O’Reilly C. (2006), The wild flower key, London, Penguin Books]

  • Two thirds of a day (Week 4, Wednesday)

    This morning I woke up with a headache… so not a great start and one that would not put you in a good mood, then I went out and all was frosty, including the car windscreen: back to winter?

    Luckily, gardening usually alleviates all my ailments and annoyances, so I headed into work rather full of hope. Learning to drive a Gator first thing was a good beginning of the work day: it’s not a tractor yet, but at least now I am not always waiting for someone to carry me around, and I can help out when needed.

    Then, we weeded Smyrnium: as I mentioned yesterday, that is going to be a regular feature of our days until it’s gone. 

    Thanks to the availability of a colleague, during our morning break, I had the opportunity to see a legendary plant at Kew, Ramosmania rodriguesii: only one plant was left in the wild, when a few cuttings were taken to Kew… and, after years of trying to propagate new plants from them our colleague Carlos succeeded and send some back to Rodrigues Island. You can read the whole fascinating story on Carlos’ blog.


    The rest of the morning we moved to the Japanese gateway (which incidentally looked gorgeous in the sun and with the red azaleas all in flower at the front, as you can see in the picture) to mow the lawn again.

    My nature is rather impatient and frustration started to mount when my stripes were not straight, due to the rather uneven surface of the area combined with my still limited skills. It was noticeable – and in fact I was asked could I make them straighter? Of course, I would try: mowing had sorted my headache, so I pressed on and I think I managed a decent enough finish in the end, even though the stripes were definitely not perfectly straight.

    That’s a picture of how it came out.

    Incidentally, while going to and fro I noticed that daisies did not get damaged by the mower much. It is pretty impressive how they manage to sense what is the mowing level, and to grow and flower just below it. Do they rely on the height of the lawn around them, maybe its shade?

    How plants adapt to environmental factors is something we have been discussing this week, and I am interested to know more. Will have to research this a bit, but I am still adjusting to my new life and its patterns, and time and energy are not allocated in the most efficient way yet.

    That was the end of my day, as I had the afternoon off to go and visit a nursery with a friend. A great experience, will talk about that separately.

  • Cleaning up after the Romans (Week 4, Tuesday)

    Since I moved to the UK I get that a lot: where are you from? Italy? Oh, the Romans were great… or something like that, for example: do you see that weed, Smyrnium, the Roman introduced it to England… ;p

    It would be fair to point out that not all Italians feel they are descendants of the Romans (that would be people in Rome) most of the rest of Italy was just conquered, as was England… if it makes any sense to attribute oneself an ascendancy at all, then it would be the ones they thought me in school: we people of Lombardy descend from the Germanic tribe of the Lombards. There, I’ve said it!

    Anyway, I’m happy to clean after the Romans, if that helps. And that is basically what I’ve been doing since I came here. I’m talking about Smyrnium, of course.

    In 2005 I landed in the UK and one of the first things I did was to take part in a volunteer day at Kew to clear this weed. One year later, I took part again. Look what I dug out of my archives.



    Then, in 2007, I was looking forward to the event once again, but I was told Kew was clear of Smyrnium [disappointment].

    Well. it’s back, alive and kicking, and we are going to spend a few man-hours on it, before it gets too rampant.

    I did a short research online. It appears that the Romans introduced so-called alexanders, Smyrnium olusatrum (a plant whose all parts are edible, apparently tasting of celery, and including the seeds as a substitute for black pepper). The weed we have a problem with, however, is the perfoliatum species (also edible but used as an ornamental because of the striking yellow-green leaves around the inflorescence).

    And we thank goodness for the striking appearance of the perfoliatum, because it stands out and is easy to spot even from a distance and in long grass when we are after it. By the way, amidst the long grass and weeds, we found a couple of beauties of the Bufo bufo species: what a treat.

  • Kew Herbarium

    “Herbaria are collections of dried preserved specimens that document the identity of plants and fungi. They represent reference collections with many and varied functions including identification, research and education”.

    (Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Herbarium Collections)

    Fascinating. Today we were taken on a tour of the herbarium by botanist David Goyder, who showed us some specimens and told us about his trips in Africa to get them.

    The old storage room is itself redolent of Victorian explorers and scientists: discovering, preserving, studying… and it is a joy to look at. It was designed to make use of as much daylight as possible, as lighting + dried plant material preserved on paper sheets = big fire hazard.

    When you take into consideration that the cupboards (here and in other more modern parts of the building, as this was filled to capacity shortly after being created) contain 7.5 million specimens, some 350,000 of which are type specimens, that is the “official” description of how a plants looks like for reference and identification, then you really feel how extraordinary this place is.

    David talked to us about two recent expeditions he did in Africa, his geographical area of expertise, during one of which, in Mozambique, they discovered a full A4 page of species new to science.

    Discoveries like that one are often presented to governments with conservation purposes in mind.

    Then we were shown some specimens he has dried but not fully identified yet, as they are from his most recent trip to Angola. As expeditions are rather expensive, one has to concentrate on getting a representative selection of the local flora, collecting specimens and avoiding they get damaged (i.e. mould). All the rest can be done once you are back at the Herbarium, where you can consult previous collections to help you identify your specimens (redundant collections are welcome because they document the variety within and/or distribution of species) or any species new to science.

    One of David’s most recent specimens

    David also showed  us an identified specimen from the expedition to Mozambique, and one of the reference specimens they consulted, from the collections, when identifying plants; it’s by 19th century Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone (more about his correspondence with Kew).

    Contemporary specimen
    19th century specimen

    I would go on talking about this fascinating subject, but everything is explained on Kew’s website… I will tell you, however, that Kew has started digitizing the collections and some are already available to all through the Herbarium catalogue, as I find that rather amazing.

    If you are into the expedition side of plant finding, I found Kew’s Overseas Territories team blog that might be of interest.

    For those interested in plant genetics, we might visit the Jodrell Laboratory at some stage, but for the moment, what I have learnt is that you might be able to find viable DNA material in specimens that have been dried quickly and are less that 20 years old. 

    And on that bombshell…

  • Pruning (Week 3, Friday)

    As a kid, I remember coming home from school and some plant or other in the garden that was lookin great in the morning would have been hacked horribly, its dignity lost, possibly at risk of never coming back. That would see me fuming with my father, the perpetrator. I knew nothing about plants back then, except generically liking them. I never asked why he did that.

    I went on, living my life without knowing anything about plants pretty much until I came to the UK and got my first garden.

    Five years ago I was thought how to prune at Kew (mainly by Rossana Porta and Tom Freeth) and by amazing Bob Lever for the London Orchard Project. That will stay with me forever.

    It got me the best compliment I could wish for: I was asked to cut a Garrya by half that was shading windows on the side of a building. After I finished, my boss said you could not tell it had been pruned at all. Oh the satisfaction!

    A little bit more I learnt at Wisley with the Fruit team. And after all I took from my teachers, I have been trying to spread the word. Of course I do it for the plants!

    This year, the lovely people on my new plot, the Sunnyside Allotment Society, organised for me to give a couple of demonstrations. The first one was this afternoon, in the most annoying drizzle ever experienced on the British Isles… lovely participants nonetheless, and some braved it out till the very end, too!

    Proof of the miserable weather
    and the patience of the participants!
    Pics by Andy

    Anyway, for anyone that might be interested, here are the notes from the session, and a compendium of all the pruning posts on this blog.

    Natural shape fruit pruning

About Me

M.Paola Andreoni M.Paola Andreoni

I got the first allotment in 2007 (in the UK) and started growing my own food for the first time. Learning as I went along was not enough, so I studied some horticulture. I am striving to abide by organic principles. Brexit gave me a new life in the Netherlands, and two new plots by a nature reserve.

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