ISN’T it a pity?

Now isn’t it a shame

Some things take so long

But how do I explain

When not too many people

Can see we’re all the same?

And because of all their tears

Their eyes can’t hope to see

The beauty that surrounds them

Isn’t it a pity? (George Harrison 1966)

George Harrison, with these words, hints that he had a strong interest in nature and his garden. He would go looking with his wife Olivia around nurseries to seek out a particular plant for their garden at Friar Park in Oxfordshire.

George Harrison was an enthusiastic gardener; having bought the house in 1970, which he saved from demolition, he set about restoring the garden which contained a magnificent collection of somewhat neglected topiary. George put together a group of 10 gardeners to see through the work. In effect he became one of us, a gardener.

In his autobiography, I Me Mine, George dedicated “to gardeners everywhere” when he wrote:

“I’m really quiet simple. I don’t want to be in the business full time, because I’m a gardener. I plant flowers and watch them grow. I don’t go out to clubs. I don’t party. I stay at home and watch the river flow.”

He said in an interview: “I like the garden, being there, it’s true. In the garden you see the seasons come and go and whatever you do can affect it all but at the same time the flowers don’t answer you back they don’t give you no trouble.”

This is a sentiment I would concur with myself. I am the grower and the end results rest with me alone. True plants do not answer you back, but they have their way of telling you when they are not happy, by their growth, the lack of it or if they are healthy they show their gratitude with a magnificent flowering or foliage.

As the leaves fall they can be raked up on to and around your shrubberies, thus increasing the lands fertility and in frosty winter mornings birds, thrushes and blackbirds in particular will happily forage for food, in the leaf litter.

Now is one of my favourite times. November is the month to plant tulips. The wonder of nature tulips come in a range of out of this world colours and do everything by themselves, as all bulbs do, as the tiny flower is already formed inside the bulb. Someone asked me last week what plant they could plant now for spring? Tulips, was my one word answer. They are the simplest and easiest plant anyone could wish for.

In times past when they were introduced into England in the 1630s, tulipmaia erupted - a bit like Britain did during the recent lockdown when people could not get their hands on enough toilet rolls! But they were much more expensive in those days, when a single bulb would have cost you the price of a Rolex watch, whereas now they can be had for a few pence.

Just plant the bulbs twice their own depth and they do the rest. I find there is no greater pleasure in gardening knowing that once you have put the tulips in the ground knowing they are down there just waiting for the spring to come out in the springtime. Other bulbs such as blue Muscari and Scilla Siberica can be used for base planting, the list is endless.

If you want a really early show, then look no further than Daffodil Tete-a-Tete. They can be planted in the land or in large pots, pots give the advantage of putting different varieties in each pot.

Wallflowers can be planted from pot grown but, if planting bare-rooted wallflowers, soak the roots in a bucket of water overnight to freshen them up and give them a good start.

People have said, why I haven’t written anything of my book, Gardeners Delight, in these lines. A good question which I can only excuse by saying I have been too busy concentrating on gardening. But in 112 pages its words contain not only how to grow things in your own garden, and garden history from 1825.

It also includes many anecdotes and funny true stories of my life as a gardener, such as my time working for Sir John and Lady Armytage at Kirklees Hall garden near Brighouse, growing roses commercially, when I placed my wet coat over a solid fuel coke boiler to dry, I was only an apprentice at the time. After a while my companion gardeners began outbreaks of laughter, this set me wondering why? When at that moment my coat began to set on fire! But why didn’t you tell me? The reply was I had made a mistake and you learn by mistakes. Point taken and at least my coat was dry.

The book is beautifully illustrated in its pages by Bruce M Baillie, a former T&A artist, and will make a nice Christmas stocking filler.

It is available at Cleckheaton stationers on Albion Street and the Harrison Lord Gallery, Brighouse, and other book shops.

This autumn there has been a wonderful show of colour on the trees which has been a joy to look at, but there will be people who have not seen the beauty that surrounds them. Isn’t it a pity?