On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 14:24:07 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
wrote:

Bennett Langdon wrote:
Hi,

I'm currently writing a novel in which the hero's wife is a keen
gardener (probably a member of the RHS etc). Would anyone here be
willing to give me advice as to what she might have in her garden
(upper middle class, near Hampstead) and what she would be doing in
it at different seasons? You will get my thanks and an
acknowledgement in the published book.


snip

What she's doing at any time of year will, broadly speaking, be shown
in the back of general gardening books: usually in a chapter headed
something like "The gardener's year" or "A gardening calendar". A
Beth Chatto and Margery Fish fan. I bet she reads the _Guardian_: if
so, she likes Christopher Lloyd, though she won't share all his
ideas, and occasionally goes to Great Dixter to see his garden.

If she's based in Hampstead then she might well find herself being
slightly dismayed to find her neighbour's an ex-new romantic still
living off the proceeds from a one-hit wonder.
Being semi-drugged for most of the waking day, he doesn't much bother
with the garden - and that which isn't paved over is covered in
pernicious weeds, which set seed all over her garden.

She'd complain - but the last time she had a moan he got Boy George to
moon at her from out of his loft window.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk