Camino Gardening Thoughts

First let me apologise! I usually blog without fail every Sunday. The only time I give myself a break is over Christmas. However, last week you may have noticed a blog didn’t appear from me. That’s because I was spending 6 days walking the Camino Ingles – a 120km walk through part of Spain. The walk was for fun (a lot of that) after all I was walking with fab friends. But I was also fundraising – more of that later. But even as I yomped, limped and laughed my way through some glorious countryside, my gardening brain wouldn’t switch off. So I thought I’d share the Camino gardening thoughts that occured to me as I walked.

More About The Camino Ingles

In case you haven’t heard of it (I hadn’t before my friend Ginny told me all about it) the Camino Ingles is one of many Caminos you can walk. It runs from Ferrol to Santiago de Compostela.

In essence you walk every day, out of towns and through countryside, carrying your stuff in a ruck sack and staying overnight in hostels, or in our case simple shared accommodation.

Little yellow arrows show you the way to go and as you walk you collect stamps in a little passport-type book to show you have travelled the route. Cafes, bars, hostels, shops etc are all equipped with these stamps so you can collect them whenever you pitstop. And trust me, you pitstop wherever you can!

At the end of the walk, when you reach Santiago, you show your little book and claim a special certificate. You can also attend an extraordinary mass in the most glorious catherdral.

Well me and my friends – Kay, Bo, Desi and Caroline – we walked and walked and walked, supported by two other amazing friends, Ginny and Ken who followed the route in their van.

It was incredibly hilly in places and plenty of potential injuries threatened us, but we did it. So what are the Camino gardening thoughts I gleaned as I yomped along?

Camino Gardening Thoughts

#1 – Go with the flow

In particular what struck me was how effortless gardening is if you have the right plant in the right place. In this part of Spain we saw garden after garden with vines, ferns, wisterias, arum lilies, azaleas, camellias, lemon trees, succulents, erigeron, palms and agapanthus.

To some it may have felt a little repetitive. But these plants were incredibly healthy. They grew in gardens and often outside them too. There were even glorious irises growing wild in the fields as you can see below.

Such abundance reminded me that if you have the right conditions for a plant go with it. Don’t fight with what you’ve got and try to have plants which simply don’t suit your climate, soil etc. If you do you’ll spend a lot of time trying to keep alive things which just don’t suit.

That’s why I often recommend when you move to a new house, take a look at what’s already thriving in your garden. Look at what’s performing well in the gardens nearby too. Get a feel for your ‘local climate and conditions.’ And work with that. I don’t mean you have to then slavishly have what everyone else has, but the plants you can see doing well, will give you clues to the sort of plants which will be happy in your garden.

# 2 – Use available space

So many of the properties in the little towns we staggered through had no front gardens. But they worked their balconies or ledges to the max. The pots resting on surfaces were often quite small, scrappy and planted with nothing special but the overall effect was charming.

Yes, they were helped by the fact many of the buildings were rather beautifully ancient looking, but I really believe small spaces and surfaces can be lovely.

#3 – Be bold with colour

Dazzling azaleas, camellias and the like all blaze a trail through this part of Spain. And when the plants aren’t hot hot hot the houses often are.

Now, I know that that kind of colourfulness might look garish in a cooler climate, but it did make me wonder whether in a bid to be ultra-fashionable and chic, some of our gardens can end up a bit colourless? I’m already trying to amp-up the colour a bit more, especially in my pots and containers with tulips, camellias etc but can I do more? For instance maybe I could have a trough of succulents like this gorgeous display below. Now there’s a thought.

#4 – Think vertically

The area we were in was very hilly. This made it a mighty challenge on the walking-front, but very interesting from a gardening perspective. We saw one veg patch which was seriously on an 80 degree slope. I have no idea how they managed to plant or pick anything but they did!

Such conditions mean the locals are good at gardening on the vertical – but it also means they think vertically quite instinctively. Clothing their walls in often simple but gloriously effective planting such as this wall of erigeron – one of my top plants.

It cloaked walls and ran rampant over banks. I loved how it was used in gardens both simple and grand.

Now, few of us have such vertical conditions, but all of us have walls or fences. Are we maximising them?

I certainly don’t have every flat area of fence covered so have room for improvement.

Camino Gardening Thoughts #5 – Embrace simple plants

Some of the most gorgeous effects were created with the simplest of planting. There weren’t elaborate mixed borders, there were humble plants, beautifully applied. Whether it was ivy on the walls of this gorgeous church above or erigeron and ferns gamely growing around water features and in walls. It all looked lovely.

My walking compadre and gardening neighbour, Desi, liked the way the dead fronds of the fern were left. I agree, they looked beautiful. Indeed they rather summed up the Spanish gardens we saw – practical, simple, effective.

So those were the major camino gardening thoughts which I took away from my wonderful walk, with equally wonderful friends. And while I was overawed by so much that I saw and very sad to leave it all, I was very glad to get home to these beauties which are now out in force in the garden

…and I was even happier to get home to Mr F-W of course!

Happy gardening xxx

Help Us Fundraise

As I mentioned at the start of this blog, one of the reasons we were walking was to fundraise. We’re trying to build a much-needed pavilion at my village cricket club. The club is so important to my little village providing cricket and a social life to lots of people including kids, chaps and old gals like me and my friends who play in the ladies’ team! So if you feel you could support with even a small donation towards a new pavilion we’d be really chuffed. The link is here Donate Now... thank you x