The Garden Blether is written by Patrick Vickery, the gardener who writes - or is it the writer who gardens?
History of the Garden Blether
"written in the Scottish Highlands, read all over the world"
What is a Blether?
"a good chat, a good chin-wag, a good blether.......blether, blether, blether!"
What are these Garden Blether Articles?:
"Articles at fun with nature"
"A serious look at the non-serious aspects of all things gardening"
"Garden musings"
"Short articles of an anecdotal, unusual and gardening kind"
"Humourous....informative...delightful..."
"Indefinable"
"A what?...!!"
As well as being on this site, the Garden Blether appears regularly on a number of other Garden Websites worldwide (list below for those who are interested).
A selection of Blethers have also been published in:
"The Tain and Dornoch Picture Post", a monthly magazine local to the Scottish Highlands. The Fuchsia Blether has also featured in the British Fuchsia Society Newsletter.
How it came to be:
In January 2002 the first book was published. In Pursuit of Perennial Profit - The Pot of Gold at the Bottom of the Garden. Essentially a 'how to book' - how to propogate and grow hardy perennial plants outdoors (no green house or polytunnel required) using an innovative raised bed system, and how to sell them successfully to make money for yourself, for charity or simply to enable your garden to become self-financing.
The book is based on what I do (growing and selling hardy perennial plants at minimum cost and effort) and is ideal for anyone wanting to set up a small garden business with no money to do so. It's also ideal, of course, for anyone with limited funds - or no funds at all - who wishes to stock their garden with a variety of home-grown plants. It's also a book fully committed to a non-chemical approach, an enviromentally friendly approach and the use of recycled materials whenever possible.
The Garden Blethers, have proved to be extremely popular worldwide and will continue to come out regularly for many years to come. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
The International Dimension
The Garden Blethers Articles first went onto Garden Websites in December 2001 and are currently featured on a number of these around the world
Two Blethers are archived in the Scots Corpus:
Scots Corpus - Glasgow University
(Alternatively type "Garden Blether" into your search engine and find the Blether worldwide)
The Garden Blethers Website
RECENT NEWS, BLETHERS, RURAL RAMBLINGS AND MORE CAN BE FOUND HERE