Pine Marten Post #12
Hello lovely person!
12 whole months of Pine Marten Post——thank you so much for your time. June jollies for you include; ruffled roses, conservatory cologne, marvellous milk chocolate, foxglove frolics and swinging sporrans. PLUS a birthday giveaway 👀
Gardening tips for June
June’s the perfect month for gathering rose inspiration from local gardens. And I don’t mean just fancy National Trust type gardens, but ones in your neighbourhood too. Do you maybe pass any roses on your way to post a letter?
With many roses appreciating being deadheaded so they produce more fabulous blooms, June is an ideal time to strike up garden fence conversations with your neighbours, as they wander around brandishing secateurs. Gardeners love talking about their favourite plants, and if a particular rose or plant does well in your neighbour’s garden, there’s a good chance it’ll thrive in yours too.
One of the overlooked pleasures of growing roses is you can cut them - especially before heavy rain so they don’t get battered - and bring them indoors. If you’re a freelancer as I am, flowers of any sort will brighten your desk, and the fragrance is incredibly uplifting too.
Feel free to reply to this email and ask me about my favourite, low maintenance scented roses——they’re way easier to grow than you might imagine.
Fragrant musings from the library of scent: Voyeur Verde by Maya Njie
Imagine you’re in an old, wooden-framed conservatory. Peeling white paint curls off the window frames, and dusty panes of glass filter the dazzling summer light. A smoothly lustrous slab of a potting bench - an ancient dining table too big to fit in your wee house - sits firmly in the centre of your shady sanctuary.
Softly worn terracotta pots lined up on your bench, you bend to fill an old, brittle willow basket with compost. Rich, crumbly soil trickles through your fingers. Glossy and wriggling, a worm tumbles onto the cracked floor tiles, so you apologise and pop it back in the good, brown earth.
Swish, tap. Gently swaying in the warm breeze, an arm of jasmine brushes against the open door of your faded conservatory. Starry moon-white flowers gleam.
Grasping a heavy pot, you start to ease the slightly bedraggled looking lemon tree out. Tenderly combing through the compacted root ball, giving it a head start for its new home, the glossy leaves - still with some sparkling dew on - tickle your nose. A distant lawnmower whirrs.
Scooping compost from the wicker basket and tucking the newly liberated roots into the luxury of a bigger pot, you breathe a sigh of pleasure. A job well done. And your plant parenting conscience is clear.
Key Notes: Bergamot, Mandarin, Cypress, Rosewood, Fennel, Iris, Ylang Ylang, Patchouli, Leather, Cedarwood, Frankincense
Featured bean-to-bar chocolate: Waitrose 32% cocoa Belgian milk chocolate
Hats off to Waitrose for starting to tackle some appalling inequalities in the chocolate trade. By partnering with Tony’s (of the Chocolonely sort) Open Chain, and sourcing cocoa according to their ethical principles, this is a very good value chocolate that won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth.
⭐ Matt in appearance in a big, chunky slab
⭐ Rich and creamy when you sniff it, with a fair dollop of vanilla
⭐ Fudgy and caramelly to taste. Pretty sweet for a high percentage cocoa milk chocolate though.
Nature notes for June
Magenta skyscrapers stacked with pollen, freckled with
fairy handprints, sway in the slipstream of scything, screaming swifts
platters of elderflowers sigh their
sparkling gooseberry scent as a greenfinch wheezes from the frondy foliage
The Isle of Arran is playing hide and seek, disappearing behind gauzy haar——Goat Fell reaching for the whisper of forget-me-not sky above
feet scrunch on dry and dusty lanes, eager for the
scented salt-sprinkled petals of sand dune roses.
Random Scottish fact: Highland Games season
Caber-tossing, haggis-hurling and the ancient wail of the pibroch——the season for Scottish Highland Games events is in full swing now. If you’re keen on these atmospheric gatherings - and why wouldn’t you be? - you can visit one most weekends over the summer until mid September.
But what’s the point of them? Back in the day - and no-one really knows how long ago - they were clan gatherings where men (obviously) would display their strength and skills in various competitions. Clans are like extended families in Scotland and, as populations were scattered over difficult terrain, the Highland games was one of the only times where clan members could get together to have a good old chinwag, laugh and gossip.
There are still clan chiefs, and they’re very much present at most Highland gatherings. They’re often the ones with absurdly huge feathers sticking out of their hats. And a pompom on top too——don’t ask me why.
You’ll see clan tartans of various expressions in kilts, fly plaids and sashes—some elegantly muted, and others, er, not so muted. And the level of bling in brooches, jewelled dagger (sgian dubh) hilts and sporrans is, quite frankly, astonishing. So if you think that we Scots are a monochrome, miserable and miserly bunch, get yourself to a Highland Games this summer and wallow in the exuberant joy of it all.
On the blog and LinkedIn:
Do environmental issues bother you? Here are some tips to cope with climate anxiety.
How do you deal with slugs in your garden? How about trying some of these methods of slug control?
Looking for a quick mental pick-me-up? How gardening can help your wellbeing.
⭐ Birthday giveaway ⭐
To celebrate one whole year of Pine Marten Post, I’m offering you the chance to win a Silver Pear garden consultation worth £150. All together now——oooooh!
All you need to do is:
reply to this email and let me know know what you’d like to see less of and/or more of in this newsletter.
The most helpful reply will win the giveaway. Which you could pass onto someone else if you’re all sorted with your gardening.
As ever, all products mentioned here are paid for with my own money. All wibbly words and images are by me, Rowan Ambrose, unless credited.
🌷Find lots more simple and quick tips for jolly gardening on my website.
I'd love to hear about what sensory experiences bring you joy.
Feel free to reply to this email, or you can message me on Instagram or LinkedIn.