Pine Marten Post #17
Hello lovely person!
November novelties include; ravishing roses, smouldering scent, misty mornings, Samhain shortbread and tantalising treats
Gardening tips for November
November is the perfect time to think about buying bare root roses. Rose plants you find in a garden centre will be container grown and more expensive than buying directly from a rose grower in winter. When roses are dormant (like trees and hedging plants) they can safely be dug up - looking like a bundle of sticks, but don’t worry - and posted to you.
Roses are simply marvellous bringers of scent. Much tougher than you might imagine, choose carefully and you can luxuriate in months of fragrant flowers from just one plant, feed the bees and add welcome structure to your garden.
Climbing roses grow fast to cover scruffy walls, sheds or bin stores. You can find smooth stemmed or thorny ones, depending on your needs. With colours ranging from glacial white through softly luscious creams and pinks to the most dazzling hot orange and magenta, there’ll certainly be one to suit your taste.
Fragrant musings from the library of scent: Scorpio Rising by ERIS parfums
Cold and hot at the same time, Scorpio Rising is full of contradictions. Warm black pepper and bright ginger strike sparks off each other, then smoulder seductively while billowing sheets dry on a frosty day. Briskly snapping the freshly laundered bedding off the line, you tuck it snugly away in your cedar lined wardrobe, where cloves, cinnamon and vetiver sachets guard against moths.
ERIS Parfums was founded by Barbara Hermann, a vintage perfume enthusiast, to bring some swaggering boldness and glamour to the world of fragrance. Partnering with perfumer Antoine Lie, they’ve created a range of incredibly complex and fascinating scents that seem to shift and change every time you wear them. Not for the faint-hearted, in the best possible way.
Nature notes for November
Wisps first, then densely blanketing fog curls round
rustling beech trees, their glossy leaves shining in traffic light colours, but not for much longer.
Bracken turns fox-drenched russet while eerie mushrooms whisper,”Do you dare?”
Festooned with shimmering water droplets, spider webs seem
frail but are as tough as Kevlar; we too
must find our hidden strengths.
Featured chocolate: Surprisingly successful Samhain shortbread
When I was small, one of my favourite treats was to spend time with my gran. I’ve lived overseas for a big chunk of my life, so I didn’t see her as much as I’d have liked. Holidays were a magical blend of helping her with wee jobs (she’d been disabled since her 20s), scouring local shops for the best and freshest ingredients, then cooking together.
Occasionally - usually on a bleak and dreich day when the Scottish weather was too awful to venture outside - she’d indulge me completely and we’d make millionaire’s shortbread.
Nowadays, I’m an impatient cook (hello, ADHD). A kind of bung-it-all-in-and-hope-for-the-best cook. But every now and then, I find the attention span to make something a little more involved.
This Samhain (Hallowe’en, though it also means the month of November in Gaelic) I decided to have a go at an adaptation of millionaire’s shortbread.
Replacing golden syrup (that’d gone out of date) for the caramel layer with a splendid combination of black treacle and light muscovado sugar, which brought the tiniest hint of smoky, scorched bonfire to offset the sweetness.
And boy oh boy, was it a treat.
Random Scottish fact: Tunnock’s
Speaking of Scottish grans, the proffering of Tunnock’s goodies is an essential quality for one. Skint knees falling off your bike? Have a Caramel Wafer. Had a bust up with your best pal? How about a Snowball?
I have friends in their 40s unable to go hill-walking without the obligatory squashed Tea Cake in their backpacks, because of the ritual of your gran pressing one into your hand when you’re just setting off.
If you’ve not tried the particular magic of Scottish magnificence that’s the Tunnock’s range of goodies - selling sugary snacks for 134 years - I suggest you get yourself to the shops sharpish.
They’re particularly splendid in cold and soggy weather, when ink dark clouds are so low they’re touching the tarmac.
On the blog and LinkedIn:
How do you know when it’s time to change direction?
My top 9 gardening tools (though you probably only need the first three)
How to make your garden sing in spring
⭐ Thanks for reading! I love writing this newsletter for you.
All wonky words and photos are by me, Rowan Ambrose. All goodies mentioned are paid for me too ⭐
I'd love to hear about what sensory experiences bring you joy.
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