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LandScape - Life at nature’s pace White-stemmed bramble | Hillside garden | Living willow hedge | Oats | Baked potato dishes | Dartmoor | Waterfalls | Pom-pom sheep | Jewellery hanger | Cats grooming February 2019
COUNTRY ▯ HERITAGE ▯ GARDENS ▯ COOKERY ▯ TRAVEL ▯ CRAFT
Life at nature’s pace February 2019
www.landscapemagazine.co.uk
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Historic gateway to a land of legends
Swirling torrents on the river’s journey
Letters of beauty from ancient presses
NATURE’S
FROSTING
14
favourite
bakes with
a twist

Contents
February 2019
18
70
94
In the garden
In the kitchen
Craft
10 Ghostly stems of winter bramble
18 Woodland charm in a hilltop garden
28 The garden in February
30 Elegant and fragrant iris displays
40 Living hedge woven from willow
48 Winter bakes with the goodness of oats
58 Comforting and creamy rice pudding
60 Baked potatoes with a tasty twist
68 Regional & Seasonal:
Great North Pie Co
105 Woolly sheep made from pom-poms
108 Rustic hangers for jewellery
112 Soft, lacy shawl to crochet
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105
116
30
Country matters
60
History and heritage
Regulars
92 The countryside in February
94 Powerful torrent in the river’s flow
116 Fireside ritual of the cat
70 Brooding moors filled with mystery
82 Beauty of print on ancient presses
6 Readers’ letters
8 Our LandScape
38 In the garden
46 Subscription offer
66 In the kitchen
110 In the home
122 UK events
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favourite to savour
A staple of the dinner table, the humble baked potato is elevated to
star ingredient when combined with mouthwatering flavours
Double-baked
stuffed potato
Serves 4
4 baking potatoes
1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
200g Cheddar, grated
30g butter
3 tbsp single cream
8 slices ham, chopped
3 tbsp chopped curly parsley
sea salt and black pepper
Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6 and grease a
large oven tin with oil. Place the whole potatoes on the
tin and prick each one a couple of times with a fork
on both sides. Cover each potato with oil and bake for
1 hr until soft, and the skins are crispy.
Allow the potatoes to cool slightly, then cut in half
lengthways. Scoop out the insides into a mixing bowl,
leaving a 1cm border of potato inside the skin. Add all
but 20g of the cheese to the bowl, followed by the
butter, cream, ham and parsley, and season with salt
and pepper. Mix thoroughly, then divide between the
potato skins, levelling the tops with the back of a
spoon. Sprinkle over the remaining grated cheese and
season with pepper. Bake for 15 mins, then grill for 5
mins until golden on top, and serve.
choosing potatoES
Versatile and satisfying, potatoes can be served in many
different ways and are especially welcome on supper plates
during the colder months. Some are more suitable for certain
dishes than others, depending on the desired texture and flavour.
King Edward and Maris Piper varieties have a pale, fluffy
middle when cooked, making them ideal for roasting as well as
for tasty jackets, chunky chips, wedges and mash.
Salad potatoes are smaller and firm to the bite. Best with the
skin left on, they suit boiling, steaming or roasting whole, and
typical varieties include Charlotte and Maris Peer. The knobbly,
pink-skinned heritage variety, Pink Fir Apple is another example.
Smooth potatoes, such as the red-skinned Desiree, hold their
shape, making them the best choice for a hotpot or a recipe
which includes a sauce.
“Yet was ever the Potato
our old, familiar dish,
And the best of all sauces with the
beeves and the fish”
Lady Jane Wilde, ‘A Lament for the Potato’
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The slender, lilac petals of Iris
reticulata ‘Springtime’ unfurl like
butterfly wings, bringing colour
and fragrance into the home.

cool elegance
Poised and polished, Iris reticulata adds regal colour to February
arrangements with its graceful flowers aloft vertical stems
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precious boughs
Adorned with treasured pieces of jewellery, these natural
wall hangers make a pretty and useful feature in the home
108

A
woodland branch is
turned into a decorative and
practical hanger to display
much loved items of jewellery.
Adding rustic charm to a bedroom
wall, necklaces, pendants and bracelets
are hung from tacks fixed along the
branch, allowing precious pieces to be
admired as well as being within easy
reach when needed.
Spacing items apart ensures chains
remain tangle free, preventing wear and
tear, while the hanger creates an
attractive focal point when suspended
above a shelf.
Prunings from downy birch, Betula
pubescens, are ideal, as they do not have
the papery surface of silver birch. They
are carefully sawn to the desired length
to leave clean and neat ends.
Carpet tacks are then hammered in
at equal intervals to accommodate the
items. These tacks have larger heads,
stopping the jewellery from slipping off.
A length of cord is attached by
firstly folding it in half and knotting
both ends together. One end of the loop
is placed a little way in from the edge of
the branch and the rest of the cord
pulled though. The other end of the
cord is wrapped around a finger and the
doubled strands passed through the
loop. This is then brought on to the
other end of the branch. Attaching
these loops around a knot in the wood
helps to hold the cord in place. n
▯ Photography: Richard Faulks
materials
▯ Branches of 1in (3cm) in
diameter and up to 16in
(40cm) in length
▯ Saw
▯ Hammer
▯ Carpet tacks
▯ Strong cord
109

The countryside in... February
Sarah Ryan is on a traditional annual walk with her family
and noticing signs that spring is waiting in the wings
Left to right: Wrapped
up for a winter
walk; snowdrops
bow their heads as
clusters emerge on
the woodland floor;
woolly-coated sheep
graze on a crisp
February day.
crystallised snow clumps the
verges, pierced with grasses and twinkling
in the brightening sunlight. Near the foot
of a drystone wall, a group of blunt green
blades nose up through the ice, which glimmers in
rainbow colours as its harder contours slowly melt.
A neat fold runs down the centre of each dullish,
grey-green leaf, tipped with pale yellow. There are
no flowers yet, but they will be here soon. The
year’s first snowdrops are on their way.
I straighten up from my crouch, gazing down
at the young plants. My nostrils burn with the chill
air. My family; mum, dad, brother and his wife,
stand, chatting, nearby.
“Come, February, lend thy darkest sky.
There teach the winter’d muse with clouds to soar”
Thomas Chatterton, ‘February’
This has become a family tradition; an annual
walk, which invariably ends in a warm pub, with
plates of steaming food and pints of golden ale.
Every year is different; February regularly proving
to be unpredictable. Last year, we crunched
through ankle-deep snow; the year before that was
damp, muddy and mild.
Love of nature
Studying at Cambridge to become a primary
school teacher, my mum spent days outside with a
quadrat flung on the ground, noting the species
found within that square frame. Now, she moves
across to the wall, circled with pale grey and white
crustose lichens, pointing out the differences and
explaining why they are so important to an
ecosystem in its early stages. My dad demonstrates
his interest with a mischievous smile, pulling a
whisky-filled hip flask from an inside pocket,
taking a swig and passing it round.
A shaggy-coated sheep lifts its head to look
over, half curious, then turns back, disinterested,
to the frozen ground, nuzzling out the struggling
grass. Our route takes us along the road for a short
while, where a hazel tree overhangs the wall, its
branches dangling with catkins. I pull off a glove
and reach up to squeeze one between my fingers.
My curiosity rising, I pluck it off to examine it
more closely, twisting the cob of pale mustard
flowers in my hands. When I look up, the family
group have got away from me. I pocket the catkin
and hurry to catch up.
A fingerpost beside a stile, blackened with
damp, indicates a turn across fields, and I grasp the
wooden post to pull myself up. The wood is slick,
swollen with ice, and I place my boot carefully
before stepping off into the soft crump of a
snow-coated field. Feathery flakes have begun to
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“The small birds think their wants are oer
To see the snow hills fret again
And from the barns chaff litterd door
Betake them to the greening plain”
John Clare, ‘The Shepherd’s Calendar – February – A Thaw’
Left to right: An adult
male goldeneye,
Bucephala clangula,
displaying to a female
on water; a winter
wonderland awaits;
a breeding pair of
great crested grebes,
Podiceps cristatus.
Photography: Alamy; Shutterstock
drift from the sky. Downy cloud cloaks the hills, the
dark outlines of winter trees smudged to a pale grey.
The sun that shone earlier on the emerging
snowdrops is hidden behind soft, weighty cloud.
Slow awakening
The land is still today. Aside from this group of
walkers, huddled into their coats, there is little to be
seen. This quiet will not last long. The robin, which
has been singing solo for the last few months, has
recently been joined by the chaffinch and great, blue
and coal tits. The nuthatch, scampering down tree
trunks and along branches, will soon begin with its
rising ‘tweeee-tweeee-tweeee’. The blackbird is quiet
for now, but its mating call will begin to ring from
twisted, thorny branches any day.
Life is stirring, unseen, everywhere. In the
uplands, hibernating frogs start to twitch and wake,
moved by an irresistible impulse towards water.
There, a cacophony of ribbeting betrays the
gathering as many, sometimes hundreds, of frogs
assemble to mate and disperse. Water is the place
where all life is happening, or will happen, this
month. Goldeneyes gymnastically fling back their
heads in a mating dance, beaks to the sky. The grebe
begins its complicated flirting ritual. But now, in this
snowy field, all I can hear is the ‘susurrus’ of my own
breath; the muffled crunch of boots; a burst of laughter.
By the edge of my boot, I notice the sweetly
drooping head of a pure white bloom, Galanthus
nivalis, which means ‘milk flower of the snow’. The
season is moving on...
Hazel catkins appear in mid February, hanging
like ruffled tails and signalling new birth.
Sarah Ryan grew up in the Scottish Borders, climbing trees and poring over wildlife books. Those habits have little changed and she still
makes time daily to get out into the woods nearby, or at weekends to venture further afield. Inspiration comes from Roger Deakin, Nan
Shepherd, Kathleen Raine, Chris Watson and outside the window.
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