A Collection of Cuttings

 As I get older, I find myself spending more time pottering in the garden. When we moved into our current house four years ago one of the first things we had to do was get find of several large cypresses that were blocking most of the light from our back garden, along with an overgrown Christmas tree which was bald and stunted on one side as a result of having been planted too close to the fence.

 

This left lots of spaces that needed re-filling, so I’ve been experimenting with different plants in the hope of finding ones which will thrive in our rather windswept garden, ideally without needing too much attention as they mature. And so I’ve turned into one of those people who will surreptitiously take cuttings and collect seeds from other plants when they think no one’s watching.

 

Some of these efforts have worked better than others. I have Michaelmas daisies, taken from a plant growing over the wall of the local golf course, and fuchsias grown from a plant in the garden of our former home. My biggest success – literally – is a couple of buddleias that I grew from a couple of cuttings snipped from a plant at the edge of the road. (They are also – triffid-like – in danger of taking over the garden, but that’s a problem for another day.)

 

I use this concept in my writing, too. Snippets of overheard conversations and personal anecdotes can be cultivated and pruned to provide inspiration for stories and articles. Watching a TV show or reading the news may generate ideas to be stored for later use. In my case, a childhood accident was reworked for my novel. And if one particular “cutting” doesn’t work (like my shoots trimmed from a powder-blue ceanothus which took one look at the Whitby climate and gave up), then try another.

 

What about you? I’d love to know if you have any recommendations about where to find the best "cuttings" for your writing.

Fiona Lloyd is Chair of the Association of Christian Writers and writes regularly for Together magazine. Her first novel, The Diary of a (trying to be holy) Mum, was published by Instant Apostle in January 2018. Fiona also works for Christians Against Poverty.

 

Twitter: @FionaJLloyd & @FionaLloyd16