The Ins & Outs - Jojo's OVERSHARES, Growing food in a COMPOST LOO & Kissing CURTAINS

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Find out how we go from talking about a new way to get rid of bindweed to Jojo's outrageous holiday with her ex-boyfriend.Polly talks us through the benefits of the "No Dig" movement & Jojo breaks down all you need to know about curtains.Plus, Polly discuses growing food with compost loos and Jojo explains why she gets completely unhinged once a month!This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor Armac Martin. Since 1929, Armac Martin has been dedicated to creating design-led luxury brass hardware and accessories. Armac Martin is now an award-winning, fourth-generation family business and a leading name in the luxury interiors industry. Click the link below to visit their website!https://www.armacmartin.co.uk/InstagramPodcast - @the_insandouts_Jojo - @houseninedesignPolly - @pollyanna_wilkinsonProducer Andy - @andy_rowe_WebsitesJojo - https://www.housenine.co.uk/Polly - https://www.pollyannawilkinson.com/Pod Rowe Productions - https://www.podrowe.net/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether renting, renewing a mortgage, or considering buying a home, everybody has housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances, visit Canada.ca slash ItPaysToKnow. A message from the Government of Canada. Green, the colour of true elation Pine on a summer's day See I've been waiting for you, waiting for you.

Hello Inies and Outies and welcome to this new episode of the In's and Out's with myself, Jojo Barr and the very lovely Pollyanna Wilkinson. This week's podcast is sponsored by the gorgeous R. Mac Martin, purveyors of the most beautiful hardware now it goes without saying you never overlook your hardware good quality hardware can make or break your cabinetry so our Mac Martin is where you want to be looking now very lucky Polly I have specified our Mac Martin in her new kitchen and I've chosen the Cotswold bun cabinet knob and the bakes cabinet handle both in my very favorite the fine english antique finish so that is the sort of really raw like beautiful apollo's net that really sort of rustic raw brass absolutely stunning it's gonna look lovely against that dark green what's more i'm

matt martin are now branching into sockets and switches. I'm so excited about this. So as well as the beautiful hardware that Paul's going to be having in her kitchen and pantry, she's also now going to be getting sockets and switches for her house, again, in that beautiful fine English antique to match, which is really quite something. I'm so excited about this, guys. And thank you so much for sponsoring our podcast

and obviously kitting out Polly's house. So you guys are going to get to see this hardware in all its fine glory and polly you lucky jammy little thing you're going to get to use it every day i know i can't wait but i just want to ask this actually is there there's got to be a benefit right in terms of if your hardware on your your knobs so to speak on your cabinets if they are the same material as your switches and your sockets that's a really nice little design detail there right in terms of cohesion it's definitely considered we don't always have to do it sometimes like i always say i love mixing up bronze and bronze and brass sure but in this instance in your house it very much suits the style of your house so yeah we're mixing we're latching in this instance which which is gorgeous. I'm going to have the sexiest knobs you'll ever see.

Oh, you've got a sexy knob. Tell me what. On this week's podcast, we are talking no digging, growing food in a compost loo, a new way to get rid of bindweed, I'm talking hormones, grasses for privacy, curtains that kiss the floor, and Polly is doing her utmost to not say the word bulb. Bulb, bulb, bulb.

So let's jump on in. Hello, darling. Hello, darling. Why is it so nice saying darling? Isn't darling just such a lovely word? And also, you can call anyone darling. You could bump in someone on the street and say, oh, sorry, darling. And it just sounds so nice.

Does Brad call you darling? Yes, he does. I find I call lots of people darling. Or my love. I call everyone my love, even though I've never met them before. Hello, my love. Oh, sorry, my love. Sorry, love.

My love is quite different to love, though, isn't it? You know when you say, thanks, love? Yes, I don't like being called love. I don't mind my love. How are you, my love? How don't like being called love I don't mind my love how are you my love how are you I'm great as this podcast goes out the kitchen will be going in so that is that is huge excitingness oh that's so exciting pal you're gonna be I mean you're gonna be in a real life fancy kitchen scene cooking living like a normal person not fancy pants house nine kitchen

which I never thought I'd have do you know what I've never designed my own kitchen I've just always my first world problems right I just whatever I've been given is what I've kept I've never never done that so it's the first time ever I've had to choose my dishwasher or choose a cooker oh it's so nice I mean it's just it's such a treat you're you yeah you're not going to leave your house like well you're not going to be able to. You're going to be living on bread and water, I think, when you finish. I won't be able to cook in the kitchen.

No. No, you'll just be sort of sitting on the floor eating some dry bread and some water. Sorry, kids, no dinner tonight. Mummy built a house. But look at the kitchen. It looks nice, doesn't it? And that's enough to nourish your bellies. Yes, we're starving, but look at it.

It's lovely. Yes, so that's enough to nourish your bellies yes we're starving but look at it it's lovely yes so that's that's terribly exciting and then oh I'm going to catch you up because there's I went to a really really interesting event last week tell me um which is fascinating so it was uh the Alatex the Alatex who made my greenhouse they have a sort of annual lecture and this year it was Charles Dowding have you heard of Charles Dowding no no no so no you haven't well that's fine I'll tell you all about him now he's amazing he's like the I would describe him as the godfather of the no dig movement have you heard of the no dig movement no dig movement yeah tell me tell us more okay so I'm not going to do this justice. But basically, the idea is that you don't dig into the soil when you're gardening. And I would argue, technically, this is probably more for things that you can grow from seed. But ultimately, what it is rather than kind of digging down and putting your plants in at ground level, what he's suggesting and what he does really successfully is layer compost on the surface of the soil and you basically each year add another layer of say an inch or two and then you dig you plant into

that mound which you've created so it's quite a lot of work up front because you have to sort of create an initial mound sitting on the soil and you sort of shore it up with some timbers temporarily but what it does is meant to be incredible for soil health so you're maintaining the soil health because you're not messing you're not disrupting what's going on beneath beneath the surface so it's amazing for soil structure it enhances biodiversity and it reduces weeds so the big one which made me think why it was so interesting to you and hopefully our listeners is he has been able to get rid of bindweed in two years which is extraordinary but so you'd already have to have a fairly established garden to do this so you'd have to have those plants in the ground already because presumably some plants

need to go in a lot deeper than just a few inches no well this is why i mean it's more for things growing from seed so it's it's more for kind of allotment growing or vegetable growing cut flower growing and not entirely you can do it with a border with with with younger plants but as you say yes if you're putting a whacking great tree in how do you do no dick you have to dig a hole um but for if you're starting a vegetable patch cut flower garden for example and he grows amazing vegetables then what you would do is you start by putting cardboard over the soil and that kind of suppresses the weeds because cardboard will kind of rot off within a few matter weeks months and then you start with this base layer of compost and i guess the big outlay

is that first layer if you don't have masses of compost on site which very few of us do but then by adding to it you're adding up up up up up and then it's all growing within that it's um it's an amazing weed suppressant because essentially you're not disturbing the soil and um you know i feel like i've got so many questions around this i know but i thought you always say you're supposed to sort of turn the soil and you need new soil no well but he's adding new a new layer every year so the idea with no dig is that each year you're adding like another inch to the pile so if you imagine like a mounded no i can totally see it but the stuff that's going on underneath you're not just become

but i thought you were meant to sort of turn soil and get aerated and get you know that sort of no no not particularly because what's happening basically with just it just gets higher and higher so instead of having a bed but it doesn't get higher and higher because you know as a as a year goes on the sort of soil depletes and it sinks with the weather etc which is why you chop it up but the idea being that you're not disturbing the soil the soil will naturally um if you're covering your soil in compost every year it's going to promote worms so many worms. And that will they will bring it down into the soil.

So you don't need to mess with it. I guess the whole point of it is it's by not disrupting the soil, you are helping soil health. It's absolutely riveting. One thing that made me a bit squirmy was that you can make your own compost by having a compost loo and you can grow your vegetables in your own poo but I was a bit like oh that's that's where I draw a line I think not sure I'd want that no no I mean it's not your own poo because obviously it turns into a very nutrient rich compost but I think gosh that's really good that's going a bit far that one but you know you could just live live off the land yourself i just don't want to have

not for me that no i just don't know having to sort of farm my own poo out to the garden and then you'd have to sort of chop it up and stuff and it just needs a bit no no because it's in a compost loop so it composts itself with like sawdust what's you go out you go and you go and you have a compost loo so you go out lay one in there it's a bit like a glastonbury toilet it's like it's gonna smell like that well you'd have to have a bloody big garden to not have to smell that because there's no chemicals though it's not it's chemical free it's just like a pit even yeah of stench it's no i mean look compost loos don't smell if you use them right because they separate

the waste i actually went to a um cabin in the woods with mr big once they had a compost loo and i gotta tell you that was quite stressful i can imagine not something you want to be doing on your sort of one of your first days in the kind of early days it felt yeah yeah that takes me back actually to i went on holiday with i went on holiday with one of my first true love boyfriends and we went to Thailand and we went um to Koh Tao on the dive the dive island in Thailand and we stayed in this really basic sort of hut you know just like a little stick house with a bed in the middle of it and a toilet wasn't really a toilet it was a bathroom but it just had a loo with a bucket next to it and swear to god I did not know what I was meant to do and it was a fairly new relationship and I did my business right and I was like what do what do I do I've pooed in the loo and there's no water

there's no chain genuinely did the bucket have water in it no oh there was one of those like um shitass like one of those hoses in the bathroom did you start spraying it no well i didn't it just wasn't going away and i was like what am i meant to do with this thing like i don't know what to do and even johnny who i was with was like i haven't got a clue what do we do and i said maybe we're supposed to get out with a plastic bag i mean we were like 19 and really probably you know should have read our travel guides well exactly Paul I'm glad you're saying that and not making me feel really stupid we ended up fishing it out with a Tesco bag that I happen to have in my in my luggage when you say we did you do it or did he well I did it and then we were sort of howling with laughter and there's all these sort of stray dogs around as well there I tie up my poo and leave it outside the front

door and I'm like well I'm not using that toilet again when we came back later that afternoon it was there were literally 15 wild dogs sitting on our deck like sniffing at this bag trying to get into it it was we told we told one of the other girls. It was awful. And then Johnny's got this thing. He's running. Trying to get the dogs away.

He's trying to chase the dogs away from Jojo's bag of poo. My Tesco bag of poo. Did you ever find out what you're supposed to do? Yeah yeah that afternoon we found out from another couple that we're weird they were like you know that there's a bucket and you fill it with water and then you just chuck the bucket of water down the toilet and the water does that thing where it well yeah that's what i thought and it takes that but you but you said it was an empty bucket yeah so you used the dish should have to fill it up first. Anyway, we learned that way. What did you do with the bag of poo in the end?

It went into the bin. I mean, it got out from the dogs and it was not very pleasant and it was very amusing. Luckily, we had a real giggle about it. I didn't know that story would come out on this podcast i have to say i've just announced that to 10 000 people so hi everyone sorry about that oh we've all been there anyway i digress i am conscious i've gone and teased about how to get rid of bindweed and i haven't told you so let me just say because i know um so what he does is

cover it in cardboard for about uh i think he said about three months i hope i'm not misquoting him and then do the do the no dig so year one he sort of smothers it with cardboard and then year two he just trowels it out because it's been so weakened by not having any light two years and it's gone i mean that's miraculous i've never had such success so i see so it's kind of growing it's coming coming coming out the surface it's coming up basically it comes up and i think because it hasn't got the light that weakens it and so then you have to get you just have to trowel it out but i mean he's a what an inspiration fascinating man so he does have he has lots of books so do do look him up charles dowding i was actually going to talk to you about hormones okay come on then what about well do you do you sort of around when you're about to start your menstrual cycle, do you act suddenly very irrationally? You sort of really feel yourself having a bit of an out-of-body experience of like, I get one day, just one day in the month where I sort of feel really quite unhinged.

Do you not get that? I don't. And I never have. Well, I'm now, I'm really oversharing here, guys, but I'm actually, for all my perimenopausal pals out there well I'm now I'm really overshare here guys but I'm actually I'm for my perimenopausal pals out there I'm now 42 and I'd say I went into early menopause not early menopause yeah perimenopause at around sort of I'd say around 38 where I started to feel my hormones my everything in your body starts to change yeah you start to become a bit brain foggy, your achy joints,

feel very tired for no reason. And a bit, you feel slightly irrational. You feel slightly, slightly unhinged is how I'm going to best describe it. A bit low mood. Yes. And it's,

but no one talks to you about this. I feel like as girls growing up, this was not something we ever spoke about. When I was, I remember my mum going through menopause, but it was like a thing. It was like something we all used to laugh about. Oh my God mum going through menopause but it was like a thing that was like something we always used to laugh about oh my god she's menopausal she's losing you know she actually gets so mad about the smallest things just flip out and she'd suddenly

have a really hot sweat and she'd be fanning herself in the kitchen oh god um and that i was like that's all we hear about and then suddenly it's like we've now you actually it's nice isn't it you suddenly discover that you're it happens a lot sooner than that yeah i went to see because actually the nhs slightly fob you off um when you sort of feel like you're you know you're having these feelings of like i just don't feel like myself and your periods change they get heavier and all these things start happening so i went to see a private health um gp and he told me he actually described it in the best possible way and he said as women we're essentially oestrogen is like our crack so we are yeah so it's the thing that makes us like sexy it makes us you know have full bosoms and glow and our skin look good and feel voluptuous and all those things and

keep our hormones balanced yeah as we get older really nicely it starts to withdraw it starts to keep base basics like someone's taking it away from us the estrogen and we basically become like crack addicts like give me back my crack and we start to get irrational and we get tired and we're honestly and all these things that essentially are like having a drug taken away from you yes that's what it is oh my god it so you once you sort of someone explains that to you you're like my god that's i want it back i need that back i need that shit that's that shit makes me feel good hence why we go on hrt did they give you the creams or the patches i when i went down the gel route first so first of all we have to i had a coil put in god i'm really oversharing here but i had the

coil put in and then quite processed there that took was put in wrong and i had to last oh my god it was a real disaster um but then about nine months in of it finally working i then went on this gel hrt gel and i instantly started feeling myself again i'm now the patches like yeah honestly i can't tell you how balanced i feel anyone that's feeling if you're late sort of mid late 30s and you start to not feel yourself don't don't think there's something you know that it could just be your hormones go and get your hormones checked honestly best thing i ever did was go on hrt should we dive into some questions you've got no news for me other than talking about your hormones which I am thank you for keeping me abreast. Oh yes do you know I do

have some exciting news. Good god tell me. I have just had two brand new shiny not shiny because they're made of wood but two garden gates two paddock gates so from our house there is the two little gates that go through into our paddock and they were rotten to the core i mean like the whole fencing is like falling down and rotten to the core and we couldn't use them so we have to walk all the way around to these sort of five by gate to get into the paddocks we'd never really used to use it and as i said i've had this really fun thing done with a paddock where we sort of had this this track put around and little nades and i've had these gorgeous little paddock gates been in and starting to things

that started to happen I had a decorator in the other day planning has gone into the garage the house plans I've done the house plans I've got I've done I did my mood boards guys what you should be doing if you're thinking of renovating or doing any designs at home I've started my presentation boards I've got all my in my I've got all my styling. I've got all my styling images. I've got all my rooms laid out, exactly what I want, where I started to create the picture, build the picture. Oh, my gosh, this is exciting. I know. I'm really excited about it. So that probably will start maybe 2034, sometime around then.

Sure. Yeah, it's not long to wait now. You know me. It's a bit slow off the old mark. Other things get in the way. Clients' houses sort of take priority. My clients take priority. Cobbler's shoes, my friend, cobbler's shoes.

Yeah, that's it. Whether renting, renewing a mortgage, or considering buying a home, everybody has housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances, visit Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. Shall we dive into some lovely innie and outie questions? Yes, we shall.

Right, my darling. This one is from Keris. Hello, I love Love the Pod and I hope you both had a wonderful summer break i'm writing this after your final episode this season and already missing you your weekly chats i usually identify as an innie but i have an outie question today polly i've just got my first ever garden and oh my god it was an estate it was very exciting and your tips have been so so helpful it's so nice feeling green fingered however we are in london so privacy in the garden isn't great awkward walls and slopes making it really easy for people to see in i was thinking that adding some tall grasses in areas that we need extra privacy would be good but google is throwing up things much too short i

know taller grasses exist because i've seen them but i can't seem to find them myself the areas would most like want in part sun part shade one corner which is the sunny majority of the day i'd so appreciate any recommendations that you can make thank you so much kiss kiss okay so i mean so grass is for privacy i'm gonna have to assume you're talking kind of human height because i there aren't really grasses that are sort of taller than a fence unless you're thinking of bamboo but that's that's a whole different beast adult adult adult human height yeah adult human height so the grasses i'm going to recommend come in at about uh 1.2 to 2 meters um and that's really all there is unless you went with like a pampas grass like you know the swingers grass but that's not going to give you privacy

um so grasses that are really great if you've got anywhere like a seating area that you want to wrap in some grasses so that it feels enclosed or you could put them in troughs as well some of my favorites are so we've got miscanthus which is a tends to be quite a tall grass that's about uh about two meters so the height of a fully grown human and you've got a few to choose from because they each have a different kind of feathery flower at the tip about this time of year so you could have morning light which is sort of a variegated quite pale leafed grass or you could go with grazie millis which is got a really beautiful the tassels look a bit like um sort of uh silk tassels that you get for curtain tiebacks. That's how I would describe it. Or there's ferne austen or klein silberspin.

And I understand these are real mouthfuls, so I'll put them in the show notes. So those are some miscanthus options. Or you could go with a panicum would also be really lovely. And panicum tend to be kind of more columnar than miscanthus miscanthus is more kind of fan shaped whereas uh panicum is more upright so you can put them in in rows and they look really dramatic and there's loads of them but something like north wind or sea mist or warrior those are those are three really nice panicums but those are all going to do a really lovely effect of sort of immersing you in a space. So hopefully that can give you some privacy. But if you're talking kind

of boundary privacy above a fence, then I think we need to start looking at trees instead, really. And a question from me on this. Do grasses, are they sort of ever, not evergreen, do they carry, what are they called, when it lasts throughout the all seasons? Through the seasons. Do you have to cut them back at some point so yeah they are deciduous but what is interesting about grasses is you know deciduous on a tree you just expect all the leaves to drop whereas deciduous as a grass they're going to look at their best kind of now so july august september october i think ornamental grass is at their best but then you just leave them over the winter um and their sort of silhouettes their sort of straw like silhouettes look amazing through the

winter and then we cut them down basically when they start to collapse which is usually sort of February late February early March then you cut them to the ground so there is that one portion of the year sort of March April early May where they are stumps but you know so much else is going on at that time of year anyway so but they give so much interest and so when clients message and go oh we don't really like grasses I'll be like but they add a lot of interest when everything else isn't doing anything so it's a case of just understanding what they're bringing at seasons where there's not a lot else going on. And sort of soil do grass is like i mean they'll handle most things they don't love being in really really really heavy clay

they need some drainage but you know we have planted grasses in heavy clay and just made sure there's loads of grit or and sand and organic matter to loosen it up so they're kind of would you recommend if you're planting it would you tend to dig a bigger hole and then put some other stuff in before you put because interestingly it might as you know my garden is claggy clay horrible soil and I planted a few um grasses and they just didn't do a lot they didn't I was hoping they'd go like big and they just stayed a bit like that and they just weren't doing a lot I think it's probably because I just dug a hole and stuck them in. So would you say dig a double the size and then what would you fill it with? Yeah, so you always, with any plant really,

what you should do is dig a hole about 50% larger than the pot that the plant has come in. And then if you've got heavy clay, I'd always be dumping loads of organic matter in there. Organic matter, whenever I say that, it means something like well-rotted manure, mushroom compost. But you could add, for example, when we plant yew, taxis, we'll always put sand at the base

because they don't like having wet feet. So you could do that. But Jojo, actually, ornamental grasses are quite sulky when they get started. So I've planted a load of miscanthus this year and they're not doing much. It will take a couple of years before they kick on. Oh, that's good to know.

Okay. Yeah, so don't give up hope. to know this i mean there's so there are hundreds of varieties of grass there's loads so many you've got tall ones you've got short ones you've got evergreen you've got deciduous but i mean my favorite of the tall ones are probably a miscanthus or a calamagrostis or a panicum i have got a question here from georgie i'm in an endless abyss of curtain shopping oh you and me both my friend i have a striped headboard bed neutral color with a dark green french ticking pattern all the curtains i like are also striped my question is can you do double stripe or is that a big no-no plus should i stick with the dark green or mix it up sincerely a huge curtain overthinker

hi hi curtain overthinker um curtains is really tough I understand why people have a bit of a freeze because there's so many things to consider with curtains and you know when all the amount of headings that you can have you know triple pinch double pinch top pinch you know single pleat like and then is it going to be lined is it going to be blackout is it going to be do you want any more bump in it to make it any thicker so many things to consider and then you've got the fabric to choose of course as well and they are not cheap i always say this getting curtains made is not cheap but they are so important and they yeah they are they're sort of like they're the mascara on your windows so i would

say stripes i am a massive fan of stripes and i'm all for mixing up windows so i would say stripes i am a massive fan of stripes and i'm all for mixing up stripes so i would say if you're going to be mixing up stripes i think you just want to be cautious not to use too many because otherwise you're going to make the room feel really chaotic um stick to just two or three so if you've got it on the headboard lovely place to bring in is in the curtains so i think headboards and curtains can work really well together it doesn't need to be the same i definitely wouldn't go the same if anything on the curtains i'll go something a bit heavier a bit wider so ticking ticking's quite um narrow yeah ticking was originally a sort of a like a lining fabric so they'd make upholstery and the

furniture would first be made to hold all the all the stuffing and everything in you know the horse hair it would be wrapped in ticking and then they'd put the fabric on the top but now we just use it as a as a as a yeah as a fabric in itself because it's very delicate and it's like french tickings are really it's beautiful it's it's very delicate and it's it can be used in so many ways in any interior from modern to traditional so yes huge fan it comes in all different colors but it's very subtle and it's very you know it's very fine and therefore you can totally introduce i would say if you had a ticking you can bring two more stripes in if you want you could almost have you could have on your

curtain something a bit thicker a bit wider i wider. I think you want to balance the colours of anything. She said she had a light grey, so you could either go with a sort of dark navy or you could even go with sort of a burgundy or something like a burnt rust or something. Don't be afraid to mix and span stripes. But I would also recommend if you are... I don't tend to just go stripes in a ring because I think it can feel a bit uh sort of a bit too masculine I think that's where you don't want to bring in patterns like sort of bring in some florals or sort of slight subtle geometrics or something but on your on your bed cushions I would then bring in sort of a light light you know floral or

something so I think that would be ticking is quite um a sort of schlubby rough natural fabric isn't it it tends to be I'm just trying to think in terms of well no it's very very fine no it's very very it's usually it's just 100 cotton ticking it's very I don't know why I'm thinking of a slightly like sacking slubby well so you can so ticking is ticking is ticking fabric i think people think like a ticking strike that usually is a very very fine stripe yes and it can obviously come on like linens or or sort of thicker cottons so it's there are definitely slubby looking stripes but we wouldn't call it a ticking but what material would you go for would you reach for for the curtains if you can go with something like a very fine cotton it depends what lining you want or how thick you want your curtain to be so you

can put anything on a curtain you can put a velvet on a curtain you could put a heavy slubby linen on a curtain it's one of my favorites is linen i love it i love a striped linen i'd love linen's my favorite i just love the way i love the sort of rawness of it it's sort of soft and it's slubby linen is a gorgeous french stupid question but would you do you not line a linen and just have a blackout blind or do you very different it's actually it's a bit of a cost saver so okay a lot of the time if someone hasn't got a lot of budget spend on curtains and blinds i'll say spend the money on uh the roman blinds because it's less fabric get a blackout roman blind and then to dress the window get a pole mounted up nights and high and then just have a sheer we call it a sheer linen and sheer linens you can pick up off

the shelf anywhere and they usually come in like three different lengths so you can get a really really really long um and then easy to hang dana has a curtain question and let's just combine the two so she's an outie yes dana but she hasn't any question um what is the perfect distance from the curtain to the floor i have long linen curtains i love this question this is really fun because ever since i started my career i've always there's always sort of I think when I first started out and it was I used to work in a interior design practice where everything was we did a lot of the footballers houses and it was all quite sort of waggy and you know also velvets and studded headboards and things and the curtains would pool we used to call it pooling on the floor

where they would literally drape and then there'd be like extra fabric on the floor and I always used to think it was just such a nuts thing to do because like cleaning of course like you know I mean my cats would pee on them you know and and they just would also just be this pile of fabric so you can't see them to like clean then you get dirty curtains and then over you know of course I moved on and now the what how my and I've worked with the same curtain people forever, and they're great, and we talk about how do you want your curtains to be, and we say we want them kissing the floor.

Yes. So your curtains should kiss the floor, which means they're not off the floor, they're just slightly touching them. Imagine two lips kissing, that's how you want it. So the curtain, if anything, have it a little, so don't forget curtains will drop. So for most fabrics especially linens over time the weight of the curtain it will slightly drop so you're much better off it just slightly a millimeter off the floor winking at the floor and then it will kiss

yes just that hover just before you go into the snog not a snog just a kiss so um kissing kissing the floor is a really nice way of saying it yeah so if you ever get in curtains they say to the curtain maker i just want my curtains kissing the floor back out in the garden this one is from ash hi i absolutely love the pod i was recommended it by a friend and i've caught up on all the episodes over the summer question for poll, when should I plant paper white bulbs for an indoor display over December? And how do I look after them? So looking forward to season two. Here we are.

Okay, I accept your challenge. Right, there's actually three things that you can plant now for interior Christmas decoration. And actually now is the exact time to do it so I'm so glad we're talking about this so you asked about paper whites they take six to ten weeks from planting to flower if you haven't ordered them now buy them now and what I like to do with paper whites is to stagger them so I would plant some late September and then some early October and then you're going to get succession of flowering but it's also a really good time if you want hyacinths for the same time of year they take something like it depends on the hyacinth but

it can take about 10 weeks of cold conditions plus about three weeks indoors for them to flower so general rule if it's a 10-weeker, is to start planting them around 24th of September, so about now when this comes out. But some other hyacinths only need eight weeks, plus about eight weeks outside cold and then three weeks inside. So you've got a couple of weeks.

So you want to do them now. And then also the other thing you want to be buying now, ready to plant is hippiestrum i never know how to pronounce that amaryllis classic christmas plant uh which you're going to want it takes about 10 weeks to flower so again early october you want to be flowering if you want all of this flowering for christmas you need to have bought these in the next week or two and planted them in the next week or two right a quick and dirty one from home karma how best to curtain or blind a five panel 500 centimeter bifold door

i love your style but i'm conscious it's a new build and we've always had period properties before any advice these developers that make these bloody great big bifold doors without thinking and then think, oh, this is great south-facing elevation. It's whacking this expanse, massive expanse of doors. Where are you going to put your damn curtains? Really restricted here, guys. It's a real toughie because it depends how much of a reveal you've got on either side to actually pull your curtains back. Because five meters of window is going to be a massive, massive stack of fabric. So if you think you've got two and a half meters going both ways and that's you're going to need double that to get that lovely, you know, ruched effect when you pull your curtain over. Because nothing worse than just a flat panel. When you pull your curtain, you don't want it to be flat.

You want it to be lovely and curtain looking can i just very briefly jump on this question and say is there a rule for how much wider the curtain you should buy is to the width of the window or door uh it's probably about double ish less than that yeah okay um so obviously that is an enormous amount of fabric but and therefore you are going to have to you're definitely going to have to go with just a plain sheer linen or like a linen. I'm going to say linen. OK, not a bulky fabric. Linen mitts, not bulky. You definitely wouldn't be able to go with anything lined because the more lined it is, the thicker it's going to get.

And it's probably going to end up taking up half a pane of glass. So something like a soft linen, the curtain itself, it might have to be a track as opposed to a pole. Sorry, not curtain but the pole um and it's going to have to be obviously yeah maybe even ceiling fixed um okay so almost like a concealed track of some sort in the ceiling um it's probably going to be your best bet here um but you are going to have to get them made bespoke on something like that um just because the sheer amount of fabric that you're going to have to get them made bespoke on something like that um just because the sheer amount of fabric that you're going to need so i just hope you've got enough reveal is that nuts oh no because if you think about it when you open your doors undoubtedly

there's gonna be a breeze or wind when you've got blinds they can get they just don't look great roller blinds above windows just don't look great and when you've got them down and clattering around all over the place they look a bit they look a bit office building whereas the curtains will add softness which is nice which is nice good tips my friend good tips okay which brings us to my favorite segment what's in and out probably what's out is your summer bedding time to start thinking about your winter bedding so get some layers on your bed you know it's i always think it's quite nice to sleep under a duvet that's not like super thick yes and actually layer up with like a nice you know nice um bedspread and then maybe a throw you know something like that on top like layers

are so nice on a bed you're bringing the throws out are you pal bringing out the throws bring out the layers this this season is all about layering um you know like me a bit of layering so summer is obviously your bedding is much more simple because you don't want to have to sort of constantly be kicking off layers every time you get into bed um and when it's hot you just want to sleep under a nice light duvet but now you can obviously start to build up layers on your bed so yes out is summer bedding in in is layers. For me. That. And then, oh gosh, for me, well in, it's apple season. So I've got a massive cooking apple tree in my garden.

So it's all about tart, tartan, apple crumble. Let's pretend I'm going to cook these, but you know, I have great intentions. You will, because you'll be in your new kitchen with your beautiful new cooker. You shall be cooking these things. Yes, I will. Yes, I will. and my out would be a hearty plea if we're talking about bedding although it's borders not bedding we know this i would just say leave your borders alone don't go doing that thing with a lot which a lot of gardeners like to do which is the old autumn hack back where everything gets cut back and it just

looks sad for the next six months resist the urge just to give everything a massive prune and a tidy and actually just let it be let your grasses be let your interesting perennials which have lovely seed heads stay as is over the autumn and winter way more interesting than just loads of cut back stubs so i say out pruning things leave a heavy hacking heavy hackings out that's a really good one thanks paul oh they were actually very useful out pruning things. Heavy hacking. Heavy hacking's out. That's a really good one. Thanks, Paul. They were actually very useful ins and outs this week. We actually sort of, you know,

counterbalanced the poo chat with some useful tips there. We'll be back with frivolity next week, I promise. That leaves us with one more thing. Give it, give it, give it to them. Go on. Don't forget to like subscribe share with friends family old and new and um oh also buy your tickets for decorex because we're going to be there recording an episode live and we'd love to see you why do i get so nervous at the thought of

doing a live like a live live terrified it's utterly terrifying i don't know why and we haven't got we haven't thought about what we're gonna do or say yet is it gonna be live q a it's a live podcast recording no but it's in sweet people gonna be asking us questions yes i don't know we need to look into it but we're very excited and that's we're there on the 9th of october get your tickets now 9th October come see us come say hi come and have a swoon at lovely interior bits yeah come on alright look forward

to seeing you all right alright go away go away I love you love you bye my darling

big kiss bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye Are you sure you parked over here?

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