Weeding the Web tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-1867505 2012-02-06T19:12:30+00:00 for the gardening sites worth going to. TypePad HelenGazeleyhttp://feedburner.google.com A Good Weed? Planting the Dry Shade Garden, by Graham Rice tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a01156f7c8ef8970c0167611129f4970b 2012-02-06T19:12:30+00:00 2012-02-06T19:09:01+00:00 Last year my husband researched dry shade planting (shaded border, neighbour’s trees, tall fence). As is the way of these things I, perforce, accompanied him on his intellectual route-march, so I picked up Graham Rice’s Planting the Dry Shade Garden... Helen Gazeley

Planting the Dry Shade GardenLast year my husband researched dry shade planting (shaded border, neighbour’s trees, tall fence). As is the way of these things I, perforce, accompanied him on his intellectual route-march, so I picked up Graham Rice’s Planting the Dry Shade Garden with more than ordinary interest. How would my Plant Enthusiast’s choices rank?

Graham Rice is a pillar of the garden world and, not only gardens in shade himself, but, he admits, peers over fences to check what’s growing in other people’s shady bits. Frequently, he finds nothing. Hence this book.

Dry shade might make gardeners groan loudest, but plant choices aren’t nearly as small as you possibly imagine. Rice gives the low-down on around 60 different plants; before this, your shade is put firmly on the couch. Is it by a wall or trees? Under early-leafing shrubs, or late? Deciduous or evergreen? Is it happy or sad? (Yes, I’m making the last one up.) All these should make a difference to your view of your problem patch.

The plants are divided into shrubs, climbers, perennials, ground cover, bulbs, annuals and biennials. If some shrubs strike you as a touch municipal (found in easy-care amenity planting), then Rice’s relaxed commentary offers reasons to like them all over again, and he pleads for renewed recognition among gardeners of the unloved and unfashionable, such as spotted laurel (Aucuba japonica) and snowberry (Symphoricarpos).

Rice’s authoritative voice, born of many years’ experience, is leavened with wry humour. While you may want to prune to let in more light, for example, taking yourself up “a rickety ladder with a carpentry saw and bucketful of overconfidence” is not recommended.

Lungwort (Pulmonaria)And there’s plenty here that probably won’t have crossed your mind. Aphidistra, anyone? Other plants that you might reject for their thuggish quality, he recommends as well-behaved under the restraining influence of gloomy aridity, so acanthus, perhaps? The multitude of cultivars suggested for many of the plants makes a themed border spring to mind, while he warns against certain cultivars, and points up neglected members of otherwise common plant families. Good-sized photos are used throughout.

A couple of things gave me pause. In his run-down of mulches, I’d be interested to know why he says commercially produced wood chips rob the soil of nitrogen, but doesn't mention this for home-chipped wood waste. Nor am I the only one surprised by his recommendation of raised beds over tree roots. In his Amazon review Colin Elliot, who runs The Garden Design Academy and writes at A Gardener in France says: 

Few trees can confidently be predicted to thrive or even survive if more than four inches of fill are placed directly over their roots, so great care must be taken when gardeners construct raised beds as suggested. The rule of thumb is to preserving the existing levels in a circular area around the tree, equal in diameter to at least one-foot for every inch of stem diameter. This means that I should protect an area of 100 feet (30m) around our 150 year old Sequoia which is 8ft 4" (2.55m) in diameter!  

The problem is that one doesn’t necessarily want to try it out, in case you lose a tree (though I guess it could be a way of killing off a neighbour’s intrusive canopy). However, regarding “Pandora’s” Amazon review of the book’s being too American, I wouldn’t worry. US hardiness zones are given and, inevitably the spelling is American, but the plants themselves are widely available, while, if you do want to restrict yourself to native planting, lists for US and UK natives are included.

Daphne odora by Miya. Creative Commons LicenceSo, how did my Plant Enthusiast fare? We have, I realise, a textbook border, which includes hellebores, sarcococca and pulmonaria. We even have more unusual stuff, such as Tree Ivy (xFatshedera lizei). After my crash course last year, some omissions even surprised me; perhaps Rice is just fed up with Fatsia and Daphne odora.

You won’t find blazing colours, but you will find variety of texture and leaf colour, and a perhaps surprising array of useful flowers. So if you’ve neglected that part of the garden languishing beneath heavy shade, I’d guarantee that this book will have you new interest in it. Dry shade will always have its limitations, but Rice’s book will go a long way to lightening your darkness.

Graham Rice, a very busy manGraham Rice, if you haven’t noticed, is a doyen of the garden world. He trained at Kew, has written over 20 books, innumerable articles, won writing awards in the US and the UK, judges at Chelsea and Hampton Court, judges flower trials at Wisley, is Editor-in-Chief of the RHS Encyclopaedia of Perennials. He gardens on both sides of the Atlantic.

He writes a very useful page on the RHS website every month, listing 10 Award of Garden Merit (AGM) plants. He also writes their New Plants blog. As if this wasn’t enough, he regularly updates his own blog Transatlantic Gardener, and I guess in the circumstances we can make allowances for its unfriendly typeface and untidy layout. I mean, who has the time?!

Even so, he does have time to squeeze in The Brit Mix, a weekly radio session on Radio Catskill where, I’m delighted to report, he recently featured an artist from the many at Songs from the Shed (garden variety, of course).

Here's Steve Harley going down memory lane in that very shed: 


 http://helengazeley.typepad.co.uk/gardenwriter/2012/02/good-weed-book-review-planting-dry-shade-garden-by-graham-rice.html Are we heading for a fruitless summer? tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a01156f7c8ef8970c0162ffd9df86970d 2012-01-20T01:56:00+00:00 2012-01-20T01:56:00+00:00 The RHS has reported that we could be facing a fruitless summer this year, as the winter chill, supposedly required for various fruits to crop, has been mostly absent. Bushes are also flowering early. While frost might be a real... Helen Gazeley

The RHS has reported that we could be facing a fruitless summer this year, as the winter chill, supposedly required for various fruits to crop, has been mostly absent. Bushes are also flowering early. While frost might be a real problem in killing off early blossom, the high winter temperatures aren't necessarily a cause for despair. It seems that we probably don't know as much about the temperature requirements, certainly of apple trees, as we think.

For an alternative view, do see my post from last November, A Chilling Time for Apples Ahead?  Or go straight to the Apples and Oranges blog for an eye-opener on parts of the world that grow apples where convention says it possible.

 http://helengazeley.typepad.co.uk/gardenwriter/2012/01/warm-winter-chilling-problems-fruit.html Strange life in the garden - or My Most Unforgettable Characters (with apologies to Readers' Digest) tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a01156f7c8ef8970c016760b25d36970b 2012-01-20T01:01:00+00:00 2012-01-20T16:41:09+00:00 Do you think the weather's bad enough in your neck of the woods? Spare a thought for Patrick Vickery who writes the hugely enjoyable Ramblingbloke, and gardens for a living forty miles past Inverness (good grief! So far north and... Helen Gazeley

InvernesshireDo you think the weather's bad enough in your neck of the woods?  Spare a thought for Patrick Vickery who writes the hugely enjoyable Ramblingbloke, and gardens for a living forty miles past Inverness (good grief! So far north and not swimming!). Consequently he's on intimate terms with chilly conditions that would make most of us wake up in sweat.

Here's how Patrick described himself to me:

I am what is known as a ‘jobbing’ gardener, moving from garden to garden throughout the working week. I drive a battered Ford Mondeo and wear a woolly hat. I am one of those scruffy-looking guys whose car is crammed to the gunwales with all manner of garden tools and accessories.

I can average eight gardens a day throughout the summer months, sometimes more. A diary is essential. By late afternoon I have often forgotten where I was in the morning. Two hours in one place is my limit. Anymore than that and the boredom threshold is breached. Variety is the key – a different location, a different cake (I am offered many cakes – perk of the job).

I'm delighted to say that Patrick has taken time out to guest on Weeding the Web. When he moved from the clement climes of Hampshire 25 years ago he found, "The growing season is short and the winters long, making life a little precarious at times for full-time gardeners." But he's not dwelling on the weather.   

When Helen suggested that I might write a guest article I was delighted. But what sort of article should it be? I have always had an interest in the person behind the garden - you know, the garden owner - so I thought I might ponder a bit about the people I have known rather than the vegetables I have grown.

Hammering home

Antique croquet malletI frequent a large garden on a regular basis (twice a week, weather permitting) where a certain notable of the district furnishes me with filter coffee and a blast of Vivaldi or Haydn through his conservatory window as I tend to his heather beds and shrubberies.

He is a retired judge. I call him Ronald. Others might refer to him as ‘My Lord’, or ‘Me Lud’. One year he loaned me an antiquated wooden mallet to bash posts in to support his sweet peas. The mallet was four times the size of a sledgehammer and, indeed, the sort of thing that Fred Flintstone or Barney Rubble would use to play croquet. I believe Ronald, himself, plays croquet with his enlarged mallet. Could be intimidating, eh?

A hot reception

Overkill on the weed burning stick‘Bingo’ (an ex-world war two pilot) adopted a scorched earth policy in his garden by burning the weeds with a flame thrower (a ‘weed burning stick’ to be precise, available from all good Garden centres, about £20, great fun).

He moved to a residential home for the elderly where he created havoc and mayhem in the old folk’s community garden. I tended his garden for a while after and, in particular, noted the absence of scorch marks that were so prevalent before he vacated the property.  He's dead now. I hope he was cremated; he'd have liked that.  He was a good man, ‘Bingo', I shall miss his eccentric ways.

Spying the advantage

Mentioning ‘Bingo’, the mysterious Mrs Mac comes to mind, an espionage expert, now sadly deceased, who insisted I dig goose fat around her roses to encourage vigorious growth. It’s an interesting idea, that, and possibly a throwback to horticulture from earlier times.

Mentioning this in my monthly newspaper column resulted in a few emails flying thick and fast in my direction from the Beechgrove Garden team. Not advised, they counselled, don’t do that, not that Mrs Mac would have taken a blind bit of notice, she knew Churchill, after all, and was on nodding terms with Stalin and Roosevelt at Yalta.

Out for a duck

Muscovy Duck by Robert Couse-BakerWhile loosely on the subject of eatable birds, goose fat and such like, another character of the district, Hamish, not far off 100 and surprisingly agile for a man of his age, used to keep Muscovy ducks and well recalls the occasional errant character fleeing from his garden with a Muscovy under one arm and a shore of ‘tatties’ under the other with himself in hot pursuit bellowing, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch, you bounder!”

Did he ever catch them? I don’t know. But I wouldn’t like to be in their shoes if he had.

Out of the mouths of babes

And finally a cautionary tale about the dangers of educating young children on environmental issues: I was pruning shrubs in town when a group of nursery age children passed by. One little chappie broke into spontaneous song: “He’s chopping down trees, he’s chopping down trees," he sang at the top of his voice and the other twenty or so children joined in.

Patrick also keeps goats and chickensGoatChicken_001Now, there’s a distinction between pruning (which has to be done) and chopping down trees (which doesn’t always have to be done), but try explaining that to a group of environmentally aware small people. Not as easy as it sounds. So I didn’t. I chopped and they sang.

If all this sound idyllic in an eccentric kind of way, then it is. But despite the prevalence of dolphins and seals, panoramic views of snow-capped mountain peaks and the abundance of cake, never forget that winter temperatures often dip below zero and the prospect of spending 2 hours outside in someone else’s garden can be a challenge.

I wouldn’t have it any other way, of course, but the wood burning stove is a welcome sight when I return home and I am ever thankful for my woolly hat and thermal socks.

May your gardening be joyful, above freezing and productive wherever you may be.

Next time, the first post in a new, monthly book review slot looks at Planting the Dry Shade Garden, by Graham Rice.

 http://helengazeley.typepad.co.uk/gardenwriter/2012/01/strange-life-in-the-garden-or-my-most-unforgettable-characters-with-apologies-to-readers-digest.html What the Dickens has Dickens got to do with gardening? tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a01156f7c8ef8970c0167606afdae970b 2012-01-14T16:44:46+00:00 2012-01-15T12:37:12+00:00 Happy New Year, in keeping with the situation! as Scrooge’s housekeeper might have said. If you vegged out with the TV over the festive season, you can’t possibly have missed the fact that next month sees the 200th anniversary of... Helen Gazeley

Douglas Booth as Pip in Great ExpectationsHappy New Year, in keeping with the situation! as Scrooge’s housekeeper might have said.

If you vegged out with the TV over the festive season, you can’t possibly have missed the fact that next month sees the 200th anniversary of Dickens’ birth. This obviously presents an irresistible reason for shoehorning him into a gardening blog; the only question being how.

Then, the BBC made a huge fanfare about Great Expectations. Shall I veer off into our great expectations of gardening or how plants have characters: how some sulk in a dark corner and never progress (Miss Haversham), others look delicate but have an iron will (Estella), some look hearty but are sensitive souls (Joe)?  

No, I won't (and you needn't sigh with relief). I’m going to mention the portrait of a dedicated gardener.

Some of you will immediately know who's coming, but if your only experience of Great Expectations is this Christmas’s three-part adaptation, you won’t have a clue. This dreary, lifeless, “it’s Victorian England so get out the brown filter” production sucked all the subtlety from a tale filled with humour and memorable characters.

Alec Guinness and John Mills (as Pip) in David Lean's Great ExpectationsInexplicably many critics loved it. I suspect that many critics, not only haven’t read the book, but haven’t watched the next best thing: David Lean’s 1946 film. A few hormones went into overdrive, too, at the sight of Douglas Booth’s knitting-pattern features (I think Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour team might actually have tripped over each others' tongues as they discussed him). Still, some maintained their sanity, and there’s a fulminating condemnation from Howard Jacobson in The Guardian, a cry of anguish from Paul Bailey at its being "as crude as an episode of  EastEnders", while Michael Deacon and Anne Billson of The Daily Telegraph moaned about miscasting.

Meanwhile, I opened the book, found my gardener and fell in love with Dickens all over again. Here’s Mr Wemmick, assistant to the enigmatic, powerful Mr Jaggers, talking to Pip in his garden:

“At the back, there’s a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you’ll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So sir," said Wemmick, smiling again but seriously, too, as he shook his head, “if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions.”

Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet.

“I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades,” said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. “Well, it’s a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged.”

He’s you, isn’t he? And me. Wemmick, the ordinary man with a tough job that strains his humanity, goes home, pours creativity into his garden (designed, note, to feel larger than it is), and is as proud as Punch.

Charles_Dickens_1858, The History BlogOf course, the little water feature wouldn't be everybody's taste. Nor would his home. This tiny cottage in Victorian suburbia has sham gothic windows, an impracticably small gothic front door, a roofline with pretend fortifications, and a flagstaff (up which Wemmick runs "a real flag" on Sundays).

Even more ridiculously, he fires a cannon every evening, which thrills the Aged (who is, of course, Wemmick’s very deaf father—“Nod away at him, Mr Pip; that’s what he likes.”).

It's exaggerated in the best traditions of story-telling, but for Wemmick his home is truly his castle, and who among us doesn't recognise that delight in getting home, metaphorically (indeed, literally, in Wemmick's case) pulling up the drawbridge, and losing ourselves in the flowerbeds? 

I doubt if Dickens had much time for gardening himself, but with his extraordinary ability to capture the essence of personality and depict human foibles, he surely makes us warm with affection to a fellow gardener, and smile at our own pretensions.

In the next post: working gardener and columnist Patrick Vickery relates the ups and downs of working with some eccentric clients.

 http://helengazeley.typepad.co.uk/gardenwriter/2012/01/charles-dickens-gardening-great-expectations.html Dreaming of a White Christmas with Bailey the Unknown Reindeer tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a01156f7c8ef8970c0162fce1e0b4970d 2011-12-22T01:59:00+00:00 2011-12-22T01:59:00+00:00 Well, despite the best efforts of the media to play up what snow has fallen so far, we can't really pretend we've had anything like last year's experience. Shame in a way - nothing like a white Christmas to put... Helen Gazeley

Well, despite the best efforts of the media to play up what snow has fallen so far, we can't really pretend we've had anything like last year's experience. Shame in a way - nothing like a white Christmas to put you in the mood, so, in celebration of the season before I sign off for 2011, here's a video of someone that really does enjoy some of the white stuff.

I wish you all a very Happy Christmas. See you again in the New Year.