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1. Peat bogs cover just 3% of the earth’s surface but store 30% of the world’s carbon.
2. They are the world’s largest carbon sink, storing more than all other types of vegetation combined
3. The peat forming process is very slow – it can take a hundred years to form one metre of peat
4. Draining, harvesting or burning peat releases hundreds of years of stored carbon into the atmosphere accounting for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions
5. “Every time you use a peat-based compost in the garden, you are deliberately participating in the destruction of a non-renewable environment that sustains some of our most beautiful plant and animal life. No garden on this earth is worth that.” Monty Don

There is no longer any good reason for amateur gardeners to use peat. Historically it was readily available, cheap and provided consistent results – rather like using coal to heat our homes. We now know the environmental cost of using these resources and need to look elsewhere. There are good alternatives available for both the professional and amateur market. In the past there were problems with the formulations, but now the best are every bit as good. If germination is not quite high as it is in peat-based composts (and this is debatable) this really doesn’t matter for ordinary gardeners because we all tend to grow far more seeds than we need. Less is more when it comes to seed sowing, but few of us resist an extra sprinkling of seeds! The difference between peat and its alternatives is that they are by-products or crops that do not require destroying a habitat. My favourite is a potting compost formulated from composted bark, which is a by-product of sustainable forestry in the UK and is endorsed by the Royal Horticultural Society. Coir is coconut husk and although this is imported, it is in a hugely compacted form and provides an important income for the producers. Bracken can be treated as a crop, cut annually and composted and sheep’s wool is a natural slow-release nitrogen fertiliser.

Peat-Free Composts

1. Sylvagrow produces a range of sustainable peat-free composts based on composted bark, wood fibre from sustainably-managed UK forests and coir. There are 6 different formulations: Sustainable Growing Medium; Sylvagrow with added (peat-free) John Innes; Peat-free planter (growbag) for Organic Growing; Organic Growing Medium; Tub and Basket; Ericaceous Compost. They are now offering a Bag for Life Service where retailers sell customers a bag for £2 that can be refilled, rather buying another plastic sack every time. Ask your local retailer if do or would consider offering this service. Bud Garden Centre in Manchester alerted me to it, also available at www.edibleculture.co.uk in Faversham and www.gardensage.co.uk at Burgess Hill. According to the makers of Sylvagrow there are currently seven or eight of their retailers offering bags for life, but there is huge interest, especially from small nurseries who are prepared to make the extra effort. Find out about Sylvagrow at www.melcourt.co.uk

2. Dalefoot – Potash-rich bracken forms the base for all their composts. Herdwick sheep’s wool is blended into their Wool Composts for improved water retention and slow release nitrogen.  All composts are approved for organic growing, are completely peat free and do not use green waste. Their range includes wool compost; wool compost for seeds; for vegetables and salads; ericaceous, wool compost for tomatoes www.dalefootcomposts.co.uk

3. Carbon Gold – organic Seed and All Purpose Compost combine organic coir with biochar. Biochar is a very pure, high-carbon form of charcoal that improves the structure, aeration, water-holding capacity and nutrient retention of soils while providing permanent home for beneficial microbiology. Carbon Gold’s biochar is enriched with fungi, trace nutrients and beneficial bacteria. It’s organic,100% chemical-free www.carbongold.com

4. Homemade – buying potting composts can be an expensive business and there is also the consideration of the plastic sacks they are packed in. If you have access to leaf mould and homemade compost, making your own seed and potting compost is a more environmentally friendly way to go. I would recommend that you buy loam to avoid weed seeds and you will need coarse sand,  horticultural grit and possibly vermiculite, so you won’t be entirely plastic-free.

Seed Compost Recipes:
33% each each loam, leaf mould and coarse sand

Or – the following 2 recipes from Monty Don
25% sieved compost, 50% leaf mould, 15% vermiculite or Perlite;
10% loam

Potting on Compost:
33% sieved compost, 33% leaf mould, 25% grit, 10% loam

And Now for Something Completely Different

Moorland Gold does actually contain peat, but is the natural run-off from the moors that is filtered out by the water companies so that it does not clog their pipes. It is Soil Association approved  and is available as Multi Purpose; Seed & Cutting; Potting and Container; Grow Bags www.westridingorganics.co.uk

Finally
Always ask whether the potting compost you are buying is peat free and check whether the garden centre staff are properly informed about the difference – or they may just fob you off with a product containing peat. Unless a plant is labelled as grown in peat-free compost it will contain peat, so it’s not just a matter of avoiding the composts – start to actively seek out and buy plants that are labelled as grown peat-free.

The post 5 Reasons Why Gardeners Must Go Peat-Free first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Photo taken at Hampton Court garden Festival 2019 featuring a Greenhouse by Cultivar.

Cultivar Greenhouses

The latest company to be offering a greenhouse with a porch is Cultivar. Available in a range  of sizes  their most attractive greenhouse  (as pictured) measures 10’ 7” (3218mm) by 18’ (5492mm). Accessed from the side through a generous porch this Victorian Greenhouse is available to go on a dwarf wall or with Accoya boarding. The Accoya boarding solution simplifies the base construction, in this instance all that is required is a flat level base. Generally speaking and in every instance herein the cost for preparing the base is down to the customer and is in addition to the greenhouse price. You should bare this in mind when setting a budget for the greenhouse. So coming back to the point a flat level base will be simpler and less costly than constructing a brick wall on which to mount the greenhouse. The above cultivar greenhouse comes as standard with 4mm toughened safety glass, full length automated ridge ventilation which works in conjunction with low level vents running down the length of the structure. It also has manual vents running the full width of each gable, that’s a lot of ventilation which will make for a healthy growing environment. Staging, shelving and shading is optional so this has not been included in the price. At the time of writing (January 2020) the above model costs in the region of £16,904. The dwarf wall model will be cheaper but you need factor in the additional cost of constructing the wall.  This cost includes VAT, delivery and installation on a base they ask you to prepare. If you’re in a position to get to the garden shows to buy your greenhouse then you may well benefit from an offer such as free fitting which will bring this price down. Interestingly they offer a modern version which has less of the fancy trimmings but the same facilities as the Victorian greenhouse and as you might expect this is a little cheaper.

Hartley Botanic

The Hartley Botanic porch range is not available with a boarded base option so you will need to budget more for the base construction on this range. We opted for a similar size to the cultivar greenhouse and this model measures 11’ (3366mm) by 19’ 1” (5860mm). Like the others this greenhouse is accessed from the side through the porch. With most of these companies there seems to be a sale price and a list price but offers seem commonplace so we’re using the sale price in each instant in order to draw a fair comparison. The show offer price for this model as taken in May 2019 is in the order of £21,000. This cost includes VAT, delivery and fitting on a base they ask you to prepare. Bare in mind that constructing a dwarf wall will add significantly to this cost.

Alitex

Perhaps more eye watering than Hartley the price of the range of models from Alitex is not for the faint of heart. The smallest and most basic model with a porch measures approximately 2600 x 4000mm and starts from £16,000. The next size up which is smaller than the greenhouses offered by Cultivar and Hartley is 2900 x 5100mm and as a basic model comes in at £21,450.  As with the models from Hartley Botanic you will need to cost in the construction of the dwarf wall.

Gabriel Ash

The Grand Portico from Gabriel Ash measures 3512mm x 6060mm and can usually be purchased as a show offer for a little under £20,000 which is a little cheaper than similar size models from both Hartley and Alitex. Although cedar greenhouses will perhaps not last as long as the Accoya Greenhouse from Cultivar these models come with the option of a wooden base so there is a potential cost and time saving since you will not have to build a dwarf wall.

So now you have an idea of the cost of these luxury greenhouses from some of Britain’s best suppliers you have to make up your mind which greenhouse works for you. My advice would be to get to one of the garden shows, like Hampton Court, where you will see up close the build quality, features and merits of each greenhouse and perhaps even haggle a little on price. I cannot recommend the Chelsea Flower Show on the basis that space is limited so there is not the selection of greenhouses there that you might get at some of the other larger shows like Hampton Court.

The post Greenhouse with Porch – where to buy. first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

So you’ve finally got some outdoor space and you want to start a garden Here’s 10 tips to help get you off to the right start.

• Buy yourself a spade. You don’t need to spend much in fact you can pick these up cheap at car boot sales. Weeding, digging holes for new plants, shifting compost, levelling ground, turning over soil – a spade does the lot.
• Get to know your soil. Before you go out and spend a your money on plants get to know a bit about your soil. At the very least see what plants seem to be doing well in neighbouring gardens. The more scientific amongst you might want to invest in a soil testing kit.
• Find a theme and stick to it. Do you want to grow flowers or grow your own food. If you’re not sure yet then perhaps a cottage garden is the way to go where you can mix and match as you see fit.
• Visit a garden show. Here in the UK there’s plenty of garden and flower shows on throughout the spring and summer, the RHS put on a number of these and they are well organised events with plenty of inspiration.
• Get some outdoor furniture, at the very least a chair. That way you can sit and enjoy the fruits of your labour. The garden is probably the most relaxing place to sit at home.
• Subscribe to some of the fantastic gardening channels on youtube. There’s a large community of people with similar interests to you happy to share their stories of success and failure.
• Grow some herbs. They are easy to grow, useful and attractive to look at – what’s not to like ?
• Embrace failure. I suspect that the most experienced gardeners have killed the most plants and there’s no doubt that a few will die on you too. Gardening is all down to experience so the sooner you learn that things don’t always work as you might expect the better.
• Visit some gardens. Your neighbours, your mates, your families or perhaps some of the more famous gardens around Britain, there’s a lot of inspiration and plant ideas all around.
• Start a compost heap. You’ll be surprised just how much waste can be composted, take a look here to see our guide to composting. It’s no doubt a that creating compost heap is one of the best things you can do in your garden. This will provide valuable nutrients to ensure your plants thrive !

So there’s Ten tips for the beginner gardener. What are you waiting for, go buy that spade.

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It’s no secret that gardening requires effort and time but if you have have a busy schedule or a propensity perhaps to sit and relax then here’s five low maintenance garden plants you should include in your garden. Most of these plants will give you good ground cover which will help keep any weeds at bay and save you time weeding.

• Hebe rakaiensis – available in a broad range of colours and sizes so you should be able to find a variety that you will like. This small evergreen shrub is relatively slow growing and puts on a display of small delicate white flowers in the summer. It forms these attractive rounded mounds and the small silvery leaves go really well with most the plants in my garden, one of which is my next low maintenance plant :
• Pittosporum Tom Thumb – has a more rounded habit and small undulate leaves. This slow growing shrub is naturally dense and so is often shaped into topiary but you can of course leave it to grow naturally. New leaves are tinted green, going very well with the Hebe just mentioned but as the season progresses these leaves turn a deep purple.
• Buxus Sempervirens – that’s box hedge to you and me and as the name suggests this can be used successfully to edge borders or can shaped as an individual specimen as I have here. Like both of the above this is an evergreen compact dense shrub. I find this easiest to plant as in Autumn from bare root stock. All that box requires is an annual trim to keep it in good order which is pretty low maintenance when compared to a lawn for example that at this time of year requires a weekly mow.
• Lauris Noblis, aka Bay will contrast brilliantly with the any of the above mound forming shrubs. With larger glossier leaves it contrasts brilliantly with both Hebe and Pittosporum Tom Thumb. Like all the plants in this list Bay requires very little maintenance other than perhaps an annual trim. Shaped as an obelisk or pillar Bay makes a great focal point and is relatively fast growing.
• Hydrangea – our final low maintenance plant will give your garden a bit more colour in late summer as the flowers pull your attention away from the interesting and often lush green foliage. If planted in acidic soil many of the hydrangeas develop blue flowers, if not the flowers will be pink. You can influence the colour of the flowers by controlling the soil acidity. This is most easily done by planting in pots where you may choose to use ericaceous soil to encourage blue flowers.

So there’s 5 low maintenance plants to try growing in your garden so you can spend less time gardening and more time enjoying your garden instead.

The post 5 Low Maintenance Garden Plants first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Forest Garden’s Victorian Walkaround Greenhouse is a great idea for anyone with limited space – the gardener stays outside and opens the doors to get access to the plants inside. Maybe not ideal for the gardener when it rains, but a good place to keep tender plants during winter – I’m trying to work out if I have somewhere suitable for it – it would make a perfect miniature orangery to overwinter my citrus trees. £529.99 from www.forestgarden.co.ukBlooming Amazing (£6.99 for 70 litres) is a soil enricher that is the by-product of anaerobic digestion in which plant material is broken down to create biogas. Think of the process as an artificial cow’s stomach – the plants go in, are chomped up, break down, and release gas and out the other end comes a useful soil mulch that is pleasant to handle, rich in nutrients and an ideal top dressing for the garden. Check their website www.bloominamazing.com for local stockists.

There were several companies at the event introducing new ways of feeding your plants. Envii caught my eye with their probiotics for plants – these work in a similar way to mycorrhizal fungi, but apparently are different. I will be interested to try them, especially the Maximato tomato feed (£20 for 500ml from Amazon). There were several things I liked about this company – on a practical note, the liquid feed containers had a built in measuring device which is something I’ve been requesting for absolutely ages; also they are working hard to make their packaging and delivery as environmentally friendly as possible. Envii is phasing out single-use plastics and they now use a green type of jiffy bag that is entirely compostable, hexcel paper instead of bubble wrap and paper parcel tape instead of the plastic version. To highlight their green credentials they had planted up a jiffy bag and also used the self-clinging hexcel paper to make a plant pot. Good stuff. www.envii.co.uk

Specialist feed producer Vitax has a range of targeted plant foods to meet the specific requirements of a variety of shrubs and trees. The latest additions to the range are an Olive Tree Feed (help for those many starved specimens you see languishing in pots) and a Tree Fern and Palm Feed. None of these plants is cheap to buy so it is worthwhile investing in targeted feed to keep them healthy and growing strongly. Local stockists are listed on their website www.vitax.co.uk

If I needed any more planters (I definitely do not!!!!) then I would be very tempted by the Rustic range at Woodlodge. The moulds used to make them have been taken from natural materials so they give a very good impression of being made from bark, slate and weathered timber. They are extremely heavy (concrete?) so very stable and are reasonably priced. www.woodlodge.co.uk for stockists

Wandering among the seed merchants displays, two that tempted me were Alonsoa warscewiczii ‘Scarlet’ from the Sarah Raven range for Johnsons Seeds and ‘Red Swan’ dwarf French bean at Mr. Fothergill’s. The alonsoa was such a gorgeous colour that I felt I must have a go at growing it – and with the French bean the combination of the pink shade and the claim of ‘incredible flavour’ on the seed packet proved irresistible.

The post New Products for 2019 first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

It’s decades since I last visited the Huntingdon Gardens and my memory of them was quite hazy, other than admiring the Japanese bridge and seeing hippeastrums growing outdoors, so it was top on my list of places to go when we had a two-night stopover in Los Angeles en route to Tasmania.

It has clearly been spraunced up a fair bit since my last visit and parts of it are quite breathtaking – in particular the Desert Garden – it is astonishing. I’m not sure how I missed seeing it on my first visit as it covers ten acres and is nearly 100 years old and filled with a magnificent array of very large and very prickly customers. Mind you, I did have a toddler in tow at the time, so it was probably best avoided!

The contrasting shapes and textures create a magnificent tapestry. I was particularly struck by the golden barrel cacti that were grown from seed before 1915 and many of which now weigh several hundreds of pounds. There are yuccas reaching sixty feet and two hundred species of aloe, many of which were in full flaming flower.

Buds were emerging on the cacti, but it would be a few weeks before they added further colour to the landscape.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Desert Garden was the birdsong – whilst it was quite muted in the rest of the Huntingdon Gardens, amongst the nectar-rich aloes it was unmissable. They clearly loved this garden as much as I did and should you find yourself in Los Angeles make sure that you go there too – you won’t be disappointed.

The post Pasadena’s Huntingdon Gardens Revisited first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Key to photographs:

Top row: Beast from the East; a carpet of Fritillaria meleagris at Great Dixter; tubs of  tulip ‘Exotic Emperor’ either side of our front door

Middle row: Dahlia ‘Tartan’ at Perch Hill; Rose ‘Simple Life’ at Perch Hill; trough of cutting tulips in my garden (they looked too lovely to pick!).

Bottom Row: Hellebore in my garden (I think it is a picotee) bought many years ago from Elizabeth Strangman; cutting garden at Perch Hill; corner of the courtyard in my garden with Begonia boliviensis.

New Year’s Eve in the Garden

This strange year has been full of horticultural surprises, courtesy of the unpredictable weather – and it continues right to the very end. There are plants in flower  that are hanging on from summer and autumn – most unusually, the Brugmansia that is still in full leaf and producing the odd bloom or two (a neighbour tells me hers is covered in flowers). Salvia ‘Phyllis’s Fancy’ is still blooming against the wall, with winter-flowering iris emerging beneath it – a very unlikely combo. More predictably, the first hellebores are opening and Clematis ‘Winter Beauty’ is dangling from the branches of the quince tree. Meanwhile, overhead the mimosa has started to flower weeks ahead of schedule. I’ve certainly never had mimosa in the house in December before now.   Gardening is always full of surprises and I’m sure 2019 will be no different. Happy New Year.

Mimosa

Salvia ‘Phyllis’s Fancy’

Iris unguicularis

Hellebore

Clematis urophylla ‘Winter Beauty’

Brugmansia

The post Goodbye 2018 first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

The post Pimp your Mahonia first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

The idea behind Silly Greens is that you sign up for regular deliveries, so that you always have something growing on your windowsill. This is ideal for flat dwellers and students and those too busy to organise it themselves. Each pack costs £4 and everything (bar the plants!) can be repacked and sent back using an enclosed Freepost label.

Of course, none of this is rocket science and anyone with a plastic tray or two, some paper towel, or similar water-holding material (or even soil) can buy packets of microgreen seeds and make their own windowsill garden. Most seed companies, including Suttons, Marshalls, Unwins and Johnsons sell kits and a wide range of seeds. It’s well worth the effort.

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The citrus trees are far too precious to risk losing them and although they are now too large to find space for all three indoors, two come through the winter pretty well on a bench in front of the window in the garage, while the other has pride of place in the kitchen. Come the spring when they all go outdoors, the two less-cossetted trees are soon back in tip top condition.

Then there’s the belt-and-braces approach – one of the brugmansias in the courtyard is ten foot tall and still producing flowers so I’m reluctant to cut it back yet, but I do have a sister plant that was cut back and potted up and tucked under the brick arch of the log store – along with some geraniums – where it will get reasonable light but stay dry. Another lodger in the log store is a pot of black-eyed Susan – it’s a bit of a gamble – I’ve had them come through the winter before and they flowered much earlier than bought in plants and romped up fifteen feet, so rather consign them to the compost heap they can take their chances. Salvias get similar treatment – I leave some plants outdoors, but dig others up, cut them right back and pot them up to overwinter in the conservatory and take cuttings to root in a propagator. Salvias ‘Amistad’, Ceri potosi and Phyllis’s Fancy all get this treatment.

Second brugmansia has been cut back and is cosying up to geraniums

Brugmansia

If you haven’t already done so, just about the most important thing you can do to help outdoor potted plants come through the winter, is to remove any saucers from underneath the pots and lift the pots off the ground – put them on a raised surface, or use pot feet. When moisture can drain away freely the roots of the plants are much less likely to be damaged by frost. It can also help to cover some of the more vulnerable plants with cloches – especially succulents.

There’s one task that I still have on my list – I have several large pots of agapanthus – most winters they do fine as long as I tuck them up with a deep layer of bark that covers the roots and the fleshy base of their leaves, but lying snow can cause them to rot, so I now play safe by adding a fleece cover to their protection – it’s not very pretty but the plants are worth protecting.

Surface rooting agapanthus can be vulnerable to damage from snow

Everything else has to take its chances – I apply deep mulches to plants in the border that are too large to move and most winters they will be fine – if not it offers an opportunity to plant something entirely different!

The post Time to take Cover first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Our magnificent tulip tree Liriodendron tulipifera has just had its five-yearly haircut. As much as we would like to leave it to grow without interference, there comes a point when it overhangs the house to such an extent that intervention is necessary. Also, a large area of the garden becomes increasingly shady from July to November and the plants beneath it get increasingly leggy, or give up entirely.

This year the change was particularly dramatic because the tulip tree still had most of its leaves when it was pruned. I asked the tree surgeons if this was a problem but they said it was fine and that the leaves were actually quite helpful as they act as parachutes, meaning that there were fewer casualties amongst the plants beneath the tree. There are always some losses, however careful they are, but on the whole it was a few squashed foxgloves and flattened hellebores rather than anything really serious.

By the time the tree surgeons left it was nearly dark so it was inevitable that there would be some cleaning up to be done and I have spent the last couple of days tidying the aftermath. There has been a definite win in having the tree pruned with its leaves in place – leaf sweeping will be much reduced this year and as we already have a fairly monumental leaf heap we won’t be missing out on leafmould. Tulip tree leaves are pretty slow to decompose, so I always need to move most of them to allow the spring bulbs and flowers to be seen – left in place everything tends to wear a leafy hat and be somewhat starved of light which is not the effect I am looking for!

Post-pruning, the woodland area beneath the tulip tree had a deep layer of leaves, twigs and small branches that needed removing. Twigs and branches are now in a heap ready for shredding and spreading on the paths, while the vast majority of the leaves are on the leaf heap. I can now get on with planting narcissus and tulips that I am naturalising in the woodland area and once that is done I will spread a thick layer of composted bark. It’s always a bit unnerving seeing our much-loved tree cut back, but experience has taught us that it responds well to this treatment and for the next few years the plants beneath it will enjoy living in the light.

The post Letting in the Light first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Wisterias are wonderful plants, but once established they do have imperialistic tendencies, wreathing and twining their way to cover walls, reach for roofs and wind through windows, so generally it is not considered a suitable plant for small spaces.  However, on my recent visit to the Hillier Garden  I saw a new technique they are using that makes it possible to grow them successfully in a garden with limited space.

With this system the wisterias are grown up a single sturdy post about 3 metres tall. A single stem is trained up the post and the side shoots are spur-pruned back to a couple of buds from the main stem (similar to how fruit trees are pruned).  As the plants establish this will build a framework that will be laden with flowers in the spring.  It is important to cut back the new shoots that emerge during the growing season to maintain the shape of the flowering column.

The post Wisterias for Small Spaces first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

After an amazing summer, autumn seems determined to compete. A group of garden journalists, including myself, were fortunate to take a guided tour of the Hillier Gardens with head gardener, David Jewell and the one-man plant encyclopaedia Roy Lancaster. Roy regaled us with tales of virtually every plant we saw, so progress was slow but hugely entertaining.

Rare Beauties

It is always exciting when you see something you’ve never seen before. The star was a tree called Cyclocarya paliurus, commonly known as the wheel wing nut because of the circular wing around the small nut.  Apparently it has never looked finer – I loved the way the light illuminated the wheels. I was also smitten with an incredibly shaggy birch Betula albosinensis ‘Bowling Green’ that was looking wonderful as the low sunlight illuminated the bark.

Gilded Grass

One of the highlights of the vast Centenary Border was Miscanthus nepalensis – it looks like it has been dipped in gold at this time of year.  Although not hardy in colder areas, it stays relatively compact, so is definitely worth a go if you think you can get away with it.

Clematis terniflora

I’m not sure I have ever come across this clematis before, but my, it is a beauty – fragrant  and as flower smothered as any I have ever seen. It something that takes a bit of finding, but I reckon it’s well worth the hunt.

The post Autumn Treasures at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Aster frikartii ‘Monch’ with Rosa ‘Cornelia’

If you harbour doubts about the usefulness of asters in the garden, can I recommend a visit to Waterperry Gardens where the borders are made brilliant with these vibrant autumn flowers. Just at the point when their summer companions are fading, they are in full fig, along with salvias, heleniums and ornamental grasses.

Aster ‘White Ladies’

Aster ‘Erica’

Waterperry, just outside Oxford, has an interesting history. In the early 20thcentury it became the Waterperry Horticultural School for Ladies, under the tuition of Beatrix Havergal, finally closing in 1971. Its current owners have kept the gardens open, retaining the horticultural staff who still run the day classes established by Miss Havergal.

A photo of Beatrix Havergal at her desk ©Waterperry

©Waterperry

Anyway, back to the asters. Rather like dahlias, they spent many years when they were out of fashion, but with the advent of prairie-style planting they are back in favour. One of the reasons they fell out of favour was their vulnerability to powdery mildew, which ruined their appearance. The good news is that the New England asters – the novae-angliae cultivars have good mildew-resistance, whilst the novae-belgii varieties are more likely to succumb. In my own garden – even after this long, hot, dry summer and my light, sandy soil, my novae-angliae asters are still looking healthy and glossy-leaved. At Waterperry, several caught my eye. Deepest purple ‘Helen Picton’ is on my want list, but the plants in the nursery were so tall that I resisted and hope to find it at the Great Dixter Autumn Plant Fair on October 6th-7th where I also hope to find the extremely pretty pink ‘Fellowship’. I did come away with the lovely ‘Lutetia’.

By the way, while ‘aster’ or Michaelams daisies remain in common use, there has been a lot of reclassification going on and the North American asters are now botanically classified as ‘symphyotricom’.

Aster ‘Lutetia’

Aster ‘Fellowship’

I picked up some useful information at Waterperry about how and where to grow asters. The New England asters have a tall habit and when grown in a sheltered border against a wall or fence, will need staking. However, when grown in the open e.g. an island bed, the movement of the wind through the plants will make the plants shorter and sturdier, so staking is not required. This is more like their natural prairie habitat.

Staking required against the wall

Island border – no staking needed

The Magic Apple Tree

Waterperry Gardens are equally well known for their apple growing and the ultimate example of this is their multi-grafted family tree that grows an astonishing forty-five different varieties. Apparently the world-record is over sixty varieties on one tree, but quite how they find space for that many grafts is a mystery to me. The tree is mainly an exercise in giving students the opportunity to learn how to graft, but laden as it is with fruit, it is truly a wonder to behold.

The post Peak Aster first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

My ‘To Do’ List

• The first thing I did was order the nematodes – they arrived in the post a couple of days later and were put in the fridge to await application.
• Next job was to scarify the lawn. This is a good time of year to do this whether or not you are applying nematodes – it gets rid of all the dead thatch in the grass and aerates the lawn. My scarifier is basically a rake with spikes on it and is all I need for my small lawn – larger lawn might need something mechanical – but I tell myself that doing the job by hand is great exercise for the stomach muscles. The dead grass that is collected goes on the compost heap.
• The lawn must be damp when you apply nematodes so a day of rain created the perfect conditions – once the rain had stopped.
• Using the hose-end applicator was an absolute doddle. In the past I’ve found applying nematodes with a sprayer, or using a watering can with a large rose far from satisfactory. No matter how thoroughly I stirred in the nematode mix, it always clogged up. No such problem this time.
• I tipped the nematodes into the applicator bottle, topped it up with water and gave it a good stir.



• Then it was simply a matter of attaching the hose – it couldn’t have been more straightforward. I sprayed on the nematodes until the applicator bottle was empty.
• I then gave the lawn a further soak with plain water to help wash the nematodes into the turf.
• It is important that the lawn does not dry out for two weeks after application, so I am watering the lawn regularly unless it rains.
• I applied the chafer grub nematodes last week and have just followed the same method for the leatherjackets.

JOB DONE!

The post Begone Leatherjackets and Chafer Grubs! first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Coleus and Rudbeckia

My own garden seems somewhat lacking in colour at the moment and what colour there is, is fairly low key as I wait for the asters to add some vibrancy. The same cannot be said at Perch Hill, Sarah Raven’s garden near Brightling in East Sussex where it is positively kaleidoscopic at the moment.

Even the strawberries have colourful flowers

Amaranth and chard with dahlias and verbena

Sarah’s vegetable beds are quite awe-inspiring. The mix of ornamentals and edibles, as well as the health and size of the plants is a sight to behold. Of course, she does have the luxury of space, allowing a glorious combination of aesthetics and productivity. Not something that most of us can manage on the same scale, but it is always worth having a pot or two of ornamentals amongst the vegetables to brighten things up.

Dazzling Dahlias

Cafe au Lait

Tartan

It has been a great year for dahlias, with the hot dry weather keeping the slugs at bay and allowing the plants to grow strongly without first being savaged by the munchers. Sarah’s trial beds are a perfect place to make your selection for next year. As much as I love the pale beauty ‘Café au Lait’, it is quite difficult to place in the border unless you favour a fairly subtle colour range of plants. I prefer a bit of full-on colour and my favourite was ‘Tartan’, a swirling mass of crimson and white that looks like blackcurrants being swirled into a dish of yoghourt – it really is yummy!

Dahlia trial beds

Simple Beauty

I was enchanted by one of the roses in the garden at Perch Hill – ‘Simple Life’ – it is a short climber/tall shrub that has a purity and delicacy that makes me want to have one. I just need to find somewhere I can plant it in my crowded garden.

A Compost Palace

New since my last visit earlier in the summer is a magnificent structure where Perch Hill will be producing all its own compost from now on. There was a notice saying that they have had a problem with imported compost made from green waste that was contaminated with herbicide. It has devastated one of their dahlia trial beds, so I suspect that they are planning to avoid this by producing all their own compost. The ‘palace’ will allow them to produce compost on a very large scale – seldom has a compost heap looked so inviting.

The Power of Instagram

After my recent visit to Perch Hill, I posted a photo of an ornamental grass that I really liked and wrongly identified as an annual called Agrostis Nebulosa. The Perch Hill instagrammer let me know (very nicely) that I had misidentified it and it was actually the perennial Panicum elegans ‘Sparkling Fountain’. A local friend and fellow instagrammer saw the post and replied that she had lots of the self-sown plants growing in her garden and I could have one. She delivered it to my door the following day and it is now happily ensconced in my garden. Go Instagram!

The post Autumn Colour at Perch Hill first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

A local allotment site has asked me to judge their allotments for the past couple of years and it has been really interesting to see the different techniques that the various plot holders employ.

One of the most interesting was explained to me by Tim, who took over a neglected, steeply-sloping and overgrown plot two years ago. Since then, he has set about its restoration based on the principal that he dedicates half the plot to productivity and half – as he puts it – to decay (i.e. producing compost). Rather than serried ranks of bins, he makes ‘compost pathways’. He has done this by marking out the pathways that run parallel to the hill, digging down a metre (this is the demanding bit) and using the excavated soil to form the terraced beds. The sides of the paths are lined with landscape fabric. He then starts to fill the ‘compost pathways’ with every bit of green waste he can lay his hands on, both from his own plot and from other allotmenteers. Branches, sticks, hedge trimmings, perennial weeds, they all go in and as they rot, lose mass, so he can add more. Any perennial weeds that have the temerity to appear have their foliage chopped off and added to the path. When he is ready to use the compost, he will scrape away the upper, less-rotted material and then dig out the black gold to add to the adjoining beds. His plot is entirely no dig and incredibly productive, if a bit random in appearance. It wouldn’t be practical, or physically possible for everyone but it is an interesting technique for someone taking over a neglected plot.

The post An Innovative Gardening Technique first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

This mulberry tree belonging to a friend is at least 200 years old

Many of its branches lie on the ground

Well mulberry tree actually – after eighteen years it has grown so large that I will be asking the tree surgeons to give it a trim this year, about a month after leaf fall. Learn from my mistake and if you do plant one, make sure that it has plenty of room to grow in all directions and won’t be a problem if its branches start to droop towards the ground, which is its natural habit. Pruning it won’t do it any harm as the tree is relatively young and still growing vigorously, provided we don’t lop off any major branches – this can leave wounds that won’t heal properly.

My own mulberry tree

Pruning the tree will affect its productivity, which will be a shame as it has had its best crop ever this year, but it is shading one of the few sunny borders in this shady garden, so the sacrifice must be made. If I were able to allow the branches to bend towards the ground, picking the berries would be much easier, as it is I have been spending quite a lot of time up my trusty (and oh so stable) Niwaki ladder www.niwaki.com with my head among the leaves picking these incredibly juicy and delicious berries. You will never see them in the shops because they have zero shelf life – they must be picked and eaten immediately, open frozen on trays and then bagged up, or made into compote. I mix a quarter blackcurrants with the mulberries when making compote as it intensifies the flavour.

There’s no doubt that harvesting the mulberries is a messy business, I usually descend from the tree looking like I have been involved in a major crime with hands dripping red juice and sundry stains all over my clothing as berries fall apart in my hands or drop on me as I pull the branches towards me. It is worth it though and the good news is that the stains easily wash off my clothes and myself. I thought I had found an easier solution when I spread fine mesh on the ground to catch berries as they fell, but discovering that a fox had taken to sharing the crop with me (and marking his territory!) I decided that I would leave the fallen fruit to him.

The post Here I go Round the Mulberry Bush first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Sow some flat leaf parsley now and it will germinate quickly and grow to full size plants before autumn takes hold. You can leave it outdoors and cover it with a cloche in really cold weather, or bring a plant or two undercover for winter.

Sowings of coriander, chervil and basil grow rapidly right now and provide lots of herbs to accompany the courgette and tomato glut! I’m in the middle of potting up the young plants from a sowing earlier in the month. And I’m also making regular sowings of salad rocket – you can never have enough rocket. Once it cools down a bit I will swap to growing wild rocket for autumn eating.

Chervil

Coriander

Lettuce-leaved basil

Salad Rocket

If you do sow lettuce seed, you will need to put it in a cool place to germinate – above 19º they remain dormant.

The post A Time to Sow first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Detail from the Blue Borders Ornamentals and vegetables intermingle

Despite the searing heat that had me wilting (the bright sunshine made photography difficult) and the lack of rain the plants were in fine fettle.

As well as the ornamental borders and the fine vegetable garden where flowers and vegetables intermingle, Tom has been conducting a trial of annual climbers this year.

‘Clear-eyed Orange’

‘Clear-eyed Yellow’

Some of these have found the current growing conditions difficult, but it was noticeable that the Thunbergia (Black-eyed Susan) were largely unaffected. I’ve seen them growing in their native habitat in South Africa climbing through trees in dry scrubby areas, so they seem well-equipped for the current drought conditions.  Of those being trialled, I particularly liked two clear-eyed (no black centre) varieties ‘Clear-Eyed Orange’ and ‘Clear-Eyed Yellow’ and elsewhere in the trials,  the huge flowers of the morning glory ‘Flying Saucers’ means that will be one I will be looking out for, even though I generally prefer the purity of ‘Heavenly Blue’. I think the two would look wonderful mixed together. After a recent visit to Mallorca, I’m also going to have a go at growing the perennial variety Ipomea indica, I’m sure it will do well grown in a pot in my very warm garden and I will cut it back and keep it in the conservatory over winter.

Morning Glory ‘Flying Saucers’

Perennial morning glory Ipomea indica

No visit to Parham is complete without spending time lingering in the glasshouse which is filled with a wonderful array of ornamental plants. I suspect that this glasshouse has been the pride and joy of many of the head gardeners over the years and Tom is certainly keeping it in magnificent style.

The entrance to the glasshouse

The view along the glasshouse

Planting detail with purple salpiglossis , yellow cestrum and purple heliotrope

Thunbergia alata cascading from a windowsill inside the glasshouse

The post Parham House Gardens first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Every garden should have a birdbath – especially in this hot weather when birds, like everything else in the garden, need a drink, as well as somewhere to cool off. I have decided that no matter how busy I am, there is always time to stop and watch the birds taking a bath. The blackbirds are particularly enthusiastic, splashing the water everywhere, meaning that regular refills are needed during the day. The thrushes are equally keen, while the bluetits and great tits favour communal bathing and the pairs of blackcaps and bullfinches prefer to bathe a deux. In this dry weather a birdbath is more important than feeding the birds (although we do both), but it is important to refill it daily – even if the blackbirds haven’t emptied it – so that the water is fresh and there is no chance of spreading any avian diseases.

A young robin takes a quick dip while a juvenile blackbird waits for a go.

The post Making a Splash first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

It’s three years since I last visited Hyde Hall and my goodness, what a transformation. A cluster of good looking new buildings perches on the hilltop, providing an enclosed teaching garden with classrooms, a large hall for meetings and conferences and a spacious restaurant (there’s another one at the entrance). The previously rather tired vegetable garden has been replaced with the World Garden where they are experimenting with growing all manner of unusual crops outside and inside the impressive octagonal glasshouse. The circular design by Xa Tollemache radiates from the glasshouse making it both practical and great to look at.

But it was another part of the garden that really blew me away – the Sky Meadow – part European steppe planting, part American prairie and part South African veldt the hillside features an ever-changing display of flowers. At the moment oenothera, penstemon, monarda and oxeye daisies are in the ascendant but it will keep on giving right through until autumn. Its brilliant – sadly not something I could replicate even on a small scale in my shady garden.

This may be the driest part of the country, but somehow my visit managed to coincide with rain so my apologies that the photos don’t sparkle as much as I would like them to.

The post RHS Hyde Hall Renaissance first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Ok, not in the conventional sense, I actually love the colour pink, but it’s a description of my response when confronted with multihued rhododendrons and azaleas planted en masse – as I was on a recent visit to Norfolk.

Rhododendrons are such thugs, elbowing everything else out of the way, souring the soil and depriving anything else attempting to grow of any light. Other visitors were oohing and aahing, while I just saw monoculture and stagnant ponds. I’m sure there are situations where they are useful, especially on very acid soils, but there are plenty of other acid loving plants that could be planted with them to much more interesting effect. Once they have flowered, they are very dull indeed. Rant over! There are two fragrant varieties that I love (although not enough to grow them) – the wild Azalea ponticum and the pure white Rhododendron fragrantissimum.

Of course there are places where they are grown more sensitively, for example Bowood House’s rhododendrons are planted beneath wonderful specimen trees and with space between them as they follow the contours of the land in something more akin to their normal hillside habitat. And despite my reservations about them in gardens, I would still love to see them growing in the wild.

The post Rhodophobia first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

The People

I love the way that people embrace the floral theme – these are a few enthusiasts that caught my eye.

Well-known garden writer, Peter Seabrook, dons this tie for all special horticultural occasions. It was given to him by American friends and whenever he is photographed wearing it in the presence of royalty he sends the photo through to them and they have it made into a fridge magnet. He recently told the Duchess of Cornwall that their photo would be on a fridge in Minnesota within the week!

From Chelsea Pensioner to a floral feast of a jacket, red stood out from the crowds

The couple running this cactus stand have certainly embraced their love of cacti.

The theme was green for garden designer Ann-Marie Powell and a stylish attendee – and very lovely they both looked.

The Plants

There were lashings of lupins around in the show gardens, but over the years I’ve found they are not the most reliable of plants, succumbing to slugs, wilt and aphid attack, so I was much more attracted to their tougher relative the baptisia which is now available in a range of colours, rather than just blue. It’s a plant I will seek out.

I’m always a sucker for a poppy and this soft pink Papaver dubium lecoqii Album was a lovely presence in several of the gardens. The seed is available form Derry Watkin’s Special Plants and at Great Dixter.

John Massey’s Ashwood Hellebores were hugely admired in the Great Pavilion –his skills as a plant breeder and his ability as a grower meant he could present such a wide range of cultivars all in flower for Chelsea.

I’ve developed a bit of a thing for species streptocarpus – they are so much more delicate than the larger cultivars that are popular houseplants – I spotted this one Streptocarpus baudertii on the Dibley’s stand in the Great Pavilion.

I’ll probably never grow trilliums – very expensive slug fodder in my estimation – but I could certainly admire the peerless beauty of this double white on the Kevock stand.

Cayeaux Irises had many beautiful bearded irises on their stand – by far the most attention grabbing, both for its looks and its appearance was ‘Bewilderbeast’.

A German grower had brought some amazing orchids to Chelsea – the stand was beautifully styled with antique collecting tools and books. My skills at orchid growing does not extend beyond moth orchids, so this was very much a case of admiring without coveting.

On my recent visit to the Cotswolds I bought a kniphofia pauciflora – smaller and more delicate than most red hot pokers – not a plant I knew before, but there it was a Chelsea.

One of the loveliest stands in the Great Pavilion was Flowers from the Farm. They are a co-operative of artisan cut flower growers across the UK who supply both wholesalers and the public with a wonderful array of British grown flowers. It is so good to see British flower growers really getting established.

The Show Gardens

There were three standout gardens for me, only one of which attracted a gold medal. Sarah Price’s Mediterranean-inspired garden did evoke that landscape that inspired it most wonderfully, but then so did the South African garden with its Cape Dutch house and fynbos planting, as did the Yorkshire garden, which was a masterclass in stonemasonry.

Mediterranean

On a more modest scale, one of the best ideas I saw was on the Lemon Tree Trust garden, where breeze blocks were used to create stepped planters. The Trust provides support, materials and expertise to refugees who want to create small gardens in the camps.

Invasive Plant Alert

I was surprised to find that I have four of the listed invasive species in my garden. I think of buddleja, cotoneaster horizontalis and crocosmia as thugs, rather than unmanageable invaders and rosa rugosa as a useful plant where nothing else will grow. In my own garden I would add Spanish Bluebells and hemerocallis to the rogues gallery, but the important point is to make sure that you get rid of excess plants responsibly. I shred mine and then compost them and if there are just too many I take them to the local green waste site for composting there.

The post Reflections on Chelsea 2018 first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

I had the great good fortune to be invited to a dinner at Barnsley House to celebrate Mrs. Verey’s life – and then to stay overnight so that I could visit the village open gardens on the following day. Perfect weather made the occasion even more memorable.

Somewhere on my bookshelves, there lurks a copy of the book Rosemary Verey co-authored with Avilde Lees-Milne, ‘The Englishwoman’s Garden’ with its cover showing the famous Laburnum Walk at Barnsley House. Since I last visited there, the original laburnums had started to die and have had to be replaced, but the new trees are growing well and we were told that this is the first year when they have put on a proper show of flowers. The accompanying alliums were at their peak, making for a vibrant display. I’m not sure that the laburnum is my favourite tree, especially when combined with purple alliums, but how boring life would be if we all liked the same things. Rosemary Verey advised The Prince of Wales on his garden at Highgrove and the same purple and yellow combo appears on the Thyme Walk with golden yews and purple creeping thymes.

One of the fellow guests at the dinner was sculptor, Simon Verity, who was commissioned to make sculptures for Mrs Verey, including the ‘Flower Sellers’ on either side of the gate that leads from the main garden to the potager across the lane. As a sculptor, it must be wonderful to see your sculptures weather and age as this pair has done.

The most eye-catching plant was the stripey Paeony delaveyi, given the name ‘Burnt Marmalade’ by Rosemary Verey. It appears to be unique to Barnsley House, which is probably a good thing as I have nowhere suitable to put one even if it was available. Lack of a suitable spot often fails to dissuade me from buying a plant – I’m currently desperately seeking a suitable spot for a lovely Rosa mutabilis that I succumbed to recently!

These days, the potager is primarily ornamental, with most of the vegetable-growing for the hotel taking place in polytunnels tucked discreetly out of sight. While the box-edged beds would provide for a family’s needs, the hotel’s demands are far greater.

Appropriately, the celebratory dinner included home grown vegetables, as well as eggs from the Barnsley House chickens and the tables were decorated with delightfully informal arrangements of flowers picked from the garden.

The following day, while most of the world watched the Royal Wedding, I enjoyed the peace and quiet of the Barnsley Village Open Gardens. It was unfortunate timing for them as they usually have far more visitors, but a perfect opportunity for me to see the gardens without the crowds. The Little House garden was particularly impressive, but there were many charming corners elsewhere.

Herbs for Healing is the garden of Rosemary Verey’s daughter Davina Wynne Jones – a delightful contrast to the formality of her mother’s garden

Details from the garden of The Little House

A perfect marriage of stone, water and ferns

The gardens of Barnsley House are open to guests who are staying, or having lunch in the restaurant, or for £10 per person you can wander round the gardens and enjoy homemade biscuits with coffee or tea – but do check first in case the hotel is closed for a private event.

The post Rosemary Verey Remembered – In Style first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

A natural fernery

Convolvulus cantabricus

Wall Rue

And finally to purple cow-wheat – not a plant of great beauty, or good habits – its hemiparasitic – but I do like its strange habit and extraordinary colouring

The post Rocky Places and a Favourite Oddity first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Yellow broomrape

White broomrape

Violet birdsnest orchid

White helleborine

Toothed orchid

Pyramidal orchid – I think

Lizard orchid

Lady orchid

Butterfly orchid

Butterfly orchid -I think

Bumblebee orchid

Bee orchid

The post Orchids of Istria first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Roadside Coronilla

Estruscan honeysuckle

Cistus monspeliensis

Clifftop Cotinus

The post Shrubs of Istria first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Salvia pratensis

Wild lettuce in flower

Trifolium medium

Jurinea

Dittany – despite its pretty looks it is phototoxic and can cause nasty blisters if touched

Dianthus carthusianorum

Nice milkwort (Nice the place, not a judgement)

Orlaya grandiflora

A dittany dotted meadow

Austrian flax

Poisonous swallowwort

The post Dry Meadows & Waysides of Istria first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Dropwort

Summer Snowflake

Narcissus Poeticus

Paeonia officinalis

Primula longiflora

The post Damp Meadows & Waysides of Istria first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Close to the sea, a meadow filled with serapia orchids, bumblebee orchids and orlaya grandiflora

On a high plateau a meadow where Stipa blows in the wind

Close to the sea, a meadow filled with serapia orchids, bumblebee orchids and orlaya grandiflora On a high plateau a meadow where Stipa blows in the wind
Memorable walks included one along a wooded farm track, lined with shade-loving plants that included Lamium orvala , Herb Paris, Solomon’s Seal and hellebores and helleborines, while the adjacent meadow was dotted with the bright yellow flowers of Senecio scopolii and the first few spring gentians.

Lamium orvala

Herb Paris

Helleborus multifidus

Solomon’s Seal

Senecio scopolii

The post The Wildflowers of Istria first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

The view from our bedroom window

We have just returned from a week revelling in the abundance of wild flowers, birds and butterflies of Istria. We try and do one of these holidays somewhere in Europe each year with the specialist wildlife travel company Naturetrek (We pay – this is not an advertorial!). I love to see plants in their native habitats, partly because it helps me grow them better in my own garden, but mainly because my idea of heaven is to wander through meadows, explore woodlands and climb to high places to see what grows there in the company of botanists who know more than I do.

A quick note of apology for the lack of consistency (or absence of) plant names. If I had a week to spare it would be done, but with a feature to write and Chelsea looming, there just isn’t time and I wanted to write this blog while it’s all still fresh in my mind.

The Landscape

The northern part of the Istrian Peninsula is an area of karst limestone crags, peaks and plateaus, forested slopes and fertile valleys where strip farming still predominates.

The overwhelming impression, as we looked across vistas of mountains and forests, was of somewhere that the wild places still dominate.

In the turbulent past, the Tuscan style hilltop towns were easily defended, but some still show signs of 20th century conflicts, while many of the tiny hamlets are all but abandoned after the inhabitants were killed for partisan activities. More recently, the younger generations have rejected life in the countryside to find work in the cities, so many of the remoter villages we passed through had few inhabited buildings.

The post Istria – An Unspoilt Corner of Croatia first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

The post Seed Success first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Tulip Ballerina, Narcissus Thalia and White Honesty

Young paeony foliage is a perfect foil for this pale apricot tulip

A new addition at Perch Hill is a rustic shed/summerhouse/potting area that I recognise from Sarah’s show garden at last year’s Chelsea Flower Show, that she designed in collaboration with interior designer Tricia Guild. I would love to have space for something like it in my own garden. Aah well, one can but dream.

Last seen at the Chelsea Flower Show

It’s All in the Detail

The floral theme continues with the curtain in the loo

A collection of pots in a shady spot next to the back door 

Sarah Raven has a fantastic eye for detail so everything from the table top arrangement of plants next to the backdoor to the curtain in the loo has been thought about – lots more inspiration here.

The tables in the barn have been designed to hold small vases to display flowers from the garden

The decorative water cistern constantly overflows with water that is then recirculated

The post Perch Hill Perfection first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Smyrnium takes a few years to establish but is now self-seeding amongst the bluebells

Rosemary is a mass of blue flowers

Erythronium in full flower in the woodland garden

I’m particularly pleased with the large planter that I filled with the tulips that I saved from last year’s pots – after I had dried them off. I replanted those that were the plumpest last November and now I have a wonderfully random selection that I actually think look much lovelier than my more considered plantings. In future I think I will mix some of the previous year’s bulbs in with the new ones I plant in pots for a similar effect. I’ve also started naturalising last year’s Ballerina bulbs in the woodland area of the garden where they look beautiful flowering amongst honesty and bluebells.

Bulbs saved from last year are a wonderful mix of shapes and colours

Tulip Ballerina is naturalising in the woodland garden

There’s even signs of ‘breaking’ in some of the flowers. This is where a virus in the soil causes flaming or feathering on the petals, recalling Tulipomania of the 17^th century when great fortunes were made and lost from supplying such broken flowers. Because this variation could only be propagated from offshoot bulbs, rather than seed, they were very rare and mysterious because they didn’t know what caused it – and thus much prized.

A ‘broken’ Ballerina tulip

The exception to my mixed plantings are Exotic Emperor tulips outside the front door that are all the better for being planted en masse – this is one planting that I won’t be changing. They are amongst the earliest and showiest of the tulips and have the great virtue of dying quite attractively as the later-flowering shocking pink Barcelona push up amongst them to provide a continuing display.

Exotic Emperor looks its best en masse

Although the chilly of March and the first part of April seemed never-ending, it does mean that I have had better luck with lettuces than usual. Our light sandy soil dries out so quickly and the vegetable plot is a real suntrap so they can struggle – but not this year. The cold has also kept the slugs at bay, so salad is definitely on the menu. Despite the cold, the broad beans germinated well and are now growing strongly and the first row of ‘gutter-germinated’ peas have been transplanted and are now starting to put on growth amongst the peasticks.

Broad beans and peas growing well – peasticks and netting are part plant supports and part cat/fox barricades!

Happy salads thanks to the cool spring

One of the advantages of the hot spell was that it allowed me to move a lot of the young plants out of the greenhouse and coldframe, without the usual ‘hardening off’ process of moving them outdoors during the day and back undercover overnight. They should be robust enough now to deal with the drop in temperature. The lemon trees have also been moved outdoors, having come through the winter well – they are loving being back in the sunshine and I’m looking forward to them blossoming quite soon.

The lemon trees in their outdoor home.

One way or another, despite the vicissitudes of our climate, the garden is looking great and the cooler weather does mean that the tulips will keep flowering for longer which is blooming marvellous as far as I’m concerned.

The post Spring on Fast Forward first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

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The castle – quite a modest affair as castles go – was the home of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, so it was tempting to picture the couple wandering through the carpet of daffodils beneath gnarled apple trees in Anne Boleyn’s Orchard. The truth is that in Tudor times the castle was set in boggy marshland – the orchard and the surrounding gardens are 20th century additions.

When American William Waldorf Astor acquired the castle in 1903 he devoted himself to its restoration and to creating a garden that reflected his love of the Tudors and would also be a suitable setting for the classical statuary he had collected when he was Ambassador to Rome. In today’s money, he spent £1billion on the works. The garden we see today retains much of his design, although adapted to be cared for by a team of twelve gardeners, as opposed to the eighty to one hundred who kept it in immaculate order in Astor’s time!

Narcissus telamonius plenus

Narcissus ‘’Double White’

Hever is currently holding its first Dazzling Daffodils event so this, rather than the wider garden, was the main focus of my visit. It transpires that daffodils – and not just the native Narcissus pseudonarcissus – have been around for a very long time. Johnny gave an example of N.telamonius plenus which is reported as early as 1620. Many of these old cultivars were lost during the Second World War when the daffodil growers were forced to plough up their fields to grow food, although some had the foresight to throw the discarded bulbs up onto banks and into hedgerows, from where Johnny and other enthusiasts have been rescuing them ever since. Sometimes Johnny is asked to identify mystery daffodils that have turned up unexpectedly in gardens. This often happens, he says, after building works. Bulbs that have been previously buried too deep and have lain dormant, find themselves closer to the surface of the soil and will start into growth once more – a floral resurrection. This may be the source of the lovely Narcissus ‘Double White’ that arrived unexpectedly in my own garden.

‘Mr Daffodil’ wearing his daffodil tie next to his appropriate number plate

Head gardener Neil and his team planted seven thousand new daffodils in Hever’s orchard last year. To avoid digging up the existing bulbs he photographed the orchard in spring, so that when autumn came they were able to fill the gaps. A top tip that I shall follow. There was some useful information from Johnny on blind daffodils (leaves but no flowers) too. Apparently it’s a natural part of the life of a daffodil – leave them a few years and, vigour restored, they will flower once more, while others will take a back seat. Unless you are in the habit of cutting back the leaves, or tying them in knots, in which case it’s your own fault! The other thing I learnt from him is that white daffodils always flower later than the yellows – something I don’t think I had realised previously.

Find out more about Hever Castle at www.hevercastle.co.uk

Johnny Walkers is going for his 25th Gold Medal at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show www.bulbs.co.uk

The post Hever Castle & Its Dazzling Daffodils first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

I love iris sibirica. It is an undemanding plant that will grow in most soils and has fine grass-like foliage that is a perfect foil to its delicate flowers that appear in May. Unlike the flag iris, it doesn’t mind a bit of shade, its foliage looks good long after it has finished flowering (provided you give it some support), it turns a lovely bronze colour in autumn and remains looking good through most of the winter.

In the process of doing the spring tidy, I have been cutting back the remaining tatty foliage on these plants and noticed that the oldest plants have developed a hollow centre.  This happens once the plants have reached three or four years old and means it is time to split them to stop them taking up more than their allotted space in the border and to improve flowering – a plant with a hollow centre will only flower around the edges.

Iris sibirica requires a bit of muscle to prise it out of the ground, but by digging round it with a spade and then loosening it with a fork, I did manage to dig it up.  The central part of the plant was discarded and the rest divided into several new plants. After forking over the soil where it had been growing I added some compost and replanted one of the divisions, giving it a good water and adding a mulch.  The other plants have been given to friends to spread the happiness.

The post Rejuvenating Iris sibirica first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Bee pollinating apricot flowers before the return of the arctic weather

There are clear signs that spring has arrived, even though we currently have a brief return to arctic weather. The furry catkins on the pussy willow are fattening and showing silver, the first few flowers are unfurling on the apricot tree (I fear they won’t survive the cold) and, in amongst the bulbs and emerging perennials, the weeds have started growing. Once the east wind departs it is the time to get out and deal with the annual weeds while you can still get on the borders – it really is a case of a stitch in time saves nine – it’s fiddly work, but well worth the effort.

Before

After

In good weather, I’ve been working my way methodically through the borders:

· cutting back what remains of last year’s growth on perennials and the deciduous grasses

· weeding before they get the upper hand

· pruning and manuring roses as well as summer and autumn flowering clematis

· tying in wall-trained trees and blackberries

· applying mulches

· starting to put plant supports in place

Fig

Blackberry

It’s satisfying work, turning scruffy borders into something much more kempt. Regular followers will know that I’m experimenting with a top dressing of low-nutrient, high-humus leaf mould rather than nutrient-rich garden compost. This is since the gardeners at Parham Park told me that they have found that this produces sturdier, more floriferous plants. So, what’s good enough for Parham is good enough for me. Once this is done, I add a weed supressing mulch of composted bark under shrubs and in the woodland garden, with Strulch (lightweight, mineralised straw mulch) on the borders. This will supress weeds and protect the plants from further cold in the short term and conserve moisture in the long term.

An old hanging basket protects emerging shoots

This wire support can be pulled higher to support the leaves as the Iris sibirica grows

An old hanging basket protects emerging shoots This wire support can be pulled higher to support the leaves as the Iris sibirica grows
My favourite of all plant supports is twiggy hazel, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to get any, so I now have some more long-lasting supports that help keep things in order. I’ve just bought more wire support rings from Hen & Hammock (£8.50 each) – the wire is looped through a chestnut stake that is knocked into the ground. I’ve found them perfect for paeonies, phlox and asters, giving discreet support. My first two of these are three years old and show no sign of deteriorating. I have also ordered two bundles of birch pea sticks and will continue looking for a source of hazel, but in the meantime at least some of the taller perennials are guaranteed to stand tall.

Chestnut and wire plant supports from Hen & Hammock

The post Springing into Action first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

https://youtu.be/smCZNVRKhnA

Finally after what seems like an inordinately long winter we have Spring for the next 92 days.

The post When is the first day of Spring ? first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

First of the trio was ‘The Orchid Hunter’ by Leif Bersweden. This is a far cry from the usual orchidaceous tales of jeopardy in far-flung corners of the world – more a gentle coming of age story about a young man who spent a summer criss-crossing Britain and Ireland to see all fifty-two of our native orchids. Leif found his first orchid growing near his family home when he was seven years old and developed an obsession that led to him spending his first summer after leaving school in pursuit of these sometimes very elusive flowers. It is a charming book and a very good read for any wildflower enthusiast.

Wild orchids are a favourite find wherever I travel

There is something about orchids that engages our emotions – finding orchids is always a highlight of my plant-hunting holidays and we make an annual pilgrimage to a meadow not too far away that is carpeted with orchids in early June.  It is a flower that hates disturbance and modern farming practices have destroyed many old colonies and their habitats, so some species are increasingly rare and precious.  Serendipitously, I read elsewhere about a company that grows native orchids for sale. According to Bewdley Orchids www.bewdleyorchids.com once they are established, orchids make good garden plants in the ground, in containers, or in wildflower meadows and will self- seed and spread if conditions are right.

My second read was ‘At the Edge of the Orchard’, a novel by Tracy Chevalier. It weaves a powerful tale about the hard lives of an early American settler family, the Goodenoughs, and the father’s attempts to establish an apple orchard of ‘eaters and spitters’ in a hostile Ohio swamp. Spitters were cider apples, essential at a time when most water was unsafe to drink. There are encounters with real people, including John Chapman, who was better known as Johnny Appleseed  and, later in the book, one of the sons works for the plant hunter William Lobb, helping him  collect seeds and saplings of Californian redwoods and sequoia to send to England.    I’m sure it would be a terrific read even if you weren’t that interested in the horticulture, but I was – and loved every minute of it.

Last, but in no way least, there is Penelope Lively’s ‘Life in the Garden’. This book reminiscences about the different gardens she has owned and family gardens, using these reminiscences as a stepping off point into exploring the history of gardens, great gardeners and great writers who are also gardeners. It is a gentle, discursive journey that takes you from her husband appreciatively referring to their own garden as ‘the garden of earthly delights’, to her musing that he probably wasn’t thinking of Hieronymous Bosch’s painting of the same name where all manner of unspeakable things are happening. She writes about fashionable gardens and the way that the arrival of plants from the rest of the world has shaped our taste since Roman times. It is a book that deserves much more than the quick read I have managed so far and by the time I have thoroughly perused its pages I suspect that it will be liberally scattered with bookmarks.  It is a book to return to and digest slowly. It is also a book with one of the loveliest covers I have ever seen.

The post Plant-Based Reading first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Dahlia tubers overwintered in spent compost Freshly potted up tubers

Mulched with Strulch to stop the compost drying out

Slugs love young dahlia foliage (this is why I’ve stopped leaving them in the ground – I got fed up with them being chewed to extinction) so the pellets are insurance against any lurking slugs in the greenhouse. Once they are growing strongly I will reduce the number of shoots to five and pinch these out when they are 25cm tall. This will produce robust plants that flower well. Liquid feed the dahlias as they grow and plant them out once all danger of frost has passed. They will probably flower before then, which will be no bad thing for me as some of the tubers have become detached from their labels!

The post Preparing to be Dazzled by Dahlias first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

A view inside a cultivar greenhouse.

How Much is a Cultivar Greenhouse ?

Cultivar produce a Modern and Victorian range of greenhouses made from a combination of materials – Accoya wood and aluminium. Both models are 8′ wide by 10’5″ long. The modern greenhouse glazed to the ground has a list price of £6440 including VAT and fitting. During sale periods this price is £5725. The Victorian greenhouse of the same size is around £7400 fitted including VAT and can be as little as £6589 during sale periods. You should also budget around £600 for a side of staging and shelving. Cultivar have an advantage over both Alitex and Hartley Botanic in that their greenhouse do not require the construction costs or complications involved in building a dwarf wall, a simple level base is all that is required. This is the most up to date greenhouse on the market at a competitive price. But perhaps that’s what you might expect since the people behind it are the previous owners of Gabriel Ash and Hartley Botanic.

How much is a Hartley Greenhouse ?

This obviously depends on the specification as well as the size but if we take a popular size, say 8 x 10, they have a traditional model at (8’2″ x 10′ 5″ approx) and you buy this without accessories during the sale the price is in the order of £5000. This sits on a dwarf wall so you will need to factor in the cost of buying the materials for the wall and having it constructed. If you opt for a similar size greenhouse in their Victorian range then the list price of this is somewhere in the region of £10,500 but is reduced during the sale periods to £8000, again you need to factor in the additional cost of building the dwarf wall. This cost does not include accessories. The cheaper model with staging shelving and assembly will likely cost you in the order of £6000 whilst the Victorian model will be closer to £9000.

How much is a Gabriel Ash Greenhouse ?

Working along the same lines as the Hartley Botanic above Gabriel Ash also produce a Victorian model. The width is a little smaller than most being (7′ 6″ approx and 10′ 3″) and has a list price of £8250 but this during sales is reduced to £6875 including fitting but no accessories.  The cost for one side of Staging and shelving which is perhaps the most important accessory is £625. So all in you’re looking at around £7500 including VAT. This will require a base building and it is recommended to lift the structure off the ground with a course of brick to lift the cedar away from moisture.

How much is an Alitex Greenhouse ?

If you thought they were expensive then wait until you learn the price of an Alitex. Are you sitting down ?  The Hidcote which is part of the National trust range measures 8’5″ x 10’1″ and costs £11,250 including VAT for the basic model without any accessories or construction of the base.

We hope you’ve found this brief guide to greenhouse prices helpful. Obviously prices can go up or down depending on each manufacturer and the offers they might be putting on. These prices are offered in good faith at the time of writing in February 2018.  So what are you waiting for ? Spring is around the corner, take a look at these four and make your choice.

The post How much do the Best Luxury Greenhouses cost ? first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Bark mulch in the woodland area

Strulch on the borders

A conversation with Tom Brown, the head gardener at Parham House in West Sussex – and Henry Macaulay who works with him – has caused me to have a rethink. I’ve generally spread as much homemade compost as possible over the flowerbeds. However, Tom and Henry’s observations about some recently replanted borders at Parham mean I may not be so liberal with the compost in future. Their borders consist of four quadrants and rather than tackle them all at once, they replanted two one year, followed by two the next. They mulched the first two beds with compost, but not the second two – and found that the unmulched quadrants grew sturdier, more floriferous plants, while the mulched quadrants grew sappier, taller plants with fewer flowers. They are now considering using something less nutrient-rich that will suppress annual weeds without overfeeding the borders.

Tom had an interesting perspective on the use of compost. Now that all gardens, large or small, are encouraged to turn every bit of green waste into compost, we need somewhere to spread it, so everything tends to get a generous layer – but it may be that some plants don’t need such a rich diet. I’m now going to use the majority of my compost on the vegetable plot and take the opportunity to reduce my leafmould mountain by spread a 5cm layer on the borders and in the woodland area. It’s a win/win situation, because then I will have somewhere to put all the leaves collected this winter. Although leafmould is low in nutrients, it is high in organic matter and will improve the soil structure and help moisture retention. If you don’t have a huge heap of leafmould, soil improver is the stuff to buy. For aesthetic reasons (i.e. not essential) I will add a layer of Strulch – the mineralised straw mulch www.strulch.co.uk – to the borders and spread composted bark in the woodland.

Leafmould rather than compost for the borders

Next year’s leafmould in the making

The post Choosing the Right Mulch first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Before Border – still covered with leaves

After Border – leaves gone and a top-dressing of bark

I had hoped to have excavated the friable leaf mould from the existing leaf heap by now and spread it on the garden, but we may just have to stack the new stuff on top of it and do lots of jumping up and down. The leaf heap is in danger of taking hill-like proportions. Meanwhile I am mulching with shredded bark.

Mimosa will soon be in full flower

Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postil’

Clematis urophylla ‘Winter Bells’

Iris reticulata ‘Katherine Hodgkinson’

Hydrangea before pruning

Hydrangea cut back to first pair of fat buds

In a few hours of glorious sunshine, I did get out and prune most of the hydrangeas, cutting each stem to a pair of fat buds – in our sheltered garden they should be fine.
There are reasons to be cheerful despite the rain – the mimosa is colouring up, the daphne ‘Jacqueline Postil’ is in full fragrant flower, reticulata iris have started to flower and the clematis urophylla ‘Winter Beauty’ that I planted last year has romped through the quince tree and is festooning it with its wonderful white waxy bells.

Update: the greenhouse remains rodent-free and the first salad seeds have germinated. Hooray!

The post Between the Downpours first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

The post Ratastrophe! first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Top Left: A beautifully elegant glazed balcony in Seville

Top Middle: Late spring at Dixter in the Peacock Garden looking towards the house through drifts of cow parsley and giant fennel

Top Right: My bargain vintage copper pot bought in Hastings Old Town for a mere £30 – I planted a dahlia in it during the summer and it is now planted with tulips

Centre Left: The Topiary Lawn at Great Dixter at dusk in mid-summer

Centre Middle: a wall of roses on the stand of The Real Flower Company at the Chelsea Flower Show

Centre Right: Amy, one of the students at Great Dixter – a wonderful example of how to look elegant while you garden. Something I seldom achieve!

Bottom Left: Patterns left in the sand by the receding tide on Hastings beach

Bottom Middle: Another view across the planting in the Peacock Garden at Great Dixter

Bottom Right: Spring flowers among the Roman ruins at Paphos in Cyprus.

Happy New Year Everyone – may 2018 be a good year for gardening.

The post #2017 best nine on Instagram first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Here’s some footage from the cold snap last week. With the birds fed and watered there was a little time left to enjoy the snow. So here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas and all the best for New Year. Please do subscribe below or visit the Youtube Channel for more videos in 2018 !

The post Merry Christmas from Up North ! first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Just occasionally we do take a holiday that doesn’t have plants as the main focus and December in the desert kingdom of Jordan was never going to be a floral bonanza. Nevertheless it was an unforgettable week that more than made up for it being the off-season for most flowering plants. Visitor numbers are low because of nervousness about the region, so we were made very welcome, never felt unsafe and it was wonderful to see some of the wonders of the Old World without the usual crowds.

Jerash & Ajlun

The Graeco-Roman city of Jerash was at its finest two thousand years ago, but thanks to the dry climate and having been hidden beneath layers of sand until the 20th century, it is in an amazing state of preservation (with some restoration) and exists to one side of the modern town. It is a huge site that includes two amphitheatres, a vast temple, hippodrome, forum and colonnaded street – and once we were off the main path there were few people around.

I did manage to spot a flower that was new to me – Hyoscyamus aureus – the golden-flowered henbane. And I also noticed that much of the ground was carpeted with the remains of the eryngiums and asphodels that bloom there in the spring. Aside from that, there was no shortage of finely carved acanthus leaves on the stone capitols and columns.

Nearby Ajlun was very different – a hilltop fortress built by one of Saladin’s commanders in the 12th century to repel the Crusaders. It is forbidding and impressive and like most of the places we visited provided very good information boards, so we got a real sense of how it was used to attack and repel the enemy – huge stone balls fired from catapults and openings for boiling oil featured strongly.

Leaving the military architecture behind we took a stroll off the main path and around the perimeter of the fortress to be rewarded with a slope carpeted in tiny lavender-pink colchicums and then a scattering of the rare white Aleppo crocus. Having identified it, I also discovered that the roasted bulbs are a delicacy amongst the local people which probably accounts for its rarity.

Mount Nebo

On the way to Petra, we stopped off at Mount Nebo where Moses is said to have first looked upon the ‘Promised Land’. It was a hazy day so we couldn’t see as far as Jericho and Jerusalem, but even so the views were spectacular.

The Franciscan monastery on the summit contains some stunning Byzantine mosaics in fine condition featuring a wonderful array of animals, people and some well-pruned trees!

A modern crucifix stands at the highest point, overlooking the Jordan Valley – I would like to have included the view in the photo, but there was an entire coachload of Chinese tourists queuing to take selfies, so I gave up.

Petra

Looking down on the landscape that conceals Petra

This extraordinary place was without doubt the highlight of our visit to Jordan. We watched the weather forecast with concern – it appeared that our visit would coincide with the first rain of the winter – but as luck would have it, it held off until the evening, so although it remained overcast and at times threatening, it actually meant that we walked much further than we might have if it had been hot and sunny. To get ahead of the weather and any crowds, we got there early (our hotel was right next to the entrance) so we were the only people in sight at 6.50am.

It’s a two kilometre walk from the entrance, along a valley and then through the Siq (the narrow gorge that leads to Petra) before you reach Petra itself, built as the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom in the 1st century BC. For seven hundred years, after a major earthquake and a change in trade routes, it was known only to the Bedouins until an explorer (masquerading as an Arab) gained entry in the early 19th century.

As we emerged from the Siq to the most famous view – that of The Treasury – our only companions were the Bedouin traders and their camels and donkeys. And so it remained for the next three hours, after which a few more visitors started to arrive. It was only as we left around 2.30 that large tour parties were in evidence – so if you ever go to Petra get there early.

No one – in either direction

The architecture is what Petra is all about, but I did find some interesting plants. Thymelaea hirsuta (thanks #thephoenixgarden for identifying it) is a small shrub with tiny yellow flowers that has tough roots that will go up to 3.5metres deep in search of water. They were used to make strong ropes and paper. On a grander scale, there is a 450-year old pistachio tree alongside the Colonnaded Street. Presumably it once had companions, because pistachios are either male or female.

450 year old pistachio tree

The most common plant was the sea squill. This large bulb grows its leaves between November and March, so was easy to spot. The leaves then die back before it sends up tall flowering stems bearing white flowers in late summer and early autumn. I noticed some bulbs were being sold by the Bedouin, although I’m not sure why. They are quite toxic (the Bedouin use them to kill mice) and although they have medicinal uses, I’m not sure why anyone would buy them (unless they had a lot of mice!).

Walking away from the main paths, we followed a path down a narrow valley that led to a spring and found an olive grove and orchards still owned by the local tribes. Although the Bedouin were relocated from their cave houses in the 1980s, they still have the right to grow crops, tend their animals and sell trinkets to tourists within Petra. My most unexpected find was a clump of maidenhair fern growing out of the cliff near the spring.

Orchard

Maidenhair fern

The Monastery

How I felt after the exertions of the day! 

My advice to anyone who visits Petra is to go in the cool months, have tough walking boots or shoes and plenty of water. We walked for the entirety of our visit, including the 900 steps up the Monastery and the same back down (the donkey alternative looked very perilous) and by the end of the day my phone told me I had walked 19 kilometres and climbed up and down the equivalent of 104 floors. I slept very well that night!

Wadi Rum

Wadi Rum is the desert made famous by Lawrence of Arabia. It has a savage beauty and I am told that there are flowers to be found there in spring, but in December there was nothing to be seen apart from a few clumps of sea squill – and lots and lots and lots of sand. And the Seven Pillars of Wisdom – who knew it was a physical place as well as a book? Not me.

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Aqaba

After the aridity of Wadi Rum it was wonderful to arrive in Aqaba on the Red Sea, with its abundance of sub-tropical plants – definitely more my sort of habitat! The planting round our hotel was very good with a mix of vibrant flowers and silver-leaved cacti and palms, but what really appealed most to me was the little plots of herbs planted in a strip that ran between the centre of the town and the beach. Usually prime land like this is sold off and developed – I hope it doesn’t happen here.

Cassia

Jatropha integerimma

Floss Silk Trees

Plots of herbs growing next to the beach in Aqaba

The Souks

Both in Aqaba and Amman we visited the souks, bought herbs and spices and admired the fantastic array of fruit and vegetables – I would love to have brought some of them home too – especially the amazing aubergines – but common sense prevailed. I’ll just have to go back……….

The post Jordan – Magnificent Ruins – and a Few Flowers first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Despite all the surrounding plants in the courtyard looking deciding autumnal, the brugmansia continues to flower prolifically, seemingly undaunted by the drop in temperature. Well the flowers are undaunted, but most of its lower leaves have fallen, creating long bare stems topped by clusters of fragile-looking, exotic flowers.  Normally, I steel myself to cut all the stems hard back by this time of year and then wrap the plant up for winter, but this time I’ve only cut back a single stem and have left the others to see how long they will continue to flower.

I’ve taken cuttings from the stem I removed, so if the worst comes to the worst, I should have replacement plants. Each cutting is a 25cm(ish) length of stem, cut below a leaf joint at the base and above a leaf joint at the top. To make sure I planted them the right way up, I made a sloping cut at the top of the cutting and a flat one at the bottom (on reflection I think it would have been better the other way round, but it probably doesn’t matter). They are now in deep pots, in a gritty compost mix, with two thirds of the cutting covered by compost that has been top-dressed with grit. The cuttings are standing on a heated tray in the greenhouse, but they will do equally well on a windowsill. I haven’t taken brugmansia cuttings for years, but I seem to remember that they root quite readily.

The post Blooming Extraordinary Brugmansia first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

The greenhouse is too small for most of them and will soon be pressed into use for seed sowing, so the plants end up in a variety of places depending on how much attention/warmth they will need in the coming months and – equally importantly – how precious they are to me.

My three citrus trees used to be small enough to all come into the kitchen for the winter, but now that they are substantial shrubs there is only space for one.  They take turns indoors and this year it’s the Calamondin Orange that gets to enjoy the limelight.  Although the light is good enough to prevent leaf fall, it’s really a bit too warm, so the tree sits in a gravel-filled saucer and is spritzed regularly with water. I keep the soil just damp (with rainwater) and feed once a month with a winter citrus feed.  And I check regularly for scale insects –a healthy tree may show no sign of any infestation outdoors, but once indoors they may emerge and need dealing with as soon as possible. I’m not keen on using systemic insecticides and generally wipe the leaves with methylated spirits but the tree is now of a size that this may be far too Herculean a task, especially as the Calamondin has many small leaves, unlike the larger leaves on the other trees.  If the tree does need treating, I will move it outdoors on a fine day to do it and leave it outside for as long as possible before bringing it back inside, later the same day.

Meanwhile, the lemon and the lime are spending the winter in front of the window at the end of the garage. It’s the nearest I get to an Orangery! Ideally, the window would be larger, but I turn the plants when I remember and feed and water from time to time. They don’t mind the chill provided they are kept on the dry side. I’ve visited proper orangeries where conditions seem less hospitable with very low light levels and it’s similarly cold but frost-free.

I’ve potted up a chilli to join the orange in the kitchen, partly so I can continue harvesting chillis, but also because it’s an attractive plant – as are the begonias and plectranthus that have also made it to the kitchen windowsill.

Our house is on the left behind the tree – the rest is next door, the conservatories now long gone

Our long thin conservatory. The majority of the other plants overwinter in what is optimistically referred to as the conservatory. A bit of history. Early in the 20th century this house and the one next door was run as a school for young ladies. What is now our sitting room was the gymnasium, at the end of which was a long narrow glazed corridor where I suspect they hung their coats and kept their plimsolls. This is now the conservatory where pelargoniums, aeoniums, begonias, salvias and sundry other plants tick over in a frost-free, but unheated space.

There are several plants that are too large to bring undercover and I deal with these as best I can – a favourite canna takes cover in the log store, the jovellana must take its chances sheltered beneath the mimosa tree and the pot grown agapanthus will be packed with straw around the leaves and covered with fleece. The brugmansia will be cut hard back  and given the same treatment as the agapanthus and  I will also take some cuttings.

Canna in the log store

Jovellana sheltering beneath the mimosa

Finally, young plants that are still growing on in pots are moved into cold frames where they can grow strong roots during the winter and be in tip top condition for spring planting.

The other vital task at this time of year is to remove all the saucers from beneath the remaining outdoor pots. This will protect both the clay pots and the plants from frost damage caused by saucers filled with cold, or even frozen water.

The post Time to Go Undercover first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Equally charming was  the painting of paradise by Breugel the Younger where I spotted clover and marsh marigolds in the foreground, as well as cow parsley and possibly stitchwort.

The post The Art of the Flower first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Cadiz

Old Cadiz is a place of great beauty with long, narrow streets that are largely traffic free. Magnificent trees provide shade in the squares and gardens of the old port, including the gargantuan Ficus trees reputedly brought to the city by Christopher Columbus. An indication of how mild the climate is was the presence of an exquisite Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia), a tree more generally seen in the subtropics.

Aside from the plants, it was the wonderful decorative metalwork that caught my eye, especially, but not exclusively, an Art Deco door and window.

The final treat as we left the city was driving over the magnificent new La Pepa bridge that spans the bay of Cadiz, taking us from the city of Columbus to the 21st century in an instant.

Vejer del la Frontera

Vejer is one of the famed white hilltop towns of Andalusia – it perches above the surrounding plains, its narrow, twisting streets only driven by the locals, or the foolhardy. (Top tip – park in the free public car park as you come into the town and take a very inexpensive taxi to your lodgings.) Most gardens are concealed behind the white washed walls, but I did spot a couple of fine plants – a Euphorbia marginata that clearly loves its surroundings and a gorgeous Plumbago capensis half way up a wall.

Seville

Somehow, despite the fact that Seville was scorchingly hot, we did cover a lot of ground, although quite a lot of that seemed to involve going round in circles – maybe it was the heat that addled our brains. Fortunately our wanderings took us along plant-hung alleyways and past inviting courtyards, so there was pleasure in the process. – including experiencing a serious case of envy when I spotted the most beautiful glazed balcony.

We did eventually find our way to the Alcazar Real, the magnificent Moorish Palace at the heart of the city. As ever, it was the gardens that drew me and they did not disappoint. From the first courtyard where a pink-flowered Royal Poinciana cast its shadow on the walls, to the heart of the gardens where we walked amongst towering palms, it felt like a true oasis.

The palace was heaving with visitors, but the gardens are sufficiently large that it only took a few minutes to find a quiet corner to enjoy some cool tranquillity.

Ronda

It’s quite difficult to focus on the plants in a setting as dramatic as that of Ronda – perched high on cliffs that surround ravines it is a place to just stand and stare.

On our way there, we had lunch in a small hotel a few miles outside the town where I was intrigued by a honey locust tree with pods that were gradually changing from yellow to brown as they ripened – they looked amazing and they rattled noisily when the wind blew. It looked most extraordinary and when I posted a picture of it on Instagram some people mistook them for a snake – a very big snake! The deep purple of Solanum rantonnetii looked even more intensely blue against the backdrop of a swimming pool.

In Ronda we stayed on the lower slopes of the town next door to the Moorish baths which have survived in remarkable condition. Inspired by their architecture, our hotel had a distinctly Moorish feel to it.

A laden pomegranate grew in the garden and I loved the variegated flowers of the Mirabilis jalapa – I wish I had enough sun in my own garden to grow this.

Beyond the garden all was parched, but there was beauty in this too, although next time I visit I think I will come in the spring when things are a little less prickly and a bit more colourful.

The post Autumn in Andalusia first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Aster umbellatus and Persicaria Firedance

Eryngium yuccifolium with Sedum ‘Matrona’

Rudbeckia subtomentosa

The rich purple Michaelmas daisies were alive with bees and butterflies and although the insects were visiting other flowers, these were clearly their favourite.

There are two other areas of Piet Oudolf planting at Hauser & Wirth – in front of the gallery an Elizabeth Frink head peers through a veil of planting, while the inner courtyard with paperbark mulberries emerging from a sea of grasses.

I would like to have visited the galleries, but on the day I was there they were closed while being prepared for the next exhibition. If you would like to combine art and horticulture, it is worth checking before you go to see what is open.  I sought consolation in the exceptionally good restaurant, so do make sure that you allow time to eat there.

For once, instead of travelling independently I joined up with a group visit to Hauser & Wirth organised by Garden Days Out  www.gardendaysout.com.  It combined Hauser & Wirth with a rare visit to nearby Stavordale Priory, the garden of theatre producer Sir Cameron Macintosh. His garden is not open to the public and even on private visits  photography is not allowed, so you will just have to take it from me that it is a mixture of classic English country garden with good structure and fine topiary, combined with some unsurprisingly theatrical touches.

The post The Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

1970s terrariums

I have to admit to being old enough to have planted the odd terrarium or two in the 1970s when they were popular the first time round – sometimes macramé was involved too and I understand that it has also made a comeback. Not in our household though – once in a lifetime is definitely sufficient for a macramé moment! I do however have a rather beautiful terrarium that I had made for me that is currently languishing under a layer of dust in the garage. Now that I’ve discovered that they are being promoted as a way to introduce novices to the skills of gardening, it may be time to get it out, dust it off and replant it.  Watch this space……

Fun with Fiskars & James Wong

My renewed enthusiasm is the result of a day spent at the Sky Garden in London where I was amongst ten lifestyle and gardening bloggers who spent the day in the company of the team from Fiskars and the ever-entertaining, enthusiastic and informative botanist, James Wong #botanygeek. And, we each got to plant a terrarium to take home with us.

The Science Bit
We were a mixed group – experienced gardeners, dabblers and complete novices – but all of us, James explained, are biologically adapted to be botanists. Apparently human eyes can see more shades of green than any other colour. We may think of our ancestors as being hunter gatherers, but the reality is that there was far more gathering than hunting and the diet was predominantly plant-based. The ability to distinguish between red and green allowed us to develop the ability to identify plants and tell them apart and gather ripe fruit and seeds. And according to evolutionary biologists, our attraction to flowers increases the likelihood that we will remember their location. The more excited we are by a flower, the better our memory will be and the more likely it is that we will be able to return to the same location in a few weeks time and gather the fruit. So, the reason we like flowers is not because they are objectively beautiful, but because our bodies have been designed to get excited by them. In other words we are all gardeners – it’s in our genes.

We are programmed to be attracted to flowers as it helps us remember their location and return later for the fruit

Prospect & Refuge

We are, James explained, biologically adapted to live on forest margins and we are permanently trying to recreate a habitat where we have ‘prospect and refuge’ in our gardens. Prospect, in evolutionary terms, is open landscape where we can find food, and refuge is where we can hide from predators, which is why gardens that contain these elements are pleasing to the eye. Our trees and shrubs represent the forest margin – our lawns (or decks) the open landscape.

The best gardens combine both prospect and refuge

The Benefits of Gardening
Gardening has multiple benefits and helps us match our environment to our basic biology. Not only do plants look good and give us something to look forward to and take care of, they also get us moving. Session by session gardening burns more calories than the gym and is easier – and not just because the session is longer. Low intensity exercise for a longer period of time burns more calories, you don’t have to pay for gym membership and you get free tomatoes! The exercise doesn’t seem as difficult because you are in the fresh air, amongst things that are inspiring and pleasing and making decisions, rather than looking at the flashing lights of a treadmill. It combines free psychotherapy, exercise, fresh air – and makes your surroundings more beautiful. What’s not to like?

You don’t get free tomatoes by exercising in a gym!

No Mistakes, Just Experiments

James believes gardening is not about following rules. “I always say there are no mistakes, there are only experiments. People kill a plant and then give up. I tell them ‘You don’t know how many plants I have killed – you’ve got to kill a few plants on the way’. Plants are designed to grow, they want to grow and they will do anything to grow if you give them the basic minimum. Plant an apple tree, stick it in a hole, put some water on it twice a month in summer and after the first year you will probably never have to do it again. Yes, there are things you can do to make the flowers bigger, or make them flower at the right time, but fundamentally plants take care of the vast majority of things for themselves.”

The Terrarium Task – Part 1
With James’s words ringing in our ears, we were set loose on our terrariums – some goldfish bowl shape, some square – and fortunately none with narrow necks, or we might still be struggling to put our plants in place, even with the help of the nifty small tools and giant tweezers supplied by Fiskars.

Step 1 – Cover the base with a 3cm layer of clay granules to improve drainage
Step 2 – Add a good layer of compost, at least 5cm deep
Step 3 – Create height and interest in the miniature landscape with rocks and branches
Step 4 – Add plants of contrasting heights, shapes and colours, but aim to leave a third of the soil unplanted
Step 5 – Cover the remaining soil with gravel, moss or creeping plants – this will allow you to look through the planting at miniature views
Step 6 – Water moderately
Step 7 – Mist the planting with a spray bottle
Step 8 – Stand the terrarium in good light but not in direct sunlight

The Terrarium Task – Part 2!

Thanks to a careless courier, I got to have a second go at assembling my terrarium. I was not going home for a couple of days, so the Fiskars Team offered to get it delivered. When it arrived, the couriers had ignored the ‘this way up’ instructions written all over the box and although the terrarium itself survived, it contained a messy jumble of compost, plants and moss.

Initially I thought all was lost, but I gradually extracted all the plants, moved them to recover in a washing-up bowl while I cleaned the terrarium, reinstalled the compost and brushed off the moss with a paintbrush.

Amazingly, I lost none of the plants and I have managed to recreate my original planting. Although an open-topped terrarium will establish its own microclimate quite quickly and only need regular misting and a light fortnightly water, I have given my terrarium a temporary cling-film cover while my plants recover from their traumatic experience and get their roots down into the compost.

The clingfilm cover is temporary

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I recently had the great pleasure of spending three hours walking round the garden of the 82 year old hydrangea expert and breeder, Maurice Foster. Despite the fact the temperature had plummeted from 28º the previous day, to 13º – and it was pouring with rain throughout – I loved every moment and came away determined to grow more hydrangeas – especially those of the non-mop-head species. Inspired by him I took a closer look at the hydrangeas in my own garden and at Wisley.

Ayesha

Madame Mouilliere

I am anti mop-heads, far from it.  I have several in my garden, include the best white, Madame Moulliere and the wonderful Ayesha with its lilac-like flowers. Mop-heads, more correctly known as H.macrophylla are those that fill coastal gardens (like mine) with their blowsy, billowy blooms. They can look magnificent in shades of  purple and blue or candy-floss pink (depending on the soil’s acidity) as well as purest white, but quite often they are neither one thing nor the other – a bit pink, a bit blue, a bit unimpressive, so it is definitely worth seeking out good cultivars with stable colours. Quite often the ‘poor doers’ started life as indoor pot plants.  Grown soft and fast in  glasshouses, they need to be deadheaded, fed and hardened off before planting outdoors, or they will never amount to much.

Cote d’Azur

Altona

Teller Pink

Lacecaps are similar in size and habit to the mopheads, but have less ‘blobby’ flowerheads with lacy centres, surrounded by larger florets often in a slightly different colour. The Teller series are very reliable, well-coloured lace-caps. Bred in Switzerland, several cultivars are available from Ashwood Nurseries – with their original German bird names – including Nachtigall, Faisan and Blaumeise and more widely and straightforwardly available as Teller Pink, Blue and White. They are strong, reasonably compact plants with well-coloured, erect flower heads.

Unidentified lacecap

While  mop heads are the best known species of hydrangea, the hydrangea family is much larger with over twenty other species originating from either Asia or North America.  If you want something tough and reliable, despite its delicate appearance, there’s Hydrangea arborescens  ‘Annabelle’ with its huge balloon-like flowerheads that start of pure white and fade to an attractive lime green. It was found growing wild in the woods of Ohio, so has no problem dealing with the British climate.  It’s only fault is a rather lax habit which means that the heads tend to droop as they mature, so you either need to provide some support or you could go for its stronger stemmed cultivar ‘Incrediball’.

Annabelle

The aspera hydrangeas can make substantial plants and have large leaves that are often hairy.  The flattish flowerheads  have a lacy centre surrounded by often large florets.  The aspera ‘Villosa Group’ is a more refined part of the family with smaller leaves and more densely flowered – it is a favourite plant in my own garden and a great late summer shrub.

aspera Rosemary Foster – available from next year

Villosa Group

Paniculata hydrangeas really come into their own in September  when their masses of flowers are at their most impressive – on my recent visit to RHS Gardens Wisley, the part of the gardens known as Battlestone Hill was lined with a fabulous selection and I still can’t decided which is my favourite ‘Vanille Fraise’ ‘Limelight’ or ‘Ruby’.  They do need space to really perform, so I must confine myself to just one – I’m still pondering that one.

Vanille Fraise

Limelight

Ruby

Early Sensation

I’m not sure that I had been aware of Serrata hydrangeas until I visited Maurice Foster’s garden.   They are a dwarf Japanese variety  and are ideal for a small garden, especially as they are more tolerant of sun than most other species and can be planted at the front of a border. They have a delicacy missing in most other types of hydrangea.

Romance

Hydrangea quercifolia have, as their name indicates, oak leaf  shaped leaves,  and attractive cone-shaped flowerheads. Their main virtue is wonderful autumn colour when the leaves turn a deep, rich red.

Pee Wee

Quercifolia autumn tints

Cultivation

Whilst hydrangeas will survive in  poor, dry soil, they shouldn’t be viewed as a ‘bung it in and leave it’ plant.  They benefit from being planted in  well-prepared soil enriched with compost and beig given plenty of water until they are established. An annual mulch of leafmould or composted bark will keep them growing well, but  don’t mulch right up to the stems though – they don’t like it.

Pink or Blue – and what to do

Human nature being what it is, those with alkaline or neutral soil wish they could grow blue hydrangeas and those with acid soil would like to have some pinks.  With a lifetime of experience, Maurice Foster’s advice is to shun the colourants and just concentrate on growing your plants well and whatever colour they are they will look wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hAhDF4moF8

The post Hydrangeas – Beyond the Mop Head first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Tomatoes

There are only so many tomatoes that can be eaten fresh when the plants are at peak production, so I have been oven-roasting (slowly) the cherry tomatoes with olive garlic, thyme, pepper and salt and then packing them into sterilised jars and covering them with a layer of olive oil. Done like this, they can be kept in the fridge and used a few at a time – as long as there is always a layer of oil they will keep up to six months, and the oil will take on a rich tomato flavour.

French Beans

It has been a very good year for climbing French beans and inevitably some of them have grown overlarge. Although they don’t get stringy like runner beans, they do become less palatable as the beans swell inside the pod. Last year I let them dry and ate the beans. They were ok, but rather fiddly and not as good as flageolets or borlotti , so this year I’ve tried something different – and very successful – based on a long-remembered dish I ate on the banks of the Loire many, many years ago. I steamed them until well-cooked and then pureed them with a generous amount of butter, pepper and salt. It was just as delicious as I remembered, a creamy amalgam of pods and beans. It appears to freeze well too, so we should be able to conjure up that summer flavour well into winter. Don’t try this with runner beans though – I’ve tried and it doesn’t work because even when stringy the pods are too watery to puree properly.

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Put them on your seed order for next year – you won’t be disappointed.

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Unless you are very lucky and take on an allotment that has been carefully nurtured, the chances are that you will be fighting the weeds for the first couple of years at the very least and some plots will be submerged beneath brambles and couch grass. Plot sharing can help with this and most sites offer new allotmenteers this option – it is an excellent and less back-breaking introduction to a neglected plot. Informally (i.e. not through the council, but by visiting the allotment site) it is also worth checking if anyone with an established plot would like to divide it – circumstances change, ill-health may mean it gets too much, or children leave home and the need for all the produce diminishes. Rather than give up the allotment, they will often welcome a newcomer who is prepared to share the work and the produce. Allotments are a precious resource, not only as a place to grow your own food, but also as somewhere you can spend time outdoors amongst likeminded people, exercising your body, calming your mind – literally earthing yourself.

The post Getting Your Own Allotment first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

   
The plot next to ours is the flower-filled domain of a Japanese neighbour who relies on his allotment to grow flowers for cutting and a few unusual vegetables, while the next plot along is the result of much constructing of fences and terraces, laying of much landscape fabric – and not much in the way of plants. There is a requirement that at least twenty five per cent of  an allotment is cultivated to retain the tenancy and with the next inspection coming soon I think there may be a ‘use it or lose it’ warning.

   

The post On Home Ground first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

I was recently invited to judge some local allotments (not, I hasten to add, the one where we have our own plot) and it made me appreciate, yet again, that allotments are about so much more than growing fruit and vegetables. Of course there were fabulously productive plots overflowing with serried ranks of magnificent vegetables, but there are many that may not be the neatest, or grow exhibition quality vegetables, but are clearly cherished nonetheless. Rather than simply award a ‘Best Allotment’ prize, which would inevitably go to the tidiest and most productive plot, I thought it would be fairer and more encouraging to others, if we devised a number of categories. Eventually, after much deliberation, we decided on the following:

Best Work in Progress

Here the plot holders are tackling a steeply sloping site with well-designed landscaping that is both attractive and functional. These tasks are best tackled early on, even if it does mean productivity is put on hold for a while. I’m not entirely sure what the foundation is sure – but I admired the work that has gone in to it!
Most Improved & Inspiring New Plot

In less than a year the new holder has transformed the plot from an overgrown slope to an impressively organised and productive space with the use of innovative techniques – including hugelkultur – that has allowed him to make use of the fertility from all the weeds and other waste material on this (and other) allotments, without waiting for them to compost down in the conventional way. This is a great technique for anyone taking on a neglected plot.
Most Colourful & Inviting Plot

Not everyone has a garden at home and this was a fine example of how an allotment can fulfil the criteria required of it, while also being a place of relaxation and pleasure. There were colourful borders of flowers, beds of vegetables, a tunnel for growing brassicas, corn and salads, with attractive seating areas on areas of lawn under the trees. I just hope that the owners find time to sit and admire their handiwork – it’s a lovely spot, although very windy on the day I took this photo.
Best for Biodiversity

Hidden away behind its native hedges, this allotment is a little world of its own, where plants weave and tumble, creating an ideal environment for the three beehives that are safely tucked amongst the planting. This is a plot that has been nurtured over many years, successfully creating a wonderfully biodiverse habitat. I didn’t get a photo here as the bees were quite active!

Most Productive Established Allotment

A plot that is clearly a labour of love, with many hours spent tending it. It was a pleasure to walk along its neatly trimmed grass paths and admire the beds and borders filled with really well grown vegetables, flowers and fruit. The many compost bins are a clue to its success.
When I went to hand out the awards, I was told that this allotment holder was quite reclusive and was asked to go to her plot to speak to her – and take no photos. I was very touched by the story she told me – proof, if ever it was needed of the important social function that allotments perform. For many years she has lived in a housing association flat with its own small garden, but increasingly socially disruptive tenants have left her feeling vulnerable, especially since they use her garden for drug taking. The housing association appear to be unable or unwilling to confront the problem, so she now spends every moment she can on her allotment, making it her safe place and surrounding herself with beauty that is sadly lacking in her home life. I knew nothing of this when I chose her as a winner, so I was really thrilled to give her a voucher for £20 to use buying Kings Seeds for next year, and also delighted that her daughter and grand daughter were there to cheer her on.

Best Small Plot

An allotment that lives up to the challenge of being the first one you see when you come through the gate. Every inch of space used to good effect with an abundance of flowers and vegetables and even space for a table (complete with candelabra!) and chairs – an impressively productive and attractive plot.

Best at Adapting to Changing Circumstances

I loved the wonderful array of sunflowers on this plot and was impressed when I discovered that they were planted as a less labour-intensive way to keep parts this large allotment cultivated when the plot holder was finding it difficult to grow as many vegetables as she had in the past. Making some areas of an allotment easier to manage is a sensible move – and in this case delightfully cheering.

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Step 1. Choose a non-flowering shoot and cut it off the plant just below a leaf joint and then break off the lowest set of leaves

Step 2. Cut off all except the bottom pair of leaves from the next sideshoots (reduces transpiration – school botany)

Step 3 Put your cutting in a plastic bag with a little water (more reducing of transpiration)

Step 4. Fill a deep pot with compost and use a stick to make a hole near the side of the pot (strangely cuttings root better at side rather than in middle of pot)

Step 5. Put cutting in hole, firm in place and water well

Step 6. Put cane or stick that is taller than cutting in middle of pot (doesn’t need to be forked!)

Step 7. Cover pot with a plastic bag, tie it in place to form a miniature greenhouse and stand it on a gravel-filled saucer in a light spot, but out of direct sun.

Step 8. Check after 10 days to see if any roots have appeared through the drainage holes in the bottom of the pot and then check regularly. Once rooted the plastic cover can be removed. Here’s Daniel using a similar method on cuttings from his summer pruned wisteria :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33TV31ZY_SY

The post Taking Cuttings first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Right from the beginning of this season, my beautiful and nearly four metre high,  five-year old Brugmansia – also known as Angel’s Trumpet – has had not so beautiful yellow leaves and I’ve been puzzling over the cause.  I’m feeding it with organic high-potash tomato feed, so I don’t think it is too much nitrogen, I’ve given it a couple of  doses of Epsom Salts in case it was a magnesium deficiency, to no avail and I’ve also top dressed it with Grochar Fertiliser, which usually fixes everything.

I’m now beginning to suspect that despite it being in a very large pot, the pot is entirely filled with rootball and the plant is struggling to absorb sufficient nutrients. So, I’ve decided that this autumn, when I cut it back by half to overwinter, I’m going to take cuttings and start again, but in the meantime its beautiful fragrant trumpet flowers, intertwined with mina lobata mean that it is still beautiful despite its yellow leaves.

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But I digress – back to the tomatoes. Both the greenhouse and outdoor tomatoes are doing wonderfully well right now, although – despite planting blight-resistant outdoor varieties – I am rather holding my breath and hoping that this isn’t a bad blight year when even these will succumb – as they did last year. The last-man-standing then was Mountain Magic, which held out well beyond the others, although I’m not convinced that the flavour is as good as it is said to be. I have started removing the lower leaves on both the greenhouse and outdoor varieties to up the sugars with more direct sunlight and to improve air circulation, thereby reducing the blight-encouraging humidity around the plants. All the leaves are going on the compost heap.

Outdoor blight-resistant variety Primavera

Black Krim with lower leaves removed

Although we have had some heavy rain, it is currently accompanied by a strong, cool breeze which is good news – it’s those still, humid days that encourage the blight. In the meantime we are feasting on tomatoes – long may it last.

The post Tomatoes with Everything first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Our secret garden lies beyond this wall

The many levels make it ideal for clusters of pots

Our latest opening has just past and was a great success –  nearly 350 visitors oohed and aahed their way round the garden, oblivious to the shortcomings that I had been worrying about for weeks and the rain only arrived half an hour before the garden was due to close, by which time I had answered so many questions that  I was more than ready for a slackening of the pace.  Reflecting on it afterwards, I was struck by the consistency of the visitors response to the garden – they didn’t see the lack of colour, the areas that needed tweaking, or comment on nearly grass-free bio-diverse habitat that masquerades as a lawn – it was the atmosphere that they commented on. ‘Magical’ was a much-repeated word.  The sense of enclosure that comes from a walled garden is very special and when the garden is on a hillside, sloping away from its protective wall, with great views, yet entirely private, it is good to be reminded that this would be a wonderful spot even if the garden were an overgrown wilderness.

The views across the valley are framed by foliage

Trees and shrubs surround the house

With this in mind, I have been viewing the garden differently, appreciating the textures and the plant associations and reminding myself that there is always beauty to be found – who would of thought that our log store would have induced so much envy! The courtyard is an enclosed garden within an enclosed garden and is where I grow the most tender plants including Canna iridiflora and Campsis grandiflora.

The log store was much admired

The courtyard garden

I’m not keen on planted hanging baskets, but love their decorative qualities

Ferns add wonderful texture to the courtyard

Campsis grandiflora

Canna iridiflora

Of course, I’m sure that I will soon slip back into my old ways, but for the moment I am basking in the pleasure of having shared my garden with so many people who loved every minute of their visit. One nice man said “It’s better than Dixter’ which clearly isn’t true, but great to hear and  a young girl visiting with her family told me that it was the loveliest garden she had ever been to – a gardener in the making perhaps?  If I can instil a love of gardening in the next generation who needs a velvety lawn or swathes of colour – not me.

The annual climber Rhodochiton attracted much interest

Another plant that I was asked about – Persicaria ‘Lance Corporal’ – a great shade plant

Tomatoes – in the greenhouse and outdoors are now cropping

The apricot tree was the star of the show – it has had a spectacular crop of huge fruit this year

The post As Seen Through Others’ Eyes first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Cultivated blackberries

Blackcurrants

Blueberries

Last week we spent a happy hour harvesting cherries off the tree we rent from #rentacherrytree in Northiam. We only have half an hour to travel, but one intrepid individual had come from Lake Windermere – clearly it was more about the experience than the economics.

This week is all about apricots that have cropped phenomenally well on our Flavourcot tree in the garden. The tree was so laden earlier in the summer that we were concerned that the branches might break, so we thinned them quite drastically and we have really reaped the benefits with far bigger fruit than in previous years. I have checked and confirmed that apricots continue to ripen off the tree – provided they already have good colour – so we have picked the ripest half of the crop in case the storms that are forecast reach here and damage the laden tree. So far we have picked over 10 kilograms of fruit, with the same to come.

Unthinned apricots

The thinnings

The ripening crop

The golden harvest

Of course it’s not just the picking – once we have had our fill of clafoutis and fruit tarts, there’s the preserving to do as well. We are not jam eaters, so other than some redcurrant jelly, most of the berries get frozen as they are, to be used during winter in crumbles, fruit tarts and cakes. Personally, I don’t think that cherries and apricots freeze all that well as whole fruit, so I make fruit compote from them to eat with our breakfast muesli. The cherries are a sweet variety (Colney) and need something with acidity to be added to them when they are cooked, so I mix them with apricots or blackcurrants, plus some lemon juice and as little sugar as possible. I wish I was a more competent bottler, but although I find bottle a mean tomato, fruit isn’t as successful unless alcohol is involved – and that’s not really an option for breakfast! The compote gets frozen in 500 gram pots and with both our freezers already filled to bursting, another one is being delivered this week so that Squirrel Nutkin can continue the good work.

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I know that in a couple of weeks time the hydrangeas, dahlias, phlox, asters, echinacea and Japanese anemones will start to fill the garden with colour once more, so rather than dash out to a local nursery to buy some added colour, I’ve decided to relax and enjoy my largely green surroundings.  Shape and texture are highlighted when not distracted by colour and my various terracotta pots and rhubarb forcers have become sculptural presences rather than mere containers. Even the small pots that I put on the top of canes to avoid any eye-poking accidents make their own contribution.

A recent visit to the wonderful Fairlight End garden #fairlightendgarden in nearby Pett Village when it was open in aid of the NGS, revealed that they are using their rhubarb forcers in a similar way. Fairlight End is open again in aid of the St Michael’s hospice on Tuesday July 18^th, while my garden, together with seven other Hastings Old Town gardens is open on Saturday, July 22^nd from 10.30am-4pm.

Fairlight End garden

My garden will be open with other local gardens

The post Filling the Colour Gap first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Matteuccia struthiopteris in dry shade

Pot grown fern in the courtyard

Some ferns arrive unbidden – I particularly love the Hart’s Tongue (Asplenium) and Male Fern (Dryopteris filix mas) that have rooted themselves in the wall of the steps leading to the garage. Nearby a relative of the Hart’s Tongue, Asplenium scolopendrium ‘Angustifolia’ has wonderful crimped edges to the leaves and has grown happily in the same pot for the past five years. Like many of the ferns I grow, it is evergreen. It is only when I see the new fronds emerging in the spring that I cut back the old foliage and top dress the pot-grown ferns with a fresh mulch of composted bark.

Self-sown male fern and Hart’s Tongue

Asplenium scolopendrium ‘Angustifolia’

An indication of my developing addiction is the fact that I have been reading a fascinating and highly entertaining book called The Victorian Fern Craze by Sarah Whittingham (£7.95 from shirebooks.co.uk). It relates how it was actually the development of the Wardian case that led to Pteridomania (Fern Madness) sweeping through Britain in the 19th and early 20th century. The Wardian case was a portable greenhouse invented by Nathanial Bagshaw Ward – it made it possible for commercially important – as well as rare and tender plants – to be transported successfully from the colonies. Ward was also a keen naturalist and admirer of native ferns, but like other city gardeners of the time, had to contend with terrible air pollution that killed off his plants. It was the accidental inclusion of fern spores into a Wardian case and the subsequent germination in an atmosphere free of soot, but with heat, light and moisture that made it possible for Victorians to start collecting native ferns and growing them in what came to be known as terrariums – or should it be terraria?

There are only fifty species of native ferns in Britain but in the mid-19th century it was realised that they produced hundreds of variations, generally known as ‘sports’. It was seeking out these sports that fuelled the passion for collecting them. It would be no exaggeration to say that the countryside was plundered as collectors searched out something new to add to their collections. There is a report of one collector employing a labourer to dig up a 150lb prize fern and then hiring a man with a cart to transport it from Devon. For the less serious enthusiast, fern collecting was a good excuse for mixing with the opposite sex outdoors in an activity that was considered moral, healthy and educational! The First World War saw the end of Pteridomania as garden staff and knowledge were lost and progressively cleaner air meant that plants no longer needed to be kept under glass. These days both native and most introduced ferns can be grown outdoors and I am busy building my collection – of plants bought from nurseries. Never collect in the wild. Long Acre Nursery, Fibrex  and Larch Cottage Nurseries  all have a good range of ferns. Thus far I have resisted buying any tree ferns – I prefer to stick to native ferns. If you do buy a tree fern make sure that it is from an authorised source and that it has a tag on it to show that it hasn’t been collected from the wild.

Ferns growing in the wild in nearby Fairlight Glen

Ascog Fernery on Bute – a survivor from Victorian times

While reading this fascinating book, I was very taken with an illustration of the Victoria Lady Fern (Felix femina ‘Victoriae’) which was discovered in Scotland in 1861 and named after Queen Victoria. Its lattice-work, crisscrossing leaves (known more correctly as pinnae) sent it to the top of my ‘ferns I must acquire’ list. By remarkable coincidence, the very next day I was visiting a gardening friend and as we sat chatting in his courtyard I realised that there was a potted ‘Victoria’ right next to the table. I’m now doubly determined to get one of my own as soon as possible – it is a delicate and intriguing beauty.

Victoria Lady Fern

Coloured Lady Fern – Athyrium otophorum ‘Okahum’

Tatting Fern – Filix femina ‘Frizelliae’

The post I’m Fond of a Frond first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Now that all the hubbub has died down and I have had time to think about this year’s Chelsea, I thought I would report on the lasting impressions, rather than my instant reactions. And as this was the first Chelsea in sixteen years that I have attended without an editor’s hat on there was no need to rush around checking trends, looking for the latest new products, or planning features. Phew! Instead, I tried to look at everything through the eyes of a gardener rather than as a journalist. And have some fun!

Plants – Purple & Orange were much in evidence once more, together or separately.

Purples included candelabra primula, alliums, Salvia ‘Caradonna’ and the wonderfully moody Fritillaria persica ‘Twin Towers’ -all providing splashes of purple in various gardens.

Candelabra Primula

Deepest blue Salvia Caradonna

Fritillaria persica ‘Twin Towers’

A climbing rose ‘Purple Skyliner’ on Peter Beale’s stand first drew me by its scent. It is very similar to Veichenblau (which I grow in the garden where it scrambles through a Viburnum opulus) but has the added virtues of being more compact and repeat flowering. I’m very tempted.

Rose Purple Skyliner

Orange, mainly in the shape of geums. There seems to have been an explosion in geum breeding with new varieties in various shades – from pale yellow through orange to bright scarlet. Whether they will all prove to be as robust as the ever-reliable ‘Mrs. Bradshaw’ remains to be seen, but the clear-orange‘Princess Juliana’ is definitely on my list.

Geum Princess Juliana

American breeders have named all their new varieties after cocktails and they rejoice in names like ‘Banana Daquiri’, ‘Alabama Slammer’, ‘Mai Tai’ and ‘Cosmopolitan’. The tawny petals of ‘Alabama Slammer’ first caught my eye a couple of years ago – time to track it down.

Geum Alabama Slammer

Also on the plant list is a beautiful lily – Lilium longiflorum ‘Fusion’. It is a cross between an Asiatic and an American lily with pendant blooms, similar but larger than those of a martagon lily – apparently it is robust and hardy and will establish well in the garden. I’ve put my name down on the Thompson & Morgan website to be emailed when the autumn stocks arrive. I wish I could grow lupins but they succumb far too readily to woolly aphid in my garden – still, the orange lupin on Hardy’s stand was a beauty.

Lilum Fushion

Green – is often overlooked as we are drawn to eye-catching plants, but without a green setting they can look like a jumbled muddle. An all green garden on the other hand can work well, especially in a shady position providing there is plenty of contrast in shape and texture. The Sound Garden by James Alexander Sinclair did this supremely well.

James Alexander Sinclair’s Sound Garden

I was very happy to see that one of my favourite grasses featured in this and several other gardens – Wood Melick (Melica uniflora). It is a native grass of damp woodland banks, so it is perfect for shady situations. I bought my first couple of plants on a visit to Tom Stuart Smith’s garden and they now self-seed prolifically, but manageably, around the garden. Friends regularly ask for young plants so I pot up any excess when I am tidying the borders. Melick is at is best between April and June and will then die back slowly over the summer leaving space for late summer flowers.

Wood Melick in the Texture Garden

Wood Melick in my own garden

Conifers were another notable presence at Chelsea – beautiful gnarled trees that had real character. Although I have no conifers in the garden, I’ve always had a soft spot for Pinus mugo, the dwarf mountain pine and think I might grow one in a pot as an alternative to box. Although we have not yet suffered the ravages of the box tree moth in this area, it might be wise to have a few substitutes lined up.

The Structural Elements were diverse – from the challenging Quarry Garden where the stone dominated, to the Fresh garden designed as a tribute to Mexican architect Luis Barragan with its rich orange and pink walls and its turquoise pool that positively radiated sunshine. A word of warning though – before you dash off to do something similar in your own garden, it won’t look quite as alluring on a wet and dreary day in February – it needs good strong light to work its magic. That’s true of the Quarry Garden too!

I hope that visiting architects took a close look at Kate Gould’s greening of an urban apartment block, where plants were incorporated in spaces on different levels. It reminded me, on a smaller scale, of the way that Singapore is incorporating green spaces within and around their buildings to create a richly planted environment. We need more of this.

I did wonder if the designer of the near invisible glass greenhouses had given any thought to how many birds would break their necks flying into their sides – plus, by the time all the usual greenhouse clutter had been stored inside it would probably end up looking more like a see-through shed!

Good Stuff in every sense – was in evidence on the stand of Horatio’s Garden, the charity that is raising money to create gardens in Spinal Injury Units around the country. I spoke to a young woman who had been in the Salisbury unit before the garden was installed, so she had a real understanding of how life transforming this has been for the patients “It almost makes me want to be there again” she told me – high praise indeed. The carefully selected, high quality, colour-themed range of gifts they sell are all very tempting and it is so good to know that you are helping improve the life quality of patients while they learn to regain their independence. www.horatiosgarden.org.uk

The post Reflections on Chelsea 2017 first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

I had a memorable and hugely enjoyable day when I was invited to join one of the first workshops held by Shane Connolly at his London studio. He is the man behind the glorious avenue of trees and the array of British flowers at the wedding of William and Kate and is a master of ‘unarranged’ arrangements. This is right up my street so it was a real treat to be there. His studio is inside a utilitarian building on an industrial estate in west London, but the interior is an Aladdin’s cave of all things floral. One wall holds banks of the freshest, most diverse flowers imaginable, while the opposite wall stores serried ranks of containers of every shape and size.

The day was divided into two – in the morning Shane explained his philosophy and approach to using flowers and demonstrated how he works, while in the afternoon we got to plunder the wall of flowers and put into practice what we had learned, making two arrangements to take home. He is a charming man with a soft Irish accent and is inclusive and funny which makes the process of absorbing his ideas quite effortless. He gained his love of flowers from his mother, whose use of flowers he described as the old-fashioned ‘housewife’s approach’ – in other words, flowers from the garden, not from a shop. He told us that he is most comfortable with gardeners and in gardens and loves it when his flowers blur the boundaries between indoors and outdoors. “Flowers stitch us back into Nature” he told us “the first blossom of spring always melts your heart. Seasons mean everything.”

In amongst the lyrical descriptions there was also good practical advice – for example, he recommends using vases with narrow necks for natural arrangements and when supporting flowers in wider vases he suggests using twigs and NEVER oasis because it is not biodegradable and it contains formaldehyde! Watching him select the flowers for his arrangement, just picking one of this and two of that, I realised that naturalistic flowers do not require an entire cutting garden to make use of home grown flowers – a couple of branches of foliage, a few flowers and even a weed or two and I will be able to put together something lovely.

The final challenge of the day was taking my flowers home via the Circle Line and then the train from Charing Cross to Hastings. Somehow I managed and the flowers are still looking almost as good as they did in Shane’s Studio. www.shaneconnolly.co.uk

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The peaceful courtyard of Buonanotte Garibaldi

The advantage of returning to Rome for a second time is that we had ticked off all the main sights during our first, foot-weary visit a few years ago. This time we could escape the milling throng and get a feel for Rome beyond the tourist madness. Staying on the other side of the Tiber from most of the action – in the Trastevere District – meant it was quieter, greener and a lot more relaxing. And who wouldn’t be charmed by a b&b called Buonanotte Garibaldi? Hidden behind concealing gates in a wall, its rooms were arranged around a cool, quiet courtyard garden that was patrolled by the Noa the resident dog.

Noa – the charming resident dog

Star Street Performer was undoubtedly the Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) which was in full and fragrant flower, covering buildings and wreathing doorways. While it is a plant that grows well in England, it never puts on quite the same extravagant display that we saw in Rome. It was a truly heady experience.

Star jasmine at its fragrant best

Rome’s Botanical Garden is a five minute walk from Buonanotte Garibaldi and is a perfect place to wander on a hot afternoon. Like most botanical gardens, it is more a place of plant science than horticultural excellence, but it is beautifully positioned on a hillside with wonderful views over Rome. It has many mature trees, an impressive grove of giant bamboos, magnificent palms and an elegant (but empty) greenhouse that I rather coveted.

View from the Rome Botanic Garden

Bamboo Grove

A fine collection of palms

I rather coveted this greenhouse

Ninfa is known as the most romantic garden in the world and it has long been top of the list of the gardens I have wanted to visit. With very limited opening hours, especially if you want to catch it when the roses are in bloom, it takes a bit of planning, but finally I have been and I was as captivated by its atmospheric beauty as I had hoped. South of Rome, it is under an hour’s journey by train and taxi from the nearest station of Latina.

For those who don’t know its story, the gardens are built on the ruins of the medieval town of Ninfa on the Pontine Marshes. At its height there were two thousand inhabitants, but it was abandoned when it proved hard to defend. Part of the estate of the Caetani family, it was left largely undisturbed until the 20th century when Onorato Caetani married an English woman who fell in love with Ninfa and devoted her life to creating the garden. Two more generations of Caetani women continued her work with equal devotion. Where other gardens have pergolas and arbours, at Ninfa the roses, wisterias and other climbers tumble and cascade over the picturesque ruins. The scent of the roses pervades the air, making the experience all the more delicious. The River Ninfa rises nearby and flows through the garden, its crystal clear waters filled with a rich diversity of aquatic plants. Bridges, some dating back to Roman times, span the water and were once important thoroughfares linking one side of the town to the other.

Romantic ruins are not unusual in gardens, but usually they consist of a one or two decoratively-tumbled-down buildings, or even a folly, but I was struck by the sense that this was once an entire town of two thousand inhabitants where people bustled through the streets, crossed the bridges and lived their lives in the buildings now clothed in roses. Sit quietly and look around and echoes of its past envelop you.

Roman Bridge

Like many of the finest gardens, there are tantalising views of private domains that can be seen but not entered. The far side of the river can only be viewed from the near bank, while the walled Hortus Conclusus with its orchard of citrus trees is visible through the slats of the high wooden gate – in pouring rain in my case as the heavens opened part way through our visit.

Views across the river to the part of the garden that can be seen but not visited

The Hortus Conclusus – in the rain
A particular delight, among many, was meeting Lauro Marchetti who has spent his entire life at Ninfa and is now the Curator of the foundation that was created to safeguard the future of the garden. He first came to Ninfa as a small child when Lelia Caetani – the third of the women who spent a lifetime making the garden what it is today – visited his family on the next door farm. He was drawing a goldfinch and was a bit put out when she told him that there was too much red on its head. She offered to help him get it right if he visited her at Ninfa. Lelia was the last in the line of the Caetani family and childless and from that inauspicious beginning she went on to informally adopt him. He soon got over her criticism (she was an accomplished artist) and spent a magical childhood exploring every nook and cranny of the garden, observing the wildlife and watching the gardeners at work. Later he became an apprentice gardener and then a gardener and was Lelia’s natural successor when she died in 1977. If ever someone was imbued with the atmosphere of a place, it is Lauro. A gentle, charming man, Lelia chose well.

With Lauro Marchetti and his wife Silvia

A selection of the roses at Ninfa

An aqueduct carries water at right angles over a stream

Several springs rise within the grounds of Ninfa

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My coppiced silver birch is too short too weave the elegant structures we made at Perch Hill – hence the short, dumpy, unwoven object in the vegetable garden
The next thing that I learnt is that you need a really good depth of soil (and possibly a metal stake) to push the branches deep into the ground so that when you weave the branches together they stay in position. For a decent size support you will need about seven branches, but you can make something more slender with just four. Starting close to the ground you gather up all the fine side branches from the first stem and twist them round on themselves and then bend them across to the second stem and twist both lots of side branches together, before moving on to the next stem. The twiggy ‘rope’ can gradually ascend towards the top of the structure or can form a series of circles.

Sinuous plant supports, using the same silver birch branches can be woven around tall perennials such as delphiniums and will work as well, but far less expensively, than the metal alternatives. Instead of twisting and weaving the fine branches vertically they are woven horizontally.


At Perch Hill, some of the cutting garden beds have a permanent horizontal framework of hazel rods that stops the narcissi flopping in spring and then provides support for the dahlias that will push through from below later in the year.

As Sarah grows new flowers for cutting she is devising ways of supporting them – this ‘fence’ of hazel uprights interwoven with willow will support a new planting of perennial sweet peas – I will be interested to return later in the year and see how they look, but it occurred to me that this type of informal fence would be an excellent divider in a garden and would look lovely with a not too robust rose trained along its length.

On the subject of roses – and the training thereof – at Perch Hill they have started to emulate the Sissinghurst method of training shrub roses into balloon shapes by bending the new growth and tying it to hazel hoops that have been pushed into the ground. Not only does this keep the roses under control, it also encourages far more flowers as multiple side shoots appear along the length of each stem.

So, that’s how the experts do it. Meanwhile back at home, my efforts are more modest, but I have managed to give support of one kind or another to the plants that are most vulnerable to flop, or to being knocked over by the wind. In the borders, tall perennials including Michaelmas daisies and Boltonia have hazel cages that will stop them smothering their companions. I compromise when its comes to the clematis – they already have decorative metal supports – so I pack them with silver birch branches to soften their appearance and I find they prefer to cling to twigs rather than the metal. Meanwhile in the vegetable plot, my dumpy unwoven silver birch support may not have the elegance of those at Perch Hill, but I am hoping that the gem squash will scramble up it in due course. The beanpoles are in place ready for runner beans and the sweet peas are scrambling up the cage of hazel twigs that I have woven around them. Apparently they are happier growing round a circular support, rather than a wigwam where they all compete for the same space when they reach the top.

The post Let’s Get Weaving – Plant Supports first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Belle Epoque

On the other hand, this is the second year that I have planted white and green ‘Exotic Emperor’ in the dolly tubs either side of the front door for an early display and they have been a huge success and will definitely be on the list again. They die attractively too, so they don’t detract from the shocking-pink ‘Barcelona’ that follow on later.

Exotic Emperor

An accidental combination has provided me with the main inspiration for next year’s pots. Each autumn, any decent size bulbs that I’ve saved from the previous spring’s pots get planted in the garden. Theoretically, the orange shades – especially ‘Ballerina’ – go in the woodland area where they look fab amongst the camassias, while the pinks and purples go in the borders. Inevitably things get muddled and this year’s star muddle is the combination of shocking pink, orange and clear-red that popped up in one of the borders. I’m considering adding a few near-black singles and doubles as well for maximum va va voom – no wonder I find ‘Belle Epoque’ too low key!

Ballerina amongst the camassias

Barcelona, Ballerina, Couleur Cardinal – a joyful combination

As well as ‘Ballerina’ any of the viridiflora will naturalise well – ‘Spring Green’ is the best known, but I also like its show-off relative ‘Flaming Spring Green’ and have just discovered ‘China Pink’ which I will plant again – but not amongst the oranges – even I have my limits!

Spring Green

Flaming Spring Green

China Pink

Finally, dotted around the garden I have several small shallow troughs and pots where I grow species tulips – Apricot Jewel is my favourite – their smaller scale works well on ledges and table tops where they can be closely admired. When they have finished flowering I leave tuck them out of sight and leave them to die back until they reappear next spring.

Apricot Jewel

Time to start writing my list!

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It’s a really good year for tulips – the cool nights mean that they are lasting well – as long as you water those growing in containers regularly.

Pinch out Now for Bushy Cosmos

If you have grown cosmos from seed, or have bought plug plants, it’s time to pinch them out to encourage bushy, sturdy plants. Pinch them out above their second set of proper leaves and they will soon to send out side shoots and flower their socks off all summer long.

Step this Way

With the woodland area in the garden looking especially lovely right now, it seemed sensible to top up the bark on the paths that weave through it.  After the winter the existing bark had rotted down and weeds were starting to appear.  As luck would have it, the local council chose to cut back the bank on the other side of the road, including a few trees and blew the chippings back onto the bank.  I checked with them and they were more than happy for me to help myself – in fact they offered to blow some on to our driveway, but I had to say no because we were going away the next day.  Still, a few trips across the road with the wheelbarrow and the job is done.  Fresh chippings like this can only be used on paths – if it was used as a mulch on the borders it would rob the plants of nitrogen as it decomposes.

The post Jobs to be Done in April first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Arabis purpurea

Arabis purpurea with seed pods

Thymus integer

Viola sieheana

And Finally

It wasn’t all earnest botanising – there was time to pose with a giant  plastic bunny and chick.

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Crocus cyprius

Scilla hoechii

Autumn flowering cyclamen hederifolium

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In the creepy crawly department, two insects were the stand-out stars of the show – the Nosed Grasshopper is definitely the Cyrano de Bergerac of grasshoppers, while the green chequerboard praying mantis was quite magnificent.

As befits their name, we spotted the tree frogs perched on branches and completely unperturbed by our taking their portraits.

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Avocado Blossom

Loquats

Orange blossom

Young leaves of bladder campion are eating both cooked and raw

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Astragalus

Zosima Absinthifolia

Orlaya growing in the wild

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Yannis Christophides (he’s not holding an orchid!)

Orchis anatolica

Our botanist, Yannis Christophides, was endlessly patient as we kept asking him to identify orchids that we had already seen several times. I came away confident that I could accurately identify four of the over fifty orchids that grow in Cyprus – the Naked Man orchid (no mistaking that one), Orchis anatolica, Giant Orchid and Serapia, but beyond that there are so many tiny variations in colour, pattern and shape of each small flower that I was seldom entirely confident. The orchids are more discriminating though – in particular, Yannis described their sex life which is complex and specific. To achieve pollination each species of orchid must attract its own unique insect by exuding a pheromone that only that insect responds to – sometimes from over a kilometre away. Once pollinated, the seed must be infected with a particular myccorhizal fungi for it to germinate. Evolution does result in some extraordinary processes.

Naked Man Orchid

Orchis syriaca

Two forms of Giant orchid

Three different types of bee orchid – and that’s as specific as I will get

Sadly, there were numerous occasions when Yannis took us to a particular location to see a patch of orchids, only to discover that:
a. they had been picked
b. they had been marked by a stack of stones, or something similar, for digging up later (we moved the stones)
c. they had been sprayed by road maintenance teams – even in remote locations
d. stone had been dumped all over them from roadworks
d. fly tippers had covered them with rubbish
It seems there is quite a long way to go before wildflowers are given the protection they need – but then it wasn’t many years ago that our local councils were cutting and spraying the verges. Yannis is doing his best spread the message.

The post Orchid Overload first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Cistus

Visiting somewhere new to learn about the local flora and fauna is an enriching experience – especially when you are in the hands of a local expert who brings it all to life far better than any travel guidebook ever will. I look at things more closely – and not just the wildflowers – and come home nourished by the experience. I like to think I am a bit more knowledgeable too, although I suspect that the finer details that differentiate many of the similar-but-different wild orchids will continue to elude me.

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We escaped the chill weather for a week to see the wildflowers of  southern Cyprus with travel company Naturetrek – our company of choice when we want to see plants in their natural habitat. And what a week to choose – according to our local botanist guide, he doesn’t remember them ever being finer thanks to the  late winter rain that has stimulated mass flowering.

Paphos Archeological Park

Poppies and corn marigolds are the real show-offs, painting the landscape red and gold over huge areas and at their most spectacular amongst the Greco-Roman ruins that remain in a fine state of preservation around Paphos. Paphos is this year’s European Capital of Culture, despite the fact that much of the city – with the exception of the 2000 year old bits – seems to largely be a construction site. It’s not clear whether the work will be finished anytime in 2017. Still, the good bits are wonderful.




The mosaics at Paphos Archeological Park are in wonderful condition and of intricately fine detail with subtle colour variations assembling images of great sophistication
Moraea – a member of the Iris family, grows tucked in amnogst the poppies and corn marigolds


Cyclamen persicum grew in amazingly diverse places – crevices in rocks seem to be a favourite, but they also sprang up in amongst other wildflowers under the shade of trees and even on rocky areas of meadow

One of the loveliest of meadow flowers is the Turban buttercup -only close examination and a different colour palette distinguishes it from an anemone. It grows mainly on the edge of meadows in shades of white and bright yellow and very occasionally stained with red.

If only our bindweed looked like this convolvulus with rich pink flowers and mallow-like foliage, we might forgive it it’s invasive ways.

Ferula communis, the giant fennel, was a wonderful architectural presence on the roadsides and along the coast

The post Spring Flower Bonanza first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

I love the modest beauty of the Ipheon and especially the rich blue of I. ‘Jessie’

Iris unguicularis – the Algerian iris thrives on neglect in a sunny spot next to a wall or in a pot

Muscari paradoxa is a sturdy plant with thick strappy leaves and large eye-catching denim blue flowers

The post Feeling Blue first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

This page offers some advice in identifying between Spanish and native bluebells.

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First recipient of this attention was one of my figs.  Both Pashley Manor and Sissinghurst do a fine job of tying in their figs and I’m hoping that my relatively young tree will look equally good and throw less shade onto the border beneath.

Sissinghurst Fig

My Fig

And here’s the one in Daniel’s garden – it’s work in progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVzo-SSG1BM

Also while I was at Sissinghurst, I took a close look at the magnolia grandiflora  that spreads across the face of the brickwork in the top courtyard and discovered that the branches were discreetly tied to one another to keep them quite flat to the wall. It took a bit of muscle power and persuasion, but that’s another job done.

Sissinghurst Magnolia grandifolia

My magnolia grandiflora

Finally, the cultivated blackberry that grows at the back of the greenhouse has been supported in a rather ad hoc fashion and picking the fruit has involved lacerating my arms more than should be necessary. (Why didn’t I buy a thornless variety I frequently ask myself?)  I don’t want a permanent structure as that would involve sinking posts and as it is a sheltered spot I’ve come up with the solution of propping a couple of pieces of sturdy trellis against the greenhouse eaves.  The blackberries are now tied in, cover a larger area and should prove far easier to pick. I do enjoy finding solutions that don’t involve waiting for someone else to do it.

The post Tying up Plants first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

By now you may be wanting to have more details about these lights and although I am not in the habit of promoting products on my blog (I did pay in full for them) they are Searchlight 3440BK LED Black Aluminium Outdoor Ground Spikes from Scotlight Direct and cost £46.08p each.

The post Let there be Light first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

That said, now is a good time to dig up celandines while the small tubers on the roots are still firmly attached to the parent plant – I select a square metre or so and clear it – it is quite therapeutic but I suspect ultimately futile as there will be other tubers lurking in the soil.  I only spend time on this in the borders – in the woodland area I don’t intervene unless they are seriously threatening a more desirable plant.

The Spanish bluebells are real thugs, but having dug up huge quantities of them to no notable effect I now try to reduce rather than remove them, concentrating on keeping them out of the borders.  Once they have flowered I will pull the foliage and flower stems to stop them seeding and theoretically to weaken the plant, although they are showing little sign of flagging.  On a less gloomy note, the Smyrnium perfoliatum that I planted three years ago are finally self-seeding enthusiastically and they do combine beautifully with the bluebells, some of which are native bluebells. So there are many reasons to be cheerful right now.

A final cautionary note – don’t put celandines or bluebell bulbs in the compost heap, but do dispose of them responsibly, ideally by taking them to the local tip where the heat generated in  commercial compost heaps should ensure they are no longer viable.

The post The Illusion of Control first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Honesty Lunaria

It’s quite cold and dreary today so I will take the opportunity to sort through my seed storage box and see what I need to buy and get some labels written that are legible, rather than scrawled in haste in the greenhouse with a pen or pencil that has seen better days. Note to self: throw them away instead of optimistically trying to write with them – if they didn’t work in the autumn, they certainly won’t work now.

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Priced at £12.99 this compendium of hard to kill plants will save the rookie gardener a small fortune, I only wish this book had been out ten years ago.

Just out and available to order online you can get a taste of what’s in store by searching out Alice on Instagram – @noughticulture.

The post How to grow stuff first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

1st Class Potting Compost
Regular blog readers will know that I’m a great fan of Sylvagrow potting compost – I have found it consistently good and will drive some distance to stock up on it. So I was very pleased to see that from March they will be selling a Soil Association approved organic version of the compost. You can do a search on your computer to find your nearest stockist by putting ‘Find Sylvagrow’ into your search engine and a map will pop up. I did and discovered there is now a supplier much closer to home.

A Cross Between a Shepherd’s Hut and a Shed?
The Posh Shed Company is launching the new Tin Hat Modular Shed Range this year for those who like their sheds to look understated and functional. This company constantly innovates and it will be interesting is these prove as popular as their ‘beach hut’ sheds.

For Gardeners with no Gardens
It was noticeable how many of the displays featured houseplants and houseplant containers – in recognition of the many people have nothing more than a balcony, windowsill, or no outdoor space at all. Burgon & Ball had a great range of ceramic containers for indoor plants, including the ultimate space savers – hanging pots.

Tools You Will Never Lose
The Flora Brite range, also from Burgon & Ball, has hand tools in neon pink and fluorescent yellow. For anyone who is in the habit of putting tools down and then spending far too long trying to locate them (me!), these are a great idea. The gloves even have fluorescent strips on them, so they will glow in the dark – although I’m not sure that I’ve ever needed to extend my search into the night.

In the Spotlight
Elho, the Dutch maker of recycled plastic pots and containers, combines a planter and its own solar-powered light in one with its Flower Light. An attractive addition to a garden table as the light fades – the soft glow won’t replace outdoor lighting, but it may encourage you to linger a bit longer.

No More Weightlifting
If your garden tools are heavy and cumbersome, it may be time to look for lightweight alternatives. After all, we are all different sizes and strengths and there is no point in using energy working with something made for someone twice your size and strength. The Kent & Stowe ‘Garden Life’ range combines traditional looks with up to 40% weight reduction.

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The couple were determined to rescue them and they have worked hard to get the nursery on a firm footing to help fund the restoration work. Emma trained and worked at Great Dixter and Sissinghurst and is a skilled horticulturalist, growing plants that you can’t help buying (I speak from experience).

Gradually they have been bringing the glasshouses back into use, starting with the vast Vinery, which, alongside some venerable grapevines, now holds a shop full of unusual gardenalia and a café which is deservedly proving an attraction in its own right.

Now for the brilliant news – they have been given a gift of £200,000 to completely restore four of the glasshouses by the granddaughter of the head gardener, Ernest Hardcastle, who was in charge of the garden between 1914 and 1945. She was evacuated to the Tongswood Estate (as it was then) during the war and it was where she grew up.

Work is due to start in April, reusing all the original metalwork and replacing the rotten timbers with Accoya wood. Accoya is the new wonder-wood, made from acetylated, sustainably-grown, non-toxic softwood that has the strength and durability of hardwoods. The glasshouses will be a wonderful legacy of a generous and life-changing gift.
The Walled Nursery is not far from Great Dixter, Sissinghurst and Pashley Manor, so add it to the list if you are visiting any of these gardens.

PS Cultivar greenhouses also use Accoya for strength and durability and cost much less than £200,000.

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Finally a modern approach to garden design in this practical book ‘My Garden is a Car Park and other design dilemmas’ by Kendra Wilson. With every page turn a new garden design dilemma is addressed with sharp advice and beautiful illustrations. The format will no doubt strike a chord with the younger generation of gardeners coming through that have been brought up on blogs.  No stone is left unturned. So if you find yourself saying ‘ I don’t know where to begin’ or ‘my garden is not relaxing’ then you may find the answer lies herein. The book will be available February, 2017.

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frost causing brugmansia flowers to wilt

frost protected brugmansia

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3 Hibiscus

Frangipane

Frangipane

A tropical Daphne

Orchids

We also found time to visit one of the ‘wet’ markets where Singaporeans go to buy all their food. They are called ‘wet’ because the floors are constantly washed down to keep them clean. Lacking any need to buy any of the intriguing looking vegetables, dried or fresh fish, or flowers, I found a spice stall and bought black peppercorns.

The street food of Singapore is delicious and perfectly safe to eat, although only the most adventurous (not me) will try deep-fried fish heads, or frog porridge.  But there is plenty of less-alarming food to choose from and eat at the communal tables in the covered streets of Singapore’s Chinatown. This experienced is further enhanced by the Tiger Beer ‘Aunties’ – women of middle years, dressed in bright red, who take orders and deliver Tiger Beer to your table –  it’s the only thing to drink in the heat and humidity.

Visiting a place where the conditions for growth are near perfect is always exciting. Plants find their niches and growth is many-layered with climbers twining through trees and every nook and cranny – even a tree trunk – provides a home for opportunistic ferns.

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Franz Josef Glacier

Sadly we didn’t see the famous Mount Cook Lily, a stunning large white buttercup, and although we saw the leaves of Celmisia, the Mount Cook Daisy, the only one I saw in flower was a different member of the Celmisia family in a garden in Omauru. We did spot a tiny orchid with flowers no larger than the nail on my little finger growing under trees next to the path. It may be Lyall’s orchid but it wasn’t out fully enough to be sure. There were hebes in their natural habitat, gaultherias in full bloom, Dracophyllum not yet in flower and the strange low-growing Raoulia, known – once it matures – as the vegetable sheep because its white foliage and lumpy outline it looks like sleeping sheep. It is worth looking it up online. The one I photographed was still a very tiny lamb!

Mount Cook Daisy ©Department of Conservation New Zealand

Mount Cook Lily © Image from http://alpinismski.co.nz

Lyall’s Orchid in the wild

Gaultheria – Snowberry

Hebes in the wild

Dracophyllum longifolium

Vegetable sheep

But even here, there were non-native plants to be seen, aquilegias in amongst native ferns, raspberries, gooseberries and currants. I suspect the fruit bushes arrived here courtesy of the Kea, the parrot that lives in these alpine regions.


It’s always disappointing when the weather interferes with plans, but it certainly made the Mount Cook visit memorable and was just one of the factors that has us considering a return to New Zealand before too long.
There’s so much more too see – including the Mount Cook Lily.

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I suppose that given that we were not far from Middle Earth – or so the map indicated – I shouldn’t have been surprised to happen upon a garden that gave every indication of being created by a hobbit and a very industrious hobbit at that.

Blurry back view of hobbit – they are very shy

Not only had he planted this extensive hillside garden, he had also built the house which I was given a tour of as part of the admission – and if anyone is after somewhere extremely quirky to stay should they be in this area then this is definitely your place.

The garden climbs the hillside with planting that is abundant and informal – roses weave in amongst cordylines, cardiocrinums tower above surrounding plants, multi-stemmed shrubby echiums buzz with bees as paths weave in and out of the planting, all framed by arches, moon gates and rustic artworks created by the presiding genius.

Hundreds of lilies will come into flower in the next few weeks, spreading their perfume across the garden, but at the moment it is the scent or roses that permeates every corner. I did notice a For Sale sign so I’m not sure how much longer this garden will survive, but I am so glad that I had the opportunity to visit it. It’s a bit bonkers, very beautiful and must represent many years of backbreaking work – Mr Hobbit I salute you.

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Agapanthus – A fleece jacket will be added if really cold weather is forecast

Brugmansia with its straw wrapped stems – it will be neatened up but the light was going!

Agapanthus – A fleece jacket will be added if really cold weather is forecast Brugmansia with its straw wrapped stems – it will be neatened up but the light was going!

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Wire netting hats aren’t very lovely, but they do the job

Old hanging baskets deter squirrels and also mark where bulbs have been planted

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• Before you put the seeds in the compost, rub them with sandpaper to gently scuff the hard surface
• Water lightly once and do not water again until they have germinated or the seeds may rot, especially now that temperatures have dropped
• Gentle bottom heat will speed up germination
• Once the seedlings are growing well I move them from the greenhouse to the coldframe and pinch out the growing tips to two sets of leaves. This encourages the plants to grow good strong roots overwinter.

In previous years I have used Root Trainers, sowing one seed per cell, but I do find them quite fiddly, so this year I am sowing each variety in its own long tom pot. I know you are supposed to avoid root disturbance, but as they seldom emerged from the root trainer cells with their rootballs intact, I think it is worth a go.

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A selection of Geoff’s pre-foraged funghi

Shaggy Parasol mushroom

Hen of the Woods amongst the leaf litter

When we returned from our walk, Geoff cooked up our finds, together with some of his earlier foraging, in the camp kitchen and the variety of flavours was extraordinary. But given that one particular variety required 15 minutes cooking to make it edible and his warning that many are generally edible but cause a mild allergic reaction in a percentage of the population, I left more cautious than I arrived, which is probably a good thing for me and the environment. The day ended with a slice of a very tasty leek and wild mushroom tart made by Cathy, Geoff’s wife.

I did absorb some fascinating and useful facts. Apparently true chanterelles (delicious and exceedingly edible) smell of apricots while the false chanterelle (poisonous) does not.

True chanterelle

False chanterelle is deeper coloured

The yellow stainer looks like a field mushroom, but exudes yellow when wiped or cut and is the most common cause of poisoning by mushrooms in the UK – the good news is that it won’t kill you.

Yellow Stainer

I don’t remember the name of this inedible fungi – but Geoff showed us how its skin can be used as a plaster. Bit of a case of ‘first find your mushroom’ though.
Puffballs are nearly all edible, including one weighing 2 stone that was found recently by a Scottish Woodland Ranger. But should you discover that it has a black interior when you cut it open I doubt you would be tempted to eat it, which is a good thing because it’s actually a common earthball. It has a strong unpleasant smell and is poisonous – even smelling it can cause an allergic reaction.

Common Earthball

For braver souls than myself, Geoff’s book is an excellent and comprehensive guide to all the edible fungi of Britain and Europe and it is available from www.greenbooks.co.uk for £19.99.
Should you fancy learning some bushcraft skills check out www.jackravenbushcraft.co.uk

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Before

After

Begonia grandis evansiana

Persicaria virginiana ‘Lance Corporal’

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First stop was the Garden Restaurant, with floor to ceiling glazing looking out onto the gardens, for a slice of cake and a coffee.

Finding Scampston Hall Gardens couldn’t be any easier, thanks in part to the straight Roman roads. Doing a little homework by visiting their informative website will ensure you’re well briefed on the history, concept and location of Scampston. There’s good car parking facilities close to the walled garden and a well staffed and stocked restaurant.  The concept of going  from room to room within the garden might draw comparison to trip around Ikea. Fortunately there were no signs of arguing parents, the loudest noise came from the drifts of molinia, by the thousand, catching the breeze. And no, meatballs weren’t on the menu. It’s hard to believe that it has been 17 years since the walled garden was conceived, the planting now seems as up to date as any of the gardens at this years Chelsea Flower Show.  Today the plants are firmly rooted within the old walls, mature and well established.

Here’s 3 good reasons that you should visit Scampston :

• 1. To admire the Planting by Piet Oudolf

Weird and wonderful – Actaea alba

Euphorbia Mellifera and Tetrapanax papyrifer – a fabulous jungle plant combination that is clearly hardy enough for the UK.

Signature planting of Piet Oudolf – still looking fabulous in the transition to Autumn

Neatly trimmed buxus centrally with sedums and grasses in the borders

View of The Serpentine garden from ‘The Mount’.

• 2. For Inspiration

The gate to the vegetable garden looking from the cut flower garden

The newly furnished Greenhouse at Scampston – all set ready for Spring.

• 3. To enjoy the Landscaping by Capability Brown

Of course there’s the classic landscaping of Capability Brown surrounding the Hall too.

Majestic Spanish Sweet Chestnut set against clear blue skies

With views straight out of a period drama  you should not leave Scampston without taking a leisurely stroll around the grounds, landscaped by Capability Brown. It’s very easy to work up an appetite for a hearty lunch at the Garden Restaurant, a perfect end to a lovely visit.

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@studiodinamo

Be sure to check out the strong garden designs featuring on Dinamo Landscape Studios. Open your eyes to landscapes photographed from a different angle.

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@theoutdoorcollective

Bringing together all facets of outdoor design be inspired by The Outdoor Collective. A must follow for anyone looking to improve their garden, you are sure to find inspiration here.

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@plantsnyc

As you might expect from a new York City Plant specialist there are plenty of fabulous roof terrace gardens and inspirational skylines. Great for getting ideas for any small and modern urban garden, wherever you are in the World.
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@lna_landscapers_association

More great angles and modern landscaping ideas from LNA Master Landscapers. Based down under this powerhouse is using instagram to raise the profile for the landscape Industry in Australia and beyond.

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@e_gardener
[instagram-feed id=”10993602″ num=2 cols=2]If you’re looking for ideas a little closer to home then follow me, your northern correspondent for a taste of plants and gardens in the North of England.

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This morning’s harvest Chillis and padron peppers

Outdoor tomatoes are ripening fast

Gem squash romping through the trees courtesy of their telephone wire tendrils

Successional sowing of herbs and salads

Fewer tomato plants and bigger crops this year – I’ve finally learnt that lesson!

The marrow/squash lovechild

The post My Little Cornucopia first appeared on The Enduring Gardener.

Rip City, my favourite dahlia, was obliterated in the border by the slugs, so it has been dug up and potted up into several pots where the rescued tubers are putting on healthy leaf. I will cosset them  through the autumn and keep them undercover for the winter so that I don’t have to do without them next year.

Meanwhile, a visit to Sarah Raven’s garden, Perch Hill (open in aid of our local hospice) was awash with glorious dahlias.  It did make me wonder if I was wasting my time growing them in my generally too shady garden, but I suspect that optimism will prevail and I will have another go.

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@idamagntorn

Look no further for inspirational home and garden photos from this popular author, photographer and blogger.

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@myscandinavianhome

As the name suggests expect to see some stylish Scandinavian interiors embellished with attractive house plants, flowers and of course the occasional stylish garden !

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@skillnadens

It isn’t all glamourous interiors as this hands on grow your own gardener from Sweden demonstrates. From the comfort of your couch sit back and marvel at the hard work and wide ranging freshly grown produce and be inspired !

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@e_gardener
[instagram-feed id=”10993602″ num=2 cols=2] And if you’d also like a taste of gardens and plants from the North of England you’re welcome to follow me, your northern correspondent.

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Pretty in Spring

The two  New Dawn roses that climb up the obelisks are an ill-disciplined pair, they flower poorly and shoot off in every direction and most of the other roses, with the exception of a Cardinal Richelieu, seem to be struggling, while the majority of the perennials have to fight  for survival.

By this time of year this whole area is looking tired and is in need of a revamp

There are a few exceptions – a very happy group of white Agapanthus africanus, clumps of iris sibirica, self sown geranium palmatum and a growing colony of hollyhocks – but the plan is to dig up the rest of the perennials and relocate them in other parts of the garden.  There are some good shrubs and small trees  that I will then underplant with grasses (there are already plenty of spring bulbs) and at the appropriate time (April)  I will divide up the agapanthus so that I can spread them through this area.  If it all works as planned, the result should be that the Lower Garden requires less work and looks better for much longer.  Watch this space.

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Possibly the first WWOOF weekend (I’m not there)

Some activities don’t change!

Working Weekends on Organic Farms was the brainchild of Sue Coppard who has watched her idea grow from five people squeezing into a mini to go and dig potatoes to a thriving international charity now known as Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. WWOOF provides organic farmers and market gardeners with valuable free labour in return for board and lodging and gives young people the opportunity to travel to different countries and get involved with rural life in a way that would never happen if they were following the well-trodden gap year routes.

So how did WWOOF change my life?  The very first weekend I went on was to a cottage in the middle of the Ashdown Forest. Jenifer, the owner, needed help with her vegetable garden and as we worked I talked to her and we quickly became – and remain – good friends.  I went on other WWOOF weekends and realised that I wanted to move out of London and become an organic gardener. I returned frequently  to stay with Jenifer and met her circle of friends. Several of us decided to set up a commune, initially close to the Ashdown Forest, before six of us moved to Wales where we bought a farm and established a dairy herd. I grew the vegetables.

On the farm in Wales with my sister (on the right) who was visiting

The farm has outlasted the commune and is owned by one of the original group, while  the rest of us went in different directions.  I married a farmer and went to live on his family farm, where once again I gardened organically. When we went our separate ways I continued to work as a gardener, but with two children to support, I returned to an early love of writing and began to write about organic gardening. Over the years I have written many books, including co-authoring The Elements of Organic Gardening with the Prince of Wales and until recently I was the garden editor of Country Living magazine. I now divide my time between writing freelance features for national newspapers and magazines and spending time in my garden – gardening organically.   I often ponder how different my life might have been if I hadn’t answered that ad. Thank you WWOOF and thank you Sue for a truly brilliant idea. www.wwoof.org.uk

Sue Coppard

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It is also a wonderful year for hollyhocks with many of them over two metres high and flowering their socks off.  The dahlias have been more variable with Rip City munched to oblivion (I’m about to dig it up and see if I can resuscitate it) while Hillcrest Royal has never looked finer.

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Gif sur Yvette – Then

Gif sur Yvette – Now

Although now much simplified, many of the structural elements of Russel Page’s design survive

The front door of the main house

Despite its height, judging from the size of its trunk this tulip tree may have been planted by Page

The circular building was the changing room for the swimming pool that no longer exists

Behind the scenes, the greenhouse is still stacked high with pots

Good idea – the steps outside the greenhouse have a runnel for the wheelbarrow

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@Haarkon
[instagram-feed id=”1234934449″ num=2 cols=2] @Haarkon_ is the plant journal of India and Magnus. On a mission to seek out urban greenery across the UK and further afield. A must follow for any plantaholic.

@mariapaalmbacken
[instagram-feed id=”222700458″ num=2 cols=2] @mariapaalmbacken is a passionate gardener and garden designer from Sweden. Get your fix of pictures from her stylish garden and some of the gardens that Maria designs and visits.

@debbytenquist
[instagram-feed id=”559051393″ num=2 cols=2] @debbytenquist – It’s Debby’s role as a landscaper that captures our interest on Instagram. Uplifting images complete with informative descriptions fuel interesting comments from a large and loyal fanbase.

@mccormickcharlie
[instagram-feed id=”22098115″ num=2 cols=2] @mccormickcharlie has a boundless passion for flowers but you can also expect regular updates from Charlie’s beautiful Georgian House and garden in Dorset.

@petershamnurseries
[instagram-feed id=”350372836″ num=2 cols=2] @petershamnurseries – plants and seasonal produce are served up regularly. For those who can’t make it to this prized garden centre then this is the next best thing.

@theenduringgardener
[instagram-feed id=”186500934″ num=2 cols=2] It would be remiss of me not to mention @theenduringgardener. Follow Stephanie on her worldly adventures in seeking out plants, art and garden inspiration.

@gardenista_sourcebook
[instagram-feed id=”365641091″ num=2 cols=2] Professional imagery with a strong focus on garden design makes @gardenista_sourcebook a must follow account for anyone looking to expand their gardening horizons.

@paulbangay
[instagram-feed id=”218824819″ num=2 cols=2] @paulbangay provides a taste of gardening down under.  Feast your eyes on the elegant garden at Stonefields’ from one of Australia’s foremost and influential garden designers.

@thelandgardeners
[instagram-feed id=”716078053″ num=2 cols=2] You can feel yourself relax as you admire the natural bouquets from this small-scale flower grower in Oxfordshire.  See what you’re missing out on and then splash out on some real cut flowers from @thelandgardeners !

@e_gardener
[instagram-feed id=”10993602″ num=2 cols=2] @e_gardener – And lastly your Northern Correspondent. Follow me for a daily dose of flora, fauna and inspiration from Britain’s gardens and garden shows.

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South African meadows

Berkheyi in the South African meadows

Brillantasia owariensis

Saracena

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Fergus explaining how the ever-changing pot displays around the front door are put together

The current Courtyard pot display

Dixter Dachsunds are an integral part of the team

The Turkish Tulip Poppy – Papaver glaucum, long-flowering and named because of the (upside-down) tulip-shaped buds.

The Turkish Tulip Poppy -close up. Available from Chiltern Seeds.

Available from Chiltern Seeds.

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1. A good range of really interesting and well-grown plants
2. They are now stockists of Sylvagrow (the best peat-free compost on the market)
3. The historic setting with its vast range of glasshouses which they are gradually restoring
4. The well-planted borders
5. And the thoroughly nice people who are involved. www.thewallednursery.com 

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My Smelly Garden

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Look carefully and you will spot the pig netting

This is my new favourite variety – Juliet – subtle colours and deliciously fragrant

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The latest venture is a luxuriously comfortable holiday let on one side of the gatehouse – available by the week or for a long weekend. Now that Ursula proudly describes Easton as “a garden – not a field with aspirations” I can’t think of a lovelier place to stay. www.visiteaston.co.uk

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The other streets are decorated with boughs of May Blossom and a little square  had been turned into a mossy grotto with an altar at its centre.

I loved the tree on its bed of sand with its bark trunk growing out of lawn mowings its flower petal frame and its carefully constructed flowers and leaves.

By the following evening – once the festival was over – it all started to get pretty ragged rounds the edges and all that had been so carefully created was swept away – literally.

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The Abruzzo National Park is in the Apennine Mountains about three hours east of Rome and straddles the range that could be thought of the spine of Italy. We were based in the village of Pescasseroli – a ski resort in winter – and at this time of year, a perfect base for early morning walks exploring the surrounding meadows, for day trips higher into the mountains, as well as dawn and evening outings to watch for the endemic Marcasan bears, deer, chamois, wolves and wild boar.
It was a mixed interest trip that included birds, beasts, butterflies and botanising. I prefer this to pure botanising because it is less intense and you don’t spend the entire week on your hands and knees examining plants through a magnifying glass. I like to enjoy the rush of water, to look up and see the birds (including the golden eagles soaring above the peaks), to watch Swallowtail and Adonis Blue butterflies flitting amongst the wildflowers and join in the excitement of seeing thirteen wild boar sows and their forty-one stripy, spotty piglets foraging in a meadow.

Mountain weather can be very changeable, but we were incredibly lucky and the sun shone most of the time – we only lost an hour of exploring during a single heavy downpour. However the deciduous (mainly beech) woods had been dramatically damaged by hard late frosts that had browned the young emerging foliage – it was as if spring and autumn had collided – a most peculiar effect.

Our two Naturetrek (www.naturetrek.co.uk) guides, Jessica and Luca added immeasurably to the experience. They knew where the best wildlife watching places were, the nicest picnic spots (very important), could name every butterfly (Luca was a dab hand at netting them so we could see them close up) and Jessica enthusiastically satisfied my insatiable curiosity about every flower in every meadow. I came to think of her as the ‘Plant Whisperer’ – if I began to doubt my ability to climb a particularly steep slope, she would lure me onwards with the names of the treasures that were just a little higher. By this means I found myself reaching a mountain pass at 2000m one day. And she was quite right, it really was worth it – the views were spectacular and the flowers carpeting the meadows above the treeline and tucked amongst the crags at the top of the pass had me in a permanent state of delight.

Mountain Pansy – blue at altitude, yellow lower down

Androsace

Saxifrage

Daphne mezereum

I can’t remember visiting anywhere in Europe with such a diversity and density of wild orchids. We counted twenty six varieties in all, from a rare and precious lady’s slipper orchid on the banks of a river, to the strange and not very attractive brown bird’s nest orchids beneath the beech trees and elderflower orchids and burnt orchids in such profusion that it was hard to know where to put your feet.

Lady’s Slipper Orchid

Bird’s Nest Orchid

And here’s two colour variations of Elderflower orchid :

Helleborine

Burnt Orchid

I particularly enjoyed taking a close look at plants that I grow in my own garden and getting a better understanding of the conditions in which they thrive. For instance Star of Bethlehem grows prolifically in meadows, while Thalictrum (meadow rue) likes damp conditions, Daphne mezereum grows surprisingly high up, tucked in amongst rocks and Euphorbia myrsinites (there were many different euphorbias) prefers the free-draining rocky slopes. I was also reminded that auriculas naturally grow at high altitude beneath rocky outcrops, protected by snow all winter and coming into flower once the snow melts and trickles down to their roots. I’m not quite sure how I can emulate that in my snowless coastal garden. This may explain why most of my auriculas seldom live beyond a couple of years despite being cossetted in a north facing corner, kept dryish in winter and generally being symbolic of the triumph of hope over experience. But such is the nature of gardening. More posts to come about the plants, but I need to get outside and put some lessons into practice.

Star of Bethlehem

Thalictrum

Euphorbia myrsinites

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I bought the straw bales from a local feed merchant in early April and put them in place but then covered them with a tarpaulin as I didn’t want them to start composting before it was warm enough to plant them.

At the beginning of May I started the ‘curing’ by soaking the bales on one day and ‘feeding’ them with fish, blood and bonemeal on the second day, repeating this process for 10 days, after which I gave a final feed of a high potash organic fertiliser.

By this time it was beginning to heat up, peaking as you can see at a rather impressive 143deg F. I kept it covered with cardboard until the temperature had started to drop and when it got to 80deg. I planted my courgettes and squashes. I will update you on how it goes – so far the plants look very happy and don’t appear to be cooking!

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Copper bowl echoing a Fibonacci number in the Beauty of Mathematics Garden

A bowl of hepaticas from Ashwood Nurseries stand in the Grand Pavilion

The hidden garden within the granite cube

More willow, here woven with flowers in the ‘Garden Bed’

Shoes left outside as the team put the finishing touches to the Senri-Sentei garden

Column detail from Tom Hoblyn’s Tamil Nadu organic garden in the Discovery section of the Grand Pavilion.

Woven willow balls under the trees next to the Artisan Gardens

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Jekka McVicar’s Modern Apothecary Garden – an atmospheric and gorgeously planted meditative and healing herb garden that is destined to be rebuilt at a hospice

Nick Bailey’s magnificent Beauty of Mathematics – a tribute to natural symmetries within the kingdom of plants

Andy Sturgeon’s dramatic Telegraph Garden where the bronze fins represent mountains within arid setting

James Basson’s L’Occitane Garden in which he has recreated yet another corner of Provence so realistic that I almost expected to hear the cicadas

Cleve West’s M&G Garden that recalls the Exmoor of his youth with stunted oaks, craggy rocks and a gentle palette of ferns and flowers

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Overwintered in the greenhouse

Overwintered in the garden thanks to a lack of frosts

Spring sown seedling

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This is such a good idea. Clear your shed of old or broken hand tools between the 9th May and the 9th June and take them along to your local Wyevale Garden Centre.  They are collecting them with the Conservation Foundation’s Tools Shed project which takes the tools to prison workshops where they are repaired and reconditioned by the prisoners and then distributed to schools, charities and community groups. No secateurs though, despite them appearing in the photograph. It’s a real win/win/win scenario – you declutter your shed, prisoners get meaningful work and the garden tools go to people who need them. And should you know of a local school or community group who would benefit from some free reconditioned tools please email tools@conservationfoundation.co.uk . As a thank you Wyevale are offering a 10% discount on hand tools to anyone participates up until June the 9^th.

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I was prompted to write this post when I received an email about a new campaign called ‘Watch Your Back’ – a new gardener’s health campaign being launched by the Melanoma Fund. Apparently men over 50 are at the highest risk  with melanomas appearing on the back, head and neck where they are not easy to spot and tend to be diagnosed later, making treatment more difficult. Find out more, including The Gardeners Sun Safety Code at www.watchyourback.melanoma-fund.co.uk

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Viridiflora tulips are favourites too – both for their markings and because they reliably return each year – I add a few more Spring Green and Flaming Spring Green every year and have plans to add the pink-shaded China Town next year.

There are lots more to come – thanks to the chilly east wind many remain tightly furled. In the courtyard where I put most of the orange and yellow shades only Brown Sugar has opened, while Ballerina, General de Wet and Apricot Jewel are barely showing any colour – that’s fine as far I’m concerned, I like an extended flowering season – in hot springs it is often over far too quickly.

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In the woodland garden the Erythronium put in a brief but lovely appearance with their recurved yellow petals – they always remind me of the hats worn by the imps in Rupert Bear Annuals of my childhood.

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Equally, during my visit to Great Dixter’s Spring Plant Fair, I made time for a wander round the garden. The traditional display round the front door was a mini-Keukenhof with a vivid display of spring bulbs, but I really liked the pots that were waiting in the wings. They reveal just how densely the bulbs are planted. Something worth remembering in the autumn.

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Snowdrops spread rapidly making them ideal for naturalising, but they are best planted ‘in the green’ which means dug up and transplanted after flowering. Planting them from bulbs at this time of year is not recommended.

The Star-of-Bethlehem, Ornithogalum nutans, also spreads quickly and can be planted as bulbs in the coming weeks. The silvery white star shaped flowers have a green backing and they do well in light shade under trees. At about 25cm tall they can make quite an impact.

For heavy, damp soils the summer Snowflake, Leucojum aestivum, looks a bit like a massive snowdrop, reaching 60cm high. There’s also an even bigger variety which is quite easy to get hold of, called L. a. ’Gravetye Giant’.

Snakeshead fritillaries, Fritillaria meleagris, like the same heavy damp soils. In April and May, they produce nodding heads of delicate looking flowers in purpley maroon and, less frequently, white. For some reason, they’ll either love or hate your garden; there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground with them.

Cream camassias flower later than the blue

Also flowering through late April and May are the Camassias which have star shaped flowers in spikes. The best for naturalising is the deep blue Camassia quamash, but cool years make them flower less well the following spring. One drawback is that you can’t cut the grass until the seed ripens at the end of July or they won’t spread.

Chionodoxa at the Cholmondeley Plant Fair

The Glory of the Snow, Chionodoxa, grows to about 15cm and has star shaped flowers in blue, pink or white. It needs a well drained fertile soil and although it will grow in sun, it tends to get a bit fried, so it’s best to plant it in some shade.  Chionodoxa forbesii has blue flowers, C.f.’Pink Giant’ is a soft pink and C.sardensis is a strong blue reminiscent of hardy plumbago.

Bulbs can be naturalised in borders and woodland but by far the most popular setting is in grass. Once in, the bulbs can be left alone to spread and increase by seed or offsets – your patience will eventually be rewarded with a carpet of colour. You need to make sure that you either use bulbs that come up before the grass starts growing in spring or later flowering species which can then compete with grass. One way to naturalise bulbs is to throw them randomly onto the grass: Take one of those hand held bulb planters which in theory extracts a core of turf and soil, then spend days crawling round on your hands and knees… Fortunately, there is a better way.

1. First you need to mow the grass so that it is still fairly short when the bulbs come up in spring. Next cut an ‘H’ shape into the ground about 5cm deep using a spade, or half moon edger which tends to be a little more accurate.
2. Hold back the turf on either side and,depending on what types of bulb you will be planting, fork over and remove some of the soilif necessary. As a general rule, smaller bulbs like crocus will need 5cm of soil above their tips and larger bulbs will need 10cm.
3. Throw a handful of bulbs into the hole and plant them where they fall, so that you don’t end up with evenly spaced bulbs in straight lines.
4. Make sure each bulb is the right way up. Very gently rotate it to settle it into the soil and get rid of any air gap underneath. Don’t, however, force the bulb into the earth because it may get damaged.
5. Put any soil which was removed back into the hole and fold back the flaps of turf. Gentle tread down the turf but don’t stamp on it.
6. Don’t mow the grass for at least six weeks after the flowers have faded to allow time for them to build up their nutrient stores for the coming winter. This will ensure a dramatic display every year.

This article was provided by Mike James working together with friend and multi award winning landscaper Andy Sturgeon. Images provided by and edited by Stephanie Donaldson.

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So what did I buy? For once I was relatively disciplined and selected plants for which I had a specific home. Euphorbias topped the bill – three ‘Kalipso’, a compact variety that will add some structure to one of the borders, one Euphorbia stygiana, a very architectural variety, and one Euphorbia myrsinites which is the one that snakes along the ground with scale-like leaves. Three Begonia ‘Benitochiba’ a wonderful red-leaved foliage plant which may just prove hardy in my garden were irresistible. I’m not taking chances though, they are in the conservatory and will only go out when the nights are a little less cold. I added an Osmanthus delaveyi to my haul as evergreen insurance in case the dreaded box moth caterpillar arrives here and a single Campanula pyramidalis (also known as the chimney bellflower) to see if I can persuade it to grow a magnificent, delphinium-like flower stem. The piece de resistance was Rosa banksiae var. banksiae, the white double flowered variety that smells of violets. I’ve wanted one for ages, but they are not easy to come by, so I was delighted to carry it home.

I’m as guilty as the next person of buying plants that then languish in their pots before finally (or sometimes never) making it into the ground. Not this time – with the exception of the begonias, they were all happily settled in their new homes the following day – and that night it rained heavily enough to ensure they got off to the best possible start. Result!

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Best of all (for Sissinghurst) there wasn’t a single coach and, although it was the middle of the Easter holidays, it was easy to find a quiet corner.

The current head gardener, Troy Scott Smith is definitely making his mark with some noticeable changes happening – the hazel in the Nuttery has been thinned to open up the view, boundary hedges have been taken down to connect the garden with the wider landscape and areas of grass are being turned into wildflower meadows.

I don’t think Nigel Nicholson’s Writing Hut has been open on previous visits (although he was in there writing the first time I went to Sissinghurst) so it was a real treat to go inside and look at the view through the rather lovely windows. Intriguingly he had it built to the exact proportions of Apollo 11 – apparently it was very much in the news at the time, but it is a very rustic interpretation – thank goodness!

Definitely worth an early visit.

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Elsewhere in the garden I combined Belle Epoque tulips with bellis daisies in a stone planter  and have watched in fascination as the tulips leaves have emerged with pink stripes on their leaves that exactly match the daisies – now that one wasn’t planned.

I’m making good progress with tidying the garden and replacing early spring pots of cyclamen and crocus with later flowering spring plants.  My two angels always get the pick of the plants and look lovely right now with snakeshead fritillaries against a backdrop of pheasant grass.

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Alliums

For late spring and early summer interest, you can’t do better than alliums. Their common name is ‘flowering onion’ but this inelegant moniker hardly does them justice. The flowers grow on leafless stalks, so it’s good to plant them amongst other perennials which will hide the scrappy lower leaves, and a well-drained soil in full sun is really all that you need for success.

The summer flowering A.’Purple Sensation’ has emerged as one of the favourites in recent years. Growing to about a metre high it has spherical heads of star-shaped, deep violet flowers, but in order to stop paler seedlings appearing in subsequent years you have to cut down the old flower heads before the seeds ripen.

A.’Globemaster’ is a little shorter but, as the name suggests, the flower heads are quite something to write home about, reaching almost 20cm across.

For some real height at the back of the border, A.giganteum will grow up to your chin in June, by which time the wonderful blue grey leaves have died down.

At the other end of the scale is A.sphaerocephalon, the excitingly named round headed leak. Look out for the small insignificant bulbs and plant them now in a gritty soil facing the sun. The diminutive rounded flower heads are a purpley red and look superb in July and August, bobbing around between knee and waist height amongst the silvery green grass Carex ‘Frosted Curls’ or it’s bronze leaved cousin C.buchananii.

Nectaroscordumsiculum ‘Bulgaricus’ always used to be considered an Allium and if you crush a few leaves the smell will let you know why. The stalks carry drooping, bell-shaped flowers with a green and purple tinge, but as the seedheads ripen they reach skywards to make pointed clusters that look like a clump of toadstools. Very chic!

Foxtail Lilies

The foxtail lily, Eremurusrobustus, is actually a tuberous root like a Dahlia. In late May and June it sends out an elegant, stately raceme of pink flowers on a stalk nearly three metres tall. I’ve grown this plant since seeing the sulphur yellow flowers of E.spectabilis growing wild on a rocky slope in Turkey, but they seem to do best here in a sandy fertile soil with sharp drainage.There’s also a rather graceful white version, E.himalaicus.

All will benefit from a sheltered spot and a good mulch in autumn and, as an added bonus, will do pretty well in alkaline soils.

Asphodels

Some of the more interesting bulbs are harder to find and you need to search in some of the bulb catalogues. Asphodels can be planted in March or October, and one of their major assets is the ability to do well in fairly poor soils.

The spring flowering yellow Apshodel, A.lutea, seems to do OK in well-drained or slightly damp soil where it sends out its spikes of star shaped flowers.

Giant Lily

One summer flowering bulb which has always eluded me is the giant lily Cardiocrinumgiganteum. This uber lily has wonderfully fragrant white flowers on stems 2 to 2.7 metres high, and it is truly awesome. On the downside, it takes a couple of years to flower from a bulb and double that from offsets.

I’ve twice planted it in sheltered corners of my garden in deep soil laden with leaf mould and compost but I keep moving house before anything appears above the glossy green leaves. My present garden is everything this lily hates: chalky, dry, sun baked soil, so perhaps I should admit defeat gracefully.

Must Plant

If you only plant one thing this spring, take a look at Arum italicum subsp.italicum ‘Marmoratum’, also known as Lords and Ladies.

When?    

Plants can be bought in leaf from nurseries in autumn. Alternatively, you can divide the clumps and tubers and replant 15cm deep.

Where?     

Grow in a humus rich soil in a sheltered site.

Why? 

Growing from a tuber, this perennial bears pale greenish white flower spathes in early summer if grown in full sun. Orange-red berries appear in autumn followed by arrow shaped, silvery veined leaves that last until spring.The leaves are bigger and better if grown in shade.

History     

The root of the native plant, A. maculatum, can be cooked and eaten and is the source of arrowroot. The name ‘Lords and Ladies’ is thought to be a polite name introduced by the prudish Victorians to replace Cuckoo Pint and various other names which were apparently quite rude.

Varieties   

A. creticum has creamy white or deep yellow flower spathes and plain unmarked leaves.

Supplier   

Stillingfleet Lodge Nurseries, Yorkshire, 01904 728506

Article provided by independent content writer and rookie gardener Mike James, working together with friend and multi award winning landscape gardener

Andy Sturgeon, who provided the information in this piece.

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I would love to have paperwhite narcissi indoors, but Andrew can’t bear the smell of them so I now grow a few in the greenhouse for my own pleasure and pot the rest up for display outdoors, where they have been flowering since the beginning of January. They are surprisingly robust too – even in last month’s gales they stayed upright.  Sometimes compromises are surprisingly satisfactory.

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All images ©EXHIBITIONONSCREEN

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Renoir

Gertrude Jekyll’s Boots by William Nicholson

Monet

Klimpt

Guillaumin

Nolde

John Singer Sargent

Carl Nordstrom

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This video takes a look at two pairs of secateurs. The Okasune secateurs from Niwaki and a pair of Felco No.8.

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One of the results of the hard landscaping to create my new vegetable garden with its deep terraced beds, is that more soil was needed to bring them up to the right level. Instead of importing loads of topsoil, I have employed a sort of reverse hugelkultur technique. With each bed, we dug down about a meter deep on one half, piling the soil on the other half – and then started building our layers, firstly the logs, then twigs and then a thick layer of mixed shreddings, before covering it with the returned soil – and then we repeated the process with the other half of the bed.

The result was satisfactorily filled beds. Finally, we added a layer of sieved compost to create a rather wonderful seedbed (as well as introducing lots of microorganisms to the disturbed soil) and then tucked it all up with a layer of fleece.

What a great start to the gardening year.

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Sadly, it had reached the point where it was getting dangerous – with crumbling steps and uneven paths – and I knew it was time to do something about it.

The plastic bags are full of salvaged soil ready for reusing

The old garden was easily dismantled

When we replaced our old garage with a new weather-boarded one, we kept all the concrete panels and these have been used to build the new vegetable garden.  Although the weather has not been on our side, doughty hard landscapers Ray & Alan have somehow demolished the old beds, created new ones and made something that while it may not be very pretty at the moment (to be frank the words ‘urban-brutalist’ come to mind) is definitely not going to collapse until my gardening days are long over.

There are good size beds, wide paths and proper steps and I’m sure that once I start softening it with planting, it will mellow down – and prove far more productive and easy to work in than its pretty but impractical predecessor. There’s lot to do – the beds need topping up with soil and compost, and the fences need slotting into place – but I’ve got my planting plan to hand as encouragement to get it all done so that it’s ready to plant up as the season begins.

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Then I sat down with the seed catalogues and tried very hard to stick to my list and not be waylaid by the many tempting new varieties. Going through the old seeds definitely helps with this – coming across seeds I have succumbed to that have failed to thrive (or never planted) does curb my inner spendthrift – seeds are far too expensive these days to order with abandon.

I’ve also realised that it is worth checking how many seeds there are in a pack – this can vary enormously, often with little difference in price. With anything you sow successionally it is worth choosing a packet that offers three hundred rather than thirty, but on the other hand if you only need a maximum of five (for example courgettes) buy the smaller packet to avoid the temptation of sowing more than you need. Nearly time to start sowing!

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The lime tree that has been in its winter quarters in the kitchen is smothered in flowers and young fruit, but close examination revealed that it was also smothered with greenfly and possibly red spider mite. It is too large to treat in situ, so we carried it outside where I sprayed it down with the hose, dislodging most of the pests and then treated it with SB Plant Invigorator which feeds the plant and deals with the pests. It’s now back in the kitchen and looking much happier.

Finally, in preparation for the year ahead, I gave the greenhouse a thorough tidy and cleaned all its windows – this will make all the difference when I start seed sowing in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I finally got round to transplanting some hardy spinach plants into the border – with the extra light I’m hoping they will give us some fresh greens very early in the season.

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4 cards from Polly Fern

Sarah Edmonson’s ‘Hoes’ would go down well with any allotment holder www.sarahedmondsillustration.com and I loved the historical references in Eleanor Taylor’s cards – she doesn’t appear to sell through her website, but I will be keeping an eye on her and will do an update if she does in the future, but it is still worth visiting her website www.eleanortaylor.co.uk

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Even the tropical garden has a mysterious, if utilitarian, beauty. The wrapped plants have the appearance of tribal artefacts that might be found in a museum of anthropology and even the dead and dying foliage provides a foil for the hardier plants.

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But I was particularly taken by a pair of preliminary sketches by Philip Webb that accompany a newly restored William Morris hanging, featuring a fox and a hare, each with flowers in the foreground. I kept returning to them for another look.

The route to the Tapestry Room is through the magnificent bling of the Jewellery Galleries and here too there are plants to be found and admired.
One way and another it was a thoroughly enjoyable way to fill a couple of hours.

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Succulents are hunkered down under a cloche where they will get plenty of light, but no water. Like many hot climate plants they are surprisingly tolerant of cold – it’s the wet they hate.

The really tender plants are now mainly in the greenhouse and conservatory – and one of the citrus trees gets a starring role on the kitchen windowsill. I would love to bring all three indoors as they are flowering prolifically but they would cut out all the light in the kitchen. The other two are on a table in front of the window in the garage – the nearest I get to an orangery!

I’m very proud of the lemons I’ve grown this year – best ever. Time to pick some I think; I left them on the tree while they were outside because they look so pretty, but they will go unnoticed in the garage.

In the garden

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It was once we went outside and followed a barely lit path into the gardens that the real excitement began. Rounding a corner we found ourselves walking between a double row of tents illuminated from within by throbbing and ever-changing colours, accompanied by what lighting artist, Bruce Munro, referred to as ‘the soundtrack of my life’. Much of it was the soundtrack of my life too, with snatches of familiar songs that were just getting to the point where I was tempted to start dancing when there would be a sudden change of mood to spoken word, ambient sound or classical music, all interspersed with the morse code for SOS which is the title of the installation. Bruce Munro was inspired to create this work by Shelterbox, the charity that provides tents and essential survival kit to people who have lost their homes through famine, war or natural disaster. It was a wonderful experience – I’m so glad it didn’t bolt for home. Times, dates and prices can be seen at www.waddesdon.org.uk

©Bruce Munro

©Bruce Munro

©Bruce Munro

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And on a day trip to Padua to see the Giotto Chapel, we also discovered the magnificent Palazzo Regione with its elegant loggia decorated with botanical frescoes. Sadly, no time to visit Padua’s Botanic Garden – which is the oldest in the world. Still its always good to start compiling a list for the next visit before returning home.

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What became very clear was that (quite understandably) gardening doesn’t figure much in this watery place. We stayed in apartment with its own small garden, but I’ve seldom seen tattier grass or more neglected shrubs – the highlight was a jubejube tree Zizyphus jubjuba with a good crop of fruit. I saw them for sale in the market, but after reading explorer Sir Richard Burton’s description of them as “like a bad plum, an unrepentant cherry and an insipid apple” I wasn’t tempted to eat them. Clearly an acquired taste which even the pigeons in the garden hadn’t developed as they totally ignored the fallen fruit.

Courtesy of a guide book called ‘Secret Venice’ we did gain entrance to several hidden gardens – mainly belonging to convents – but weedy lawns, shrubs and a few trees pretty well summed them up. A few rooftop gardens and balconies had some greenery in evidence, but I don’t think Venice is a destination for anyone wanting to earn a living as a gardener. I’m sure that tucked behind palazzos there may be some gardens of note but we didn’t see them – and we didn’t get to Burano which is supposed to have a garden worth visiting. Still, it’s good that there is something we do better than the Venetians, because when it comes to pretty well everything else, they seem to lead the way.

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An ordinary fridge is ideal but by no means essential. The best think to do is to inspect each one and chuck out any which are even suspiciously manky and then wrap them individually in a piece of paper about the same size as this page and then put them in the bottom of a box in a single layer. Store them somewhere cool, dark and frost free like an attic or shed.

[Tweet “It’s an absolute travesty that we spend so much money on imported apples when we’ve got so many of our own excellent varieties”] So often we inherit a tired old fruit tree from a previous owner but it really makes sense to plant a variety of your own choice which you actually like and want to eat.

Picking the right cultivar is crucial and it makes sense to not only choose one you like but one which is also disease resistant. Discovery and Epicure are both early fruiting dessert apples resistant to scab and powdery mildew and they are also good for cooler districts. For a mid season crop Lord Lambourne is generally disease free and crops eavily and regularly almost anywhere. For late cropping I rather favour the dessert apple Kidd’s Orange Red which is sadly often overlooked even through it has all the characteristics of the notoriously fussy Cox’s Orange Pippin without all the problems of disease and maintenance.

A vitally important thing with apples is to make sure there is a handy pollinator. This means another tree only a short bees flight away which flowers at approximately the same time and can provide pollen to fertilise the other tree and allow the formation of fruit. New trees are always labelled with the number of their pollinating group and they can be cross pollinated by a tree in the same or a neighbouring group. It’s worth remembering that Crab apples also make excellent pollinators.

Late autumn or early winter is the ideal time to plant because bare root trees are available and you normally get far more choice than with container grown stock.

Apples will grow on a wide range of soil but very slightly on the acid side of neutral is best. It should be rich, free draining soil but if it’s poor you can invigorate it with fertilisers and choose a vigorous rootstock to compensate. A sunny spot is needed with some protection from wind and you must avoid frost pockets because a late frost will take out all the blossom and make fruit quite literally rather thin on the ground.

Make a hole at least a metre wide, slice off the turf and put it to one side. Dig out about a spade’s depth of topsoil and stack it separately. Knock in a tree stake off centre on the side from which the prevailing wind blows and chuck some upside down turf back into the hole. If you haven’t got any turf, a bucket or two of leaf mould is a more than adequate substitute. Fill a bucket with well rotted manure, mix in a handful of bone meal and a handful of seaweed meal and then fork it into the excavated topsoil. Stand the tree at the right depth in the hole and start to shovel the topsoil back in. If it’s a bare root tree shake it up and down firmly to settle soil all round the roots, then tread the soil gently with your heal to firm it in and attach it to the stake with a tree tie.

After that you need to keep a metre wide circle around the base free from grass and weeds because they would compete for nutrients and water. A mulch is a good idea and in the first four years, watering in summer, particularly during dry spells, will allow them to crop up to a significant three years earlier than they would otherwise. But while you’re waiting there are always plenty of hopeful neighbours giving away bags full of apples at this time of year.

Rootstocks

Apple trees, for some reason, grow rather badly on their own roots. Consequently the trees we buy from nurseries come already grafted onto appropriate rootstocks which effect the ultimate size and fruit yield of the tree. Dwarfing rootstock for instance will make trees come into fruit more quickly, make pruning less complex and make picking far easier. But a smaller tree needs more fertile soil, regular watering and produces much less fruit so you need to choose carefully. The rootstock is always shown on the label.

M27 is a very dwarfing rootstock producing trees no higher than head height suitable for heavy fertile soil and cropping early on in life. Needs permanent staking.

M9 Dwarfing to about 2.5metres, needs a fertile rich soil, requires staking and crops early on in life.

M26 Also dwarfing to around 3 metres and small enough to make picking and pruning easy. Suited to most conditions but preferring lighter soil.

MM106 Semi dwarfing to about 5 metres and as big as you’d want in most gardens. Suitable for poor soils which will keep it on the small side..

MM111 A very vigorous tree unless grown on very poor soil. It can reach over 7 metres and is suitable for a traditional orchard.

A little annual maintenance along the following lines will stop your apple tree from becoming neglected.

Article supplied by multi-award winning landscape gardener Andy Sturgeon. See more of Andy’s work and list of awards at www.andysturgeon.com.;

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www.greatdixter.co.uk

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Getting my head around the parts wasn’t difficult, there’s the control box complete with the solar panel, some tubes and some connectors.  Within around half an hour I had it all sussed and rigged up a little experiment to see how much water the system could deliver. Rather than using pots I chose to use clear bottles to get a feel for the volume of water the pump could deliver.  I set the dial to the middle setting and left it for a day, after 24 hours there was some movement but not a great deal, I put this down to the rechargeable batteries which no doubt would require a bit of charge.    Although a little cloudy the next day there was plenty of water in the bottles, Eureka. It’s just a case of finding the right setting for the plants you’re growing . As you might expect being solar powered the pump is more active on a bright sunny day than on a cloudy one and there’s a dial on the side of the unit to slow or speed up activity.

48 hours later – it’s not a particularly even delivery but it’s probably more accurate than me with a watering can.

On the plus side

• No power required so it’s ideal for a greenhouse or a bright environment where power is unavailable.
• It doesn’t require a hose either so it’s being fed from the water barrel that is connected to the greenhouse guttering.
• Can be bought from the comfort of your couch here online.

Here’s how it works :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdWUgiGp0hM

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The Lake

 The Gothic Folly

It’s often the case (for me anyway) that gardens that are quite nearby get overlooked – I think it’s the thought that going there doesn’t need much planning compared with many of the far flung places I go to, so it can wait until another day. Another day finally arrived for Painshill Park and I finally made it to this historically very important 18th century landscape park with its series of wonderful follies.
It had its heyday between 1740 and 1773 when Charles Hamilton created the ornamental pleasure grounds, vineyard, follies, lake and parkland that eventually bankrupted him and forced him to sell. Over the intervening centuries it fell into greater and greater disrepair and it wasn’t until the 1980s that its restoration began. By this time its setting had become suburban and the A3 and M25 are close by, so it is quite astonishing to turn off a busy road, walk over a pedestrian bridge and find yourself in a Grade 1 listed parkland. Restoration is an ongoing process, but now most of the follies restored and the landscape has been returned to its former glory, this is a wonderful place to stroll around on a sunny autumn day.The Grotto is dark, mysterious and magical with every single crystal fixed individually to restore it to its original 18th century condition
Do allow plenty of time though – I didn’t get all the way round, but on the plus side that does give me an excuse to return.

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The garden was open recently in aid of our local hospice on a perfect September day, so I took the opportunity to have a wander round. Dahlias of every shape and size were at their colourful best and the central arches in the Cutting Garden were hanging with interesting looking gourds, including some that looked rather like semi-deflated balloons.

There was also a row of bright everlasting daisies, also sometimes called strawflowers. They aren’t on offer in her catalogue, so I suspect she is trialling them – they have been very unfashionable for some years, so they are probably ripe for rediscovery.

Tea and cake in the Glasshouse was enjoyed amongst Sarah’s flower arrangements.

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Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 75g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• A pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract or seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod
• 1 tbsp crème de cassis or kirsch (optional)
• 350ml whole milk
• 2 large eggs
• 40g caster sugar
• 300g fruit
• 20g unsalted butter, diced, plus extra for greasing the dish

Method:

Preheat the oven to 230C/gas 8. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl and add the vanilla extract (or seeds), the liqueur (if using) and half the milk. Whisk to a smooth batter. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking quickly as you add. Now whisk in the caster sugar and the rest of the milk until the batter is just smooth. Grease and flour a 25cm diameter dish (I use a cast iron frying pan).  Spread fruit evenly across base and then add the batter. Dot with butter. Bake for 25 minutes until puffed and golden. Delicious!

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The star of the show was a magnificent Metrosideros umbellata – a tender New Zealand tree I had never heard of before – not only was it a fabulous sight, it was alive with bees who clearly loved it as much as I did. 

Other plants that particularly caught my eye included a Polylepis australis with its extremely shaggy bark (and an opportunistic fern that had taken up residence) and a worth-copying-at-home planting of blue agapanthus with thalictrum delaveyi. Definitely worth a visit.

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