The Inelegant Gardener

Happy (Chinese) New Year

2012-01-23T18:45:00.001Z

It is the start of the Chinese new year today, and an auspicious new year too –the year of the Dragon.

Gardeners have a lot to thank China for – large numbers of beautiful plants have been collected from the varied regions of this vast country. I’ve written about some of the plant hunters who scoured the world looking for new introductions before: here and here, for example.

‘Chinese’ garden at Biddulph Gardens

Many Camellias come from China although, of course, they have been hybridised since then, to give a whole range of colour and flower forms.

A lot of Rhododendrons, similarly, come from various provinces of China, such as Rhododendron lanigerum (discovered by Frank Kingdon Ward)

Pieris formosa var. forrestii was discovered by George Forrest in 1910 – this one was photographed at Ness Gardens, for whom Forrest collected.

We would be without the winter interest of Prunus serrula bark if it hadn’t been discovered in China.

Whilst Wisteria floribunda comes from Japan, Wisteria sinensis hails from China. This white version (var. alba) was photographed at Bodnant Gardens (North Wales).

Sinensis as a specific name indicates that the plant comes from China. So, we also have Camellia sinensis (Chinese tea plant), Corylopsis sinensis (Chinese winter hazel), Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, Miscanthus sinensis and so on and so on…

So many more plants in our gardens originate from China. This Chinese New Year, go out and see what plants you have which have their origins there.

Fine words and edible parsnips

2012-01-15T14:48:00.001Z

I’ve blogged about parsnips before.

Parsnips are one of the more reliable crops on the allotment, as long as the frosts aren’t so long and so hard that we can’t lever them out of the ground. There’s a fine line between ensuring that the crop has experienced some frost to make them sweeter, and roots frozen into the ground until the earth finally decides to release them, generally after they have developed a core with a hardness of of 10 on the Mohs scale.

We have harvested some huuuugggggeeee parsnips this year. And although I love roast parsnips, parsnip soup and so on, my mind has recently been harking back to a certain failure from a couple of years ago. Yes – the parsnip cake experiment. Or chemical warfare as it turned out to be. It’s a confusing moment – seeing what smells like a delicious cake but not being able to eat it. It does strange things to the mind. The brain thinks “mmm – cake = lovely”. The taste buds, however, beg you not to take another mouthful.

Now, I don’t like to be outwitted by a root vegetable, and this culinary failure has been playing on my mind for some time. So, whilst idly searching the BBC Good Food website for parsnip recipes a month or so ago, I happened across another parsnip cake recipe. I put a link up when updating the seasonal recipes on my sidebar, but hadn’t plucked up the courage to actually make the cake. Until this weekend.

And so, it was with some trepidation that SomeBeans tried a small bite of the proffered cake. The poor chap – the last time I fed him parsnip cake, he accused me of trying to poison him (though not as effectively as I did with the Jerusalem artichokes…). But this time……

SUCCESS! A cake of delights. No acrid aftertaste. No vacillation of brain vs tastebuds. A moist, sweet cake. I have beaten the parsnip demon.

(We’ve eaten quite a lot of it, as you can see. Well, we do have a guest)

2011 Almanac – a review

2012-01-01T10:50:00.001Z

In December of 2010 I wrote a blog post about what my 2011 gardening year would involve. As it’s now 2012, and it is obligatory to review the previous year (whether on TV, in the papers, in blogs, or in your own head), I thought I’d revisit my Almanac for 2011 post…

January:

Hmmm. I was a bit optimistic about planting my tulips belatedly. In the end I didn’t plant them until May. They didn’t grow.

Parsnips remained stuck in the ground until February, and then were the size of baobab trees, and just as edible. At least I didn’t make cake.

February:

I did order seed potatoes in both autumn and January. On the plus side, we have enough potatoes stored in the garage to see us through any food shortages over the next 12 months. As long as we don’t mind eating just potatoes.

March:

Yup, still no snowdrops.

April:

Hurrah, hurrah! I didn’t buy any lettuce seed this year. Unfortunately, I didn’t get round to sowing more than one lot of lettuce. Perhaps I should try VP’s 52 week salad challenge this year.

I sowed parsnip seeds and they came up! Freak warm weather conditions mean that this will not happen again.

May:

Ah yes, the weeds… I know foraging is all the rage, but to be honest, there’s a reason why we don’t eat most of these foods any more. I’m looking at you, ground elder, fat hen and bittercress. Although none of these taste as bad as the strawberry spinach we grew once and are forever cursed with. Eat soil – it’s tastier.

June:

Well, my skills with a hoe haven’t improved. I’m sure we didn’t need so many onions, anyway.

July:

I skipped planting out the poor, lanky sprouts and put them straight into the compost bin, thus cutting out the middleman and saving time and effort. Shop-bought sprouts for Xmas dinner; small sprout plants were bought and planted in September – they may just be producing sprouts in time for December 2012.

August:

Ah ha! A triumph! I only planted out 2 courgette plants. Isn’t it amazing how big the devils can grow when you turn your back for a week? This year, I might try hollowing one out and use it for punting down the River Dee.

Did someone say something about a drought? South East England may be lacking in water, but up here in the North West, the horsetails are growing so lush that I fear to part them in case I come across some vicious predators from the past. Ah, wait – I did:

September:

I was as circumspect with the squash plants as I was with the courgettes this year. And yet, and yet… the growth was still sufficient to allow indigenous tribes to evolve and then, come October frosts, emerge blinking from the blackened foliage.

October:

I think you’ll find I was right about the achocha. Like eating small green porcupines. Except with less flavour.

November:

Ah yes, the pumpkin avalanche in the conservatory. I’m considering going into the decorating business – pumpkin puree makes very good wallpaper paste, and we have industrial quantities of pumpkins to get through.

December:

Ha ha! I’ve planted all my bulbs! It’s good that I’ve learnt something over 12 months. It’s nice to know that I must be at least as intelligent as a slime mould. Although slime moulds would probably be capable of remembering to buy snowdrops.

I will make no predictions about what 2012 will bring from a gardening point of view, except that we will have a new companion whilst doing it this year. At what age can babies recognise the difference between parsnip seedling leaves and ground elder?

A happy gardening new year to you all. May your seedlings flourish.

A year in pictures

2011-12-31T12:06:00.001Z

January

Christmas Box (Sarcococca), placed by the front door, so it is easy to remember to bend down and smell its glorious fragrance on a dark winter day.

February

Iris ‘Katharine Hodgkin’ – perfection in miniature. Well worth spending 15 minutes getting cold knees to admire her.

March

Spring is here – cold knees again, but for a blast of golden sunshine.

April

Early sunshine brings out the butterflies. In this case, mating orange-tips.

May

Normal weather resumes, dampening the petals (but not the brilliant colour) of the beautiful Meconopsis.

June

I spent some of May and June playing with the camera, learning about depth of field.

July

As always, July brings bright colours to the ‘late summer border’ (sounds considerably grander than it is!)

August

Rhapsody in blue – the hard-working and beautiful Aster x frikartii ‘Monch’ is a star in the front garden, starting in late July and going on until the end of September.

September

Almost as beautiful as a flower in the garden – the garden spider. I wish I was as keen on their cousins, the house spider – as it’s around September that these monstrous beasties make themselves known in the house.

October

What better advert is there for allowing ivy to grow in your garden? A red admiral enjoying some late October sun.

November

Early November sees the brilliant colours of witch hazel leaves shine through the dull days.

December

A New Year’s Eve rose – Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

Wordless Wednesday - Orange Peel fungus

2011-12-28T19:00:00.002Z

Contracting world

2011-12-24T15:12:00.001Z

I will gloss over the lack of posts for two months.

As Beetle continues to germinate within, I find my world contracting slightly. I’ve not visited any gardens recently, the allotment becomes something of an effort, and the weather has meant that plot visits have been short. Thanks to SomeBeans, we do have some home-grown veg to consume tomorrow – though I have failed on sprout timings this year (they may be ready for Easter).

Dark nights and wet weekends have meant I’ve even neglected the garden. We had some quite major works done in the back garden at the end of October, but I didn’t even blog about them. The patio has gradually, in the eight years we’ve been here, sunk, cracked, been broken by frosts, and made very uneven. The reason for these problems was revealed during excavations – they were laid on around 6” of sand, and that was about it. The long steps were impractical, meaning that you walked along from kitchen door to garage with one foot on one level and the other foot on another level. So, we got a more useable space.

At the bottom of the garden, there were two cherry trees, rendered ugly by around 20 years of what I shall call ‘lollipopping’. We’d been meaning to get them cut back for a while, as they had grown a lot and shadowed over the greenhouse. A chat with the rear neighbour about them shading his garden, however, galvanised me into more drastic action. Why pay someone to come in and perpetuate the monstrous lollipopping? We could clear out the bottom areas (also over planted with a laburnum sloping into another neighbour’s garden) and a deformed holly. Disadvantages, of course, are that we have lost some habitat for birds and insects, and some summer shade, for when the sun does (occasionally) come out. Advantages are regaining light for the greenhouse, and a new area to plant up with hopefully more attractive trees, shrubs and perennials. An ugly gravel/rock corner has been disposed of, and replaced with patio. Not mould-breaking design, I admit, but a nicer, more useable corner of garden. The gravel/rock corner had annoyed me since we first moved in.

As you can see, it is yet to be planted up. We have put one plant in; which will grow to give some screening against the house in the background. We chose an Amelanchier ‘Robin Hill’ which will give us colour in the spring and also the autumn, much more attractively than the cherries did. To this will be added some shrubs and spring/winter interest planting.

Since these works were completed in November, I’ve barely ventured into the garden, but some sunshine this morning saw me tidying the front garden. Normally I leave a lot of the herbaceous plant growth in place until spring, but might have my hands full in a couple of months time, so this morning saw me cutting back and pulling weeds up on my hands and knees.

Perhaps not an elegant position to be in, but needs must (and it does tie in with the title of this blog!), and it has two distinct advantages – firstly, it is, apparently a good position to be in to encourage Beetle to adopt the correct position for birth (at his last scan he was breech, which means a Caesarean if he stays like that). Secondly, it gave me a close-up view of the bulbs starting to push their way through the soil to the air. There’s still a long time for winter to appear, but a few green shoots bring happiness and hope for a good new year.

Merry Christmas x

Thank you, Dr Seuss: Oh! The things that you’ll grow!

2011-10-21T13:57:00.001Z

So far, we have only bought one thing Beetle related, for fear of tempting fate. However, I’m pleased to announce that the one thing is a compendium of Dr Seuss stories.

Although it will be a good few years until he will be able to appreciate it, one of my favourites is ‘Oh, the Places you’ll go’.

So, with very heavy thanks to Dr Seuss, I thought I would present the gardener’s version of this lovely story…

Oh, the things that you’ll grow

Horticulture

That’s the thing that we do

When we’re growing plants

It’s such great fun too!

You have twigs in your hair

You have mud on your shoes

You can plant what you want

Anything that you choose.

It’s up to you. And you’ll grow what you grow

And you are the gardener who’ll decide where they’ll go.

You’ll examine the pots. Look ‘em over with care

Some will be scrawny, half dead, so it pays to beware

With your head full of plans and your boot full of pots

You’re too smart to buy any with mildews or rots.

And you may not like any

That you’d want to feed,

In that case, of course,

You can grow them from seed.

There’s a lot more to choose

What have you to lose?

In seed catalogues and websites

You’ll so often find

There’s so many to choose from

You’ll go out of your mind.

And when you start clicking

On ‘buy these now’

Don’t start counting pennies,

That’ll furrow your brow.

Oh! THE THINGS THAT YOU’LL GROW!

You’ll be knee deep in compost!

You’ll dream of seedlings!

You’ll think that you’re queen of

All the green things.

They won’t grow straggly, because they’ll have the light.

They’ll grow oh so strongly, gain vigour and height.

Whatever you grow, you’ll get the best of the crop.

Whatever you sow, it just won’t want to stop.

Except when it don’t

Because, sometimes, it won’t.

I’m sorry to say so,

But sadly it’s true,

That damp off

And die off

Can happen to you.

You can get all het up

About seedlings that collapse

And your compost that dries out

Producing hard-to-break caps.

You’ll forget to pot on

So plant roots will coil round

So when you do plant them,

They’ll just die in the ground.

You’ll start to avoid

The greenhouse or plot

You’re embarrassed to look at

Those plants you forgot.

You’ll start to lose face

And your poor pot bound Queen Anne’s Lace

Will long to find its roots in a place

But for now it is sat in a most useless place.

The Waiting Place...

...For seedlings just waiting.

Waiting for a drop of rain

Or towards the light to crane

Or to move to the cold frame

Or for the waterlog to drain

Poor plants just waiting.

NO!

That’s not their fate!

Somehow you’ll catch up

On all that pricking and potting

You’ll find the sun shines

And stops damping and rotting.

Oh the things that you’ll grow! There are beds to be dug!

There are mulches to spread. There is water to lug!

And the beautiful flowers that you’ll see unfurl

Will make you the happiest gardening girl.

Success! The plants will grow and grow,

With the help of your weed-crushing hoe.

And will your plants succeed?

Yes! They will, indeed!

Flowers and produce success guaranteed!

Time flies…

2011-10-11T18:18:00.003Z

OMG! As I believe they say nowadays.

An idle thought this evening made me go back and check a previous blog post from a few years ago. And due to some sort of (cat-like?) sixth sense, I discover that it is precisely THREE WHOLE YEARS since LAPCPADPOUB Day. Oh my.

Maybe next year, it will be resurrected – now there’s a threat!

For old time’s sake:

There once was a gardening blogger

Who posted a memory jogger

About cats wot were mad

And poems so bad

It made many folk want to flog her.

I thank you.

The Language of Flowers - a book review

2011-10-07T14:10:00.001Z

I read quite a lot; just occasionally, I remember to blog about the books afterwards. SomeBeans is much better at blogging about the books he’s read. However, when I have been given a book to look at, I thought I ought to make the effort!

I’m sure a fair few garden bloggers have been approached about reviewing The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, with that of Esther Montgomery being one review that I have seen and enjoyed.

To be honest, if I had seen the book in the bookshop, I would probably have avoided it – a pretty cover featuring swirly writing and a fair amount of pink would have had me moving on to other books quite rapidly. Whilst the copy I have was given to me by the publisher, have to say that I would have been happy to spend the money after just a few pages of the book.

The language of flowers (as oppose to The Language of Flowers – the book) is something that I learnt a little about quite some time ago. I think I must have heard about it from a great aunt, and something of the romance of it has stuck in my mind ever since. Flowers were used in Victorian times to express a wide range of messages and emotions., in a subtle way. I suppose this lives on with the rather predictable red rose of expensive Valentine’s Day today, declaring ‘love’. How much nicer and more thoughtful it might be to receive a more personal message within a bouquet – perhaps Stock and Cosmos.

So, to the book. I don’t want to give the story away, so perhaps a few hints using the language of flowers. The story is a bouquet of aquiliegia, buttercup, lavender, peony, white roses and cirsium. Yet around and through these are wound trails of hawthorn, lilac, moss, and above all, daffodils.*

A book to read in long sittings, perhaps as the nights draw in. A book to enjoy. And a new language to learn.

*If you’d like to know what this bouquet means, you can find out here.

Wordless Wednesday – Monstrous Carbuncle (Malvern Autumn show)

2011-09-28T18:42:00.001Z

Wordless Wednesday - hoverfly

2011-09-21T05:03:00.001Z

GBBD September ‘11: Daisy, daisy… and a few insects, too

2011-09-15T12:22:00.001Z

Wordless Wednesday - Anemone

2011-08-31T05:21:00.001Z

I’m Blue – Part Two

2011-08-29T17:45:00.002Z

Dinner:

Normandy pork with home-grown carrots, courgettes and Congo mashed potatoes. Slightly disconcerting to eat (the potatoes, that is) but relatively tasty mashed spuds.

(Click here for part one)

I’m Blue

2011-08-28T16:00:00.001Z

Occasionally, I fall prey to pictures in seed catalogues and rather than think “Hmmm – it looks different so no doubt it’ll be disease-prone and with a tiny yield”, I think “Wow – cool. I want that!”

And so it was with my impulse buy of ‘Congo’ potatoes. I grow ‘Cara’ for reliability, versatility and some blight resistance. ‘Ratte’ is nice and tasty and a little bit different. ‘Congo’ is blue (well, purple really, but described in the catalogues as blue).

We dug one of the five plants up today. It had an extensive root system, and a smallish yield of tubers. Well, there may have been more, but distinguishing the tubers from the soil was very difficult. The tubers, before cleaning, looked rather like what can only be described as ‘poo’. Well, they can’t only be described as that, but I’ll leave any other descriptions to your imagination.

Not inspiring or attractive, are they?

But contrary to the slightly rude saying, you can polish one (if you catch my drift…). And this is what you end up with:

There are some ‘blue potatoes’ that are all mouth and no trousers. A lovely blue skin but underneath – a grey-stained white flesh. But no, not these. ‘Congo’ is bloo all throo.

We have yet to eat them, so remain excited. No doubt when we try them tomorrow, they will have all the flavour and texture of cotton wool. But they look good. I will update the post with more photos of the cooked results.

And if you would like to continue the blue theme, I have an earworm for you – just click on the play button below. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Germination

2011-08-25T06:00:00.000Z

I’ve been quiet recently.

For those who haven’t seen the news on SomeBeans blog or on Twitter, we have had some good and very unexpected news quite recently.

Meet ‘Beetle’…

Unfortunately, my morning (ha!) sickness means that the smell of my beautiful sweet peas has been turning my stomach this year, so they have had to stay, uncut, down on the allotment.

Should all go well, Beetle is due on 21st February, and my mind wanders to the spring plants that will be starting to flower at that time of year. This autumn, I think I’ll be planting lots and lots of early daffodils and crocuses to welcome Beetle into the world.

Wordless Wednesday – It’s behind you!

2011-08-24T07:29:00.001Z

Wordless Wednesday–Lucifer

2011-07-27T12:30:00.001Z

Tatton Show Gardens - from the sublime to the ridiculous

2011-07-27T08:23:00.001Z

A trip to Tatton Show in Cheshire and a chance to have a look at the show gardens. I’ve never been to Chelsea or Hampton Court, so cannot compare standards, but this year, I felt there were some really good gardens at the show, and some great planting combinations.

Inside Out (Gold) – very well done, but a bit too ‘lifestyle’ for me. I can’t help but wonder how the kitchen would look after a cold, damp North West winter.

I have seen some much better photos of the Cancer Research UK (silver gilt) garden. It was designed to represent a night-time charity walk through Manchester (Shine Manchester). I found it dark and unsettling.

Save a Life, drop the knife (gold and best show garden). There can’t be many show gardens featuring perspex-encased knives and grafittied hoodies. This garden demonstrated how you can move away from the bleakness of knife crime towards a lighter, easier life. It was very well planted. I loved the texture of the pine and sedum on the harmonious side of the garden.

When the waters rise (Gold) – an interesting garden, which was thronging with visitors every time I walked past it.

Serenity (silver) – certainly not a challenging garden but elicited a lot of favourable comments when I was stood there. I think a lot of people could imagine it in their own garden.

Another garden which didn’t really grab my attention – very well done, but not anything new – The Water Garden (silver)

The Secret Garden (silver) – beautifully planted, with lots of little details which demanded you to look, and then look again. The paths took me back to my grandfather’s garden. Tiny plants grew in cracks in the edging. The brick wall set off the blue of the delphiniums.

Perspective (silver): nicely built, but the idea of the descending log walls, and the path decreasing in width to give an illusion of depth was rather spoilt by the obvious focal point at the rear of the garden – it made you look straight to the bottom. The wilder planting at the back of the garden was nice.

Great water feature in the Wild Flowers of Inver garden (silver). I quite liked the gently rolling grassy areas with crocosmias in groups.

The Chocolate Orange garden (silver) didn’t grab me at all, I’m afraid. I quite liked the new take on the use of a ha-ha, but the planting did nothing for me – it felt rather unstructured, though certainly very eye-catching. And I’m a fan of orange flowers. I know that spotted laurels can have a useful place in the garden, but it just made me feel queasy here.

I suppose this garden was supposed to be fun, and perhaps I wasn’t the target audience. It was also trying to draw attention to the NSPCC which is a good thing, but… (Happy Rabbit Valley, bronze). I found it rather creepy, to be honest, and the sunflower in the second photo bows its head in embarrassment.

The Schedule got a well-deserved gold medal. Lots of little details. It’s not often there is a muck-heap in a show garden. The bicycle leaning against the shed could have been taken at our allotment – it’s a dead-ringer for Henry’s bike and tartan basket. The veg and the flower beds were very impressive.

Rather aptly, Tatton Park showed a garden (gold). It is based on the beautiful Japanese Garden in the park, which was completed in 1911 – 100 years ago. Very nicely done, showing that less, sometimes, is better.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a photograph of the elegant focal point of this garden, without getting lots of people in the photo (Grasses with Grace (gold), with Grace being the focal point). However, just as beautiful was the planting, which merited close examination. I particularly loved the Echinacea (‘Green Envy’?) with the grasses acting as a veil.

Children growing

2011-07-23T18:17:00.002Z

I wish I had been able to do gardening at school. A chance to grow. Luckily, my parents encouraged me in the garden, and I remember growing candytuft in a small area – I still love that flower.

Nowadays, thanks to keen volunteers, teachers and the RHS, a lot of schools give children the chance to experience the excitement of growing something, and the excuse to get dirty. At RHS Tatton Show, schools from the North West are encouraged to design and build gardens.

It was great to see the schools front to front gardens at the show. The schoolchildren had to design and build gardens based on their interpretation of a country. Each school was given a country to interpret. The gardens showed real imagination and a sense of fun and humour – I spent an enjoyable time wandering round; the more you looked, the more little details you could see.

Evelyn Street Primary School – Austria

Croft Primary School - China

Eaton Primary School - Mexico

Oaklands Community Kids & Cheshire West & Chester – Antartica

The gardens were great, but even better were the entrants for the Beautiful Butterflies and Busy Bees schools container competition. The schools were challenged to create a planted container with flowers to attract butterflies and bees. There were some wonderful bees. Thank you to all the children who put so much effort in to their entries – they really made me smile and I wanted to make some bees myself :-)

My favourite!

Wordless Wednesday – the tails of a thousand lilac meerkats

2011-07-20T06:00:00.000Z

Wordless Wednesday – Smiley arrow on a road sign

2011-06-29T05:00:00.000Z

Buried treasure

2011-06-26T15:37:00.001Z

There is one thing that is the best thing in the whole world about growing vegetables. Much as I enjoy digging up carrots, picking beans, cutting lettuce, shelling broad beans out of their furry pods (and I like that rather a lot), they do not hold a candle to what I did for the first time of the year today.

Pirates may get excited about digging up golden dubloons using a map to find the spot marked ‘X’. I get more excited about digging up potatoes - the child-like excitement of unearthing the hidden prize. Sad, isn’t it?

‘Swift’

Wordless Wednesday - Atom Heart

2011-06-22T05:11:00.002Z

Essence of grass

2011-06-19T19:02:00.001Z

Whilst grass is an important foil to the flowers in our garden, it is also an enemy. I suffer from hayfever, and midsummer can be a bit of a trial when the grasses are flowering.

‘What could be better, then, than Tony Smith’s ‘Grass’ garden at Gardeners’ World Live’? The essence of flowering grass but without the itchy eyes.

I think it was my favourite show garden. This surprised me, as I do like my flowers. But the simplicity of the planting in the garden was beguiling. The towers of turf were topped with what looked like Cineraria. A grass stalk topped by a silvery flowerhead. I enjoyed looking at the different views through the grass ‘stalks’. It would have been nicer still to have been able to sit in the sunken area, an look up at the towering ‘grasses’. A well-deserved gold, and it seemed to provoke almost entirely positive comments from the crowds, which was quite a surprise.

Travelling hopefully

2011-06-16T18:53:00.001Z

I went on a train trip yesterday. A day out at Gardeners’ World Live. I decided not to drive as every time I visit the NEC, on the way out I seem to become entangled in a vortex of roads which drag back me closer and closer to the showground. Eventually, I break free of the NEC’s gravitational pull (all those huge sheds there must contain black holes or something), and I fly off in a random direction. I spend the next 10 minutes driving along looking at road signs, trying to determine whether I’m on the right road or not. Usually I’m not.

Anyway, I went on the train, and thoroughly enjoyed the journey. It allows the blossoming of my inherent nosiness – I get to peer into a myriad of back gardens, and snigger when I see industrial units proudly displaying the fact that they manufacture pipe flanges. There is something intrinsically funny about the word flange, so I make no apology for saying it again.

It was an early start yesterday, as I wanted to be at the NEC at opening time, to avoid the heaving crowds later in the day. I had a delicious feeling of skiving off as I watched people peering bleary-eyed at laptops and all I had to do was watch the countryside slip past.

Whilst peering into gardens, you become struck by the gradual spread of the dark circles of trampolines, like bouncy acne spreading across the face of the suburban British garden.

As a counterfoil to the ugly elasticated playthings, it was a joy to see the swathes of ox-eye daisies in the rough grassland, and poppies around the edges of cereal fields.

It was also interesting to see the floral adornments of some of the stations. Of course, Birmingham New Street is an underground behemoth, devoid of foliage. However, at the edges of the tunnels a few gallant plants grow, and look all the better for putting themselves there. Ferns, ivy-leaved toadflax and the ubiquitous buddleia thrive in cracks and crevices. Rather nicer than the display at Chester station, which was rather twee (not to mention very dry). But at least they tried. If a few people were cheered by some petunias, then the world is a better place.

The NEC was its usual soulless self, (though with a good sprinkling of interesting gardens and plants) but that’s another post.

Wordless Wednesday - Astrantia

2011-06-15T06:00:00.000Z

Wordless Wednesday - Rodgersia

2011-06-08T05:00:00.000Z

Garden visit – Wollerton Old Hall

2011-06-04T15:28:00.001Z

On what felt like the hottest day of the year so far, I decided to visit the gardens at Wollerton Old Hall, near Market Drayton. The gardens are only open on Fridays, Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays, so a beautiful day pretty much guaranteed a busy garden.

The gardens open at noon, and there is an initial rush once the ticket office opens. However, I discovered that most of the early rush was to the tea rooms – apparently very good, but I didn’t go in. Although the house is old (16th century), the gardens have been developed since 1984.

The garden has a solid year-round structure of walls, hedges and clipped trees; this structure is supplemented by bounteous shrub and herbaceous colour. Most of the individual garden areas are planted in the ‘English garden tradition’ according to the website. So, plenty of herbaceous borders, roses and so on.

The garden is divided into rooms which are linked to form views within the garden. It did, to me, sometimes feel that these views were a little too many, but it does lead you on through the garden – though sometimes a little too quickly. I found myself wondering where the next path was going rather than admiring the current ‘room’, as each garden area was quite small. This led to me wandering round several times, to go back to see what I’d missed before.

My favourite parts of the garden had less of a ‘corridor’ feel. I particularly liked the Font Garden, which was mostly green when I visited, with box topiary and wildflower square. In a week or two, one side will be bordered with white lilies – they aren’t quite out yet.

The Lanhydrock garden, on the other hand, is a slap to the face to wake you up. Bright colours just beginning to get going – a real hot garden area – both literally and figuratively yesterday – some of the plants were finding the hot sun and continued dry weather a bit of a challenge.

A really ‘romantic’ border at the moment is in the Rose Garden – a tide of Nepeta to wade through, studded with peonies and roses.

Another quieter interlude was the garden area by the house. A lovely place to sit when the visitors have gone away at the end of the day, I’m sure. Like the font garden, I enjoyed this area as it was calmer and felt less of a corridor. I suspect the heat of the day and the overhead sun led me to preferring the ‘cooler’ areas yesterday. I liked this area, as it reminded me what a good ground cover plant ivy can be – trimmed to keep it under control, it gives a carpet of fresh green.

The rill garden was another ‘quiet’ area of green and stone – limited planting with limited materials. Having seen photos of the garden in several lectures, I’d expected the rill to run the length of the garden (i.e. at right angles to the house), rather than across the garden (parallel to the house). Not that it matters – it was a nice area, again allowing vistas through the garden.

Wollerton Old Hall also has some more naturalistic planting further from the house, leading down to a small pool where the damselflies were active.

I did enjoy the visit, but didn’t feel smitten with it as I have with some other gardens. I can’t quite figure out why – I suspect that the heat and strong sunlight may have affected my enjoyment, rather than anything lacking in the garden, although I did end up feeling a bit tired of cross-views at the end.

It’s a good time of year to visit the gardens, with the early summer English garden flowers out, such as irises, roses, peonies, and the wild flower areas looking fresh. And try the cake – it’s supposed to be very good. Let me know.

Wordless Wednesday - Geranium

2011-06-01T07:20:00.001Z

Ligularia Blues

2011-05-30T19:05:00.001Z

Woke up this mornin’ and my Ligularia was gone.

Said I woke up this mornin’ and my Ligularia was gone.

There were holes in my Hosta,

The critters that done it had slithered off by dawn.

Woke up this mornin’ and all I saw was stumps

Said I woke up this mornin’ and all I saw was stumps.

A few slimey trails

That give my skin goose bumps

Up late this evening, I’m waiting for my prey

Said I’m up late this evening, and I’m waiting for my prey

Got some sharp secateurs,

Those slimey devils gonna pay.

With apologies to BB King

Wordless Wednesday – Forget-Me-Not

2011-05-25T04:55:00.000Z

Climbing aboard the Chelsea bandwagon

2011-05-23T05:12:00.002Z

It's Chelsea Flower Show this week - an opportunity to see horticultural perfection. The usual suspects are complaining that the show gardens don't represent what the average gardener is faced with. Well, thank goodness for that! Why would I want to see world-class designers designing for the average back garden? I want to see something new and exciting, to see new ideas, unusual plants. OK, perhaps Diarumid's bonkers flying pod is a bit too far, but at least it gets people talking.

I hope that everyone going has a great time. If, like me, you're not going and unlike me, you don't want to see new and exciting designs, here's something for you, from 1964 (from British Pathe)

CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW

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Wearing boxing gloves and singing hearts and flowers

2011-05-21T13:43:00.002Z

Meet peony ‘Buckeye Belle’. I think she has avoided the notice of the weather gods; the weather gods pay an inordinate amount of interest to peonies. As soon as the bud gently opens, the weather gods react jealously, and throw torrential rain onto the flamboyant peony flowers, for fear of being upstaged in the drama stakes. However, ‘Buckeye Belle’ has dodged under their radar, as they are far too interested in the progress of ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ in the front garden. With the enemy distracted, ‘Buckeye Belle’ quietly gets on with flowering.

Her colour reminds me of the heavy, old–fashioned red leather boxing gloves, hence the title (courtesy of the wonderful Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera).

I fear that ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ will not be so lucky – the weather gods will ensure her disporting petals will be transformed into buds which look like a tissue that’s been through the washing machine.

Wordless Wednesday – Three Kings Centenary Garden, Malvern Show

2011-05-18T05:00:00.000Z

Malvern Show Gardens 2011

2011-05-17T19:34:00.002Z

Malvern Show – the Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Gardens

2011-05-15T06:10:00.002Z

One of the most interesting things at the Malvern garden show is, for me the Chris Beardshaw mentoring scholarship competition. Eleven finalists were chosen to build their first show gardens at Malvern this year. The subject was ‘Atom’ to tie in with UNESCO’s international year of chemistry.

Whilst the individual gardens varied hugely, there were several themes running through most of the gardens. It is natural to consider the shape of the atom as one of the defining features, and many of the gardens had circles and spheres as motifs, to infer the shape of the atom. This was done in an interesting way in Becky Hand’s garden, with the box shape in the centre imitating the nucleus of an atom.

Detail from ‘The Atomic Journey’ by Becky Hand (Silver)

Several gardens took their inspiration from education and science. I thought that Lindsay Warwick’s garden was great fun, with bubbling water features which really shone out when the sun hit them, reminding us of what fun chemistry *should* have been when we were at school. Instead, it was rather more likely to involve producing slightly grey solids and setting fire to your fringe if you leant too far over the bunsen burner.

‘Chemistry…all that matters by Lindsay Warwick (bronze)

Rachel Phillips’ garden was designed as a place of learning and discovery, and packed a huge amount of detail into a small area. Again, there was reference to a central nucleus within the design – in this case a nucleus for gathering together to share knowledge. An inspiring garden, which I hope has a life after the show somewhere where young children can explore it.

Ladybird bird feeder

Detail from Rachel Phillips’ ‘Budding Scientist’ garden (silver-gilt), again reflecting the spheres used in many gardens

The mentorship scheme is sponsored by Bradstones, so one might expect strong hard landscaping in the gardens. I liked the long units used in the Po84 garden by Jackie Crofts, softened by herbs. Again, the circle motif was highlighted, this time using woven stems.

Details from Jackie Crofts’ garden ‘Po84 Atomic Energy’ (silver)

Two of the gardens could be described as ‘conceptual’. Paul Cantello’s garden really struck me, with (again…) circles coming to the fore. The garden was inspired by the oxygen atom and its need to pair with another of its kin to make a stable molecule. I think that gardens get called ‘conceptual’ when they aren’t obviously made for sitting in. But I think I *could* sit in Paul’s garden. The bamboo screens again echoed the circular nature of the podiums (for want of a better word), which themselves were paved with organic-looking hard landscape material. The rusty metal surrounding the podiums contrasted with the acid green of the euphorbia.

Paul Cantello’s ‘Breathe’ garden (silver-gilt)

The second ‘conceptual’ garden was that of Kasia Howard. An artist by vocation, Kasia’s garden certainly drew a lot of comment. The large cube was studded with hanging ‘baubles’ – spheres again. I can’t say I would want it as part of my garden, but that is not the point of it. Why have a show garden that merely mirrors a hundred thousand gardens up and down the country?

A couple of gardens which didn’t chime with me so well were Pippa Bumstead’s and Rhea Parkes’. Pippa’s was an exploration of the role of carbon in life, with plants used to recreate the feeling of oriental textiles. The planting was vibrantly, and I felt it lacked some height. It was an interesting interpretation of the concept of ‘Atom’, not least because it did not really include much of the symbolism that many of the other gardens did. I didn’t manage to take a decent photo, but the photo below gives an idea of the brightness of the planting, although rather out of focus.

‘Colour from Carbon’ by Pippa Bumstead (bronze)

Rhea Parkes’ garden used changes in level in the garden to represent the changes in the paths of electrons orbiting the nucleus. It also was designed to encourage sustainable use of water, though I’m not sure that I got this concept from looking at the garden. I felt that the hard landscaping rather dominated the garden, and it had an awkward angle in it. There wer some nice design touches – I liked the ‘insect hotels’ built into the walls, and some nice planting, with sun lovers exposed, and moisture lovers near the water feature.

‘The Rain Garden’ by Rhea Lyn Parkes (silver)

Another garden with a reliance on hard landscaping was Christopher Tessier’s garden. I rather liked this garden – an interesting water feature (if not entirely practical, but this is a show garden). Again, planted spheres highlighted the ‘atom’ design brief, with a limited planting scheme providing unity (although I think the mentorship judges thought the planting list a little too limited). The water feature was the real talking point; I liked the way that the feature integrated the two types of paving used in the design – the ‘cobbled’ paving swirling into the darker pavers.

‘Collision’ by Christopher Tessier (silver)

One of my favourite gardens for producing different views within the garden was Keni Lee’s garden, inspired by oriental gardens. The garden is symbolic of the trinity of proton, neutron and electron, according to Keni’s information. To me the subject of ‘Atom’ was not so explicit in this garden. The use of alpine plants in raised planters meant that Keni produced landscapes in miniature. I found this the most photogenic of the mentorship gardens, as you could frame different views through the moon gate. The finish to the planters let the garden down a little, although I hasten to add that I am in awe to all the first time show garden designers and couldn’t do it myself.

‘From Laozi to Heisenberg’ by Keni Lee (bronze)

The winner of the Chris Beardshaw Mentorship Scheme for 2011 was Caroline Butler. Like Keni’s, Caroline’s garden allowed different views into the garden, although I found it harder to photograph as there were no fences around it to provide a neutral background. The concept of atom was to the fore again in this garden; the positive aspects of the atom were represented by dry-loving plants, and the negative by moisture-loving plants. It was very nicely done, and an interesting garden, but it didn’t capture my imagination in the same way as some of the other gardens. The mentorship is judged against a whole range of criteria, and Caroline produced a great garden. I look forward to seeing her garden in the autumn, and next year at Chelsea.

‘In the Balance’ by Caroline Butler – winner of this year’s Chris Beardshaw Mentorship Scheme

Throughout most of the gardens, alliums were used extensively. I suppose there are two reasons for this – firstly their shape chimes nicely with the concept of the ‘atom’ – all of the individual florets circling the nucleus of flower stem, like crazy electrons clamouring around the nucleus. Secondly, of course, many of the gardens every year feature alliums at Malvern – it is their time. This is *a good thing* as far as I’m concerned, as it could be said that I’m rather keen on these flowers myself.

One reason why I was so interested in the interpretation of the concept of ‘atom’ was that I had put some thought into it myself. By no way am I skilled enough or imaginative enough to send in an entry, but reading about the competition last summer sparked an idea in my head. I thought of using the element magnesium as the basis of a design, as it is present in chlorophyll (the green pigment responsible for most photosynthesis in plants). However, the talented and imaginative people above took the plunge and actually *did* while I just *thought*, and took it no further. Congratulations to them all – each garden was a real achievement.

Malvern Spring Gardening Show

2011-05-14T12:34:00.001Z

It’s the middle of May, so it’s time once again for a visit to the Malvern Spring Gardening Show. Instead of cold winds and winter weather, this year’s show was much warmer (at least on Friday). The recent warm weather meant that some flowers were going over, whilst others we might not expect to see at Malvern were in full bloom.

Plants that people seemed to be buying a lot of this year included Meconopsis and Trollius, as well as heucheras and Lamprocapnos spectabilis (or, the much nicer former name of Dicentra).

Show gardens were good, although many of them seem to have over-dosed on hard landscaping. A lot of focus was put on the challenge of shade-loving plants. I’m not sure this is too much of a challenge – if I was given a garden which consisted solely of moist shade, I think I could happily garden there for a very long time; my favourite border in our current garden is the shady, moist one. Still, if it means we see more Rodgersias in show gardens, then pushing shady gardens is fine with me. Dry shade, however…

I didn’t buy any plants – sacrilege! But I did spend some time trying to understand the show gardens, looking at the use of plants, the different views into each garden, and the ideas which they were expressing – very useful. Gardening is very personal, and there were gardens that I didn’t like, others that I loved, some that challenged, and some that didn’t challenge at all.

I could have happily spent some time in this garden - ‘A garden for life’ by The Graduate Gardeners (gold and best in show).

Wordless Wednesday - "When it's Spring again, I'll fwing again..."

2011-05-11T18:00:00.001Z

Out of my depth

2011-05-10T18:30:00.003Z

In an attempt to try and improve my photos, I’ve been doing a few exercises. Despite SomeBean’s and my father’s explanations, I hadn’t really played a great deal with camera settings until quite recently. To continue on from my playing with light, this weekend I was playing with depth of field on the camera.

I took some photos at f/2.8 (very shallow depth of field) and then the same photo at f/32 (very large depth of field). The higher the number, the less light is let in when you take the photo, so for high f numbers like f/32, a longer exposure is needed. I therefore had to use a tripod, to keep the camera steady.

A very interesting experiment. The depth of field you want will depend on the type of photo you want to take. If you’re taking a landscape photo and want it all to be as in focus as possible, then you need a higher f number. I quite enjoy taking macro snaps, with a narrow depth of field. When you do this with a high f number, the background is too much in focus and distracts from the subject of the photo.

Well, it kept me quiet for an afternoon anyway!

A shining and affirmative thing

2011-05-08T13:25:00.001Z

The blue Meconopsis grips my heart with its colour; but the white one has just come into flower. It lights the shady border – a shining and affirmative thing.

It's good...

2011-05-06T18:43:00.003Z

... to have a thrush in the garden. There are broken snail shells all over the patio. We get more damage from snails than slugs most of the time (they collect in the tight Kniphofia leaves to aestivate). Nematodes don't target the snails, so a friendly spotty helping beak is a relief.
Incidentally, I do like the word 'operculum' - the name for the the door to the snail's shell.

Wordless Wednesday – Large and Small

2011-05-04T18:38:00.001Z

Health & Safety

2011-05-02T13:35:00.002Z

A tale of ‘Elf ‘n Safety, not ‘gone mad’ – just gone.

So there I was, edging the lawn, with the nice sharp lawn edgers. In my slippers. Mules, to be precise. Although at least not these sort of mules. Or indeed these – for the health and safety of both myself and mule.

Not exactly RHS recommended PPE. Still, at least I wasn’t bare-footed – I’ve done that before. I do still have all my own toes, but they are rather short – though not due to any lawn-edging related accidents, I promise. Yet.

A study in light

2011-05-01T17:56:00.001Z

It has been blowing a gale, but I set myself the challenge today of looking at the effects of light. Stupidly, I did this with flowers on long wavy stems with big heads that easily catch the slightest breeze, at the end of a wind tunnel of a passageway between the front and back garden. I have deleted loads of photos where the frame is almost empty apart from a smear of purple in one corner, where the allium head has blown out of shot. Lessons learnt? That photos with the sun behind you are flat, that interesting effects can be made by shooting into the light (but the white balance or something isn’t right – I’ll have to experiment with that) and that flower photography would be much easier if I did it when wasn’t blowing a hoolie.

Front lit

Side lit

Back lit

Rhapsody in Blue

2011-04-30T09:53:00.001Z

To continue my Meconopsis obsession – yesterday it looked divine, the blue of the flower fading into the stem. Today a declining Hollywood beauty casting off petals, like Jayne Mansfield casting off a mink coat.

Wordless Wednesday - Intimacy

2011-04-27T07:00:00.000Z

Eyes wide shut

2011-04-26T18:29:00.001Z

I must have been going around with my eyes shut to have never noticed this tree in flower before. SomeBeans and I saw it at Ness gardens last week, and I was sure I’d not seen one before. Since then, however, I’ve seen them all over the place.

It’s Prunus padus ‘Watereri’. A chorus of “Of course it is – can’t believe you’ve not noticed it before – can’t move for falling over them” rises from the blogosphere. I shall have to be more observant – perhaps an I Spy book of trees would help. I’m sure if I was trying to impress Big Chief I-Spy with my spotting abilities I would take a bit more notice of my surroundings.

What a difference a day makes…

2011-04-25T12:40:00.001Z

From this…

…to the petals unfurling as creased as a butterfly’s wings as it emerges from its cocoon.

You might be seeing more photos of this beautiful Meconopsis. A wonderful advantage of living in the cool, damp North West of England.

Happy now

2011-04-24T13:02:00.001Z

Our garden pleases me at the moment.

It has some weeds, it has some gaps. It has some beautiful bits. It has some ugly bits.

It has flowers, it has foliage. It has birds, it has slugs. It has had sweat, an occasional bit of blood and the odd few tears.

It has memories.It has anticipation.

It has love.

I am enjoying the daily changes at this time of year, and am happy to spend some time just sitting, looking.

“We want a shrubbery”

2011-04-22T17:34:00.001Z

It seems like Roger the Shrubber (“I arrange, design and sell shrubberies”) might be becoming a little more popular in the near future. Shrubs are making a comeback.

I have to admit that until very recently I have had a bit of a blind spot when it comes to shrubs. I have some in the garden but I just let them get on with it.

When we first moved in to this house, the front garden was packed full of a range of shrubs. Some were in theory rather nice plants (I love the wafting smell of Mahonia as I walk past one), but the previous inhabitants of the house insisted on pruning them all into round blobs. I’m sure it was just to tidy the garden up a bit before it went on sale, but it was like walking into a child’s drawing of a garden. Big, blobby green masses on sticks. No flowers – they had all been cut off by indiscriminate use of electric shears. We won’t even mention the crazy paving path. Nor the blousy pink hydrangea which was first up against the wall when the garden revolution came.

And come it did – all the shrubs were mercilessly hoiked out.

But shrubs are important. They provide structure to the garden. In the case of evergreens, winter interest and structure is maintained. Dogwoods give colour in a monochrome season. In spring, shrubs can be clothed in blossom; in autumn their leaves can burn as brightly as any Fall forests. Yet, why is it that I’m only just beginning to realise the importance, and the usefulness and the beauty of shrubs? Stick me in front of a herbaceous border and I can name many of the plants; place me besides a well-stocked shrubbery and until very recently I could have given a few names, had a guess at a couple more, and that would be it. Laurel was laurel – green, ugly, and usually a hedge which had been cut with hedge trimmers, leaving dismembered parts of leaves slowly browning at the edges. Perhaps that’s why I’ve spurned shrubs – people treat them badly; abused shrubs never look good.

A little bit of knowledge has gone a long way to combat my feeling of ‘meh’ when I hear the word shrub. I’ve learnt to identify some and go around naming shrubs in car parks and in peoples’ front gardens. And now I rather like them, and recognise their usefulness. Whilst a I might never want a shrubbery, at least I no longer want to grub them out.

Wordless Wednesday - Liverwort

2011-04-20T06:00:00.000Z

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day April 2011

2011-04-15T14:33:00.001Z

A few warm days last week really brought on a panoply of spring flowers. You can see many of these flowers on other people’s GBBD posts, so I thought I’d include a couple that might not feature elsewhere*. The following two weren’t planted by me, but are welcome. Our lawn is not a monoculture! No stripes of perfection here.

*Although having gone to Carol’s post to put my own up and add a comment, I note that she, too, has included the fiery petalled flower of number 2.

Wordless Wednesday – fly away home

2011-04-13T07:31:00.001Z

Wordless Wednesday - Drainpipe

2011-04-06T05:26:00.001Z

SOAP

2011-04-03T18:04:00.001Z

A couple of posts ago, I declared myself to be an EMO. Times passes…

It’s early April now; and so I move from an EMO to being in a SOAP. However, I do not find myself in a foamy mass of perfumed toiletries. Instead, I find myself in a Start Of April Panic.

I planned ahead in the autumn, and planted my sweet peas. However, they died when I failed ot water them before going on holiday. In my defence, the week before we went was very frosty, and so I was concerned about watering them in case the frozen water killed them. Instead, the lack of water, in the unusually warm week that accompanied our holiday, killed them.

Luckily, in case such a thing happened, I had saved some seeds which I have now planted. Hurrah – they have germinated!

I’ve got my potatoes chitting:

But… some people have already got their potatoes in at the allotments; I’ve only just sown the broad beans (or rather SomeBeans did). I’ve a whole host of seeds waiting to get into the ground; I haven’t bought any dahlia tubers yet, let alone got them growing to produce cuttings; the lawn hasn’t beenscarifed; I haven’t cut down all the dead growth from last year; I haven’t divided the heleniums, I haven’t dug up the plants killed by winter, I havent, I haven’t, I haven’t… (takes deep breath in effort to calm down…).

Are you in a SOAP, or is it just me?

Wordless Wednesday - Shy

2011-03-30T06:09:00.000Z

A winter garden in spring

2011-03-26T21:27:00.001Z

My first garden visit of the year was to Dunham Massey, last week. Much was written about the opening of the new winter garden when it first opened just over 12 months ago. Designed by the head gardener there (Damian Harris), Roy Lancaster advised on its planting.

As it was the middle of March, the winter garden was shrugging off its winter woollies and showing a glimpse of its bright spring clothes. Beneath the overcoat of deciduous and evergreen structure, the new season’s growth vied for attention.

Some might tire of seeing the bright white stems of Betula utilis var. jacquemontii used to provide winter interest, but it works, although the effect will be much more striking in a few more years time.

In spring, the white flowers of Anemone nemerosa pick up the white of the bark. The marbled foliage of the cyclamen has a similar effect.

Again, dogwoods aren’t a novel way of introducing colour into a winter garden, but they’re common for a reason – they do bring colour, and when the sun strikes them, they burn brightly. Unfortunately my photographs don’t do them justice.

The snowdrops had gone over when I visited but the daffodils that line the curves of the paths guide you through the garden, and their sheer numbers and brightness bring a child-like smile to my face.

Dead flowers and seedheads are kept, to good effect. The flowerheads of hydrangeas (something I dislike when they are their pale, washed out living selves) take on a certain elegance when in sepia tints. Phlomis punctuate the lower-growing spring plants.

Now is when winter slips away and spring leaps forward like a circus ring master to introduce the ever-increasing number of floral acts vying to take centre stage. To see Dunham Massey at this cross-over of seasons is special, and when the garden has grown into its new clothes a little more, it will be even more so.

Wordless Wednesday - Shiny

2011-03-23T06:09:00.000Z

An advantage of being untidy

2011-03-20T10:30:00.001Z

Due to weather, work, winter weariness and sheer laziness, I haven’t quite got round to tidying up the dead flowerheads, stems and detritus of the borders in the garden (although I have now made a start by hacking grasses and exposing the soft tentacle-like new growth of the epimediums).

My untidiness (well, I don’t call myself the Inelegant Gardener for nothing) has paid off recently, however. These little beauties have been visiting for the past couple of weeks, feeding on the furry seedheads of the Japanese anemones, and in this case, the cardoons which have seen better days, having survived a winter of extensive frost, not to mention some long-lasting snow.

The goldies have ignored the nyger seed feeder in the back garden, but how much better they look with their feathery seed-moustaches on the untidy plants. Maybe I’ll leave it another week or two until I cut down the dead heads.

Thank you to SomeBeans for taking the photo.

Wordless Wednesday - Bark

2011-03-16T07:00:00.000Z

GBBD – March 2011: Hellebore Bore

2011-03-15T19:23:00.001Z

I’ve been selective with this month’s GBBD. I’ve ignored the little daffodils, the still-flowering crocuses, the fragrant Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’. They’re all lovely but I’ve decided to give pride of place to some other jewels.

In previous years I’ve plucked the flowers and upturned them, to better view their unique patterns and exquisite tiaras of anthers. This time, I decided to meet them at their level; and because I don’t have raised beds, I spent a happy half hour or so on my stomach on a wet and muddy lawn. It was worth it. They may shyly hide their beauty, but if you spend a little time in their company, they really come out of their shell.

I couldn’t resist one non-hellebore photo – I wouldn’t want to be too much of a hellebore bore. I recommend you, too, cwtch up close to Anemone blanda – not exotic, but a delight worthy of closer inspection.

Thanks, as always, to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for giving me the impetus to spend a happy half hour in the mud, and for getting me to look closer at the garden every month. Please visit Carol’s blog for many more people joining in with GBBD.

EMO

2011-03-06T12:06:00.001Z

No, my dear readers, I am not coming out as someone who wears a lot of black, has a fringe that covers half of my face, and a penchant for writing depressive poems about how much I hate the world and the world hates me. I do not like My Chemical Romance.

No, far worse than that. I suffer from Early March Optimism. It strikes, as the name suggests, at the start of Spring. It takes hold of me at the allotment. I survey the ravages of winter ( a few dead kale plants, some happy sprouts, some stunted leeks, and the mothers of all parsnips), and I think “Well, not bad – won’t take long to clear up”. This bit is generally true.

But then I make my mistake, and EMO rears its head. I say to SomeBeans “It really looks like we’ve got on top of the weeds this year – there’s only a few ephemerals about”. Ha.

Whilst some weeds, like hairy bittercress, will carry on growing and seeding through the year whenever it’s warm enough, I always forget that it’s only from mid to late March that the real thugs get going. Hence my EMO moments. I cannot yet see the horsetail, ground elder, couch grass and bind weed thrusting their way to the surface. Ignorance is bliss, at least for another week or two. So allow me my moment of EMO.

Wordless Wednesday - Small

2011-03-02T19:24:00.001Z

What do I know?

2011-02-21T19:11:00.002Z

For the past 12 months I’ve been studying for the RHS Level 2 certificate in horticulture (old style qualification, pre-QCF changes). I completed my second (and final) exam last week. For those who have not come across it, the RHS Level 2 cert is a theory-based qualification designed for the keen amateur, as well as people already working in horticulture. For those who don’t work on a daily basis with qualifications, Level 2 is at the same level as GCSEs.

The RHS have been training horticulturalists for over 100 years. The majority of the people attending the course that I attended were keen amateurs, wanting to learn more about how to get the best out of their gardens, with a scattering of apprentices.

So, the big question is - has this course improved my gardening skills? The answer is yes, probably.

I have learnt a lot of theory on fruit and veg production, pests and diseases, botany, ornamental plant growing, soils. The course in itself covers no practical work, although where they could the tutors levered in some practical work, such as soil testing, dissecting seeds and flowers, and looking at weeds and diseased materials. I have learnt the theory of how to sow small, medium and large seeds, but could in theory gain maximum marks in an exam question on seed sowing without ever having touched a seed in my life. The RHS have recently introduced a practical module at level 2 (the Level 3 qual has had a practical module for a number of years, I believe) – this is a “good thing” as far as I am concerned.

In practice, the knowledge has helped me to understand why different methods of propagation are done at different times of the year, and has made it less likely that I will drown my cuttings in future. I have a sharper eye for pests and diseases, and realise that cultural conditions will help me reduce the incidence of powdery mildew on the allotment. I’m no longer phased by the myriad of fertilisers on the shelf at the garden centre, but head straight for the N:P:K ratio on the back to see if it’s what I need. I know what I should be doing, even if I don’t always get around to doing it on time.

I also know that the RHS require an awful lot of information for just 2 marks in their exams – if I was to write exam questions for my degree students and require such a large amount of information for such a small amount of marks, the external examiner would require me to re-write the paper. Questions can also be ambiguous – difficult in an exam when you have approximately 90 seconds per mark (and by all accounts, the new Level 3 exams are much worse than this). If anyone wants to see what the old style exams involve, the RHS have past papers. Suffice to say that in 90 minutes, you do not have long to ponder, just write, write, write. I get my results for the exam I’ve just taken at the end of April.

I know, too, that the garden and allotment have been ignored a little over the past 12 months, as I have been learning instead of doing. So, I’m taking the next 6 months off from RHS studying, but may be tempted to start the new Level 3 qual in September. In the mean time, I’ll be sowing, propagating, weeding and feeding for real, not just in a book.

Book Review: For all the tea in China

2011-02-16T18:41:00.001Z

This post is a copy of SomeBeans’ post over on his blog. We both read this book recently, and it seemed a bit daft for me to review it as well when SomeBeans has done it so admirably. I’ve read a few books about plant hunters; this book looks at the political background of plant hunting in China, the effects of Empire, and the development of tea cultivation in India. I have to say that I can’t stand the drink tea, though I do try it every few years, just to check. However, this book had me wishing that I did like it, so I could learn to appreciate the nuances of flavour in the best teas.

Anyway, over to Somebeans...

“I’ve been on a bit of a reading spree: next up is “For all the tea in China” by Sarah Rose. This is the story of Robert Fortune and his trips to China in the mid-nineteenth century to obtain tea plants and the secret of tea manufacture for the East India Company to use in India.

Robert Fortune (1812-1880) was a botanist with a modest background. Starting his working life at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, he later became Curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden. These were relatively poorly paid posts, however there were few such positions to support a professional botanist without their own means of support. He made several substantial visits to the Far East, funded by the Horticultural Society of London and the British East India Company. He died a wealthy man in large part through the wide range of plant introductions he had made, as well as through sales of artefacts he had acquired in the Far East. The list of introductions is well worth a skim through for the modern gardener.

[Note from HappyMouffetard: the list of plants that have made it into garden cultivation is amazing. Some are celebrated by the specific name of fortunei, for example Euonymus fortunei ].

The East India Company had been given a monopoly of trade to the Far East in 1600, through this monopoly they had built a lucrative trade in silk and tea from China, as well as effectively running India. The trades from China were matched with trades into China of opium from India, by the middle of the 19th century addiction to opium was a significant problem in China. The volume of trade it brought made the East India Company a very significant contributor to British government income (of order 10%). Although there are now many global corporations, the East India Company was one of the first and in many ways most powerful. The company was ultimately to lose its dominance following the Indian Mutiny in 1858, and was finally wound up in 1874. The mutiny was likely the cumulation of a long process since the monopoly that the East India Company enjoyed was not popular with free-marketeers who were starting to come to the fore.

At the time of Fortune's first trip to China in 1845 the English had long been drinking tea imported from China, in exchange for opium grown in India. The English drank both green and black teas, although unlike the Chinese they added milk and sugar (obtained from another British colonial outpost). The Chinese were keen to keep the secret of both the tea plant, and its manufacture into tea leaves for making tea. Whilst the British, in particular the East India Company were keen to get these secrets believing (correctly) that tea would grow well in Himalayan India and would make a good profit. Some tea was already being grown in the Assam district of India but is was derived from inferior Chinese plants. The tea plant is Camellia sinensis a close relative of the decorative camellias of which Fortune also introduced some species.

Before Fortune's first visit to China it had not even been established that black tea and green tea came from the same plant, but were processed differently. His trips required considerable subterfuge: Westerners had only recently been allowed into anywhere other than a limited number of ports in China, as a result of the first Opium War and Fortune's activities went considerably beyond what was allowed even under these revised regulations. One of Fortune's discoveries was that green tea had been coloured by the Chinese for the export market using Prussian Blue (which is toxic) and gypsum. Following a couple of false starts he was eventually able to transport a large number of highest quality tea plant seedlings to Darjeeling in India, as well as providing skilled tea makers and extensive notes on the tea making process.

The key to Fortune's success in shipping out tea plants from China were Wardian cases, these are essentially sealed glass environments containing soil and some water. Plants, or more importantly, troublesome seeds could be sealed into these containers and as long as they remained sealed, and given some light there would be a good chance of their biological cargo surviving a lengthy sea journey through a range of climates. Prior to this discovery long distance transplantations were tricky. Nowadays we see Kew Gardens as largely a place of leisure, but in the 19th century it was very much at the heart of the Empire in terms of facilitating the movement of plants around the world for commercial reasons. This type of activity was also an early interest of the Royal Society.

It's difficult not to draw parallels between the state sanctioned opium trade which the United Kingdom used to support, and its current attitude to drug smuggling. Nor between the industrial espionage of the East India Company in the 19th century, and the current issues with the Chinese approach to intellectual property.
I found the sections of the book reporting Fortune's travels a bit unfulfilling: they seemed to be a sequence of travel anecdotes involving the mischief caused by his Chinese servants - this style does affect other parts of the books. However, more generally the book made me curious to know more about the East India Company, the Opium Wars and so forth and I felt I'd learnt something about the introduction of tea to India.
I'm tempted by Fortune's book: Three years' wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China .”

Thank you, SomeBeans!

GBBD – February 2011

2011-02-15T09:43:00.001Z

There is a time, deep in Winter, when you wonder if longer days will ever arrive. But they do. And nature notices. Spring is here. The blackbirds are singing. My heart lifts.

Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting GBBD.

Wordless Wednesday - Bright

2011-02-09T14:28:00.001Z

Postcard from Austria

2011-02-06T11:15:00.001Z

Wordless Wednesday - a tide of bark through a reef of lenticels

2011-01-26T14:28:00.001Z

In which I wish government was more like taking on a new garden

2011-01-21T18:38:00.001Z

I don’t ‘do’ politics normally – that’s SomeBeans’ bag. However, after a Minister visiting work yesterday, changes in HE funding, getting rid of EMAs and proposed changes in the running of the NHS (amongst many others), I was struck by the number and speed of changes taking place. SomeBeans suggests that less seemed to happen at the beginning of the Blair government in 1997 due to the in-fighting between Blair and Brown, rather than them taking a more considered approach to changes.

I understand why they do it – I know that some changes must be made for economic reasons. But the big reason is that Ministers want to make a mark. No-one will take any notice of them if things just carry on. So they have their pet projects to implement as soon as possible. Some more bonkers than others – I won’t start a political rant. They want to be remembered.

I just wish that Ministers would take a little bit of notice of what a gardener should do when taking on a new garden. Live with it for a year – learn what it’s like from the inside. See what grows where, and what struggles. See where the sun shines brightest, and where there is gloom. See where a gentle hand can renovate, rather than where a pick axe and shovel can destroy. If changes need to be made, you’ll have lived with the garden and will see how to make those changes with the minimum of disruption. And the garden will respond all the better for your greater understanding of it.

As you can tell, I don’t really have the mind for politics.

End of term

2011-01-19T15:46:00.002Z

It seems just a blink of an eye ago that I wrote this post about starting a garden design course. In fact it has been 17 weeks. Well, since then, the motley group of people on the course have:

learnt about the importance of unity and other principles of garden design;
tied ourselves up with base lines and offsets in the garden of very patient couple;
grappled with design principles in a long, thin garden;
wielded a scale rule as though we knew how to use it;
shared a common terror of a humble ink pen and felt great when we produced our first inked lines;
uncomprehendingly stared at plan designs wondering how on earth we could make them into elevations;
gone back to infant school to learn how to colour in without going over the lines.

Our tutor has been a saint!

Monday is assignment hand in day. We have to hand in a base plan, site analysis, measurements, client brief, and coloured plan with elevations. I’ve spent so long staring at 1:100 scale drawings of the garden and trying to get a cohesive design that I never want to see the flippin’ garden again.

Current view from back door

Elevation

The plan

I can’t wait to hand it in now, to get rid of it! I’m fed up of the sight of it, and I expect poor SomeBeans is, too. In a couple of weeks, the next course starts – a step up, and looking in detail at areas of design such as hard landscaping, construction details and plant portfolios. And another poor soul’s garden to design. Bring it on!

Wordless Wednesday – lichen

2011-01-12T20:00:00.000Z

A bit of advertising: Design seminar

2011-01-11T19:40:00.002Z

I don’t know if anyone is interested but thought I’d do a little bit of advertising, as it’s not on the College website, and I have been given a flyer:

Design and Landscape Industry Seminar

featuring garden and landscape designer Sarah Eberle and other key speakers who will focus on sustainability and new design trends and practices.

Saturday 19th February 2011

Reaseheath College, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 6DF

09:30 – 16:00 in the Lecture Theatre

General admission £50 (includes buffet lunch)

Students and Reaseheath graduates £30

Book before January 21st and save £10 off your ticket price

Supported by the Institute of Horticulture

A day for Landscapers, Designers and Industry Representatives focusing on sustainability and new design trends. Ideal for CPD.

Speakers:

Sarah Eberle – multi-award winning garden and landscape designer. Recognised for her contribution to the industry for nearly 30 years, Sarah will explain how her designs address issues posed by climate change and heightened client requirements for sustainable garden design.

A representative from Marshalls will discuss the company’s approach to the economic, environmental and social issues raised by sustainability and how these are influenced by clients, landscapers and manufacturers.

Angus Cunningham from Scotscape will discuss trends for green walls and other growing surfaces.

Hazel Frith from All-Turf will outline turf sculpture, wild flower meadows and technological developments in turf.

Card bookings: 01270 613242
Postal bookings: please make your cheque out to Reaseheath College and post to Louise Moss at the above address.

(Apologies for any spelling mistakes, but I have transcribed the information from the flyer so they are my typing mistakes!)

Wordless Wednesday - Attack of the zombie tree ferns

2011-01-05T06:00:00.000Z

The best bit of the garden at the moment…

2011-01-03T11:01:00.001Z

...is not the hellebore border, as there are no buds showing yet. Actually, hellebore border sounds rather grand. We have a border that has quite a few hellebores in it, but lots of other bits and pieces too, to hide the untidy leaves after the hellebores have done their thing.

...is not the snowdrops bravely flowering despite the cold, wet weather. We don't have any snowdrops (see previous post for reasons why).

...is not the lawn. After a month under heavy frost and/or snow, and a couple of months without mowing prior to that (due to more or less permanent wet weather), it looks a little bit under the weather.

...is not the front garden, which needs a very good tidy up, as I didn't get round to it before Christmas, due to the weather.

...is a dead stick.

I should explain. It was a Ricinus, until the frosts put paid to it. But now it’s a launch pad for a plethora of garden birds flying in to take advantage of the food we put out for them. Before they land on the feeders or on the ground, robins, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, dunnocks, the odd chaffinch and occasionally the nuthatch will alight to survey the scene. I’m glad I didn’t get round to tidying it up.

The Inelegant Gardener’s Almanac for 2011

2010-12-30T10:10:00.001Z

January:

Plant out the tulips that I failed to plant when they arrived. Purchase crowbar to push through frozen soil and wedge tulips into crevices. Desultorily fill in crevice with sodden soil, as excitement of bulb planting quickly wears off as I start to lose feeling in my fingers.
Use newly purchased crowbar to try and prise last year’s parsnips out of the frozen ground. Parsnip lollypops could be the ‘next big thing’.
Get over-excited with the seed catalogues, forgetting the avalanche of packets in the garage, bought in the autumn. Realise that the rush of excitement when buying seeds must be how normal women feel when they buy a pair of high-heeled shoes.
Peer at feet, troll-shaped from many years of welly-wearing, fail to imagine them crushed into a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Buy more seeds.
Order seed potatoes as I will have forgotten to have ordered them in the autumn.

February:

Rue the fact that once again I failed to buy any snowdrops last year
Sow parsnips, forgetting that they always fail to germinate as I have planted them too soon and the soil is too wet and cold.
Panic when two deliveries of seed potatoes arrive, as I hadn’t forgotten to order them in autumn. I have enough potatoes to start up my own Spud-U-Like franchise.

March:

Fail to remember to buy snowdrops in the green.
Make plans to successional sow a range of veg for the allotment, to avoid gluts
Sow parsnips, forgetting that they always fail to germinate as I have planted them too soon and the soil is too wet and cold.
Try to finish harvesting and eating last year’s parsnips, which the hard, frozen ground has only just yielded. There appears to be a 7 day window between prising the parsnips out of the ground and the parsnips becoming heroically wooden. The recipe for parsnip cake comes out, and SomeBeans starts to look worried…
Survey the relatively weed-free plot and think ‘Yes, we have finally conquered the horsetail, couch grass, docks, ground elder…’

April:

Make mental note not to order lettuce seeds for the next three years, as over-excitement at seed buying time (see January) has led to enough lettuce seeds to supply Tesco (if Tesco were willing to take holey, slimey, slug-ridden lettuces).
Forget mental note instantly.
Remember that one year, all the courgette seeds that I planted died, so sow at least 10 courgette plants, to make sure one or two survive.
Sow parsnips, forgetting that they always fail to germinate as I have planted them too soon and the soil is too wet and cold.
Realise that the reason there were few weeds in March was because they hadn’t started growing then. They have now.

May

Get parsnips to germinate!
Remind myself of the importance of successional sowing, so that we get a regular supply of a range of veg.
Become over-excited by all the different squash and pumpkin seeds, buy six different types, and plant all of the seeds
In a vain attempt to keep the ground elder down, try using it as an ingredient – foraging and wild food is trendy, apparently. Realise that although the Romans may have brought ground elder to Britain to eat, a couple of thousand years of evolution of cooking ingredients means that we now longer have to eat this stuff. It’s nasty.

June

Transplant a plethora of squash and pumpkin seedlings to the allotment. after all, they are still tiny, so won’t take up too much room
Realise that the birds have found the ripe redcurrants and gooseberries before me. Yet again.
In a frenzy of hoeing, chop off half of the onion and shallot tops. Oops.
Forget to successional sow anything
Rediscover the furry loveliness of the inside of a freshly picked broad bean pod.

July

Realise that I have forgotten to successional sow. Again.
Rediscover some poor, lanky sprout and cabbage seedlings languishing in the back of the greenhouse, where they have been since March. Hope that, despite the brassica equivalent of Chinese foot-binding, if I transplant them they will rally round and provide greenery for the Christmas table.

August

Ahh, bulb catalogues. Time to order the little globes of anticipation. Vow to plant the bulbs as soon as they arrive
Not waving but drowning under an avalanche of courgettes, as all of the plants I sowed in April survived, and it felt cruel to kill some of them.
Give up on weeding. It only makes them angry. I wouldn’t like them when they’re angry.

September

Hack bravely at the pumpkin patch, which is making a concerted effort to take over Cheshire. It resembles Audrey 2 from the Little Shop of Horrors.
Bulb order arrives. I’ll just store them in the garage until I’ve got a little time to plant them
Wonder why work colleagues run away from me when I stagger into the office weighed down with plastic bags full of courgettes and runner beans

October

Drool over the newly arrived seed catalogues and buy things that look exciting, forgetting that there is often a reason why some veg are allotment stalwarts, and some don’t catch on. Like achocha.
Become smug at the huge haul of pumpkins and squashes I have cultivated.
Try to reassure self that the blood over the pumpkin, where I have tried to carve it for Halloween but ended up carving myself, will make it more scary to any visiting trick or treaters.

November

Celebrate first (and last) ripe tomato shortly before the first frost.
Think that the parsnips will taste better after the first frost, so delay harvesting any
Realise that the excitement of pumpkin soup palls after the first few litres. And that was just with one pumpkin.
Uneasily eye up the large pile of pumpkins in the conservatory.

December

Having delayed harvesting parsnips, they are now frozen into the soil
Rediscover the unplanted bulbs in the garage. Pretend I haven’t seen them
Hibernate until the days start getting longer
Think about all the garden jobs I failed to do properly in the year, and vow to do them differently next year. After all, only a fool would repeat the same mistakes, year after year…

Wordless Wednesday - I like it now it's gone

2010-12-29T18:33:00.006Z

Merry Christmas

2010-12-21T16:45:00.003Z

I hope that you get where you want to go; I hope that you stay warm; I hope that you have a happy Christmas and a happy and healthy new year.

In 2011, may your seeds germinate, your compost gently steam and your slugs take a long holiday somewhere else.

Merry Christmas!

Let it be warm and sunny

2010-12-18T16:35:00.002Z

Back to basics

2010-12-11T13:35:00.001Z

I haven’t tweeted or blogged much recently – I find the very cold weather depressing and can’t rouse myself from apathy. Except to rant about Gardeners’ World, of course. The garden has been abandoned for the past few weeks, in a listlessness borne of shortening days. As nights grow longer, I withdraw deeper into my shell.

One thing that has been taking up my time as I hide in the house waiting for longer days is grappling with garden design principles. I’ve mentioned previously that I was starting a shortish garden design course, and I have been really enjoying it. So far, I have:

bored SomeBeans and my father rigid with talk of unity and progressive realisation in various garden design periods;
tried to distil this into a short (3000 word) assignment – writing the essay wasn’t difficult, but getting the word count down from 6000 to 3000 was excruciating;
traipsed around some very forgiving people’s garden, with 10 or so classmates, tripping over each others’ survey lines;
done battle with a scale rule to produce a pretty accurate base drawing.

The biggest challenge so far, however, was something I’d kept quiet in class about until this week. At the start of term, we’d all splashed out on various bits of equipment, as keen students do. Because of the theory we had to initially cover, this equipment stayed on a shelf at home, until last week.

It’s a strange feeling to be worried about pens. I’ve been using pens for many, many years now. You learn how to use pens at school, and since then, I’ve probably used one every day. So it was rather embarrassing to be in possession of some pens which I was too frightened to use, even if I had known how to fill them up with ink. Oh, the ignominy.

But it turned out that nearly everyone else had had the same worry and the same sense of foolishness at not knowing how to fill them up. We had all bought them, looked at them, looked at the instructions, looked at the ink bottle, looked at the pens again and quietly put the lid back on.

However, after our lesson on Monday, and a patient tutor, I have discovered the joy of ‘inking’. It makes feeble pencil drawings look almost good. It will take quite a lot of practice to become proficient, to produce graphics that look like they should, to make sure that I don’t smudge and to make sure that I keep the pen at the right angle, but I have conquered my fear of the Rotring pen. Hurrah!

Next week we’ll be learning ‘colouring in’ as SomeBeans calls it – another return to basics!

A poem

2010-12-07T19:25:00.002Z

A poem by E.J. Thrip*,

So. Farewell then
Toby Buckland
The nation’s gardener.

The BBC have placed you
On TV’s compost heap

But you showed us all
How to tickle
The soil to hide your footsteps

It’s a shame that
The BBC see fit
To do the same to you.

*with a very large nod to E.J. Thribb.

The problem with the public...

2010-12-07T19:05:00.002Z

...is that they are generally wrong. Well, they are if they disagree with me.

The BBC have been garnering intelligence on what people like and don't like about gardening on the BBC. In what appeared to be a hastily constructed forum called 'Over the Garden Fence' they encouraged us to tell them what we liked about the BBC's contributions to gardening.

I don't know if the two are related, but tonight I have found out (thank you, Twitter folks) that Toby Buckland will no longer be heading Gardeners' World. A shame. Also adieu to Alys Fowler.

Toby's reign had a slightly wobbly start (the Cool Wall, anyone?) but had improved and had some more interesting and occasional technical pieces in it, which made it worth watching. I had all but given up the previous incarnation, apart from to count how many times the Lord of Cord said "Here at Berryfields" each week. I found it condescending. And dull.

One positive remains - Carol Klein will still be on the show. Rachel de Thame returns - into each life a little rain must fall.

I hope the BBC didn't make these choices based on their half-baked intelligence-gathering forum. I'm sure they didn't. Because who would let the public decide such madness as this?

Roll on long Friday summer evenings, a glass of wine, a comfortable garden bench and the TV off switch.

Wordless Wednesday – Five weeks

2010-11-17T06:00:00.001Z

Wordless Wednesday - garden companionship

2010-11-10T06:00:00.000Z

A handy little piece of equipment

2010-11-01T13:00:00.001Z

Whilst at the Malvern Autumn Show in September, we spent some time wandering around the steam enthusiasts’ ‘village’. It’s quite something to see the dedication these men (and yes, they are almost exclusively men) have ot their machines. I suppose it’s technology on a scale to which we can relate. The machines might be large, but of you twiddle a knob, you can see what effect it will have. Open up a car engine nowadays and all you’ll see are plastic-encased boxes.

I was admiring a display of oil cans, as you do, when the chap on the stall challenged my father and I to identify the piece of equipment in the photo below. He’s been given the piece by a lady who knew he collected odd bits and pieces of machinery.

We failed the identification test, but do you know what it is?

Change

2010-10-31T20:30:00.001Z

From this…

to this

in only one week.

Wordless Wednesday – garden bling

2010-10-27T05:49:00.001Z

From marsh to English landscape

2010-10-26T10:32:00.001Z

Continuing a mild obsessions with learning about garden history at the moment, and taking advantage of a visit to see my father in Malvern, we went on a trip to visit Croome Park, an example of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s English landscape garden. I’ve been boring friends and family over the past few weeks with talk of progressive realisation and unity of materials, so thought I’d bore you too.

Brown started work at Croome Park after leaving Stowe, where he had been head gardener. George William, the 6th Earl of Coventry, employed Brown to drain the ‘morass’ and landscape it according to the new style. The new style was naturalistic parkland right up to the house, doing away with all those old-fashioned parterre style gardens. To draw the eye, the pleasure gardens were artistically strewn with neo-classical buildings. A glimpse of a building around the corner or in the distance draws you on, revealing more of the garden, opening out views and surprising the visitor. Many of the buildings at Croome were designed by Robert Adam.

Major works were required to drain the marshy ground – you can still see some of the culverts that Brown had put in to drain water away from where it was not wanted, to where it was wanted. The bricks were made on site.

Previous, formal, gardens close to the house were destroyed, along with a church which the Earl felt was too close to the house. A new church, in a gothic style, was built in a much more attractive place – on the rise of the hill.

Brown oversaw the excavation of lake and river, using the serpentine curves indicative of the English landscape style. The river is entirely artificial – no mean feat when dug by hand. The lake took advantage of a boggy area rather unattractively called ‘Seggy Mere’. Now, it is a contemplative space, with mature trees reflected in the still waters.

The pleasure grounds curve round the view from the house, with pastureland in the foreground. A circular ha-ha keeps the animals in without restricting the view.

The landscape looks natural but is entirely manmade. Picturesque clumps of trees aren’t just plonked – they are designed to beautify the view. It’s amazing to think that as you look over the scene, it was done by hand, by men. No flowers, except some shrubs in the pleasure garden. No ornate parterres and symmetry as went before, but nevertheless man’s hand on the landscape. A little bit of knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but in this case a little bit of knowledge has allowed me a greater understanding of some of the gardens I have visited. This is particularly so in the case of the English landscape movement gardens, where before I just saw fields and trees. A very interesting visit.

The edge of heaven

2010-10-24T13:29:00.002Z

It’s around this time of year that the tips of the branches of trees and hedges take on a golden highlight. They always remind me very much of highlights in George Michael’s Wham era hair. I don’t know why – I was never much of a Wham fan.

A throne is only a bench covered with velvet

2010-10-22T17:52:00.001Z

I’m currently studying for an Advanced Certificate in Gardens Design. Our first assignment is a 3000 word essay on garden design principles within four eras of garden design history. We’ve learnt about Italian Renaissance, French Baroque and the English Landscape Movement, and also about design in the Victorian era. So today, inspired by our lectures, I set off to Biddulph Grange to see an excellent example of Victorian eclectic design, my mind buzzing with concepts of unity, proportion, progressive realisation and transition.

What a place. Not subtle, but a smack in the mouth – the Victorian equivalent of a theme park. The home of James Bateman, he designed the gardens as a tour of the world, so you travel from the glens of Scotland, go through a tunnel and emerge in a pastiche of China. I adored it. It’s mad. And the benches were fantastic - I got a bit obsessed. There are horse chestnut leaves and fruits, ferns and berries, acorns, lily-of-the-valley – beautiful. Who needs a throne when you have benches like these?

Wordless Wednesday – Comfort me with apples (and a few stripey pears)

2010-10-20T15:53:00.001Z

A taste of autumn in a spoon

2010-10-17T13:11:00.002Z

I just wanted to tell you about the delicious soup I've just made.

Using one of the squashes I harvested last week, a couple of onions which have survived the summer rains and haven't succumbed to rot, half a red pepper I had hanging around in the fridge, some veg stock and some Chinese five spice, I've made soup.

I think some of my friends believe that soup-making takes hours of rendering and boiling, but the whole experience took 30 minutes, and 15 of that was me trying to skin the squash without removing a limb from myself.

The result? A rich, flavoursome, amber coloured soup which reaches down to warm you from the toes upwards. A taste of autumn in a spoon.

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – October 2010

2010-10-15T09:57:00.001Z

Ahhh, the eternal passing of time. It’s GBBD again, and I see that the flowers this year are rather similar to last year’s. However, Autumn hasn’t progressed quite so rapidly with the witch hazel – the leaves are still very green apart from a slight colour change clinging to the edges of each leaf.

Toad lily – a highlight of white in a shady border that looks best in the spring.

Actaea simplex. Cimicifuga was a name that you could roll around your mouth; Actaea is a much spikier name.

Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ and Cercis ‘Forest Pansy’ leaves

Aster (possibly ‘Andenken an Alma Potschke’ – areal mouthful of a name)

Another aster, only about 30cm high. It is a wall of flowers at the moment.

Ivy flowers – swarming with flies, hoverflies and wasps

And waiting in the wings for November’s GBBD – Fatsia flowers.

Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting GBBD. Visit her to see flowers blooming around the world.

Wordless Wednesday - Fashion Tip #1 - stripes are 'in'

2010-10-13T18:50:00.002Z

All is safely gathered in

2010-10-10T14:55:00.001Z

It's the time of year when squirrels are hoarding nuts, when jays are burying acorns, and when I gather up the harvest. There's something instinctive about hoarding food before the harsh winter arrives. It sits deep in the psyche.

I have a book by Victor Osborne, called 'Digger's Diary', about a year in the life of an allotment-holder. Osborne frequently refers to his ‘Inner Saxon Peasant' or ISP. The Inner Saxon Peasant is the one which burst forth when I see the potatoes being ravaged by blight, when the pigeons take out the tops of the newly planted cabbages, when the carrot root fly reduces the carrot harvest to a 3D maze of holes. We’re lucky to be in the position of having our allotment as a hobby. We won’t starve if the caterpillars eat our kale. But the Inner Saxon Peasant fears the beasts that eat its produce.

And so it is good to appease the Inner Saxon Peasant and lay down a good store. Despite the wet summer here, it wasn’t warm enough for blight to strike, so this year, thankfully, I wasn’t digging up putrid potato tubers. We do have some wireworm damage but I’m not sure how extensive it is.

The ISP is particularly pleased with my attempts at preserving. I’ve made jam before but never so extensively, and I’ve supplemented the jam with mincemeat, fruit cordial and chutney.

But the real success which means that my ISP is happy to move towards the long days of winter is the food that stores itself. The pumpkins and squashes have been making a bid to take over the whole allotment site over the past couple of months, but they have provided us with food in handy hard cases. The ‘Crown Prince’ squashes should last until early spring.

Comforting autumn and winter food. My Inner Saxon Peasant approves.

Persevere: Look ahead: Be optimistic. It pays!

2010-10-03T13:45:00.001Z

I’m taking a leaf out of SomeBeans’ book and using a blog post to write a reminder of a book I’ve just read. The book in question is ‘A Pioneering Plantsman – A K Bulley and the Great Plant Hunters’ by Brenda McLean, courtesy of Chester library.

Over the past 12 months I’ve read several books about the great plant hunters and the trials they endured to bring new species (and even new genera) of plants to the attention of the British gardener. If you’re interested in this subject, there can’t be a much better illustration of the dangers and privations that plant hunters suffered than the biography of David Douglas – the man who brought the Douglas-Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) into cultivation. Although this tree commemorates Douglas’s successful seed saving in its common name, its Latin name celebrates its discoverer, Archibald Menzies. If you’re interested in reading about Douglas and his arduous (and ultimately fatal) plant hunting expeditions, I’d recommend this book.

But what of the people who financed these expeditions? They did not have to put themselves through the dangers of hunting out the plants, but without their backing our gardens would have been a lot poorer. Perhaps one of the most famous backers of plant hunters in the Victorian time was the Veitch Nursery of Exeter and Chelsea. This link gives some information on the Veitch Nursery, and this one lists some of the introductions of plants by plant hunters employed by the Veitches – an impressive list which includes the beautiful Davidia involucrata, the seeds of which were collected by E H ‘Chinese’ Wilson, one of their most famous hunters.

Davidia involucrata (growing at Bodnant Gardens)

A less well-known sponsor of plant hunting in the early 1900’s was A K Bulley. Born in 1861 to a cotton merchant family in Liverpool, Bulley developed an early love for natural history and plant cultivation. He was a committed socialist, standing unsuccessfully as a Parliamentary candidate in three elections, including as a Women’s Suffrage candidate.

In 1897, Bulley bought some land at Ness, on the Wirral peninsula, where he built a house, Mickwell Brow, and started to develop the gardens. From the start, the gardens were freely open to the public between dusk and dawn, every day except Christmas Day. The gardens are still open to the public now, (although not freely!) after being gifted to the University of Liverpool by his daughter in 1948.

Bulley started a commercial nursery in the gardens in 1904 – Bees Ltd., as well as continuing his cotton trading. The title of this post comes from a Bees’ advertisement. The nursery sold seeds of all types of plants, many of which were displayed in the extensive herbaceous borders at Ness. However, Bulley’s main interest throughout his life was in alpine plants.

In the early 1900’s, the cotton trade was doing well, so Bulley felt that he had sufficient funds to be able to support a plant hunter to expand his plant collection. In correspondence with Sir Isaac Balfour, of the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, the name of George Forrest was recommended. And so Forrest was sent to North west Yunnan, China. This area was decided upon as it was not quite on Veitch’s and Wilson’s stamping ground, but would supply the alpine and hardy herbaceous plants which Bulley craved both for his own interests and for his business interests. New introductions of seed could command high prices.

Forrest was subjected to difficult conditions and hostility, as well as the vagaries of Bulley’s purse strings. However, he discovered large numbers of new plants, and collected their precious seeds. Pieris formosa forrestii was discovered by Forrest, and a plant from the original seed still grows at Ness. As the Bees nursery grew, Bulley recognised the opportunity for advertising his nursery through the names of newly discovered plants, and so introduced Primula beesiana, Jasminium beesianum and Allium beesianum. Bulley himself is commemorated in many plant names, including Primula bulleyana (candelabra primula) and Androsace bulleyana. Forrest also collected seed of the previously discovered Primula viallii.

Primula viallii growing at Ness Gardens

Bulley continued to support Forrest’s expeditions for several years, despite Forrest’s concerns about payment – Bulley on occasions left Forrest without sufficient funds.

Another plant hunter supported by Bulley was Frank Kingdon-Ward. This was a man who loved the adventurous life of an explorer, but wasn’t quite as systematic in his plant-hunting as Forrest, which sometimes frustrated Bulley. Neverthless, Kingdon-Ward provided seed of many species new to cultivation which were subsequently sold by Bees. These included Gentiana wardii, Primula chungensis and Rhododendron wardii. Kingdon-Ward went on to collect seed from many rhododendron species in China, such as Rhododendron lanigerum.

Rhododendron lanigerum at Ness Gardens.

Moving on from China, Bulley was looking to the Himalayas, and employed a young collector called R E Cooper. Cooper busily collected alpine plants from Sikkim, but to Bulley’s dismay these high alpine specialists were almost impossible to grow in the UK, and those that did grow were not marketable enough to make a profit. Cooper’s second trip for Bulley was to the ‘hidden kingdom’ of Bhutan, where he discovered plants such as Cotoneaster cooperi and Viburnum grandiflorum. However, Cooper’s finds were generally of more interest to botanical science than as plants to grow in a garden, and Bulley never recouped in sales the amount of money that Cooper’s expeditions cost.

With the onset of the First World War, Bulley reduced his sponsorship of plant hunters, though he had a part share in Reginald Farrer’s expedition to China. After the war, Farrer set off to Burma, where he found the beautiful Nomocharis farreri. There was tension between Bulley and Farrer, as Farrer was of gentrified stock as opposed to Bulley’s merchant background, and Farrer did not enjoy being beholden to Bulley’s rather stingy and often late financial support. Farrer unfortunately died and was buried in the Burmese hills whilst collecting.

Still obsessed with alpines, Bulley also supported exploratory expeditions to the areas surrounding Mount Everest, providing money for the expedition in return for seed collecting. A range of new rhododendrons were collected, as well as a new primula – Primula wollastoni, named after the naturalist on the expedition, Dr A F R Wollaston.

With his obsession for rare and beautiful alpine plants, Bulley was always looking for new ways of growing his precious collection. This led to an experiment which caused a backlash in the press of the time, and something which we would consider very bad form nowadays. Bulley had seen the alpine gardens which have been made on some mountains in the Alps, and thought that they could be emulated in the UK.

Podophyllum hexandrum (from the Himalayas) growing in the Alpenblumengarten on Kitzbuheler Horn.

He rented 500 acres of land on Mount Snowdon in Wales and planted up a range of alpines, many of which had been discovered by his plant hunters. His idea was to naturalise and experiment with exotics in the wild. He was aware that there might be concern over this, but knew that the plants were temperamental and very unlikely to escape from the ‘garden’ and outcompete native plants. However, the press exaggerated the scale of his experiment, and the negative publicity associated with the scheme, as well as poor survival rates of the plants, meant that he eventually had to abandon it. Bulley continued to support plant hunters, though now as one of a number of subscribers rather than the sole sponsor.

After his death his daughter, Lois Bulley, gifted Ness Gardens to the University of Liverpool, who still own it. Nowadays it is a botanic garden, still containing many of the plants that were grown from seed by Bulley’s gardeners. The rhododendrons and camellias impress in the Spring, as do the candelabra primulas.

The pine woods and rhododendron border at Ness.

We are both ‘Friends of Ness’ and visit it regularly. If you get there when it opens, you often have the place to yourself and it is easy to imagine that the gardens belong to you. But of course, that was never how Bulley intended it. The gardens were always for everyone. Partly a showcase for his seed company but mostly because he felt it was his duty to make his gardens available, for free, to anyone who wanted to visit them. As he said to other gardeners in a radio talk given in 1934: “I want you to throw them open. It is your delightful privilege. …every now and again, you will get the exceptional pleasure of seeing someone like yourself, who goes round really understanding and appreciating the difficulties you have met, and the successes you have scored. It’s fine. Start this spring. Goodnight.”

Thanks to VP for pointing me in the direction of this book.

He that has a good harvest must be content with a few thistles

2010-09-28T18:29:00.001Z

As the astute may have noticed, I went to the Malvern Autumn Show at the weekend. For those who have been to the Spring show, the autumn show is rather less ‘gardeny’ and rather more ‘harvesty’. A mix of fancy chooks, grotesque veg, fresh food, perfectly primped flowers, nurseries, spluttering steam engines and a couple of autumnal show gardens. I really enjoy it – it pleases me to know that there are people that take time, energy and pride to show the ugliest swedes in existence.

My previous post looks at some of the competition flowers. But the veg are even more astounding.

A parade of leeks, roots as bristling as a walrus’s moustache

The mother of all pumpkins. Like the stomach of a fat man, flolloping over his trouser belt

A plethora of pumpkins in the Good Life Pavilion

Artfully arranged apples on the Roger’s of Pickering stand

We happened across this garden blogger in the Harvest Pavilion. Here, he is explaining why he calls the plant in his hand the ‘splat plant’ (I’ve forgotten the real name of it). A very interesting talk covering a wide range of plants. I am now tempted to buy a Sarracenia or two, although I fear that having these plants in the garden will further scupper my attempt to try and introduce a little bit of unity into the garden. Oh well.

And as for the thistle to which the title of this blog post refers? Dear reader, how dare you think it refers to the gardening legend above. No, the thistle in the harvest, driving its spines into my enjoyment of the day is this creature. I think it may be some form of genetic modification experiment, crossing the heir to the throne with a poor unfortunate porcine recipient. It may be smiling, but behind that smile I can hear its sadness. But I’m sure somebody loves it – that’s the joy of gardening.

For other posts from bloggers who visited Malvern this autumn, please visit VP’s Meet @ Malvern blog.

Shampoo and Set

2010-09-26T11:13:00.002Z

I feel bad that I don't like some plants. It's not their fault, after all. It's just an irrational dislike of some things over others. I suppose it's human nature. Some things press my button and will bring a grin to my face and an acquisitive itch to my palms. Others just make me cringe.

This time last year I introduced my dislike of hydrangeas. This year, I introduce a plant (or rather a flower) which causes me to press my fingernails into my palms. Or rather, just one small section of a group of plants.... exhibition chrysanthemums.

I'm not even sure it's the plants that annoy me so. It's the thought of someone spending hours primping the petals into carefully coiffed constructions. Perhaps it's the old lady analogy again - but instead of pants, this time it's a shampoo, colour and set.

But I won't have a bad thing said about dahlias. I adore them. All of them.

Wordless Wednesday - Daddy Long Legs

2010-09-22T05:05:00.001Z