Garden Centre

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Fooled by a neighbour’s garden

I was wandering around my own plot, with its mixture of rain flattened shrubs and snow blackened grasses when I saw something in my neighbour’s garden that piqued my interest.

It looked like an allium. But it couldn’t be, could it? My own mahonia was about the only thing that had any colour or form in my garden, and two snowdrops, not even properly open yet, that I was watching with hawk-eyes to make sure the dogs didn’t trample them. An allium? Were there winter alliums? My neighbour does have a particularly good alpine bed, which I envy immensely. If anybody could grow it, she could.

Well no, when I managed to get close enough to find out, it wasn’t or at least not a living one – it's made of printed fabric carefully glued to a plastic stem - but for the few minutes I thought that it really was a flower, it cheered me up no end!

Labels: winter colour, winter interest

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:51 AM 3 Comments

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Gardens in Snow

It’s rare for snow to fall in Sussex, UK, and even rarer for it to settle, especially on the twinned city of Brighton and Hove, but this week has been that rarity and it’s fascinating to see how snow changes the shape and contours of a garden – no doubt Scandinavian and North American readers are wondering what all the fuss is about, as they spend several weeks or even months looking at snowy vistas every year, but me this is a quite unusual perspective.

One flower that literally stood out was the winter jasmine. I’ve raved about it before, and will do again, but this was the first year that I actually got to see the flowers against a blanket of snow: in previous years, although snow has fallen, it’s never stayed around for more than a couple of hours, so observing how the blossoms coped with sub-zero temperatures and then with the thaw, was very instructive. In fact the flowers never browned at all, which surprised me, as I’d thought that on the day the snow melted they might develop brown edges. And the plant coped well with the weight of snow, being trained up a trellis and (relatively) well-pruned. I did notice some local winter jasmine that were growing over low walls that did seem to be getting a little pressed down under the snow, but today they all look fine again.

So winter jasmine is an excellent performer in snow, and I’m glad to have finally had the chance to find this out!

Labels: garden in snow, winter colour, winter flowers, winter jasmine

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:32 AM 2 Comments

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

December has little to offer florally

I’ve been looking around other people’s blogs and am miserably happy to confirm that my bloomless garden is not a singular event – everybody is struggling to find anything to smile at, plantwise, this December. The mahonia is a winter stalwart, but even it is a little rain-sloshed this year.

The virburnam is perhaps my favourite winter flower, gently fragranced and subtly coloured in snow-white with faint blushes of the lightest possible pink, it gleams from the bottom of the garden like a kind reminder that the spring will soon arrive. And alongside my holly bush, which has plenty of red berries this year, it offers a winter colour contrast that is more than welcome in these long dark days.

Labels: mahonia, virburnam, winter colour

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:37 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Rethinking the white border

Oh dear. Perhaps Himself was right after all, and I should have applied the 90 day rule to the white border.

The 90 day rule is one that we’ve instituted for anything (but particularly garden things) that we can’t buy out of your pockets immediately. So a DVD or a take-away meal don’t count under the rule, but a new garden seat or a holiday does count. It stops us buying big things impulsively and allows us to explore other ways of doing things – for example, a lot of garden items can be obtained on sites like Freecycle. Even if you can’t get expensive items for free, spending 90 days researching them does mean that you don’t make purchases that aren’t right for you, especially in this time of tight money and little chance to find cash for luxuries.

Of course I haven’t gone too far yet, with the white border, but today, the first day that we’ve had full cloud cover from dawn onwards, the grey light in the garden has really made me reconsider my plans. A white border will definitely add light to the north end of the garden, but what it won’t bring is any warmth, and given that I’ve been thinking about this in the four months of the British summer, ie the short period in which warmth and light are predominant, as opposed to the eight months in which warmth is rare and light is more steely than sultry, I’m wondering how happy I’m going to be if I proceed. After all, I'll be depriving myself of this kind of November glory.

I think I’d better think it out again …

Labels: flower borders, white border, winter colour

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:36 AM 1 Comments

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Saturday, February 9, 2008

All Seasons Gardening – season’s superstars

Of all the things I can’t grow, this is the most wonderful and spectacular. The Chaenomeles or Chinese Quince is a profound garden performer – it produces large and fairly weather resistant blossoms on bare wood, in colours ranging from the palest pink through to deep red, but most fall in the apricot to salmon pink range. I don’t know why this shrub won’t grow for me, because it’ said to grow in most positions and soils, expect an excessively limey soil, which causes the common ailment of yellow leaves. Few pests or diseases affect the flowering quince, so all the books say.

On the other hand, in my garden it just doesn’t grow. My oldest quince is seven, my youngest two, neither produces more than four flowers, and neither has grown more than five inches! They are said to like a sunny site with well-drained moderately fertile soil and pruning is usually necessary only to thin out overcrowded branches when growing as a freestanding shrub. I’m going to put mine in a tub and see if they do better next year, but for now I’m reduced to admiring this specimen in a neighbour’s garden.

Labels: chaenomeles, winter colour, winter flowers

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:37 AM 0 Comments

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Holly heaven

Apparently it hasn’t been a good year for holly, which means that I must be in a tiny minority. My three hollies have flourished like mad! There are a lot of reasons to grow holly – security, superstition and sustainability.

Holly, in folklore, protects the home from evil spells because the red berries, like those of hawthorn or the mountain ash, ward off malign spirits. A nice strong holly also wards off burglars if grown under windows! In early Christian belief, spiny leaves were a symbol of the Crown of Thorns and the red berries represented of the blood of Christ.

A holly will grow in almost any soil, provided it is not too wet, but makes large growth in rich, sandy or gravelly loam with good drainage, and a moderate amount of moisture at the roots. It is rarely checked, by even the most severe winters, once established. You can raise it from seeds, but you need to know that they don’t germinate until the second year, hence the berries are generally buried in a tray of earth for a year before being sown in pots. The young plants are transplanted when about a foot tall in autumn.

Because holly exhausts the soil around it to a greater extent than most deciduous trees, it’s a good idea to manure well in the spring before transplanting holly – and remember that a minimum of two years will be needed for the plant to recover the check given by transplanting. While birds seem to enjoy the berries, they are poisonous to humans. Deer will eat the leaves in winter, and sheep thrive on them.

Labels: evergreen plants, garden shrubs, winter colour, winter interest

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:14 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

What’s going on in the garden?

My list of plants in bloom is pretty extensive:

1. Five hellebores (all of them except the niger, in fact)
2. Both Mahonias
3. Violets
4. Snowdrops
5. Polyanthus
6. Jasmine Nudiflorum (winter jasmine)
7. Clematis cirrhosa (winter clematis)


I always say I’m going to pick flowers for the house, but I almost never do – not even the violets, because I have this weird feeling that removing them from the garden destroys an irreparable part of the eco-system. Now, this is absolutely not true, as the horticulturalist in me constantly points out, and many plants, the polyanthus among them, actually need to have flowers removed to produce more and better blooms.

Still, at this point in the year, when most of the garden is bleak and bare, there’s a daily excitement to going outdoors to see what has poked its head above the mud (we haven’t been blessed with snow this year) and that little bit of a thrill increases a thousand-fold if I catch the wonderful earthy fragrance of a violet and have to follow it through the garden like a human bloodhound, bent double so as not to lose the track, until I find the tiny purple flower hidden in the grass or concealed under the overhanging leaves of a skimmia or rhododendron.

Labels: garden flowers, winter colour, winter flowers, winter plants

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:23 AM 0 Comments

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Sunday, January 20, 2008

Back to the winter - hellebores

I happened to be out in the garden today, and damned if three different hellebores aren’t in full bloom! Somehow, in the last few days, when I’ve been busy doing other things, the wonderful Christmas roses crept up on me.

I love hellebores, partly because they are happy to flower in the shade although they always do better in a sheltered position away from the effects of strong icy winds in winter and spring that can damage emerging blooms. In fact the leathery green leaves can often be flattened by frost, which has the advantage of revealing the downward-facing flowers, but does also leave them open to frost damage in severe weather. You can cut them for the house and stick them in a vase, which helps you see their golden stamens and the lovely interior colours of the blooms, but I always cut my short to the head and float them in a bowl of water – which really does show off their subtle glories and makes a dinner party centrepiece that convinces your guests you spent a fortune to please them!

There’s really only one downside - hellebores, like roses, can suffer from a variety of black spot that is at best unsightly and at worst fatal. Drenching the whole plant with a systemic fungicide once a month should help to prevent this, or if you’re organic, remove the worst-affected leaves and hope for the best.

Labels: flower arranging, hellebores, winter colour, winter flowers

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:16 AM 1 Comments

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Thursday, January 17, 2008

Hyacinths

Or, as they are known in our house, hy-whyhaven’tIgotany-cinths.

There are two reasons for the complete dearth of hyacinth around the All Seasons Gardener’s plot:

1 – squirrels – which seem to eat every bulb, just about, that I plant, except nerines, and who make a special case for digging up the hyacinths in September, eating half the bulb, and then scattering the remainder on the path and

2 – small dogs – known as Rebus and Falco, who are agile enough to get onto every windowsill in the house and who knock off any plant pot put there, or eat its contents (Falco turns out to believe scented geraniums are dog breath freshener, they aren’t but he keeps trying) .

And I love hyacinths, so I’m reduced to buying them from the garden centre every year, guarding them on the middle of the dining room table and then planting them out, more in hope than expectation, surrounded by a little grille of wire mesh (the squirrels leave it on the path) and dipped in a pot of turpentine (which is obviously the squirrel equivalent of brown sauce, just adding a little piquancy to the flavour) and watching the squirrels dig them up in the autumn.

Hyacinth by geishaboy500

Labels: hyacinths, indoor flowers, winter colour, winter flowers

The All Seasons Gardener at 11:34 AM 0 Comments

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Monday, January 7, 2008

Brilliant whites, anyone?

You need two things – snow, and a garden with a beautiful range of galanthus (snowdrops to you and me). The earliest I’ve seen these was 8 January in the Anglesey Abbey Gardens, more than a decade ago, but February is the more likely month and there are several gardens around the country that open to show off their amazing display of these beautiful mid-winter bulbs.

Top of the list has to be Lambrook Manor Gardens, South Petherton, Somerset - www.eastlambrook.co.uk because the woman who created the snowdrop gardens here was such an aficionado (especially for pure green snowdrops) that she actually has a snowdrop named after her. She was Margery Fish and the Margery galanthus is a wonderful green-innered beauty. You can see it in the gardens too.

Otherwise, try Anglesey Abbey Gardens, Lode, Cambridgeshire or Heale House - www.healegarden.co.uk, Middle Woodford, near Salisbury, Wiltshire. This garden has a special offer, snowdrop walks with an experienced snowdrop locator on the first and second Sundays in February.

If you fall for snowdrops in a big way, remember they have to be purchased, and planted, ‘in the green’, ie while they are still full of juice. Those dried out bulbs sold in garden centres have a high failure rate and really aren’t worth the money!

Labels: snowdrops, winter colour, winter flowers

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:18 AM 0 Comments

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Saturday, January 5, 2008

Blatant beauty

Okay, after all that subtlety of my last post, here’s the absolute antithesis of subtle – my new mahonia. I bought this statuesque plant two years ago, when it was a measly two feet tall. It’s now peering over the top of an eight foot wall, and, for the first time, has blossomed.

I do have one little quibble about it – mahonia smells so wonderful that having the flowers eight and a half feet in the air is a bit of a waste; perhaps the crows and seagulls are getting the benefit, but I’m not!

On the plus side, the colour is astonishing, it’s like having a personal sun shining out of the darkest and mankiest corner of the garden, and for next year I have a plan (don’t tell himself – I’m not supposed to be buying any more plants) to invest in a cornus so that the bright red winter stems can make a crimson hem around the bottom of this golden flowering giant.

I should, perhaps, cut some of the blossom for the house, but I find it difficult to cut mahonia, for two reasons – the practical one is that mahonia (aka Oregon Grape) is very prickly and the stems are like wire, you need really sharp snippers and good gloves and the sentimental one is that it seems so cruel to cut any part of the plant when it’s being so brave in the garden.

Labels: mahonia, winter colour, winter interest

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:06 AM 0 Comments

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Monday, December 24, 2007

Yule log with a difference!

Here it is; the ‘log’ is a piece cut from the apple tree this spring, decorated (with two little exceptions) only with garden products – and isn’t it gorgeous? I can say that because I didn’t create it – this particular floral decoration was put together by 'himself' who has an amazing knack for this kind of thing (he takes a lot of the photos that grace this blog too, but don't tell him I think he's good at it, or he'll become insufferable).

Let’s start with the exceptions – we didn’t grow the citrus fruit rings (although we just about could have done) or the pomegranate (which is definitely out of our league!).

Everything else you can see came from the garden:

Ivy leaves
Holly leaves and berries
Purple hebe flowers
Yellow winter jasmine flowers
Sedges from the pond
Olearia leaves
The seedhead of a garlic chive
Laurel leaves
Dried lavender heads

And the final ingredient … plain flour from my kitchen cupboard!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all readers. I hope your garden’s have been as exciting in 2007 as mine has, and that you’ll join me again in 2008, when I’ll be making New Year’s Resolutions.

Labels: flower arranging, garden flowers, winter colour, winter jasmine

The All Seasons Gardener at 10:05 AM 0 Comments

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Thursday, December 20, 2007

A door wreath from the garden (almost)

You need one wire ring, one bag of sphagnum moss (moss from the lawn usually works just as well, but any florist has sphagnum at this time of year), lots of holly or conifers, cut into four to six inch sections, florists wire, secateurs, and a bow to decorate. Optional extras are citrus fruit, garden flowers and berries. This picture was taken in Bedford Square and the wreath probably cost around fifty quid, but you can do just the same at home for less than a quarter of the price, or - if you strip back last year's wreath and re-use the ring and wire - no cost!


1. Tease out moss and lay a handful on top of the wreath ring, now begin by fixing one end of the wire to the ring and start to wrap the wire around the moss in a series of circles, keeping the wire taut. Continue spiralling the wire round the ring, adding more moss - until the ring is completely covered.
2. Lay the prepared greenery on the top of the moss, adding one piece at a time and securing each with a single wrap of wire. Overlap so that no moss is visible. Work round the ring until covered again.
3. Now begin fix in your decorations: if you want to have oranges, simply buy cheap supermarket ones, slice them thickly and either put them in the airing cupboard a fortnight before Christmas, or give them several hours in a low oven to dry out. For added pizzazz, you can spray the rind with gold or silver before cutting into slices. Cinnamon sticks can be tied in with ribbon, or you can use flowers from the garden – early Hellebores look very sexy, while winter jasmine’s clear yellow is vibrant. I like to use dried hydrangea heads as winter decoration and again they can be brushed with a bit of glitter or sprayed lightly with cold paint. There are berries from holly, pyrancantha or viburnum that can be included too.
4. Tie off the reel wire with a few extra wraps around the wreath, then draw a longer piece of wire up to form a loop to hang the wreath.
5. Finish off with a bow at the top.
6. Hang outside somewhere not too hot and not too cold, and keep the moss moist to ensure it will last for several weeks.

Labels: christmas decorations, christmas wreath, flower arranging, winter colour

The All Seasons Gardener at 2:47 AM 0 Comments

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Monday, December 17, 2007

Winter colour, and flavour

I love this plant – I grew it from seed, from seeds, actually given to me by another gardener who snipped a bit of her berberis, complete with berries, for me to carry home and plant the berries ‘in the green’ which I did. It is, in truth, almost impossible NOT to grow berberis (traditional name barberry) from seed, but the variability of the plant is very great and you need to see the parent plant to get some idea what yours might end up as: some are green and some are purple, some berry very heavily and others, like this one, go in for fiery winter colour before the leaves drop. They are all incredibly spiny.

I wanted this one because of its autumn colour, which is just like a bonfire on these very cold December evenings, and it hasn’t disappointed me. In three years from seed, it’s made a substantially spiky bush and the birds have discovered it as a good source of winter food. There are two reasons for this:

1 – they enjoy the tangy fruits which are a good source of winter vitamins. One can, it is claimed, harvest them, although one would have to be the most committed masochist ever, I believe!
2 – because even the most determined cat or fox will think twice about tackling berberis, I use my bayberry shrubs as holders for fat balls that the birds can peck from in complete confidence that no predator is going to get them out of that lethal thicket of needle-sharp spines.

Labels: berberis, bird food, winter colour

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:13 AM 0 Comments

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Capital Pleasures

I went to London today, which is something that I try not to do if at all possible, and never near Christmas when the city becomes completely insane with tense shoppers and inebriated work parties in silly hats throwing up in doorways. But there are a few (very few) compensations for visiting the capital at this time of year.

The picture shows one of them – the really stylish way that certain London squares celebrate the festive season. Forget the lights of Oxford Street - the entire contents of this particular window box probably didn’t cost more than a tenner, but somebody has made a real effort to keep the contents in good condition, feeding and watering the cyclamen (which can thrive even when dry, as long as it’s not too windy) and the feeding ivy (which copes with anything but makes the best lush growth with a little slow release granular feed and a not too windy corner because wind strips the tender bottom leaves from the stems and makes the aerial roots very pronounced).

The colours are great, not gaudy but bright and somehow seasonal, and the combination of height and structure provided by the conifers is balanced almost perfectly by the descending column shapes made by the creeping ivy – in fact it’s a miniature masterpiece, on an office windowsill, in a quiet corner of academic Bloomsbury - and it makes me rather proud to be British.

Labels: cyclamen, ivy, window box, winter colour, winter interest

The All Seasons Gardener at 11:33 AM 0 Comments

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Monday, November 26, 2007

The Holly and the Ivy (and the pyracantha)

Did you know that it is reckoned that only about 1% of the average bird’s nutrition comes from bird tables and feeders? Birds eat insects and wild seeds of course, but these are not abundant in winter and early spring - so if you plant enough different fruit-bearing shrubs and trees, your garden will offer food to both winter and summer residents, as well as providing food for migrants in the spring and autumn if you're on migration routes. It's important to plant a range of shrubs because while some plants provide sugar rich berries that help feed nestlings in spring, others provide fatty berries that supply fuel to birds passing through in autumn and a final group have what are called persistent berries - fruits that desiccate and remain available during winter for year-round residents.

Another advantage of planting small trees and shrubs that retain their berries during the coldest months is the winter colour to your garden.

The rate at which birds strip berries from garden plants will change annually, according to weather conditions, how much food is available elsewhere and other local variations. As a general rule: birds tend to eat red berries first leaving the less palatable yellow, oranges and whites until last. Some red berries last better than others including the Pyracantha, Cotoneaster and rose-hips. For a good glowing orange-yellow I favour the Pyracantha 'Soleil d'Or' which has abundant long-lasting berries and thrives in an exposed garden location.

Labels: cotoneaster, holly, pyracantha, winter colour, winter interest

The All Seasons Gardener at 10:21 AM 1 Comments

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Friday, November 23, 2007

Winter wonders

One good thing about the worst possible weather, as we've had recently, is that it gives my cornus a chance to shine. The bright red stems look just as good against a dully grey sky as they do when beaded with rain or rimmed with frost, or even half buried in snow. But to get this spectacular winter stem effect with dogwoods, you have to cut them back hard each spring, usually in around mid-March but a bit earlier or later is fine, just don't leave it too long, so the plant starts its new spring growth.

The reason for this hard pruning is to encourage as many upright cane-like stems as possible. The new stems have the brightly coloured bark, but the older stems are nowhere near as spectacular which is why we need to be so ruthless. Believe it or not, new stems will grow three to six feet in a year, sprouting from below the pruning cut, then growing quickly and becoming covered in not very exciting oval leaves. I have the red-stemmed variegated leaved version, which is more exciting than some others, but while it can be rather mundane in summer, it comes into its own now.

Labels: cornus, dogwood, winter colour

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:43 AM 0 Comments

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Saturday, November 17, 2007

Winter Colour

Doesn’t have to come from flowers. One of the most flamboyant autumn plants is the Virginia Creeper, which, given a good sunlit wall, will almost literally explode into colour – you get the feeling that when you stand near it, you should be able to feel the warmth of those glowingly warm tones.

Of course it’s not to everybody’s taste and it does have a few downsides, like:

-- the fact that the glorious colour only lasts a few weeks, and even less if we suddenly get a cold, windy night, when the leaves can be stripped from the plant entirely

-- a tendency to invade, not just upwards with its self-clinging vines, but outwards, grabbing onto other plants in the vicinity and strangling them

-- not looking that special all summer – it has nice green leaves, but nice is about all you can say for them, they aren’t spectacular and the flowers are so insignificant as to cause many Virginia Creeper owners to claim their plant doesn’t flower; it does, they just never notice.

But for my money, if you have a garage wall to cover, there is nothing like a Virginia Creeper; they are tough plants, requiring no care to speak of, and you can cut them back to a couple of feet in height every few years and let them find they way back up the wall again.

Labels: autumn colour, virginia creeper, winter colour

The All Seasons Gardener at 2:55 AM 0 Comments

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Thursday, November 15, 2007

Winter flowers

What’s in bloom in your garden? For some reason, my arum lilies are suddenly having a new spurt of small flowers – although we’ve had a couple of air frosts, they seem not to have got down low enough to attack these arums, because even the smallest touch of frost browns them and they turn to slime the next day. My nerines are glorious, and they have been joined by the pure yellow Winter Jasmine.

It grows in full sun or partial shade and is as hardy as a Sherpa on top of a Himalayan mountain. It can grow to three metres tall and wide, and flowers from December to March.

Unlike many other jasmines, it doesn’t twine, so will need tying in if grown vertically. As you can see, ours is simply woven into a simple trellis, which is all the support it seems to need. The stems are quite flexible and stay green even in winter when the bright yellow star-like blooms appear. The best thing about Winter Jasmine (jasminum nudiflorum for those who like botanical names) is that – unlike the arums – it continues to flower even in the coldest weather.

Labels: flowers, winter colour, winter jasmine

The All Seasons Gardener at 1:18 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The Lady Penelope of autumn colour

I didn’t bother to show you all my summer flowers, the vases and even buckets full of blooms, or to rhapsodise about the fragrances, colours and so on … why should I, when you doubtless had a thousand such experiences of your own?

But now autumn is here – and what is giving you those glorious moments now?

For me, it’s my nerines. This flower, also called the Guernsey Lily, and the Japanese Spider Lily is not fully FULLY hardy right across the UK, but it’s (a) dirt cheap to buy (b) worth the gamble – I mean, just look at it!

Those shocking pink flowers will bloom until early December, like a floral firework. They bloom as a cluster of flowers on a leafless stem. Each flower is trumpet-shaped, and the petals curl backward. N. bowdenii which you see here, is the hardiest or about thirty species and while some people say it’s faintly scented, I’ve got to say that mine aren’t – or not so that I’ve noticed, and I think, given my addiction to fragrance, I would have spotted any scent. The leaves develop after the flowers have emerged and start to die back in May. The clumps can be divided after flowering. In colder areas, it is best to apply a thick layer of dry mulch once the flowers have died off in winter to give them a bit of a ‘warm’ to get them through the chilly months.

All the books say that Nerine bowdenii is best grown in well-drained soil in a sunny, sheltered position – it thrives in beds, borders, rock gardens and containers, and right across my fairly exposed Sussex coastal garden.

Nerine bowdenii 'Alba' has white flowers flushed with pale pink – but I think it’s not quite as hardy (or nearly as spectacular) as its ‘Lady Penelope’ pink cousin.

Labels: autumn colour, nerine, winter colour

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:44 AM 0 Comments

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