February catkins

There’s a lot of hazel around here. That’s Kent for you. If it’s not apples, it’s cobnuts, or at least it used to be. Food fashion and falling prices have taken their toll, and you can’t help but worry that these crops will go the same way as the hops that used to cover the county. It’s not uncommon to see fields full of grubbed out trees, lying forlornly on their sides with their roots in the air. It’s a heart-rending sight, a shocking and violent end for orchard or platt, home to bats and badgers, owls and woodpeckers. The hope is that farmers markets and a growing consumer preference for locally grown food will save the day, and certainly as far as cobnuts are concerned, there seems to be a mood of cautious optimism, no doubt encouraged by the increased revenue from the bumper crops over the past two or three years.

Grubbed out orchard in a nearby field, earlier today

Several of the gardens I have worked in recently have been on the site of cobnut platts, a few of the characteristically nobbly trees remaining, pruned into the traditional open goblet shape. But, even in areas without this agricultural heritage, you don’t have to look far before you spy a hazel tree or two, on the margins, the understory of a woodland garden, or within a hedgerow. Both the wild hazel and the cultivated cobnut tree are dripping with catkins at this time of year, the conspicuous male flowers an inch or two long, apparently out of all proportion with the tiny female flowers, red styles just about visible if you look closely (close enough to poke your eye with a twig, so care is advised). The discrepancy in size is perhaps explained by the fact that the hazel relies on the wind for pollination, a far less efficient method than those more sensible plants who co-opt insects or even birds to undertake the task, and one which requires great clouds of pollen to be released to the air in the hope that at least some fraction of it will waft across to the female flowers of the next tree. As a method of procreation it’s a particularly messy business, and surely explains why the hazel chooses to go about the task unencumbered by clothing, which would only get in the way; all this happens weeks before the trees have even given thought to putting on leaves.

Wanding a cobnut platt

My own great fondness for the hazel (Corylus avellana) is less to do with the nuts than the wood. I love the long lenticels, and the metallic sheen of the young bark, so characteristic of walking sticks made from this tree.This is a tremendously versatile plant for the gardener to have access to – the traditional practice of coppicing hazel in the woodland understory provided long, straight poles for construction of light structures, barriers and for plashing hedges, tripods and bean frames in the garden and on the allotment, while the younger wands – fabulously pliable when green, are used for pea sticks and plant supports. Wanding tends to be done when the leaves are off in winter – it’s a much simpler task to accomplish when the leaves have fallen. Of course, pruning at this time of year encourages exactly this kind of long, straight growth, but as there’s always a use for the cut wands in the garden, that’s exactly what we want. Left unpruned a hazel tree will grow to a height of 12 metres given sufficient light, reaching average age of 80 years, although coppicing greatly increases life expectancy, with some hazel stools remaining productive for several hundreds of years. It both astonishes and saddens me to think that, except in a very few cases, we have ceased to manage the woodland we have left in the UK – a source of the most fantastic, renewable material for building and for fuel – instead choosing to import from overseas products such as bamboo canes for the garden and charcoal for the barbeque, while our coppices are grubbed out and built over or abandoned to become neglected and overstood. Bonkers.

All this being said, you’d think I’d have more hazel growing in my own garden, but we weren’t fortunate enough to inherit any with the garden, and have only very young plants in the hedge we planted when we moved in. Instead, I tend to filch my hazel poles, pea sticks and cobnuts from friends and clients. After all, living in Kent, I’d be crazy to pay for these things, wouldn’t I? People do, though.

Tiny female flowers (top centre), with the long, dangling male catkins

Further information
The Kentish Cobnut Association www.kentishcobnutsassociation.org.uk

A quiet tickling

Tickled soil, tickler, and wood sorrel

A dry, still day. Not quite mild, but the lack of the usual bitingly chill gusts up here on the roughway makes a welcome change. Nothing to hear but the sound of birdsong, the occasional putter a light aircraft overhead and, every now and again, the hammering of a woodpecker from higher up in the woods. The wind is such a feature of this site that its absence is almost unsettling.

The mulching and the heavy pruning done, the garden is at a stage where I can spend this time tweaking things, doing a passable impression of someone to whom a ruthless sense of tidiness is entirely natural. And so I patrol the borders and the lawn, tutting over twigs of birch and eucalyptus and every last fallen leaf that has yet to make it to the composting area, fingertip weeding between the lavenders and even indulging in a spot of soil tickling. As to the last of these, I know I shouldn’t, but old habits die hard, the clients like the look of it, the weeds love it, and my companiable robin friend is in seventh heaven and getting rather fat on it. Everyone’s happy, and no-one has yet berated me for unnecessarily releasing a pathetic amount of additional carbon to the atmosphere – I have a border fork in my hand to deal with such ridiculousness should they try. In all seriousness, it does actually help to control the colony of creeping wood sorrel (Sleeping Beauty or Oxalis corniculata var. atropurpurea) that would otherwise run riot through this bed. Often thought of as an annual, it’s clearly not a problem in February, but as roots and straggly stems do persist throughout the winter I tend to think of it as perennial. Rather a pretty plant, with its deep bronzed leaves and yellow flowers, but something of a tiny thug nonetheless, requiring a firm hand.

I’m not blind to the fact that there’s an element of procrastination in all this micro-faffing and beautification. There are other, less immediately obvious tasks which need seeing to – for example, the huge amount of woodchip churned in with soil that the tree surgeons have left me, all of which needs barrowing away from an area we want to replant (there’s enough honey fungus in this garden without us making a giant crater-shaped buffet for it). But you have to make the most of the stillness at this time of year. Not just the stillness of the weather (naturally, you always have to make the most of a good gardening weather in winter), but this apparent pause in activity that occurs, maybe lasting no longer than a few days, as winter transitions into spring. The mornings are getting lighter, and in a matter of weeks it will kick off and every gardener will be dashing about like a whirlwind blur with a barrow on the front. Perhaps you’ll pardon me if I take full advantage of the lull, and enjoy a quiet tickling while I may.

The Walled Nursery

I’m a sucker for a walled garden, and so every opportunity to visit one is met with eager anticipation. Even so, it’s been too long since I’ve visited The Walled Nursery in Hawkhurst, and so an open invitation for a guided tour, and perhaps even a cup of tea, awaited merely a suitable space in the diary. Such a space appeared invitingly upon the page for this morning, and so off I went.

Deep in the heart of the Wealden landscape, a mere stone’s throw from Hawkhurst’s improbably pretty high street, lies this local treasure – a testament to the combined vision and horticultural experience of its owners, Monty and Emma Davies, and proof of what can be achieved with determination in the face of apparently insurmountable odds. You can forget the soulless big-name garden centres, now all too often little more than amusement park cum retail “experience”, where plants are clearly little more than an afterthought. Here, everything from the handwritten chalk boards to the room dedicated to vintage gardenalia bespeaks a passion not only for plants but also the process of looking after them. To resist the charm of this place would be a challenge for anyone in possession of even a passing interest in gardening – soul is something it has in spades.

You could be forgiven for attributing this to the setting. February is not the most inspirational time in the garden – snowdrops, hellebores and winter-scented shrubs aside – but in spite of the dismal grey skies and the fact that the nursery won't be open for another week, there is distinct atmosphere within these walls. Thirteen Victorian glasshouses within a bounded two-acre space will tend to have such an effect – so much wood, glass and cast iron, not to mention red brick. Though now sympathetically commandeered for the purposes of the nursery, I can’t shake the feeling that at any moment I might bump into one of the nine-strong workforce of who once tended Tongswood Gardens, as it was known at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

But the magic of the nursery can’t be accounted for merely as a product of its history and architecture. Even with the shelves and benches half empty, the spaces between them seem filled with a kind of latent, fizzing energy. Perhaps it’s that thing that only gardeners feel at this time of year; that faint but ever-present background hum as an entire landscape full of plants muster their strength for the long-awaited jubilant push in spring, bursting up from soil and out from bud with an explosive release of potential force. Plants in pots and liners obey the same natural laws, so there’s no reason not to feel the vibrations on the nursery. But I’ve a feeling that the dynamism and purpose isn’t limited to one particular season here. Rather, it’s something that proceeds from the relationship between these unique buildings and the family in whose care they now find themselves. It’s hard to pin down, but evident in the numerous signs of Monty’s ongoing programme of glasshouse maintenance, in Emma’s informative and carefully handwritten plant labels, and even in the matchbox car left by one of the boys on the ridge of the coldframes – a reminder that this is a home, as well as a business.

All the magic in the world would be of little practical use without in-depth knowledge of the plants being raised for sale, and there’s no arguing with the horticultural pedigree of the team. Monty and Emma’s training in landscape management and commercial horticulture respectively, coupled with his experience as a self employed gardener and hers working in three of the county’s most significant gardens (volunteering at Dixter and on the staff at Pashley Manor and Sissinghurst) should leave no doubt that these folks know their alliums. And, having taken early retirement as chief propagator at Sissinghurst after 22 years, the arrival of Jaqui Ruthven at the nursery two years ago was something of a major coup.

“Jacqui’s like a propagating machine,” says Emma. “She’s only got to look at a plant and it multiplies, I’ve never seen anyone like her!”

Pellies and cast iron

The evidence is there to be seen when I pop my head into yet another glasshouse to say hello, finding Jacqui busily at work surrounded by benches stuffed with pelargoniums – I spy many scented-leaved varieties, regals and some species too – and through an opening into the rear section all manner of succulents jostle with the flamboyant hues of Tradescantia pallida ‘Purpurea’.

The benefits of this in-house expertise are several; customers can be happy in the knowledge that they are supporting a local business by buying homegrown plants, while the nursery maintains tight control on the stock’s provenance, and importantly avoids seeing precious margin trickling away down a long supply chain.

It’s as well the staff are so experienced since, in addition to the usual business of running a nursery, the unique nature of the site also provides its biggest challenge.

“Most of the material used in construction is what they call redwood timber – Scots pine” Monty tells me. It’s not the cheapest softwood, but it requires constant maintenance to protect it from the effects of the weather, “and, as you can see” – here he uses his finger to dig out a worryingly large chunk of rotten wood from a rail of the Carnation House – “sadly, that hasn’t always been the case.”

There’s also the issue of the glass itself. The nursery takes a battering from the winter weather, in a single two month period last year losing over 300 panes of glass. Clearly the maintenance – in reality, the renovation – of these historic buildings is a challenge, and I wonder how the couple are intending to meet this additional pressure.

“In addition to grants and sponsorship, we have to diversify” Emma explains, “and this year we plan to open a restaurant. Our customers often ask us to recommend somewhere to eat, and we have to send them away. Why not cater for them here, ideally showcasing food we’ve grown ourselves?”

Why not indeed? There’s certainly the space, while leaving plenty of room for other ventures – there are plans to build upon last year’s successful forays into weddings and outdoor theatre. But how, I wonder out loud, do you avoid losing that emphasis on plants that brought you here in the first place? “We have to wear a lot of different hats” says Emma. “One each for horticulture, sales, book-keeping, marketing, events – and mum! But we’re plant people, that’s what makes us tick”.

I do love a handwritten label

We’re drinking tea at the big kitchen table in the old gardeners’ bothy – now home to Monty, Emma and their two boys – when Emma proudly produces a notebook stuffed with various lists of plants and seeds which she wants to grow on the nursery. “I love reading about new plants, or finding them at plant fairs, or tracking them down on the internet. I scour the country for stock plants, give them to Jacqui, and then – she’s off! That’s why – in spite of having to diversify to keep the place running – we won’t lose our focus. We want to be a horticultural hub for the area.”

It’s hard not to get caught up in their enthusiasm, or to resist being impressed by the dogged way in which the nursery’s current owners have bounced back from each weather-related setback. Making my way back to the car park via the shop, I find Monty unpacking a huge order of vegetable seeds, muffled up to the eyeballs with barely an inch of skin visible. It’s pretty fresh in here. “This used to be the potting shed,” he tells me. “You can just picture the poor gardeners in here, no heating, trying to coax some feeling into their fingers.” That’s a feeling I know all too well from gardening over the winter months. I bid my reluctant farewells, comforted by the knowledge that the horticultural future of this nursery is in safe hands.

The Walled Nursery
Water Lane
Hawkhurst
Kent TN18 5DH
Closed Mondays
www.thewallednursery.com

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The English Garden Future Fund
The Walled Nursery has been shortlisted to receive a grant of £5,000 towards the much-needed renovation of the Carnation House. Please support their application by going to the website of The English Garden magazine and voting for them. Voting closes 28 February 2015
Click here to vote for The Walled Nursery.

Potentially Poisonous Pernettya

The sight of a bush full of fat, colourful berries on a blisteringly cold winter’s day causes sentiments of comfort and wellbeing to abound in the bosom of the beholder. I rather suspect that something in our evolutionary history has predisposed us to feelings of warm fuzziness upon identifying a potentially rich source of nutrition within a harsh and inhospitable landscape, but this suspicion does nothing to lessen the pleasure I get from gazing upon this particular shrub, especially this morning, when the overnight frost has generously dusted the plump berries, the red stems and the diminutive, deep green leaves with countless tiny crystals.

All the same, one can’t help but wonder how many of our prehistoric forbears had to drop dead before the rest of their relatives knew which berries to eat, and which to avoid. They heaven for them that they’d had have to wait several millenia for writing to be invented, because what’s written about the toxicity of Pernettya mucronta (syn. Gaultheria mucronta) is decidedly inconclusive. The taste of the berries is described most often as being sweet, but a bit, well...meh – but the very fact that the taste is often described should offer some encouragement, suggesting as it does the likelihodd of surviving at least for the few moments required to make such a description before – who knows? – either carking it on the spot, or going on to make old bones and bounce the great grandchildren upon the knee. One or the other. I do love the internet*.

I regret to admit that I’m unable to offer my personal testimony on the matter, not because in this case I’m too nervous to try, but because, until writing this, I’ve never thought to. Perhaps this is attributable to a decidedly unadventurous disposition; it never occurs to me to pop a strange object in my mouth – particularly brightly coloured, fleshy ones hanging off bushes, which tend to make me think “Ooh, poisonous”, rather than, “Yum, dinner.” Maybe I’m missing out on a whole new way to experience the garden. Well that’s a chance I’ll just have to take.

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Pernettya mucronta, as you’ll usually find these plants labelled in the nursery or garden centre, is now classified in the genus Gaultheria, of which the most well-recongnised is Gaultheria procumbens, or wintergreen (the berries of which are edible and, according to James Wong’s Homegrown Revolution, rather tastier). The various cultivars of P. (or G.) macronta have either only male or only female flowers on them (known as dioecious), and so you will need one of each to ensure a decent crop of berries. There are some hermaphrodite varieties, so it pays to check the label carefully. Whatever their sexual proclivities, they’re of the ericacious family, eschewing alkaline or chalky soils and being most at home in acidic conditions. A periodic top dressing with ericaceous compost, needles from the Christmas tree, or dousing from a watering containing a sachet of sequestered iron would keep them in fine fettle. Shade is not a problem for this shrub, although you’ll notice they flower best (and consequently develop the most berries) on the parts exposed to the sun.

*Further discussion on the toxicity or otherwise of this plant can be found here, at the website written from the garden of splendigly named Paghat the Rat Girl. It’s just as inconclusive as this post, but better referenced.