The Ledge of Reason

I have Window Ledge Envy. Self diagnosed, I admit – I’m not even sure if the condition I’ve identified has a name, or even whether it might be recognised by the medical profession, but I appear to have been suffering from a chronic form of it for some time. I find myself in the houses of friends, gazing over their shoulders as they offer me a cup of tea, a veritable green-eyed monster in the face of the wealth of anterior casement shelvage that they appear to take for granted; that any normal person living in a house would take for granted; that anyone but the perverse creatures who built our house should expect to find on the roomward side of a window. It’s not that the builders of our modest Edwardian semi didn’t believe in window sills – every box sash has a reasonably generous one; on the outside. Which is great for window boxes, but hopeless for houseplants, overwintering tender things or seeds we want to get going in February and March, but fear to abandon to the capricious atmosphere of the unheated greenhouse.

Internal window sills are utterly wasted on the person who has yet to discover the joys of gardening. What do they use them for? Chintzy ornaments, doylies, a portable radio, cups of tea? The absolute travesty would be a window sill kept clear of anything at all – sacrilege! Think of all the planty splendidness that would make a home of such a spot, warmed by the sun, baked by the central heating, laughing through the glass at the worst of the winter weather. Admitedly care must be taken of more delicate specimens in what can become quite arid conditions, although certain plants might take to such an environment as a home from home – a hardy succulent, perhaps? Even I have trouble killing Crassula ovata, for example, and I’m a notorious houseplant assassin.

While I’m no student of architecture, it does seem to me that at some point in the early twentieth century, some influential builder must have said something along the lines of, “Hang on a minute lads, I think we’ve been fitting these windows back-to-front all these years”. As supporting evidence for this thesis, I cite the fact that on the average house built after the late 1920s, the windows start to become flush with the outer wall of the house, leaving a handy sill, of a depth equal to at least two courses of bricks, on the inside. Perfect for houseplants, overwintering tender things or seeds you might want to get going in early spring. Admittedly, less good for window boxes, but I can conceive of several solutions to that problem, all of them more elegant than anything I’ve been able to come up with to overcome my lack of a ledge on the inside of the window.

Regular readers of this blog may by now have formed the accurate impression that we enjoy in winter a winning combination of cold greenhouse and freezing home – rather limiting when it comes to germinating seeds at this end of the year. My hankering to provide a bit of bottom heat recently got the better of me, and I rashly ordered a very simple heated propagator for the one window in our house which has anything approaching a ledge on the inside. This happens to be in the kitchen where, for some reason, the original windows have been removed and replaced with a long, metal-framed Crittall unit, flush with the outer wall. It’s still a narrow ledge – several centimetres short of the depth of the propagator, which was the narrowest I could find – but, sod it, I thought. I’ll construct some Heath Robinson contraption to prevent the base from toppling off onto the work surface below. And so, having arrived in a box large enough to have contained a coffin, you can imagine my joy when the thing turned out to fit the shelf almost perfectly, mercifully requiring no elaborate (and probably ultimately doomed) cantilevered constructions to support the leading edge.

Plugged in, and off we go – not the most sophisticated of devices (there’s no thermostat, for example, only the vents in the covers for the individual trays to regulate the humidity within), but germination seems to be pretty speedy, which is no small thing in this draughty old place. I still have nowhere for houseplants and overwintering tender things, so for now, I’ll just have to go on killing those.

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.

Spurge laurel

Peering out of the shadows in a dry, seemingly uninviting spot, you might find this rather handsome plant. In fact, the odds are stacked pretty heavily in favour of your coming across it – I don’t think there’s a garden I’ve worked in where I’ve failed to spy it lurking about furtively, though nobody ever remembers planting it (and, before you ask, no, I’m not responsible for spreading it about, like some latter-day Miss Willmott*). Ah – spurge! – you might think to yourself, and you could be forgiven for doing so. There’s something rather euphorbia like about its mounding habit, its serpentine, grey-brown stems topped by whorls of spatulate leaves. As with the spurge family, the sap is a skin irritant, but for all this, and despite its common name, it’s not kin to the euphorbiacae. Neither is it a laurel – to be honest, no one in their right mind would think it was, in spite of the dark, glossy evergreen leaves.

In late winter, the appearance of clusters of small, scented, lime green flowers nestled below the leaves give the final clue to the true identity. This is Daphne laureola, one of our two native daphnes, the other being the deciduous Daphne mezeureum, on whose bare stems fragrant pink blooms appear before the leaves in February.

Unsurprisingly, removed from its natural habitat Daphne laureola can become an invasive weed, and in Canada and the United States it romps through woodland, smothering native flora in much the same way as Rhododendron ponticum does in these islands, albeit with a less imposing presence – the daphne rarely gets much taller than 1 metre.

To keep it or dig it out? That rather depends on how much you like it. Given its ubiquity, I don’t think I’d paticularly seek it out in a nursery, although a slightly posher cultivar with frilly flowers, Daphne laureola subsp. philippi, offers a little more to the inveterate collector. If you find yourself in possession of a specimen, you can be reasonably assured that it won’t go crazy in a UK garden – although it can run from the roots, it’s unlikely to do so with alarming vigour, spread as it is primarily by birds who find its black berries (poisonous to humans) a choice treat in spring. Thought it might be considered a weed, it can form a rather attractive shrub, one which thrives in the kind of dry shade conditions that has other plants turning up their roots. If yours has obligingly plonked itself in a convenient position, I’d be tempted to leave it be, admiring its deep, glossy green foliage and revelling in the harmony between the dark leaves and the citrus green flowers in winter. More often than not, though, it’ll will have decided to grow in a particuarly inconvenient spot, getting up close and personal with your mexican orange blossom, in which case I’d hoik it out. Being rather deep rooted, a feature it shares with other daphnes, I’d also save myself the anguish of trying to nurse it through transplant shock, and wait for an obliging feathery friend to sow one in the right place.

Daphne laureola, bottom centre, trying hard to look like Choysia ternata

*Miss Ellen Willmott, 1858-1934, gun-toting plantswoman, gardener, influential member of the Royal Horticultural Society, and British eccentric. So enamoured was she of Eryngium giganteum, she was reputed to scatter its seeds in every garden she visited – the plant would mysteriously spring up several months later, earning it the soubriquet “Miss Willmott’s ghost”.

Trigger’s broom

“This old broom,” says Trigger, “has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles”. To the mind of the nation’s favourite road sweeper from Only Fools and Horses, nothing about this statement sits uneasily with the fact that he’s just won an award for being in possession of the same broom for 20 years. We all laugh knowingly at the character’s naïveté, but the paradox of whether an object is essentially the same when its constituent parts have been replaced has appeared in the musings of philosophers through the ages, from Plutarch’s Ship of Theseus to Hobbe’s favourite sock*.

I’m always reminded of this when the time comes to replace one part or another of my secateurs. I’ve had this pair for over ten years and, while the handles remain the same – albeit now featuring rather tatty red cushioning on the grips – several of the other parts are of a less impressive vintage. In addition to regular, often daily maintenance – cleaning, sharpening, lubricating – each winter they get completely stripped down, every part being treated to a program of rejuvinaion. A hibernal tool spa – beginning with a gentle, abrading exfoliation with wire wool, a deep cleansing with Muc-Off, and a luxuriant drenching in WD40 to replace the oils lost during the cleaning process. With the abuse they get throughout the rest of the year, I figure it’s the least I can do.

I once got into one of those daft twitter conversations – you know the ones, where one moment you’re having a nice, jolly chat, and the next, some rabid individual you’ve never before encountered is foaming at the mouth for a reason as unaccountable as it can be important. In this particular instance I had happened to mention that not only was I deeply fond of the brand and model of secateurs I use (Felco number two, if you’re interested), but that I’d also had cause to replace the odd bit over the years. Enter rabid, tweeting Herbert, with an almost audible virtual “a-HA!”, roundly berating me with the essence of the above-mentioned paradox, in the manner of one who had just had the most strikingly original and incisive thought, before advising me that any gardener worth their salt should of course be using those fancy-pants Japanese pruners (they do look rather nice, but I’ve no reason to change – perhaps a birthday/Christmas present? Hint?). Naturally, I extracted myself elegantly from the conversation and went about my business – I’m known for my tact and finesse, on Twitter, as in all other spheres.

Today a new spring is called for. The old one was more or less holding its own, working admirably on even quite thick dry, dead stems, but fill the mouth of the pruners with a handful of thinner material and the jaws would stick together. With the old part next to its replacement, it’s not hard to see why – the spring is noticeably compressed – small wonder it lacks the energy under load to push the handles apart. A couple of seconds to remove the worn piece and substitute the shiny new one, et voilà! As good as new.

I have a natural tendency toward the personification of natural phenomena and inanimate objects, and so, I worry. Has this action somehow damaged my secateurs’ own sense of self? I hope not. Does this programme of incremental renewal to which I subject them make them fundamentally different than they were before? I don’t believe so. To my mind and, more to the point, in my hand, I can’t honestly say that they feel any less like my own, trusted pair. I’m with Trigger.


*More recently, during the noughties many of us had cause to wonder whether the Sugababes really were the Sugababes when none of the original members were left in the band.

Can’t Buy Me Gloves

Gardens provide a wealth of stimulation for each one of our five senses – so much so that it often strikes me as redundant to use the term “sensory” when referring to a particular style of garden (you know the kind of thing – the ones with the florally flowers and the features full of wet water). But the sense that’s been concerning me these last few weeks is that of touch; particularly with reference to those parts of my body that come into physical contact with the garden in all its wintery glory; cold, wet, and muddy.

My feet are generally kept in a state approaching comfort by means of a pair of thick socks and a well-placed PostIt note reminding me not to leave my boots in the land rover or porch over night (safety toe-caps seem to retain the cold for an unfeasibly long time given half the chance – they must contain the same stuff that you find in ice packs). I confess I’m still wearing shorts, partly due to the odd bout of housemaid’s knee, but mostly because I just find them easier to move about in. Thus exposed to the elments, you’ll doubtless be delighted to hear that, nonetheless, my knees are coping admirably when called upon to interface with the frosty ground. If I find myself having to kneel for a long period of time on frosted soil, a knee pad or two can be pressed into service. But really, it’s my hands that are of most concern, or at least, finding appropriate protection for them.


I get through gardening gloves at a rate of knots, and it’s not because I’m a cheapskate. In fact, my glove of choice is the Gold Leaf ‘Dry Touch’, which aren’t inexpensive – made of reasonably tough, supple leather, with a light fleecing and moderate waterproofing, they’re the best I’ve found for general work, but I’ll still shred a pair within a fortnight, spending the next couple of weeks with the torn fingers bandaged in duck tape* before I take the plunge and invest in another pair. They’re not the warmest gloves either – you’d want the Gold Leaf ‘Winter Touch’ for that (I wrote a post on these here). These are like luxurious insulated riggers, but you can forget them if you want to do anything requiring even a moderate level of finesse. Frankly, though your hands will be nice and toasty, you might as well wear mittens unless all you intend to use them for is pruning with loppers and picking up sticks with the girth of a rolling pin.

Look nice when they’re new, don’t they?

Not so good after a couple of weeks

Even worse close up. This are beyond even duck tape.

I spend a fair amount of time over winter perched with my weight distributed over a wide board, and my fingers scrabbling about in the wet clay soil, pulling out weeds. Thick gloves don’t do well in the mud, so I resign myself to cold hands and select a much thinner glove, usually some stretchy polyester knitted thing with a rubberised coating, like the ones pictured at the top of this post. These have the benefit of giving a level of protection while also allowing freedom of movement, and you can easily rinse your hands off when the mud gets too much (oh, the joys of Kentish clay in the winter!). They also keep your hands relatively clean for the moments when, inevitably, my phone rings and has to be hauled out of a deep pocket. A downside I’ve found is that the colour invariably runs, and I return home at the end of the day with my hands a deathly shade of green, exhibiting the kind of palour you’d expect to see on a body lying in the morgue, rather than a living, breathing, albeit only slightly warmer specimen.

The corollary of all this is that at any one time I’ve got at least two, often three pairs of gloves with me. Perhaps I should toughen up and develop rhino-like, craggy skin on my hands, so thick you couldn't push a crataegus thorn into the palm if you tried. To be honest, though, my hands are already hard enough to get clean after a day’s work, and I don’t relish the thought driving, or dealing with the diary, phone and payments with muddy paws. I find it mystifying that, with all the developments in modern materials, there doesn’t seem to be a single brand of glove on the market that provides an acceptable combination of warmth, protection, waterproofing and dexterity for the gardener, even at the higher price points. Surely it must be out there somewhere? Apparently not. But I intend to keep searching, all the while wrapping metres of duck tape around my constantly-disintingrating hand attire.

These ‘Reinforced Riggers’ lasted two hours. TWO HOURS! Rubbish.

If you’ve found the perfect gardening glove, or have had similar frustrations with yours, do let me know in the comments below. Misery loves company!


*I looked it up, if you’re wondering. Apparently, both Duck Tape and Duct Tape are correct. In fact, it appears the former was used before the more specific title was applied. It said so on the interweb, so it must be true.

Fireside reading

It’s blowing a gale outside. The first week back in the new year, and there’s been a fair amount of weather to contend with. Frozen toes first thing on Wednesday, soaked through to the skin on Thursday morning, and throughly windswept by the start of the weekend. Not that I’m really complaining; while I’ll admit that I’d prefer my waterproofs to be a little more resistant to the very worst of the weather, the utter drubbing I got earlier in the week provided the perfect excuse to spend an extended lunch time reading by the fire with a hot toddy (Advocaat, two glugs; Scotch in a similar quantity; a teaspoon of honey and hot water to taste – purely medicinal, you understand, though it would be wise to avoid driving or operating heavy machinery for the rest of the day). Thank heaven for seed catalogues and the seemingly ever-increasing pile of gardening literature into which I’d intended to make larger inroads over Christmas; if the weather continues to throw the odd ghastly spell at us – and there’s no reason to except that it won’t – I’m sure this won’t be the last time I find myself in need of some wet weather reading matter.



The book I’ve just finished is Dave Goulson’s A Sting in the Tale: My Adventures with Bumblebees. I’ve been meaning to read it in full ever since hearing extracts from it on the radio some time ago, and am delighted that I made time for it. If you’ve not read it, I would thoroughly recommend it as not only an informative and eye-opening read, but also in places a decidedly funny one, not least in the opening section where the author describes the gruesome results of his childhood experiements with taxidermy and bee husbandry – the latter well-meaning but, alas, doomed. He’s come on a bit since then – now Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Sussex, and founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT), he gives a fascinating account of his work in conversation with Jim Al-Khalili on this episode of Radio 4’s The Life Scientific.

Two things strike me forcefully as a result of reading this book. Firstly, a career in biological sciences sounds rather fun – why did noone tell me this when I was at school?* And secondly, I really knew hardly anything about bumblebees, other than that they are furry, and that they’re related to wasps and ants. The list of insights into these splendid creatures that I’ve gained from this book is somewhat lengthy, but I don’t think I’ll be revealing any spoilers if I mention a few here by way of example: for instance, I had no idea that bumbles don’t die if they sting you (honeybees generally do), that tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and chillies are all pollinated by bumblebees, and that there is a huge commercial market for mass-reared bumblebees for that very purpose – an international market with little regulation, which threatens to undermine the genetic integrity of domestic bees, and has the potential to spread diseases and to adversely impact native ecosystems. I had also forgotten that dumbledore is the old country name for a bumblebee (which puts Harry Potter in a new light).

It’s a book that delights, with its detailed and affectionate descriptions of a charming and vital creature, but also delivers a sobering message... almost depressing in its depiction of yet another intricate and beautiful aspect of the natural world which the combined forces of liberal economics and globalisation are seeking to commodify, displaying scant regard to the long term impact, or even passing reference to the precautionary principle. But there is some hope too in the final chapters. These deal with the setting up of the BBCT and the project to repatriate the short-haired bumblebee to the UK (the result uncertain at the time of the book’s publication, but apparently a success according to the website of the Short-haird Bumblebee Project at www.bumblebeereintroduction.org).

One of those books that inspire you to do something. I toddled off and joined the BBCT, and am eagerly awaiting the first signs of spring when the young queens will awaken and gather in numbers high in the branches of the pussy willows, the air thrumming with the sound of excited, hungry bumbles. I could tell you about winter active bees, and how the buff-tailed bumblebee has recently started to display a reluctance to go into hibernation, particularly in the South East. I’m becoming a bumble-bore, and unapologetically so.

*I admit, I’ve had my suspicions that this might be the case for a while now, but having been brought up as a young person with an appreciation of The Arts it has come as a bit of a revelation that it’s quite possible to have both a career in this field and a sense of humour. I’m not sure who to blame for making the subject seem so dry and tedious at the time, but I’m sure it was due to the negligence of various adults into whose care my education had been entrusted, and nothing at all to do with my continual obsession with turning on the science lab gas taps and carving rude messages into the benches, when I should have been applying myself to my lessons. Prof Goulson, with his cheery manner and accounts of bee hunting expeditions on the other side of the world, leaves me in little doubt that one could do a lot worse than embark upon a career as an entomologist. Granted, funding’s an ever-present pain in the arse, but continuity and security of income is scarcely a subject limited to a scientific career. In fact, if I had my time again...

After Christmas

I love that week between Christmas and new year’s day, although I’m never quite sure what to call it. ‘Christmastide’ seems a little forced as an expression, and ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, whilst being overlong and unwieldy, also refers to a much longer period. ‘Twixmas’, a name coined by the travel industry in order to flog short breaks into a traditionally quiet time, is clearly too ghastly to be of use to anyone other than a travel agent or journalist. Whether this time has its own name or not, it certainly has a distinct feeling; with the first seconds of Boxing Day morning, something seems to pass, and a new mood descends for the next few days.


This is one of my favourite times of the year, bringing with it space for considered reflection on what’s gone before, informed planning for the year to come, moments of hibernation in front of the fire, and a sense of peace and tranquility. Even the B road through the village is silent – at four o’clock in the afternoon, that’s unheard of at any other time of the year. Quiet. Stillness. Bliss.

It’s also a great time for pottering, with a measure of rootling thrown in, and while engaged in these mutually compatible activities in a corner of the shed I unearth a stash of bulbs I bought in autumn but haven’t got round to planting yet – hyacinths and narcissus, which really should have been in the ground months ago. I’m rarely too distraught at the discovery that I’ve missed the proper time for sowing or planting something, which is just as well, as such epiphanies occur with a regularity that a more delicate soul might find discouraging. A long-term subscriber to the school of bung-it-in-and-see-if-it-works-anyway, I choose to look upon this as an opportunity, rather than another reason to berate myself, and dash off to get the metal planters I bought last week when I was supposed to buying Christmas presents for other people.

Fortunately for me, bulbs need little mollycoddling between lifting (or buying) and flowering; it’s the period between flowering and dormancy when they really benefit from a bit of TLC, as they build up their store of energy for the next year’s display. Several weeks of cold and dark in a dry corner of the shed haven’t done them any harm – spring bulbs need a period of chilling (or ‘vernalization’) in order to trigger the formation of flower buds, and also to encourage rooting. These neglected specimens all appear firm and healthy, with no sign of rot and a couple of centimetres of healthy looking leaf poking through the tops meaning, if nothing else, that even I should be able to work out which way up to plant them.

It only takes a few seconds to drill drainage holes in these metal planters

I’m using a light, soil-based compost with some added grit, as hyacinths do like good drainage. That being the case, I’ve also drilled some holes in the bottom of the metal containers. If you remember to buy specially heat-treated hyacinth bulbs in September, you can grow them indoors in containers without drainage holes, but you’d need to use a free draining bulb fibre instead of compost, and go easy on the watering. If you’re cunning about it, you can force them into flowering early – in time for Christmas – but you have to be mean and keep them in a dark, cool place for a good six weeks. That’s the kind of organised gardener I aspire to be. In reality, I’m faffing about planting my bulbs several months too late, crossing my frozen fingers and hoping that they’ll feel inclined to produce some roots, and thereafter, some flowers.

Hyacinth bulbs. I spy small rooty things growing out of the basal plate. Hurrah!!

A good horticultural education can give you a keen scientific appreciation of exactly what it is you’re doing wrong. Will that be enough to change my behaviour? Probably not in my own garden. Gardening for other people, I have to be on my toes, but here I can afford to bumble about, buy things, and then forget about them for months. After all, the rediscovery of these bulbs has given me a good hour or so of happy activity in the fresh air, although as the temperature plummets it’s time to retreat back indoors. I put the newly planted containers on the table in the courtyard, where I can look out at them while I prepare another mountain of bubble and squeak to accompany the leftover turkey.

New client

Boxing Day, barely two degrees above zero, and I’m on my hands and knees in the garden, attempting to rescue the edge of the vegetable patch from the clutches of the lawn while the cold ground freezes all sensation from my muddy knee. It’s the perfect antidote to the bustle of Christmas – the noise, the stresses, the motorway driving – it’s wonderful to catch up with the family, but it’s ever so nice to be home again. Not that it’s exactly quiet out here. Once, I had entertained romantic notions of the bleak, hushed stillness of the winter landscape, with nothing but the drip drip of melting icicles to shatter the silence until the first bird of spring. I’m not quite sure how that idea got into my head, particularly when I consider the number of our avian friends that migrate to this part of the UK from the continent in search of a relatively mild winter. Today, the starlings are deafening and, while my gardening activity is pleasingly solitary, I’m not short of company; robins, blackbirds and collared doves all drop in from time to time to check on my progress, while our resident jackdaws wheel around the rooftop and hop about between the chimney stacks, ack-acking all the while.


The other immensely satisfying aspect to this morning’s activity is that I’m gardening in my own garden. This doesn’t happen nearly as much as it should, and it shows. I’m painfully aware that over the past few years, I’ve been carefully honing a whole arsenal of useful skills in gardens belonging to other people, skills which are all too rarely unleashed upon the wilderness outside my own back door.

Well, no more. Enough is enough, a line must be drawn and all that guff. From the new year, I shall be taking on a new client;  a grumpy, capricious and exacting character, as short of temper as indeed of stature, with the mind of a butterfly, the mouth of a sailor and the feet of a hobbit. Me, in other words. I’ve come to realise that the only way I’m going to gain any traction here, in my own garden, is to put it in the diary. To hell with the expense and the inevitable impact upon the rest of the week’s work, I’m convinced it will be worth it, not only for the obvious positive benefits for the garden itself, but also to free my mind of the constant, nagging feeling that there are several (many) things which I really ought to be doing.

So this is the plan, and you, dear reader, may hold me accountable for it. In fact I ask you to do just that and if, in a few months time, the place persists in looking as though a family of hephalumps has been rolling around in it, you have my express permission to berate me strongly, and stick wads of goosegrass down the back of my jumper. After all, I’ll do the same for you.

At the Garden Media Guild Awards

Yesterday I exchanged mud-caked boots for polished brogues, grabbed my trusty umbrella with its dog-chomped handle, and boarded the train to London. At midday I was due at the Savoy Hotel, there to attend the annual Garden Media Guild Awards; I arrived early, and spent half an hour strolling around my old stomping ground of Covent Garden, where Christmas shopping was in full swing, and the gardens of the actors’ church of St Paul’s, over which my old office window offered a fine view, are in distinct need of a good tidying up.

I arrived a second or two behind Carol Klein but, both of us managing to successfully negotiate the hotel’s entrance, the amusing anecdote of how-I-got-stuck-in-the-revolving-doors-with-that-Carol-off-the-telly entirely failed to be engendered. It’s probably just as well; no-one likes a name-dropper. There ensued a time of mingling, drink in hand, at which accomplished networkers could be seen working the room; I picked up tips, and filed them away in my head for future use. It was much more fun to poke people with my umbrella, which I’d refused to surrender to the cloakroom staff.



By one o’clock we were seated in the opulent splendour of the Savoy’s banqueting suite, a room so stuffed full of garden media royalty that you couldn’t lob a bread roll without hitting at least three of them. I did not lob a bread roll, neither anything else for that matter, concerned that such behaviour from one at the awards for the first time might have been considered rude. I am never rude until at least my third visit, after which I am rarely polite. Invitations to visit for a fourth time are, unsurprisingly, somewhat rare.

Having thus adopted the manner, if not quite the appearance, of someone who has at least a vague idea of how to behave in such company, I was able to to enjoy the meal, the conversation, and even the smattering of slightly weary applause (clapping fatigue sets in with surprising speed at an award ceremony) when this blog was announced as a finalist for the Blog of the Year award. This was something about which I think I can allow myself to feel both slightly chuffed, and rather more grateful, both to the judges who deemed it worthy of shortlisting, and especially to all the blog’s readers who comment upon the posts, retweet the links and provide the general encouragement and feedback that’s so essential. And so in a rare moment of sincerity from me, thank you – your support is truly appreciated. I will, however, save my tearful acceptance speech till we’ve actually won the thing.

Whilst this was all very gratifying, of at least equal merit to me was the discovery that so many of the people who do this garden writing thing for a living – of whom I am slightly in awe (imagine my surprise on finding myself on a table with many of them) – are actually thoroughly decent and approachable human beings, who weren’t at all sniffy about having an upstart blogger with a barnet full of sparrows in their midst (I had given the sparrows a bath for the occasion).

It was a good experience; more enjoyable and less terrifying than I had feared. In truth I’m still processing many things about the day. But this morning I was happy once more to be welly-clad and back in my element, building up the compost heap with an enthusiastic robin for company and a chipped china mug to drink my tea out of. I know my place.

Notes from the greenhouse

I have discovered that autumn sown sweet peas germinate far more reliably when they’re not being eaten by mice. Either science or philosophy might have led me to such a conclusion. The first might have encouraged me to consider whether there’s something about the digestive system of a rodent that disagrees with the awakening metabolism of the embryonic legume, and then to back up my hypothesis with empirical evidence. But it was the philosophical route that led me to my epiphany, via a chance observation I was in a position to make of an existential crisis being sufferred by the seeds in question. One afternoon, I would plant them. The next morning, they were not there.

And at the very point at which the foregoing musings ran through my mind, as I stood surveying the contents of the greenhouse staging with condensation dripping on my head from the newly installed tent of bubble wrap, I came to an inescapable conclusion. Watching too many reruns of Frasier on Amazon Prime (guilty as charged) can turn you into a fearful windbag, even in your own head.

So, having managed to silence my internal Kelsey Grammer, I considered what I knew for sure. Clearly, there were mice in the greenhouse. This was no great surprise, as the little buggers have been running amok in the kitchen and living room recently, gleefully ignoring the ultrasonic gadgets we’ve plugged in around the place to deter them from doing just that, and running rings around Bill, who clearly wasn’t designed to catch anything smaller than a fox. That they’d shown up in the greenhouse sooner or later was a fairly safe bet. A quick search online revealed that mice are well known to view sweet pea seeds as a tasty autumnal treat, but sadly the proferred solution of bringing the seed trays into the house for the first few weeks was not going to be of much help. A temporary fix was to get hold of more mouse traps – the humane kind – which I discovered are so-called as, not only do they fail to cause injury or death to the furry critters, but they also provide them with hours of amusement and free food. Our mice were clearly familiar with the workings of these devices, eschewing the front entrance and opting instead to gnaw through several millimetres of thick, hard plastic to get at the bait from the outside. Still, I reasoned, the expensive organic peanut butter I was lavishly spreading inside the traps might at least distract them from noshing on my peas, so it was worth a try. In the meantime, I was merrily pushing replacement seeds into the holes left by the rootling rodents – whatever seeds I had left over, and by the second or third time I’d been through this process, all hope at organisation had been abandoned, so we shall just have to wait till the plants flower before we can work out what the varieties are. To be honest, distracting the mice for long enough for seedlings to appear was now the main objective, I can worry about what plant goes where once I’ve actually got some plants.

The peanut butter and rubbish trap combination didn’t seem to be working that well. I’d resow the seeds, set the traps, and then next day find the tell-tale holes in the top of the compost, the abandoned outer husk of the seed coat and, oddly, the exploded fruit of Solanum pseudocapiscum, which had been inexplicably appearing on the surface of the root-trainers for the past few weeks, in spite of the bedding plants being several feet away. Apparently the mice hadn’t worked out that, like many members of the nightshade family, the Jerusalem Cherry is rather toxic; it certainly didn’t seem to have stopped them from chucking the fruit about inside the greenhouse, which was doubly annoying as it’s the fruit that makes this an interesting winter container plant – you certainly wouldn’t plant it for the foliage. I was beginning to wonder if I actually had a small resident gang of gremlins.

After some days of frustration, I hit upon a rather simple solution; I put the clear lids on the root trainers. That may seem blindinlgy obvious, but there are several reasons why I’d discounted that simple step, not least that, having observed with what ease a mouse is able to gnaw through hard plastic to get at what it wants, I was under no illusions that the flimsy material of the lid would offer any resistance. In addition to this, I knew that once the seedlings had grown achieved a height of an inch or so, I’d need to take the lid off, placing the infant plants at the mercy of the mice once more. What I hadn’t factored in is that what the mice must find so tempting about a sweet pea seed is the tight little package of energy-rich carbohydrates stuffed into its case, the endosperm which nourishes the embryonic plant. However, once the seed germinates and the seedling begins to draw upon this energy, presumably the seeds themselves become less attractive to scavenging beasties. This, I can only hope, is what the mice have realised and I, at last, have some (not as many as I’d hoped) sweet pea seedlings.

I’m now seriously thinking about making a welcoming home for a feral cat.

Ornamental grasses

Whether it’s due to the autumn sun showing them off to particuarlly fine effect, or to the inescapbable truth that almost everything else in the borders is either starting to look a little tired, or has turned to mush, October has been a month when ornamental grasses have reigned supreme in the garden.


I took myself off to Wisley one afternoon to spend some time with the grasses planted in front of the Lindley Library. This is a wonderful spot in which to appreciate the range and also the spectacle of a masssed planting of ornamental grasses; you can retreat over the lawns of Seven Acres and look back towards the borders, one moment scanning across the aggregated planting and enjoying the whole as a single, dynamic composition, and the next focussing in on the varied forms and textures of individual specimens.

But – true to form – what I particularly wanted to do was to stick my nose right into the plants and get to know some of them, if not intimately, then at least on slightly more familiar terms. And since grasses tend to flower towards the end of the season, finally flinging their flowering stems skywards having spent the first months of the year in various manifestations of hummock, mound or amorphous clump, this was a perfect time of year in which to indulge my wish.

There is one other reason for my chosing this approach to ornamental grasses, which is probably best broached after the manner of a confession. In truth, I am still haunted by the suburban pampas grass of the 1970s. The mere sight of a large cortaderia standing in its own space is sufficient to conjur spectral figures from Abigail’s Party, waftily dancing to Demis Roussos. This isn't to say that I believe you should be prevented from enjoying a single specimen in all its statuesque glory, but rather that, for me at least, such a bold statement carries too much baggage. I prefer to enjoy the plant as part of a group, surrounded by complementary forms which blur its edges while accentuating its imposing presence and the graceful opulence of its blooms.

It strikes me as odd that something as simple as a grass can trigger such a strong reaction, but I reason that childhood memories are some of the most potent, and there’s no reason why the symbols attached to them shouldn’t belong to the plant kingdom. With which digression, I fix a lens to the camera and march straight up to the object in question, Cortaderia selloana 'Pumila', a cultivar on which the RHS has seen fit to bestow the honour of its Award of Garden Merit. I can’t deny, it’s a handsome fellow, with a wonderful contrast between the apparent fluffiness of the white-gold panicles, and the thin, glaucus strapped leaves with their wickedly serrated edges. I push to the back of my mind the recollection that one of my clients has a specimen that needs moving. A job for another day.

There’s a particular property of certain grasses that I find fascinating, an almost metallic sheen to the flowers which catches the light in such as way that a drift of them planted to catch the low autumn sun will appear to be a diaphonous cloud of spun wire, on which are threaded small beads of the same metal. It’s not particularly easy to capture as a still image, as the gently movement of the stems refracts the light continually and causes the whole to sparkle, adding greatly to the impression. Quite a breathtaking effect, and one I noticed first with Deschampsia cespitosa 'Goldtau'.

But this quality is not limited to Deschampsia, though from what alloy the red-purple flowers of Panicum virgatum 'Warrior' could have been spun, I haven’t a notion.

This switch grass grows to a height of around 1.5m, as does its near relative P. 'Heavy Metal'. This latter variety shares the reddish autumn tints with its cousin, but ironically possesses a somewhat more military bearing than the slightly lax 'Warrior', standing to attention in well-defined, upright clumps.

Panicum virgatum 'Heavy Metal'

I tend to think of grasses as naturally assuming more rounded, or arching shapes, so it’s useful when considering a new planting to be able to include a few with a more columnar habit. Another switch grass takes this a step further, Panicum virgatum 'Northwind', its blue-grey foliage beginning to take on its autumnal golden hues in the photograph here.

This reminded me of one other stalwart, the reliable and rather beautiful, if austere, Calamagrostis x arcutiflora 'Karl Foerster', its uncompromisingly vertical flower stems turning to a shade generally referred to as ‘biscuit’ by mid summer. Sure enough, I found some in the beds here, standing like a pair of shock-headed sentries between a cortaderia on one side and a tall miscanthus on the other.

Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' in the foreground

The coppery red theme was again in evidence on several of the cultivars of Miscanthus sinensis. Pictured here is M. sinensis 'Little Zebra', a compact form of 'Zebrinus' with the same yellow/green bands on leaves, only reaching a maximum of 1.5 metres in height, rather less than the towering specimens I’m more used to.

Miscanthus 'Little Zebra'

Miscanthus 'Little Zebra'. A great grass for a smaller space

'Gnome' is another shorter cultivar with a reddish flush, although without the banding on the leaves. I wasn’t hugely taken with it – perhaps the 'Little Zebra' had dazzled me.

Miscanthus 'Gnome'. Marginally more attractive than its name would suggest

Making my way towards the end of the borders (quite coincidentally the point nearest to the restaurant) I began to encounter the fountain grasses – mounds of fresh green foliage topped with the most inviting flowers invoking nothing so much as the foxtails which give rise to another of the common names for Pennisetum, the foxtail grass.

The first of these, with its long, tapering flowers in shades of light pink, initially gave rise to some confusion as the only label in close proximity proclaimed Molinia  caeruliea subsp arundinacea 'Zuneigung', and I was fairly sure it wasn’t that. Subsequent confirmation from persons more knowledgeable than myself verified that that this was, as I’d assumed, Pennisetum 'Fairy Tails' (sometimes available as 'Fairy Tales', rather losing the point of the pun in the cultivar name), which fades to tan and beige later in the season, reaching a height of 1.2m.

Pennisetum 'Fairy Tails'

The late flowering Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Moudry' has purplish black flowers, and a shaggier disposition, to the extent that I can’t help being reminded of Dougal from the Magic Roundabout when looking at a largish clump. It’s not unnatractive, though, just a more open, relaxed proposition than 'Fairy Tails'.

Having by this time filled my head with grasses and my memory card with photographs, my stomach was starting to crave similar attention and, as luck would have it, I was within yards of the door to the Conservatory Cafe. Wisley’s rather good at that; no matter where your garden wanderings have taken you, you never seem to be far from an eatery, giving you the perfect opporutnity to ponder the plants you’ve recently been obsessing over while stuffing your face. As clear a case of having your cake and eating it as I can think of.

Neighbourhood watch

“We can offer you a cup of tea in a bit,” said Roger, his eyes twinkling as his wife, Elizabeth, finished his sentence. “But I’m afraid if it comes to a drone attack or a CIA sniper, you’re on your own!”. We were standing in their front garden, discussing a phone conversation Roger had just had with one of their neighbours.


Within two minutes of my arriving at my clients’ property, the phone had rung. It was the American lady who lives opposite; clearly a responsible person, and custodian of a well-developed sense of civic duty.

“Roger, I don’t want to alarm you, but a man with a beard has just gone down the side of your house.”

It was unclear whether, in the mind of the informant, the most sinister thing about this event was the fact that a man had gone down the side of the house, or that this suspicious character was in possession of a beard – an item which, so my client was given to presume, he was wearing on his face in the traditional manner, although it must be admitted this had not been made explicit.

“Well, um...thank you Pamela.” Roger, the politest man you could meet, had made a masterful recovery from the shock of the news. “But I take it that the individual in question is the same chap who has just parked a green land rover on the drive, with his company logo, website and phone number on the sides. It’s Andrew, our gardener. He’s been bringing his beard down the side of the house every fortnight for two and a half years now.”

“Well, just so you know, ” came the reply, unphased. “You can’t be too careful.”

So there you have it. Reader, consider yourselves duly warned; Men with Beards have been seen in your area. Be watchful.

You can’t be too careful.

Sussex Prairie Gardens

This blog entry should really have been posted in September, but I confess I was waylaid by pelargonium cake. And the rest, I’m afraid, is history

It was the big daises that did it. My spur-of-the-moment acquisition of a car boot full of jolly flowers (which you can read about here) had started a minor obsession, and I spent much of September day-dreaming about late season perennials. It’s one thing to start small, buying a few plants of a handful of varieties – this can have quite a transformative effect on a garden in late summer, and one of the most exciting aspects about these plants is that many welcome division, so that in time you can increase your stock, fill your borders and still probably have enough to give away to friends. So I’ve nothing whatsoever against starting small; I can be patient when it comes to my own garden. But that didn’t mean I was without a hankering to see what someone else had had the opportunity to do with perennial planting en masse – great swathes of identical flowers, interwoven with drifts of complementary forms and textures, with generous clumps of ornamental grasses for good measure. Such was the picture in my head, and so I took myself off to Sussex Prairie Gardens, about an hours drive away.



This is the six acre garden created by Paul and Pauline McBride, open to the public throughout the summer. In 2008, around 30,000 plants (of 600 varieties) were planted into curved borders laid out in a design inspired by the spiral pattern of a nautilus shell, with a central spine of neatly clipped, undulating hornbeam hedges. Aside from this single concession to formality, planting is in a naturalistic style, eschewing rigid regularity and mimicking natural plant communities. The borders are deep, wound through with inviting bark paths which encourage the visitor to experience the plants at a more intimate level, rather than standing at a distance and viewing a display, as in a museum. It’s a refreshingly engaging approach with a slight fairytale aspect to it; tall plants towering over you, paths, seating areas and pieces of sculpture emerging unexpectedly round corners – a ‘Secret Garden’ kind of feel to it, but with a very different palette of plants.

Pulling off the main road into a perfectly pleasant but ordinary field where you can park your car, and surrounded by the lush green Sussex countryside, it seems difficult to picture anything other than the  traditional English patchwork of pastoral and arable land existing in this place. But after only a few steps you find yourself deep within rich, multi-layered planting – at once both alien and somehow oddly in keeping with the backdrop of tall oak trees. Quite something to behold, particularly as at this stage you’ve not even got to the entrance.

Layer upon layer, from Echinacea in the foreground to Eupatorium at the back

One you’ve acquired your ticket at the shop (I’d not realised I was visiting an RHS Partner Garden, so suddenly I had more money to spend on cake), you are free to roam the garden, although there’s a gentle suggestion that you plunge into the borders at the large copper letter ‘P’. It seems as good an idea as any, and so I duly did.

The giant ‘P’ conjures an image of a steam-punked version of Vegas, but then perhaps that’s not entirely inappropriate for a garden based on American-style prarie plants. Whatever you make of the scultpure, I particularly liked the planting here. There’s a particularly pleasing intersection between the curve of the grasses on the right and the arc of the Eupratorium on the left, with an inviting path leading onward through the middle, and the effect of the plant combinations is light and airy, suffering from none of the blockiness that can sometimes sneak in when planting in such quantities.

Percy and Penny

Turning the corner I was pleased to find masses of red bistort Persicaria amplexicaulis 'Firedance'. I’m a big persicaria fan, from a small variety like ‘Donald Lowndes’ to something on a much larger scale, as here, although I know many people dislike it due to the leaves supposedly resembling dock. I can’t say that’s something which has ever bothered me. Something that does bother me, however, is the manner in which my brain jumbles up the names of entirely unrelated plants with the same initial letter, often leaving me floundering like an idiot for the correct term, trying to mentally select between Persicaria and Pennisetum (on particularly bad days, Panicum and  Penstemon will get thrown into the mental soup). Perhaps it doesn't help that these are two plants I particularly admire, so it’s nice to see them both in combination here, deep rose pink spires of the bistort rising up behind the wafty flowers of the fountain grass.

These Veronicastrums are another striking plant which I meet fairly early on during my visit. The flowers have just about gone over by the end of September, but they still made for an impressive sight throughout the gardens.

I emerged briefly onto one of the wide grass paths between the borders to be presented with a view of Gaura and Verbena bonariensis. These produce an enchanting and airy combination at a height of about three feet above ground. Sadly closer to the base, they’re rather less attractive, and could do with something less lofty in front to hide the bare ankles.

I’ve clearly missed the best time of year for Allium 'Summer Beauty', seen at the front of this combination, but while the round, lilac flower heads have gone to seed, the plant still performs well throughout late summer and early autumn. Yet another for the wish list. At the top left of this picture behind the white bench, fabulously airy screen dotted with pretty pink marsh-mallow flowers is created by Althaea cannabina, the hemp-leaved hollyhock.

Somewhere in the borders; lost, but loving it

By this time, I was getting decidedly lost within the borders, but rather enjoying the experience.

The tall plant on the right caught my eye with its fantastic dayglo pink and lime green colour scheme. Enquiring as to its identity led to one of the more embarrassing moments of the week – when Pauline told me it was Phytolaccca americana, I found it necessary to ask where it was from. The clue, of course, in the name.

Seed heads of American pokeweed, Phytolacca americana

It’s highly toxic to humans and animals, a fact which, for some reason, didn't surprise me in the least. It would look grand alongside Ricinis communis – perhaps they could form the backbone of a poison border.

Erigeron giganteum rising out of a foaming sea of Sedum

The beautiful, cherry red Sedum matrona at the base of Erigeron giganteum, far larger than the species most of us are used to finding in our garden paths (E. karvinskianus).

A mop head of feathery Miscanthus over a jostling crowd of Echinacea

Yellow is a colour which I always find challenging in the garden – there are certain shades I find unappealing. I can’t stand most daffodils, although I’m considering something like Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' for next year. I’ve even had  a small patch of Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivanti 'Goldsturm' for many years now – although I think this cascading river of orangey yellow here is pushing me to my absolute limit.

I always find it interesting, where possible, to wander away from the garden some distance and look back, just to see how it lies on the land. Here, there’s no escaping the notion that this garden offers a good-natured two fingers up to the landscape, a colourful merry-go-round dropped from space, or perhaps a flying saucer, crash landed in the countryside. Oddly, the cutting garden section which you walk through before reaching the entrance (pictured at the beginning of this post) seems to nestle more comfortably in its space than the main garden.

Parky in places?

There’s also something about the design – with its wide, curving grass paths – which make the place feel less like a garden and more like an attractively laid out public park, where borders are planted for the education of the gardening visitor, and the visual delight of the less horticulturally interested. Perhaps part of this is due to the physical disconnect between the garden and the house, which you can’t see from the garden. As a visitor, I find I’m most at home when in and amongst the plants on the narrow winding paths. Slightly unsettled by all this, I plunge back in. 

On the drive back to Kent, I wonder how my experience of the garden met my initial expectations. While I was admittedly hoping for big daisies, the word ‘prairie’ had conjured in my mind wide stretches of grasses in subltley complementary tones, a gentle breeze rippling through a monochrome tapestry of different forms and textures backlit in the low September sun. Perhaps the odd spot of colour from a patch of stonecrops, sneeze weeds and cone flowers, which would somehow emphasise the patchwork of drabs. What I actually found is clearly an articulation of the new perennial movement – unsurprising when you consider that the creators of the garden worked with Piet Oudolf on a garden in Luxembourg in 2001. If you come expecting this, you’re unlikely to be disappointed. In my current frame of mind, this riotously colourful sweet shop is just what I was craving at the tail end of summer. It’s a fantastic resource for observing the effect of mass planting of different varieties, and one I’m fortunate to have so close to home.

October showers

A brief interlude between downpours in the woodland garden

“Unsettled” is the word the weather folk use to describe the kind of conditions we’re experiencing at the moment, as if the restless sky can’t quite make up its mind; fickle, antsy. We like to know what to expect – “what's the weather going to be like today?” – so we can be prepared, and dress accordingly. Unpredictable conditions somehow offend our sense of propriety, causing us to tut, glancing upwards and ruefully remarking, “it can’t make up it’s mind today”. One moment the world is bathed in golden sunshine, the next, we’re running for cover, struggling back into waterproofs which only a moment ago were too warm to wear. I’ve spent much of the week doing some kind of frenzied gardener’s strip-tease, leaving piles of clothes around the garden, then dashing back to retrieve them when needed. This kind of palaver is frustrating for those of us doomed to wander beneath the sky on two legs, who choose our interchangeable pelts according to what’s going on above. But, down below, the ground welcomes the rain, and it strikes me how much better are our gardens at accepting the vagaries of the weather than their owners. And it’s not just our gardens, but the surrounding landscape which demonstrates a supreme resourcefulness in adapting to conditions; a resourcefulness not always entirely appreciated by the gardener. At least the badgers have stopped digging up the lavender bed in search of juicy earthworms; a new habit they'd developed during the unusually dry September.

This thing – this annoyance we feel during showery weather – comes down to a problem of perception. We consider this weather changeable. But what if it isn’t? We see it shifting back and forth from one state to another. Perhaps instead, it’s in a fixed state of being, and that state is...changeable. If we’re discomforted by the unpredictability of the weather, will we be less so if we predict it will be unpredictable? Rather like the current season, neither quite summer nor yet autumn, we are in transition, somewhere in between, and that is how it is. That, as with most things in life, is how it usually is – somewhere between two things. You’d think we’d get used to it.

Strong winds, sudden downpours and some minor inconvenience with clothing. It’s a small price to pay for the sight of the clouds scudding across the sun and the kind of chill, damp freshness in the air I’ve been longing for all year. And even while these thoughts occur to me, I’m forced to take cover in the land rover from a sudden downpour of particularly biblical fury, rain streaming down my coat and boots and pooling in the footwell. Through the fogged up windscreen, I see a fox loping across the garden, unconcerned, perfectly dressed for the weather. I watch it disappear through the hedgerow into the fields, with something approaching envy.

The national pelargonium collection 2/2

This is the second part of a long blog post. Please click here to read Part 1.

Pelargonium 'Shannon', hybridissed in Califonia by Jay Kapac

Crossing two species results in a species (or primary) hybrid. This category contains two of my absolute favourite pelargoniums, Pelargonium'Shannon', which I’ve waffled on about before (here). It’s quite a relaxed, almost straggly plant, with bright green foliage and small flowers of a colour often described as salmon pink, although I think the pink is a shade or two cooler than that would suggest. The markings in a deeper pink at the base of each petal are quite a feature. A great choice for containers.

Pelargonium 'Ardens'.

Another species hybrid is the very beautiful Pelargonium 'Ardens'. This latter plant, a cross between Pelargonium lobatum and Pelargonium fulgidum, has particularly long flower stems (peduncles), at the end of which are blooms of the richest deep red with brown markings. It’s quite exquisite, the flowers giving the impression of just managing to contain some inner, burning flame. I first came across it only a few months ago in a feature in July’s Gardens Illustrated (no. 211 – worth getting hold of a copy), and was more than delighted to make its acquaintance in person.

The long peduncles of Pelargonium 'Ardens'.

Container planting with P. 'Ardens', Gardens Illustrated no. 211

The next group I was interested to spend some more time was the Stellar, or ‘Five Fingered Zonal’ pelargoniums – I was even fortunate enough  to catch most of these in flower, allowing me to appreicate some of the most interesting petals, in terms of both shape and colour, complementing some superb foliage. There’s something about these plants which I find particularly dynamic; showy, but without (for the most part) wandering beyond the realms of good taste. Do let me know if you agree by leaving a comment below!

Pelargonium 'Aaron West'

Pelargonium 'Aaron West'. This has a striking flower, with long, thin white petals of equal size and distribution, each kinked like a bolt of lightning. A generous flecking of pink along the inner length of each petal completes the look – a sumptuos flower. The foliage has zonal markings and the typically five-fingered palmate form of the stellar pelargoniums.

Pelargonium 'Annsbrook Jupiter'

The petals of Pelargonium 'Annsbrook Jupiter' are neither as long nor as thin as P. 'Aaron West', although the colouring is similar, if a little more subtle with the pink flecking.

Pelargonium 'Vectis Volcano'

For the ultimate in flecking, there is Pelargonium 'Vectis Volcano', whose white petals (two smaller upper, three larger lower) appears to have been treated to a generous dusting with paprika.

Pelargonium 'Miss McKenzie'

But it wasn’t just the flowers that caught my eye here. The leaves of, for example, Pelargonium 'Miss McKenzie' are divided between the lobes, or fingers, to the extent that the fingers seem splayed out in an exaggerated fashion. These are real jazz hands.

Pelargonium 'Lotus Land'

The golden foliage of Pelargonium 'Lotus Land', contrasting with the bright pink of the flowers, reminds me of nothing so much as the leaves of the serenely beautiful Golden full moon maple, Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum'. I can’t help but wonder what they might look like in a planting together – hideous, possibly, and certainly not an authentic combination, but I’ll probably have to try it just to see for myself.

Golden acers in Kazyuyuki Ishihara’s Togenkyo Artisan Garden at Chelsea earlier this yeara

At this point in my visit, I was waylaid by a grouping of plants – the miniature zonal pelargoniums – how fantastic! Pocket sized, perfectly formed zonal pellies, with as great a variety of foliage and flower colour and form as their larger cousins. Growing to no more than 12 cm high, these are the perfect plants for a small window ledge, and so, several more names were added to my now immensely long shopping list of plants for the spring. Here are just a few.

Pelargonium 'Garnet Rosebud'

Pelargonium 'Gwen'

Pelargonium 'Red Spider'

Pelargonium 'Mini Czech'

Tearing myself away from these diminutive delights, I managed to find the area containing the scented-leaved pelargoniums, where ensued much rubbing of foliage and sniffing. The range of aromas includes fresh, minty and eucalpytus, invigorating citruses and rich, and more mellow scents of rose and spices. By this time, my poor nervous system was approaching sensory overload, but I managed to postpone turning into a gibbering wreck for just long enough to take a few more photographs.

Pelargonium 'Chocolate Peppermint'

I found one of the plants on my wish list, Pelargonium 'Chocolate Peppermint', which I recognised by its distinctive, oak-shaped leaves with dark brown central markings. I hadn’t been expecting the individual leaves to be quite so large, however – nor so soft and delicate. Quite a surprise; I’m now even more enthusiastic to add this to my collection, although quite where all these new plants are going to go in my house I’ve yet to work out. We don’t even have window ledges.

Pelargonium 'Annsbrooke Beauty'

This photograph shows a specimen I didn’t have on my list, but as is so often the case, meeting the plant in person gives an entirely different impression, and I have a feeling that the lemon scented 'Annsbrooke Beauty' will soon be coming to stay. There’s something very well matched about the way the bicolour markings on the petals mirror the variagation on the handsome foliage.

Finally, a bench containing some fine ivy-leaved pelargoniums. These trailing plants are fabulous, they flower for an age and the foliage is rich and glossy.

I was particularly taken with the tactile, succulent foliage of 'Flakey', a dwarf trailing variety...

Pelargonium 'Flakey'

...and I will definitely be growing the considerably larger and more vigorous Pelargonium 'Chuan Cho' next year.

Pelargonium 'Chuan Cho'

And that should have been it for this visit. However, even as I was walking back to the car, I couldn’t stop myself from sticking my head into another glasshouse, where I found another two plants which demand to be added to my small collection of dark flowered regals (at present comprising 'Lord Bute', 'Mystery' and 'Regalia Chocolate').

Pelargonium 'Garland'

Pelargonium 'Rimfire'

In all, it was a fascinating few hours spent with some truly wonderful plants, and the opporunity to see such a comprehensive collection is one not to be missed – even if, like me, you leave it till September. I would urge anyone with an interest in this genus to make the trip, especially if you’re in the area anyway visiting Stratford-upon-Avon or one of the many famous gardens in this part of the country (among them Waterperry, Rousham, Kiftsgate, Hidcote and Buscot Park, not to mention the pottery at Whichford). For me, though, the draw of the nursery and the National Pelargonium Collection was sufficient to entice me out of Kentish parts, and I’d like to thank Heather and the staff at Fibrex for accommodating my curiosity, putting up with a nosey visitor and making the trip so worthwhile. I’ll certainly be back next year.