Bramley Apple Week

I’ve just found out that it’s Bramley Apple Week this week. Quite why this should be in February when any half sensible apple tree will be in the middle of a well-earned winter snooze I’ve not the faintest idea, perhaps the autumnal apple harvesting calendar is chock full of national awareness days for other seasonal varieties, and the nation’s favourite cooker had to take the first free spot. Whatever the reason, if you’re lucky enough to have a Bramley apple tree in your garden and were conscientious in storing your harvest, you can still be enjoying the fruits into spring. And if not, there’s always the farmers market or the greengrocer...or even (whisper it!) the supermarket.


We live in the heart of traditional apple country surrounded by hundreds of acres of orchards, although sadly more are being grubbed out each year and in yet more the crop goes unpicked due to low wholesale prices. Which only goes to strengthen the argument for planting apple trees of our own – it’s the perfect Grow Your Own crop for those terminally strapped for time, requiring very little time or attention once planted, and minimal space if a dwarfing rootstock is chosen.

The Bramley apple, or ‘Bramley’s Seedling’ to give the full name, originated in the garden of a Nottinghamshire butcher Matthew Bramley, in 1856 but local nursery owner Henry Merryweather deserves the thanks for developing the fruit commercially. Less sweet and more acidic than dessert apples when picked from the tree, the appley flavour its retained when cooked, while its sugary cousins can become somewhat nondescript to taste. The process of cooking also favours the Bramley’s higher water content, making its texture more succulent than a cooked dessert apple.

A Bramley apple tree in the garden will require two other varieties to pollinate it – any reputable nursery will be able to provide a list of suitable candidates, but it’s worth remembering that insects don’t respect garden boundaries and so any apple trees which your neighbours have may well be suitable for this purpose. And if not, what a great excuse to start your own mini orchard, growing dessert and cooking apples together. Just make sure that the varieties you choose flower at the same time.

For more information, see The Bramley Apple Information Service

The white stuff

Bill’s first brush with the white stuff: I’m sure the garden’s under here somewhere...

Europe shivers, while for us in Kent this weekend brought the long expected snow. Several inches fell on Saturday night, and that would appear to be it for now. After several winters of much worse, this time I think everyone was ready for it.

Having shaken the worst of it off the bamboo (or anything else that might not welcome the sudden extra weight), there’s little else that can be done in the garden while it’s with us. Except, of course, to enjoy it.

Hedging your bets

There are several wise things said concerning he who plants a tree. (Never, you’ll notice, ‘she’ who plants a tree. One can only assume that ‘she’ is off mowing the lawn, weeding the borders, digging the potatoes and pruning the wisteria while ‘he’ has spent the last three hours just digging a big hole, sticking a tree in it and standing back to admire his handy work.) All things considered – excepting the suspect gender bias – the sayings are justified, for a tree is about as wonderful and awe-inspiring a thing as you can get, and to plant one is an act of generosity and hope for the future. But I have to confess to feeling slightly put out that posterity doesn’t seem to have bothered itself with preserving any choice epithets on the subject of they who plant hedges. Because, when all is said and done, what is a hedge apart from rather a lot of trees planted closely together? Of course, an individual plant within a hedge will never grow to the same stature as one of the same species grown as a standard tree – you’d never be able to sit in its shade, build a treehouse in its canopy or hang a swing from its limbs – but that's not the point. A hedge is a living illustration of the thing which is greater than the sum of its parts – it has to be more than a lineup of stunted trees, which sounds horrid, or we wouldn’t bother with the hedge at all.


For centuries hedges have been planted to declare boundaries, control livestock and to mark rights of way, providing wood for fuel, shelter for animals and birds that scurry among their roots or nest in their branches, as well as food for the forager, whether animal or human in form. Their history is inextricably bound to the narrative of our rural past and now, through our gardens, they also have the potential to form a green web that criss-crosses mile upon mile of our urban and suburban landscape, providing the potential for wildlife corridors across entire towns and cities.

But beyond the history and the environmental credentials, what exactly is it about hedges that I like so much? That begs me to defend them over and above all other forms of garden enclosure or boundary material, and plant them wherever I can? Perhaps its the sheer variety available. There are deciduous hedges and evergreen hedges, or mixtures of both, hedges with blossom and hedges with berries, spiky, spiney hedges for security and soft, billowing cloud-pruned hedges for fun. Tight, clipped formal hedges and blousy unruly country hedges which, whether plashed by skillful craftsmen or brutishly mangled with a mechanical flail, never seem to mind and continue growing just as robustly all the same.

Contrasted with the uniformity of a fence there is so much more to delight the eye. Even when the hedge in question consists of multiples of one species, there’s a pleasing variety in tone that makes an experience out of simply gazing along its flank. But why plant just one species, when a hedge can consist of a glorious patchwork of different colours, leaf shapes and textures? While fast-growing hawthorn forms the backbone of many hedgerows, this is often augmented with complementary blackthorn and dog rose, beech and hornbeam, wayfaring tree and spindle to name only a handful. These are readily available online from hedging nurseries within their ‘native hegding’ mixes from as little as a pound per metre. Slightly more formal piebald effects can be achieved with a mixture of evergreen yew and deciduous hornbeam, creating a fresh contrast between the deep green of the yew and the vivid, almost lime-colours of the young hornbeam leaves in spring, turning copper orange to brown over winter.

Hedging costs vary depending on the species chosen and the initial size of the plants, but can be comparable and often cheaper than erecting a fence of cheap panels, and significantly less expensive than a well-constructed closeboard fence. But while the cost of ongoing maintenance needs to be factored in when planning for a fence – which will need periodic weather-proofing to delay the inevitable damage from rot and strong winds – this also needs to be considered with a hedge. At the moment it’s not uncommon to see a hedge in dire need of a short-back-and-sides, although more often than not this will consist of vigorously growing species such as the infamous Leyland cypress. Regular trimming, twice a year, is key to maintaining this kind of hedge. Far better to chose something which exists at a more sedate pace in the first place – the western red cedar Thuja plicata looks nicer, smells better, and grows more slowly than the leylandii which it superficially resembles. Planting a broadleaved hedge, whether deciduous (such as beech) or evergreen (holly or privet) allows greater margin for error when trimming, without the danger of creating unsightly brown patches should you cut back too far beyond the growing points (yew is the only conifer suitable for hedging which can successfully reshoot from old wood).

So given the choice, would I chose a fence or a hedge? Something that’s fit for purpose, good for the soul, and affordable too? I’d opt for the hedge every time.

Something rich and strange

Arrested by the heavy, soporific perfume of the Christmas Box, Sarcococca confusa, as I make my way into the garden today. It reminds me that I had intended to write a post this week on this wonderful addition to the winter garden but was beaten to it by Alys Fowler’s excellent piece in the Guardian.

He who snoozeth, loseth, as someone once wrote; Shakespeare, probably. So I’ll have to be content with uploading a photograph and cutting myself a few fragrant twigs to bring into the house.

In, or out?

A ferocious wind has been blowing for the last few days, strong enough to tear off branches and throw trees to the ground. January doing its best to make an impression, for ordinarily this is a time of year marked by anticlimax – following on as it does from sparkly December and all the excitement of Christmas – cold, dark and grey. And while it’s true that you could spend scarcely a thought for your garden this month and suffer few consequences for the rest of the year, that would be a shame. There is work to be done now, whether outside muffled against the weather, or inside by the fire, marshaling resources for the year to come. This is the time for ordering seeds, for cleaning tools and forcing rhurbarb, sowing sweet peas and planting fruit trees, for moving shrubs and for establishing hedges.

Above all though, this is the time for new resolutions, for planning or – better yet – for dreaming of what the garden will be. You can’t do the planning until you’ve done the dreaming, so you should allow yourself the luxury of indulging your imagination this month. Books or magazines, blogs and articles in the lifestyle section of the weekend papers all provide a wealth of material for inspiration, helping you to picture how you want your garden to be, to look and, just as importantly, to feel, over the months to come.

A good enough excuse, should you want it, for staying indoors.

Battling berberis, bramble and briar

I manage to get myself into a tight spot, wedged between the boundary and three prickly customers, armed with only my wits, a garden fork and a slightly inadequate looking pair of secatueurs. The loppers lie tantalisingly out of reach on the barrow only feet away but separated from me by an impenetrable curtain of spines. Obviously the brambles need to come right out now, and I do my best to cut away the tangle and lever out the stubborn roots from beneath the neighbour’s fence, snapping one of the tines off my fork in the process. The second trusted garden friend I’ve lost in a week. Collateral damage. But no time for regrets now, there’s a job to be done, and decisions to be made. How much to cut from the other two, and when? That’s a thornier issue.

The barberry gets away scot free. It has a pleasing, open shape and there is something about the contrast between its dainty red berries and evil spines which earns it its right to remain unmolested. The rose too escapes unscathed, at least for a few weeks. February is rose pruning time – I have to have something to look forward to after Christmas. I’m conscious that this might be considered too cerebral an approach to winter pruning, surely the one time of year to indulge a testosterone-fueled session of Man Pruning (by which I mean pruning in a typically male manner, not the pruning of men, which is something altogether different). Sexist? Maybe. But I have yet to meet one lady who will charge around a garden with a manic look in her eye, indescriminately hacking away at vegetation, whereas I do know several gentlemen who fall prey to the condition and have to be lured away from their frenzied activity by the promise of a rare steak dinner and a game of rugby on the telly. On occasion, a slash and burn approach is entirely appropriate, but it needs to be dictated by the particular requirements of the garden, the plant in question and time of year. An uninformed approach fails to take into account the phenomenon of some plants’ disposition never to recover from the traumas of a severe disciplinary pruning, while others respond with greatly increased vigour.

I remember one poor cherry tree outside the building where I used to work. Each new year the owner of the office and adjacent house would employ someone to cut every branch and twig to exactly the height of her garden fence, with no consideration for the shape of the tree or where each cut appeared in relation to the buds. The result was a crazy beast of a thing, with massively thick knuckles at head height from which every spring would burst a mass of rampant epicormic shoots several feet high, much to the annoyance of the householder. If only they’d cut it in late summer, before the leaves had fallen, then the energy which the tree would preserve over the winter would have been appropriate to its new, reduced size, rather than to the size it remembered being was when it entered its winter dormancy.

Ideally, a little restraint is caused for, or at least a pause for thought. Before hacking away it helps to find out what it is that you’re about to attack, and how it might react over the next season (the online RHS Plants Selector and several of the organisation’s encyclopedias and manuals contains this helpful information). I’ve come to learn that while enthusiasm for the battle and brute force can play their part in the garden at this time of year — especially in more overgrown areas — it’s really strategy that wins the day when it comes to pruning. Timing is all, because nature has a way of winning over the long game, and it makes life easier with her as an ally rather than a foe.

Above: pruning in the alliteration border.

Digging December

I’m not sure that anyone spends much quality time in their garden during December. Even the keenest of gardeners will find more pressing things to do in the run up to Christmas, and it’s probably no accident that the holidays occur at a time of year when there’s little work to be done outside and the garden can be left largely to its own devices. But for those determined few prepared to contend with claggy lawns and inclement weather, there’s the promise of a calm, quiet space so different from the frenzied maelstrom which too often typifies our experience of the end of the year.

Admittedly, this is not a month when the garden looks its best. Dun grey sogginess rules in the absence of snow or a transforming frost, and those keen on crisp lines and defined edges may need to find something to distract them for a month or two. But December air is crystal clear, and reason enough to get me through the back door, warmly wrapped against the weather and sucking in great lungfuls of the stuff.

And once outside, you can just linger, and breathe, and enjoy the peace, or you can get stuck in. There’s plenty to be doing should the mood take you. Providing the ground is sufficiently soft and not buried under snow the winter months usually find me digging: carving out new borders, renovating old ones, or planting a hedge, something for which I never seem to lose the passion. I have dug our Kentish clay in all weathers and conditions; when the ground has been baked dry and every bone-jarring thrust of the spade reverberates through your body, to when the waterlogged soil has had to be sliced like a thick, stinking jelly. After six years of incorporating compost and manure the structure in our garden is greatly improved, but this year, following a relatively rain-free autumn, the going is pretty good in general. Hand me a spade, a radio and a cup of tea, and I can lose hours in the garden, with only my thoughts and the occasional inquisitive robin for company.

If all this sounds too much like hard work, there is another way to enjoy a spot of festive digging: by watching somebody else do it, preferably from the warmth and comfort of the house, mince pie and glass of something fruity in hand. There’s a strong argument to be made for the vicarious enjoyment of this particular winter sport. Although come boxing day, having been cooped up indoors with the family and after one helping too many of leftover turkey, a lungful of fresh air and an excuse to expend some pent up energies might just hit the spot.

Above: Scenic December dig, preparing the ground for a client’s new box hedge. This trench took a casualty as a stubborn euonymus bent my steel-shanked spade. Perhaps Father Christmas will bring me a new one.

Review: The Ivington Diaries

by Monty Don

Christmas approaches apace, and I thought I’d share with you one of the most inspirational gardening books in my collection. So for those of you be in the enviable position of having already finished your gift shopping, you’ll still have time drop weighty hints suggesting that the course of the festivities will run far more smooth for you having discovered a copy of this excellent book wedged into your stocking on Christmas morning.


Monty Don is probably best known as the main presenter of the BBC’s Gardener’s World, a role to which he made a welcome return this spring after an absence of over two years. The Ivington Diaries is an account of how he has developed his own garden in Herefordshire, from two-acres of open field in 1991 to the beautiful and productive space with which readers of his (several) other books as well as viewers of Gardener’s World will be so familiar.

The book is a handsome object in itself, with its sturdy illustrated boards and purple cloth-bound spine, thick cream paper carrying elegantly typeset copy and photographs of the garden taken by the author. As for the content, quite apart from the depth of knowledge you would expect, Monty Don’s prose is a joy to read for its own sake – he has a facility with language to which many other writers, let alone garden writers, can only aspire. Even were you to have no interest in gardening, you’d be a cold fish indeed to remain unmoved after reading an entry or two.

In one of my favourite passages, he muses on his connection to the soil that he works each day and, through it, to those who worked it before him:

I think about ghosts a lot. They all live underground. When I was a child I knew that both my great-grandfather and grandfather walked beneath the walnut tree. They were a friendly, gentle presence. This garden too is filled with people who have cultivated this tiny, particular piece of land, out of sight but as real to me as the pieces of pottery and footings of buildings I scratch against three feet down in the vegetable garden.

This is a diary of a garden and, as a garden only exists in relationship to those who create, maintain, and use it, there is inevitably an autobiographical element, although those seeking a truly autobiographical account of the author should read the 2004 book The Jewel Garden, which Monty wrote with his wife Sarah. Featured throughout are details of the folk whose lives intersect with the garden, but it is the narrative of the garden which remains the star to the end. It is both a book to read in one go, or a book to dip into just to see what it has to say on any given day – remarkable for the ability to deliver a timely insight pertinent to the world beyond your back door. The purple-spined volume occupies a favoured spot on my bedside table, as its gentle enthusiasm never fails to restore perspective after a frenetic day, or instill hope in what might be achieved tomorrow.

For gardening old hands or for beginners looking for seasonal instruction, for those seeking in-depth detail on the development of an wonderful garden, or merely a very good read, I couldn’t recommend The Ivington Diaries highly enough.

A grey day, with berries

Hips of the dog rose in the morning mist

It’s gloomy outside – the kind of day that words like ‘dank’ and ‘drear’ were invented for. But peering through the nullifying fog that hangs heavy in the air, cancelling out familiar views and making us feel like strangers in our own gardens, something rich and rather magnificent calls for attention. Winking, jewel-like clusters of opulent splendour, fat with food for the birds and creatures who share our autumn gardens, the berries take centre stage at this time of year, bringing colour and joy to our surroundings when all around is fading into winter gloom.


In many a garden the scene is stolen by always reliable pyracanthas and cotoneasters, with their showy displays in fiery oranges, yellows and reds, though there are many other genera to choose from when it comes to stocking the garden with berrying plants. The rowan, or mountain ash Sorbus aucuparia, is a wonderful tree suitable for a small garden. Providing year-round interest with its pinnate leaves which turn a rich red in autumn, its slightly bitter berries are used to make rowan jam, a traditional accompaniment to venison and other gamey dishes. Climbing plants, too, make a valuable contribution to the garden’s berry quota: honeysuckle, bittersweet Celastrus orbiculatus, and of course, ivy, with its understated black fruits nestling amongst the mature, shiny leaves.

If I have a guilty secret to confess to as a gardener, it’s that I’m not as fond of roses as I feel I ought to be – other than at this time of year when most of the leaves have fallen. Now the plants are revealed as thorny skeletons with plump, bright hips: some smooth and long, others large and round as a tomato, as with R. rugosa. Appropriately, Bill seems particularly partial to the fallen hips of the dog rose R. canina that arches over the garden gate and so, having first done a little research to ensure these were harmful to neither man nor hound, I decided to try one myself. No wonder then that people make jam from these. They’re practically ready-made jam: thick, sickly fruity goo – one hip was almost too rich a meal – which explains why our winter garden visitors find them such a rich source of food.

But it is in the hedgerows that my favourite berries lurk. Bright red berries of holly and yew against glossy, dark green foliage, dusky blue sloes on the blackthorn, orange-red gems of the guelder rose and the garish fruits of the winged spindle, whose vivid, pink cruciform capsules split open to reveal bright orange seeds. Now is the time to get out into the garden and make the most of the berries. Before the birds beat you to it.

Yellow berries on the firethorn Pyracantha ‘Soleil D’Or’

Mature ivy plants provide a good habitat in which wildlife can overwinter, as well as berries which are a rich source of food.

Holly, the heraldic symbol for truth, and traditionally a wood for  making bagpipes. But used more often by overwintering birds for food and shelter.

The rowan tree Sorbus aucuparia provides year round interest, including fantastic autumnal shades

Leaf fall

Autumn leaves of the Liquidamber styraciflua at the boathouse, Scotney Castle Gardens

Every season has something to recommend itself, but for me autumn has always taken pride of place. I would love to experience a New England fall, but working in the garden or walking through the countryside here at home, I’m just as content to revel in the sights and smells of a Kentish autumn. I think it’s partly the freshness in the mornings, the smell of damp soil and bonfires, and the almost perceptible sound of the garden sighing after a frenetic summer's growing, drawing all its richness back into the ground as it prepares to muster its energies over the winter – ready to do it all over again next year.

And as the sap slows and nature draws her vitality back inward to hold it close against the winter cold, the trees release their leaves, their days of active service at an end. It’s these same leaves which make autumn for me; practically, as I spend the days coralling them into order with rake and blower, but also emotionally and symbolically since, with their heartwarmingly rich and vivid tapestry, they not so much signify the passing of one season as herald the coming of winter and Christmas; of dozing in front of warm fires and spending time with friends.

We should spare a thought for these leaves. They are the engine rooms of life on this planet, in the absence of which there would be no wood, coal, oil or gas (or plastic, for that matter). Without the ability of these paper-thin wonder structures to harness the energy of the sun – creating the sugars and oxygen on which all life at some point depends – the earth would be a rather dull asteroid of metals and rock. And so whatever your view of autumn leaves, whether as glorious spectacle, or as nuisance chore to be tidied up, be sure you pay the leaf the respect it is due.

And make time, whatever your age, to pull on a pair of boots, find the largest pile of leaves you can, and shuffle happily through them.


PRACTICAL ADVICE

Your essential leaf collecting equipment would be: a gardener.

But if you must do it yourself, you will find a spring tine rake, and a large plastic leaf rake just as invaluable, if not more so, than a petrol leaf blower (and never an electric one, unless you have a very small garden).

Leafmold makes a wonderful soil conditioner, but avoid the temptation to add leaves directly to your compost heap, as they take a good year or more to rot down unless shredded beforehand, either with a lawn mower (which is also a very good way of collecting them off the lawn), or a vacuum/shredder tool. Alternatively, store the collected leaves in special leaf sacks or, failing that, plastic sacks with holes punched in them to allow a good flow of air, which will prevent them turning to soggy, smelly mush. Next season, you will have a wonderful, crumbly leafmold to improve the quality of your soil, or to use within your homemade potting compost.

Magic in the walls

The entrance to the walled gardens

To the splendidly formal but entirely accessible gardens of Penshurst Place this week, which closed for the winter today. The building itself is the closest we have to Hogwarts around here (they recorded the sound of the creaking floorboards in the long gallery here for the Harry Potter soundtrack), but to my mind it’s in the gardens that the real wizardry occurs.

While it’s undoubtedly the magnificence of the house, the hundreds of metres of beautifully clipped yew hedging, the topiary shapes, pools and fountains which create such a sense of history and grandeur, one thing that really touches me about this garden is the superabundance of tree fruit. Not very posh at all. Apple, pear and plum trees are literally everywhere, confined not to an orchard beyond the garden walls or kept in check in a dedicated kitchen garden, but given pride of place – not least along the recently replanted herbaceous border which runs across the centre of the garden. I think it’s this aspect which somehow relates the garden to the land on which it sits; there’s a sense of storybook charm here, with doors cut into hedges leading to wondrous and unexpected garden rooms (one with its own grass amphitheatre and stage!), but it retains a deeply grounded and earthy quality which makes you feel welcome, inviting you to linger.

I’ve always felt there was something enchanting about a walled garden. I think it must be from reading stories as a child of characters pushing through barriers of impenetrable briers, sneaking through ramshackle, heavy wooden doors, and scaling crumbling walls to discover another world beyond. Whatever the cause, I can see myself easily losing hours here gazing at the contrasting textures of the old, red bricks, the fresh leaves of the mature pears trained against them, and the gnarly old trunks of the same trees.

So it seemed appropriate today that we arrived at the height of the Hallowe’en Pumpkin Hunt, the garden full of little people dressed ready for trick or treating this evening – pumpkin number three proving a stinker to find but eventually being located at the foot of a tree in the Stage Garden. There is, slightly incongruously, an adventure playground just inside the gates, but I thought this activity was a great way to get the younger visitors engaged with this magical place at an early age.

The Stage Garden, with the elusive pumpkin number three beneath the tree

The gardens reopen in February 2012, when the new border will be officially unveiled. You can sign up on their website here to be notified of special events, including when the amazing Peony Border will be in full flower. Well worth a visit, and plenty to keep both adults and children spellbound at any time of year.

RHS members get in free.

Steps leading up to the Garden Tower, where interpretation boards tell the history of the gardens

To the side of the Lime Walk, with the outside of the garden wall on the left

First frost

The rudbeckias, staunchly gritting their teeth and smiling through the cold.

I had wandered out with Bill early in the morning, noticed the chill air, but not ventured more than a few steps from the back door in the dark. The penny dropped while I pulled on my boots as a prelude to loading up the Land Rover for Thursday’s gardening round calls. That familiar, rasping noise – absent from the early morning soundscape for months but instantly recognisable as the sound of the neighbours scraping their windscreens. We’d had our first frost of the autumn.

It hadn’t been a severe one. Not harsh enough to worry the Canary Island date palm or the pelargoniums basking in the relative warmth of the courtyard – but sufficient to transform the lawn to a silvery carpet, perfectly complementing the lavender hedge, and to rime the margins of the remaining flowers with a delicate, icy border. The dahlias, very late this year, won’t be putting on much more of a show.

Strangely, in the garden, it’s often not so much the initial frosting which does the damage, as the process of thawing out. Water expands as it melts, and often does so at a rate faster than the frozen plant tissue can regain its usual elasticity. Cell walls within leaves and stems rupture and tear, causing the damage with which we are so familiar: foliage hanging in ragged tatters, buds and leaf margins blackened, and the more sensitive plant material in a general sorry-looking state.

But it’s not all bad. In fact, there is something wonderful about the garden in winter, and nothing quite like a good, hard frost to clear the head, sharpen the senses and open the eyes to the splendour of the colder months. Those of us who have been less than efficient with our autumnal tidying regime should feel no shame at at our failure to consign every last seed head to the bonfire or compost heap – whether out of forward planning, concern for the birds, or just plain lethargy. Now we are rewarded by seeing them in all their sculptural beauty, transformed by the frost into exquisite structures decked with intricate, bejewelled spiderwebs. And who can resist walking across a frozen, crunchy lawn, leaving neat imprints of your boots behind you, in the full knowledge that it's bad for the grass and most definitely not a something you should do? Not me, I’ll be out there every time, more than happy to enjoy the moment and pay the price of a less than perfect sward later.

That said, it’s time to take note. Bring in your houseplants, move tender plants into the conservatory or greenhouse, and wrap up and generally mollycoddle anything with a delicate disposition. There’s rumour of a cold winter coming.

Orchard crate

Delighted recently to receive a commission from a lovely young couple for a wooden box in which to place presents at their wedding reception. Stuart and Nicky were hoping for something with a similar finish to the herb planter I blogged about in June, but in the style of an apple crate or bushel box – quite appropriate for the time of year!

I selected timber reclaimed from old delivery palettes to build the box; once the nails and staples have been removed and the individual pieces planed and sanded, you are left with a perfectly good construction material. All the better, in my book, for being recycled, and into the bargain possessing that worn and distressed air which becomes accentuated by the final coat of coloured wax, bringing out the roughness of the wood grain.

The orchard crate makes a handy box for storage, or to carry things around in the garden. Of course, with the addition of a thick, polythene liner, it would make a great planter for the kitchen garden.

I think I need to build a few for myself.

Note: The holes for the handles were cut using the stick from a Walls Magnum ice cream as a template. I regret to report that said frozen comestible remains unaccounted for.

Deadheading by dusk

October, and while people who ought to know about these things argue over whether or not we were having an Indian Summer (we weren’t, apparently – just a late warm spell), there’s no denying we’ve all been given a late reprieve from autumnal maintenance tasks to enjoy being in our gardens a little longer. Even the supermarkets have been holding back on filling the shelves with Halloween paraphernalia in order to be able to cash in on an unseasonably late weekend of barbequing. It’s been great.


The temperatures having returned to something a little more recognisably Octoberish this week, I find myself engaged in my annual rage against the dying of the light, frantically deadheading everything I can in the vain hope that this will somehow manage to hold off the inevitable approach of winter gloom. Like pruning, deadheading provides a way in which we can influence how a plant grows by working with nature; in this case, a plant’s inbuilt desire to reproduce. Flowers appear, their finery intended not for us, but to attract pollinators (insects, or humming birds, for example – not seen many of these last in Kent), or formed to enable the wind to carry pollen from one flower to another, sometimes over great distances. Once pollinated, the plant sets seed to ensure its precious genetic legacy is maintained. A timely intervention from the gardener, snipping off a spent infloresence, has the effect of prolonging the flowering period as the plant concentrates its energy on creating sufficient seed to give rise to the next generation.

Once the seed is produced, plants tend to feel that their job is done, and either expire (in the case of annuals and biennials), or shut down, overwintering in a state of dormancy until spring (in the case of perennials). No more flowers; and when the asters and the dahlias, the Japanese anemones and the penstemons, and all the rest of the floral rearguard give up the ghost, it is probably time to retreat indoors, light the fire and settle down with a good book and a snifter of something medicinal for the winter.

As it is, I stand defiant among the late summer blooms, flanked by crinkling sunflower heads and the last of the cosmos, shaking my secateurs in impotent fury at the darkening sky.


A note: Apparently the phrase ‘Indian Summer’ has nothing to do with India, but is of transatlantic origin, and had something to do with Native Americans. I heard this on Radio 4’s Today programme, so it must be true.

Do the Right Thing

On the right, the forsythia the spring after we moved in, with our friend Mark expertly logging the ash tree he’s just pollarded.

Someone once said (I think it was the apostle Paul although I’m fairly certain these weren’t his exact words) that it’s all very well knowing what you ought to do, but quite another thing actually doing it, when all you want to do is the exact opposite. I don't recall any stories about the saint being a great horticulturalist, but the notion holds true in the garden too. Over the past few weeks our forsythia hedge has taken on the silhouette of a lunatic banshee’s hairdo, and against my better judgement, I’m struggling to resist the temptation to give the thing a good trim and restore a little order before winter sets in.


We inherited this hedge with the garden, along with some pitifully skeletal borders, a lumpy area of grass with a collapsed greenhouse buried beneath, three large and unruly dog roses, a horizontal, lightning-struck apple tree stubbornly clinging to life, and a substantial plantation of stinging nettles. Not to mention the strange mound at the end of the garden (I’m always slightly wary digging here in case I unearth someone who incurred the displeasure of a previous resident, but so far we’ve found nothing more sinister than house bricks). So this small stretch of hedge, no more than four metres in length, was the cheeriest thing in the garden, especially in spring when it is one of the first things to burst into flower – a vivid splash of golden yellow on arching, leafless stems. At that time of year I can forget the fact that it’s been planted in far too small a space – this relative of the olive tree needs room to flourish – and just enjoy the display. But, on the understanding that it must spend the winter months bereft of foliage in a state of twiggy undress, for the rest of the year I want a nice, well mannered hedge. The problem is that, since forsythia flowers on the previous years growth, the ideal time to give it a good cut back is immediately after flowering: any pruning after about May will reduce the material on which the next year’s floral display depends. I am reluctantly coming to appreciate that, with this plant at least, I cannot have both the spring display, and a tidy, compact hedge. The two things are mutually exclusive.

I know this to be true, but needless to say, continue to snip away far later into the year than I should. I fear this year I have already transgressed – perhaps one afternoon in July – but as I stand in the early evening air, the hedge in question gesticulating at me rudely against the twilight sky, I utter a small prayer for strength, take up my shears, and go and vent my frustrations on the hedgerow on the opposite side of the garden.

Two years and two months later, the same view of the garden as in the first picture, with the hedge now providing a good backdrop to the new planting

Mists and mellow fruitfulness

Thoroughly enjoying several things just now: the slightly chill nip in the air, the mist hanging over the garden and fields in the mornings, the sight of swollen red rose hips in the hedges, the sound of ripe apples dropping off the tree, and the early evening sunshine that comes raking in across the land at a recklessly low angle, creating a fantastic backlit tableau out of any stand of trees or clump of grass that gets in its way. All of which means autumn is coming in, and while I won’t believe it is quite arrived until the leaves turn and the fire is lit, I have a familiar sense of excitement and – is it relief, almost? – that the approaching season brings. Which might be considered odd for a gardener, seeing as the light becomes shorter with each passing day, and the garden appears – on the outside at least – to be winding down for the year. But there’s plenty yet to be done.

September colours

September burnishes the garden with a metallic sheen, and colours so improbable you would think foliage and seed heads had been steeped in some lustrous paint overnight. Acanthus leaves are turning from deep green to their autumn shades of copper and gold, and an arresting combination of the sea holly Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’ against pearlescent maroon honesty is particularly hard to accept for a natural phenomenon. Across the path the flower heads of the tussock grass Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldtau’ nod and in the breeze, catching the evening light as though they've been spun from thin golden wire. Just for a moment it feels like a stage set.

 

Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldtau’

Acanthus leaves with Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

Thinking ahead

Bank Holiday Monday dawns bright and clear in spite of last week’s heavy rain, but I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that the evenings are drawing in with frankly indecent haste. While the arrival of Bill the puppy last weekend has taken a toll on domestic routine, on those occasions I have managed to escape the furry but demanding cuteness for my morning run there’s been a noticeable freshness in the air. Autumn is on its way, and now is a good time start thinking ahead – beyond late summer, beyond even Christmas and the bleakness of winter – about how we want our borders to fill out in spring.

It might seem a bit premature, but a plant grown from seed sown direct into the final flowering position over the next few weeks will have a distinct head start over seeds of the same plant sown in spring. Now, with the memory of this spring still fresh, we’re ideally placed to devise and execute a plan for plugging any gaps which we noticed in our gardens earlier in the year.

The idea is to select seeds – largely, but not exclusively hardy annuals – which when sown will germinate and grow away now, developing sufficiently to survive the onset of winter. Then, shaking off dormancy in spring, their already well-established root system will allow them to romp ahead of plants started in March or April as soon as the growing light allows, attaining a flowering size and sturdiness of structure far greater than their later-sown cousins.

So much for the theory, the fun part comes in choosing what to plant, so I’ve dug out the seeds catalogues – notably Sarah Raven’s, which has a great selection of flowers, vegetables and herb seeds, together with some excellent advice on the accompanying website – and made a shopping list:

1. Ammi majus (Bishop’s Flower) - a lovely cow-parsley like umbellifer that gives clouds of frothy floral interest without too much weighty foliage.

2. Erisimum chieri. Just because the scent of wall flowers always stops me in my tracks and transports me back to the front garden of the North London terrace in which I grew up. Something deep red probably: I like the look of E. chieri ‘Vulcan’.

3. Eschscholzia californica. The Californian poppy, a bright orange, cheerful little edging plant with fern-like foliage. Self-seeds merrily about the place.

4. Scabiosa atropurpurea ‘Black Cat’. A dark purple version of the Pin Cushion flower – small, tight pom-poms on the end of long, thin stems. You could imagine an orchestral percussionist playing a kettle-drum with them. Maybe.

5. Euphorbia oblongata. This perennial has the typical hooded flowers of the euphorbia, in a zingy chartreuse green. Another great filler, fantastic for cutting.

6. Gaura lindheimeri ‘The Bride’. A beautiful, delicate plant which looks amazing in drifts. Shorter than the species, the opening buds cluster along the stems like small, dusky pink butterflies before emerging white. I’ve not grown this from seed before!

7. Calendula officinalis ‘Indian Prince’. Just a cheerful, sunshiney big orange daisy like flower with a black centre. With all the associated herbal properties of the pot marigold, the petals are tasty in salads or to be used as a saffron substitute in cooking. Great for companion planting in the veg garden too, deterring pests on tomatoes and asparagus.

8. Briza maxima. Greater quaking grass, this carries its gentle, nodding flower heads like so many tiny paper lanterns. Great for cutting and drying.

9. Nigella papillosa ‘African Bride’. We have a lovely, pale blue version of Nigella damascena Love-in-the-Mist, but this cultivar looks quite exotic with white petals and black, horned seed pods. I wonder if they’ll hybridise, and if so, whose genes will win out?

10. Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’. Another daisy-like flower. We already have the larger species in a purplish pink, but to grow these lovely perennial cone flowers from seed will be quite something. I find the combination of the tactile stems, the spiky central cone and the apple white petals incredibly beautiful, especially when the flowers are just opening.

Can it really be this simple? Just ten packets of seed at two quid each, and a little work preparing the soil, keeping the weeds off and thinning the seedlings – if nothing else, this will save a fortune compared with buying plants from the nursery next year. My biggest problem is going to be limiting myself to the ten plants I’ve listed!

Laurel, and Hardy Plants

To the utterly charming and most inspiring Marchants Hardy Plants today, a wonderful garden and nursery not far from Lewes in East Sussex. I’d love to give you the exact location but, in spite of printing out instructions from the infernal interweb, we got slightly lost, and spent rather longer getting there than intended.

The small car park was overflowing when we finally arrived, so we pulled up on the roadside just before the entrance, next to an artfully pruned hedge of what I took to be field maple. But what this place specialises in is as fine a selection of home grown herbacious perennials and ornamental grasses as you are likely to find anywhere, and that's what we'd come to see.

Accompanied by the sound of the breeze whispering in two fine willows flanking the entrance to the garden, we descended from a grassy knoll into the beautifully landscaped space, which acts as a showcase for the plants in the nursery. Here inspiration in abundance awaits, from planting combinations suggesting myriad ways in which grasses can be used together with perennials and shrubs, through the soft landscaping of the undulating grassland and creatively shaped hornbeam hedges, to the subtle use of hard landscaping materials. Any questions we had were answered by Graham Gough and his partner, textile designer Lucy Goffin, whose passion and enthusiasm for both plants and garden was clearly evident.

Leaving empty handed was never an option, and we took with us the prettiest, pale pink flowered pelargonium, P. ‘Shannon’ (the stunning, dark maroon flowered P. sidoides was on show but, alas, not on sale this year), and a magnificent willow, Salix purpurea ‘Nancy Saunders’ – all mahogany stems and long, pale, olivey leaves – which I’d spied making a fantastic backdrop to clumps of Stipa gigantea in the garden. Lucy has made the single most creative example of a living willow fence I’ve ever seen from whips of this plant, which we spied as we drove away.

And as for the laurels? I might have missed them, but I’m afraid we didn’t see any. Just a shameless, bad pun to give me a half decent title for a blog post!

Handful

Emma’s Thursday posy, just cut from the garden. Quite a handful, with a knockout scent from a combination of lavender, fennel and sweet peas.

Need to find a better vase, though.