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.

The national pelargonium collection 1/2

To Fibrex Nurseries today, the home of a the national pelargonium collection, which I’ve been intending to visit for some time. It could be argued that it’s a bit late in the year to visit a collection comprising largely summer flowering perennials but, like most people, I’m at the mercy of my diary and today was the first opportunity in a long while that I’ve had to make the trip. To tell the truth, it wasn’t a source of bother to me; I’m such an enthusiastic fan of this particular genus that the foliage and the growth habit of the individual specimens promised to hold as much fascination for me as the flowers – more, if I’m honest.

One of the last orders to go out this year. Fibrex will begin despatching pelargoniums again in March

Fibrex is a family run nursery, nestled in the beautiful Warwickshire countryside. As well as the pelargoniums they are home to the national hedera collection and additionaly specialise in ferns and begonias. Maintaining a strong presence at the horticultural shows run by the RHS and other organisations throughout the year, and a wall in the office entirely covered with awards provides ample testimony to their enviable success and skill. Earlier in the year I’d met Heather Godard-Key at a couple of the RHS shows in London, and we’ve since spoken on twitter. She kindly agreed to show me around the nursery and, within moments of greeting me as I extracted myself from the car, had furnished me with a welcome cup of tea and a slice of pelargonium cake. It might be three and half hours from home, but this alone was worth the journey.

Pellie cake, which was worth the journey in itself

Pelargoniums hail mainly from South Africa, with a few species having been discovered in East Africa, Australia and the Middle East. They were originally classified alongside geraniums, with which they share some features, but due to significant differences* have been considered a distinct genus since the late eighteenth century. Notwithstanding this fact, the general public and even certain seed companies (who really ought to know better) still refer to 'geraniums' when talking of pelargoniums. This is particularly so with the ever-popular zonal varieties, and is one of those things that will make a horticulturalist wince; in fact, a rather dangerous look comes over Heather’s face when our conversation turns to this confusion, and so I choose not to dwell on it.

Heather reminds me that here you only get to refer to 'geraniums' once...

Suffice it to say that there are many pelargonium cultivars, providing an attractive, colourful and easy to grow solution for the garden and conservatory. Often with scented foliage, the majority are tender and evergreen, requiring protection throughout the winter, and as such they make excellent container plants. Cultivars appropriate for many situations fall into useful categories – zonal, regal, angel, stellar, ivy-leaved, scented etc – and the collection is laid out according to these groups, all clearly labelled and with helpful notes to guide the enthusiast through the 2,500 plus plants on show.

With so much to see, I knew before arriving that I had no hope of taking everything in. On this visit, although quite prepared to be waylaid by interesting specimens along the way, I had decided to concentrate on the species section, whilst also indulging my curiosity with the scented leaved and stellar varieties. Here is just a small sample of the wonderful pelargoniums I met today.

Pelargonium triste. Photograph © Heather Godard-Key

Pelargonium triste   Noted for its strong evening scent, this is the earliest species to be brought into cultivation in the seventeenth century. The tactile leaves are hairy and deeply divided, rather like those of a carrot or some other umbelliferous thing. The flowers are variable, dull yellow to purple, though I think this one is rather splendid.

Pelargonium abrotainifolium

Pelargonium abrotainifolium  I was completely won over by these small, highly textured, blue grey leaves and the reddish brown, loosely unkempt stems. Gorgeous dark cerise markings on the white upper petals.

Pelargonium exstipulatum

Pelargonium exstipulatum  Like Pelargonium abrotanifolium above, this shares small, glaucus, kidney-shaped (reniform) leaves with one of my favourites, Pelargonium sidoides, and also with Pelargonium reniforme.

Pelargonium gibbosum

Pelargonium gibbosum  Yellowy, almost green flowers, fabulous! Known as the ‘gouty’ pelargonium due to swollen nodes, which gives it its latin name.

Pelargonium tricuspidatum

Pelargonium tricuspidatum

Pelargonium tricuspidatum  There is so much variety in leaf form amongst these species plants, this one took me by surprise!

Pelargonium glutinosum

Pelargonium glutinosum  Talking of leaves, these are rather handsome ones, albeit sticky. A shrubby pelargonium growing to over a metre tall.

Pelargonium denticulatum

Pelargonium denticulatum  Another large, shrubby plant, with fabulous foliage (also somewhat tacky)! Precisely defined, deeply cut leaves – although another form, Filicifolium, takes it even further.

Before we leave the species, I wanted to share two final discoveries. First, the diminutive, glossy-leaved Pelargonium saxifragoides...

Pelargonium saxifragoides

... and finally, the mother of all ivy-leaved forms, Pelargonium peltatum, named after the peltate (shield shaped) leaves in which the stalk attached towards the centre of the leaf, rather than at the outer margin. It may not be the most attractive trailing pelargonium, but its always interesting to see the parents of the more showy cultivars.

Pelargonium peltatum

Part 2 of  this post can be read here. 

Fibrex Nurseries can be found on the web here, and on Twitter @FibrexNurseries 


*the differences are complex, but as an example, flowers of the genus Geranium will have five equally sized petals, arranged regularly around the centre, and ten fertile stamens, whereas a Pelargonium flower will typically have two larger upper petals, three smaller lower petals, with fewer than ten fertile stamens. Confusingly, the petals of the zonal cultivars, probably the most commonly seen pellie, have been bred to be even in shape, size, and arrangement. Which only goes to show what a minefield taxonomy can be.

Covered in bees*

The alliterative first line of Keats’ ode To Autumn gets bandied about with predicatable regularity at this time of year. And quite rightly too; it may be bordering upon cliché, but were there a more apt, evocative or economic description of the time of year now being ushered in than “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, I’m sure we’d all be using it. But, for the past week or so, it’s the passage at the end of the first stanza that I keep thinking of, those lines that describe the bees making the absolute most of the late-season flowers, drunk on nectar and basking in the late sun before returning to hives dripping with honey after the summer’s generosity.



This mental picture seems particularly apposite just now. The radio tells me we’re enjoying the driest September since 1960, while my ears tell me that the bees are certainly taking advantage of the weather. When out walking Bill in the fields I pass between two ivy-clad columns – heaven only knows what trees are providing the structural support, the climber is all-encompassing and glossy with luxuriant mature foliage, in full flower and cacophanous with all manner of flying insects. I identify wasps, several kinds of bee and hover flies among the cloud of voracious activity, before deciding to retreat to a safer distance. They all look perfectly preoccupied, but the sound is slightly intimidating, and I don’t really fancy hanging around in case the general mood should suddenly change.

Back in the garden, the dahlias continue to romp away in the borders, the asters are coming into flower and, while most of the lavender has now been cut back, there are a few patches which we’ve deliberately left. All of these late flowers seem to be enormously appreciated by the bees, our most welcome neighbours, and in a year when the plight of the bumble bee continues to be a serious concern, their presence in our garden in such enthusiastic crowds is both welcome and encouraging.

We’ve no immediate plans to have hives of our own, happy for the time being to let others do the hard work; it’s far less bothersome to get one’s honey from a jar, rather than a wooden box full of buzzing insects. In the meantime, I’m more than content that while we didn’t set out to plant a ‘bee friendly’ garden, by virtue of that fact that it’s brimming with flowers, that’s exactly what we have.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
and still more, later flowers for the bees
So that they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells. 

from To Autumn by John Keats, 1819

Some bee related links:

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust
Friends of the Earth’s Bee Cause campaign page
The British Beekeepers’ Association

*The title for this post came to mind from a sketch from Eddie Izzard’s Glorious tour. Maybe not Keats, but more belly laughs.

The daily barrow

Imagine if your wheelbarrow could talk. What stories would it have to tell? Mine gets thrown about, wheeled up and down planks and onto heaps and bonfires, and filled with everything from tools to compost, large rocks to loads of sand, steaming horse manure to the windblown petals from the rose garden. As my ever-present companion, I think it’s well placed to be able to give a fairly accurate and detailed account of how I go about the daily business of gardening.



Some time ago I had the idea of supplementing the records I keep of my gardening activity throughout the year by taking pictures of the contents of my wheelbarrow on a regular basis, part of the rationale being that even if I don’t have the time to make a detailed write up, a quickly snatched photograph will act as a useful aide memoire as to what was going on on any particular day. Using the wheelbarrow as the focus around which to capture this information is particularly appropriate as the vast majority of the material I process or work with – and certainly the tools I use – will at some point during the day be placed in the tray of that particularly useful object*. I’ve even started up a fledgling hashtag on Twitter – #thedailybarrow – with the hope of peering into my fellow gardener’s barrows to see what they’ve been getting up to. I’m incurably nosey, so I’ll be giving this another push as I’m determined it should gain some traction in the twittersphere, not content to rest until the internet groans under the weight of thousands of trending pictures depicting mounds of potpourri on wheels.

All of this is intended to be an inclusive activity. It may well be that you’re not fortunate enough to garden every day, but don’t on any account allow that to dissuade you from adopting the discipline I recommend here. Take a photo of your wheelbarrow when you do get the chance to fill it up and, if you feel inclined, tweet it with the hashtag #thedailybarrow. Perhaps your gardening is done in a bijoux courtyard space, a balcony, or even a window sill, where the use of a wheelbarrow would be somewhat restricted. The contents of your trug, or the old yoghurt pot you put your window box clippings in will be just as interesting to share, and just as informative to record. In much the same way as you can gain valuable insight about a person by examining what they choose to throw away, so you can tell what a gardener’s been getting up to by nosing through their wheelbarrow. Of course, one would hope that most of what’s in there will be bound for the compost heap rather than the dustbin, but the principle is valid as far as the analogy goes.

So, whether barrow, trug, or something smaller, why not form a habit of taking a snap of what goes in there – either for your own journaling purposes, or to share with others via #thedailybarrow? It takes very little effort and, if nothing else, it will provide you with the perfect raw materials from which to make a unique calendar for 2016.

* unless it's a day when I’m working in the greenhouse.

Big daisies

Early September; sun-warmed days, cooler nights, and moisty mornings of mists and plants dripping with dew. This is the month when the romantic notion of the gardener you wish to be can collide head-on with the stark reality of the gardener you are. Having occupied myself over the past few months fighting a series of losing battles against foes including greedy molluscs, disappointing compost (I really must sort that out – too much unrotted wood in a lot of the peat free jobbies, locking up all the nitrogen) and a general inability to make the most of limited time, it’s now getting a bit too late in the year for even the most heroic of my efforts to make much difference to this year’s garden. I find myself on the brink of thinking that, with the growth rate now slowing markedly, the most I can hope for is to make the place look a bit tidier and, having concluded that such a dour state of mind is neither helpful nor particularly enjoyable, I opt instead for a course of retail therapy.



To Perryhill Nurseries in Sussex, then, there to buy a cartful of of fabulously cheerful daisies in two and three litre pots, ostensibly to increase the stock and variety of the plants in my borders, but in all truth to perk up the prospect by filling the gaps left by dahlias which fell victim to the combined efforts of winter flooding and the bloody slugs.

My haul included three asters, the purple leaved Aster lateriliflorus 'Lady in Black', the reasonably mildew resistant Aster 'Little Carlow', and the small, gorgeous Aster divaricatus, all of which are tantelisingly bedecked with buds about to burst open. I also couldn’t resist some more echinaceas, especially the wonderful 'Tomato Soup' – just the colour of a bowlful of Heinz – and a few more 'White Swan', whose blooms I find hauntingly beautiful. They’ll be going over soon in time for the asters to step up, but I’ll pull the spent petals off to leave the firm, coppery central bosses of the flower heads, which are worthy of their space in the border once the inital drama of the flowers has passed.

Echinacea 'Tomato Soup', with a hitchhiker

Echinacea purpurea

Echinacea purpurea 'White Swan', soon to be de-petalled

Echinacea flower bud, looking very Sci-Fi

Of course, notwithstanding my uncharacteristically mopey moments earlier, there’s still plenty of exciting stuff to do in the garden. While some plants will soon need to be prepared for overwintering, now is also the time to start planning in earnest for next year’s garden. In practical terms, this mean sorting out my growing mediums and compiling a list of biennials and hardy annuals for autumn sowing. And, it goes without saying, leaving plenty of time for daisy gazing.

Spindle

Summer has burned itself out. The cooler weather, arriving suddenly for what we initially took to be a fleetng stay, appears to be in no great hurry to depart, hanging about the place like an unwelcome guest for the summer hols. Across the country central heating thermostats are clicking into life, woodsheds are beeing restocked, and cardies are being retrieved from the winter section of the wardrobe. While it may not yet be autumn, it surely feels nothing like high summer.

With my greenhouse thermometer revealing temperatures dropping daily to below six degrees (August appears to have mistaken itself for October), it’s little wonder that the plants in our gardens are responding. One of the first to be showing signs of the coming season is the spindle, the leaves of which are adopting an autumnal blush with what must be considered unwarranted alacrity by those who remain staunchly opposed to any mention of summer’s end – of whom there appear to be many.

Our native variety, the common spindle (Euonymus europaeus) favours neutral to lime-rich soils, and was until relatively recently a common sight in hedgerows and woodland margins (it was unceremoniously hoiked out along with miles of hedgerow for the dubious offence of harbouring wheat rust spores, along with barberry Berberis vulgaris, also now rarely seen au naturel). Its wood was valued for its toughness, and used for spindles (presumably for machines, rather than bannisters), and reputedly also for toothpicks, although due to its toxicity I am slightly dubious about this often-cited application.

The spindle’s deep green stems with characteristic striations

Winged protruberances on the stem of the native spindle

A small tree or large shrub of about three metres in both height and width, it’s most notable later in the year, at which time you might be enticed to aproach it by the fiery hues of its autumnal foliage. Once in close proximity, you can’t help but notice the fascinating, four lobed fruits, bright pink capsules splitting to reveal a single bright orange seed. During other seasons the plant is less remarkable from a distance, opposite lance shaped leaves (ovate/oval in the books, but rarely so in my experience, at least on the deciduous species) roughly an inch long a similar deep green to the stems, and small, creamy-green, four-petalled flowers in late spring. The stems themselves are characteristic of the genus, often appearing almost square in cross-section due to the presence of hardened tissue which grows laterally along the length. These corky protrusions are particularly pronounced on the winged spindle Euonymus alatus, also known as or burning bush for the richness of its autumn colour. My first encounter with a spindle was with a form of this variety, Euonymus alatus var. apteris, which I came upon in all its late season glory on one visit to the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle. On my way to the nuttery, I rounded a corner in at the bottom of the rose garden, and had to stand and gaze a while at this tall, fiery orange sentinel, glowing in the low autumnal sunshine against the dark green of the yew hedge. Quite memorable.

Euonymus alatus foliage in the process of turning

Another favourite is Euonymus 'Red Cascade', typically taller and more tree-like in proportions than the more spreading E. alatus, and with spectacular colouring, if less pronounced ‘wings’.

The four-lobed capsule of Euonymus 'Red Cascade'

How odd to think that the same family includes a whole host of evergreen shrubs, referred to pejoratively by some as ‘car park plants’, but recognised those with more sense and less of a stick-up the-bum as reliable, low maintenance plants which are guaranteed to perform in practically any location. Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald Gaiety' and the larger 'Silver Queen' are green and silver stalwarts, while Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald 'n Gold' introduces warmer tones. You may never believe that these could be relatives to the deciduous shrubs mentioned above – until, that is, you see the flowers and fruit.

For the fruit alone, I think it’s a worthy addition to any garden. The autumn colour of the deciduous varieties should be the clincher. Naysayers might point out that they’re reputed to be a host for the black fly that favour broad beans. So... don’t plant them in a hedge around your veg patch. Chances are, you’ll get the black fly anyway, so sow your beans early, and nip out the young tips. But don’t let this deprive you of a great native garden plant.

All parts of the spindle are toxic for humans to a level of discomfort, and rather more toxic to dogs, cats, and horses.

Following my nose

A fragrant day today, ending with perhaps the most olfactorily pleasing compost heap I’ve encountered for some time, piled high with cuttings of lavender and spearmint (Mentha spicata) – quite invigorating, as was the thunderstorm that arrived just as I was finishing up. But the day began twenty foot up a ladder, nose pressed into the foliage of a tall hedge of leyland cypress, deeply inhaling the luxuriant scent of the resin which I will shortly need to go and clean from the blades of my tools. Another smell from childhood, this time one I’ve always loved, ever since my old Da planted a leylandii hedge in the front garden of our north London terrace house. My parents moved from that house a decade ago, but thirty years on that hedge is looking better than ever, which just goes to show. Leylandii has a rotten reputation, but it makes a stormingly good hedge – you just need to remember to cut it, preferably twice a year. And that’s all you have to do – I’m not sure what the fuss is about to be honest. True, many neighbourly disputes have arisen over unruly hedges grown enormous (the leyland cypress, Cupressus x leylandii can grow to over 20 metres tall if left untrimmed), but they just need a little care. A hedge is not a fence, you don’t erect it and then ignore it completely. It is collection of trees, living entities, and as such requires some care. Not a lot – just a spot of periodic trimming. Your toenails would grow pretty out of control if you left neglected to clip them for five years.

‘Oh, but leylandii’s so commonplace’, my lecturer would boom across the labs when doing plant idents. ‘If you must have a coniferous hedge, choose something else. Why not...Thuja?’ Why not indeed? Thuja plicata (Western Red Cedar if you’re buying a greenhouse or a wardrobe made of the stuff) is another cracking plant, also well suited to hedging. Except it’s twice as expensive, establishes less quickly, and from across the garden I’m not sure you’d really notice the difference in something that’s essentially going to be used as a backdrop. Its crushed foliage smells of pear drops, which may or may not be an advantage over leylandii, according to your taste. But then few people buy this kind of hedge for the purpose of sniffing it.*

All this being said, I don’t have a leylandii hedge in my own garden – we planted a strip of mixed native hedging, and use a block of yew (also native) to partition the garden (not that everything in the garden has to be native – it isn’t – I just liked the idea of tying the garden to the surrounding countryside). Which is all very well, and we’re quite pleased with how things are working, hedge-wise. It just doesn’t smell as good.



*If you are into hedge sniffing, then may I recommend Escallonia? Clip this and you’ll be engulfed in a cloud of spiced orange fumes. Just add red wine, and heat gently. Only put the hedge clippers away first.

Plant fever

|Pelargonium 'Mystery'|

Could it be the case that, just as a person’s sense of taste changes over the years – the bitterness of coffee and alcohol becoming more appealing – so one’s sense of smell also undergoes a similar transformation with advancing age? I can only speak for myself, but this seems a reasonable hypothesis. As a child I had a particular dislike for the sent of certain leaves – my youthful nose finding tomatoes and zonal pelargoniums (which we called ‘geraniums’) most offensive. Now, I positively look forward to pinching out the side shoots on my tomato plants, releasing tiny clouds of refreshingly astringent perfume as I nip with finger and thumb – and can’t pass a pelargonium without impulsively reaching to squeeze a leaf to similar effect. But I don't grow tomatoes to sniff them – like any sensible person I grow them because a home grown tomato tastes so much better than a shop bought tomato, whilst bestowing upon the grower the gratification of knowing that you’re eating the fruit of a plant you've raised yourself from seed – knowledge which brings satisfaction and smugness in equal measure. As justifications for growing a particular genus go, that’s pretty uncomplicated. My reasons for growing pelargoniums, on the other hand...well, I’m altogether more suspicious of those.

You can’t eat a pelargonium. Well, that’s not quite true – I’ve recently been taunted with photographs of pelargonium cake, something I’ve yet to sample. But you don't grow them as a fruit, or a vegetable – you grow them for their cheery flowers. Perhaps, too, because the pelargoniums I grew up with made you feel like a green fingered gardening god – almost impossible to kill by neglect, they can cope with dry conditions, being supremely forgiving should you neglect to water them for weeks on end. You accidentally knocked a bit off from over zealous deadheading? No problem! Simply stick the end into some compost and, a few weeks later – hey presto! – a new plant! For as long as I can remember, the unpretentious cheer of zonal pelargoniums has been a fixture of the summer garden – rounded heads of single scarlet flowers, on long, succulent stems, rising from a mound of fleshy, rounded leaves with the characteristic burgundy half-moon markings – all seemingly quite innocent. But then a fancier relative of my familiar, unglamorous companions caught my eye, and that, I’m afraid, was that. A Something seemed to start.

I bought my first fancy pelargonium from Marchants Hardy Pants in East Sussex. It looked nothing like the plants I was used to – long, trailing stems, mid green, parsley like foliage, slightly curled on itself, with soft pink single flowers, each with five petals – two large at the top, three smaller below, the base of each petal with a splash of a deeper pink. I loved this plant, and it kept me company next to my potting bench. Sadly, inexplicably, I failed to give it adequate protection one year and it succumbed to the worst of a cold winter in an unprotected greenhouse, though for now it lives on in the header image on my Twitter page. I will replace it as soon as I find another.

| Pelargonium 'Shannon' |

While at Marchants I also fell in love with a spectacular, delicate plant, Pelargonium sidoides, a species pelargonium. It has smallish, glaucous blue-grey leaves, which are the most perfect foil for the deep maroon flowers held above on long stems, each flower with the same petal arrangement as Shannon, but more delicate in form. Frustratingly, these weren’t for sale at the time, though a few months later I managed to find one in a collection with a silly name at sarahraven.com.

| Pelargonium sidoides |

It came with two regal pelargoniums, 'Lord Bute', which has flowers of deep burgundy, almost black, fringed with a lighter pink, and 'Mystery', a bright, rich red with darker centres. The Regal group of pelargoniums was again new to me – the flowers are much larger and more flamboyant than those of any pelargonium I’d encountered before, though the form of the plant was not so different from the plants whose scent I’d found so unappealing as a boy. The leaves, however, were noticeably different, and here I hope you’ll pardon me for introducing the topic of food again. To my mind, the most sensible way to describe in words the difference between the leaves of a zonal and a regal pelargonium is to use a crisp-based metaphor. If the leaves of the zonal pelargonium are gently rounded, in the style of a normal Walkers potato crisp, then the ridges and scalloped edges of the foliage on a regal pelargonium are more of the McCoy's ridge-cut type. Far more tactile, and quite a novelty to me.

I found the loss of the Shannon rather disheartening and perhaps partly due to this, and also to the inevitably butterfly nature of my mind when it comes to the garden, the newer pelargoniums, whilst not being entirely neglected, were not lavished with quite the attention they deserved. I’ve learnt, for example, that you need to stop these plants (pinch out the growing tips to encourage side branching) if you want bushy specimens – both the regals and the species got a little rangy, although they seemed perfectly happy.

And then, in around May this year, I came across a particularly splendid, dark flowered regal, petals a uniform shade of deep, red-black wine. The owner couldn’t remember the name, but I chanced across a Pelargonium labelled 'Chocolate' while collecting an order of roses from Rumwood Nurseries in Maidstone, which seemed to be the same cultivar, or at least one very similar. I bought two mature, bushy plants in two litre pots, one for the front of the house, one for the back (the one in the front, which gets more sun, and probably a bit less watering, is flowering most exuberantly, though both are healthy).

| A regal Pelargonium labelled 'Chocolate' |

The acquisition of these new plants more or less coincided with Chelsea – time to gaze in wonder at, amongst other things, rank upon rank of pelargoniums in mind-blowing forms and habits and colours. But I didn't add to my collection. Aware of my somewhat flaky record of looking after things-wot-must-live-in-containers, I was wary of introducing yet another potentially dead thing to the garden. Rather to my surprise, my resolve even lasted at Hampton Court, despite having the car with me and being therefore unable to use the excuse of plants getting squashed on the tube and train on the way home. But a week later I gave in, placing my first order on the website of Fibrex Nurseries, who hold the National Pelargonium Collection.

| Pellies in paper |

So barely a week later I found myself eagerly unwrapping a cardboard box which held my precious cargo; seven new pelargoniums, each carefully wrapped and nestled in shredded newspaper. (When you find yourself babbling with enthusiasm about the packaging, before even setting eyes on the contents, I think it’s safe to say that you’re in trouble. This could become a habit.) My latest arrivals are as follows: 'Turkish Coffee' (regal), 'Cy's Sunbust' (scented leaf), 'Lady Plymouth' (scented leaf), 'Creamery' and 'Gladys Weller' (both double zonals), 'Harvard' (ivy-leaved) and 'Snowbright' (stellar).  Within minutes of unpacking they were all potted up and in their new homes – four inside on the kitchen window ledge, three outside in the courtyard. I will post on these individually as they bulk up and come into flower; just now, I’m pulling off any flowers that dare to appear as I’d prefer the plants concentrate their metabolic efforts on growing roots, shoots and leaves. Tough love.

I’m left with the question – what is it that makes some of us slightly obsessive about one genus of plants or another? Is it an evocative smell, a childhood memory, or something more nebulous? Do leave a comment below if you have any answers, I’d love to hear them. As for me and pelargoniums, I think it’s clearly too late to extricate myself from their clutches. Save yourselves if you can. Or better yet, just surrender to it, find a plant you can get ridiculously enthusiastic about, and let it take over. There are far worse habits to have.

This post was written some time ago, since when the pelargonium bug has bitten hard. I’ve been lucky enough to visit the National Collection held by the wonderful Fibrex Nurseries (open to all when not in COVID-related lockdown), and had the pleasure to help their friendly, expert team set up the displays at the RHS Chelsea and Hampton Court Flower Shows. Click on the tag Pelargoniums at the bottom of this post for more pellie-related content.

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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, writer, podcaster, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking this image.

About

Weather? 'tis nobler.

“You gardeners,” someone chided me good-naturedly on Twitter the other day, “you’re always complaining about the weather!”. Which may be one of the most self-evident statements to have been made upon that platform, or any other for that matter, but nonetheless worthy of examination for all that.

I don’t for a moment doubt the accuracy of my tweeting friend’s observation, but interested as to what lies behind the truth of her comment. Is it that the majority of gardeners of her acquaintance (and mine) are British, and British Gardeners, as a subset of the group known as British, exhibit the most obvious traits peculiar to that set (complaining, and talking about the weather)? Or is it more the case that all gardeners complain – or at least regularly comment upon – the weather, a behaviour which coincidentally happens to correspond to a national pastime in one particular part of the world? I’m inclined to believe the latter. Perhaps I’ll be lambasted* for this but I’ll hazard a guess that gardeners in all locations whinge about the weather – we might have good cause in England to kvetch over the fickle nature of the elements, whereas while gardeners in California or Seattle might have more predictable conditions to deal with, I bet they complain about them just as much as we do here.

Set Theory as applied to whinging-about-the-weather

And is it any wonder? Of course it isn’t. We have every right to bore people rigid talking about the weather. We spend far more time out in it than the majority of folk (excluding shepherds, fishermen and navvies – not an exhaustive list), experiencing its changing moods first hand, rather than observing its effects at one remove through double-glazed windows, or from behind the windshield of a car. Those of us who have elected to spend more of our time with plants than with people get the weather thrown in with the deal – the Elements Experience as a bonus package, no two days quite the same, and guaranteed to keep you on your toes. It's part of the joy of working outside (and yes, working in a polytunnel most definitely counts as ‘working outside’), and was one of the factors that attracted me to horticulture in the first place. In a society where we seem to be doing our utmost to build the natural world out of our everyday existence, I count it as a privilege that my place of work sees me baked by the sun, buffeted by the wind or soaked to the skin on a regular basis.

Does this mean I don’t complain? Of course not! Sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s a privilege – notably more so in my case when working beneath a relentless summer’s sun than when my boots are filling with water – but that doesn’t make it any less true. Whatever the weather has thrown at me, I can honestly say I have never once wished to be back behind a desk in an office. When it gets really bad, a shed will do.


* a process which I don’t quite understand but have always imagined has something to do with being basted along with lamb, which sounds quite pleasant, if a little warm.

In the pink

I always think of July as the month where hotter colours start to take over the garden – and this year, it looks like the temperatures are following suit as proper summer weather arrives. But while scarlet zonal pelargoniums and crocosmias are asserting themselves in some areas, I’m easing myself away from the blues, whites and creams of the spring garden via a gentle transition through shades of pink.

To me there are few sights finer than a drift of foxgloves, swaying ever so slightly in the breeze. They multiply readily from seed, which is produced in prodigious quantity, each dried capsule containing hundreds of tiny seeds. Rosettes of furry, broad leaves will form this year, next year, tall spikes of the familiar flowers. Most foxgloves are now browning as the seeds mature and the capsules swell, but a precious few are still in flower. Catch them while you can, and if you’re too late, wave snip off a crispy stem when the pods have split and wave it around under some trees where you’d like a colony to establish. Naturally, they’re rather poisonous.

We used to call fuchsias ‘dancing dollies’ when I grew up, though I’ve no idea how widespread that nickname is. They’re a great, colourful staple of the garden throughout summer and into the autumn, with such variety of colour and habit that there’s bound to be one for any situation, whether you want them trailing from baskets, grown as lollipop-headed standards, or as shrubs in the border. The petals and berries are edible too.

Lacecap hydrangeas are beautiful plants, and perhaps rather more subtle than their mop head cousins. Although I love them both equally, perhaps this makes the lacecaps slightly more versatile in the garden, as the form of the flower is more delicate and less attention seeking. Beautiful, nonetheless. This pink one is in the garden of a client, cultivar detail lost. Perhaps it’s ‘Kardinal’, which can vary in colour from pink through red to reddish mauve depending on the acidity of the soil.

I always used to get Lychnis coronaria – Rose campion – confused with Stachys byzantia, which has similarly furry silver-grey leaves, although the flowers are quite different – a single, deep pink (or white) flower for Lychnis, a short spike of mauve flowers on the Stachys. Both can establish colonies quickly, stachys favouring layering with its lanky stems, while the Rose campion prefers to seed itself about. A wonderful contrast between the cool hues of the foliage and the zingy magenta of the flowers.

What could be pinker than a double flowered pink? Again that contrast between cool, grey-blue foliage and the flower colour, more subtle this time, but just as attractive. Pinks have a wonderful perfume; spicy, almost clove-like.

I have a love-hate relationship with potentillas. The genus has produced some of the most boring and annoying weeds – chief among them creeping cinquefoil – and many of the herbaceous plants flop about with a vengeance, requiring ingenious supports. Some of the flowers, though, are fantastic. The flower of Potentilla nepalensis ‘Miss Willmott’ here, strawberry like foliage out of shot.

I’m starting to see a point to patio roses – or at least, small roses that can be planted at the front of a border, to provide a frothy mass of long lasting colour. As long as they’re disease resistant – can’t be doing with all that spraying and black-spot riddled foliage looks awful. For some reason, it’s even more annoying on a small leaved plant. The David Austin rose ‘Rosemoor’ is a double flowered repeat flowering rose, with a good scent.

Sempervivum’s have the most amazing flowers. These look like they’ve been made from icing, intricately patterned and garnished with silver hundreds and thousands. Who’d expect such delicacy from these humble house leeks?

RHS Hampton Court, 2014

Three hours is no time at all to do justice to an RHS flower show, yet that was all the time I had available this week as I arrived at Hampton Court. Three hours to lose myself in the delights of the Floral Marquee, to visit, photograph and ponder each of the show gardens and to try to avoid my habitual Hampton Court behaviour of getting lost and missing out an entire section. A fool’s errand, and none better qualified to attempt it than I.

The first casualty of my ridiculous schedule was the Floral Marquee, where I could happily have spent the entire day. As it was, I barely managed a couple of laps – having time to congratulate the very splendid Fibrex Nurseries for another double gold medal for their fabulous ferns and pelargoniums, all of which I wanted to buy, and many of which I’m sure I shall. There’s a mixture of fear and excitement when you find people who make a living out of tending, nurturing and selling the things which you crave. Enablers.

Pelargonium sidoides, stunning, delicate, one of my absolute favourites

Just one of the ferns on my wishlist at Fibrex Nurseries

I was also lured by the stand of Trecanna Nursery from Cornwall, who specialise in hardier South African plants – I do love my crocosmias, and they have them aplenty.

The photo really doesn’t do justice to these burnt orange shades

Sadly, a decision had to be made – spend the rest of my allotted time dribbling over other people’s plants, or get out and see the gardens. With something of a wrench, I dragged myself outside to pound the walkways which criss-cross the grounds, propelling myself from the tent into a cacophony of clattering plant trolleys under a brooding sky.

Firstly, just to get them out the way, some of the less successful aspects. I really don’t like to linger on the bad points but there were a few, and blimey, there were some rough edges this year, notably a yew hedge which couldn’t decide if it wanted to be formal or unkempt, and a mass of Stipa tenuisima which had a bad case of bed hair – obviously, Stipa ten can do this, but if you’re going to use it as a key plant, it helps to get it right. Both of these mishaps were in the Your Garden, Your Budget section – formerly the Low Budget, High Impact gardens – but this area also hosted several of my favourite gardens, of which more later.

‘Plastic’ planting – a personal bugbear of mine – was also in evidence in places here as it was in Chelsea. I think it’s excusable on the equipment and furniture stands, although to be fair much of the planting around these is done with pleasing subtlety and complexity. I’ve been trying to identify just what it is that makes me look at a show garden and think, “Hmm. Plastic”. They all have in common a slightly sterile quality – too-perfect foliage – hedges of box and other evergreens with thick, waxy leaf cuticles, plants that look like they’ve just been popped into the ground rather than grown there, earth closing cleanly around the stems with nary a sign of disruption. Of course the plants have just been popped into the ground, but unless you’re creating a bedding scheme – which has its own rules – there’s an illusion that needs to be maintained with a show garden, and some artful scuffing up in places can go a long way.

Planted, or plonked?

I realise that in the same breath I’m complaining about the presence of rough edges as well as the lack of them, but it’s all about the context; in one situation it can suggest a slapdash approach, in other it indicates a certain finesse and accomplishment. I think another common factor with this style concerns the use of colour – planting is often in blocks of the same shade, rather like bedding planting, but with a different selection of plants – cottage garden bulbs and perennials rather than begonias and marigolds. So, rather than a Gertrude Jekyll effect, the impression is vaguely modernist, but with all the straight lines blurred – like a Mondrian left out in the rain. This isn’t a bad thing – it didn’t stop Luciano Giubbilei’s garden winning Best in Show at Chelsea this year – it’s just something I don’t find particularly pleasing or, if I’m honest, subtle. I’m aware though that many people who like a certain sense of order and control might find this style particularly appealing, and I began to wonder if it’s in fact an inescapable approach to the soft landscaping with a certain style of slick, contemporary garden design.

And then I saw this (below) – which I rather liked – and realised it isn’t, as this garden manages to maintain its crisp edges and lines, clear space and sense of contemporary chic, whilst at the same time allowing the planting to portray a vibrant community of plants with both energy and dynamism. I know, I know... it’s just a different style, not necessarily a better one. But I think it’s a more nuanced one, a more interesting one. And I think it’s better.

Picking nits, that central upright on the pergola makes this area really crowded

Then there was the landform area. I’m a big fan of earthworks and landforms, as seen on a large scale in the landscape at Maiden Castle in Dorset or Cissbury Ring in Sussex, and also in the work of Charles Jencks and Kim Wilkie, for example. So I was excited to hear that this aspect of landscape design would be celebrated Hampton Court this year. That said, I’m not convinced the have-a-go, chuck-it-together-in-a-couple-of-days approach really did justice to a practice that lies somewhere between landscaping and sculpture, and one which resonates through the history of the British countryside. It might have been more enlightening to have had one clearly thought out and well-executed example to illustrate how beautiful these forms can be. So on balance, this was a fun area, albeit one with an air of missed opportunity about it.

Enough with the whinging, and on with some of the gardens which I enjoyed.

The Essence of Australia Garden by Jim Fogarty was a knockout garden on the main drag. Forests of blue eucalyptus, grevillia and Ozothamnus erupting from the red earth, bubbling billabongs, a serpentine deck and boulders evocative of a landscape quite different to the rolling hills of Kent that I’m used to. I was particularly keen on the dwarf kangaroo paw, Anigozanthos (yellowish plant just above the deck in the second photo).

I respond well to a garden that provides an immersive experience, and if a show garden can draw you in while you're standing outside of it in the middle of a noisy crowd, then it’s definitely achieved this. I certainly felt this with the Forgotten Folly garden by Lynn Riches and Mark Lippiatt, a shady space where a dilapidated stone structure, stone walls and iron railings were being slowly reclaimed by nature, with foxgloves, scabious, a weeping birch and a young Taxodium distichum, the swamp cypress. There was a shady, damp spot with ferns, a gunnera and white astilbes, and a touch I particularly liked was a little river of ajuga running down between stone blocks. I stood and gazed for some time.

I though that the NSPCC Legacy Garden by Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith was very well realised, with some excellent detailing, historically accurate planting and touching props. But the whole journey-through-time concept doesn’t really work for me as a concept – I find it too self-conscious, yet at the same time constantly referring to something outside of itself which prevents you from being drawn into it. I suppose I want my gardens to be more installation than exhibit.

Transitioning from mid 20th century (left) to 70s (right) at this point

Community gardening in its many guises is a growing phenomenon that's becoming increasingly hard to ignore, and it was good to see this celebrated in the garden designed by Jeni Cairns and Sophie Antonelli, A Space to Connect and Grow. Here they have created a versatile space relying heavily on upcycled materials – industrial looking metalwork, a pergola made from scaffolding boards and poles, a sculptural feature constructed with sawn down oil drums and bicycle wheels, with artwork jostling side-by-side with insect hotels and planters. As well as fulfilling requirements for food production, wildlife conservation, and social gatherings, there’s a performance area too, which was being used to great effect with some very chilled out live music at the time I visited. The garden is an exciting example of what can be achieved through a collaborative project, in this case between the designers, the arts organisation Metal, and the community growing group The Green Backyard. I’m looking forward to seeing how the garden works for the community when it’s taken back home to Peterborough after the show.

Alexandra Froggatt has created a serenely tranquil space with her Garden of Solitude. Quite possibly this is the garden that will lodge most in my memory from this year’s show. It’s a white garden, but not in a Sissinghurst way. There’s a cool, harmonious blend between the limewashed shades of upcycled timber used for the hard landscaping (pergola, deck, walls as well as seating and sculptural elements) and the soft, grey greens of the woodland planting, with a wonderful textured wall of Carex 'Frosted Curls'. The waterfall feature provided a strong ambient soundtrack at a perfect volume and intensity – loud enough to drown out the noises of the city, but still mellow and not so intrusive that you couldn’t hold a hushed conversation. In all an idyllic, peaceful retreat. I loved it.

How did I manage with my mission? True to form, I did get lost, and I did miss out at least two gardens. But not bad for three hours.

More photographs can be seen in the Facebook gallery here.

The reluctant bear’s breeches

I spoke disparagingly about the lack of flower on my acanthus in a recent post. I think I must have shamed it into action – this year it would appear that we are to be favoured with at least one flower spike. This is not quite a unique event in the history of our garden, but in the eight years since we’ve planted the thing it has flowered only twice, and on the first of these occasions it chose to do so in something of a clandestine manner. One late summer’s evening, having all but given up hope for another year, I parted the leaves and peered into the heart of the deep green foliage – the cool, dark shade home to an army of snails who, it seems, prefer the acanthus for the shelter it offers them, rather than for its nutritional value. Nestled modeestly and, it must be said, rather uselessly in the centre of the plant was the shortest inflorescence imaginable, clearly either too shy or too lazy to elevate itself above the foliage in the traditional manner. Hopeless.

Some years ago I found myself at a loose end in the middle of Athens, and whiled the afternoon away in a park not far from Syntagma Square. Here, acanthus romped away like weeds, great drifts of the things in full flower – hardly surprising for a genus so closely identified with its home in the Mediterranean that its leaves became one of the most common motifs to ornament the architecture of the classical period. But while they're clearly in their element in an Athenian recreation ground, there’s nothing particularly Mediterranean about my back garden in Kent. It’s not that the plant is unhappy here – reliably producing an architectural cascade of luxuriant foliage year on year, it may be that it is too happy. Sometimes, a plant needs to be panicked into flowering. With this in mind, I’ve completely neglected this part of the border for several years now, with the exception of weeding and clearing away the spent leaves in late winter; no feeding, no watering. Perhaps it’s the tough love that will yield this year’s flowers. Or perhaps it’s just fluke. That’s the thing about gardening; it’s all very well to make an educated guess. But you’re never quite sure.

The longest day

Red poppies, deep pink valerian and the blue of vipers bugloss against golden grasses

The sun beats down, relentless. Fisherman’s huts rise up through the haze from a layer of shingle which radiates heat with such intensity you could be excused for wondering if the reactors at Dungeness B are simply here as a backup plan. It is the summer solstice, and there is no shade in this place.

Prospect Cottage

Strange to think that Britain’s only designated desert landscape reputedly contains over six hundred species of plants, frequently claimed to be a third of all the plants found in the UK. Whatever the statistics, the real wonder is that such an apparently inhospitable environment can support such biodiversity at all. That’s what makes Derek Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage such a wonder. That singular plot – driftwood sculptures, objets trouvé and stone henges, wind-pruned elders and rings of gorse, embellished by the jewel colours of eschscholzias and marigolds, echiums and valerian – is remarkable for the manner in which it reflects and complements the natural flora of the ness.

Today we don’t even  walk as far as the cottage; parking by the only pub under the shadow of the power station we take the boardwalk to the beach, past the spiralling concrete of the new lighthouse, across the stretch of sea-rounded pebbles, dotted with tough grasses and sea kale Crambe maritima, to find the deep blue-grey sea crashing against the shingle ridges high up the beach. We have yet to experience low tide at Dungeness, or a sunset for that matter, both of which are rumoured to be worth the drive alone. But today is the longest day, the tide is high and sunset is many hours away. We’ll be back another day.

The vivid cornflower blue of Echium vulgare, Vipers Bugloss

Evening in the garden

Paeonia 'Sarah Bernhardt', looking a little ragged, but beautiful nonetheless

The second week of June, and the spell of unseasonably dry and sunny weather continues. The ground is beginning to crack, especially in those spots where I might have skimped a little when mulching. The World Cup has begun, the great British public is getting out white wobbly bits that make you long for more decorous seasons, and there’s nary a drop of rain forecast for the next few days. But if I were to venture an opinion, by far and away the best things about these hot and sunny days are the early mornings, the late evenings and, if you absolutely must be out and about in the middle of the day, the shade. If you’re able to rustle me up a cooling breeze, a swinging chair and a cold beer, that would make things tolerable.

As it is, due either to being mad dog or Englishman – or possibly both – I’ve been working through the warmest parts of the day, and so it’s pleasant to stroll through the garden in the failing light, enjoying the slightly cooler conditions and serenaded by birdsong. The birds seem particularly chatty this evening and, now that presumably most of their broods have hatched, I wonder what it is they have to talk about. Nursery schools, childcare costs, tax credits – next door’s cat...

Floribunda rose 'Harry Edland', in reality a little cooler than here

Some years I worry that my garden suffers a little from the ‘June gap’ – but then I tell myself not to be so silly. True, many of the geraniums are going to seed, as are the aquilegias and the paeonies, and the blackbirds have been getting into all sorts of daft positions on the amelanchier in order to steel the tempting, red berries. It’s a few weeks before the lavender is in full flower and the crocosmia, solidago and anemones won’t bloom till July. The acanthus, true to form, is as luxuriant in foliage as it is wanting in flower. And the sweet peas this year are annoyingly tardy, probably due to being a little thirsty – the soil is cracking particularly badly around the tripods. But  before I’ve gone more than a couple of paces from the back door my nose is telling me where to find the greatest burden of flower this week. Raising my gaze to head height, both the leycesteria and the philadelphus are in full bloom, and the scent from the latter is exquisite; rich vanilla underneath, cut through with a sharper citrus tang. This is one of those scents for which you really have to make time to simply stand, eyes closed, and breathe in through your nose for several, peaceful moments; to hurry by regardless would be worryingly indicative of some deep malaise of the soul. So, I stand and sniff, while Bill looks at me as if concerned I’ve finally lost it. Silly human, he may or may not be thinking. No tail and the worst sense of smell in all nature. Still, he seems to know the best places to find sausages and cheese, so he earns his keep. 

Philadelphus coronarius. I think.

I was unaware until recently that philadelphus is a member of the hydrangea family, appropriate really, as another plant that’s looking particularly wonderful as the evening falls is the oak leaved Hydrangea quercifolia, its delicate white petals just beginning to open on panicles tightly packed with flower heads. I think if anything they’re more lovely just now than when they’re in full bloom.

Hydrangea quercifolia. A great value plant for year-round interest.