RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

May 24, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

Undaunted by lack of ticket or official press pass, your intrepid blogging correspondent infiltrates the gates of the Royal Hospital Chelsea to bring news and photographic images of the glories that lie within, armed only with steel-toed boots, hi-vis jacket and the insatiable appetite for cake that epitomises the horticulturalist at work.

The Chelsea Flower show opened its gates to RHS members today, before welcoming in the general public on Thursday. It’s a great opportunity to see the work of some of the most talented garden designers, immerse yourself in a fabulous variety of plants, and pick the brains of the most expert nursery folk in the country, if not the world. Naturally, I left it too late to buy a ticket. Fortunately for me, this year I’ve been in the extraordinarily privileged position of being involved with with the preparations for not one, but two multi award-winning nurseries, Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants (and Rosemary Hardy’s first show garden) and Fibrex Nurseries, which allowed me access to the site during the build. Having spent another wonderful day surrounded by pelargoniums, laughter and more tea than my bladder could reasonably be expected to contain, I left the Fibrex stand in the Great Pavillion at around six on Sunday evening and headed off to make a round of the show gardens.

Preparing Fibrex Nurseries’ pelargonium display for another Cheslea gold

While you can expect me to be a little biased about the garden I worked on (a post on the background to Rosy’s Forever Freefolk garden here, and, likely as not, more to come), I’ll whisk you through some of my favourite sights, as captured on camera in the failing evening light of the final hours before press day.

Detail from Rosy Hardy’s Forever Freefolk garden for Brewin Dolphin, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 — Detail from Rosy Hardy’s *Forever Freefolk* garden for Brewin Dolphin, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

The Chelsea Barracks Garden by Jo Thompson. A streamlined curving rill runs through grey stone, representing the lost river Westbourne that flows beneath the site of the Chelsea Barracks. This is a modern rose garden, referencing the rose window of the listed Garrison chapel that will be preserved as a focal point in the new development now owned by the Qatari royal family.

Detail from Jo Thompson’s Chelsea Barracks Garden for Qatari Diar, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 — Detail from Jo Thompson’s *Chelsea Barracks Garden* for Qatari Diar, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

The garden blends roses with perennials and biennials, offset by the bronze hued metal of the sleek, sweeping bench seats and the upright pillars which intersect the tall yew hedging. It’s a masterly blend of sleek, contemporary lines and finishes with a very traditional, cottage-garden style planting.

Controversially, this garden features a lawn – a wonderful, circular bowling green-flat stretch of turf*. There’s a lot of rot talked about lawns, and although I don’t hold with chucking chemicals and valuable water at them, while our climate will sustain such useful, restful patches of green space, I’m happy to allow them room in the garden, and pleased to see the odd example at Chelsea. This won a gold medal for Jo and sponsors Qatari Diar, and deservedly so. Well done, judges.

Cleve West has worked his magic again, this time with a garden inspired by Exmoor National Park where he spent his youth. Sunlight filters through the oak woodland canopy onto The M&G Garden, the dappled shade creating the perfect environment for epimediums, ferns and other perennials and grasses that work well on the woodland edge.

Detail from Cleve West’s M&G Garden, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 — Detail from Cleve West’s *M&G Garden*, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

The themes are memory, strength and longevity, but while Dan Pearson’s wonderful homage to Chatsworth at last year’s Chelsea almost conjured you into the Derbyshire countryside, this garden feels much more like a contemporary space inspired by memories of aspects of a specific place.

There’s a central sunken terrace, outward from which radiate stone and gravel paths that wind their way through the woodland glades, past substantial sandstone borders, some with rain-weathered hollows making a de facto bird bath here, a miniature reflecting pool there. It’s a tranquil, energising space, another worthy gold medal winner.

Andy Sturgeon’s garden for The Telegraph also uses monolithic structures, although here the slabs are of bronze-coated steel and arranged in a stylised manner which manages to suggest at once both the bony back plates of a stegosaurus, and a jagged mountain range thrust from the earth in some tumultuous seismic event. Both are intentional, the theme of the garden being the changes wrought upon our planet over geological time and scale.

Detail from Andy Sturgeon’s garden for The Telegraph, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 — Detail from Andy Sturgeon’s garden for *The Telegraph*, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

It’s an awe-inspiring garden, which contrasts the drama of the sculptural elements and the purbeck limestone boulders (some containing fossils) strewn over the site, with a delicacy of touch evident in the semi-arid planting. This latter uses a restricted colour palette – mainly greens and blues with splashes of hotter orange (Digitalis canariensis) and red (the Australian kangaroo paw, Anigozanthus).

The upper story is dominated by a holm oak Quercus ilex, a strawberry tree Arbutus unedo, and the frothy foliage of Schinus molle, the Peruvian pepper tree.

A bridge of smooth limestone crosses the gorge filled with “meltwater”, going some way to inject a touch of domestication to the wildness, but this is still a very dramatic place. I loved the planting, the theatre, and the execution. This year’s Best in Show.

Charlie Albone’s garden for Husqvarna garnered silver gilt for its marriage of lush, European formality with Antipodean colour. Clipped yew hedges, squared pleached hornbeams and stepped box surround a sunken square lawn, through which a path of grey stones travells up and down the levels to a suspended seating area at the rear. A rill rounds the path and lawn, contained within the same bronze/corten steel coloured material that is a feature in so many of the gardens this year. It’s lush, and disciplined, but the perennials in the border in shades of cream, purple and mauve inject an element of chaotic fun, without getting too unruly. More digitalis, also eremurus giving the tall vertical accents in the beds, while alliums and poppies gently jostle with leucadendron and grevillea in a kind of floral equivalent of the Ashes.

Detail from Charlie Albone’s Husqvarna Garden, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 — Detail from Charlie Albone’s *Husqvarna Garden*, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

The Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden by Nick Bailey of Chelsea Physic Garden is a celebration of the laws of logic and maths that underpin life, and are seen to be at work in the natural world. A copper band winds through the garden, etched with mathematical equations. At one point it's a bench, then it becomes a stair rail, then a balustrade atop the roof of the garden structure, overhung with trailing plants. Architctural forms of Aloe polyphylla, Aeonium tabuliforme and yuccas feature prominently, while Pinus sylvestris ‘Watereri’ and Banksia integrifolia lend height to the planting. It's an inspiring, immersive space, with layer upon layer of detail, which importantly (to me, at least) works well as a beautiful garden.

Detail from Nick Bailey’s Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 — Detail from Nick Bailey’s *Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden*, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

James Basson is back with another masterful evocation of the Provencal landscape for L’Occitane. More lavender, rocky terroir and stunted almond trees. You can almost feel the heat baking the stones underfoot – another gold medal for this skillful recreation of a unique landscape.

Detail from James Basson’s L’Occitane Garden, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 — Detail from James Basson’s *L’Occitane* *Garden*, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

I spent several moments during the build admiring the pear stepovers on Jekka McVicar’s Modern Apothecary Garden for St John's Hospice. This is a healing space, with a circular path of pebbles surrounding a thyme and chamomile lawn, in the centre of which stands a water feature. Two benches nestle among the outer beds, packed with medicinal herbs and aromatics, the whole garden bordered by a herbal ley, which is how I shall from this point on be referring to my weed-ridden lawn.

Detail from Jekka McVicar’s Modern Apothecary Garden for St John’s Hospice RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 — Detail from Jekka McVicar’s *Modern Apothecary* *Garden* for St John’s Hospice RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

It’s the kind of intensive, herb-stuffed space I’ve always wanted to grow myself, and not yet managed – most of my herbs living in pots out of reach of the more antisocial activities of Bill the border terrier. I often wonder what kind of havoc he’d cause if let loose at Chelsea.

The light began to fade, and my camera’s meter started to behave oddly, notwithstanding the fact I’d had rather a long day. Just time for a shot of Matthew Wilson’s Garden for Yorkshire, inspired by the East Window of York Minster, in which the perennial planting cleverly echoes the panes of the stained glass.

Detail from Matthew Wilson’s Garden for Yorkshire, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 — Detail from Matthew Wilson’s *Garden for Yorkshire*, RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

Something of a whirlwind trip around the show gardens, but a fantastic opportunity to see them without the crowds, as well as having been on site to witness their progress from soggy patches of muddy ground to fully realised designs. Chelsea 2016 is certainly not one RHS show I’ll be forgetting in a hurry.

* I saw this being cut to shape by a friendly chap, Roger Moore, of Lindum Turf in Yorkshire. I was laughing at him edging the turf with a battery operated angle grinder with cutting wheel attached, when he pointed out that the grass seed sown into and grown on a felt, rather than soil-based substrate. Perfect for show gardens and exhibition stands. Lindum also provide wildflower turf for meadows and green roofs.

Forever Freefolk

May 13, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

In a departure from the norm on this blog, I’m publishing a post about a garden I’ve yet to visit. In this case, there’s an excellent reason – it hasn’t been built yet. Work on Rosy Hardy’s first show garden at Chelsea began last week, and I’m delighted to be part of the team who will be planting it up once the contractors have completed the heavy construction work. Until then, I’m taking the opportunity to find out as much as possible about the design concept, and to hear Rosy’s thoughts on moving out of the Great Pavillion and onto Main Avenue.

Rosy didn’t have to look far when it came to deciding upon a concept for Forever Freefolk, her show garden for Brewin Dolphin at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Inspiration lies all around the award winning nursery which she and husband Rob have been running since first setting it up in their back garden 25 years ago. Located in the heart of the Hampshire countryside and within walking distance of the River Test, today Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants occupies a 13-acre portion of that chalk landscape that stretches from Dorset, across South East England, beneath the Channel to France, and northward into Norfolk.

The inspiration

This is Watership Down country – the local pub in the village of Freefolk has been renamed in honour of the much-loved book by local author Richard Adams – renowned for its rolling green hills, close cropped pastures and crystal clear streams. These chalk streams provide a unique environment, home to iconic species such as otters, water voles, salmon and brown trout, and it's this biodiversity, coupled with the vulnerability of fragile habitats in the most populous region of the country, that has led WWF to a declare that Britain's chalk streams “are our rainforests”, with all the incumbent responsibility that confers upon us for their conservation.

Rosy presents her design for Brewin Dolphin’s sixth RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden to the gardening media

The design

Rosy’s design for the show garden on main avenue references one of the starkest possible outcomes: dried up stream as a result of excessive water extraction represented by an area of gravel planting traversed by stepping stones constructed from flint-filled gabions. There’s certainly an element of cautionary tale, but the garden overall is more a celebration of both the natural landscape and the manner in which we interact with it.

“While the main concept informing the design is the chalk stream, the garden also draws upon the flora of the chalk downlands, our local industrial heritage and its effects on the area,” says Rosy, pointing out how the silver path that meanders through the space represents the metal security thread to be found in the banknotes made from locally milled paper. From one local industry, set up by Huguenot refugee workers in the eighteenth century, to another, and a photograph of a fishermen’s hut from which a raised walkway over the river leads to a series of eel traps.

“This image gave rise not only to the floating aspect of the pathway, but also to the structure that I wanted hovering above the space.” Seeing as this is Chelsea, something a little more high concept than a shed on stilts is called for, so for the design of the structure, Rosy turned again to the chalk bedrock of Hampshire, only this time at a microscopic level. The chalk itself, laid down in the warm, shallow seas over millions of years during the Cretaceous period, is made up of elaborate structures formed from the skeletal remains of microscopic marine plankton, or coccolithophores .

The garden building

The characteristic geometric shape of these tiny fossilised creatures has been used as the basic building block for the frame of the garden building – the ‘Coccosphere’ – an elegant sculpture constructed from cast aluminium.

The 'Coccosphere', newly erected on site at Chelsea

The plants

There are four planting zones in all: shade, dry, damp with part shade and lush damp. Rather than slavishly recreating the planting communities of the calcerous grasslands, Rosy has drawn inspiration from the flora of her local chalk downland landscape, using a palette of soft pastel colours in the dry gravel bed, with deeper, more saturated hues in the wetter zones. Yellow tones will also run through the garden, with plants such as the marsh marigold Caltha palustris and Achillea 'Moonshine' bouncing golden light about.

Of course, this is a perfect opportunity to introduce new hardy perennial cultivars, and four new plants will be making their debut: a compact catmint, Nepeta x faassenii ‘Crystal Cloud’, the white thistle Cirsium rivulare ‘Frosted Magic’, pale blue Veronica ‘Mountain Breeze’ and the appropriately named pink gaura with red foliage, Gaura ‘Rosy Shimmers'.

Gaura ‘Rosy Shimmers' — *Gaura* ‘Rosy Shimmers'

Veronica ‘Mountain Breeze’ — *Veronica* ‘Mountain Breeze’

Cirsium rivulare ‘Frosted Magic’ — *Cirsium rivulare* ‘Frosted Magic’

Nepeta x faassenii ‘Crystal Cloud’ — *Nepeta* x *faassenii* ‘Crystal Cloud’

With such a wealth of information and expertise packed into every element of this garden, it’s hard not to see this project as yet another out working of an impulse to share knowledge and enthusiasm, for both plants the environments in which they thrive. “I love trying to educate people in plants and how they can be used in the garden”, admits Rosy, when I quiz her about this aspect. It’s that passion and generosity of spirit that shines through, and is sure to make this garden one of the highlights of Chelsea 2016.

To stand and stare

April 30, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

April can be a frenetic time in the garden – as soon as light levels and temperatures increase, there’s so much to be done. While it can be tricky to strike a balance between making adequate preparations for later in the season, and stopping for long enough to appreciate the wonders of the moment, it’s worth making the effort.

Truly, I am a deplorable ingrate. At the very moment the world around me erupts into Glorious Technicolor, I – having spent the darker months bemoaning the short winter days in vigorous anticipation of superior vernal levels of illumination – begin to plan for summer. Were you Spring, you could forgive yourself for being a bit miffed.

To an extent this behaviour is inevitable – to garden with any degree of success you need to possess more than a passing awareness of what might by coming up around the corner. There’s no denying this is a busy time of year for the gardener, and so I stride with purpose along the path, flanked by emerging tulips and hydrangeas tentatively unfolding new leaves against the risk of a late frost, blind to all but the list of seeds yet to sow and summer lovelies to pot on in the greenhouse.

A posy of weedy things. Carex pendula (cut the flowers off before they go to seed!) and hybrid bluebells — A posy of weedy things. *Carex pendula* (cut the flowers off before they go to seed!) and hybrid bluebells

I tick off the milestones in the gardening year as they appear in the borders – first snowdrops, winter aconites, then hellebores, epimediums, tulips and so on – an activity in which I receive wholehearted support from the gardening press. And all the while a small voice within wonders whether this relentless acquisition of gardening events might look a little like the kind of compulsive consumerism I like to decry in other areas of modern life. That same voice suggests I might like to linger a while, pause in my busy-ness, and claim back a moment to savour the reappearance of each old friend.

Against this gentle suggestion, the other internal voice, the one that suggests there’s far too much to get done without having to hold a mini fête for every flower, seems rather mean-spirited. I can’t help but recall that half-doggerel couplet by William Henry Davies, one-legged Welsh poet and sometime super-tramp, who spent several years only a mile or so from here:

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

The emerging shoots of Paeonia 'Karl Rosenfeld' — The emerging shoots of *Paeonia* 'Karl Rosenfeld'

Flower buds a few weeks back on Amelanchier larmarckii. Or possibly A. canadensis. Noone really knows, though many like to pretend. — Flower buds a few weeks back on *Amelanchier larmarckii*. Or possibly *A. canadensis.* Noone really knows, though many like to pretend.

The very gorgeous Tulip 'Queen of the Night'. So bist du meiner Tochter nimmermehr. — The very gorgeous Tulip 'Queen of the Night'. *So bist du meiner Tochter nimmermehr*.

Honestly, one of my favourites, for spring colour and summer seed pods. Bog standard Lunaria annua, seed nicked from the gardens of our great friends Mab and Lou Burgess several houses ago. — Honestly, one of my favourites, for spring colour and summer seed pods. Bog standard *Lunaria annua*, seed nicked from the gardens of our great friends Mab and Lou Burgess several houses ago.

Requiem for a lavender hedge

April 14, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

I’ve finally found the resolve to tackle a task I should have grappled with months ago – removing a lavender hedge past its best. But, as it was the very first thing we planted in our blank canvass garden when we moved here ten years ago, I’m allowing myself a little trip down memory lane.

It was the flood that did for it. Two weeks up to your neck in water is a less than pleasant experience for anyone, and when the chilly tide crept towards the house over Christmas two years ago, we wondered whether the lavender would survive the most un-Mediterrannean conditions. After a fashion, it did – but by the time of that damp event, the plants within the double hedge flanking the path were already eight years old, and had suffered a two year period where, busier at work than in the garden, I had foolishly permitted them to grow out of their soft, juvenile curves into lanky adolescence. Thus the lavender, not renowned for its longevity, limped through another couple of years on our heavy soil, looking like some frightful sculpture, twin rows of cadaverous angularity, bleached bones with sparse scatterings of blue-grey hair. Sentimentality can lead to cruel indulgences – I should have administered the coup de grâce last year. It would have been kinder.

Flood water subsiding, but roots still in the drink. Christmas 2013

Ten years isn’t a bad innings. A decade of colour and scent, of sharing our space with delighted bees. That wonderful week in July when the red Crocosmia breaks out and arches over the mauve stripes, that period in late summer where the flowers mingle with the metallic sheen of the Deschampsia in the evening light. The buckets of fresh lavender we cut – far more than we knew what to do with, the smell of bunches drying in the shed, the sweet scent of cuttings on the first bonfire of autumn.

The first planting in the garden of our new home

It’s gone now, grubbed out and waiting for a still evening and a swift blaze. Now I can get into the path edges and weed properly, something that had become increasingly awkward as the hedge lollopped around. Another reason to keep it in neat, disciplined, mounds – very controlled, very British. I’m toying with not replacing it – but I don’t fancy my resolve. I think we might try a different variety – Lavendula angustifolia 'Maillette' was the original, an oil-rich strain with long mid-purple flowers to 7 or 8cm, above grey foliage, growing to an overall height of 60cm – not far off some of the more vigorous x angustifolia, the lavendins. Perhaps we’ll opt for 'Peter Pan', a good 15cm lower, with considerably shorter flowers – it should knit itself into a perfect hedge. A few weeks yet till the nursery starts shipping plants, so time to mull things over. Let’s see if I feel like buying myself a birthday present.

Bill surveys the wreckage in the wake of the hedge being pulled out

Plant shopping

March 31, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

One of the many things I love about my job is that I get to buy an awful lot more plants than would be the case were I buying solely for my own garden. I may not benefit from seeing these plants growing to maturity in the beds and borders at home – at least, that’s not the idea – but it does nevertheless give me the opportunity to indulge in regular bouts of horticultural retail therapy. Tax deductable, to boot. This isn’t the first time I’ve shared with you the contents of my shopping basket through the blog, and it’s reasonable to assume it won’t be the last. Plant porn might be entirely innocent, but it surely seems addictive.

To Hassocks this afternoon, keen to see how Ed and Josie are getting on at Garden Sage now the larger plants are in place (you can read about this new nursery in West Sussex here). I’d been impressed with the display on my first visit, but it’s amazing what a difference the addition of the upper story of mature trees and shrubs makes within the polytunnels! There’s been a fair amount of rejigging, Josie told me, as several of the larger specimens have already been sold and delivered to customers – not bad going for a business in its first month.

But I was here for something considerably more modest. With an eye to the coming season, one of my clients had made mention of lupins – something which simultaneously gladdened my heart and caused a feeling of slight despair – the former as I love both the exuberant flower spikes and the tiers of whorled foliage (particularly when accessorised by a drop of dew at the centre of the palmate leaf), and the latter because the garden in question is the very front line of a battle fought with ravening rabbits, excavating badgers and voracious slugs. Still, if we play it safe in such locations we’d have to put up with a garden of euonymus, choysia and the smellier of the hardy geraniums which even the rabbits won’t touch, and one of the reasons I was brought in was to move away from that. Lupins it is then, even if we have to cage them for the first few weeks, and scatter non-metaldehide slug pellets about (coffee grounds have been suggested as an alternative, which is an excellent idea, although I don’t drink enough of the stuff, and have yet to find a friendly cafe that will donate their leftovers. Watch this space, though.).

I bagged a selection consisting of the white 'Noble Maiden', which I’ve grown before, the pink and white 'The Chatelaine', and blue and white 'The Governor' (surely the London cabbie’s favourite plant). They’re all part of the 'Band of Nobles' series of Lupinus x russelli, bred by lupin supremo George Russell in the middle of the last century and possessing the RHS Award of Garden Merit. Nurse them through the early vulnerable stages by keeping the beasties at bay, and you’ll be rewarded with an impressive presence in the border, reaching 90 to 120 cm in height.

The lupins were the reason for my shopping trip. But, of course, I was waylaid but something else, and couldn't avoid taking home with me these beautiful hellebores. Helleborus x sternii - creamy green flowers with a grape red blush to the back of the petals, quite breathtaking in groups, though to be honest these three will probably be split up and integrated into mixed hellebore plantings in different sites, even though it's tempting to keep them for myself!

Helleborus x sternii — *Helleborus* x *sternii*

And finally, as I was about to leave, Ed thrust this spectacular trillium at me as a ‘thank you’ for helping unload the big Italian plant order a few weeks back. Fair payment indeed. This is Trilium kurabayashi 'Ruby Realm' – a very Ed plant, hailing as it does from Oregon, where Mr Nugent spent part of his horticultural apprenticeship. My biggest concern is keeping the plant slug and snail free while it gains the necessary strength to see of the hungry blighters. I’d best get on to the local coffee houses.

Top ten gardening tools for the new gardener

March 15, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

I’ve often been asked what should be in a newbie gardener’s toolkit. The first time the question was posed I was slightly taken aback – surely this is obvious? But it’s all too easy to take knowledge acquired over many years for granted, and to underestimate how bewildering the vasty array of gizmos and doodahs available online and in garden centres can be to the first time garden owner or allotment holder. Here’s my list of the top ten gardening tools that no gardener should be without, with explanations of what each tool does, and suggestions as to where you might acquire them.

This post contains affiliate links, meaning any product bought through a link on this page earns me money which will be spent on cake and gin.

The early stages of any new hobby often concerned with the acquisition of various accoutrements. You wouldn’t begin golfing without getting hold of a bag of whacking sticks and, similarly, the novice skier must first invest in a Michelin Man costume and those long things you wear on your feet. Often, the interest doesn’t get much further than this early phase of equipment gathering; I have a set of draining rods gathering dust in a corner of a shed somewhere, but, other than a half-hearted session every other year when the toilet flush is a bit sluggish, I’ve never really got into it as a pastime.

That said, I have built up a large collection of gardening tools over the years, and my sheds are bursting with many useful pieces of equipment, as well as several that are more ornamental than functional. But the following tools, in approximate order of priority, are the absolute essentials, which are loaded into my barrow at the beginning of every day.

A note about the suggested tools on the affiliate links. These are the tools I use on a daily basis – nothing particularly fancy, but not the budget end of the market either as, being a jobbing gardener, I need my kit to be fairly resilient. For more occasional use at a lower price point, you might like to have a look at Sara Venn’s blog post on the recently released range of gardening tools from Poundland.

1) secateurs, for lighter pruning and cutting small stems up to 15mm thick. Sometimes called “hand pruners”, this is a two-handled sprung tool that you operate with your stronger hand, essential for harvesting flowers and vegetables, deadheading, and pruning everything from roses to fruit trees. I prefer the bypass type, which has a pair of blades that cut with a scissor action, rather than the anvil type – a single blade and an anvil (think kitchen knife and chopping board) –which I find have a tendency to mash the stems.

Many people will be familiar with the red plastic-coated handles of the leading, Swiss made Felco brand, although the Japanese Okatsune pruners (available from niwaki.com) are gaining popularity in the UK for their simplicity and the excellent quality of their steel blades. Neither make is particularly cheap – you’re looking at forty quid and up. There are however many copies, particularly of the traditional bypass type, which are perfectly serviceable and a fraction of the price. I’m a sucker for ‘heritage’ marketing, so this pair with rosewood handles from Draper appeals.

2) hand fork, for weeding. There was a discussion a while back on social media over who favoured and hand fork over a trowel as their go-to everyday tool. As I’m rarely without either hand fork or secateurs in my hand, I was surprised to see so many votes for the trowel. At the time I surmised that those who preferred the fork, like me, were working heavier soils than the group who habitually reached for the trowel.

There’s nothing quite so handy as a hand fork for speedy removal of small to medium sized weeds without churning the surrounding area up, and the individual tines are perfect for winkling in among the roots of, for example wood avens or creeping buttercup, before levering the offending plant out. With the passage of time, I’ve simply returned to my original conclusion that members of the trowel brigade are simply bonkers, unless digging small planting holes occupies the vast majority of their time in the garden. Or they’re unusually adept at, say, knitting with a pair of spoons.

3) small border fork, for weeding/ turning and tickling the soil. This is a long handled fork you use in a standing position, like a spade, about two-thirds the size of a regular garden fork. I used to use the larger, heavier version on a daily basis until a session of prolonged and energetic forking gave me tennis elbow, costing me several visits to the osteopath and weeks of discomfort. This compact size is also perfect for getting in among the plants in a tightly packed herbaceous border.

My second best border fork, presently in a state of semi-retirement. Does a splendid job, in spite of the bent tines.

A fork made from drop-forged steel is heavier and thicker, but less likely to bend. Stainless steel tends to be lighter, and better for use in damp heavy soils, but bends easily. I use stainless, and accept bent tines and a fairly regular replacement cycle as an occupational hazard.

4) rake. There are several kinds of rake for slightly different uses. I find a large plastic leaf rake invaluable as it helps me to tidy the area where I’ve been working quickly, as well as being invaluable in autumn and winter when the trees are dropping their leaves (remember, evergreens drop leaves all year round!).

I spend a lot of time with this tool, and experience has taught me I need one as big and as light as I can find. I use the Fiskars Large Light Lawn Rake, which fits the bill perfectly.

5) folding pruning saw, for cutting thicker stems than the loppers when pruning large shrubs or trees.

Most pruning saws have their teeth arranged so that they only cut on the pull stroke. Mine cuts on both push and pull strokes, is small and exceedingly sharp, and replacement blades are easy to come by. And a manly grey/black version of it is used by Ray Mears as a survival/woodcraft tool, so there’s a recommendation for you.

6) loppers, for cutting stems thicker than the secateurs can manage.

A pair with telescopic arms and a ratchet head is very useful, to increase your reach and reduce the force you need when cutting through thick branches to about 45-50mm in diameter.

7) spade, for large planting holes and for serious digging, for example stubborn, tap-rooted weeds like hogweed, or for moving established shrubs with a large rootball. There are many permutations of spade, encompassing everything from the material used for the blade to the shape of the handle.

I used to abuse spades horribly, snapping countless handles by using them to lever out large shrubs – you should never use a spade to lever out a stubborn shrub or tree. That’s what mattocks, with their thick, strong pick-axe handles, were invented for. Or Land Rovers – having spent days excavating around a very stubborn japanese spindle, I did once resort to using the Defender to finally persuade the roots from the ground. When I used to occupy myself over winter single- and double-digging new borders, I swore by my treaded digging spade from Bulldog Tools, whose all-metal construction resisted my abuse for several years, until one day it too succumbed and creased where the blade met the shaft. Now, I use a light, traditional looking spade with a stainless steel blade and ash handle. And I treat it kindly.

8) hoe, for quickly putting an end to emerging weed seedlings.

As soon as the soil is dry enough in spring, you can run the blade of a dutch hoe just below the surface, severing the weeds from their roots, and leaving them to shrivel on the surface of the soil, into which they’ll rot down. Persistant weeds will need repeated hoeing, but it’s surprising just how large an area can be covered in a few minutes. Used regularly, this can transform a weedy plot with very little effort. The relatively small size of the head makes this tool ideal for weeding between rows on the allotment, although care needs to be taken if you’re not to slice through your precious vegetables as well as the weeds.

9) plastic tubtrugs. I carry my hand tools in a small tubtrug, and use the medium size for for dumping weeds into, or for transporting divided plants to their new locations, or gathering up windfall apples in autumn. Absolutely invaluable wherever I am in the garden.

10) hand trowel, for smaller planting holes.

It’s been quite a challenge keeping the list down to just ten tools. I’ve not, for example, included the wheelbarrow I mentioned. Mine is made with a plastic/ABS tray, the metals ones being too heavy and not usually big enough. I’d also recommend a barrow with a pneumatic tyre, which cushions the load and relieves some of the vibration transferred through to your arms, back and shoulders when pushing a heavily laden barrow about.

The list is also appropriate to the kind of gardening I do on a daily basis. If you’re gardening primarily on an allotment or the veg patch at home, you’d probably want to swap out the loppers at no. 6 for a traditional garden rake that will help you get a nice, level and crumbly surface to your soil (called a tilth by those in the know) into which you can sow your seeds.

This is my essential kit, but of course for every job in the garden there are supplementary tools to make the job easier. For vegetable beds I’ve already mentioned the soil rake, but I’d find it worthwhile to keep a smaller onion hoe, and an azada spade or a mattock. For hedges I’d be lost without at least a pair of hand shears, if not a petrol hedge trimmer. While I might get away with adding just a patio knife and a long handled wire brush for paths, who could maintain a lawn without at least a mower, a strimmer, a pair of edging shears, a half-moon iron and a spring-tined rake? And for every kind of garden, a leaf blower for the finishing touches, and a set of old boards from which you can work in wetter weather without damaging the soil.

If you’re new to gardening, I hope you find this list useful. And if you’re an old hand, let me know if your list of top ten gardening tools differs from mine.

The Garden Sage

March 9, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

Last weekend, Ed and Josie Nugent turned a long-held dream into reality with the launch of Garden Sage Nurseries, a new nursery in Hassocks, East Sussex. I may have missed the grand opening, but I was keen to visit, and they soon had me lending a hand.

A new horticultural venture is a cause for celebration in itself, but doubly so when you happen to know that the venture in question has been rattling around inside your friend’s head for some time. Ed had mentioned Garden Sage to me in passing several years ago, initially as an idea for a service offering gardening advice and assistance that would be flexible enough to allow Josie to work it around caring for their young family, with Ed helping out whenever his duties as plant manager for a local garden centre would allow. That the concept has touched down as a fully fledged nursery in its own right comes as no surprise when you consider the couple’s combined 42 plus years of experience, Ed’s spent latterly in horticultural retail, and Josie's as a landscape gardener in London, and then senior gardener at the National Trust’s Scotney Castle in Kent.

Ed unloading a delivery of trees and shrubs

I arrived just in time to witness the unloading of a huge lorry full of mature trees and shrubs. Not your run of the mill stuff either, beautiful Malus 'Evereste', huge pleached hornbeams, and shapely standard wisterias, to name but three. Ed’s honed his eye for fabulous topiary and expertly-trained trees over the years as he’s visited many a European grower, so it should be no surprise to see such wonders arriving here, though it might seem wondrous to some to encounter specimens of this quality on a commercial unit off the A293. Just one more reason to visit.

Josie and Ed will deliver these monster plants to your address, but there’s plenty of smaller fare should you want to drive away with something for your garden. As the temperature steadily rises over the coming weeks, the scent of sarcococcas will be replaced by the fragrance wafting from the benches of Mediterranean subshrubs, the lavenders, rosemarys, but if you’re after something a little different, you could snag yourself some Antipodean charm with Grevillea victoriae, a tough, low maintenance relative of the proteas, with silver-grey leaves, and clusters of red flowers in summer. “It’s a great one for catching out my students on plant IDs” says Ed. “The leaves look a bit like brachyglottis/senecio, but then you get these crazy red flowers.”

Silver grey leaves of Grevillea victoriae — Silver grey leaves of *Grevillea victoriae*

Benches of lavenders and Mediterranean subshrubs

Back outside, where the shrubs share a space with the larger trees and trained fruit, I spied another ideal plant for bringing some colour to the back garden. Very probably we’re all a bit tired of that landscaper’s favourite, Photinia x fraseri 'Red Robin', but it's smaller cousin, 'Little Red Robin', is relatively unused and, to my mind at least, presents a far more charming prospect.

Photinia x fraseri 'Little Red Robin' with it’s red flushed new growth — *Photinia* x *fraseri* 'Little Red Robin' with it’s red flushed new growth

Growing to no more than 3 feet in height, it exhibits the same flame red colouring on the new leaves as its larger relation, but the foliage as well as the plant, is much more compact and delicate. It will tolerate hard clipping, ideal for a hedge, or even topiary. I’m desperate to see it planted somewhere with Nandina 'Flirt', so desperate that I’ll probably have to do it myself, just as soon as I can find an appropriate location for a black, dark green and red colour scheme.

Ed explains to me how he and Josie are aiming to create a nursery with a difference. “So often, when you succeed in tracking down something a little out of the ordinary, you come home with a couple of sticks in a 9cm pot, but you often need a fair bit of skill and know-how to nurture a plant at that stage through to maturity. We want to present customers with interesting plants that they may not have come across, but in more usable sizes, to give what they buy the best chance of survival.” Presumably, then, this means there are plans to do a lot of growing on. “Absolutely. I’m in the process of assembling a rather posh Cambridge glasshouse for that purpose, and we have the option to expand into the tunnels behind the current nursery plot. Eventually at least fifty percent of the stock will be grown on site.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly given Ed’s background, there’s a real understanding of the retail experience here, no more so in evidence than in cafe space, where you can find the most excellent coffee. Here customers will be able to take a break, mull over their prospective plant purchases and discuss their gardening requirements with Josie or Ed in a comfortable setting. “We also wanted to provide a space in which landscapers and designers would feel happy to bring their clients, where they could discuss their plans with the plants in front of them, and where we’d be on hand should they want to talk through alternative solutions, or the finer points of sourcing something particularly special.”

It’s early days yet, but you can feel the excitement in the air at The Garden Sage. I drove out of the car park feeling energised with a huge smile on my face – which may have been attributable to the triple espresso I’d had from the coffee maker. But I think it’s more likely a result of seeing a gardening dream become a reality, and the prospect of everything to come.

A cheery sign greeting the first customers

Having bought from Ed many times over the years, I can testify that his stock is always in tip top condition

Garden Sage
Allwoods
London Road
Hassocks, BN6 9NA

Opening hours
Mon - Sat: 8:00am - 5:00pm
Sun: 11:00am - 5:00pm

gardensage.co.uk

Gardening in the jeans

February 29, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

When your job is a physical one, the clothes you wear become more than a fashion statement – they’re part of your toolkit, and need to be up to the task. At the same time, whatever you habitually wear as a jobbing gardener becomes in effect your uniform – a part of your identity, and questions such as which material to choose for your trousers can go from minor niggle to major frustration.

Preparing the way

February 18, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

With the days drawing out and the light levels gradually intensifying – by contrast making the dull days seem even gloomier – there’s plenty to be done in the garden now in preparation for the season ahead.

Time to break out the big guns. Well...saw.

Mid February in the garden and, while there might not be much actual growing to be done, there’s an awful lot of preparation that can be gotten on with. Not to mention purposeful striding about to be undertaken, all the while gesticulating grandly towards nothing in particular, and declaiming vastly overambitious visions of glory for neglected corners of the garden.

I have washed pots, culled old, worn pots and bought in replacements, tidied the greenhouse (after a fashion – doesn’t bear close scrutiny), and finally managed to get some heat into the structure by way of a vastly over-priced paraffin heater which, for all I can fathom, has been manufactured from a couple of old biscuit tins, but seems to do the job admirably.

I’d read one terrible review after another for this type of apparatus, mostly from people who had returned to the greenhouse following the first night’s use only to find the entire place covered in thick black soot. A growing suspicion formed that the people who write these reviews can only be muppets of the highest order, who’ve failed to read the instructions and either left the wicks too long or allowed the heater to run out of fuel.

In spite of costing an arm and a leg for a bit of old tin, this little greehouse heater seems to be doing the job admirably

So far, everything’s working perfectly – and I’m pleased to have got the greenhouse to a reasonably snug and frost free state before seed sowing starts in earnest, if a little too late for several more delicate pelargoniums. (As an aside, the holders of the National Collection of Pelargoniums – the lovely people at Fibrex Nurseries – have ‘jokingly’ refused to sell me any more plants until I sort out my regime of annually culling my tender pellies over winter. At least, I think it was a joke.)

I’ve also decided to introduce some raised beds into the veg patch. My reasons are practical, rather than horticultural – chiefly that it allows me to elevate crops above small dog level, which will put an end to the thankless task of trying to chase Bill off the lettuces, his contribution to our kitchen garden adding an unwelcome piquancy to the salad dressing. Having taken the opportunity to add some timber-edged bark paths around the beds, this should drastically cut down on the amount of time we spend either weeding this part of the garden, or bemoaning the fact that it needs weeding. I’ll have to top up the bark on a reasonably regular basis – it decomposes fairly quickly, and inevitably gets mud trodden into it – but that’s a price I’m willing to pay for convenience.

Stapling in the weed control fabric to the timber path edging. I’d’ve preferred thick black polythene as it’s a bit more rugged, but this was to hand and will do the job for now.

I’d been mulling the whole raised bed idea over for a week or so, when I came across further inspiration from Naomi Schillinger’s blog Out of My Shed. The sight of Naomi’s posh COR-TEN steel edging gave me raised-bed envy, and I have to admit I was sorely tempted. But I also rather like banging about with bits of wood in the shed and, since I’m also not very good at waiting about once I’ve finally decided upon a course of action, I took myself off to the local timber yard, strapped 12 three metre gravel boards precariously to the roof of the land rover, and drove cautiously home. The boards are pre-treated with a preservative called Tanalith E, which the Soil Association are happy to approve for materials used in the construction of organic veg beds (as long as the material is pre-treated, renewed applications of the preservative would have implications for organic status).

I’m intending to line the inside of the timber walls with black polythene, which should give an extra level of protection, both to the timber, and to our crops.

The process of filling the beds – pencilled in for the weekend – will have the double advantage of distracting me from sowing seeds far too early, whilst simultaneously providing a useful home for the various piles of soil heaped around the garden. Sometimes the place feels more like a bronze age burial site than anything else, though to date no dig here has yielded treasure more valuable than a few old bricks and the occasional Bakelite switch. While I’m about it, I can also add in the contents of the compost heap and the two Bokashi bins we banished months ago to the courtyard beyond the back door, for offences to olfactory decency. Lucky, lucky veg.

All of which activity feels revoltingly timely. Which is just as well – spring is on its way, and by then any feeling of being on top of things in the garden will be a distant memory.

Shopping for seeds

February 10, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of growing the plants from your garden from seed. The only trouble is, at this time of year I’ve a tendancy to overestimate the size of my greenhouse whilst underestimating the amount of time and effort that will be involved. Still, I like to think I’m doing my bit to keep the horticultural economy ticking over.

We gardeners are spoilt creatures. There are so many ways for us for us to get our kicks. Take the business of acquiring new plants, for example. There’s the sheer delight of wandering through a plant show, reveling in the variety and quality of the wares on display, and returning home with a pot or two (or three) containing those beautiful, expertly grown specimens that simply refused to be left behind. Then there’s the joy of the unexpected gift from a green-fingered friend – when you just happened to admire her fancy Aquilegias within earshot – freshly dug from the garden, plunged into whatever container comes first to hand, and thrust into your arms with a generosity and kindness for which your half-hearted protestations are no kind of match at all. And then there’s that whole other panoply of experience, the fairground of emotions that accompanies the process of raising your own plants from seed. The highs and lows of elation and despondency are enough to rival any roller-coaster ride, the excitement we feel at a crop’s successful germination, the appearance of the first seed leaves, and the healthy bulking up of each plant, all more than tempered by concerns over compost choice, should you prick out or sow in modules, watering and feeding regimes – not to mention the thorny issue of whether or not your neighbours can be trusted to tend the things should you be crazy enough to go on holiday while your infant plants are still at a vulnerable stage.

But before all the angst, comes the weeks and months of happy anticipation – otherwise known as winter – during which we pour over seed catalogues, envisioning how our greenhouses will look in the spring, and our gardens shortly thereafter, bursting with verdant wonders raised through our own skill and guile from tiny packets of dust and crumbs. We pride ourselves on the wisdom and prudence with which we manage the household resources, cannily opting to grow plants from seed at a tiny fraction of the outlay that it would cost to obtain potted stock, and then promptly buy far more varieties than we have space to grow or time to manage.

I’ve been doing just this. I’m usually a little later than some getting started, but I like to think I make up for lost time with the ridiculous ambition of my plans. Actually, last year, I decided to exercise restraint. Coupled with an awful year with unreliable peat-free composts, that attempt at moderation was decidedly unsatisfying, so we won’t be doing that again. This year, it’s back to business as usual, and I’m all set to Go Large or Toddle Off Homeward – if you’re going to fail, you might as well do it with spectacular aplomb. Consequently, I’m still in the process of ordering far too many seeds, and the first batch arrived a few days ago.

These were from Ben Ranyard at Higgledy Garden. The arrival of a parcel from Higgledy is always something of a red letter day – the brown envelope addressed in Ben’s generous looping hand, the red logo rubber-stamped on each of the matching seed packets, and the jolly handwritten note – little details that delight, and that’s before even considering the handful of slumbering potential contained within each small brown paper package. It’s enough to make you come over all unnecessary.

I shall have my work cut out for me this spring. I don’t sow until March – I find domestic conditions tend to favour straggly seedlings if sown this month – and in addition to my Higgledy bounty, I’ve another order to place from elsewhere, plus whatever I have left over from previous years – a not inconsiderable collection which needs to be sorted into the potentially viable and the probably defunct. Best get on with it.

My Higgledy shopping basket contents: Zinnia 'Mammoth', Sweet Pea 'Winston Churchill', Sweet Pea 'Beujolais', Sweet Pea 'Jilly', Reseda luteola, Helianthus 'Vanilla Ice', Helianthus 'Earthwalker', Eschscholzia 'Orange King', Echinacea 'Primadonna White', Craspedia, Cosmos 'Pied Piper', Cosmos 'Purity', Cleome spinosa 'Violet Queen', Chrysanthemum 'Rainbow'

Order seeds now from higgledygarden.com and quote the discount code GWW15 to get 15% off your shopping cart. Code valid until midnight 19 February 2016.

What are you growing from seed this year, and have you started sowing yet? Let me know on Twitter, or leave a comment below.

You snooze, you lose

February 4, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

It might still seem a bit dull outside, but we’ve somehow made it more than two thirds of the way through winter. So, when it comes to the garden, now’s not the time to be caught napping.

December is all mulled pies and minced wine – twinkly lights, good will and good grief, in equal measure, to all mankind. January cowers under a blanket of gloom and despondency with, if we’re very lucky, the odd glorious cold bright day to break through the murk. By February, it’s too easy to find ourselves succumbing to a creeping inertia brought on by the cold, the wet and the dark.

We must fight the dullness, kicking off the listless mood which can paralyse a gardener through a long winter. By the time February arrives, we need to be psyching ourselves up, taking advantage of every second of extra daylight in preparation for spring. Complacency can be a pitfall during the shortest month – barely four weeks long – by the end of which the gardening year will have begun in earnest. Experienced gardeners might even be forgiven for a fleeting sense of panic around now, knowing just how much there is to be done in so short a space of time.

l’m not concerned about the obvious tasks getting done in time – the pruning of fruit trees and roses, the mulching, the weeding, the almost certainly pointless bramble attacking sessions (in spite of last week’s post, I’m still gardening old stylee). It’s the next category of job where I’m likely to find myself caught out – the almost obvious things which, perfectly apparent on walking through the the garden, but which, in the absence of decisive and timely action, too easily get moved from “Oh yes, I can do that next week” to “Oh bugger, I’ll have to do that next winter”. Replacing the supports for my clients’ vines is an example of this, the issue being that if I don’t do this in the dormant season, the ageing fixtures will be torn out of the wall by another generous summer crop. Claret everywhere.

Then, just to complicate things, there are the tasks that are being brought forward by the mild winter. It’s t-shirt weather again today, and you don’t have to look far for signs of life. The phlox is leafing up nicely in one border of The Rabbit Garden, which means the rabbits won’t be far behind. Better get cracking with the protection – a not insignificant job that wasn’t in the diary for another few weeks yet. And – I’m still slightly in denial about this – the grass, which hasn’t really stopped growing, really could do with a cut. If the ground dries out enough, I’m going to have to break the mower out early.

This is beginning to sound as though I’m limbering up for a whinge, but not so. I’m as happy in the garden in February as I am at any time of year. The unglamorous nature of so many winter gardening tasks – the raking, the barrowing, the endless leaves – could seem like drudgery if you were to adopt a certain mindset, particularly over the dark days that top and tail the year. A few weeks of this, and most people disappear indoors for the duration, refusing to countenance the space beyond the back door until tempted outside again by the smell of some pioneering neighbour’s late spring barbecue. But we’re not most people. We’re gardeners, and we know that this routine stuff is what keeps us connected with our plants and gardens throughout the year, so that we’re on hand and in a position to tend or tweak should tending or tweaking be required. And yes, I’m quite aware of the many keen and vociferous advocates of a winter’s break with a spring catch-up, just as I’ve heard tell of those who insist on brown sauce rather than red in a bacon sarnie. What’s more, I’m happy to defend to the point of being mildly uncomfortable their right to exercise such eccentric lifestyle choices, always assuming no harm is done.

But you won’t catch me napping in February ’cos it’s cold and wet outside. Where would be the fun in that?

Planting in communities

January 28, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

I was feeling pleased with myself. At long last, I thought I’d succeeded in identifying why, although I clearly have a passion for plants, my enthusiasm doesn’t look like that of many of my peers in the horticultural world. You’ll have to take my word for it that this epiphany occurred five minutes before I discovered a review for Claudia West and Thomas Rainer’s Planting in a Post Wild World, and not five minutes after. Eventually, in this blog post, I get round to reviewing it myself.

Zeitgeist is a funny old thing. For the dedicated follower of fashion, it may bestow feelings of belonging, camaraderie, and even relevance. Meanwhile the philosopher, scientist, artist, or original thinker in any field, it can bite on the bum, as Herbert Spencer would discover when Charles Darwin took the plaudits for the theory of evolution*. For those of us who, like me, fall into none of these categories, it’s simply interesting to see how similar ideas appear to self-engender in several locations, more or less simultaneously, and apparently quite independently of one another.

I don’t think of myself as a plantsman. It’s not merely that there's a vast wealth of data that I need to acquire before I could feel remotely justified in thinking of myself in those terms – it’s more that I haven’t the slightest ambition to go about acquiring that information (I’m excluding pelargoniums here – everyone’s allowed a minor obsession or two). And yet it can’t be denied that I love plants. But while I find plants interesting, and from time to time will treat myself to a few new additions for the garden, I’ve no insatiable drive to acquire endless new specimens for my collection.

So, while I can appreciate and admire the particular details of an individual plant, for me the magic is in the moment when you put two or more plants together, and – what’s more – it doesn’t matter to me how supposedly ‘garden worthy’ or how humble the plants in question are, the power is in the combination. So a grouping of Cosmos 'Purity', Melianthus major, Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' and Verbena bonariensis, or one of Dipsacus, Rudbeckia, Miscanthus and Delphiniums has the same potential excitement value as a patch patch of weeds that you might find at the base of a wall, or in the bottom of a hedgerow.

A designed plant community at Great Dixter. This combination wouldn’t occur in the wild, but it invokes an idealised natural landscape in the mind of the viewer

A less glamorous location, showing how closely plants coexist within naturally occurring communities.

Of course there’s nothing new in stating that planting combinations are key to making a garden zing. Good gardeners and designers understand this on an instinctive level, but many – very many – don’t. Even at the RHS shows, you’ll see blocks of monolithic planting, which is all well and good on the rare occasions where some kind of brutalist notion underpins the design concept. But all too often we see the clean contemporary lines of the hard landscaping paired with a kind of faux-minimalist design (I’ve referred to it as ‘plastic planting’ before), which bears little resemblance to true minimalism; not when you think of the music of Steve Reich or John Adams, where one constantly repeated phrase gradually meshes with another, continually shifting in and out of phase with one another, and creating new patterns all the while. This is what plants do, and do naturally.

Which brings me – and not before time – to the Planting in a Post-Wild World, by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West.

“There is a difference between the way plants grow in the wild and the way they grow in our gardens. Understanding the difference is the key to transforming your planting.”

Why should we want to transform our planting? Because, it is argued, so much of the way we go about the business of gardening now is both time and resource hungry – we plant individual, or small groups of plants, surrounded by bare soil, mulched to keep down competing plants (weeds), in soils which we continually seek to improve by the addition of fertilizers and conditioners.

Rainer and West point towards a planting of the future, characterised by a variety of species interweaving to form dense carpets of vegetation, a lack of bare soil, and evidence of a number of different ways in which plants adapt to their site, resulting in more robust, harmonious and diverse plantings which, critically, require less maintenance. Further environmental benefits, such as greater biodiversity, and increased potential for carbon capture and rainwater sequestering are both implicit and clear to see.

The authors call time on the sloppy thinking and cognitive dissonance evident in our simultaneous preaching of ‘right plant, right place’ while advocating large scale soil amelioration and mulching regimes. The notion of plant communities, defined as ‘related populations, not isolated individuals’, and the dynamics which operate within them over time and space, is central to the book’s premise, the repetition of the phrase becoming almost mantra-like over the first few chapters. But the scope of the book is greater than merely posing the questions and suggesting a new ideology: this is a practical volume whose chapters lead us on a journey, first setting the scene, then establishing some basic principles before detailing the phases of design, implementation and management (rather than maintenance).

This book articulates an optimism about the opportunities presented to gardeners and designers by our increasingly built-on landscape. Rather than become paralysed by mourning for what we have lost – and without deprecating the sincere and heartflelt grief we feel at the irreversible destruction of so much of our natural inheritance, the text assumes a forward-looking stance, and paints a picture in which the best of our efforts will see us working in partnership with nature in designing environments which are at once sustainable and full of meaning for all who interact with them.

After all of which, you might be left with the question: does this book really describe the future for planting in a post-wild world? It certainly describes a future, and one I’d like to think we can enthusiastically embrace in order to meet the challenges of greening our ever-increasing urban spaces. That this challenge will require a slight shift in thinking should perhaps come as little surprise. With this, we should be with Mr Scott of the Starship Enterprise:

It’s planting, Jim. But not as we know it.

* Spencer’s own concept of evolution was published in 1857, predating On the Origin of Species by two years. He even coined the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ in a comment upon the latter’s work, but today his renown has been eclipsed by Darwin.

January in the garden

January 18, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

Winter arrived last week, bringing clear skies and cold air, frost and even a dusting of snow. Like the very best of house guests it’s set to depart too soon, leaving us in eager anticipation of the next visit. It’s good to spend time together. We really should do it more often.

Thursday’s planned morning of mulching fell victim to the mild conditions as, arriving on site, it became clear that the borders all needed edging yet again. There’s no point spreading out a luxuriant covering of well rotted manure over the borders only to scatter grass clippings over the top, and so, out with the edging shears again. They’ve never seen so much action at this end of the year.

The soft ground is still soggy and compacts too easily when walked on, so while the edges are now crisp, I’ll have to wait for drier conditions to make them straight again, at which point a spot of aeration will be in order. You could of course argue that I shouldn’t be tramping about over a soggy garden at this time of year. You probably wouldn’t like my response.

By the afternoon the wind had turned bitter, the sky threatening snow – emptily, as it turned out – before Friday morning brought one of those perfect days for winter gardening; sunny, cold, the ground under a light frost but still workable. I find myself wishing every winter’s day could bring such conditions, how gladly I’d trade weeks of mild, slushy, muddy stuff for the necessity of wearing several extra layers (five and counting, and still feeling the chill) and losing the feeling in my knees and toes every so often. Briefly, I consider that perfect hibernal gardening conditions might cause my winter reading pile to swell to an unmanageable height, before realising that, in all honesty, it’s probably already got to that point. And anyway, that’s what the long, dark evenings are for, isn’t it?

We’ve a few more days of cold brightness before the warmer air moves in from the west. Time for me to move away from the screen, and get back out there.

A prune with a view. A sunny day for cutting the dead wood out of the photinia

New year

January 6, 2016 Andrew O'Brien

Twelfth Night was yesterday. Decorations have been put away, lights switched off, front doors defoliated. Green plastic boxes stuffed with cards and crumpled wrapping paper line the bin day morning pavements, jostling for space with the relics of Christmas trees past. The holidays are done and dusted, and January is upon us.

They call it new year. We know this is wrong, that this is still a time for reflection on the year that has gone, that – ordinarily – we have dark, cold, grey weeks ahead of us before we welcome in the new season with the noticeable lengthening of the days and the rising of the sap. For Pete’s sake, it’s the middle of winter still. Who decided that this thing – this turning up of the calendar – would occur with such indecent haste, so soon after the turning of the year? There will be sound and sensible explanations for it – good reasons why they decided to declare the new year in January. But they’re not our explanations. Not my reasons.

So not yet, for me at least, a period of looking forward, though this is not far off now. Each day this week the post has brought another seed catalogue, even – joy! – some seeds. But I’m saving these a while. Just now, I’m taking stock, reviewing the catalogue of photos from the past twelve months’ gardening, wallowing in what went well, and noting down areas for improvement.

We gardeners get to make dreamy spaces. Here is one; the brief – make us a prairie garden where the veg patch was. Only with tree fruit. And soft fruit. So I did, pausing only to wonder if this kind of garden was A Thing, before realising that it didn’t really matter either way. That’s one of the benefits of having your own garden – you can make it what you will, according to your time and resources.

First I lifted, and barrowed, and tidied. There were a lot of paving stones. Then I began to carve new beds from the lawn – for the first hour or so, this is as satisfying and effortless as drawing with a fat, brown crayon on a huge sheet of green paper.

After a while, you begin to feel it, in your shoulders, down your back, in the tightness of your thighs and forearms. The turfing iron became my constant companion – so much better than a spade for this job – until one day I suddenly lost the knack, or so I thought, until I realised all that was needed was for me to rekeen the edge of the blade.

And day by day, the new garden began to take shape, turf lifted from one area relaid, rolled and watered to fit the contours of the new design, until the veg patch was no more than a memory.

There are situations in which a rotavator is a useful machine, though not as many as you’d think. This wasn’t one of them. The plan was always to mulch heavily, digging being called for only in the excavation of holes in which to put the plants, which began to arrive now in number. We’re fortunate to be only a few miles from How Green Nursery and, though by this time they were frantically busy with work for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Simon was able to fit me in between delivery runs up to London.

Grassy. A barrow full of Deschampsia and Miscanthus. — Grassy. A barrow full of *Deschampsia* and *Miscanthus*.

And then, the rabbits arrived.

In fairness, the rabbits had been there all along. We knew this, which is why we’d taken pains to consult lists of appropriately rabbit resistant plants. The rabbits clearly hadn’t read the same lists.

Rabbit-munched – Rudbeckia — Rabbit-munched – *Rudbeckia*

Tough stems of Verbena bonariensis and Eupatorium maculatum, the hairy leaves of Rudbeckias and Echinaceas – all fell before the lapine hooligans. Grasses fared no better, the flowering tips of Deschampsia 'Goldtau' clearly being delicious, while not even Stipa gigantea got out of things unscathed. The plump flowering buds on Leucanthemums, left completely alone elsewhere in the garden, were demolished almost as soon as they appeared. A handful on our planting list were clearly unappetising; Actaea simplex 'Brunette', the scented foliage of Achillea 'Gold Plate' and Phlomis russeliana among them.

Rabbit-proof – Achillea — Rabbit-proof – *Achillea*

A regularly applied spray of chilli and garlic was found to be more of a seasoning than a deterrent. Green mesh structures appeared; a variety of forms made of plastic and wire, all pressed into service as the first line of defence against the rabbits. These were more successful, if unsightly – although the green colour went some way to mitigating the visual noise, they still intrude to a degree. But it’s a small price to pay and, as the plants mature, will become less of an issue.

Mesh, top right, protecting a clump of Deschampsia cespitosa 'Goldtau' from hungry rabbits — Mesh, top right, protecting a clump of *Deschampsia cespitosa* 'Goldtau' from hungry rabbits

That was Year One. The new year brings into prospect the increased resilience of a more mature planting with established root systems, though I’ll still need to keep a watchful eye for damage. Good, solid and tough plants is what I want here – well tended, but not pampered or over-fed. We have a few backup plans, too, the least drastic of which involves planting a sacrificial crop close by, whilst at the other extreme...well. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that, for the sake of the rabbits’ 2016.

Your turn: what were your gardening highlights of 2015? Share the highs and lows with me on twitter, or in the comments below.

Jam tomorrow

December 31, 2015 Andrew O'Brien

New Year’s Eve, an hour or two till sunrise, the wind still howling around the house as it has for hours. It’s been a wakeful night, partly due to the wind, and partly due to us having forgotten to turn the central heating down, causing me to wake in the small hours feeling like a dehydrated prune.

I’ve used the restless hours to finish reading Roger Deakin’s Wildwood – it’s taken me an absurdly long time to get through it, savouring every page, and drifting into long daydreams of woods and trees and hedgerows, of exotic locations with towering walnuts and their heady, befuddling aroma, of wild apples in the East, and bush plums in the Australian outback, of generous, open-hearted people and comfortable old friends, and of time spent among trees, in solitude, but never alone. And throughout it all a prodigious knowledge of and respect for the skills and craftsmanship honed over centuries, and an implicit though rarely expressed concern that we might be on the cusp of throwing it all away.

And now the book is finished, I’m left with that sense of loss familiar to anyone who’s allowed themself to be immersed into a world between the covers. The best medicine for which is another book – five minutes later and, two more are on their way, Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks and a secondhand hardback copy of Deakin’sNotes from Walnut Tree Farm, my delight at the convenience of Amazon tempered by a nagging thought that I’m overdue a penitential visit to my local indy bookstore.

“I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure!” the Queen said. “Twopence a week, and jam every other day.”
Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, “I don’t want you to hire ME - and I don’t care for jam.’
“It’s very good jam,” said the Queen.
“Well, I don’t want any TO-DAY, at any rate.”
“You couldn’t have it if you DID want it,” the Queen said. “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day.”
“It MUST come sometimes to ‘jam to-day,’” Alice objected.
“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every OTHER day: to-day isn’t any OTHER day, you know.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Alice.
Through the Looking Glass & What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll

Kettle. Tea. Still dark outside, and raining now, the first train trundling up to London, the sound carrying across the fields in the damp air. Everything’s louder when it rains. And now the birds are getting going – far too many birds, surely, for winter, reminding me that it’s not just gardeners who are still waiting for the cold weather to arrive. The prospect of a new year frost is held out like the promise of jam tomorrow. but in this crazy El Nino winter that has brought serious flooding to the north of the country (exacerbated, it has to be said, by the shortsighted land use policies of recent governments at both local and national levels), it’s hard to imagine that we’ll see anything other than a barely noticeable transition into a mild and wet spring. That said, the first week of January looks to be a chillier prospect than anything December had for us, though not quite sufficient to put a check either on the plants making an early appearance, or the persistence of garden pests and diseases, storing up trouble for the season to come. A friend tweeted a picture of a small aphid infestation in her garden a couple of days ago, and I don’t recall ever before having to swat away mosquitos on Christmas day.

Today, though, we’re promised clear skies and sunshine in Kent – a pleasant way to see out the year in the garden. Winter tomorrow.

Burn, baby, burn

December 8, 2015 Andrew OBrien

There’s a cheer with a real fire that the civilising influence of several millennia can do nothing to dampen. It’s a primeval comforter, our response to it being hard-wired into us at some point on the evolutionary journey. The alluring blue light of smartphone or tablet might flirt with our attention and distract us from more constructive pursuits, but it can’t hold a candle to an open flame, lacking not only the warmth, but also somehow the substance.

I’ll often sit down of an evening and watch the play of the flames in the stove; it’s a decidedly superior way in which to while away the time, especially when compared to watching the telly, and the stories that unfold in the heart of the fire are more compelling by far. But this winter having been such a disappointment so far – so mild, and dreary – we’ve hardly had cause to light a fire at all, which is beyond miserable. Our one consolation for the awful darkness at the death of the year is the bright fire in our hearths; it’s a pitiful season that not only robs us of the daylight, but contrives to be too warm to make the lighting of a fire a daily event.

How glad is the gardener of a good blaze, though! Tediously mild or bitingly cold, there’s always plenty of material unfit for compost heap or shredder, and too unwieldy for the council’s green waste collection, that will amply acquit itself as fuel for a heartening burn to drive the dull drab grey away. I’m no cub scout and, much as I’m sure it would offend Messers Grylls and Mears, resort to firelighters and matches to get a bonfire going. But never, in the manner of one venerable assistant head gardener of my acquaintance, to diesel, poured liberally from an old red can. He was a fabulous character, a lovely man and an absolute walking encyclopaedia of gardening knowledge and experience, so it always came as a surprise to me when he reached for the accelerant, rather than beginning the process by the rubbing together of a couple of sticks. At least it wasn’t petrol. People who habitually start fires with petrol tend not to last very long.

Well contained

There are those who might look askance at my advocacy of the garden bonfire, pointing to the aggregate effects upon global warming of a nation of gardeners burning their winter waste. And they might have a point, if all of us did it every week. But I fail to see how the occasional, well tended and considerately managed fire could cause a problem. Besides which, I’ll only take lectures on the topic from those who have forsworn both meat and air travel*. I’m not sure how many bonfires I’ll get to a year’s worth of cattle farts and return flights to Lanzarote, but I’m willing to bet it’s a fair few.

Today has been damp, but tomorrow looks fine and I’ve high hopes of finding sufficient dry tinder and kindling to get a fire going. There’s always plenty of birch brash in my Wednesday garden, and that needs little encouragement to burn. All that remains is to pack matches, firelighters and hayfork, and pray the rain holds off overnight.

Can’t help seeing faces in things. A warm smile on the incinerator here.

*You’ll probably still get short shrift. But maybe a toasted marshmallow if you’re lucky.

’tis the season

November 30, 2015 Andrew OBrien

There’s ‘a time for everything’, the good book tells us; chapter and verse with which gardeners are only too well acquainted. Advent is upon us, the shortest, darkest days approach and, the list of gardening activities one can achieve by torchlight being disappointingly short, we are at pains to follow the seasonal exhortations, making we joy, and generally being of good cheer, with a determination that is something to behold.

The last week in November provides an ideal opportunity for such merriment, as several hundred garden broadcasters and writers descend upon the Savoy Hotel for the annual Garden Media Guild Awards. I snuck in for the second year running and, also for the second year running, was delighted to be shortlisted as a finalist in the Blog of the Year category. It’s a tangible affirmation not only of the work I’ve put into the blog over the past year, but also the enthusiasm and engagement of the community that’s grown up around the weekly posts. But while I’m both tremendously grateful and immensely proud of all of this, it didn’t make me blush half so much as receiving several generously and unexpected endorsements from gardening twitter friends (you know who you are) both before and after the awards were announced. A season to be jolly, indeed.

And, as winter follows autumn, itself turning into spring when the moment is right, it seems timely to confess that for a while now I’ve had a feeling that the blog in its current form is nearing the end of a season, and entering a period of transition. The hibernation period must necessarily be brief, but I expect this online collection of my garden witterings to emerge as a thing transformed, albeit with roots very much in the current iteration. I have in mind something slightly more than a refresh with, in time, some new features, tweaks to the structure, and a more open, airy feel about the place. At least, that’s the intention, with a view to launching early in the new year – a daunting, but exciting prospect.

In the meantime, I plan to keep these pages running, but do please excuse me if I should appear to be a little slower than usual to respond while I’m tinkering with things under the bonnet – a vehicular metaphor – time to give the blog a good winter service. ’tis the season for it, after all. fa la la la laa, la la la laaaa.

Posh suit and shoes for hobnobbing on Thursday...

....back down to earth on Friday.

Taking steps

November 20, 2015 Andrew OBrien

Autumn, windy and mild, with no sign of a frost. The leaves, like embers in slow motion, glow brightly as they fall, fast fading to dull ash grey and brown. Much of the garden’s energy retreats below ground at this time of year and, with a good proportion of the season’s growth now lying either upon the compost heap or the bonfire, access into the borders becomes considerably more straightforward. Conversely, passage through the garden becomes increasingly difficult. The winding grass path, charmingly informal throughout spring and summer, has by mid November become a muddy cart track, rutted and slippery, making each trip through the garden a messy and potentially hazardous affair.

O, for a red brick path! Solid under foot, and easy on the eye. Throughout my various excavations in the garden, I’ve managed to unearth a small pile of imperial red bricks in fair condition, but nowhere near the quantity I’d need for the path. I keep a beady eye out for the small ads, and auctions of reclaimed bricks on eBay, but somehow, something more pressing and grown up always seems to require paying for – a new boiler, or a replacement cross-member for the chassis on the venerable land rover. Even – dare I say it – plants. And in the meanwhile, sure as eggs is eggs, the path turns to mush.

This winter, I’m taking steps to avoid the quagmire. A roll of grass reinforcement mesh – the kind of stuff you find lurking just beneath the sward of the overflow car park at a country fair – which I unrolled and immediately split down the middle with the aid of a pair of tin snips.

Snip. Figured I only needed a 50mm strip down the centre of the path

A hideously cheerful, bright glossy green – quite revolting – but thankfully grass has already begun to grow up through the holes, and is doing a fair job of obscuring the playground-bright colour. With at least another three months of potential sogginess before us, it’s early to form a definitive opinion but, so far, I am impressed by the difference it’s made. No substitute for my lovely brick path. But, while I’m pining for that, at least I can get to the end of the garden and back.

Not pretty, but already disappearing

Hairy bittercress

November 10, 2015 Andrew OBrien

Some plants are just hard to love.

The admission causes me a degree of discomfort, having on numerous occasions made my admiration for weeds a matter of record, but even I find it hard to wax lyrical about hairy bittercress.

“Hairy bastard cress, more like”, a gardening friend of mine once quipped. It’s hard not to sympathise. Whilst the leaves of Cardamine hirsuta – a plant in the brassica family, closely related to mustard and also to garden cress Lepidium sativum – might possess a certain peppery, cress-like taste, it’s difficult to know what it’s good for. You would be bonkers to go out of your way to deliberately grow a crop, not least because surely every plant container in Christendom is sure to become home to at least one or two specimens in any given year.

It’s a nuisance in the nursery – perhaps not to the same degree as the liverworts which blanket the surface of the growing medium, but nonetheless a pretty ubiquitous presence, stealing nutrients and acting as a host for numerous glasshouse pests.

It’s also something of a gremlin in the garden, and you need be in no doubt that you will have hairy bittercress in your garden. Possibly also its cousin, wavy bittercress (Cardamine flexuosa) – very similar in appearance, though the small white flowers have six stamens to the four of its nominally more hirsute relative (the hairs on the leaf margins and axils aren’t particularly noteworthy, in spite of the name). As long as extremes are avoided, bittercress can’t bring itself to be discerning over the pH of the soil, seeming just as at home in acid, neutral or alkaline conditions, and will grow in shade, part shade or sun, in either moist or dry conditions. A hardy annual (C. flexuosa sometimes persisting as a short-lived perennial) it behaves as an ephemeral weed, producing several generations in one growing season, and each plant can produce up to 5,000 seeds.

Not wavy, but downy. Four stamens, so Cardamine hirsuta

Garden designer Chelsea Uribe (@CUgardendesign) pithily summed up generally held opinions on the plant. “That sodding little ruderal. I wish it every ill.” A coloniser of recently disturbed ground, it’s readily identifiable from its rosettes of bright green pinnate foliage with almost circular leaflets at the base, becoming more elongated higher up the plant. Weeding it out isn’t a particularly satisfying experience – although not deep rooted, it’s quite fiddly to handle when it first emerges, and so you might be tempted to allow a clump to grow to a more convenient size for hand-pulling. In which case, you’d best ensure this forward-dated task doesn’t slip your mind, due to the speed at which it will flower and seed.

Common names include lambs cress, spring cress, hoary bittercress, wood cress and flickweed. This last name is particularly descriptive of the manner in which the plant goes about dispersing seed, a trick which anyone who has carelessly reached for a plant which has gone to seed will be only too able to describe. The characteristic long, thin seed pods (known as a siliqua), common to many members of the brassica family, split open when dry, ejecting their contents with some force and scattering seed over a distance of up to six feet, unless prevented from doing so by some intervening object. Such as the face of a surprised gardener.

The ripening seed pods, or silique, ‘overtopping’ the flowers

In Old English herb-lore, bittercress is known as Stune, and included as one ingredient in the Nine Herbs Charm recommended as a cure for poisoning and infection. Given the generally poor state of health and hygiene we can assume in Dark Age Britain, this suggests that each of the nine herbs would have been in constant demand. I have my suspicions regarding the efficacy of bittercress a medicinal plant, but, by including it on the list of ingredients, our ancestors had clearly devised a way to guarantee a sustained and wide-ranging harvest of the stuff. They probably didn’t like it any more than we do

Let me know what your thoughts are on hairy bittercress, either on Twitter, or by leaving a comment below.

A walk in the woods

October 25, 2015 Andrew OBrien

A beautiful, dry and sunny autumn afternoon for a walk in West Wood. The leaves are beginning to fall, but still there are more on the trees than the ground.

Hawthorn, field maple, sycamore, sweet chestnut and hazel – each turns its own rich shade of yellow gold before releasing its leaves. We wandered along gilded corridors between stands of coppice understory, shafts of bright sunlight piercing the ceiling and spotlighting individual works of art – here a patch of moss on the trunk of tree, there a single leaf picked out on the muddy forest floor.

A gallery of sylvan wonders. Dogs welcome.