For some reason the woodland ride that connects the Chelsea Flower Show’s Artisan Gardens seemed particularly quiet this year. On previous visits this pleasantly shaded route has been thronged with visitors, to the extent that the grass bank opposite has needed to be reinforced to protect it from wear and tear. This year there were fewer, albeit larger gardens and at least one vacant plot, which was a disappointment given how popular these smaller gardens are with the public. I can only imagine the cost of staging even a small garden must have risen beyond the means of the charities and regional organisations that are typically exhibit here.

Having put plans for a holiday somewhere hot and steamy on the back burner whilst we complete building projects at home, I was delighted to immerse myself (not literally) in Sarah Eberle’s floating tropical paradise created for Viking River Cruises. Inspired by a trip along the mighty Mekong river, through Cambodia and Vietnam, Sarah was inspired by floating gardens fashioned from dense mats of floating vegetation. Here local farmers cultivate fruit, vegetables and flowers for cutting. In an unusual twist for Chelsea, Sarah’s garden was bounded on every side by water; a triangular deck at one corner giving access to the deck of a traditional boat arranged for lounging rather than fishing.

I was fortunate to experience the garden very early on the first day of the show, shortly after the designer had been awarded an RHS gold medal and the coveted title of Best Artisan Garden. As sunlight wove its way through tall plane trees, the garden was bathed in a soft, golden light. I could have been back in Burma, at dawn, on Inle Lake, a location synonymous with its floating gardens. Spinach, kale, aubergine, gourds and okra vied with dahlias and orchids beneath an understorey of stag’s horn sumach (Rhus typhina “Dissecta”). This was a brilliant piece of planting design. Not every plant used was genuinely tropical or necessarily found in South East Asia, but the effect was still extremely convincing. Sarah’s gloriosa lilies, dahlias, cleomes and zinnias would be happier along the banks of the Medway than the Mekong, but the paphiopedilum and masdevallia orchids would need protection in the UK.

Created by artist Fiona Campbell, a diaphanous parasol was poised above the boat’s cushion-strewn deck. The design was inspired by the shades used by fishermen to protect themselves from the sun and was woven to emulate the fishing nets hung out to dry along the Mekong’s banks. Copper wire and electrical cables used to construct the parasol represented the countries’ silk and cotton-weaving industries.

I loved this garden for its originality and inventiveness. Just for a moment I could imagine myself reclining on that boat, Panama hat tilted over my brow, staring up a clear blue sky as I glided down the sultry Mekong. It made me want to reach for my travel brochures: the reaction, I suppose, the sponsors were hoping for.

Hear more about Sarah’s inspiration and hopes for her Mekong garden in this short RHS video:

Before I wind up my coverage of the 2016 Chelsea Flower Show there are two posts I feel compelled to write. The first is a follow-up to my preview post describing the Royal Bank of Canada Garden designed by Hugo Bugg. The second will be a compilation of delicious delights from the Great Pavilion, including lashings of irises, alpines and hepaticas.

Despite the slightly gloomy design renderings, I was pretty confident that Hugo Bugg would claim a second Chelsea gold for his Royal Bank of Canada Garden, inspired by the plants and landscapes of Jordan. Sadly it wasn’t to be. Instead this interesting, conceptual garden, like its neighbours heavy on symbolic stonework, landed a commendable, but doubtless disappointing, silver gilt medal. Had this been the same award as Andy Sturgeon’s Telegraph Garden I might have kidded myself that I understood the RHS judges decision-making, but it was not: Andy claimed both gold and Best Show Garden. Given a choice between theses two similar but different gardens, I think I’d have chosen Hugo’s. Why? Because for me the concept was clearer, the execution stronger and the planting more artful.

Instead of the anticipated gloom, Hugo’s naturalistic scheme cast a sunlit Mediterranean spell over its gently sunken plot. Elements I was afraid might be oppressive – the huge Aleppo pines (Pinus halepensis) and black basalt “mounds” – were warmer and brighter than I’d expected. On top of that a lively palette of ephemeral looking plants, including intense blue Lupinus pilosus (surely destined to become a star plant at future Chelsea Flower Shows?), shocking yellow Asphodeline lutea and pillar-box red corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) gave the composition an energy boost. A sparing use of primary colours against a monochrome background put me in mind of Mondrian’s abstract artwork.

Continuing to highlight the Royal Bank of Canada’s committment to protecting the world’s natural sources of water, Hugo’s design aimed to demonstrate how a beautiful garden could exist in an area of minimal rainfall. The geometry that guided the scheme radiated from the core of an icosahedron, the polyhedron with twenty equal triangular faces identified by Plato as the symbol of water. At this point the garden’s mythology started to veer towards its neighbour, the superb Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden designed by Nick Bailey, although it ultimately developed its mathematical themes more subtly.

The only perfect triangle in the garden was held within the heart of a central, basalt rock feature, representing the sanctity of water. A gentle, almost imperceptible current kept the water’s surface moving, although not free from the dreaded fluff shed in abundance by surrounding plane trees. It amused me to watch a rather earnest looking assistant using what looked like his girlfriend’s stockings to clear the mirror-like surface of unsightly flotsam. It was a thankless and ultimately futile task.

Following the BBC coverage of Hugo’s garden, every visitor wanted to get a feel of the goat hair material that had been woven to order by women of Jordan’s Bedouin tribes. It was rich, dark and coarse, forming a strong belt around the perimeter and covering a series of faceted, fluff-catching shapes along the garden’s boundary.

Hugo Bugg went to great lengths to guarantee the authenticity of his planting, taking time out to visit Jordan to collect seed from the dry, limestone Dibeen landscape in the north-west of the country. For those, like me, who thrive on the discovery of new plants there were rare treasures on show including Tabor’s delphinium (Delphinium ithaburense), Jordan thistle (Onopordum jordanicolum) and inky-black Iris nigricans, the national flower of Jordan.

Now that the show is over the Royal Bank of Canada Garden will move to a permanent home in the grounds of a not-for-profit hotel and conference centre in Guernsey, where it will be open to the public. It will form part of a new floral trail through the Island’s capital, St Peter Port. Given the absurd cost of staging a Chelsea show garden the relocation of all or part of a scheme has become fashionable and increasingly expected. It will be interesting to see how this Middle-Eastern extravaganza translates to the middle of the English Channel.

Strongly designed and sensitively planted this was a handsome, modern garden, perhaps better suited to a public space than to a private garden. Hugo Bugg is slowly but surely cementing his position as one of the UK’s most exciting, forward-thinking garden design talents and will surely be back at Chelsea again soon.

PLANT LIST

TREES

• Pinus halepensis

PERENNIALS, ANNUALS, GRASSES & BULBS

• Acanthus spinosus
• Melica persica
• Adonis annua
• Moluccella laevis
• Ajuga genevensis
• Nepeta curviflora
• Anchusa azurea
• Nepeta italica
• Artemisia sieberi
• Onopordum jordanicolum
• Asphodeline lutea
• Origanum syriacum
• Cerinthe palaestina
• Papaver rhoeas
• Crambe hispanica
• Phlomis cashmeriana
• Delphinium ithaburense
• Ranunculus asiaticus
• Echium angustifolium
• Salvia judaica
• Echium glomeratum
• Salvia napifolia
• Eryngium maritimum
• Scabiosa prolifera
• Euphorbia myrsinites
• Silene aegyptiaca
• Ferula communis
• Silene vulgaris
• Fibigia clypeata
• Stipa tenuissima
• Foeniculum vulgare
• Teucrium chamaedrys
• Geranium tuberosum
• Teucrium creticum
• Hordeum vulgare
• Trifolium annua
• Iris nigricans
• Umbilicus rupestris
• Knautia integrifolia
• Urginea maritima
• Lupinus pilosus
• Verbascum sinuatum

It’s a good sign when the Royal Horticultural Society show schedule is growing rather than shrinking. Last year an early summer London Rose Show was added to the programme; this November the inaugural London Urban Garden Show will introduce gardeners to a host of tropical and subtropical plant growers; and next year we have an all-singing, all-dancing flower show at Chatsworth to look forward to. It promises to be “a platform for design revolutionaries”, with a new category of show gardens called “FreeForm”. Here, daring designers will be encouraged to push the boundaries of garden making, showcasing ground breaking ideas. A new, contemporary show on the scale of the RHS’s other regional events is a genuinely exciting prospect: combined with the Brownian setting of Chatsworth it promises to be a cracking day out.

If you’d like to go along, the show will take place from June 7-11 2017 in the grounds of the Devonshire’s “big house”. Be prepared though, tickets go on sale a full year in advance, on Tuesday June 7 2016, with RHS members invited exclusively on the first day of the show. Unlike Chelsea, the show will run until Sunday.

Back to London now, and during a frantic Friday at the office I manage to sneak out for an hour to enjoy the second London Rose Show. Quite how the RHS show team recover themselves so quickly after Chelsea I don’t know. They must be made of stern stuff. Far removed from the gloss and glamour of its predecessor this was a simple, unfussy show focussed firmly on roses. A select band of nurseries and rose growers, including Harkness Roses, which has been growing roses for more 125 years; Apuldram Roses, a Chichester-based family run business; and Peter Beales Roses, which has been awarded 22 RHS Gold medals at Chelsea, were on hand to give advice and sell plants.

The Lawrence Hall was a much more calm, pleasant environment in which to shop for roses than either Chelsea or Hampton Court. I was delighted with my exquisite Rosa “Jacqueline du Pré”, purchased as a gift for a colleague from Harkness Roses. A simpler, more beautiful rose it would be hard to imagine.

Neither of our gardens is well suited to roses, and Him Indoors isn’t a big fan. Our roll call of varieties extends no further than Rosa banksiae “Lutea”; a rather diseased burgundy hybrid tea that came free with Polegate Cottage and a wild rose that makes an occasional foray into the garden from next door. This pains me greatly when I recall the joy roses gave me as a child – “Iceberg”, “Frencham”, “Queen Elisabeth”, “Peace”, “Fragrant Cloud”, “Masquerade” and “Albertine” were as much part of my younger years as friends, family and Roald Dahl. However, presented with an opportunity to buy Rosa “Bengal Crimson” at the Chelsea Physic Garden the previous evening, I had already let my plantaholic tendencies rip with another purchase I have no space for.

In their wisdom the RHS invited the fragrant Rachel de Thame to co-curate this year’s London Rose Show. I am sure her celebrity endorsement will have attracted a few more punters but after she’d shot me a couple of sour looks I thought better of saying hello. Nevertheless, the show plainly displayed a woman’s touch, being well organised, attractively laid out and, naturally, rose-scented. Mercifully the cavernous hall was fairly quiet after lunch on Friday but had been busier at the start of the day.

The Chelsea School of Botanical Art set up a popular, pop-up classroom where those with time on their hands could learn the painting techniques that inspired Pierre-Joseph Redouté. RHS historian Brent Elliott’s newly published book The Rose: The history of the world’s favourite flower in 40 roses was available with a generous discount. Since I am still allowing myself purchases that relate to my new library I felt compelled to indulge.

Floral design workshops were run by RHS London in-house florist, Helen Cranmer, but I was more excited by my discovery of the Electric Daisy Flower Farm who brought along a dazzling selection of flowers grown on an acre of fertile land at Bradford-on-Avon near Bath. The real flower movement is really gathering pace in the UK which is so exciting for flower arrangers and lovers of beautiful blooms. What’s more Electric Daisy have commissioned some stunning photography to promote their enterprise and furnish a calendar, one such image I’ve featured below. I hope to pay a visit to this vibrant new flower farm soon.

Although I am not seriously in the market for roses, I enjoyed the Englishness and simplicity of this bijou event. It’s great that the RHS are constantly seeking to expand their repertoire and have chosen to reinvigorate the London shows, which at one time seemed destined to become a thing of the past. The Lawrence and Lindley Halls are extraordinary and little known venues outside horticultural circles and deserve to be shown off. As I left, feeling hot, bothered and the wrong kind of fragrant, I was stopped in my tracks by a new, scarlet, single-flowered floribunda called R. “W.B. Yeats”. A new introduction, it will available in garden centres this autumn. I think perhaps it’s time I made more room for roses.

remaining 2016 Show dates

• RHS On Tour at Columbia Road Flower Market: 19 June 2016
• RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show: 5-10 July 2016
• RHS On Tour at Lambeth Country Show: 16-17 July 2016
• RHS Flower Show Tatton Park: 20–24 July 2016
• RHS On Tour at Marylebone Farmers’ Market: 11 September 2016
• Malvern Autumn Show: 24–25 September 2016
• RHS London Harvest Festival Show & Harvest Festival Late: 4–5 October 2016
• RHS London Shades of Autumn Show: 28–29 October 2016
• RHS London Urban Garden Show: 12–13 November 2016
• RHS London Christmas Show: 17-18 December 2016

Although I’ve never been able to grow them well, rhododendrons have always held a special place in my heart. I grew up visiting the gardens of Cornwall in the school holidays –  Trewidden, Glendurgan, Trengwainton, Lanhydrock, Trelissick and Penjerrick – long before the gates of Heligan and Trebah had swung open. As a small boy I was overwhelmed by the sight of these glamorous grande dames presiding over their fabulous woodland domains, their emerald-green skirts merging together to form dense trains of foliage studded with jewel-like blooms. I would collect the fallen flowers from the mossy ground and stack them on top of one another to create a kaleidoscopic tower of pink, red, purple and white. To me they were too beautiful to be left to rot: I wanted to give them a second chance.

The practical needs of rhododendrons – their general requirement for acidic soil and generous space – has precluded me from growing these fine shrubs extensively in any of my gardens to date. However, Him Indoors has been briefed that our next home will have several acres of attendant sheltered woodland, situated on a deep bed of acidic leaf litter and watered by springs. I can dream! In the meantime I satisfy my springtime rhododendron craving by visiting the great woodland gardens of the south-east, including The Savill Garden, Hillier Arboretum and Sandling Park, where the photographs in this post were taken this May.

The genus Rhododendron, which includes the shrubs commonly referred to as azaleas, fell out of favour at about the same time we ended our love affair with dahlias, chrysanthemums, gladioli, conifers and hybrid tea roses. Overgrown and gaudily coloured, they became synonymous with the gloomy shrubberies of commuter belt houses and stuffy National Trust properties. Then, to hammer a final nail in the coffin, along came the black sheep of the family, Rhododendron ponticum. It rampaged through forests, nature reserves and National Parks, displacing precious natives, making a general nuisance of itself. Tarred with the same brush, thousands of rhododendron species and named cultivars seemed doomed to linger in the backwaters of every garden centre in the land, waiting for the day when they would be consigned to the clearance bench or tortured by an inexperienced gardener.

Then the fortunes of rhodies, as some fashionable types now refer to them, began to change. It was at about the time that the National Trust started to tackle the restoration of the gardens at Stowe, and when The Lost Gardens of Heligan became unlost, that the tide finally began to turn in their favour. Visitors started to reappraise the these gentle giants, admiring their form, hardiness and myriad flower colours.

Before anyone rushes out to start a rhododendron collection it’s essential to understand what kind of plant you are dealing with. The requirement for an acid growing medium is almost universal and hence a significant limiting factor when most of us cannot naturally offer such conditions.  Cultivation in containers is entirely possible and helped by choosing a compact variety, but watering has to be fastidiously maintained, so rarely is this a long-term solution. In our London garden I grow R. “Sir Charles Butler” in a huge terracotta pot filled with ericaceous compost, sunk into damp ground. Still it requires watering as often as any other pot plant and then with rainwater not tap. Unless you are determined to grow rhododendrons this way, I would not especially recommend it.

Rhododendrons originate principally from the Himalayas where about 600 species can be found. I have been lucky enough to see a handful of them growing wild in India, Nepal and Bhutan. They range from frost tender plants, happy at lower elevations, to large-leaved species growing in conifer forests at around 3000 metres above sea level. As the tree line thins, small-leaved rhododendrons may be found sheltering amongst juniper scrub and alpine meadows, where there may be snow cover for much of the year. In size they range from the diminutive, tropical, tree-hugging vireyas of cool cloud forests to mountaineering, arboreal giants. A few species, such as the Japanese R. yakushimanum are very tolerant, surviving freezing winters and baking hot summers in exposed positions.

Over the last century plant breeders have developed more and more exotic hybrids, with about 20,000 currently registered. To celebrate their 100th anniversary, the RHS Rhododendron, Magnolia and Camellia Group (originally The Rhododendron Society), canvassed members from all over the world to compile a list of the top 100 rhododendrons of the century. All of them can be enjoyed in this video presentation, with the top 10 listed below.

The RHS Rhododendron, Camellia & Magnolia Group Top 10 Rhododendrons

1. R. yakushimanum ‘Koichiro Wada’ AGM
2. R. macabeanum AGM
3. R. ‘Loderi King George’ AGM
4. R. augustinii AGM
5. R. falconeri AGM
6. R. cinnabarinum ssp. cinnabarinum
7. R. bureavii AGM
8. R. arboreum
9. R. pachysanthum AGM
10. R. sinogrande AGM

Whether you’re a rhodie roadie or a committed rhododedrophobe I’d love to hear your thoughts on these incredible shrubs. For me, nothing surpasses a woodland garden in May, the dark green hulks of rhododendrons dripping with flowers and the naked stems of deciduous azaleas alight with flaming, scented blooms – My idea of heaven.

Finally, for those of you who have read this far, it’s The Frustrated Gardener’s 4th Birthday today. Thank you to everyone who has been with me on the journey since the beginning or has caught up with my blog along the way.

Crinodendron hookerianum: Chilean lantern tree, Tricuspidaria lanceolata

There are some trees that you don’t come across very often, but when you do they are guaranteed to blow you away. Crinodendron hookerianum, the Chilean lantern tree is one of them. Like all good plants it was introduced to the UK by a Cornishman, William Lobb, in 1848. The species name hookerianum honors Sir William Jackson Hooker, an English botanist who studied many Chilean plants.

A slow-growing tree, C. hookerianum needs shelter and a partially shaded spot, but most importantly it demands humus-rich, acidic soil, just like rhododendrons. In its natural habitat trees tend to grow near streams or in damp, humid places: hence they fare well in western parts of the UK and Ireland.

The leaves of Crinodendron hookerianum put me in mind of Phillyrea latifolia, which grows so well in our seaside garden, but it’s the carmine-pink flowers, suspended in long rows beneath the branches, that this tree is admired for. The pendent, bell-shaped corollas are made up of five petals, each with a finely toothed edge. They feel waxy and look thoroughly oriental. If you have the right conditions you’d be a fool not to find a home for this wonderful tree. Not only will you be dazzled by its late spring / early summer display, but so will your family, friends and neighbours.

Crinodendron hookerianum is available from Crocus.co.uk and Burncoose Nurseries.

On one subject, and possibly one subject only, do Him Indoors and I agree: there must always be flowers in our house. Sadly neither of our gardens is large enough to accommodate a cut flower patch so we must buy in blooms to adorn our kitchen work tops, mantels and sideboards. We would have flowers in every room if we could afford to, such is the happiness they bring us. For us, a home without flowers is no home at all.

Despite the convenience, I find supermarket flowers utterly devoid of charm and character: they are scentless, cold and starchy. But the alternative in London is over-priced florists where a single exotic stem might set us back a fiver or more. Now, perhaps, there’s an alternative in British-grown flowers.

In the 1970s the UK population spent the least amount per person on cut flowers in Europe, and the only blooms available in the country’s flower markets would have been home-grown. In the space of 40 years, largely thanks to Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s, the amount we spend on flowers has rocketed, whilst the proportion of British grown blooms has plunged to less than ten per cent. Meanwhile, large-scale growers from Holland, South America and Africa have stolen a large share of the market. Their pristine, uniform, foreign blooms are cheaper than ours owing to the availability of land, large scale of production and lower cost of labour; but think about those air miles! No country with such a proud horticultural heritage could be happy with this sorry state of affairs.

Now, driven by a surge in consumer demand and the efforts of a burgeoning band of entrepreneurial growers, the tide has finally turned: British blooms are booming once again. In recognition of British Flowers Week, a week-long celebration of British flowers initiated by New Covent Garden Flower Market, I’m highlighting just three of the UK’s most vibrant flower growers who are offering a refreshing alternative to the mass-produced floral fodder available in our supermarkets.

Nurturing two gardens eighty eight miles apart is mainly a blessing, but sometimes a curse. The task becomes tricky if we want to take a holiday, spend more time in one place than the other, or if we hit a dry, wet or windy spell, which is all too often. Each scenario comes with its own unique challenges, largely created my being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Having just experienced a damp, steamy week, both gardens have gone absolutely ballistic. The plants think all their Christmases have come at once. In London peas have broken through their supporting tent of netting and are clinging onto anything their tender tendrils can twine around, including next door’s overgrown buddleia. We are enjoying big crops of “Oregon Sugar Pod”, a crisp mangetout variety which is delicious served raw in a salad, and more conventional “Early Onward”, both from rows just 4ft long.

Herbs, from sage and chives to marjoram and thyme, are developing into thick, lush clumps crying out to be plucked, but the purple sprouting and broccoli is proving a mistake: the plants are far too big for our small raised bed and are smothering everything else. They will be yanked out prematurely in favour of oriental salad leaves, which are far more compact and useful in the kitchen. Meanwhile I am pleased to note four or five fruits developing on each of our newly planted espalier apple trees. I have continued to water these generously, even in the rain, to ensure they develop a strong root system in their first year.

It’s a wonder that I have any hostas left given I’m collecting forty or more snails every time I venture out into the garden. However diligent one is during a rainy spell some damage in inevitable. The leathery leaves swell to generous proportions and look wonderful if they remain unscathed. Any gaps that remained in either garden at the start of the month have disappeared altogether, leaving me with the usual pool of plants that didn’t quite make it into the ground before the music stopped. Now they will probably languish in their pots until next spring. The greenery along our high back wall, which consists of Kerria japonica and Phyllostachys nigra with honeysuckle and Vitis coignetiae rampaging through them, is completely out of control and needs attention before the whole boundary becomes as dark and impenetrable as the Belgian Congo. From the pond I am removing two sacks of weed every week just to keep a small area clear for the fish to surface.

Looking at our London garden objectively, which is virtually impossible when I am responsible for maintaining it, I’d say it looks the best it ever has done, although I am far from content with it. There is too much clutter and not enough storage space for tools and pots, but it is showing some promise after three of four years of renewed effort.

The Watch House, on the other hand, is not at its finest in June. The main reason is that all the evergreens shed their old leaves in unison during the early summer. The deluge of yellowing foliage is relentless. I have spent the majority of the last four weekends gathering up bags and bags of debris dropped by Trachelospermum jasminoides and Phillyrea latifolia and still it keeps coming. I have even started to dream about it. As well as looking unsightly, the decaying foliage creates cover for troublesome capsid bugs, so I am loath to leave it laying about.

Meanwhile the garden is rammed with refugee plants from Polegate Cottage, where our building works have reached a pivotal point. The “new” house is a shell, in the bombed-out Beirut-style, with enormous jagged holes in its exterior that will eventually be filled with French doors and windows. I am reliably informed that next week materials will start going back in to replace 100 years of lath and plaster, nylon carpet, bodged wiring and pine cladding that have come out. It’s an exciting moment, but now I really have to start deciding what I want and where.

While I did leave a few plants to fend for themselves outside the greenhouse, the majority are camping out at The Watch House, meaning I can’t move an inch without standing on a pot or snapping a shoot off something precious. And – dear, oh dear – I am going to Great Dixter on Monday and Grow London on Thursday, so what are the chances of me ending the week with the same number of plants I began with?

A few things that are lifting my spirits in Broadstairs. This year I’ve filled the planters that sit on our outdoor kitchen shelves with a new begonia called B. boliviensis “Bossa Nova White”. This F1 hybrid, which can be grown from seed (although mine were bought in), has white flowers elegantly flushed with coral pink, so I have interplanted with them with a new diascia called D. “My Darling Peach” and they look delicious together. Nearby I am growing similarly coloured Tibouchina urvilleana “Variegata”, which has incredible silver and green marbled foliage edged with neon pink. Now that’s what I call variegation.

In window boxes I have combined B. “Bossa Nova Rose” with silver Dichondra argentea “Silver Falls” and Geranium “Decora Pink” grown from cuttings I took at the end of 2015. It’s the first year I have bothered with window boxes and I hope I don’t live to regret the extra watering they will create.

Calceolaria integrifolia “Kentish Hero”, purchased from D’Arcy and Everest at last year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, overwintered brilliantly in my cold greenhouse and has been flowering its socks off since April. As a group of flowering plants, calceolarias seem to have completely fallen off the radar, but this one’s a cracker, especially when combined with purple flowers and foliage. It hasn’t minded the rain either.

Another new plant last year was Arthropodium cirratum “Matapouri Bay”, the Rienga lily. This has flourished in a pot and is loving the balmy weather. It’s a prolific seeder so I have a pot full of little seedlings in the greenhouse waiting to be pricked out.

Having been very diligent in pinching out the tips of my dahlias to get bushy plants I have sacrificed the earliest flowers. Nevertheless D. “Totally Tangerine” has forged ahead and is the first of about a dozen varieties to bloom this year.

Not all plants are enjoying the wet – nemesias, diascias and some calibrachoa are starting to rot at the base, causing them to wilt and then die. The flowers of Rosa banksiae “Lutea” morphed from yolk-yellow pompoms to matted balls of mould in days thanks to the moist air and my osteospermums are sulking. Nevertheless the rain is giving most plants a good start in life and they’ll grow bigger and flower better thanks to regular watering.

I badly need the garden at Polegate Cottage back in order to make some space and start getting things in order for our NGS opening on August 20th and 21st, but suspect the building might go to the wire. If it does, I am hoping visitors will be understanding and tolerant of the situation, two states of mind that I am trying to cultivate myself under the circumstances! Tending two gardens has never been more challenging or more rewarding – there’s just no time to do anything else.

Wishing you all a fun and productive weekend in your gardens. What’s growing well for you at the moment? Are you loving or loathing all this rain? Let me know!

I am deep into writing two or three lengthy posts, each of which is defying me when it comes to crafting a satisfactory ending. Rather than torture myself, experience tells me to write about something else, perhaps a light-hearted subject, before returning to the serious stuff. So, as an interlude, let me present you with one of nature’s most fanciful, fabulous trees, the golden Indian bean tree, Catalpa bignonioides “Aurea” AGM.

Before anyone over excites themselves this unusual tree, precious though it is, does not produce beans made of gold. If it did I have a feeling you may have heard of it before. En masse Catalpa bignonioides “Aurea” would certainly enrich our troubled world, not to mention giving us good reason to wear sun glasses more often. From late spring the trees produce huge, heart-shaped leaves of the most radiant, effervescent acid yellow. They remain just as vibrant through the summer and autumn. What’s more, the youngest leaves emerge neatly in threes, infused with the colour of ox blood before fading to gold.

The golden Indian bean tree is a short, wide, low growing tree, rarely taller than 20ft at maturity. This makes it a perfect choice for small gardens or the back of a tropical border. If pollarded, the tree can be kept even more compact, producing leaves that are bigger and more dazzling. The foliage doesn’t emerge until late May or early June which is perfect for areas where spring bulbs are grown. The pictures in this post were taken in the Exotic Garden at Great Dixter earlier this week. The beds had just been planted out to create one of the garden’s most exciting and talked about features, with the catalpa surrounded by bronze leaved cannas. This tree has clearly been pollarded, which has produced some wonderfully exuberant new growth. Despite the torrential rain and glowering sky, look at how the whole plant glows and tell me it’s not remarkable.

Having vowed not to plant any trees in our new garden, I am now sorely tempted, not just by the golden Indian bean tree, but by Tetrapanax papyrifer “Rex” (not technically a tree, but a suckering shrub) and Paulownia tomentosa, the foxglove tree. All three are blessed with extravagant leaves and can be kept under control with careful pruning, so will be ideal for a small space.

Whether or not this has helped free my mind to think of endings for my backlog of posts I don’t know, but my retinas are certainly refreshed! I’d love to hear what you think of this unusual tree. Perhaps you’ve grown one and can share your experiences?

Catalpa bignonioides “Aurea” is available from Chew Valley Trees, Burncoose Nurseries and Crocus.co.uk. Genuinely slow-growing, it is best to buy a decent specimen unless you have all the time in the world.

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Hasn’t the whole EU Referendum campaign been ghastly? I’ve just wanted to run and hide in the garden until its all over. There’s no Boris in my bushes or Cameron among my calendulas. Farage hasn’t tried to deport my dahlias and Osborne isn’t insisting that I economise on echeverias (perhaps he should?). Gove most definitely isn’t to be found in my greenhouse. The garden is my sovereign territory and they are having no jurisdiction over it either way. As far as I’m concerned the whole lot of them belong on the compost heap, where they’d still be some use to humanity when they rot away, assuming politician decompose like the rest of us. Whatever the outcome on Friday, there are certain politicians that have descended to depths from which they will never rise in my estimation. Farage was down there already. It’s all been a little bit tawdry and embarrasing: not the greatest advert for Brand Britain.

In an inspired, tongue-in-cheek attempt to bring levity and beauty to polling day, GROW London have commissioned the wonderfully bonkers Fiona Haser Bizony from Electric Flower Daisy Farm to create floral headdresses representing the two opposing sides: “Remain” (the European flag) and “Leave” (the Union flag). They will be on show at GROW London from tonight until Sunday 26 June.

Personally I am “in”, although I also understand the heartfelt arguments for “out”. However, if I were to make a choice based on Fiona’s creations I’d have to vote “leave” just to enjoy the novelty of having conifer and spirea for sideburns. And who would not want love-in-a-mist woven into their barnet? I wonder if it’s an accident that “Remain” looks everso slightly Napoleonic?

Whether you’re in, out or shaking it all about as you watch us Brits trying to decide if we’re European or not, I hope you enjoy this light hearted tribute to today’s historic vote. I’ll be at home preparing my compost heap for some new high nitrogen fodder.

GROW London, the contemporary garden and lifestyle fair on Hampstead Heath opens this evening for a charity preview and runs until 26 June 2016. For top-notch nurseries, trendy tools and gorgeous gardenalia, I’d heartily recommend a visit.

All photography by Alma Hazer

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It’s been a vintage year for clematis, in our London garden especially. Plants that have previously performed well but never shone have been turbo-charged by a cool, damp start to the year. They have veritably raced up columns, walls and trees, treating us to lush, unblemished displays of colourful flowers. Non climbing Clematis heracleifolia has almost taken over the entire bog garden that separates our pond from the vegetable garden. In late summer its hyacinth-like, blue flowers will give us weeks of pleasure.

Cream of this year’s crop is Clematis ‘Madame Julia Correvon’, which I planted several years ago in the shelter of the Victorian school building where we live. Here the plant’s roots enjoy a cool, moist root-run, thickly mulched with pea gravel and shaded by surrounding pots and planters. Clematis dislike having their lower portions exposed to the sun so it’s a good idea to underplant or protect the first foot or so of growth with an old roof tile.

Raised in France in 1900, Clematis ‘Madame Julia Correvon’ was believed to have been lost in cultivation until it was rediscovered by esteemed plantsman Christopher Lloyd. The Lady, as I refer to her, produces rich, magenta-red flowers from long, pointed buds in mid summer and a second flush in early autumn. Her petals are as heavily rouged and puckered as a dowager’s lips. Whilst Madame Julia is resistant to clematis wilt she is prone to mildew which has, on occasion blighted the leaves and stems so badly that I’ve cut the whole plant back mid season. Regardless of her susceptibility, the RHS saw fit to bestow an Award of Garden Merit in 1993.

If I had choices I might grow Madame Julia through a purple-leaved shrub such as Sambucus nigra ‘Black Lace’ or Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’, or train her up a obelisk in a border planted with Rosa ‘Charles de Mills’, Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’, Ammi majus and magenta Lychnis coronaria. Provided the compost can be kept evenly moist, this versatile, free-flowering clematis will also do perfectly well in a pot.

Clematis ‘Madame Julia Correvon’ is available from Taylor’s Clematis and other reputable nurseries.

As I alighted from the train at Bristol Temple Meads station on Saturday, I worked out that it had been 25 years since I had last set foot in the city. Whilst it’s a fine place, and not without its allurements, I have never really warmed to Bristol. I was born in Bath, so there might be a hint of snobbery in my chilliness towards my home town’s bigger, less refined neighbour. Returning to celebrate a 21st birthday (alas not my own), it took at little while for me to find my bearings – apart from the inevitable gentrification and burgeoning cafe culture, I found Bristol largely unchanged.

Extensively damaged during the Blitz of November 1940, the city’s eclectic architecture bears the scars of WWII, both in the pock-marked fabric of the buildings that predate the bombing and the ugly modern development that followed. The gutted frame of St Peter’s Church in Castle Park always made me feel particularly sad and uneasy as a child, frequented as it was by the less savoury elements of society.

Now, parallel to St Peter’s ruined nave, fragrance company Jo Malone London has supported homeless charity St Mungo’s in creating the Castle Park Physic Garden. The garden opened in June 2015, replacing a sensory garden that had become neglected. Given my previous misgivings about the place it was a lovely surprise to stumble over such a pretty, airy display of herbs and flowers. The story behind the garden is even more refreshing.

St Mungo’s works to end homelessness and help people recover from the issues that create homelessness, often related to mental ill-health. Each night the charity provides housing and support for 2,500 people. The Castle Park Physic Garden is a place where trainees on the charity’s “Putting Down Roots” programme learn practical horticultural skills, get the chance to function as part of a lively community and enjoy some respite from their troubles. There’s an opportunity to gain new qualifications in horticulture, paving the path to long-term employment.

Since the garden opened there have been 1,500 gardening hours on site and more than 400 guided learning hours leading towards recognised accreditation. Thirty one trainees have participated in the project, five have completed a horticultural qualification and three have gone into full-time employment, including one as a landscape gardener.

The garden flourished in its first year, work continuing through the autumn and winter with thousands of daffodils, bluebells and snowdrops being planted. The Putting Down Roots team keep the beds weeded, the shrubs pruned and the site generally clean and tidy. On occasion the Jo Malone London team come and help with planting under the guiding hand of designer Emma Coleman.

Funding for the Physic Garden and five others across the UK helping people with mental health issues comes from the sale of a special Peony and Moss scented candle created by Jo Malone London. 75% of the retail price of £44 goes towards the upkeep and planting of the different sites. At a time when an “every man for himself” ethos seems to be gaining ground it’s great to witness the partnership between a large commercial organisation (Jo Malone has been part of the Estée Lauder group since 1999) and a charity working to combat homelessness and create a nicer environment for everyone.

Beautifully presented, lovingly maintained and contributing significantly to the amenity of a busy urban area, the Castle Park Physic Garden is living proof that if you create an attractive environment people will respect and cherish it. Further collaborations of this kind could serve to enliven other lacklustre public spaces and introduce those less fortunate than ourselves to a rewarding career in horticulture.

n Bristol. As one of the UK’s leading homeless charities   Trainee gardeners are moving on to the next phases of their horticultural qualifications.
“It gives me a big bundle of confidence and is helping me to see how capable I am. I really enjoy studying and may even further my education after this course.” – Trainee Gardener

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With the garden at Polegate Cottage temporarily occupied by builders and tradesmen, I am experiencing an explosion in the plant population next door at The Watch House. Having cuttings, seedlings and freshly sprouted dahlias on the terrace and kitchen worktop was tolerable at first, but those tiny seedlings and cuttings are now vigorous young plants, and the dahlias are approaching 3ft tall.

Lining the passageway that leads to our front door, there is a long procession of gingers and cannas. Robust and healthy, they are producing vast, water-channeling leaves, brilliantly adapted for soaking ones trousers every time it rains. In league with the gingers, the trachelospermum opposite is pushing further and further across the narrow path, knowing that I will not countenance removing the scented flowers that are blocking my way. The walls are, quite literally, closing in on me.

Meanwhile the contents of the greenhouse, standing remarkably intact amongst wheelbarrows of mortar and a spaghetti of old copper piping, is evolving into a lost world of gigantic leaves, exotic flowers and rampant climbers. A single seedling of Eccremocarpus scaber is starting to smother its neighbours and there are sweetpeas emerging from the roof vent. There isn’t a single pot that doesn’t have a baby Echium pininana or Geranium maderense sprouting from it; I am much too slow to pull the seedlings out. I had the brilliant idea of filling the greenhouse with Gloriosa rothschildiana during the summer, but now find I have no-where to plant them out. The luxurious orange and green flowers of Fuchsia splendens are a small consolation – never have they appeared so early or so unblemished – and now I learn one can actually eat the fruits that follow.

The chaos and overcrowding displeases Him Indoors greatly. His perfect garden would have wide terraces with only sunbeds and parasols arranged on them, preferably overlooking a swimming pool. Plants might be acceptable provided they required minimal maintenance and did not create shadow. And it would be sunny from dawn until dusk. What we have now is about as far from his Nirvana as possible, plus it’s rained incessantly throughout our not-so-flaming June. It is a jungle out there and I imagine we have another month of mayhem before I have any hope of getting my overflow garden back.

Of course, I should have known better. This scenario was entirely predictable and I chose to plough on regardless. Less-is-more would have been a better philosophy, rather than saddling myself with hundreds of plants that might find a home somewhere, sometime. My predicament weights all the more heavily because of the garden open weekend in August. Thank goodness this is three weeks later than usual. If the builders take any longer then we may be lending visitors scythes and machetes to penetrate a thicket of gingers, dahlias and agapanthus.

My strategy now is that I need to get through this summer without being struck off by the kindly but exacting ladies from the National Gardens Scheme. In autumn I can rein in my ambition and start again with fewer pots and a simpler layout. I will make space for Him Indoors’ long awaited steamer chairs and reduce the population of the greenhouse, maybe. A few frosty nights would probably assist me with the selection process. Until then it’s standing room only.
The Watch House garden is open on August 20th and 21st, 12pm-4pm, in support of the National Gardens Scheme. Sturdy boots, compass and pith helmet optional.

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When a new garden opens for the National Gardens Scheme in Thanet it’s a major event, principally because there are only three others, one of which is my own. And this year’s newcomer, situated in an isolated rural spot known as Thorne Hill, is a beauty. Created by Andrew Montgomery, The Chapel is a formal garden, divided into a series of “rooms”, arranged around a listed flint and brick building. Each room has a very private feel, and one immediately senses the theatrical personality of this intimate, stylish garden.

If I had to make a comparison, it would be to Tintinhull or Hidcote rather than Sissinghurst, such is the influence of classical garden style and decoration as opposed to the shaggier Kentish landscape. However, the vernacular is celebrated at The Chapel. The garden has been created in the midst of a working farm, which has allowed for some intriguing juxtapositions between utility and ornament. On one side of the estate fence there are handsome sheep; on the other, borders of lavender leading to a Lutyens bench. Generously proportioned livestock sheds have been repurposed for potting, disguised by Mediterranean figs and then occupied by swallows. And in the kitchen garden, steps have been fashioned from workaday concrete kerb stones. These agricultural references have all helped to keep this elegant garden grounded in its pastoral setting.

On arrival visitors are directed to a neatly lawned area in front of a traditional Kentish farm building. Here, excellent teas are served and a huge range of scented leaf geraniums offered for sale. I was immediately struck by a rectangle of yew hedge overflowing with pillar-box red Salvia “Royal Bumble”. The contrast between honey-coloured gravel drive, green foliage, red flowers and white weatherboarding is simple yet striking.

To the right of the building is a large pond, possibly a legacy of the site’s agricultural past, neatly edged with brick and plainly planted with yellow flag iris, Iris pseudacorus. Compared with the rest of the garden this is a delightfully relaxed, informal space which helps wed the garden to its surroundings. With chairs and tables ranged about it is also a lovely spot to enjoy one’s obligatory garden visiting tea and cake.

The garden proper is entered through a gap between two sturdy brick piers, capped with stone balls. This silhouette is repeated later on in yew hedging. To the right, an old flint wall and the border in its shadow are sheltered by a row of apple trees. They are neatly pruned so that their limbs are exposed with their canopies sitting flat beneath the sky. This is an unusual and rather Chelsea-esque contrivance that immediately suggests this is no ordinary garden. Underneath the trees, fading hellebores give way to an abundance of one of my favourite plants, Geranium palmatum. On our visit the blizzard of candy pink blossom surpassed anything I have achieved in my own garden, filling a gap before the roses bloom.

Another favourite plant of mine and seeker of footholds in stone, Erigeron karvinskianus, sprouts from the ancient pier caps leading to The Chapel’s lower floor. The Mexican daisy, as it’s commonly known, is a plant that lets rip if it’s happy, finding a home anywhere warm, dry and sunny. Once you’ve got it, you’ll never be without, but it can be tricky to establish if it’s not completely happy with its lot.

In front of the house a large rectangular lawn centres itself on an armillary sundial surrounded by tightly clipped box pyramids. Trees at the end of the garden cast a deep, elongating shade, creating the perfect home for ferns, hydrangeas and Japanese anemones. In the far corner of the lawn a narrow gap in a yew hedge provides access to a kitchen garden; an impeccably neat, no-frills area abundant with fruit trees, vegetables and flowers for cutting. The aluminium greenhouse is bigger than my entire garden, filled with tomatoes, marigolds, lettuce and benches of geraniums. Such luxuries as this are beyond my wildest dreams!

Tracing one’s footsteps back up the kerbstone stair and through the sundial garden, the next “room” is entered beneath a pergola dripping with Eccremocarpus scaber, the Chilean glory flower, already forming its fat, faintly testicular fruits in June. I like the way in which a yew hedge has been trained to create a window within the pergola’s structure, framing the view to a pair of more ancient yews in the next garden room. One can also see here that the garden has been planted for all seasons, with layers of plants carefully positioned to deliver colour and texture throughout the year.

The space that follows is more formal than the last, bounded by two parallel borders, constrained by hedges and brimming over with roses, alliums, lilacs and tall perennials such as thalictrum and Macleaya cordata. A beautifully maintained lawn is punctuated by two rows of conical yews, leading in one direction towards a small figurative statue and in the other towards a beautiful space which I’ll call the pond garden.

Entered between two lichen-clad stone obelisks, the pond garden is full of incident and must be a lovely place to sit in the morning with a paper, or in the evening with a gin and tonic. The pond itself is planted only with waterlilies and there are no fish; we suppose because the open location is a clear lunch invitation for herons. If the owner’s passion for geraniums is not already apparent, in this part of the garden it becomes clear. There are deep borders packed with hardy geraniums in shades of pink, magenta, mauve, blue and white, mingling with roses, ferns, foxgloves and more frothy thalictrums. This is where Him Indoors found a suitable bench on which to sun himself whilst I continued my tour.

From a quiet corner of the pond garden one can explore a small, sheltered courtyard, entered through an old flint outbuilding which has one side open into the space. Here specimens of Fatsia japonica are pruned to create a tall, high canopied trees. Underneath there are box balls surrounding a gently bubbling fountain. A wonderful place to shelter during a rain shower, or in the heat of a hot summer’s day.

Andrew’s garden is blessed with some lovely pieces of garden ornament: A lead tank is planted with deep blue lavender and deep orange nasturtiums and the brim of a stone urn flows over with Thymus serpyllum, Oxalis triangularis and Euphorbia myrsinites. I especially enjoyed discovering a “Wise Monkey” sheltering beneath an acer in the pond garden, his brow furrowed by all that thinking.

At the end of the tour the garden opens into an orchard and finally an extensive open meadow. Running along the back of the pond garden wall is a lavender walk leading to a small Lutyens bench. Espalier pear trees are neatly trained against the brickwork, promisingly laden with young fruit.

The garden’s main focal point was perhaps my least favourite feature at The Chapel. I never feel attempts to shrink features which rightly belong in a landscape park work, and this domed rotunda in the manner of Studley Royal did not much for me. I could not work out if the stone was real or reconstituted, but the effect was a little manufactured. Sitting inside, the way the supporting columns broke up the view bothered me too. No matter, this is not my garden. All that should concern us is that the owner enjoys it, and I am sure he does as a spot from which to survey the fruits of his labours.

Until one has done it for one’s self, it is impossible to imagine the hard work and pressure that accompanies the opening of one’s own garden for the first time. Andrew had pulled out all the stops and presented his garden in immaculate condition. Hedges were neatly trimmed, the grass was mown into stripes, flowers were carefully deadheaded and I could swear there was not a single weed to be found, even if I were looking, which I was not. We had a splendid afternoon at The Chapel and came away full of admiration. Thanet is lucky to have this fine addition to the National Gardens Scheme and I hope there will be more opening dates next year.

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Alright, enough now, all this wet stuff has been marvellous but where’s the sun? This time last year it was scorching – so scorching in fact that my day at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show was made bearable only by copious ice-cold Laurent Perrier and the good humour of my heat-hardened Aussie friend Helen. Happily, tomorrow’s temperature is going to be more Margate than Melbourne, but please, no more rain. It hasn’t stopped since Chelsea, so let this be the end of our damp squib summer and the start of a long-awaited heat wave.

Among the plants that haven’t been complaining about the deluge are our hostas. Where they haven’t been nibbled, chomped or shredded by slugs and snails they are looking superb, especially Hosta “Halcyon”, quite simply one of the best blue-leaved hostas out there. If I could take only one Hosta to my desert island, it would be this one, although it wouldn’t last long in the heat. Halcyon’s not too big, not too small, ace-of-spades-shaped leaves are covered with a smoky bloom which causes raindrops to bead and bounce from their surface. It never wears off and helps the relatively tough leaves to repel slugs and snails as well as water. Clumps of Hosta “Halcyon” take a little while to build up, but once mature make incredible patio pot plants or front-of-border fillers for semi shade. Lavender-blue flowers, which are a nice bonus, appear in July.

Off now to perform a little sun dance ahead of visiting Hampton Court Flower Show tomorrow. Fingers crossed it works – I don’t do plastic ponchos!

I am not a negative individual by nature, but I had misgivings about this year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Some of the design drawings on the RHS website looked positively ghastly and I am still scarred (or should that be scorched?), by the furnace-like temperatures Helen of Oz and I had to endure last year. Happily it turns out that this year’s garden designers are much better designers than they are draftsmen. The show gardens, so numerous that I gave up checking to make sure I had seen them all, are diverse, interesting and, unlike Chelsea, packed with ideas one might readily try at home.

My only criticism of the show is that the standard of construction and plantsmanship is, with a few notable exceptions, a shadow of what one sees at Chelsea. Make no mistake, Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is as good as it’s ever been, better perhaps, but it is moving firmly down a populist route, leaving its sister show to deal with matters of high horticulture. This is fine, because Hampton Court is bigger, brighter and bolder than ever with a lot of space to fill. In addition the public want to shop, in a Brexit free zone, and boy, did they shop today. There was nary a trolley without a corkscrew stake, a sunset orange zantedeschia, a gimmicky hydrangea or a coral-red delphinium in it. Some nurseries definitely had a good day; how many of plants purchased will still be alive this time next year is another matter. With Chatsworth coming on board next year, I wonder how the RHS will differentiate yet another show – the subject of a future post perhaps.

Meanwhile the Hampton Court show organisers have clearly decided that more is more, creating no fewer than five show garden categories and inviting 43 designs to compete. Relatively speaking the standard is high, as is the amount of innovation. Unfortunately one or two gardens, and I will not name names, are not quite up to scratch, which is surprising given the RHS’ rigorous selection process. There are plenty of water features, although the number of shallow metal bowls filled with inky or swirling water, or a combination of the two, gives the impression that someone, somewhere has been offering a good deal. There is a lot of yellow, mainly of the sulphur variety, paired with blues and purples (pleasing) and with burgundy (not so pleasing). Sunshine shades, starting with pale yellow and moving through orange to poppy red, certainly seem to be in vogue, as do all the blues. In the Floral Pavilion, which has taken steroids since 2015, there are more salvias and ferns than I have ever seen, but fewer grasses and foxgloves.

I have two favourite gardens. The first is the Bowel Disease UK Garden for Crohn’s Disease which, despite its unattractive title, is a garden after my own heart. Designed by Andrew Fisher Tomlinson and Dan Bowyer it has more joie de vivre than any of its neighbours, as well as a fabulous plant list. It richly deserves a gold medal and Best Summer Garden award. More on this design in a future post.

The second garden to tickle my fancy is John Warland’s reprise of his design for World Vision, first staged at Chelsea. At Hampton Court the RHS has granted the charity a much larger and more prominent spot, allowing the designer to let his undulating turf strips fly across a blousy meadow of ox-eye daisies. This is both a stimulating and show stopping garden. After two strong years, I can’t wait to see what the World Vision has in store for 2017.

The summer gardens are the most consistently high in standard, so much so that I went back to see them three times during the day, each time witnessing them bathed in a different light. Simple yet beautiful is the Japanese Summer Garden designed by Saori Imoto. This elegant, paired-back garden demonstrates the principle of ‘less is more’ with great deftness. The lavender blue hydrangeas remind me of Cornwall, pulling hard at my sense of belonging.

At the opposite end of the fussiness spectrum comes Kate’s Garden, designed by Carolyn Dunster and Noemi Mercurelli. In this compact little plot the flowers are almost falling over themselves with enthusiasm, as are the lovely people giving out plant lists and information. The garden has been made to raise awareness of lymphoedema, a painful side effect of breast cancer surgery. It shows how to grow cut flowers in a small space, and champions seasonal, locally-grown blooms. Dried seedheads on display show the cyclical nature of life. In this garden the obligatory round, metal water feature, this time filled with floating dahlia flowers, represents the flow of the lymphatic drainage system. Not something one normally considers in the garden, but worthy of consideration nonetheless.

A Summer Retreat is the ultimate crowd pleaser, sending huddles of ladies of a certain age weak at the knees. Those that don’t require the attentions of the St John Ambulance can enjoy a garden inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. Designers Amanda Waring and Laura Arison have created a garden awash with delphiniums, nepeta and roses in front of raised summerhouse. Naturally the central water feature is a) round , b) full of inky black water and c) bowl-shaped. Perhaps the RHS are awarding extra marks for these attributes in 2016? Meanwhile, I suspect many a husband will be pestered for a petite black and yellow summerhouse over a bedtime sherry tonight.

On the windswept plain that is the blank canvas for the Conceptual Gardens a couple of designs stand out. My favourite, the Near Future Garden designed by Arit Anderson, depicts a scenario where rising temperatures radically alter the plants we can grow in an English garden. At the centre is a swirling black vortex symbolising our oil resources draining away as we use up all our fossil fuel resources. Sobering stuff. Arit has employed some very tempting plants, including Salvia lanceolata (rusty sage), Bulbine frutescens “Hallmark” (burn jelly plant) and Bituminaria bituminosa (pitch trefoil), so called because the leaves smell of bitumen. Three dramatic wooden sculptures representing sun, wind and water implored visitors to harness these natural energy sources to power the world sooner rather than later.

Nearby, The Red Thread is a garden inspired by an ancient Chinese myth which says that when we are born the gods tie our ankles to all the people whose lives we are destined to touch, using a red thread. This thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break. I liked this garden very much and felt a similar structure of wooden pillars and red rope (other colours are available) might make an interesting boundary, plant support or climbing frame in a family garden.

Sadly the vision presented by UNHCR Border Control is all too familiar to us Brits, which makes it especially poignant and politically relevant. This is not a pretty garden by any stretch of the imagination, but a thought-provoking, perhaps chilling one. Visitors enter through a forbidding turnstile to be greeted by the message “Nobody Left Outside” imprinted on the floor of the central building. Thankfully the water feature here is a moat: circular, yes, but not bowl-shaped or brooding. Thank heavens! I feel the garden achieves very effectively what it sets out to do, highlighting the plight of refugees and the risks many take to find shelter somewhere welcoming.

The big show gardens are, well, big. They struggle significantly to rival anything we see at Chelsea because they lack a decent backdrop and are not grouped together. Honestly, I didn’t like many of them, except the Dog’s Trust Garden designed by Paul Hervey-Brookes taking a gold. It’s the first garden I’ve come across that’s designed specifically for dogs and their owners, which poses the questions why, when so many of us have dogs as pets? John’s design includes tunnels and sniffer tracks playfully woven into the colourful herbaceous borders. A cosy pavilion retreat rests at one end of the garden enabling “dogs to survey the landscape with their human guests” – a nice way of looking at things.

With 43 gardens to cover, a few less if you exclude the ones I didn’t get to, I think it’s time to take a break and come back with more over the next day or so. If you are visiting Hampton Court Flower Show during the next week you are in for a treat. It’s perhaps the best ever. Be sure to wear comfy shoes and sun block (I didn’t) and have your route home planned as you’re going to be buying a lot of plants. Happy Days!

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Being a man of the world, it takes quite a lot to impress me. Yet Dave Parkinson’s display of South African disa orchids at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show never fails to take my breath away. The shocking vitality of the shades displayed in the flowers of these remarkable little plants is off the scale. Be it magenta, coral, tangerine, sunshine yellow or lipstick-pink there’s a diminutive disa to belt out every saturated, eye-popping shade one can imagine.

Disas are terrestrial, moisture loving orchids, native to Table Mountain where they are found growing near springs and streams with their roots in cool water and heads in the clouds. Flowers, each with three prominent petals, appear to be upside down and are held singly or in clusters on short stems, depending on the species. The leaves are elongated and grassy.

Should you fancy growing disas at home, the first piece of advice is to forget everything you know about growing other kinds of orchids. Disas will die if they dry out and do not like to be too warm. On Table Mountain disas are sometimes found completely submerged in water, or at the very least in places where they are constantly wet. In the house or cool greenhouse they must be watered at daily and with pure, soft, unchlorinated water. They can be left standing in trays of water without any ill effects. However, disas cannot stand hard water and other pollutants, including concentrated fertilisers. Any plant food must be delivered highly diluted.

Dave Parkinson suggests planting in a mix of 60% coarse peat and 40% super coarse perlite and warns against any form of pre-mixed orchid or potting compost which is likely to be far too rich. Disas like to be cool but cannot withstand subzero temperatures: they need a frost-free greenhouse or unheated spare room with good light. Disas make ideal gifts for anyone who collects rainwater, is stingy with heating and a bit heavy-handed with the watering. Me? I am happy enough to leave all the hard work to Dave Parkinson and simply enjoy having my socks knocked off by his incredible display once a year.

To find out more about how to grow dazzling disa orchids take a look at Dave Parkinson Plants’ website.

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The only plant of any value that came with the purchase of Polegate Cottage was a clematis. Squeezed into an impossibly tight gap between paving slabs it scrambles over a wrought iron arch above the garden gate. It has withstood all the builders’ toings and froings and is now covered in a rude quantity of rich, velvety flowers. The clematis in question, like C. “Madame Julia Correvon”, is a viticella type with an RHS Awards of Garden Merit, and is called C. “Étoile Violette”. Both clematis were bred by Francisque Morel of Lyon in the early 1900s and remain amongst the most popular varieties in cultivation today.

Contrary to my photographs, the flowers of C. “Étoile Violette” are a particularly dark, inky purple and not flushed with magenta. Their true, regal colour is just about visible in the flowers at the very top of the image below. The dark flowers with their pale yellow stamens contrast wonderfully with excellent, blemish-free foliage. It may be the sea air, but I have never experienced powdery mildew with this particular variety, which is also resistant to clematis wilt. C. “Étoile Violette” flowers from July to September on the current season’s growth, which means it needs pruning hard to 8″ – 10″ above ground at the end of winter. Apart from providing a climbing frame, no other maintenance is needed. The flowers are on the small side compared to some earlier flowering clematis, but are borne in such profusion that very little foliage is visible during the first flush. A well established plant might climb to a height of 10′ – 12′ but will never become rampant as some clematis can.

Plant C. “Étoile Violette” where it can scramble through shrubs that flower in early summer (philadelphus for example) to prolong the season, through a hedge, or up a well-lit wall amongst yellow, pink or white-flowered roses. This versatile climber is worthy of the recommendation that if you only have space for one clematis, C. “Étoile Violette” could be your very best choice.

Clematis “Étoile Violette” is available from Taylor’s Clematis , Crocus.co.uk and good garden centres nationwide.

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I have a problem. With the garden next door out of action and no immediate prospect of gaining it back, I have grown way too many plants for the space available. First of all I ignored the foliage coming at me from every direction. That worked reasonably well until I started dismembering things. Then, when I could no longer reach the front door without a machete, I took to feeling cross with myself for lack of foresight and poor planning. On a couple of occasions I caught myself standing forlornly in the midst of it all not knowing which way to turn. This is not like me. Finally, last weekend, after seven days’ holiday, it dawned on me that fretting was futile. I could no longer tolerate torturing my best plants to secure a future for them all, and so I took action.

I know from experience that making major changes to the garden less than 5 or 6 weeks before opening will mean that the plants do not have time to knit together properly. Chelsea designers manage to create a harmonious whole in a matter of days, but I neither have the skill nor the nerve to leave things until the last-minute. So, for one year only, I have decided to prematurely dig out a dehiscing Geranium maderense, occupying an enormous footprint (relatively speaking), to make space for young Ricinus communis “New Zealand Purple”, Alpinia zerumbet “Variegata”, Dahlia “Magenta Star” and three Cuphea “Torpedo”, rashly purchased when I already knew I had nowhere to plant them. I doubt anyone has used Spigelia marilandica (below right) in an exotic planting before, but I just adore it and want a bigger clump. It’s a pity the neighbour’s cat has alternative ideas for the future of my North American treasure.

Other plants with prospects have been arranged to create a double border of pots leading from the outdoor kitchen to the garden table. This was tricky as my best specimens had already been used on the left hand side of the garden, leaving me struggling to create texture and interest on the right. I had hundreds (literally) of dahlias to play with but not much else. Fabulous Fuchsia splendens, which has relished 6 months in a hot, steamy greenhouse, has been released into the open air. I hope it does not succumb to capsid bugs or gall mites, which have infected other fuchsias in the garden; hence, with regret, I am growing fewer fuchsias this year.

Cuttings of Sparrmannia africana “Flore Pleno” taken from our house plant in London late last year have been the biggest surprise, producing gigantic, coarsely-furry, leaves. Now I know what these plants look like in youth, I will certainly take more cuttings and use them in future plantings. I can appreciate why sparrmannia is sometimes called the African linden, as the leaves resemble the lime trees to which sparrmannias are closely related.

Although I think my pot borders are an attractive plan B, allowing me to display another twenty or so plants to good effect, they have severely reduced circulation space and make for a lot of watering. Added to which the vine weevils will have a field day chomping their way across a smorgasbord of delicious new delicacies. In practice, sitting at the garden table necessitates doubling as a plant support. No parrots on your shoulder here at The Watch House me ‘arties only passion flowers or pansies

Our garden at The Watch House will be open from 12-4 on Saturday, August 20th and Sunday, August 21st. Click here for more details on the NGS website.

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In recent years both gardeners and florists have become better acquainted with non-twining, ‘herbaceous’ clematis. They make excellent border plants, especially in situations where a little height is required, and elegant, long-lasting cut flowers. The main distinction between herbaceous and climbing clematis is that the former do not produce twining leaves and are therefore incapable of supporting themselves. This is not to suggest they will not grow tall – many will grow 5-8ft from the root – but they will need the support of a nearby shrub, trellis or plant support. Herbaceous clematis will also scramble across the ground; helpful in areas where early summer flowers are past their best. If you choose to let them crawl, take care to protect tasty shoots from marauding slugs and snails that will soon turn your colourful carpet into a picnic. One of my absolute favourite herbaceous clematis is C. x durandii AGM, which has simple, stylish indigo-blue flowers. This variety looks lovely among roses, nepeta and astrantia in a midsummer border.

A few years ago, from the clearance area of our local garden centre, I purchased Clematis ‘Inspiration’, believing it to be a conventional climber. A newish introduction, it’s a cross between a large-flowered purple climber called C. ‘Warszawska Nike’ and a lovely scrambling herbaceous variety with nodding flowers called C. integrifolia ‘Rosea’. It has taken a little while to establish itself at the foot of a wall behind our vegetable garden, but this year has come of age. We’ve been enjoying a succession of crinkled, cruciform, rose-pink flowers for a month already and there are lots more blooms on the way. They do bleach a little in bright sunlight, which is rarely an issue in our shady London garden, but just over the last few days I have noticed them starting to fade. No matter, the colour is very welcome, as are the fluffy seed heads that will follow.

Clematis ‘Inspiration’ is available from Roseland House and Taylor’s Clematis.

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As mid summer turns into late summer, it’s all too easy to let your garden go to seed, literally. As a child I remember leaving my parents garden in its prime for our annual sojourn in Cornwall. Returning three weeks later the same garden, so perfectly fecund before we departed, was now overstuffed, yellowing and endearingly fuzzy around the edges, like a well-loved teddy bear. Yet with a little careful planning and tender loving care you can keep your plot looking fresh and vital until the first frosts. Here are my top tips for prolonging the splendour of high summer, giving you more time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labours.

One: Water Well

Unless you have planned your garden to be completely drought tolerant you are going to need to water to keep your garden looking fresh and attractive through hot, dry spells. Even if you’ve been water-wise with your plant choices you’ll need to tend seedlings, cuttings and container plants which might perish without a good drenching now and then. The secret is not to take a “little and often” approach. This encourages shallow rooting, making plants even more susceptible to drying out. Instead, soak your garden once or twice a week and leave it alone between times. Large plants and pots of over 14″ benefit from at least 2 gallons of water applied with a watering can or hose. I greatly prefer the ritual of using a watering can, although this would be impractical and time-consuming in a larger garden. When watering with a hose, resist the temptation to move on too quickly and make sure you deliver at least 1-2cms of water to the soil surface during each session.

Pots, hanging baskets and new plants are the exception to the rule. These may need watering once, if not twice a day, and thoroughly. To reduce the burden, mulch the surface of pots with grit and group containers closely together to create shade at the base. A soil-based compost or one that has water-retaining granules added to it will stay damp for longer. The old advice that one should not water in bright sunlight has recently been dismissed as an unnecessary precaution. Leaves may not be scorched but some water will evaporate if you irrigate during the day. Watering in the evening, as well as being therapeutic, always strikes me as offering a plant the best opportunity to freshen up overnight.

Ultimately, well watered plants will thrive and look fresher for longer. A dry plant will have its growth checked, perhaps leading to an untimely death. Plants vary hugely in their requirement for water, so, if in doubt, check a plant’s particular needs before dowsing or drowning them. Experienced gardeners can tell when a plant needs watering from a mile off and you will soon learn through trial and error.

Two: Feed frequently

Providing plants with the sustenance they need throughout the growing season isn’t just about cultivating bigger, more prolific plants. Appropriate feeding will help promote flowering, brighten foliage, encourage fruit production, strengthen root growth and increase disease resistance. Like a healthy body, a healthy plant will fight off pests and diseases more readily. Typically gardeners are looking to promote flowering and fruiting at this time of year, for which liquid tomato food, rich in potassium, is the perfect solution. I get through gallons of the stuff between now and October. Too much nitrogen in high summer may result in lots of leaves and no flowers. Feed regularly and always follow the manufacturers instructions.

Three: Deadhead diligently

Plants produce flowers for one reason and one reason only – to reproduce. If they are allowed to set seed they may at best cease flowering or at worse keel over and die prematurely, especially in the case of annuals. Regular removal of faded flowers, commonly known as dead heading, encourages a plant to continue its quest to bear seed and carry on blooming. It also prevents dead and decaying flowers from spoiling the display or rotting on the ground, which may cause a build up of diseases.

Keep a sharp pair of secateurs with you in the garden at all times, or a pair of scissors for tender stems. I tend to use my thumb and forefinger a lot of the time, especially for begonias, petunias and other small flowers. Some plants, such as fuchsias, drop their flowers naturally, whilst sterile plants, which are incapable of reproducing by seed, will not benefit from dead heading but will look neater for your attentions. The time to resist giving blooms the chop is when a plant has especially attractive seed heads, for example poppies, teasles, eryngiums, roses bearing hips and most grasses. These can be left untrimmed for your enjoyment and that of the wildlife in your garden.

Four: Stake Stealthily

A mistake I repeatedly make is to support my plants too late in the season. It is so tempting to believe the wind will never blow, or that a hail storm will not wreak havoc in your corner of the world. However, I can guarantee that if that you don’t pay attention to staking early in the season you will, at some stage, live to regret it.

Few gardeners enjoying trussing their plants up like a Christmas turkey, but, done sensitively, staking provides an invisible support that prolongs the attractiveness of tall plants or those prone to flopping. It is a mistake to believe that heavily hybridised garden varieties with large flowers and lush leaves can naturally support themselves. Practices such as the “Chelsea Chop” and rationing food and water will prevent certain plants from becoming top-heavy. Dwarf varieties tend to possess a lower centre of gravity, however it’s a pity to restrict your choice to these.

If you are reading this advice in July, it’s still a case of “better late than never”. Get yourself some garden canes or straight sticks that have been pruned out of shrubs and trees in your garden and a ball of twine, then get staking. Most plants still have plenty of oomph left in them and within a fortnight only you will know about the scaffolding keeping your magnificent display upright.

Five: Plan for plenty

Few of us own gardens large enough to afford the luxury of having areas that look good for just a couple of weeks, but extending the flowering season over a whole year requires skill and constant adjustment. An early summer garden is the epitome of Englishness, filled with bosomy roses, hardy geraniums, lupins and irises. The harsh reality is that this vision of loveliness does not continue much beyond mid July. Hardy geraniums and lupins respond well to a good chop post flowering and should come back with a fresh, vigorous flush of foliage and flower. But a better course of action is to layer in plants that typically flower later in the summer, for example dahlias, salvias, abutilon, cannas, rudbeckias, chrysanthemums and grasses. Even annuals can exhaust themselves if not well watered and regularly dead headed. Cosmos, zinnias and nicotiana have a reliably long season and are worth growing from sowings made as late as June or early July. Lily bulbs purchased at summer flower shows can be planted straight away and will flower in September or October (although they will revert to flowering at their normal time the following year).

Creating a garden that looks great in May and June when the summer is young is not difficult. Maintaining one that delivers through the summer and into autumn demonstrates real skill and plantsmanship. Follow these simple tips and you’ll be well on the way to keeping your garden looking lusher for longer.

I’d love to hear your top tips for keeping your summer display looking fresh and vibrant as the nights begin to draw in. TFG.

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