I have just returned from my annual pilgrimage to Christmas World, Europe’s biggest Christmas trade fair. Had I not known where I was, I might have been forgiven for thinking I had stumbled into Europe’s biggest plant fair, such was the dominance of flowers, floristry and foliage, real and artificial.

If you had not already noticed, plants in the home are seriously fashionable right now. It started with foliage plants displayed vertically on green walls, followed by those peculiar upside down pots that allow herbs to be dangled tortuously from the ceiling. Not convinced by these (sorry if you were), we moved on to succulents. Now, all of a sudden, any kind of foliage from filigree to fabulous goes. A rash of excellent books have been published on the subject of using plants in the home, including The Plant Recipe Book by Baylor Chapman, Botanical Style by Selina Lake and In Bloom: Creating and Living with Flowers by Ngoc Minh Ng, all of which I have relished reading this winter and will be delving into for years to come. For me, no room is ever properly habitable without at least one plant and a vase of fresh flowers. And rarely do I stop at one of each.

I have worked with artificial flowers for over 20 years now, from getting my first job in the gift department at John Lewis, to becoming the buyer for artificial flowers fifteen years later, then moving on to Christmas decoration. I have witnessed just how far artificial plants have come in that time. The quality and realism of plants in particular has come on in leaps and bounds, so much so that I have to take a very close look nowadays to distinguish fresh from faux.

Would I buy a faux plant? Yes, actually I might. Whilst I would never consider one under normal circumstances, if I were to have an impossibly dark corner, or an even more peripatetic life than I already do, I would certainly rather have an artificial plant to look at than no plant at all.  From reindeer moss to ravellana, protea to pelargonium, there is almost no plant that can’t be faithfully reproduced in some kind of plastic, foam or rubber.

Good artificial plants do not come cheap. They are achingly slow to develop, and laborious and expensive to manufacture. Each plant requires several different materials and processes to make, with leaves, stems and flowers often being painted or by hand. I have seen it done, and it requires time, skill, patience and precision. As with all things, one gets what one pays for. The manufacturers present at Christmas World are in the upper echelons of artificial plant manufacture and so the quality and realism are excellent. Judge for yourself from my snaps.

In my next post –  look away now if you’re squeamish – I reveal the return of the gerbera; bigger, better and bawdier than ever before!

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It’s day three of my involuntary, lurgy-related incarceration. As you can imagine, I am not coping with it well. Yesterday, having taken until midday to generate sufficient energy to get myself showered and ‘ready’, I decided I should venture outside to check the greenhouse before the rain set in again. It was not a brilliant idea. I was freezing within 5 minutes, which was not long enough to complete the tasks I’d set myself and left me feeling rather downcast.

Comfortably back indoors, looking forward to lunch (happily my appetite is unimpared, a good sign surely?) I had in front of me a jug of small, very ordinary daffodils. They clashed horribly with all the furnishings in the library, but studying them gave me greater pleasure than anything else in the room. Commercial cut flowers are such a different race from those we grow in the garden. It does not matter what’s going on below the waist, so long as their elongated upper portions are crowned with a bounty of bright, long-lasting blooms. Gerberas are a case in point. Their particular needs – steady warmth, good drainage and abundant ventilation – make them quite needy house or greenhouse plants. Most of us encounter them only as cut flowers, parted from their unspectacular foliage, with their naked, fuzzy stems terminated by daisies of improbable, almost artificial perfection.

Since Volkswagen decided to plonk plastic gerberas in test tubes on the dashboard of their new Beetle in the 1990s, the Transvaal daisy, as it’s otherwise known, has been languishing somewhere between naff and passé in the flower fashion stakes. Despite that, gerberas remain the fifth most popular cut flower in the world, after tulips, carnations, chryanthemums and roses. Those cultivated as cut flowers are the result of a cross between Gerbera jamesonii and Gerbera viridiflora, both plants from South Africa. They arrived in the UK in 1887 but proved better suited to commercial cultivation on the French Riviera and, latterly, under glass in The Netherlands. Whilst our heads have been turned by hydrangeas, gladioli, dahlias and peonies, the Dutch have been busy ‘improving’ the gerbera, with some eye-catching results.

Last week at Floradecora in Frankfurt, growers from The Netherlands mounted spectacular displays of the newest cut flower varieties, including roses, lilies, tulips, bouvardia, lisianthus and, of course, gerberas. I was most taken by the more free-form gerbera introductions, such as ‘Pasta Rosata’ (below) and finely fringed ‘Pink Springs’ (bottom of post), perhaps because these looked least like conventional gerberas. Closer inspection of individual blooms revealed incredible complexity, variation and subtlety of colour, possible only because each gerbera ‘flower’ is actually composed of hundreds of smaller florets which can be manipulated by the breeder to create endless variety of size, form and shade.

The gerbera’s colour spectrum starts with white, moving into yellow, orange, red and pink, ending with magenta and deep, velvety red. There are simple single blooms alongside dense doubles and ‘specialities’ with pincushion centres surrounded by longer ray florets. Improvements in breeding, cultivation and treatment before the blooms reach the end consumer mean that gerberas now last longer, look better and stay more upright in the vase than they did 10 years ago.

Popular flowers like gerberas, dahlias, chyrsanthemums and roses must constantly evolve and reinvent their image if they are going to remain at the top of their commercial game. By introducing a softer colour palette and looser shapes, gerbera breeders are responding the same trend that brought dahlias such as ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Café au Lait’ to the fore.

Having spent a few happy moments browsing the displays, I was once again won over by the cheer-leading vivacity of these champion cut flowers. Am I persuaded to attempt growing gerberas at home? No, thank you, but next time I stray into a florists I shall certainly cast my disapproving glances elsewhere.

Love them or loath them? Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts about gerberas.

I love flowering bulbs. I plant thousands of them in pots every autumn and spring, ready to bloom the following season. I plant big ones and small ones, short ones and tall ones, bright ones and white ones, but I almost always plant them separately, one variety per container. I am not sure where my aversion to mixing different types or colours of bulb stems from. Perhaps it’s the inexpensive nets of daffodils sold in garden centres for ‘naturalising’, in which too many shapes and shades jostle for attention, creating an awkward effect that’s anything but natural. More likely it’s the yellowing, untidy foliage that’s left behind after many bulbs have done their thing. Dead flowers can be removed, but leaves must remain to give the bulbs an opportunity to replenish their energy reserves. If you decide to mix bulbs in one container, the secret is to make sure that the later flowering varieties are lusher and taller than those that came before. In that way any withering foliage is diguised beneath burgeoning growth, a trick that’s as useful in the border as in a pot.

Don’t get me wrong, a well planned mixed pot can reward with month after month of beautiful blooms. I have done it many times and often with success, but somehow I always find the ‘one hit wonder’ of a single variety planted en-masse preferable to a succession. The impact of a low bowl densely forested with white muscari, or a generous long tom crammed with glossy red tulips is so much greater than if they were planted with companions. Using bulbs in this way does not mean attractive combinations cannot be achieved: I do this by moving the pots around to create different associations as each comes into its own. Pots of bulbs that have ‘gone over’ can be moved and placed somewhere discreet to recharge their batteries, or otherwise turned out in favour of the next inhabitant. (Despite having hundreds of terracotta pots, I never seem to have a vacant one. Is it only me that suffers from this problem?).

Although an urban fox is busy digging up my bulbs faster than I can say ‘Boom! Boom!’, we will soon be enjoying massed displays of Iris histrioides ‘Lady Beatrix Stanley’ and Galanthus woronowii. After 10 days of feeling decidedly shabby I am looking forward to getting out to Goodnestone Park tomorrow for their NGS snowdrop day. Spring is almost here!

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It was possibly a little too early to go out snowdrop spotting. In another year it might almost have been too late, but January and February have been cold and the flowers have responded accordingly. We arrived at Goodnestone Park just before midday and found the carpark already half full. A handful of hardy-looking types huddled near the garden gate, their scarves held aloft by a stiff easterly breeze. Even this far inland, the wind off the English Channel has a ferocious bite. As we flung open the car doors we caught a lung full of country air, laced with a heady cocktail of ozone and cow pat. No hint of the sensual perfumes held within the garden’s sheltered confines here.

Since lady Fitzwalter passed away in autumn 2015 the house and gardens at Goodnestone have undergone serious renovations. The Palladian Mansion has had a facelift and its interior has been tastefully decorated in manner befitting the paying guests that will now occupy its airy rooms. It is heartening to see Goodnestone’s magnificent sandstone portico gleaming in the low winter light, and freshly painted shutters at the windows. Occupation of the house may now restrict access to parts of the garden. This is a pity, but the grand old building must pay its way.

In the grounds, the focus seems to be on major structural work such as clearing woodland boundaries, removing low, decaying branches and pulling overgrown vegetation away from the ancient garden walls. It’s not glamorous stuff, but almost certainly necessary. One hopes that the flair and finesse Lady Fitzwalter brought to Goodnestone will prevail again, once the garden’s fragile infrastructure is secured. In front of the house, mirroring clumps of Betula utilis ‘Snow Queen’ have been planted at either end of the lower terrace, linked by an avenue of yews. These should be striking additions to the garden when they become established.

Peering through the windows of the enviable greenhouse, one could see young pelargoniums, helichrysums and marguerites potted up in readiness for May, when they will be set free into sheltered confines of the walled garden for visitors to enjoy. A poly tunnel was already planted out with various salad leaves, suggesting it’s very much business as usual in Goodnestone’s gardening department.

Back outside, the woodland garden provided shelter from the chill wind. It had snowed in Broadstairs, but nothing had settled. At Goodnestone little patches of thawing snow sheltered in gutters, among rocks and between stacks of logs. The ground was boggy underfoot and we soon had mud halfway up our legs. It was good to be out of our sanitised urban world for a change.

We’d expected to see snowdrops and aconites. These were present and correct, if not tightly braced against the cold weather, but it was the daphnes that stole the show. Their lanky frames were weighted down by a profusion of richly perfumed blossoms, garlanding every branch. It was so chilly that we struggled to catch the scent of sweet box or witch hazel, but not so the daphnes – their intoxicating fragrance carried as clean and clear on the air as a fine soprano. They were so lovely that I kept having to go back for another hearty sniff. (Daphnes will tolerate chalk, the prevailing soil type at Goodnestone, and so ought to do well in our Broadstairs garden too.)

An abundance of mature, winter-flowering shrubs, as well as colourful dogwoods and honey-coloured grasses suggests that Lady Fitzwalter planned her woodland garden as carefully for winter as she did for the spring, summer and autumn. The famous walled gardens are much quieter at this time of year, biding their time until spring comes. Any action here is happening beneath the soil surface.

With cold hands and ruddy faces we returned to the car, passing up the opportunity of tea and cake in order to collect yet another load of logs to keep our trio of woodburners roaring at home. Our first garden visit of 2017 under our belts, Him Indoors exclaimed ‘which one are we going to next then?’. Having established that he hadn’t suffered a stroke or some kind of memory loss, I quickly suggested Sissinghurst and put a date in our diary. Opportunities like that don’t come along very often.

Goodnestone Park’s 2017 open days are as follows:

• March: Sunday 26th: in aid of NGS from 12 – 5
• April – September: Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Bank Holidays from 11 – 5. The tea room is open May – August on garden open days. Open for the NGS on Saturday 27th May from 12 – 5
• October: Sunday 1st – in aid of NGS from 12 – 4

I recommend checking the garden’s website before making a special journey, just in case.

Wishing you a fabulous week ahead. TFG.

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The RHS London shows ought to be a pleasure for me to visit; they take place just five minutes from my office and are genteel, polite affairs, quite unlike the scrum of Chelsea or the hassle of Hampton Court – just how I like my flower shows. However, they are timed in such a way that they always seem to clash with a business trip or manic day at work. So, if I get to visit at all, it’s always in a hurry. The 2017 Early Spring Plant Fair was no exception.

The RHS early spring shows are a shot in the arm for visiting gardeners, a reminder that in a few weeks our own gardens will be bursting with colour again. The focus is on flowering bulbs (particularly snowdrops), camellias, potatoes and early flowering shrubs and perennials. Some of the best and most respected nurseries in the country go along to show and sell their wares.

In recent years the RHS have started experimenting with evening openings. These are a blessing for office workers like myself and those who prefer perusing plants with a glass of prosecco or cold beer in hand. The more relaxed atmosphere is preferable to taking part in the scrum of eager beavers that can form during the daytime. Occasionally one even spots a celebrity quietly admiring the flowers. Whether these ‘after hours’ shows are lucrative for the RHS it’s hard to tell, but they are a lovely way to conclude the working day. This week’s late event was on Monday night, before the show opened officially on Tuesday.

For fully paid-up galanthophiles there was everything on offer from freshly dug bundles of Galanthus elwesii wrapped in damp newspaper, to rare treasures costing £40, £50, or £60. I didn’t indulge – there are many other flowers I’d make a collection of before I turned to snowdrops – but I had to admire Avon Bulbs’ gold medal winning display which included Galanthus ‘Moortown Mighty’ and G. ‘Trumps’. Harvey’s Garden Plants were awarded Silver-Gilt for a stand incorporating a particularly handsome form of G. elwesii named ‘Yvonne Hay’ bearing huge flowers above broad, silver-green leaves.

Jacques Amand staged their usual tour de force display of Iris reticulata, I. histrioides and their hybrids, earning them a gold medal. There were more introductions from Canadian breeder Alan McMurtrie. These were nice enough, and the colours were unusual, but the flowers did look very small against older varieties. Iris ‘Eyecatcher’ stood out from the crowd, as did I. ‘Frozen Planet’ with ice white and Wedgwood blue flowers, as pale and poised as a prima ballerina. Iris histrioides ‘Katherine’s Gold’ appeared to be a variation on I. ‘Katherine Hodgkin’, with only the faintest amount on blue on the falls and the rest of the flower suffused golden-yellow, fading to milky-white.

I didn’t expect to be suckered into buying succulents, but Daniel Jackson of Ottershaw Cacti staged such a maestro display that I could not help myself. Light years away from the dry, dusty arrangements of cacti and succulents that I’ve experienced in the past, Daniel’s display was packed with colour and vitality. Faced with a huge array of plants to select from, I chose Crassula ovata ‘Red Horn’, which has leaves the shape and colour of macaroni dipped in tomato sauce, and Echeveria pulvinata ‘Ruby Blush’. Both are unusual choices for someone with an aversion to variegation, but I put it down to it being the end of a very long day.

Elsewhere I picked up Streptocarpus ‘White Butterfly’ from Dibleys (also awarded gold) and Pleione grandiflora ‘White Hybrids’ from Jacques Amand / Living Colour Bulbs. Having done a magnificent job of saving money during January (even if I do say so myself), I decided it was high time for a miniature splurge.

The RHS have started charging members £5 for admittance to some of the London shows. I suppose this move was inevitable, but wonder how many people this might discourage. An ‘enhanced show experience’ was promised in return for my plasticised £5 note, but I can’t honestly say I noticed a difference. Asking politely if my ticket might allow me to return another day, I was told, equally politely, ‘no’. This struck me as a tad miserly: I would have spent more had I had the opportunity to return the next day for some of the other plants on offer.

Having left the office almost an hour after I had planned, I was in trouble for getting home late before I had even set foot in Vincent Square. Just 45 minutes after I had arrived, having covered both halls and an exhibition of this year’s Chelsea show garden designs, I was heading back towards the Victoria Line again. At an average of one plant purchase every nine minutes, it was probably just as well as I didn’t have a return ticket.

The good news is that the next event, the RHS Botanical Art Show will be free for RHS members to visit:

• RHS Botanical Art Show – 24–25 Feb 2017 – Free for RHS members and the public.
• RHS Spring Plant and Orchid Show – 29–30 Mar 2017 – £5 for RHS members (in advance and on the day), and £6 for non-members (£9 on the day).
• RHS Summer Urban Garden Show – 12 – 13 Jul 2017 – Free for RHS members and the public.
• RHS Harvest Festival Show – 3 – 4 Oct 2017 – Free for RHS members and the public.
• RHS Autumn Garden Show – 25 – 26 Oct 2017 – £5 for RHS members (in advance and on the day), and £6 for non-members (£9 on the day).

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As someone who usually extols the virtues of timeliness, I have been letting myself down rather a lot lately. I planted my spring-flowering bulbs late (some just a fortnight ago) and now I am behind with ordering my summer-flowering bulbs too. Between October and late March my work / life balance tips firmly in favour of work, and everything else goes out of the window. Thankfully bulbs and plants are more tolerant than most people believe, possessing an amazing ability to catch up when they don’t receive text-book treatment.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s still ample time to be consulting your plant catalogues, but I had set my heart on a number of bulbs that were clearly flagged as being in very short supply. Surprise, surprise, they are already out of stock. It seems I will have to wait until next year to get my grubby hands on pure white Amaryllis ‘Hathor’ (perhaps a narrow escape as the bulbs were £15 each) and flame-red Nerine sarniensis ‘Glen Savage’.

In a break from tradition, I have decided to place a large chunk of my bulb order with Broadleigh Bulbs in Somerset. Christine Skelmersdale’s new catalogue offers an expanded selection of South African treasures, including agapanthus, nerine, amarine (vigorous hybrids between amaryllis and nerine), crocosmia, hesperantha, gladiolus, eucomis and zantedeschia. I am a sucker for all of these, so have made what I hope is a judicious choice from the many enticing options available.

I am most excited about Eucomis montana. Eucomis, otherwise known as pineapple lilies, do well for me. That is unless they have dark foliage, like E. ‘Sparkling Burgundy’, in which case I can’t offer them sufficient sunlight to colour-up properly. Eucomis montana isn’t listed in the Broadleigh Bulbs catalogue, but can be found on their website. It has perky apple-green leaves with dark edges, and greenish-white flowers with purple-brown stamens. The overall look of the plant is much more statuesque than Eucomis bicolor, which I also grow.

At the London 2012 Olympics, in what is now the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, I recall my first encounter with the deep crimson flowers of Gladiolus papilio ‘Ruby’. I will soon be in possession of three bulbs, which I hope will find my garden as inviting as Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus does. There is something so sumptuous about those berry-coloured flowers, protruding nonchalantly from their arching stems. Quite delicious.

Next in my online basket is half a dozen Amaryllis belladonna. Customers are promised ‘huge bulbs’, which bodes well for enjoying flowers later this year. Having witnessed Amaryllis belladonna growing in Sicily I was immediately entranced by these nubile flowers, commonly referred to as naked ladies. I have a tiny raised bed with exceptionally sharp drainage where my bare ladies should feel warm and protected.

I didn’t bag all the nerines I wanted, but have added to my collection with tender Nerine sarniensis var. corusca ‘Major’ and N. filamentosa. My plan is to plant out most of my nerines along the pathway leading from the street to our back door, but to keep these two newbies in pots in the greenhouse.

Finally, I could not resist Zantedeschia ‘Kiwi Blush’. I must be developing a thing for pink, as I have bought a lot of blush and shell-pink flowers of late. The common species, Zantedeschia aethiopica, thrives in the gardens of Broadstairs, so I am excited to discover how this delicately flushed variant does for me.

In the meantime, my Burncoose Nurseries order is also just in, comprising a large Magnolia grandiflora ‘Exmouth’ to grow against the west facing wall of our ‘new’ house; Schefflera rhododendrifolia, destined for a shady corner ‘somewhere’; and Xeronema callistemon, the Poor Knights Lily, which is rumoured to bide its time for fifteen years before producing its scarlet hairbrush flowers.

I have scarcely started thinking about dahlias and lilies yet. Truth is I don’t really need any more of either, and without the pressure of having to achieve floral perfection in time for opening the garden (we are taking a year off in 2017), I’d be well advised to save my pennies for other things.  If only I took my own advice!

Have a wonderful weekend. TFG.

I’ve been out of town this weekend, enjoying the delights of Surrey’s innumerable hostelries in the company of my university friends. It’s the 19th year on the trot we’ve held a spring reunion. The occasion took place on Good Friday until we grew up and family commitments started to take precedence. Now we are more flexible about the date. The rendezvous has nothing at all to do with plants, and everything to do with beer and recounting lewd tales from the years we lived together. None of these will be repeated here lest I go down in your estimation, which I most certainly would. Truth is, you had to be there to find them even vaguely humorous.

Either side of the boozing and storytelling, I did get to spend time in our London garden. By now it is crying out for some tender loving care, having been cast into darkness since October. A blackbird has ensured the soil surface has had a good picking over (too good in places) and the earthworms have taken care of any remaining autumn leaves. Mr Fox has caused a lot less mischief this winter, although his presence can still be detected. It may well be that he finds the freshly raked vegetable beds too irresistible to ignore, creating havoc with the oriental salads, radishes and opium poppies I have sown today.

Frequent showers meant there was no need to water my seeds in. Precipitation alternated between rain and hail, which made the going tough, especially since I still had a slightly sore head. I can’t imagine why. Inspecting hellebores is an excellent hangover remedy, or cure for mild depression. I was happy to find some of those I thought I might have lost, flowering in dark corners of the garden. All of my hellebores hail from Bosvigo in Cornwall, including one with bright yellow nectaries and primose yellow petals purchased last year. It hasn’t come back quite as strongly as I had hoped, despite a lot of pampering. Meanwhile the reds, plums and blacks have come on a treat, each plant now surrounded by a miniature lawn of seedlings. I will grow some on to see if I have created any worthy new hybrids of my own. Please excuse my fingers in the photographs below.

The snowdrops are coming to an end, but G. ‘Seagull’ is still going strong. It’s hard to believe that the single flowering bulb I purchased for £20 in 2015 produced three blooms in 2016 and now eight in 2017. That feels like a good investment to me. Success with snowdrops, but not one single aconite from the clutch planted last year. Perhaps something ate the bulbs as the conditions should have been ideal for aconites. Clumps of blue Anemone blanda I planted at the same time have returned with gusto all over the garden; a surprise given our soggy soil. You win some and lose some in gardening, and often there’s no rhyme or reason to what survives and what perishes.

An early night is on the cards, but not before I sort out an order for clematis to be sent to Broadstairs. These will line the path to our back door and provide company for a venerable old viticella named ‘Etoile Violette’. I am tempted to stick with viticella types as they flower at such a useful time in the summer and seem to tolerate draughty conditions. The forecast for the week ahead is for mild and wet weather, which should create perfect planting conditions for next weekend. You never know, I might have sobered up by then.

I’d love to hear what signs of spring you’ve noted in your own garden this weekend, and wish you a happy week ahead. TFG.

This solitary, banana-shaped bud belongs to the one and only yellow pleione species, P. forrestii, just one of which has found its way into my fledgling collection. It’s a wonder that it’s there at all. The first pseudobulb I ordered got lost in the post; hardly surprising given its diminutive size. The second almost went in the bin, along with the tangled mass of packing material that was intended to stop it disappearing again. However, this pleione was lucky. Tucked into a tiny clay pot, nestled in a bed of moss and semi-decomposed leaves, it produced a single, pleated leaf last summer. I placed the pot under a garden bench in a shady spot and let nothing but the rain water it. Then, as Christmas approached, I remembered that pleiones don’t like winter wet, or frost, so I tucked my golden wonder away in the cold frame, along with its pink and white  cousins, until spring arrived.

Whilst tidying the cold frame this weekend I discovered that my precious pleione was preparing to flower whilst the others slept on. My heart had a little flutter as I realised that not only had I rescued the bulb from oblivion, but I had also persuaded it to bloom. When it does, the flower will be citrus-peel-yellow with blood-red markings on the lip. I have read somewhere that the flower will smell heavily of primroses, which is a delightful prospect.

I was only wondering at the weekend if I will ever achieve my dream of creating a truly great garden. I think I would be disappointed if I never my gave myself the chance. But, when I experience little wonders like encouraging seeds to grow, or bulbs to bear flower, I appreciate that a sense of achievement can be won just as easily (and much more cheaply) by taking the time to enjoy life’s little triumphs, one at a time.

If you’d like to learn more about pleione, I can heartily recommend Paul Cumbleton’s website, to which I refer for all advice related to these wonderful, rewarding little orchids.

How fortunate that my first visit to Sissinghurst this year should coincide with the warmest day of the spring so far. As the car bowled through the Weald of Kent the roads were fringed with sulphur-yellow catkins and golden daffodils, sparking beneath a clear blue sky. The greys and browns of winter had started to diffuse, obscured here and there by fleeting blizzards of blackthorn and cool showers of willow. It was an uplifting drive that gave me the opportunity to get back in tune with the countryside after a week in the city. It also served as a reminder of how lovely the Garden of England is, especially in spring.

This Saturday the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle reopened to the public after their winter rest. In ‘Gardeners’ Cuttings’, a monthly information sheet printed for the benefit of visitors, Gardener Peter Fifield described the excitement and anxiety experienced by the Sissinghurst team as the garden is woken from its sleep. A new philosophy is guiding the development of Sissinghurst, a move to gently restore the romantic ebullience that Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson once cherished in their famous garden.

Over the years Sissinghurst has bowed to the demands of an increasing number of visitors, each expecting to witness perfection at every glance. The result has been an understandable deviation from some of the methods and planting schemes that might originally have been employed when Sissinghurst was a private garden. Vita and Harold accepted that each area of the garden would have its ‘moment’, before quietly fading into the background again. Now gardens, just like humans, are expected to be ‘always on’. A management regime designed to please those making a pilgrimage to Sissinghurst from March to October is being loosened, just a little, to allow some of the garden’s natural exuberance to shine through. I can’t wait to experience the result.

Vita and Harold embraced and celebrated Sissinghurst’s bucolic setting, blending their garden seamlessly into the enveloping Wealden landscape. Immediately in front of the house, much of the grass has been sprayed off in order to create the kind of pictorial meadows that the Bakers, who built the castle, might have enjoyed in the 16th Century. Plantings of Malus ‘Dartmouth’ and Malus floribunda have been made, and the lawns in the front courtyard have been reseeded with a wildflower mix including primroses, self heal and daisies.

Much work has also been done in the orchard, where sycthing is once again practiced as a means of encouraging biodiversity. Paths are mown here at the beginning of the season, after which the rest of the sward is allowed to grow, before being scythed off in the summer. Here and in the Nuttery, pools and lakes of lilac Crocus tommasinianus have been allowed to form, as if they were drops of water rising from the sodden ground.

Once inside the garden, standards are typically high. Even this early in spring there is plenty to see. Vita liked to observe flowers up close, planting her most delicate bulbs and flowers in stone troughs raised on bricks against the house. Narcissus ‘Spoirot’ was in its prime near the door into Vita’s library, which continues to inspire my own efforts to create an atmospheric room filled with books. (N. ‘Spoirot’ is a hybrid between Narcissus bulbocodium subsp. bulbocodium var. conspicuus and N. cantabricus subsp. cantabricus var. foliosus raised at the Glenbrook Bulb Farm in Tasmania by Rod Barwick. ‘Spoirot’ is one of his Little Detective Series named after Agatha Christie’s fictional detective Hercule Poirot.)

At my feet were beauties such as Iris unguicularis ‘Walter Butt’ and Primula ‘Cowichan Amethyst Group’, displaying flowers in that extraordinary shade of purple-shot-royal-blue and magenta that only primulas can produce.

Another trough was filled with a cool combination of Euphorbia myrsinites and Pushkinia scilloides var. libatonica, a pairing I’d very much like to replicate at home. The pushkinia grows well for me in our heavy London soil, but I doubt the euphorbia would enjoy the same conditions.

Whilst the stems were bare of flowers, I was reminded by a label that I must plant Rosa ‘Mermaid’ on the wall of our new house. It’s a rose that I’ve admired on every visit to Sissinghurst since I was a student. I’m excited that I might finally have a place for it; somewhere where I can enjoy those deliciously louch flowers that so remind me of a lady’s floppy sun hat.

I am terrified of heights, an affliction mercilessly exploited by Him Indoors. This means I rarely put myself in positions where I have to climb a tower, walk over a bridge or go near a cliff edge. Spurred on by an unusual bout of confidence and the absence of Him Indoors goading me, I plucked up the courage to climb the worn oak stairs of the tower and get a little bit closer to heaven. I’m so glad I found the courage. Gazing nervously over the parapet, out across the Cottage and Rose Gardens, one can really appreciate the structure that makes this garden so exceptional. The plants may be allowed to relax a little this summer, but at this moment the yew is so sharply clipped that it might be mistaken for a wall rather than a hedge.

Looking in the other direction I cast an eye over the range of farm buildings that support the estate and beyond to the vegetable garden. Although the oasts and barns have mostly been adapted to modern use, they are still working buildings, providing visitors with sustenance and shopping opportunities. Nowhere else in the world but Kent would this view be so commonplace …. and isn’t it wonderful?

Taking a break to soak up the spring sunshine and replenish my vitamin D, I made this short recording of the birdsong that provided the backing track to my day out. The Sissinghurst estate is managed with nature conservation in mind, and the result can be heard as well as seen.

Naturally, the Lime Walk and Nuttery are the big attractions at Sissinghurst in spring. Neither disappointed. The Nuttery was flooded with tiny Crocus tommasinianus, with evidence of a sea of anemones ready to innundate the space left behind once the crocuses had faded. With only a handful of narcissi in flower, it was the limes in the Lime Walk that stole the show, their bright red fingers extending from gnarled fists towards the blue sky. The lime responsible for this colourful growth is Tilia platyphyllos ‘Rubra’.

As you have doubtless established by now, I was rather enjoying my visit, the sunshine and the freedom of being on my own to linger as long as I liked. I could wax lyrical for several paragraphs more, but I won’t. Instead, I will let the next few pictures do the talking. Please enjoy them. TFG.

Asarum delavayi ‘Giant’*: Giant Wild Ginger, Panda face ginger

As an antidote to my post about Vita Sackville-West’s macabre ‘Box of the Dead’ earlier this week, I thought I’d share a happier tale. Regular readers will know that I often purchase plants without any real idea where I am going to plant them. It’s an addiction, and one I’m not interested in overcoming. These stateless individuals have to eek out an existence in a pot until such a time as they find their promised land, or curl up and die. One such plant is Asarum delavayi ‘Giant’, purchased last year from the lovely people at Decoy Nursery in East Sussex and consigned to the cold frame in our London garden ever since.

I had good reason for not planting it in the garden immediately: at the time Mr Fox was molesting anything that I considered remotely desirable, and I could not trust the snails not to finish the job. The cold frame felt like the safest place, and there my asarum stayed, neither growing a great deal nor showing signs of distress. It just sat there, doing nothing, looking a little bit green and dishevelled, as asarums sometimes do.

Imagine my surprise when, in need of cheering up today (I have a monstrous cold, or man flu, whichever you prefer to call it), I checked the cold frame for signs of new life and was met with two giant panda faces staring back at me. At ground level the black and white flowers might have been harder to spot, but raised at chest level they were quite a spectacle. Each was about 2 inches across; the black part rich and velvety like the material used to line jewellery boxes, and the white part ridged and furrowed like snow. I know of no other flowers quite like them – they put those of Asarum splendens in the shade. Once plants are established they can produce tens of flowers each spring. New leaves, emerging now, are large, glossy, slightly mottled and a magnet for molluscs, hence a few holes here and there.

Will I give my asarum its freedom and plant it out somewhere moist and shady? Probably not. On balance it will do better where I can protect it from snails or rain splatters and enjoy those extraordinary flowers at close quarters every spring. It does, however, deserve a proper terracotta pot, rather than a nasty black plastic one.

If you’d like to give Asarum delavayi ‘Giant’ a try in your own garden, Decoy Nursery are currently offering plants by mail order. Click here for further details.

* There does appear to be some difference in the naming of this plant, with nurseries offering similar looking asarums under the name Asarum maximum ‘Ling Ling’, ‘Panda’ and ‘Silver Panda’. Both Asarum maximum and Asarum delavayi are botanical names recognised by the RHS, so perhaps they are distinct. All are just as fabulous as one another, so who cares?

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It’s all going on in the garden right now. The plants have had a sniff of spring and now they are intoxicated, thrusting out of the ground, sending tendrils hither and thither and scrambling up in search of light and warmth. They’ve discovered the powerful drug that is spring. The energy that was quelled by cold, short days has been unleashed: the advance of the gardening year is unstoppable. Sadly I am not. An hour in the garden this afternoon and I decided that I was neither doing myself nor the garden a lot of good. My cough is incessant – that is annoying – but I am hot and bothered one moment and ice cold the next. Hence I am taking my own advice and sitting down in the garden room to write this post with a nice strong cup of tea.

Most striking this week is the speed with which the daffodils have bloomed. I am already in love with Narcissus ‘Winter Waltz’ (above), which is new to me this year and going great guns outside the front door. By the back door I have two pots of N. ‘Cragford’ grown from bulbs saved last year. Their scent is wonderful. I continue to marvel at the stamina of Correa ‘Marian’s Marvel’ (below), flowering for its sixth consecutive month. So few shrubs possess this kind of staying power. A new, larger pot beckons when the show is finally over: the current one dries out and blows over far too easily.

Plants that looked sallow and sullen all winter are starting to perk up nicely. Calceolaria integrifolia ‘Kentish Hero’ is among them, having spent winter in the greenhouse looking jaundiced and ugly. All of a sudden the foliage is apple green and vigorous again. Dark leaved aeoniums respond instantly to sunshine, turning darker and more lustrous by the day. Unfortunately a convoy of green caterpillars has munched its through most of the leaf rosettes, despite me mounting a weekly patrol. Fortunately Aeonium arboreum ‘Velour’ has escaped the worst of the caterpillars’ chompings and has swiftly regained its handsome colouring.

Keeping with the reddish theme, a Skimmia japonica ‘Rubella’ I rescued from the garden centre in the January sale is in full bloom. The flowers smell good and are rich in pollen. I know this because I brushed against them this morning and ended up with bright yellow calves. I spied several bees foraging for food as I attempted to capture an image of the mass of tiny flowers. Skimmia will tolerate our chalky soil if planted with lots of organic matter, but generally prefer acid conditions.

Instead of pottering and taking photos I should really be tackling serious jobs, like ridding the back fence of a Hybrid Tea rose that’s been completely overwhelmed by its rampant rootstock and moving the slab of stone that was once our doorstep. The builders steadfastly ignored every instruction to remove it whilst they were working on the house, in the way that only builders can. I now refer to it as ‘the tombstone’, propped against the wall as if age had toppled it and scrubbed out the epitaph. I would make a feature of it were it not precisely where I wish to plant the Magnolia grandiflora ‘Exmouth’ waiting patiently alongside.

Meanwhile the greenhouse is sheltering five healthy new clematis, including pink C. texensis ‘Princess Diana’, purple and white C. texensis ‘Princess Kate, red C. viticella ‘Kermesina’ and white C. ‘Forever Friends’. Having arrived last weekend they have already grown six inches and will need to be planted out before they start clinging inextricably to the staging.

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully there will be more gardening and less coughing to be done. My tea now finished, I think I can hear the doctor ordering a gin and tonic. It’s not just the plants that enjoy being intoxicated.

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The defining plants of my pre-teen years were those that grew in the garden of my parents’ 1930’s semi-detached house in Plymouth. Climbing the walls were Rosa ‘Masquerade’ and R. ‘Albertine’, a delicious loganberry and a variegated honeysuckle which resolutely failed to flower. In the borders there were African marigolds in summer and crocuses in spring, planted in small round beds beneath standard roses: ‘Peace’, ‘Iceberg’ and ‘Fragrant Cloud’. Hedges were fashioned from golden privet and red escallonia, and the walls along the drive were thronged with red valerian (Centranthus ruber) and an ineradicable weed we called bread and cheese. That plant had soft, ferny, light green foliage and clear yellow flowers sprouting from pinkish, succulent stems. It was the favourite gathering place for local snails, providing cool, lush cover, out of harm’s way. Its persistence made it part of the garden’s fabric. Although I can find no reference to it ever being referred to as bread and cheese by anyone else, I know the weed’s name: Corydalis lutea.

Corydalis lutea (known to most as yellow fumitory), is one of those plants, like Erigeron karvinskianus or Meconopsis cambrica, that once you have it established in a wall or terrace you will never be rid of. That’s not all bad as it’s a pretty filler, but one can definitely have too much of a good thing. Yellow fumitory loves the West Country climate, which is generally damp and cool. Like so many plants, Corydalis lutea appreciates good drainage, hence a penchant for walls and rockeries. Having come up short on finding any of my own photographs of the subject in hand, I stumbled upon this one on Pinterest, demonstrating both its rapacity and its ability to act as an effortless groundcover in semi-shaded situations. Although a great visual companion for hostas, I cannot recommend it if you are susceptible to snails.

Corydalis is a genus of about 470 species of annual and perennial herbaceous plants in the Papaveraceae family, native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere and high mountains of tropical East Africa. They are most diverse in Asia and the Himalayas, with at least 357 species originating in China. The name Corydalis comes from the Greek korydalís, which means ‘crested lark’. This refers to the delicately balanced, bird-like poise of each individual flower on the stem. Others compare them to shoals of colourful tadpoles navigating a sea of fine foliage. Corydalis flowers cover a wide colour spectrum, including red, pink, coral, orange, yellow, purple and, famously, blue.

Corydalis solida has been planted in gardens since at least the sixteenth century. It has mauvish-pink flowers and naturalises well in grass or amongst spring-flowering bulbs. Imagine it with bluebells, primroses or late flowering narcissi and then go and plant some! Two weekends ago I admired Corydalis solida subsp. solida ‘Beth Evans’ in the Lower Courtyard at Sissinghurst. This cheerful variety produces delicate, pink-spurred flowers and rarely tops six inches in height, making it ideal as an edging plant. Later in the year the foliage dies back quickly, allowing other plants to occupy the same space. Anyone craving redder flowers might try Corydalis solida subsp. solida ‘George Baker’, which has brick-red flowers that vary in colour depending on the quality of the plant and the coldness of the preceding winter. The clone was originally discovered in Romania, from whence most of the pink and red forms hail. Corydalis solida ‘Zwanenburg’ is considered the finest red form, and has been known to change hands for three figure sums.

Personally I like the quieter colours in Corydalis, especially the hybrids between Corydalis solida and sulphur-flowered Siberian native Corydalis bracteata, known horticulturally as Corydalis × allenii. These produce pale, creamy-yellow, mauve-suffused blooms above luxuriant, silver-grey leaves. Quite the most elegant fumitories you’ll ever see.

Now, to the attention-grabbing blues from Eastern Asia. The most common is Corydalis flexuosa, which has an Award of Garden Merit from the RHS. Plants have finely divided, glaucous foliage, sometimes tinged with purple. Flowers are electric blue, often tinged with purple, and are utterly irresistible. The form ‘China Blue’ has heavenly, glacier-blue flowers that carry on from spring until July.  ‘Purple Leaf’ produces mounds of smoky-blue foliage and azure flowers flushed with red. If you can track them down, Corydalis ornata and Corydalis turtschaninovii are other interesting blues.

Thirty years on I find myself without any corydalis in my gardens at all, a position I am eager to remedy. Flowering in spring and early summer, Corydalis tend to have disappeared underground by midsummer, making them an ideal partner for hostas, deciduous ferns, grasses and other perennial plants which come into leaf later in the year. Corydalis will grow nicely in pots of gritty, humus-rich soil, but must be kept cool and moist in summer, otherwise they will succumb to mildew faster than you can say ‘Jack Robinson’. The one I covet most is Corydalis cheilanthifolia, pictured below in the Cottage Garden at Sissinghurst, a plant one might easily mistake for a flowering fern, if such a thing existed. The leaves are finely dissected and flushed with red in spring, whilst the flowers are produced in thick, upright plumes of canary yellow. Quite a sight, even in the most exotic of gardens.

There are two National Collections of Corydalis; one in Durham, and one in Clacton-on-Sea. A comprehensive selection of seldom-found and unusual Corydalis is offered by Rare Plants in Wrexham, North Wales. Do let me know if you grow Corydalis and I have left any of your favourites out. TFG.

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With April bright on the horizon I am already having to get a wiggle on to keep up with what needs doing in our garden. Within a fortnight that wiggle will have become a jog, and by early May I’ll be sprinting just to stand still. I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

At the coast, having prepared out our front / old garden for spring last weekend, all that remained to do was set up my bulb theatre. Apart from two pots crammed with Narcissus ‘Winter Waltz’, all the other bulbs are weeks behind where I’d expect them to be owing to me planting them so late. Nevertheless, hundreds of daffodils, tulips and hyacinths are pushing bravely through their gravel mulch and will be in flower before I know it. Who cares if they are late, so long as they are please me?

I took the opportunity to bask in the spring sunshine by using our garden table as a potting bench. During the week I received several streptocarpus, begonia and impatiens cuttings from Dibleys, all of which required potting on. I was impressed with the condition in which they arrived and expect them to grow big and strong. I am especially excited by Impatiens niamniamensis, the Congo cockatoo, which has all the right exotic qualities for our seaside garden.

After Desert Island Discs it was time to give our back / new garden some attention. We attempted to move the old front door step, otherwise known as the ‘tombstone’, and it promptly cracked, like a bar of Dairy Milk, right across the middle. In an unusual display of energy Him Indoors proceeded to smash it to smithereens and to the tip it went. Meanwhile I was left with a narrow bed of sterile looking chalk and old bricks to plant up. After removing as much raw chalk and debris as possible I added a couple of sacks of well-rotted farmyard manure, a few handfuls of blood, fish and bone, and gave the whole lot a good turning over with a spade.

In went Magnolia grandiflora ‘Exmouth’, which has made its way to Kent, via London, from deepest Cornwall. At its feet I planted six Amaryllis belladonna and three Eucomis montana, all from Broadleigh Gardens in Somerset. We need plenty of herbs in this garden, the front / old garden having become increasingly shady, so in went Rosmarinus ‘Majorca Pink’ just below one of the sashes. R. ‘Majorca Pink’ is a tall, upright rosemary. One day we should be able to pluck a sprig or two just by opening the window and reaching out. As a temporary measure I have plonked in a few plum-coloured polyanthus and Narcissus ‘Tete a Tete’ purely for some colour whilst everything else gets established.

Having blown over again this week, I decided to transfer Correa ‘Marian’s Marvel’ to a heavier pot. Correas do not make a big root system and so don’t need an especially large pot, however they do look appreciably better upright rather than on their side. If I had a pound for every flower this plant has produced since October I would be living it up in a five-star hotel in the Bahamas right now, and still it keeps going.

Next weekend things speed up. I have a fence to paint, four clematis to plant, a wild rose to dig out, more hardcore to take to the tip, dahlias, gingers and cannas to pot up, seeds to sow …. the list goes on. If I think about it too much, I will grind to a halt. The trick is to keep on running.

Wishing you a happy week in your garden. TFG.

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If I were to win the lottery, The Salutation is the house I’d want to live in. I’d spend every spring and summer there, before overwintering in Capri, or the Caribbean; I can’t decide which. It’s probably not a choice I’ll ever be called on to make, but I like to think about it nevertheless.

Our first visit to The Salutation each spring is one I always look forward to; foremost because it’s an opportunity to admire the garden’s fine structure before it becomes shrouded in foliage and flowers. Whilst Edwin Lutyens would surely recognise today’s layout as his own, The Salutation is an unusual combination of informal features, such as Lake Patricia and the Woodland Garden, and the elegant formality for which the architect is famed. Packed into three acres on the edge of Sandwich, every inch of the garden is on show, which must be quite a challenge for the gardening team lead by Head Gardener Steve Edney.

Over winter there have been some minor changes to the layout; the removal of some hedges; the creation of a new area just off the long border, which I suspect might be an extension of the tropical garden; and a major overhaul of the space surrounding the potting sheds and greenhouses. Everything was looking particularly spick and span when we visited last weekend to renew our season tickets and get some fresh air.

The Salutation’s tulips and hyacinths are way ahead of my own, basking on the warm, dry, south-facing bank that skirts the long border. The scent of hyacinths was intoxicating, and the hum of red-tailed bumble bees so loud it was almost deafening. Accompanying the bees with their coarse calls were innumerable seagulls, a reminder that the English Channel is not far away. In December 2013 the briny came too close for comfort when it flooded a significant part of the garden, including the Long Border. Four years later, apart from the unevenness of the path, one would never know the garden had been inundated with salty water.

Within moments Him Indoors had taken to a garden bench to consult his phone, which these days appears to be superglued to his hands. It seems gardens are no distraction from the allure of Facebook. Behind him in this picture are several clumped banana plants, still carefully wrapped in fleece and hessian lest they experience a late, damaging frost.

Having taken the obligatory shot of the Queen Anne inspired facade from the end of the double borders, and not a good one I’m sorry to say, I ventured into the Woodland Garden.

Since the great flood, the Woodland Garden had been left to its own devices, becoming slightly down at heel. Over winter the garden’s winding paths have been spruced up. There are new vistas into the rest of the garden and evidence of new planting.

Every year I marvel at the quantity of blue and white Anemone blanda that flood out of the Woodland Garden onto the lawn, surging like a floral tide towards the perennial borders.

At the Holm Oak Walk one is reminded exactly who designed this handsome garden. The immaculately clipped evergreen columns, their simple underplanting of roses and lavender, the mighty oak gate in the garden wall, presided over by an exaggerated key stone, are all Lutyens’ signatures. When either side of the Holm Oak Walk the gardens are frothing and fizzing, this stately axis remains calm and quiet.

I never seem to hit the White Garden at quite the right moment. As much as I like the concept of single colour gardens, this one doesn’t do a lot for me. The layout is clever, with deep, box-edged borders and narrow paths, but even the addition of plants with black foliage doesn’t lift the slightly melancholy air. A tall specimen of Daphne bholua ‘Peter Smithers’ provides delicious scent on the way out.

I would much rather be on the close-mown bowling green, where the borders to either side are stuffed with an artful mix of foliage and flowers sharing similar reddish tones. At this time of year there is less to see, but an edging of Bergenia cordifolia ‘Winterglut’ provides both burgundy foliage and waxy, magenta-pink flowers in spring. I spotted a couple of rogue Muscari macrocarpum ‘Golden Fragrance’ in one patch, a bulb I have tried and failed to grow, but which is lovely enough for me to try again.

The Yellow Garden, at the end of the circuit, is crowned with a circlet of narcissi in spring. More hyacinths have been added, which is as good for the bees as it is for visitors. This is a lovely idea that anyone with a lawn might replicate: and it relieves one of the obligation to cut the grass until all the bulb foliage has died right down.

The clock ticking on the car park we were in and out of the garden within an hour, but not without acquiring a pot of Moroccan spearmint (Mentha spicata) and a single stick of Clerodendrum bungei, a plant I have hankered after for years. It’s a shrub that throws up suckers hither and thither, but with large corymbs of pink blossom in late summer it is worth any hassle.

Ten years after opening to the public following extensive restoration, The Salutation is hosting a series of masterclasses, courses and tours throughout 2017. Click here for more details.

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I’ve reached that point in the year when the number of posts I have time to write is overtaken by the number of subjects there is to write about. It happens every spring and causes me a rising sense of panic and frustration. There’s only one thing to do: take a deep breath and just get on with it. So, coming up in the next couple of weeks will be reviews of the RHS London Orchid Show, the Great Dixter Spring Plant Fair and a clutch of book reviews.

First though, a happy story. As regular readers know, I am an inveterate plantaholic, often purchasing plants I have no place for, but have fallen in love with. In the plant passion stakes, I am just a tad promiscuous. One such plant, acquired a year ago, is Epimedium zhushanense ‘Zhushan Fairy Wings’. Chinese epimediums appreciate summer moisture and cool shade to give of their best, so putting one in a small pot on a sunny terrace probably isn’t the best idea. However, that’s what I did, topped with subjecting my plant to a year of brick dust and infrequent watering. Spring has sprung and my mistreated plant has produced seven wiry stems bearing huge, spidery, bi-coloured flowers, each like a four-cornered jester’s hat. Every stem is poised elegantly above the emerging foliage, boldly mottled apple green and russet red, elongated and serrated at the edges.

 
Grown correctly Epimedium zhushanense ‘Zhushan Fairy Wings’ makes a stunning groundcover plant for a shady spot, producing evergreen leaves and light, airy flowers in early spring. Grown incorrectly in a pot, I can also vouch for its exceptional charm and resilience. I can only assume the feelings of love are mutual.

Epimedium zhushanense ‘Zhushan Fairy Wings’ is available from Decoy Nursery, East Sussex.

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It’s rare that I sacrifice commentary for imagery, but as I look back over the photographs I took at Great Dixter last weekend, I can’t help feeling they speak for themselves. And, being without my laptop, I’m also going to publish them as they were taken, with minimal enhancement and just a brief description.

I will save words to convey my thoughts on the gorgeous displays of spring bulbs and blossom in a forthcoming post. For now, please enjoy a dozen of the scenes that most captivated me last Saturday. TFG.

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Despite being a plantaholic, the existence of certain plants eludes me. Then, all of a sudden, a ‘new’ discovery will burst onto the scene, reminding me of the woefully limited extent of my knowledge. Iris bucharica is one such plant, never seen before and yet everywhere at Great Dixter’s Spring Plant Fair. It strikes me immediately as a plant well worth getting to know.

Originating from the rocky slopes of north-eastern Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Iris bucharica grows from bulbs with fleshy roots rather than rhizomes. Plants have deeply channelled leaves set alternately either side of a central stem, and produce a yellow and white flower from each leaf axil. Anyone who grows sweet corn will be struck by a passing resemblance to that food crop. A Juno iris, Iris bucharica shares the same botanical traits as Iris orchioides (probably a variant of I. bucharica with deeper yellow flowers), Iris magnifica (pale lilac), Iris aucheri (white, violet or blue) and Iris graeberiana (blue). However it’s the only one of the group considered ‘easy’ to grow in the right conditions. Iris bucharica needs free draining, fertile soil which is neutral or slightly alkaline, full sun and a dry summer spell. The bulbs will do nicely in a deep pot, planted in a mix of John Innes No.2 and coarse grit. After flowering in April, the pot can be placed in a dry, sunny spot at the foot of a wall or hedge for the foliage to die back, which it will by the end of June. If happy, the bulbs will multiply rapidly and can be divided every three or four years if needed. Do this as soon as foliage withers, or plant new bulbs in August or September.

I have planted my Iris bucharica in a pot of gritty loam and placed them at the front of my spring bulb theatre, where they are picking up the colours of Narcissi such as ‘Winter Waltz’. A named variety, Iris bucharica ‘Princess’, is similar in appearance to the species but has freesia-scented flowers. Well worth seeking out for a warm, dry spot where other plants will not cast too much shade.

Iris bucharica is available from Avon Bulbs and Great Dixter Nursery and has an RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM)
 

Each time I return to the West Country I am reminded just how damp it is compared to Kent. A crude comparison of averages would tell you that twice as much rain falls in Devon or Cornwall versus Kent or East Anglia. On the surface, the impact of rainfall on landscape and nature is minimal: many of the same plants grow on either coast of the British Isles. However, many more, including ferns, mosses and perennial wildflowers, excel in the mild maritime counties of the West. I’m always staggered by the profusion of foxgloves, campions, lady ferns and cow parsley that explode from Cornish lanesides in spring; at the speed with which new Cornish hedges are cloaked with growth after construction; and the way every surface – hard or soft, dark or light – provides a refuge for some living thing or another. In the West Country, even exposed granite boulders and sheer cliffs shelter an extraordinary abundance of plants that have adapted to survive salt spray and extreme exposure. Their existence relies on one factor above all: the availability of water.

Ar Last Two years ago at Easter I wrote about Cornish hedges in a post entitled Wonder Walls. A typical Cornish hedge is a stone-faced earth bank with bushes or trees planted along the top. It is always referred to as a hedge, rather than a hedgerow or wall. Farmers have constructed these stone hedges over the ages to keep livestock in and intruders out. They are part of the very fabric of Cornwall and create a species-rich habitat of national importance.

The ecosystem of a Cornish hedge relies on maintaining moisture in an earth core. The hedge must be correctly built, founded on subsoil and with more subsoil or clay-shale at its core. Clay and stone are cooling and encourage moisture condensation. The laying of stones with a proper batter allows just the right amount of water to seep into the core. Dampness inside is conserved by green growth, which should never be removed by trimming in summer. The low fertility of the subsoil and the tightness of a hedge’s construction make it difficult for invasive weeds like nettles, elders and docks to encroach. The result is a complex, abundant and visually exciting ecosystem supporting hundreds of plants and thousands of insect species.

Holidaying in North Cornwall I am once again hemmed in by walls and rocks literally dripping with plants and flowers. At Port Gaverne, just a 5 minute walk from our cottage, there are colossal boulders sheltering dwarf hummocks of sea thrift and common scurvy grass. In more exposed positions, common orange lichen, Xanthoria parietina, colonises stone surfaces where little else would survive. The lichen derives essential nutrients from bird droppings and water from dew and rain.

Today at Boscastle, we took a route down Old Street to the harbour. Here in a valley, conditions on the vertical are very different to those found on the clifftops. Cornish garden walls are famed for their colourful cascades of aubretia, alyssum, Sicilian camomile (Anthemis punctata subsp. cupaniana), osteospermum, campanula, phlox, saxifrage ….. you name it, it grows.

And where walls are left shaded and uncultivated they are rapidly colonized by hart’s tongue and lady ferns, wild garlic, dog’s mercury, ivy and, in the image below, a foreign interloper, mind-your-own-business (Soleirolia soleirolii). Once you have this invasive little creeper in your garden you will never be without it – it’s like terrestrial duckweed – and chances are it will escape to any neighbouring spots that offer its preferred cool, damp, conditions. If mind-your-own-business has one saving grace, it is its ability to create an attractive green carpet in places where a lawn would be a disaster. Used well, between paving stones, as an edging to a fernery or as a houseplant in a shady bathroom, it can be very pretty indeed.

Walls and Cornish hedges offer shelter from the elements and exposure to, or shade from the sun. Combined with a ready source of moisture from core of cool earth, spring, rain or mist they become unique, vibrant, colourful, multi-layered habitats that enhance our countryside and gardens in equal measure. Here in the West Country, where rain is plentiful and regular, they are one of the most attractive landscape features … unless, that is, you are trying to pass a car coming in the opposite direction.

For a moment of zen, here’s a very short video of spring water dripping down a moss-covered wall on the way to the harbour at Boscastle today.

As indispensable plants for seaside gardens go, ostespermums are high on the list, and most certainly in the top ten. They are low-growing, sun-loving sub-shrubs which produce a profusion of large, daisy-like flowers in spring. Modern varieties continue to bloom throughout the summer and autumn, but lack the poise and elegance of plain old Osteospermum jucundum AGM, a plant which my grandmother used to grow on top of her hedges. These carried white-petalled flowers, plum on the reverse, high above a dense cushion of green foliage.

At this time of year osteospermums can be picked up for a song in garden centres and florists. Colours range from white through pink, purple, yellow, orange and copper to burgundy red, but there are no pure reds or blues. Planted out immediately they make great companions for tulips. However, be warned, they are often treated in the nursery with a growth inhibitor to keep them short and neat in their pots. This means that they tend to sit looking rather sulky after the first flush of flowers is over, before springing back into action. Deadheading isn’t necessary, as modern osteospermums tend not to set seed. I do remove spent flowers, purely to keep the plants looking chipper.

Osteospermums like warmth and sun, although they will tolerate poor soil, salt-winds and drought. After a dry spell it may take a while for flowering to resume, and over-wetting can prove fatal. Osteospermums perform brilliantly in pots and on dry slopes where little else will prosper. Here in Broadstairs they form vast swathes on the seafront in abandoned Victorian rockeries, surviving both neglect and the dubious attentions of the council maintenance people. Although they are technically tender, in seaside locations they will often shrug off adverse winter weather. I have never lost an osteospermum to cold, only overwatering. If you wish to multiply a particularly desirable plant (I have a copper-coloured variety which seems to blend with all the colours I like in my garden) then softwood and semi-hardwood cuttings are a breeze to root, quickly producing bushy plants if pinched out regularly. Overgrown plants can be cut back hard after flowering and will reshoot nicely.

Although not the height of sophistication or originality, osteospermums are inexpensive, readily available, tolerant of neglect, bright and cheerful. If you live by the coast, or anywhere warm and dry, then few plants are as colourful and rewarding so early in the season.

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The recent chilly weather has had its pros and cons. The downside for eager gardeners who have been nurturing seedlings and planting out bedding is that these tender charges now need protection to save them from harm. The upside, for those of us who love spring bulbs, is that the cold has prolonged the display of flowers, which can be so fleeting when it’s warmer.

Owing to my own tardiness when it came to getting my bulbs into pots last autumn, the flowering of tulips and daffodils at The Watch House was already delayed by several weeks: I would not be at all surprised if I still had daffodils flowering in May. However, flower they will, and the succession of colourful bowls, chalices and trumpets exploding from pots around my front door will give me joy for that much longer.

In three months’ time I will sit down and plan my spring displays for next year. The bulb catalogues will start to plop through the letter box immediately after Chelsea, but it’s a while before I can bring myself to peruse them. I have three sources of inspiration when it comes to which bulbs I choose: my own garden, based on what’s worked well in the past; Sarah Raven, who has a genius for combining bulbs in the colours I favour; and Great Dixter, one of the few great gardens that celebrate the art of planting in pots.

Like me, Great Dixter’s creator, Christopher Lloyd, was not interested in polite gardening. Nor was he concerned by making his garden ‘low maintenance’, a ghastly term which sets my teeth on edge in the same way as ‘lite bite’ or ‘omnichannel’. Christopher was famed for breaking the rules and experimenting with new plants and brave colour combinations, often changing bedding schemes three or four times a year. Potted plants, especially annuals, tender perennials and architectural exotics were, and still are, used in large, skillfully staged and regularly revised arrangements. The impact of beautifully grown, unusual plants, combined for theatrical effect is always thrilling. Since our garden at The Watch House was created ten years ago, I have striven to achieve the same drama, albeit on a smaller scale.

“My main use of pots is clustered on either side of the porch entrance at the front of the house, where they are a cheerful sight as I come and go. Being in a noticeable position, the plants get plenty of attention – more, probably, than those in any other part of the garden.”

Christopher Lloyd

The catch for the average gardener, and I count myself as one of them, is where to put all these pots before and after their starring moment. In his book, Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners, Christopher suggests an ‘out of the way space’, but acknowledges that a greenhouse makes it possible to include more exciting plants. My tiny new garden and greenhouse has given me a good solution to the challenge I have ‘next door’, although moving heavy pots between locations still means lugging them up and down the road. Before that I managed adequately by lining containers up along the narrow passage leading to our front door, or by hiding them in one of our basement light wells until they could reach up for the light no longer.

No such challenges at Great Dixter of course, where there’s ample space in the garden’s nursery to nurture pots until they reach their prime. Nevertheless, the planning and planting of seasonal containers must be a mammoth and high-profile task for the gardening team. Visitors to Great Dixter expect the famous displays either side of the porch entrance, and in the Wall and Blue gardens, to live up to Christopher Lloyd’s brilliant example every time.

By and large they do. On the occasion of the Spring Plant Fair earlier this month they were gaily planted, each with a single colour or variety of narcissus, tulip, or hyacinth. Unlike Sarah Raven, who likes to mix colours that harmonise or bounce off one another, Christopher Lloyd preferred one colour per pot: so do I. Mixed plants and colours are fine when the container is particularly large, or standing in splendid isolation, but when grouped together they can look a bit messy.

I pack my bulbs in by planting them in multiple layers, but am still astounded by the density of flowers, narcissi especially, that force themselves into the chill air from Dixter’s army of terracotta pots: in the larger ones there must be between 50 and 100 bulbs. To recreate this at home without going bankrupt it’s a good idea to buy from a wholesale catalogue, such a J. Parker, rather than a retail outlet. That way you get a lot more bloom for your buck.

On my recent visit the colour combinations were not exactly sophisticated, but that’s OK. For me, spring is when I simply need a blast of bright, in-your-face, rude colour to shake me out of my winter stupor. These pots certainly did the trick. The scent of hyacinths and narcissi was enough to sooth any biliousness caused by clashing colours, and the backdrop of conifers, a plant group Fergus Garrett will undoubtedly propel back into vogue very soon, added a touch of retro garden glamour.

Although hard work at times, pots are enormous fun to work with, offering opportunities to try new things before committing them to the border.

“Pots are great for experimenting with plants. Anything new to us that’s exotic-looking starts life in a pot – that way we can see how long it flowers, how tall it grows and how it stands up to what we can offer. We can can also learn to manage it before it takes precious space”

Christopher Lloyd

Even if you begin with three, five or seven pots in a group, you can quickly and cheaply create a spectacular display with as much fire power as the most carefully conceived herbaceous border, yet in a fraction of the space. And, when the flowers fade, you can whip the plants out and replace them with something more exciting. The best kind of instant gardening.

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