Driving south to the pretty village of Saltwood for the annual NSPCC plant fair has become something of a tradition in our household. Even Him Indoors looks forward to going, or at least pretends to. We have both been poorly this week – Him Indoors with a cold and me with tonsilitis – but after a recuperative lie-in we set off. Having not been to any of the RHS London plant fairs this year, the opportunity to kick start my plant buying campaign for 2015 was too tempting to pass up on account of a sore throat.

Lead planter with pale peach tulips – an elegant combination

For as many years as I can recall the day of the fair, held in the magical grounds of Saltwood Castle, has been cold and breezy. Today was no exception, but for once we were prepared with coats, scarves and an unnecessary umbrella. Swallows dipped low over the castle’s lawns, a little early to signal the start of summer, but a welcome sight nevertheless. The wooded slopes around the ancient walls grew thick with Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) and late flowering Narcissus poeticus. The orchard, apple trees in full bloom, was artfully planted with Rembrandt tulips, elevating it from the ordinary to the sublime.

Pretty but polluting, Spanish bluebells, Hyacinthoides hispanica

The fair is attended by a select band of twenty nurseries offering really top notch plants. For geraniums there’s Hall’s Court Nursery and for herbs, Invicta. The one nursery I cross my fingers will turn up is Decoy from Pevensey in East Sussex, a specialist in shade plants. Last year I purchased Anemonella thalictriodes ‘Oscar Shoaf’, but was not confident it would grow for me. I am happy to report it has thrived, although I think I probably let it dry out more than I should during the summer. This year I went a little wild, as you can see from the list below but, when presented with such treasures, what is a plantaholic to do? Among those that got away this time were Epimedium ‘Spine Tingler’, Cyclamen repandum, Sanguinaria canadensis f. multiplex ‘Plena’ and Athyrium filix-femina ‘Dre’s Dagger’.

Decoy Nursery, with a fine selection of plants for shady gardens

There were some tantalising auriculas for sale, including P. auricula ‘Forest Lemon’ (top of post), but I was not buying. Last year’s purchases did not fare well in our snail infested garden; they were munched to within an inch of their lives before winter finished the job. I will try again another day when I have the time and patience required to grow these charming little primulas.

Auriculas – easier to look at than to grow

The Damage:

• Anemonella thalictroides ‘Green Hurricane’ – an unusual anemonella with green flowers over thalictrum-like foliage.
• Dryopteris wallichiana – a hardy fern, with upright stems covered in brown-black bristly hairs.
• Asarum delavayi ‘Giant’ – huge cyclamen-like leaves and curious chocolate brown flowers at carried at ground level.
• Pleione formosana ‘Clare’ – that white pleione I had been on the lookout for. Bought in generous potfulls which can be split in February.
• Jeffersonia diphylla – an American woodlander with white flowers and dancing leaves that appear lighter than air.
• Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’ – an advance on the species with brighter red fronds that retain their colour.

Chinese Paeonia ludlowii flourishes in the shadow of Saltwood Castle’s walls

The car boot packed with plants, including others bought as gifts (honest!), we headed down a mile along a dead-end to The American Garden (about which more soon) for a spot of rhododendron appreciation. This part of Kent is unique in that a swathe of acid soil sweeps across the chalk landscape, creating little pockets that are just right for growing rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias. Next Sunday I can look forward to the annual opening of Sandling Park, one of the finest woodland gardens in this part of the country, especially if you like deciduous azaleas. Now all I have to do is persuade Him Indoors.

Other posts about Sandling Park: Great Balls of Fire (2014), A Spring Spectrum (2013)

Other posts about Saltwood Castle: Spring Comes to Saltwood (2014), Saltwood Castle, Hythe (2013)

Azalea ‘Thisbe’, Sandling Park

It’s one of those weeks when the balance between getting stuff done and writing about it tilts in favour of the former. After a busy Bank Holiday weekend there are new plants to find temporary homes for, a burgeoning population of seedlings to pot on and tomato plants requiring hardening off. I have booked my Hampton Court Palace Flower Show tickets and started researching Chelsea, now only 13 days away. And still there is more to be done. Heavy showers over the last few days have resulted in an explosion of foliage in our London garden, so much so that each morning I peer out of the bedroom window and wonder if I am still looking at the same garden I tended yesterday.

Damp weather and emerging hostas are a recipe for disaster, so I am keeping my eyes peeled for slugs and snails, whilst the ones in the back of my head watch out for destructive wood pigeons. Life is literally surging up through the ground around me, so vital and envigorating I wish there were some way to bottle it. Not a hope. Nature will have her way, which for us gardeners means only one thing: not a moment to rest if we’re to stay in the game.

The chance to view the extraordinary collection of rhododendrons and azaleas built up by the Hardy family at Sandling Park in Kent is one of the highlights of my May. I adore these acid loving shrubs, especially as I have neither the space nor the soil conditions to cultivate them. At Sandling, sheltered in a shallow valley deep with peat, they find the perfect environment and are grown to perfection. Deciduous azaleas, with their fiery flowers and heavenly scent, are a speciality, although a cold April could mean they are a little late coming into bloom this season. Never mind, the range of cultivars grown at Sandling ensures there is something beautiful to see whatever the weather throws at it. It’s the lavender blues that always get me, so dazzling, plentiful and ridiculously romantic.

A garden needs a lot of space to accommodate so many potentially clashing colours. A walk around Sandling’s 25 acre garden will take about 2 hours if you dawdle and stop to take photographs like I do. If the weather is fine you will want to take a moment to find a bench and drink in the sights and sounds. Wear stout footwear as the valley sides are drained by hundreds of springs and tiny rivulets, each fringed with candelabra primulas and erythroniums. The ground can get boggy underfoot towards the bottom of the garden.

Sandling Park is a garden worth going out of the way for and is open just once every year. In 2015 it’s Sunday May 11th from 10am until 5pm. You need not go hungry as there are lovely teas available and plants to buy too. All proceeds go to our marvellous local Kent charity Pilgrims Hospices, so you can indulge yourself in flowers, ferns and fondant fancies without feeling the slightest twinge of guilt.

Click here for directions and further details on the Pilgrims Hospices website.

Other posts about Sandling Park: Great Balls of Fire (2014), A Spring Spectrum (2013).

Three years ago when I started The Frustrated Gardener this was my first ‘proper’ post. For some reason it has gone on to be one of the most popular articles I have ever written, so I have taken the liberty of updating and reissuing it. I continue to grow both species alongside one another, sometimes losing Geranium maderense in cold and wet winters. They always return from seed, often in the most surprising places, so provided you can get plants to flower once, you will never be without. I am currently bringing on two white cultivars of Geranium maderense named ‘Alba’ and ‘Guernsey White’. The latter were grown from seed and ‘Alba’ was bought from a nursery. When they do bloom, which I hope will be next year, it will be interesting to compare the flowers and see which is the purer white. I’d love to hear your experience of growing these lovely Mediterranean geraniums and any top tips for cultivating them successfully.

Geranium maderense ‘Alba’ and ‘Guernsey White’ have white flowers with pink eyes

Canary Island natives Geranium maderense and Geranium palmatum are often confused by nurseries and gardeners, but are actually very different in terms of habit and hardiness. Both are large beasts, possessing gorgeous, fern-like foliage and sprays of pink flowers that go on for several weeks. Neither enjoys being baked, preferring light shade in the afternoon and moist but well-drained soil. They detest wet which, when combined with cold, can prove fatal. However, there the similarities end. Geranium maderense likes to prop its heavy crown up on a pylon of red-tinged leaf stalks (so don’t chop them off!) and frequently reaches 6ft across in my garden. It will mercilessly smother anything beneath it, so I site plants where they can spread their wings or take the consequences. After flowering, which takes 2-3 years from sowing, the whole plant generally dies. Occasionally offsets appear at the base of the trunk-like stem. They are often weak in comparison to the main plant and I find it’s better to start again with a vigorous young seedling.

The foliage of Geranium palmatum is apple green, without maderense’s red tinge

Geranium palmatum has a more perennial habit (my oldest plant is 9 years old and has a trunk 2ft long), producing a wide Catherine-wheel of flowers rather than Geranium maderense‘s mushroom cloud of blossom. The leaves are slightly smaller and a fresher apple green, but still sprout from a thickened stem. They look their best early in the year, but any tired leaves can be snapped off with a sharp tug to the left or right which gives a neater appearance. I have never lost a plant of Geranium palmatum to cold, but in conditions that are not well enough drained they can be short-lived. Attempts to grow them in London where the soil is heavy clay have not been successful, yet they relish the raised beds in our seaside garden.

The flowers of Geranium maderense fade from fierce fuchsia to antique pink in bright sunshine

There is no question that Geranium maderense is the more glamorous and desirable of the sister species: the single flowers are fuller, more robust, brighter pink and produced in far greater profusion than G. palmatum. You will often spot Geranium maderense cultivated in greenhouses and there is a reason for that – it does not like any degree of frost. A light chill will at best cause damage to the leaves, which proceed to droop and yellow, but this in itself does not kill the plant as long as the crown is protected. What seems to put the final nail in the coffin is rot, which sets in to the damaged tissue as soon as the weather warms up again in spring. In some years all of my plants have survived snow and ice only to keel over and die in March, when the hollow stems perish. It’s enough to make a grown man cry. Another enemy, if you choose to grow Geranium maderense in a pot, is the vine weevil, whose grubs will quickly demolish the modest root system and cause the plant to collapse. This is always a tragedy, so I take precautions by using a liquid vine weevil treatment. Container cultivation is fine if it’s the only option, but plants never grow as large or flower so spectacularly.

The flower stalks of Geranium maderense are covered in sticky pink hairs

It’s the atomic cloud of Barbie-pink blossom that gives Geranium maderense the edge, supported by a scaffold of old leaf stems. Flowering begins tight within the leaf rosette but the hairy stems rise quickly up into a cone and then finally fan out to form a huge ball of flowers 3-4ft across. These are very attractive to bees and butterflies and the end result is something akin to one of those fabulous lady’s swimming caps from the 1960s.

The flower heads of Geranium maderense can measure 4ft across

The show will continue into mid summer before the plant, exhausted, begins to collapse and die. During that time the seed pods lengthen, dry out and split in dry weather, distributing seed to every corner of the garden. I’d wager than every pot that leaves my garden goes with at least one little geranium seedling nestling beneath the main event, spreading my love for these plants far and wide. For colder gardens I’d always recommend starting with Geranium palmatum, but if you want the real deal and can hold your nerve then go for the G. maderense and be prepared to be dazzled.

The first flowers of Geranium maderense emerge from the foliage before exploding into a giant mop-head of bloom

Where to see Geranium maderense – you don’t need to venture quite as far as Madeira to see Geranium maderense, although this may be more fun than some of my suggestions. The Eden project grows masses of them in their Mediterranean biome and, also in Cornwall, they are plentiful in the Isles of Scilly where frost is rare. In London, The Chelsea Physic Garden displays plants in its Atlantic Islands glasshouse and Kew and Wisley cultivate them too.

Where to buy Geranium maderense – if you have the patience to grow from seed (and they are easy-peasy, even for beginners), then the standard pink version is available from Thompson and Morgan and Jungle Seeds. The only place I know that offers ‘Guernsey White’ is Seeds of Distinction. For plants, Cornwall is a good place to search as they are more frequently grown outside there. Car boot sales such as those at Hayle and Rosudgeon have good plant stalls with local favourites. The Lost Gardens of Heligan was offering large plants of Geranium maderense for a good price on my last visit this year. Plants can be purchased mail order from Burncoose and the variety known as ‘Alba’ from Special Plants (also as seed).

Geranium palmatum at the foot of our front steps

Late yesterday afternoon as I was watering, it struck me that I never take the time to enjoy my garden. Quite why this came as a surprise I don’t know, because Him Indoors is always telling me so. I guess sometimes you have to work these things out for yourself.

Jaded after a long day of email wrestling, I have come outside with a gin and tonic to just sit, look and listen. The plants are growing so fast I can almost hear the sap gurgling through their veins, rising like an unstoppable tide. The gaps I purchased plants for two weeks ago are already gone, and still the cold frame is full. Above my head a honeysuckle is about to put on a firework display and tulip petals litter the decking. Summer is just around the corner.

The garden has never looked better and that’s no accident. I’ve worked at it. By and large that’s the first rule of gardening: what you put in, you get out. I feel momentarily gratified, knowing there is so much more to do. Just not today.

Primped and polished gardens are all very well (we’ll be seeing a lot of them at Chelsea in a few days’ time) but for those of us who work and can’t afford help they can be a little intimidating. Small imperfections are natural and larger ones excusable. They render a garden approachable and understandable, revealing something about the way it works and the gardener that tends it. Flaws also lend a garden part of its atmosphere: glorious disarray is so much more evocative than clinical maintenance. The only gardens I never warm to belong to those stately homes, suburban villas and monotonous bungalows possessed of velvet-pile lawns, gappy planting and bushes so tightly pruned that they appear to have given up on life.

Exemplifying glorious disarray, if not wild abandon, is a little known valley in South East Kent known as The American Garden. You won’t find it in any guide book, and without a decent map you may not locate it at all. However, during the month of May you’ll find The American Garden open each weekend from 2-5.30pm. I’d urge you to make the detour and immerse yourself in its dank, dark, yet exuberant depths.

This part of The Garden of England has been mercilessly bisected by both the M20 and the HS1 train line on which Eurostar runs. Many years ago, as a Landscape Architect, the firm at which I worked acted for many of the landowners in this part of England who wished to keep their estates intact. Most, including Sandling Park, failed in their appeals. Both routes narrowly miss The American Garden, but the roar of traffic can still be heard.

The American garden is so called because of the Californian redwood tree that was planted at its heart by William Acomb in 1854. Acomb was employed by Archdeacon Croft, who was rector of Saltwood from 1812 until his death in 1869. Educated at Eton and Cambridge (a winning formula then, as now), he married, appropriately, a daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury. With his stipend of £4,850, which was one of the richest in England at the time, he purchased Saltwood Alders, an area of bog created behind ancient beaver dams. Croft proceeded to clear the land for charcoal manufacture, creating a garden in its wake.

At that time new plant discoveries were arriving thick and fast from around The British Empire, including rhododendrons and azaleas from the Himalayas. Conditions in Archdeacon Croft’s garden mimicked the humid mountain valley climate perfectly and new introductions such as Rhododendron ponticum and R. arboreum flourished in their new home. Having employed William Acomb as gardener, the Archdeacon went on a spending spree, purchasing plants from all corners of the Far East and North America. His successor, Canon Hodgson, continued to build the collection, followed by a gentleman called Alfred Leney, a brewery entrepreneur from Dover who improved the structure of the garden. Between 1947 and 1976 Stanley Harland and his gardener Alex Pleuvry replaced large swathes of laurel with newer varieties of rhododendron, including the Kurume azaleas which still grace the Dell Walk.

Stanley Harland died in 1998, passing the garden on to his son Nigel, who valiantly continues its upkeep. Managing a garden on this scale cannot be easy, especially on a budget. The maintenance regime appears to be one of managed decline, with the focus on clearance and access rather than new planting. This is a pity as there must be many unmarked hybrids in the garden that are worthy of identification and propagation.

On a previous visit a tree-sized Embothrium coccineum, the fabulous Chilean fire bush, grew in the centre of the garden’s largest glade. Sadly this has now fallen, leaving behind the clump of wisteria-covered azaleas that grew in its shade. I hope The American Garden does not go the way of other gardens from this era that have found themselves without sufficient funds; swamped by sycamores and brambles, waiting for rescue. East Kent could benefit from a garden of this kind if only it had the means to smarten up its act and resume the building of a strong plant collection. In the meantime the experience of a visit to The American Garden, parking in a neighbouring orchard and plunging into the gloaming of The Dell, is like entering Jurassic Park. Your senses alive, you’ll discover many things, but there won’t be a tightly clipped bush in sight.

Discover more on The American Garden’s website.

We needed to blow away the cobwebs today, so settled on a drive down to one of our favourite spots, the stretch of coastline between Kingsdown and Walmer in Kent. The sun was up, the hood was down and the countryside smelt of damp grass and lilac blossom. It was about as good as a May day gets. Kingsdown is a charming, oft-overlooked little village, tumbling from the fledgling white cliffs to a grey English Channel. Above the tide line, marshalled rows of whitewashed cottages spring directly from the pebble beach.

Immediately on the shoreline, The Zetland Arms is now a rather smart pub. Having felt decidedly run down the last time we set foot inside it has been tastefully done out with bleached wood, ticking-stripe cushions and nautical paraphenalia. If you are not ‘in the know’ Zetland is the old name for the Shetland Isles and the pub’s name probably refers to The Marquess of Zetland.

Together with Him Indoors I enjoyed an enormous homemade burger washed down with Whitstable Bay Pale Ale brewed at Britain’s oldest Brewery, Shepherd Neame. Sitting on benches fashioned from stone-filled gabions the front of the pub is the perfect place to watch the world and his wife go by.

Most plants look their best in May, even wild ones. That’s why May is my favourite month. Through the golden shingle emerged feathery mounds of fennel, stiff, upright tree mallow (Malva arborea) and the conical plumes of valerian (Centranthus ruber) in shades of pink, vermillion and white. Outside their cottages residents had improved upon nature with colourful swathes of osteospermum, the Cape daisy from South Africa.

Strolling towards Walmer, past widely-spaced beach huts, we stumbled upon an imaginatively named boat…

….. smirking we walked onwards to a spot in the shingle where an elderly gentleman was tending a garden of broom, phlomis, mallow, calendulas and teasels. The garden possessed no boundaries and bled seamlessly into the beach.

The shingle banks along this stretch of the shore have been invaded by all sorts of garden plants. I spotted bergenias, red-hot pokers, yuccas, Spanish bluebells and rosy garlic (Allium roseum) making themselves at home. Looking at the scene below, featuring windswept holm oaks, yuccas, alexanders, fennel and Spanish bluebells, one could almost imagine oneself in the Mediterranean. In fact, apart from the yucca, that’s where all of these plants originally come from. Like Broadstairs, this part of the Kent coast is dry, sunkissed and rarely suffers from frost.

As I did between Polperro and Talland Bay in April, I collected a small bunch of blooms to enjoy at home. They are, clockwise from top left, valerian (Centranthus ruber); ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare); honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) – an especially rich red form which may be ‘Serotina'; rosy garlic (Allium roseum); kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria); valerian (Centranthus ruber); alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum); tree mallow (Malva arborea); meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris) and hoary cress (Lepidium draba).

Much of the shoreline and clifftop between Kingsdown and Dover is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, so I took care to pluck my flowers from the path side and not to trample the undergrowth. Any plant that survives here in salt laden gales, exposed to the sun, has to be pretty tough. But, as we can see from the foreign species that have integrated themselves, the balance is a fine one.

The combination of real ale, vitamin D and sea air did the trick, and I write this from the garden table feeling full of vim and vigour. It’s time to return the dahlias to their night time shelter as I prepare them for planting out, so I will leave you with a picture of the beautiful tree mallow, Malva arborea. Have a wonderful weekend and happy gardening.

Generally speaking I am not the kind of person who wins lotteries or ballots. I don’t even come out of tombolas or raffles particularly favourably. I am the man that walks away with the cider vinegar or the oversized tea cosy fashioned from yarn that looks like it would induce an electric shock. But today fortune was smiling on me as, for the very first time, I managed to get my hands on that most precious of prizes, a Chelsea Flower Show Press Pass. Rather like turning left on a plane, once you’ve experienced preview day at Chelsea it is hard to go back. There are film crews, photographers, hacks and celebrities galore, but compensating for that is the space and time to take in one of the greatest celebrations of horticulture on the planet. It was as if all my birthdays had come at once. Of course I will be back tomorrow for the first member’s day, but the experience will feel decidedly ‘economy’ compared to today, even though I only had a couple of hours to spare and an iPhone in my pocket.

Despite the inclement weather (high winds and drenching showers), most of the show gardens on Main Avenue were holding up well. I felt for the designers of the Hidden Beauty of Kranji garden who had bravely bedded out orchids beneath palm trees almost bent double by the gale. My highest hopes were for Dan Pearson’s Laurent Perrier garden, but, exceptional as it was, I am not sure it’s a shoe-in for Best in Show. So skilled is the garden’s execution that it appears to have been torn straight from the Derbyshire countryside and pasted into the grounds of the Royal Hospital. It is wild and authentic, but is it a Chelsea garden? We’ll know what the RHS judges think first thing tomorrow morning. If the accolade does not go Dan’s way, My top tips for the big prize would be The Retreat, designed by Jo Thompson for sponsors M&G investments, and Matt Keightley’s Hope in Vulnerability garden for Prince Harry’s charity Sentebale. Jo Thompson has created an archetypal English garden (above), with a contemporary twist. Matt’s design (below), inspired by the Mamohato Children’s centre in Lesotho, made my heart sing with it’s colourful planting and warm, friendly atmosphere: if not the top honour it deserves serious recognition.

Given my rare good luck, I think it’s only fair to share with you the highlights of my afternoon at Chelsea. Whether you are visiting, watching the TV coverage or admiring from afar, I do hope you enjoy the show. Check back throughout the week for more pictures, analysis and my top 10 Chelsea plants for 2015.

At about 10.30am yesterday morning a small crowd surrounded Monty Don and RHS Director General Sue Biggs as they prepared to announce the prize for ‘Best Large Show Garden’. Their position, next to the island site at the bottom of Main Avenue, left little doubt as to the winner – the Chatsworth Garden designed by Dan Pearson for Laurent-Perrier. It was the bookies’ favourite to take the accolade and, judging by the rapturous applause, the public’s as well.

Managing Director of Laurent-Perrier in the UK, David Hesketh, is the man with the enviable task of selecting a designer for the Champagne house’s Chelsea garden each year. He is clearly persuasive, as Dan Pearson has not designed a Chelsea garden for eleven years. David’s brief to his designer is a simple one, purely to reflect the value’s that Laurent Perrier adhere to when crafting their distinguished cuvées: lightness, freshness and delicacy.

Rocks surrounded by the fragrant flowers of Rhododendron luteum

There can be no argument that David’s brief was achieved. During last night’s BBC coverage Monty Don described The Chatsworth Garden as one of the most significant ever created at the Chelsea Flower Show. I would have to agree. Not only is it one of the largest (no show garden has ever occupied the full island site before) but also one of the most ambitious. Taking his inspiration from two of Joseph Paxton’s lesser known features within Chatsworth’s 105 acre garden – the magnificent rockery and the ornamental trout stream – Dan Pearson has masterminded a garden of unrivalled detail, impeccable naturalism and enormous charm.

The layout of the Laurent-Perrier garden from the northern edge

Dan’s design is unusual for Chelsea in that it can be glimpsed from all sides. This in itself is a challenge as views from every angle have to be considered, whereas in other gardens the main viewpoint is from the front and one side. A tiny stream begins high on an austere rocky outcrop, out of view from visitors. It then flows gently down and through meadows of flowers where it is crossed by giant stone slabs, ending its course in a small pond: “Getting the levels right was crucial” explained David “every stone and pebble in the water course has been carefully secured in place to achieve the right effect”. The mammoth stones used for the garden do not just simulate Paxton’s monumental rockery of 1842, they are the actual rocks that Paxton rejected during his original project. They were found discarded, scattered around the Chatsworth estate, many weighing several tonnes.

Rheums and osmundas in the shadow of Paxton’s gargantuan rocks

Although they are species commonly found in England, the trees that Crocus sourced for Dan Pearson have come from all over Europe. “British nurseries don’t tend to hold mature specimen trees for landscape projects” Crocus founder and CEO Mark Fane told me, “so we had to look to Europe”. The characterful pollarded willow that stands at edge of the garden came from Holland, whilst other trees were found in Germany and France. I was interested to learn that the location of one of the willow trees had to be changed during the build after the team discovered a Victorian sewer running under the site. It was doubtful that the old pipes could have withstood the direct weight of the tree, so it had to be moved elsewhere at the last minute.

The rocks, flanked by Enkianthus campanulatus, through which the tiny stream flows

The comment that was repeated by everyone I overheard was how incredible it was that this garden had been created in a matter of days and yet appeared as if it had been there forever. David Hesketh explained to me that the entire garden had been created at the nursery three months earlier and allowed to knit together over the weeks leading up to the show. Unlike some other show gardens, all the plants were transferred growing in the ground to Chelsea, and not left in pots. A swathe of wild flower meadow was grown specifically for the garden and cut into large square sheets of turf before being transported on trollies to the site.

A grassy bank strewn with red campion, troillius, irises and primulas

The planting creates as rich and colourful a tapestry as one could ever hope to see. Completely unswayed by trends and ‘it’ plants, Dan Pearson has used a palette of natives, carefully augmented by ornamentals, just as you would find in the wilder recesses of a garden like Chatsworth. I loved the floating canopies of Rhododendron luteum;  the fringes of candelabra primulas which appeared to have seeded themselves alongside the stream; the random spikes of camassia and marsh orchids poking through the turf; and the white clouds of Luzula nivea, Lychnis flos-cuculi ‘White Robin’ and Cenolophium denudatum foaming at the base of the trees. There were wonderful touches such as clumps of Narcissus poeticus hiding beneath the bushes and purple stemmed irises along the water’s edge. Many visitors would not have noticed these details, but the judges certainly did.

Turk’s cap lilies in all shades of orange populated shady parts of the garden

I was lucky enough to be invited to walk through the centre of the garden, across a heavy plank boardwalk, over rough stepping stones and then onto a lightly worn grass path. From inside, the garden felt even more permanent, as if I was standing on a little island of Chatsworth that had floated down from Derbyshire to South West London. Any team capable of creating a show garden this convincing deserves a gold medal.

Heavy oak planks invite visitors into the garden

A privileged view from the top of the grass bank inside the garden

Unlike many other show gardens there is a future for the Chatsworth Garden. When the show closes most of the trees, plants and stones will be transported back to Chatsworth where they will be used in the regeneration of the trout stream area. This was one of the main reasons Dan Pearson took on the project. He says: “I felt when I was here the last time it was wrong to make a garden for just five days and I felt uncomfortable about the waste and that the gardens were not being recycled. I wanted to work on something that lasts decades rather than days, so that is why I said I was important that the garden had another life.” The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, who live at Chatsworth, were clearly delighted with the whole project and spent the day handing out leaflets and talking to the public.

White thalictrum

Dan Pearson vowed yesterday never to work on another Chelsea Garden. In the short term his Garden Bridge project will keep him out of mischief, yet firmly in the limelight. With that under his belt, surely another Chelsea garden will seem like a walk in the park?

In Paxton’s original design for Chatsworth, rocks were delicately balanced so that they could be made to sway for the amusement of visitors

Plant List

A complete plant list was not provided, and would have run to many pages. Here are some of the highlights:

• Asarum europaeum AGM
• Asplenium scolopendrium AGM
• Briza media
• Brunnera macrophylla ‘Betty Bowring’
• Cenolophium denudatum
• Cornus canadensis
• Deschampsia cespitosa
• Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora
• Dryopteris erythrosora AGM
• Enkianthus campanulatus AGM
• Euphorbia palustris AGM
• Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus
• Iris ‘Berlin Tiger’ AGM
• Lonicera pericylmenum ‘Graham Thomas’ AGM
• Lunaria rediviva AGM
• Luzula nivea
• Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’
• Matteuccia struthiopteris AGM
• Melica altissima ‘Alba’
• Osmunda regalis
• Polygonatum x hybridum AGM
• Rhododendron luteum
• Smyrnium perfoliatum

Cornus canadensis carpeting the ground

Big budget show gardens are all well and good, but it was two of Chelsea’s smaller gardens that really impressed me on Tuesday. The ‘Fresh’ category is where the RHS loosens its corset and affords designers a little more freedom, provided they remain on the right side of good horticulture. Designers are permitted to choose the shape and size of their plot (in modules measuring 3m x 3m) and are encouraged to embody an idea or concept whilst experimenting with new materials and technology. Sadly these gardens often struggle to deliver the impact of larger show gardens; not for lack of brilliance, but because they float randomly between trade stands that are attempting emulate show gardens themselves. The unfortunately stark backdrop of the Great Pavilion does not help matters. A shake up of Chelsea’s layout is long overdue and it would be good to see the Fresh garden promoted to a less confused position.

Nevertheless, in today’s featured gardens designers John Warland and Howard Miller manage to capture the current zeitgeist without being pretentious. Eye-popping fluorescent yellow and rusted steel combined with burnt orange flowers were common sights at this year’s Chelsea, whilst inky black water, bamboo and umbrella plants suggest more global influences filtering into garden design. In neither garden are flowers given centre stage. Each is completely different, and yet together they epitomise much of what is new and exciting in garden design.

I could not take my eyes off The World Vision Garden and the camera loved it too. Inspired by the beauty of rural Cambodia designer John Warland swapped rice plants for fluorescent acrylic rods, ‘planting’ them deep in a pool of dark water. Growing through and around them were frothy water buttercups, cyperus and taro plants providing shade beneath their elephantine leaves. The garden’s message is a harsh one: surviving on just two bowls of rice a day, the life of many children in Cambodia is permanently blighted by poor nutrition. Contrasting with the yellow rods, purple irises and water violets are planted to indicate that water conditions are improving enough to allow delicate plants to thrive in the paddies. As well as attracting attention with the mind bending suggestion of a reverse oasis (or should that be anti-oasis?) mirrored boxes filled with cacti are sunk into the water representing light at the end of the tunnel for the country’s impoverished rural communities.

Although this garden probably isn’t something you’d emulate at home (the water needed relentless filtering to maintain that lacquer-black appearance) it is wonderful to look at and in my view deserved better than a Silver Gilt medal. Perhaps one take-out would be the idea of planting cacti in a mirrored glass cube. If sharp drainage could be provided the light, bright habitat would be perfect for these prickly customers.

Architect Howard Miller probably thought he had the toughest brief of all when he was asked to portray the entire universe and the unidentified constituents within it using plants and rusty metal. Since I am no astrophysicist, I will not embellish what the accompanying leaflet tells me, that is without what’s known as ‘Dark Matter’ there would be no planets, stars or galaxies. Pretty dramatic news for us Earthlings. No one knows what Dark Matter is, apart from a cloud of mysterious invisible particles that float around in empty space. Its presence is only known because it is believed to bend light and create huge gravitational effects. Lost? Me too, but let’s go on ….

The garden uses wind as a metaphor for Dark Matter as it cannot be seen but its effects can. Plants have been chosen to be sensitive to the slightest breeze, so that the garden is continually moving in response to air movement. The presence of Dark Matter is reinforced by undulations in the ground, symbolised by a hollow where Dark Matter exists above it and a mound where it does not. I know now why I studied plant science and not astronomy, but evidently when the two disciplines collide the result isn’t too catastrophic. There is no explanation of the large cut-out cogs, but I like to imagine that this is what the Large Hadron Collider looks like, only shinier.

Given the rather esoteric message behind this garden, it’s just as well it’s attractive its own right. The ideas Howard Miller presents in this garden could be translated into a small urban strip, roof terrace or balcony, coming together to make an edgy, private yet usable outdoor space. There’s a boundary of bamboo, focal points in the giant rusted steel sculpture and planter, and plenty of year-round interest. The finishing touch is a bench on which to sit and contemplate the meaning of the universe. I may be some time.

The Dark Matter Garden for the National Schools’ Observatory won Best Fresh Garden and a Gold medal. How would you have judged it, and which of the two gardens do you prefer?

I changed my plans this year and instead of dashing headlong for Main Avenue when the show opened on Tuesday, I hung a left and made for the Serpentine Walk where Chelsea’s Artisan Gardens can be found. These gardens are built on a smaller budget and are frequently sponsored by councils, tourism authorities and charities. Their themes are often typically British, as exemplified by the charming Trugmaker’s Garden (about which more soon) and the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Garden, which took ‘over-themed’ to a new level.

A place for everything and everything in its place

In recent years one garden has stood out, and that’s the garden designed by Ishihara Kazuyuki. At just after 8am on Tuesday morning I followed TV presenter Nicky Chapman and RHS judge James Alexander-Sinclair down the snaking pathway as they handed out the medals. Despite the TV cameras, only modest crowds gathered to watch as, one-by-one, the designers opened their white envelopes. There were hugs, smiles and just a few tears, but no reaction as exuberant as that of Mr Kazuyuki. After a momentary pause his customary composure fell away and he leapt in the air shouting “Gold” repeatedly whilst beaming from ear-to-ear. He speaks very little English so his elation is always wonderfully expressed through his body language.

The dapper Mr Kazuyuki waits patiently for the judges to come around

A moment of suspense as the envelope is opened ….

… and it’s ….

… Gold! Gold!! Gold!!!

As always, Mr Kazuyuki’s garden was perfection itself, down to the very last cushion moss. It represented a Japanese garden of the Edo period (1603-1867) when the practice of building gardens became popular amongst businessmen, merchants and politicians. These gardens were designed to mimic landscapes or views that the owner might have experienced, or to recreate well known scenes from around the globe. As such they were worlds in miniature, designed to impress and convey the wealth and sophistication of the household.

A circular opening allows light into the interior

Against the backdrop of a weeping willow, Mr Kazuyuki’s tableau of mosses, ferns, vividly coloured acers and moody pines lit up this shady corner of the Chelsea Flower show. It was a garden that drew you in, tempting you up the cobble steps to the little tea house at the top of the slope. Flowers were restricted to a few artfully placed azaleas and irises, but who needs flowers when foliage is this brilliant. Mr Kazuyuki goes home to Japan a happy man. Let’s hope he’ll be back with another winning design in 2016.

Acers shade cobble steps leading to the tea house

Mr Kazuyuki’s garden photographed straight on

In 2005, Singapore announced plans to distinguish itself as a ‘City in a Garden’. The projects that followed, such as The Gardens by the Bay, have attracted global attention, rivalling our very own Eden Project in terms of scale and ambition. The city’s long established botanical gardens have always been one of my favourites, brimming with lush foliage and thousands of orchids. Singapore’s national flower is a pretty pink vanda named V. ‘Miss Joaquim’, so it seemed only fitting that Raymond Toh and John Tan, designers of the Hidden Beauty of Kranji garden at last week’s Chelsea Flower Show, should include this special orchid in their scheme.

It’s not often that designers are brave enough to submit a garden with such a distinctly tropical theme and it did feel very much as if this garden ought to be under glass or in a fancy hotel atrium. There was little for the average gardener to take away in practical terms, but there was plenty of admiration for the distinguished design duo’s colourful composition. To plant palms and orchids outside in London during May takes some nerve and at night the entire garden had to be wrapped in a protective layer to keep out the cold. On the first day of the show the garden was taking a bashing from the wind and rain, but the bright colours never lost their sparkle. The contrast between this and the Laurent Perrier Chatsworth Garden, just a few yards away, was a dramatic one.

I particularly enjoyed the narrow waterfalls emerging from a wall of lush greenery. They were clearly inspired by The Gardens by the Bay (above, photographed in October 2012, shortly after it opened) and roared satisfyingly as they plunged into the foliage fringed pool below.

A pavilion at the centre of the garden offered shade from the not-so-tropical sun. The roof was planted with creepers and tree ferns (Cyathea arborea), representing Singapore’s quest to increase the number of roof gardens and green walls around the city. Kranji, the north western suburb after which the garden is named, is a low-rise, well-to-do neighbourhood with a horse racing circuit, organic farming collective and farmer’s market. All very middle-class. Great pride is taken in the city’s natural environment and this garden echoes the care and attention lavished on public spaces that I’ve experienced first hand each time I’ve visited Singapore.

The Hidden Beauty of Kranji was not to everyone’s taste, but deserved a silver gilt medal for pushing Chelsea’s boundaries eastwards. No doubt in Saturday’s sell off a lucky few went home with some choice specimens for their conservatory. Here’s the full plant list:

SHRUBS

• Alocasia ‘Calidora’
• Alocasia ‘Polly’
• Alpinia purpurata
• Calathea insignis
• Calathea ‘Medallion’
• Cordyline fruiticosa
• Costus woodsonii
• Ficus elastica
• Ophiopogon japonica
• Philodendron ‘Imperial Red’
• Philodendron pertussem
• Philodendron selloum
• Philodendron xanadu
• Sansaveria trifasciata laurentii
• Spathiphyllum ‘Lima’
• Spathiphyllum ‘Sensation’
• Schefflera arboricola
• Aeschynanthus lobbianus
• Dracaena cintho ‘Vertakt’
• Calathea orbifolia
• Ananas champaca
• Aglaonema ‘Cretea’

TREES / PALMS

• Areca lutescens
• Vietchia merrillii
• Cerbera manghas
• Musa tropicana
• Rhapis excelsa
• Cocos nucifera
• Cycas revoluta (below)
• Ficus lyrata
• Schefflera amate
• Cyathea brownii
• Cyathea arborea
• Pandanus tectorius var. sanderi
• Licuala grandis

GROUND COVERS

• Scindapsus aureus
• Calissia repens
• Microsorum diversifolium
• Nephrolepsis exaltata
• Humata tyremannii
• Asplenium nidus
• Platycerium bifurcatum

VERTICAL GREENERY

• Tradescantia zebrina
• Asplenium antiquum
• Chlorophytum comosum ‘Ocean’
• Tillandsia usneoides
• Philodendron scandens
• Peperomia angulata
• Syngonium red and pink
• Syngonium ‘Pixie’
• Sellaginella

ORCHIDS

• Aranda ‘Singa Gold’
• Dendrobium ‘Enobi Purple’
• Vanda ‘Miss Joaquim’
• Dendrobium ‘Asian Youth Games Singapore 09′
• Renanthera ’20th Singapore WOC 2011′ (red orchid, below right)

Native to the Canary Islands, echiums are sky-rocketing giants of the plant world. But, like an unfortunate child star, they reach their peak early before burning themselves out. Many of the them are monocarpic, flowering only once before dying. But what flowers! The good news is that echiums set seed freely so that the following year you are blessed with hundreds of newly germinated plants. 

In our coastal garden we grow Echium pininana, commonly known as tower of jewels, as well as well as Echium tuberculatum from Portugal. Having developed quite an affection for echiums, I have been nurturing a single plant of Echium wildpretii for the last three years and finally it is flowering. Echium wildpretii has a great deal more finesse than both of the old timers, forming an elegant rosette of felted, silver-grey leaves before sending up a stocky spike of raspberry red flowers in its third year. Where it’s planted it combines nicely with the reddish bark of Lyonothamnus floribundus aspleniifolius and the emerging flower stalk of Beschorneria yuccoides.

With the prospect of a small conservatory close to becoming reality, I am thinking of starting a collection of echiums which might include some of the shruby species such as E. candicans, E. bethencourtianum and E. hypertropicum. For now I am growing from seed more E. wildpretii and a hybrid between this and E. pininana called E. ‘Pink Fountain’. Surprise, surprise, it has pink flowers.

If you are searching for a plant that has the wow factor and can offer conditions which are not too cold or damp then Echium wilpretii is just the thing. It’s not too tall (4-5ft), wind tolerant and bees love it. It will keep flowering until November before fading away. As Billy Joel sang – only the good die young.

I’ve been a bit quiet of late and that’s because I’ve been buying a new house. We are not moving, but knocking through into a neighbouring property to give us more space ….. and more garden. Most of you will find it hard to get excited about the prospect of an extra 20ft by 20ft of growing space, but for us that’s almost double what we have now, and with a sunnier, south-westerly aspect the possibilities seem endless. This weekend Architect Guy, brother of Him Indoors, is drawing up plans which will include a library for all my gardening books and a conservatory. I am finding it hard to contain my excitement. No doubt budgetary constraints will bring me rapidly back down to earth!

In the new garden we have inherited a rickety aluminium greenhouse, a rather fine deep red rose, a beautifully scented jasmine, an unusual fuchsia with red-veined leaves, promising clumps of Nerine bowdenii, a plastic pot filled with pink and red bedding geraniums and about 6000 snails. This is obviously where they came when I evicted them from next door. Two sheds and the greenhouse are precariously wired up with all manner of electrics, none of which look particularly safe, so our first job was to cut them off.

By rights I should not be attempting to do any gardening until the two houses have been converted into one. The new house, known as Polegate Cottage, has not been updated for about 35 years, so needs everything done to it – new wiring, new central heating and complete redecoration. It’s hard to believe that two such different properties could be so close to one another. Our house is light, bright and cheerful; next door is gloomy and dated. There will be a lot of mess and expense before I can really getting going on the garden, but in the short term I have succumbed to the usual temptation and started filling it up with pots of the kind plants I’d like to grow there eventually.

Being sunnier than our existing garden I am thinking of drought-tolerant Mediterranean and Antipodean plants which will save on watering. I have started with a bottle brush (Callistemon citrinus), Ozothamnus rosmarinifolius ‘Silver Jubilee’ (inspired by Beth Smith at Foamlea) and Cestrum fasciculatum ‘Newellii’ which has given a me a foundation of silver foliage and red flowers. On that I have built a collection of plants with interesting foliage colours, including fabulous Tradescantia ‘Purple Sabre’, Begonia ‘Benitochiba’, Sempervium ‘Virgil’, Echeveria ‘Black Prince’ and my long suffering aeoniums which have been temporarily stricken by vine weevil damage.

Our existing garden is resolutely green, and the previous owner of Polegate Cottage had a penchant for burgundy red, so I am using this new space as an opportunity to experiment with combinations of magenta, plum, scarlet and aubergine. A purple leaved canna surrounded by red nemesias and helichrysum will not be drought tolerant, but will enjoy the sunshine and shelter. Meanwhile I have moved other cannas and hedychiums around to the new garden to bring them on a little faster in readiness for our National Gardens Scheme open weekend on August 1st and 2nd.

I am looking forward to posting regular updates on our new coastal garden and the plans for its future layout. All bright ideas welcomed!

We are in the midst of a period known to gardeners and beekeepers as the June Gap. Both of our gardens have become a sea of green, caught in limbo between the fading flowers of spring and the first blooms of summer. I love this time: everything appears so fresh and vigorous, with the anticipation of colourful flowers and tasty fruit just around the corner. Hostas and lettuces remain unnibbled, the first tomatoes are setting and flowering plants are covered in promising buds. No time yet for greenfly, vine weevil and mildew to mame, chew and fog the garden’s emerald mantle. I want to dive in and wallow amongst the cool greenery, ruminating quietly like a hippopotamus in a swamp.

Dicksonia antartica creates elegantly dappled shade

Luxuriant foliage is all well and good, but it’s bad news for honey bees. A dearth of pollen and nectar can spell disaster for hives which are at their fullest and busiest during June. Until today most of the UK has been experiencing night temperatures in the low single figures. This suits ferns like Dicksonia antarctica (above) but not shy annual flowers that crave summer heat.

These foxgloves should have been white, but turned out bog-standard pink

All is not lost: even during a cool month certain plants can be guaranteed to bridge the June Gap and ease the pollen drought, not least foxgloves, Rosa rugosa, Clematis montana, osteospermum, Centranthus ruber, astrantias, honeysuckle, hardy geraniums and echiums (should you have room for something a little more exotic). Single flowers are a good choice because their nectaries are more easily accessible to hungry pollinators. A broad wash of green is hugely flattering to most colours so there’s less need to worry about clashes now than in high summer. Because the days are longest in June, I tend to plan for lots of white so that I can enjoy the blooms late into the evening.

Hydrangea quercifolia flower heads start to emerge

The predicted warm (dare I say hot?) weather will quickly set bedding plants, herbs and wild flowers racing to attract their flying friends and the June Gap will soon close over. I will miss my sea of green, punctuated here and there by the high sails of foxgloves and the foaming whiteness of nemesias. The bees will not; they are looking forward to July’s sweet bounty.

My all time favourite hosta, H. ‘Patriot’

A post about GROW London, the capital’s newest, freshest garden show, is one of the many that never found its way out of my drafts folder last summer. This is very remiss of me as GROW London really is worth shouting about. Coming a month after Chelsea, the show bookends the June Gap, providing Londoners with a timely opportunity to add blooms to their balconies, tart up their terraces or augment their allotments with the choicest gardening gear.

I snapped up tickets for the Charity Gala evening, which benefits the National Gardens Scheme. The weather tonight was perfect: warm and sunny with a refreshing breeze. The very essence of summer. The show ground, on the edge of Hampstead Heath, is perfect for attracting affluent north Londoners who arrived in their droves, decked in crisply pressed linen and floral shirts – oversized sunglasses compulsory.

The show runs from Friday 19th June until Sunday 21st June and is just the right size for a half day out including a spot of lunch. Drinks this evening were laid on by Nyetimber, the finest of English sparkling wines and a favourite of The Queen. I had to have a few glasses to be sure it was good enough for Her Majesty. This year sees the return of many exhibitors, suggesting last year was a commercial success. Top of my list to see were Crûg Farm Plants from North Wales, Evolution Plants from Somerset and Niwaki, the Japanese tool company. None disappointed.

This year London garden centres, of which there are pitifully few, are better represented. W6 and N1 Garden centres created a lush display of creatively potted plants balanced on ladders and shelves. A visit is seriously overdue, something I must remedy. If their stand is anything to go by, I am in for a treat.

Petersham Nurseries, always in a league of its own, created a romantic bower, surrounded by frothy plants and heavily scented roses.

Website Gardenista hosted a mini market packed with artisan producers including 31 Chapel Lane, offering beautiful Irish linen gardening smocks and tea towels. I was encouraged to enter the Gardenista Considered Design Awards, which is a competition you might like to consider entering yourself. You’ll need to be quick as the closing date is Monday June 22nd.

If you are in London this weekend you should make a bee-line for GROW London. Just have the good sense to take a cab home with your purchases – 4ft scenicos are easily caught in train doors ;-).

The Damage

1. Begonia luxurians x 2 – dazzling Brazilian begonia with long, finger-like leaves.
2. Senecio christobalensis – an extraordinary, furry-leaved giant
3. Tweedia caerulea – divine tender climber with turquoise flowers
4. Saxifraga stolonifera – beautiful spreading saxifrage with dark leaves and pink flowers like tiny butterflies
5. Ludisia discolor – jewel orchid. An indoor orchid with maroon, veined leaves and white flowers

A special shout out for Glendon Nursery, growers of the above, who’s stand was as exciting as finding a rich aunt’s jewellery box in the attic. Plants to die for.

Mention the name bindweed and the first thing that springs to mind is one of gardeners’ greatest horrors, hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium). Undoubtedly beautiful in flower, hedge bindweed is a thug and is welcomed only into the wildest of gardens by the bravest of gardeners.

Altogether tamer, docile in fact, is blue rock bindweed, Convolvulus sabatius (also known as C. mauritanicus). An extremely polite customer, this small, scrambling plant stays in one place, flooding the ground around it with pools of delicately creased blue flowers. They start to unfurl at the end of May and often persist until November. I have grown Convolvulus sabatius in our coastal garden for many years now, giving each plant a haircut in autumn and then again in April. The trailing stems, cascading down our slate walls, tend to get tossed about like a bad comb-over during winter, so a trim keeps the plants tidy.

In the UK Convolvulus sabatius is commonly sold as a annual for hanging baskets and containers. This is often the cheapest way to obtain plants, but in the south of England you will find them perfectly hardy and reliable as perennials. Blue rock bindweed does not wander or set seed, simply making a stronger clump year after year. For best results plant somewhere that enjoys sunshine for at least half the day. Positioning at the top of a wall or slope gives the trailing stems a chance to show themselves off. Once established Convolvulus sabatius needs almost no maintenance and is very drought tolerant. If it does outgrow its allotted space then I give it a haircut and new shoots quickly appear – in a good season I might do this a couple of times. The flowers close in the evening and when they’re over they roll themselves up into tight twists like little Rizla papers before dropping. Their colour is an exceptionally pretty mauvish-blue, which works well with hotter pinks and yellows.

With its lens-shutter flowers and good manners Convolvulus sabatius is a bindweed I could never banish to the fringes of my garden.

We would not describe ourselves as vegetable gardeners, at least not yet, but since we completed a project to build raised beds in our London garden almost a year ago we have been experimenting with growing our own. Setting up a vegetable garden in June or July would not be described as best practice. Nevertheless in our first season we did well with tomatoes, Venetian beans, lettuce, oriental leaves and most commonly cultivated herbs. I was especially chuffed with the profusion of French tarragon, my favourite herb, which added incredible flavour to boiled potatoes, chicken and egg dishes. Despite Him Indoors accidentally yanking the plants out when I wasn’t looking in the autumn, fragments of root have quickly sent up new shoots and we are back in production again.

Tomatoes were super successful, just four plants trained against a brick wall providing all we needed for salads, cooking and chutney making. They were a little late, but not dramatically so. This year we have made room for eight plants of 4 different varieties (F1 ‘Elegance’, F1 ‘Giulietta’, ‘Black Cherry’ and ‘Orange Paruche’), which means we should have plenty to give away later in the year.

It has not all been plain sailing. I thought courgettes would revel in the mounds of manure we incorporated into the soil, but the embryonic fruits kept rotting at the tips and no more than two or three found their way into the kitchen. Sweet corn was an unmitigated disaster, planted way too late and proving a complete waste of time and space. Broadbeans, planted by Him Indoors last autumn, have produced a modest crop this month, but to satisfy us for more than two or three meals we’d need to oust everything else. I like broadbeans, but not that much. The jury is out on leeks, which appear rather slow to do anything at all. If they don’t show promise soon they’ll be pulled out in favour of something I can’t readily buy at Waitrose.

And there’s the rub. If you are seriously restricted space-wise what is the point in growing fruit and veg that are easily bought in the shops? Yes, you know where they’ve been, but where’s the satisfaction? Instead of going down the obvious route we are experimenting with things we don’t find at the greengrocer – colourful tomato varieties, outdoor cucumbers, red-veined sorrel, purple French beans and asparagus peas. Of the regular stuff only gem lettuce, salad leaves and rocket remain, good crops for squeezing in between slower foods.

Where pests and diseases are concerned, so far, so good. Naturally we have slugs and snails (who doesn’t?) but other afflictions have been minimal. I tend to think this may be because none of our neighbours grow vegetables and therefore blights, root flies and mildews are taking longer to find our tender harvest. Crop rotation in a single bed of about 7m sq with a distinct sunny and shady side will be nigh on impossible. Next year I will move the tomatoes to the back of the bed, but any further and they’ll be next door amongst the buddleia.

I toyed with planting step-over apple trees against the mellow brick walls. I have not entirely abandoned this idea, but am discovering that seedlings at the end of a row nearest the wall develop twice as fast. I am guessing this is down to the warmth and shelter the wall provides. Now that I have a mini greenhouse I need to get very much better at growing on a few plants in modules so that no space is ever wasted.

I have not been able to resist slipping in a few flowering plants, but the confines of our raised beds dictate they must be of the most upright, space-saving kind. Last year it was cosmos (too bushy according to Him Indoors) and this year I’ve planted lime green and burgundy gladioli. A vegetable garden without blooms is a worthy one, but not pretty enough when it’s the only thing you can see from the kitchen window. Our little vegetable garden may not be Villandry (click here for a superb post on that iconic garden at Jardin Design), but it might make kitchen gardeners of us yet.

For as long as I can recall my uncle has lived in Stoke Newington. Known affectionately as ‘Stokey’ by locals, this appealing enclave in north London began its existence as a small country village in the Middle Ages, before being absorbed into the expanding city during the 19th Century. The newly rich made Stoke Newington their home, building large houses and one of London’s finest cemeteries, Abney Park. But in common with many districts blighted by bombing during WWII, by the 1960s Stoke Newington had fallen from grace, attracting squatters, artists, bohemians, political radicals and ….. my uncle.

Nowadays Stoke Newington finds itself back where it was in the 1800’s. New Age, arty types have long been priced out of the market, releasing a stock of fine Victorian houses to affluent bankers and the comfortably off.  Church Street is home to Whole Foods Market, Jojo Maman Bebe, Foxtons and countless chichi vintage homewares stores, indicators of the ‘right’ kind of customer.

My uncle, an art teacher before he retired and latterly a psychotherapist, remained rooted in Stoke Newington as society shifted around him: an artist for sure, with bohemian leanings. He is one of those few people who will have gardened on the same spot for almost half a lifetime, still gaining the same pleasure and satisfaction from his tiny urban plot as he did when I was 2ft high. 

With every passing year my uncle tends, observes and hones his garden, making little adjustments here, adding a plant there, moving another somewhere it might grow better. He displays all the discipline I lack, not wantonly cramming the garden with any plant that captures his imagination, but refining what he has, creating the perfect balance, taking his time. The result is a tranquil garden for all seasons, a space that feels composed and relaxing. Measuring approximately 16ft by 25ft there are many angles from which the garden can be appreciated and always something different to see. The constants are a fine Trachycarpus, a purple-leaved plum, a well cared for agave and a side passageway lushly planted with ferns. The leafy infill changes a little from year to year, but not enough to spoil the equilibrium.

  
I am not sure if it’s the Buddhist teachings he follows, the relative austerity of his younger life, his natural patience or his years of experience which incline my uncle to garden in this thoughtful manner. Perhaps his approach could be described as ‘slow gardening’. Judging by the results I think perhaps I could do with a change of pace.

Just two days to go until the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show opens to the public and I’ve finally had five minutes to see what the world’s biggest flower show has in store. As with Chelsea, the jury is out for me on this year’s show gardens, with one notable exception, Paul Martin’s ‘Encore – A Music Lover’s Garden’. Hampton Court is unquestionably the more populist show, but this year I fear the RHS may have gone a little too far in attempting to make room for every anniversary, cause and style going. There are no fewer than five categories of show garden this year; Conceptual, Show, Summer, World and Historic, but will this simply be overload? The grounds of Hampton Court Palace certainly provide the backdrop for great design, but I wonder if the show is in danger of becoming something of a horticultural circus.

Essence of Australia was one of 2014’s showstopping gardens

Happily I can recall more red hot Hampton Court shows than soggy ones and this year looks set to be a scorcher. The forecast suggests we can expect temperatures in the 30s, so if we tire of the gardens we can always lounge by the Long Water sipping champagne. I will be accompanied by Helen of Oz who has timed a business trip to the UK specially so that she can take a day off for the show. With Helen beside me a good time is guaranteed. We will no doubt enjoy a robust exchange of views given that we garden on different sides of the planet. Agapanthus get me wildly excited: they make Helen yawn. I wilt if the mercury exceeds 25: Helen takes off her coat. On one thing we are both agreed: you can’t beat a good English lawn. It’s a pity neither of us can boast of one.

Paul Martin’s garden for Vestra Wealth at the 2014 show

Last year Paul Martin’s garden for Vestra Wealth was my personal favourite. This year the designer returns with a new garden in the ‘Show’ category which looks certain to grab my attention again. Working with the same sponsor, Paul’s latest creation is inspired by music, making a focal point of a sandstone amphitheatre where one might sit and enjoy a recital. The garden is inspired by a love of classical music and in particular Handel’s Water Music, which was commissioned by King George I and had its debut on the River Thames.

The design for ‘Encore’ is inspired by Handel’s Water Music

An sneak preview of Vestra Wealth’s 2015 garden (Photo: Paul Martin)

I can’t recall a time when a garden that was first shown at Chelsea was recreated at Hampton Court in the same year, but I shall not be sorry to see John Warland’s ‘World Vision Garden’ again. It will be fascinating to see if the design has been moved on and an opportunity to share the experience with Helen.

John Warland’s World Vision Garden will be reprised at Hampton Court

When people think about coal mining in England their thoughts normally travel to County Durham or South Yorkshire, but rarely to East Kent. Hadlow College will be presenting a garden entitled ‘Green Seam’, celebrating the regeneration and revitalisation of Betteshanger, a village situated in the part of East Kent that suffered most following the closure of the Kent coalfields in 1989. Dark colliery spoil will be contrasted with the fresh greens and bright pinks of early summer, demonstrating the speed at which pioneer plant species will colonise hostile environments. I am imagining there will be birches, foxgloves and umbels aplenty.

Green Seam celebrates regeneration in the East Kent coal fields

Other gardens this year include a celebration of the signing of the Magna Carta 800 years ago, presented by Amnesty International; a garden inspired by A A Milne’s Winnie the Pooh; a paradise garden created for the Turkish Ministry of Culture and two designs which will attempt to capture the essence of North America’s great gardens.

The selling of plants at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is both a blessing and curse. A blessing because many of the nation’s finest nurseries are present, a curse because I will buy too many, and so will everyone else. Bare ankles are vulnerable to injuries inflicted by plant trolleys dragged across your path by careless owners, giving all the more reason to use one of the many plant creches. I suppose such minor afflictions keep St John’s Ambulance busy, although this year they are more likely to be dealing with heat stroke.

Avon Bulbs at Hampton Court Flower Show in 2012

One thing we can be sure of is that there will be variety. Whether it’s pleasing or not we shall soon find out. For those of us in the UK there will be coverage on BBC2 on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday (9.30pm) and Friday at 10pm. There are still tickets available on the RHS website. Personally, I am looking forward to a day in the sun, the company of a great friend, a champagne picnic on the grass and an abundance of flowers. What more could one wish for?

Nature takes hold in and around a ruined folly in this naturalistic garden (2014)