Vinca: periwinkle

First, a health warning: periwinkles, especially the kind that appreciate the British climate, can be complete thugs. Just this weekend I spotted a quarter-acre monoculture of Vinca major ‘Alba’ (below) covering a stretch of chalk cliff beneath Charles Dickens’ Bleak House in Broadstairs. The wandering stems formed an undulating green custard, studded with thousands of pure white flowers, smothering even the most rampant of competitors. (The latin word ‘vincire’, from which the name vinca is derived, means ‘bind’.)

Vinca major, which generally produces five-petalled, lilac-blue flowers, has its place …. somewhere around the far fringes of the garden where it can revel in dry shade or rampage down a steep bank. Here the plant’s Southern European heritage comes to the fore, rendering it tolerant of drought and summer heat, as well as deep shade. Vinca major is such a voracious visitor that in some countries it’s become a serious problem plant.

Providing you’re happy to tolerate a little bad behaviour, Vinca major will work hard for you. Named, variegated forms such as ‘Maculata’ (green leaves with gold centres), ‘Variegata’ (green edged with white) and ‘Wojo’s Gem’ (cream with green edges and pink stems, below) will spread light across a dark corner faster than you can say “Stop right there!”. Vincas root where the trailing stems touch the ground, rapidly creating enormous clumps of evergreen vegetation.

Don’t be fooled into thinking Vinca minor (lesser periwinkle) is any more polite than her big sister. Yes, she’s a lower growing plant with more delicate leaves, but her ideas about world domination are equal. There are some lovely cultivars, many with RHS Awards of Garden Merit, including ‘Azurea Flore Pleno’ AGM (sky-blue flowers), ‘Atropurpurea’ AGM (deep reddish-purple), ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ (pure white), ‘Ralph Shugert’ AGM (vivid, deep violet) and ‘Variegata’ AGM (green leaves margined cream with violet-blue flowers, below).

Somewhere in between major and minor comes Vinca difformis (imaginatively dubbed intermediate periwinkle), which is an altogether better behaved plant. It spreads slowly to about 120cm and revels in dry shade where little else will grow. Flowering begins in late summer, when the simple blooms appear white, tinged with blue. This bluishness fades to pure white through the winter, whilst the flowers keep on coming. Vinca difformis is a diamond in the rough and well worth tracking down if you are craving a little winter colour in your garden.

Major, minor or somewhere in between, there’s a vinca out there with designs on your garden. Choose the right location and vincas will do your dirty work; make one false move and your precious plants will be engulfed by a rising tide of glossy green foliage. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Ranunculus asiaticus: Persian Buttercup

I am not sure I have the patience to be a plant breeder, nor the stamina to go hunting for new species in far-flung places, but I am glad other people do. New hybrids and wild-collected rarities fuel the horticultural industry and gardeners’ imagination, a process of natural selection determining which survive in cultivation and which do not. Long years and vast sums of money are spent by professional breeders and plant hunters in pursuit of commercial success and botanical glory. Just occasionally the hybridisers go a little too far in their quest for plants which will capture our imagination, introducing faddy flowers which are too unnatural to be described as attractive. Ultimately the consumer, whether gardener, plant collector or florist, decides if a new cultivar will rise to fame or disappear without trace. The stakes are high.

Whether these exciting new ranunculus will make it onto the staging of our local garden centres I don’t know, but I do hope they’ll be arriving on your doorstep in a Valentine’s bouquet on February 14th.

Coronilla valentina: shrubby scorpion vetch, bastard senna

As winter’s end approaches our coastal garden is starting to look a little bedraggled. A mild December and January granted us a continuous display of luxuriant green, but now that same brave foliage has been torn and tattered by the wind. Beyond our garden gate there are flowers in the parks and gardens of Broadstairs, but they are pale imitations of their spring-time selves; lonely, shrunken, bleached-out little things that fail to lift my spirits.

Glowing like a candle in the dark is a plant that laughs in the face of February, Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca ‘Citrina’. Despite its unappealing common names (by rights it ought to be known as Valentine’s crown, ‘coronilla’ meaning ‘crown’), this compact, winter-flowering shrub was applauded by the great Vita Sackville-West, who praised “its persistence throughout the dreary months”, where she would find it “flowering continuously between those two great feasts of the Church – a sort of hyphen between the Birth and the Resurrection”. From November until May scorpion vetch produces little pom-poms of lemon-yellow, pea-shaped flowers atop pretty greyish-green foliage. An added bonus is the sweet scent, reminiscent of daffodils, a feature which made Coronilla valentina a popular cut flower in Victorian times. A long spell of cold may put a halt to the cheerful display, but as soon as milder weather arrives normal service is quickly resumed.

Coronilla valentina is a Mediterranean plant, common in Portugal, Malta and Croatia, although it’s been cultivated in British gardens since it was introduced to our islands in 1569. Plants are not fussy about soil type, but do demand a well-drained, sunny position in the garden. Planted in the shelter of a warm wall C. valentina will perform especially well. Like compatriots sage, lavender, cistus and rosemary, scorpion vetch does have a tendency to become woody and leggy in time. When past their best, old specimens should be replaced with vigorous new ones raised from cuttings.

The straight species Coronilla valentina has tawdry, orange-yellow flowers and is not nearly as attractive as ‘Citrina’. Those looking for something a little different might seek out the variegated form, ‘Variegata’, which is best grown in a cool greenhouse. However it’s hard to better ‘Citrina’, a plant that will transport you from autumn to spring as if winter never came between.

Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca ‘Citrina’ is available from Burncoose Nursery and Kelways.

I’ve had a cough or a cold for nearly six weeks now, which has severely curtailed the amount of gardening I’ve been able to do. Consequently I feel desperately unhealthy and just a little bit sorry for myself. Him Indoors, who says I am incapable of relaxation and despairs of the restless patient I am, declared that I was not allowed out in the garden this weekend. “Those are the rules” he said, firmly, “sit down and do nothing for a day, it will do you good”. I coughed back pathetically, too exhausted to argue. Feeling rather like a child that’s been told to stand in the corner, I searched for the loop-hole in “the rules”. “Not allowed …… out …… in the garden ….. this weekend”. Hmmmm, let’s think. No mention of staying indoors …. and is the greenhouse technically in the garden, or sovereign territory? The alternative being the Archers Omnibus I was prepared to do anything to get out in the fresh air.

With Him Indoors on his Sunday morning bike ride I snuck out to Polegate Cottage, quietly sliding the greenhouse door to one side, and entered the calm, cosy world inside. The roof ventilator was already open, the first time I’ve noticed that happen since November. The faintest scent of paperwhite narcissi, their flowers just beginning to unfold, mingled with cyclamen, geranium and damp compost. There is surely nothing more comforting on a cold winter’s day than being sheltered under glass and surrounded by leaves and flowers. Unlike the hardy sorts outside these plants are utterly dependent on me for water, food and maintenance. But I’ve been treating them mean. Being uncertain about the long-term future of the greenhouse I have chosen not to heat it this winter and to see what happens. So far fuchsias, echiums, aeoniums and begonias are looking pretty chipper, whilst the first sweet peas are beginning to poke out of their plastic pots. In a few weeks I should have quite a display of tazetta narcissi, having planted four different varieties in the autumn.

Of course it was too much to think that my cunning plan would go undiscovered. I was spied, without my coat and scarf (shock-horror), and ordered back indoors. I allowed myself a little smile when it dawned on me that the only time I stopped coughing and sneezing all morning was during my 30 minute sojourn in the greenhouse. More proof, if it were needed, that gardening and plants are nature’s best tonics.

I am not sure how I feel about the new convention of naming winter storms. Is it just me, or could it be that since the Met Office introduced the practice we’ve experienced a lot more severe weather? And did the general public, via social media, genuinely choose the name Desmond for the weather system that wreaked havoc in the North West before Christmas? I am suspicious. The christening of hurricanes I can live with, given they are rarer and more memorable events in the British Isles, but I fear with the amount of windy weather we experience in the UK we will soon be scraping the bottom of the barrel for names. How long will it be before Storm Torquil or Storm Esmeralda causes devastation and flooding across vast swathes of the country I wonder? At least we won’t forget those, although certain newspapers may struggle to spell them.

Anyway, I am in quarantine today. No one want my germs, certainly not my work colleagues. Outside in the garden Storm Imogen is busy jet-washing the terrace and tearing off magnolia petals. She giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other. The pond is so full of white blossom and dried bamboo leaves I can scarcely tell what’s a fish and what’s flotsam and jetsam.

After yesterday’s greenhouse skirmish I though I had better not push my luck, so I dashed out in my dressing gown for 30 seconds to inspect the cold frame and found my precious Galanthus ‘Seagull’ already in bloom. Taking pity I carried the pot inside to enjoy the flowers’ delicate fragrance whilst I languished on the sofa. My £20 investment for a single bulb has paid off and I am now the proud owner of three large flowers held on long, elegant stems. I did very little, apart from keep the pot cool, moist and sheltered, to collect my first payback. The flowers will not last long if I keep them inside. As soon as Storm Imogen abates the pot will go back outside, where I hope the bulbs will bulk up sufficiently for me to plant them out in the garden for spring 2018. My solitary seagull will have become a flock and my bank balance might just have recovered from the initial outlay. The question now is whether I’ll invest in more snowdrops. The writing’s on the wall.

N.B. This is a good instance of when an iPhone camera, or this particular user of one, really isn’t up to the job. Snowdrops are tricky to photograph at the best of times, and easier to capture with a decent macro lens. Forgive me, I am poorly after all.

I don’t know about you, but my green fingers fail me when it comes to keeping early spring irises flowering from one season to the next. The tiny bulbs, mainly cultivars and hybrids of Iris reticulata and Iris histrioides, are about the size, shape and colour of a garlic clove (‘reticulata’ refers the the protective net of fibres on the exterior of the bulb). They reward me in the first year with blooms aplenty, only to disappoint the next when they produce nothing but tufts of narrow, nondescript leaves. Over many seasons I have learned that there’s absolutely no point nursing these lovely little irises through the summer months and so I put them unceremoniously in the bin after flowering and start again with fresh bulbs every autumn.

Thanks to breeders such as Alan McMurtrie, the number of reticulate irises available to gardeners is steadily increasing. Gone are the days when the choice was between shades of blue and violet; the spectrum now extends to white, yellow, brown, orange and even pale lilac. It takes 10-15 years to bring a new variety to market, so no surprise then that the bulbs can initially be rather expensive. I’ve indulged in a few, including I. ‘Spot On’ (below) and I. ‘Eye Catcher’ (above), but for everyday planting in spring containers I tend to opt for cheap, cheerful and easily replaced cultivars, in particular Iris histrioides ‘George’.

George is a hardy fellow, tolerant of cold and wet weather, producing velvety, royal-purple flowers at about the same time as the snowdrops and aconites. (They would make a very fetching threesome planted cheek-by-jowl, although the irises prefer to be dry during summer whilst the others like to stay damp.) Just today poor George has withstood rain, sleet, hail and strong winds off the sea, coming out the other side looking distinctly better than I. This is why George has an AGM (Award of Garden Merit) and I do not! If the weather had been calm enough I’d also have been able to detect a subtle perfume, another element of George’s allure.

I like my irises planted in pots so they can be displayed on a table or staging where I can really appreciate them, but in the right conditions they will flourish, and even repeat flower, perfectly well in the ground.

If you are interested to find out more about these lovely little irises then I can recommend this month’s edition of ‘The Garden’ and forthcoming March issue of ‘The Plantsman’ which will take a more in-depth look at Alan McMurtrie’s hybridising work. On Tuesday and Wednesday this week (February 16th and 17th 2016) we’ll be treated to more stunning displays of reticulate irises by Jacques Amand International at the RHS Early Spring Plant Fair in Central London (picture of I. ‘Blue Note’ below, taken here in 2014). Naturally all reserve will go out of the window and I’ll set my sights on a bevy of new iris varieties to plant this autumn …. and shall do so, safe in the knowledge they’ll be another one hit wonder.

Other posts about early spring flowering irises:

1. Portrait of a Lady: Iris histrioides ‘Lady Beatrix Stanley’
2. Daily Flower Candy: Iris reticulata ‘Sheila Ann Germaney’
3. Daily Flower Candy: Iris reticulata ‘Spot On’
4. Daily Flower Candy: Iris reticulata ‘Blue Note’

The first rule of visiting a flower show is not to go on the last day, unless you’re hoping to bag a bargain. The displays will invariably look worse for wear, and all the best plants will be sold. The second rule is not to leave yourself short of time to soak up the atmosphere and appreciate the wonders before you. Dashing around a flower show is no more enjoyable than running for a bus.

Today I accomplished the breaking of both rules and hence had a rather unsatisfactory canter around the RHS London Early Spring Plant Fair. Activity in my office is reaching fever pitch, so the act of stealing 60 minutes from a 13 hour day filled me with guilt. I’d like to say the fresh air and change of surroundings left me feeling refreshed, but ‘the cough’, as it’s now known, seems to be fuelled by any kind of activity, wholesome or otherwise.

Evidence of the muddled, winter-cum-spring we’ve been experiencing abounded in the Lindley and Lawrence halls. There were precious few snowdrops and many more hellebores on display compared with previous years. Narcissi, primulas and violets took the place of crocuses and cyclamen on the show benches. There were even restios and South African ericas courtesy of Penberth Plants (formerly Trewidden Nursery) and Watsonias thanks to Kelnan Plants. Both nurseries are situated on the mild, south-westerly tip of Cornwall. Even in my haste I was not too flumoxed to let a trio of Watsonia tabularis pass me by. I have just the right place for them.

Hats off to Avon Bulbs for presenting the only convincing display of snowdrops. Galanthus ‘Little Ben’ and G. ‘Trumps’ caught my eye. The one benefit of being rushed was that I couldn’t decide which snowdrop I liked the best: hence I came away with none and a slightly healthier bank balance.

Alan McMurtrie, the Canadian iris breeder, was at the show with an interesting display of his new hybrids. They are intriguing colours, but the flowers are small and lack the elegance of some older varieties like Iris histrioides ‘George’.  Further hybridisation will soon fix that, I am sure.

I enjoyed the display of hepaticas and cyclamen staged by RHS garden Wisley, which demonstrated the charming diversity of these pretty woodland flowers. I have never had the right conditions to grow hepaticas, but wonder if they’d be happy in pots in my cold frame.

I wasn’t convinced that the show justified the use of both horticultural halls, apart from to accommodate the retail stands which seem essential to raise funds these days. However I commend the RHS for their sustained and inventive efforts to reinvigorate the London shows. An exhibition of design sketches and images of Chelsea Flower Show Gardens for 2016 offered a tantalising glimpse of what’s in store for us this May.

Next time I will take my own advice and book a half day off work to enjoy the show at my leisure. Next up is the RHS London Botanical Art Show, from 26-27 February 2016, which will focus entirely on Botanical Art, promoting the world-class Lindley Library collection and highlighting the skills of some of the world’s best botanical artists. I hope to see you there.

The last few days of February and the first of March are the most challenging for me when it comes to maintaining this blog. It’s not that I am working every hour that God sends, or that there is nothing happening in my garden, but that I have no time to think. My overworked brain wants to contemplate and explore ideas for new posts, but is stymied by the sheer amount I am expecting it to process. I feel exhausted and frustrated at my lack of inspiration.

As I look around the overcrowded tube carriage on my way home tonight, the majority of my travelling companions are, like me, doing something on their phones or tablets, or listening to music, whilst the rest are reading. A few folk chat and one young woman is asleep, but no one is voluntarily unoccupied. I envy the blind man sitting opposite me, apparently the only person on the train who is deep in thought. He looks calm and rested, as does his doleful guide dog. Nobody else appears in the least relaxed and a few look faintly crazed. This is London after all. I cannot imagine anything more dreadful that not being able to see, but the blind man is not distracted by what’s going on around him. That, in a sense, is a gift we all increasingly deny ourselves. We seem hell-bent on occupying every waking moment with some form of stimulation, most of which adds little value to our lives. TV, Radio, You Tube, Facebook, Instagram, The Metro, idle banter: as tempting as a ring doughnut and equally full of emptiness. Sometimes a doughnut is OK, but usually not.

Perhaps this view is just a reflection on my own life, my own lack of discipline and on my current weariness, but I am increasingly troubled by my inability to switch off. I feel uncomfortable when there is nothing going on around me: silence is not so much golden as unnerving. So as well as the time to think, I worry I could lose the desire to think, which for a creative mind is pretty much the end of the line. Having made no New Year’s resolutions this year I am hereby committing to myself (and to you) that I will give my brain, as well as my body, a break when the dust settles at work, taking time to listen to the dawn chorus, to watch a flower opening, to observe raindrops rolling from a leaf ….. and to take more time to just sit and think.

While I do, please enjoy my attempts to take artistic photographs of my hellebores.

Thymus pulegioides: broad-leaved thyme, lemon thyme

Variegation in plants is a trait I can take or leave. I blame spireas – a shrub I find especially hideous when variegated – for my aversion, having encountered them one too many times in situations where they’ve looked truly despicable. Yet occasionally, as in hostas, variegation is one of the features that makes a plant interesting enough to build up a cult following. Defined as the appearance of different coloured zones in the leaves, stems or fruits of a plant, variegation arises for a variety of genetic reasons. Natural variegation has largely been preserved and enhanced by gardeners and nurserymen who value the ornamental and ‘lightening’ effect of paler patches, splashes and fringes on a plant’s leaves. Used judiciously, variegated plants can be a godsend, used wantonly they can give one a headache.

As I look around my gardens I find I have almost no variegated plants. Perhaps this is a mistake, as at this time of year there are few flowers to punctuate the sea of green. Whilst lovely, it is, admittedly, a tad monotonous out there. So off I traipse to Broadstairs Garden Centre to see what they have to sprinkle on my green custard. My kind of plants are not generally stocked at our local nursery, but they are a great source of ‘fillers’, herbs, composts and bedding which I rely heavily throughout the season. The first plant to catch my eye was not a variegated plant, but Euphorbia amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’, the purple-leaved wood spurge. “That would look great behind a pot of yellow daffodils” I thought, “what could I buy to go with it?”. My gaze immediately alighted on a shelf populated by seven varieties of thyme, an impressive selection for a small garden centre at this time of year. One stood out from the crowd, Thymus pulegioides ‘Foxley’, possessed of tiny leaves variously dark green, cream and white, and ivory flushed with rose-pink. The scent from the crushed foliage packed a punch even on a cold, windy winter’s day and I was immediately convinced enough to buy two plants; one for London and one for Broadstairs. They will live in pots, in full sunshine, and I shall take cuttings in due course to guarantee I am never without this pretty, ground-hugging herb.

Meanwhile I am considering whether I might track down a variegated ginger, or the beautiful cream-edged Echium candicans ‘Star of Madeira’ for Broadstairs. Maybe Fatsia japonica ‘Spider’s Web’ would light up a dark corner in our London garden? I start to wonder if the evil spirea’s spell has finally been broken…..

I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on variegated plants and which ones you’d recommend to other gardeners who, like me, have resisted their charms in the past.

Great gardens to visit in East Kent are rarer than hens’ teeth. Those that open during the winter months even scarcer. So, as soon as Goodnestone Park reopens in spring I am there, with bells on. Well a bobble hat anyway. The red brick and sandstone mansion at Goodnestone (correctly pronounced ‘Gunston’), well-beloved of Jane Austen and her brother Edward who married into the family, is undergoing a massive restoration programme. Margaret, Lady Fitzwalter, who made the gardens what they are today, sadly passed away last September at a time when the Palladian mansion was in desperate need of repair. Behind the scaffolding one can see it beginning to look like new again.

I was lucky enough to bump into Lady Fitzwalter three or four times in her later years, normally in the garden or collecting entrance fees on quieter days. She was a keen plantswoman and a properly English eccentric, waggling her stick where she wished plants to be positioned and regaling visitors with stories of the great and good that she had known and loved. At Goodnestone Lady Fitzwalter created an unpretentious, timeless English garden that perfectly suited the gentle Kentish landscape in which it lay. It will be fascinating to see what the future holds once the mansion is completed and let as a very grand holiday cottage. From £2500 (I presume for a week, I fear I may be wrong!), one can now take advantage of the 12 newly refurbished bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, along with a suite of elegant receptions rooms. All provided one has enough wealthy friends to entertain.

This weekend the Kent group of the Hardy Plant Society staged a special ‘Snowdrop and Hellebore Extravaganza’ at Goodnestone, complete with attendant specialist nurseries selling choice plants. I always suggest to novice gardeners seeking year-round colour to visit their local nursery at least once a month to see what’s looking good. Although not foolproof, because so many plants can be forced to look their best unusually early or late, it is one way to learn what’s in season and when. This plant fair would have been a great starting point for anyone looking to introduce some early colour into their garden. Madrona Nursery, one of my favourite staging posts en route to Sissinghurst, tempted me with the thorny delights of a 6ft specimen Ribes speciosum. I was about to open my wallet until Him Indoors gave me one of the those “you dare puncture the car’s leather upholstery with your thorny plant” kind of looks. It’s not a good look. I moved quickly on, lest he get too attached to a brightly variegated trachelospermum which made his eyes light up and mine bleed.

Next in line was Decoy Nursery, for which I have a very soft spot. Amy Green and James Amery always have special things to offer and Sunday was no exception. I tried to resist, but succumbed to a generous pot of Muscari ‘Baby’s Breath’ and Fatsia japonica ‘Spider’s Web’, which curiously I had mentioned in a post only the day before. Some things are meant to be. Being the lovely people that they are, James and Amy sent me home with a pot of Cyclamen coum (silver leaf form) and two dainty Narcissus cyclamineus to brighten up my greenhouse staging.

I knew my luck was in when I spotted a single plant of Tropaeolum pentaphyllum on the Hardy Plant Society stand. It didn’t take me long to part with £5 for the pleasure of owning a plant I have long admired in the yew hedges at Sissinghurst. And from Copton Ash Nursery there was violet-blue Ipheion uniflorum ‘Froyle Mill’ and spiny, exciting Eryngium eburneum.  By this stage I was getting carried away and Him Indoors was losing interest (and the use of his extremities) so I reluctantly agreed to come away lest more of the building project budget be blown on plants.

At the entrance to the gardens I was sad to see that beds usually packed with hellebores, narcissi and Sarcococca hookeriana var. digyna had been swept away, apparently ready to be replaced by turf. I hoped this was part of a masterplan to rejuvenate this part of the garden rather than an attempt to reduce future maintenance. On the other side of the box parterre, venerable birches and sweet chestnuts, their branches flailing wildly in a stiff breeze, conducted an orchestra of lemon yellow narcissi.

Throughout the woodland garden spring was much in evidence. We were treated to candy-pink camellias, burgundy hellebores (perhaps transplanted from the entrance area?) and sulphur-yellow witch hazels. Goodnestone’s snowdrops had already peaked, but the snowflakes, Leucojum aestivum, were in fine form. On a bitterly cold, windy day it was striking just how calm and warm it was in the shelter of the trees. Equally striking was the scent from brooding swathes of sweet box, Sarcococca confusa. It never fails to amaze me that such small, insignificant white flowers can pump out so much honeyed scent.

Whilst the woodland garden was very much awakening, the walled gardens slumbered on. A keen eye might have noticed the buds on a pear tree flushing pale pink and lime green, or the blood-red shoots of a peony piercing the earth. Condensation on the greenhouse’s glass was a tell-tale sign that plans were already afoot for colourful displays of annuals and tender perennials this summer.

With a changing of the guard at Goodnestone Park one hopes the job Margaret Fitzwalter began when she reclaimed parts of the garden from Christmas tree cultivation in the 1960s will be continued with her own particular brand of verve, vision and vigour.

Other posts about Goodnestone Park gardens here, here and here.

Goodnestone Park Opening Hours 2016 (please check the website for updates before travelling):

• March: Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday
• April: Sundays 12 noon-4pm
• May-August: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 11am-5pm and Sunday 12 noon-5pm
• September: Sundays 12 noon-4pm

Open all Bank Holidays March-August 11am-5pm

Do go along!

And so, it is done: Christmas signed-off for another year. It’s time to re-group, sleep, do the ironing, see friends again, sow seeds, plan building works, pay bills, buy gifts, plant summer bulbs, refresh my wardrobe, send bills, repair woodwork, spread manure, clean the windows, book holidays, write my blog, drink wine, choose new furniture, worry about my finances, take photographs, go on long walks, visit gardens, buy plants, read books, choose paint colours, try new restaurants, re-charge my batteries, spring clean, plant trees, file paperwork, spend time with Him Indoors and generally embrace real life again. It’s good to be back.

I could easily have predicted that greenhouse gardening would become an obsession second time around. I owned my first greenhouse (rather a grand description for an aluminium frame covered with stiff opaque plastic) at the age of fourteen and was only parted from life under polythene when I went to university. Growing under cover exposed me to an exciting world of propagation, experimentation and new scents. I grew thousands, maybe millions of plants from seed, took hundreds of cuttings and spent precious hours with our beloved tabby cat, Bod. To this day, nothing is so comforting as being inside a greenhouse during a shower, breathing the scent of petrichor rising from the earth outside and listening to the pitter-patter of raindrops on thin glass. All that’s missing is Bod, even though she did go to sleep on whichever tray of seedlings offered her the warmest bed. Most plants don’t react well to that kind of feline attention.

Twenty five years on (can it really be that long?) I’ve had the opportunity to garden under glass again. My greenhouse is nothing grand, second-hand and certainly not a thing of beauty, but it keeps the elements out and the warmth in. Its days may be numbered if we realise the full extent of our building plans for Polegate Cottage, which will mean re-siting at best and removal altogether at worst. The prospect already pains me, but it’s the greenhouse or a new ‘wing’ comprising a garden room, cloakroom and bike shed for Him Indoors. It’s not a battle I am going to win. So for now I am enjoying finding out what can be achieved in an unheated greenhouse during a mildish winter. My paperwhites (Narcissus ‘Paperwhite Ziva’), whilst not in flower for Christmas, are the sturdiest I’ve ever grown, all the better for the high light levels a greenhouse offers compared to a windowsill indoors. The scent is overpowering and curiously ‘horsey’. Next in flower will be Narcissus ‘Cragford’, followed by Narcissus ‘Avalanche’, both better off for a little shelter. The delicate fragrance of Acacia dealbata ‘Gaulois Astier’, better known as mimosa, is completely drowned out, but I can still enjoy those perfect lemon yellow pom-poms without fear they may be pelted with rain or scattered by a winter gale.

Echiums, begonias, geraniums, aeoniums, fuchsias, watsonias, impatiens and plectranthus, many of which might have drowned, rotted or died of cold outside, have flourished in the benign atmosphere of the greenhouse. Provided we don’t encounter a seriously cold snap now, they will get away that little bit faster when the weather outside is clement enough to guarantee their future success. As for seed sowing, with the exception of sweet peas I am holding off until mid March so that I don’t end up with more seedlings than I have space for: always a danger when you stick a plantaholic in a greenhouse. This way the plants should be at just the right stage of development for our open days on August 20th and 21st.

Whilst the reality is that I could be without a greenhouse again by early summer, I know it won’t be another 20 years before I acquire the next one. Gardening is rewarding, but gardening under cover is the best kind of addiction.

I’d love to hear what’s looking good in your greenhouse right now and your top tips for gardening under glass.

Early each year comes that single, magical, joyful, often unexpected day when winter turns to spring. It doesn’t come when the astronomers or meterologists tell us so, but when nature decides the time is right. The first day of spring can come as early as February and as late as April, but gardeners know it’s upon them the moment they wake up that morning. So do the birds, bees and flowers, all hard-wired to leap into action on the precise day when the sky clears and the white-gold sun sends temperatures into double figures.

Those that can’t sense it instinctively should know the first day of spring by when the birds change their tune and the earth starts to smell rich and comforting again. It’s when it’s warm enough to garden in a t-shirt but the air is still chilly in the shade, and when your plants seem to start growing before your very eyes. Spring is here when subtle perfumes you had to enjoy at close quarters suddenly fill the air like a fragrant cloud; when the atmosphere in the greenhouse becomes intoxicatingly tropical. It’s when you find buds forming on plants you hadn’t expected to be awake yet and when a gardener’s mind swells with ideas for the year ahead. (The latter is hard to spot, but is given away by a wistful look and a sudden urge to pot, sow, graft, mow, write plant lists or simply gaze intently at various parts of the garden.)

The first day of spring arrived today in Broadstairs. I knew it before the sun even rose. It began tentatively; a haze in the sky, a remnant of the previous day’s fog, thinly veiling the sun. As I opened the front door I was greeted by cool rather than cold air, and stillness, and birdsong, and a softness of light that’s been absent since autumn. On the beach the storm bank had gone and it could have been 5am on a summer’s day, the sun climbing high over the harbour arm. I took my first walk on the sand this year. It felt warm, and good. Up on the cliffs pied wagtails darted manically through the faded flowerheads of Cineraria maritima, whilst the first wild wallflowers began to scent the air with their unmistakably old-world fragrance.

As someone who wishes it were spring all year round, I look forward to this day more than Christmas and my birthday combined. It means that soon the garden will be flooded with delicate blossom, elegant tulips, fragrant roses and fresh green foliage. But, gardeners beware, the first day of spring does not mean that spring is here to stay. It can disappear again without a trace, leaving us in suspense as to when the second, third and fourth day might dawn. Put down that trowel, hang up the secateurs and sit a while, the sun illuminating your pale complexion, and consider all the fun, happiness and opportunity your garden will reward you with over the coming months. The first day of spring is here. Enjoy it whilst it lasts.

Has spring arrived in your part of the world yet? (I assume some while ago in the case of my readers from the Southern Hemisphere!). What tell-tale signs announce the first day of spring where you live?

In the world of gardening there are correct ways of doing things (as outlined in serious text books such as the RHS Encyclopaedia of Gardening) and wrong ways of doing things. These include, for the benefit of a work colleague who shall remain nameless, planting tulips bulbs in March. In between these two extremes lies a vast, often unexplored grey area which terrifies less confident gardeners into doing nothing at all, lest some terrible fate befall them. The fact is that gardening is all about trial and error, not right and wrong. The days when one could run a garden by the book ended with the passing of gentlefolk like my grandfather, who knew all the correct ways to do things and had the time and patience to do them. That kind of rigour and in-depth knowledge is now the domain of the botanical gardens and institutions that maintain such ‘correct’ practices in order that they can write text books to inform us humble gardeners how to do things properly.

This is not to besmirch those who strive for and attain horticultural qualifications (that would a bit rich coming from someone with a degree in Landscape Management), far from it. To bend or break the rules one needs to understand the rules first; to know that one might get away with tulips planted in December or even early January if the weather is cold, but not in March; to appreciate why trampling on waterlogged ground in any season is recipe for disaster, or that pruning a yew hedge hard will have a splendid restorative effect, but that the same treatment administered to almost any other conifer would spell certain disaster. Experimentation is one of the great amusements of gardening, but when carried out with no idea of the outcome the results can be unpredicatble at best and off-putting at worst. When I ask people why they don’t garden, the answer is either that they don’t have a garden, or that they have endured so many disappointments with plants that they can’t bring themselves to try again.

So, for those of you stricken by the desire to ‘do the right thing’ or nothing at all, here’s a salutary tale. Dahlias, those glorious tuberous plants of Mexican origin, are supposed to be lifted and stored in a dry, frost free place over winter, especially if one’s soil is cold, wet or heavy. When grown in pots this is even more important as the tubers may freeze unless they are moved inside after the first frosts. Last autumn, having displaced from their cosy pots and carefully stored three dahlia tubers, I decided that the remainder (about 12) could fend for themselves, outside, exposed to the elements, in their black plastic containers. Dahlias are not expensive to buy, so I was prepared to replace them if necessary. This weekend I checked on the tubers that I’d stored inside. They were a little shrivelled and unattractive but not blighted. Then I started to turn the outcasts out of their rather waterlogged pots. In comparison to the tubers I’d stored inside they were in rude health, plump, hard and astoundingly large. Many had conveniently divided themselves into two sizeable pieces, each capable of producing a strong new plant. One after another they emerged from their unorthadox winter quarters, not a single blemish on them. I have potted up both the ‘indoor’ and the ‘outdoor’ tubers in fresh compost and will be interested to see which grow away the fastest. Bending the rules has cost me nothing, in fact it has saved me a lot of time and effort. Henceforth I will be leaving my tubers in their containers until they need potting up again in spring ….. whilst still keeping half an eye on the weather forecast.

I’d love to hear about your gardening short cuts, cheats and text-book defying feats. Let’s dispel a few myths and inspire each other to bend the rules more often.

This week a landmark project that I have been following for over two years came one step closer to becoming reality. So close in fact that work on The Garden Bridge over the London’s River Thames could commence as early as this summer. Much has been written about The Garden Bridge during the intervening months and I have attempted to digest most of it. There are broadly two schools of thought: that which considers the project an excessive, politically motivated, unnecessary vanity project and that which applauds its vision, ambition and future contribution to the city’s urban landscape.

Try as I may to take a balanced view, I have very little time for the naysayers. They make the point that a crossing at this point in the Thames isn’t strictly needed, that established trees will be removed to enable its construction, that the selection process for the bridge’s designers was improper, and that the money, much of which has been donated by private individuals and businesses, might be put to better use elsewhere in the city. I agree and sympathise with each of these challenges to an extent, but to allow these to de-rail what could be one of this century’s greatest contributions to London’s architectural and landscape heritage would be very wrong indeed. It will be interesting to note how many of these bah-humbug types remain in the ‘against’ camp when the bridge is opened, I predict to critical acclaim.

Following years of planning and fundraising, on Tuesday The Garden Bridge Trust announced that construction contracts had been signed, paving the way for building to start within a few months. The bridge is due to open in 2018. As the infographic above illustrates, the 366m span will be enjoyed by 9,000 commuters each weekday and no doubt a greater number of tourists and sightseers. Dan Pearson’s planting scheme, which aims to transport us from formality on the north bank to naturalism on the south bank, will include 600 trees, shrubs, climbers and grasses, plus a further 32,000 perennials carefully selected to provide year-round interest. All will need to be tough enough to survive in one of the coldest and most exposed locations in the capital. The views through foliage and flowers will take in some of London’s other great landmarks, including St. Paul’s Cathedral. To celebrate the start of the final planning stages, The Garden Bridge Trust created the video below, which is perfectly professional but oddly short of detail about the bridge itself.

To further whet our appetite the trust have started releasing images illustrating how the bridge will look through the seasons. Below we see a romantic vision of the crossing on a cold, frosty winter’s morning, The Shard seen through a haze of willow catkins and red berries. At the top of this post we can imagine the scene a few months later, in spring, a couple enjoying some of the 70,000 bulbs that will be planted by the bridge’s 20 strong gardening staff. 

If these renderings are not enough to make the hearts of the cynics skip a beat then they have very hard hearts indeed. London has an astonishing record of delivering great landmark projects that have endured: who’d have thought in the year 2000 that we’d have good words to say about The O2, or that The London Eye would still be rotating? The Garden Bridge will be another world class attraction fit for a world class city. I’ll be standing in the queue on opening day, proud to say I told you so.

More Posts about The Garden Bridge

• November 2013
• November 2014

Images: Arup / The Garden Bridge Trust / Thomas Heatherwick

For the last couple of days I have been getting to grips with our two gardens. Like time and tide, nature waits for no man when spring arrives. We’ve not experienced a frost yet in either London or Broadstairs so many plants are racing ahead. Curiously, I still have hundreds of narcissi and tulips left to bloom. Their growth has slowed as the nights have cooled down, whilst hyacinths have raced ahead unimpeded. Regardless, the time for planning and procrastination is past. It’s time for action.

On Thursday it was London’s turn. In comparison to our seaside garden our city garden is neglected, especially during winter when I don’t see it in daylight from one month to the next. Rather than gentle tweaking and adjustment each weekend, our London garden requires a major overhaul in spring and again in autumn. During the summer I try to get out there for at least 30 minutes every day to keep things ticking over. My first job was to plant three new espalier apple trees which have been heeled in since January. Planting them in the dark did not seem advisable, so Him Indoors and I snuck out the evening they arrived, digging one big, generous hole to keep them cosy until it was ‘time’. I took advice from David Patch at fruit specialist RV Roger in Pickering, explaining that we wanted tasty, cox-style eating apples over a long season. From a list of seven recommendations we chose three: ‘Epicure’ (early), ‘Ingrid Marie’ (mid-season) and ‘Tydeman’s Late Orange’ (funnily enough, late and, happily, from Kent). Whilst I’m not one of those ‘instant’ gardeners I do believe life is too short to wait years for a tree to produce fruit, so I splashed out on three-year old trained trees which should establish quickly. As I planted them I could see evidence of tiny new roots forming, so I was probably just in the nick of time.

During the winter months Mr Fox has caused us endless problems, trampling plants, digging holes, howling eerily, burying food and generally using the garden as his playground. He could do with a bath and a splash of old spice to boot. I am hoping regular applications of Scoot may deter him, but he has no fear of humans whatsoever. This makes me suspect a neighbour is feeding him. Having had several rows of lettuce and other salad seedlings scratched up, I have sown my first batch of ‘Little Gem’ under an old propagator lid. French tarragon had spread everywhere, so I gently lifted the wandering roots and attempted to plant them in a neat line again. Herbs such as thyme and rosemary struggle in our shady garden so must be planted in the warmest, sunniest spot if they are to survive. I tend to replace all the plants in my thyme pot every spring, choosing a mixture of varieties with different foliage colours and flavours.

Every spring I despair of how few bulbs we have coming through in London. The soil is too cold and wet for most bulbs of Mediterranean origin, but narcissi, snowdrops and Anemone blanda demonstrate some staying power from one year to the next. Clumps of reduced to clear Galanthus nivalis snatched up greedily in the garden centre last spring have come back doubled in size and full of flower. Encouraged by this I planted yet more cut-priced snowdrops, this time Galanthus nivalis f. pleniflorus ‘Flore Pleno’ AGM (the long-winded but correct title for the common double snowdrop), along with some pots of Eranthis hyemalis (winter aconite) and blue Anemone blanda in a small rectangular border by the pond. The soil here is consistently damp but impossible to plant in late summer when it’s jam-packed with hostas and astilbes. A lovely hellebore with bright yellow nectaries purchased recently at Bosvigo hellebore day completed my work on that area.

The soil in our London garden is appalling beyond belief, so every year I diligently top-dress with farmyard manure (which I was convinced would send Mr Fox into a frenzy, and has) and coarse grit to help open up the structure. I’d like to tell you this has made a difference, but if it has, I have not noticed it. I dream of one day picking up a handful of rich friable soil and letting it trickle through my fingers, rather than being repulsed by slimy clods of yellow clay clinging to my knuckles. Finally I ran out of time, energy and manure. The woodland garden would have to wait until Easter. It was time to go inside and make myself presentable before dashing to St Pancras to catch a train down to the coast.

To be continued ….. in Broadstairs.

Euphorbia mellifera: canary spurge, honey spurge

To have taken so long to feature Euphorbia mellifera in my regular Flower Candy spot is an unforgivable oversight. Perhaps it’s because the flowers produced by this statuesque Canary Islands shrub are curious rather than pretty. They emit an intense, heady, honeyed scent, which gives rise to the species name ‘mellifera‘, derived from the Latin word for honey, mellis.

Euphorbia mellifera is an adaptable, easy-going and attractive plant. I have grown it for at least 15 years in gardens in Cornwall, London and Broadstairs where in each location it has behaved differently. In Cornwall, planted in an exposed, sunny position my original, teenage plant remains waist high and perfectly domed, so neat it might have been pruned that way. The leaves are a pale, apple-green. In contrast, grown in a sheltered spot in London and bathed in sun for only a few hours each day, E. mellifera grows lush and tall, lending it an exotic air, which is how I enjoy it best. A 12″ high seedling planted three summers ago is already 8′ tall and counting (see below). The evergreen foliage is a luminous, waxy, pea-green, which alone is enough for me, but in spring appear the clusters of scented brick-red flowers that lend the plant its name. After a strong start, our garden in Broadstairs became too shady for this lovely spurge. After a ‘restorative’ prune to 6″ above the ground it never came back satisfactorily and I eventually grubbed it out, which took the best part of a day. Euphorbia mellifera makes a big plant and hates disturbance.

Alas E. mellifera is not a candidate for a pot unless, perhaps, an exceptionally large one. I have had many a seedling appear in a container but they have never prospered as they have grown on, probably because they enjoy a long root run through a well-drained soil. As with all euphorbias, this plant contains a milky-white irritant sap which oozes out of the stems when cut. This may lead to painful rashes on the skin and can be very harmful to one’s eyes. Gloves should be worn when pruning and pulling off old leaves, otherwise there should be no cause for alarm.

I’ve always been more than satisfied with E. mellifera, but this year I have planted the seed of a new introduction to gardens, Euphorbia x pasteurii. This new spurge was created by crossing E. mellifera with the incredibly rare E. stygiana which is now almost extinct in its natural habitat in the Azores, where only 50 mature plants remain. The cross has created a very fine plant with a more compact habit than E. mellifera and wider, deeper green leaves akin to a rhododendron. Flowers are produced from April to June, earlier after a mild winter, and are honey scented like both parents.

Seeds of all three species mentioned can be sown at any time of the year on a standard seed compost in a cool greenhouse. Germination may be sporadic so a little patience is required. Good things come to those who wait. Once your seedlings are big enough to fend for themselves plant them into their final position in the garden (most soils are acceptable), stand back and watch them grow into fine architectural specimens.

Seeds of E. mellifera, E. x pasteurii, E. stygiana and many other euphorbias are available from Plant World Seeds.

*AGM denotes the RHS Award of Garden Merit which is bestowed upon only the most garden-worthy plants.

Narcissus: daffodil, daffadowndilly, jonquil, Lenten lily

Daffodils are synonymous with Easter. In England they are associated with Lent and occasionally referred to as Lenten lilies. Legend has it that the first daffodil bloomed on the night of The Last Supper in the Garden of Gethsemane to comfort Jesus in his hour of sorrow. Whether one is religious or not, there’s no question that daffodils symbolise rebirth, herald the arrival of spring and generally spread joy and hope wherever they grow. Hence I plant hundreds of them each autumn, yet always wish I had planted more.

Giving me enormous pleasure in my garden right now is a diminutive daffodil named N. ‘Elka’. She bears pearly white petals surrounding a lemon yellow trumpet on stems about 12″ tall. The trumpets fade gently as each flower matures, eventually becoming the same shade as the petals. A new daffodil variety, N. ‘Elka’ was named by Cornishman Alec Gray (also responsible for the ubiquitous N. ‘Tête à Tête’) after two lady daffodil growers called Elizabeth and Kate. They must be very proud of their namesake.

N. ‘Elka’ quickly earned an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society thanks to her hardiness, early flowering and weather resistance. Such low growing varieties are best suited to sinks, pots or the front of borders, so this year I’ve planted N. ‘Elka’ in a shallow bowl on our garden table to follow the deep purple blooms of Iris histrioides ‘George’ AGM, and keep me smiling until Tulip batalinii ‘Bronze Charm’ starts producing its luminous apricot flowers in a couple of weeks’ time. All three bulbs are hardy, charming and perfect for pot culture, flowering in close succession. Put them on your list for ordering in late summer. Avon Bulbs is a one-stop-shop for this cheery little trio.

Wishing You and Yours a Very Happy Easter. TFG.

One can never plant too many spring-flowering bulbs. However tedious the chore may seem in late summer and autumn, planting spring bulbs is one of the most reliably rewarding gardening activities I know. Bulbs are, by-and-large, inexpensive, readily obtainable, easy to grow and pest free. Chosen with a little care one can enjoy colourful flowers and delicious fragrance from late December until May.

Neither of our gardens is blessed with much open border space, which means most of my spring bulbs must be planted in containers. This is no bad thing. Planting in pots, troughs or window boxes offers endless opportunities to experiment with bulbs of different varieties and colours without disrupting the rest of the garden. It also means containers can be tucked out of sight before they start to bloom and again when they start to wither and die, although a decent amount of sunlight is a prerequisite for growing most types of flowering bulb.

I’m incapable of doing anything by halves and like to plan big. Despite having two very small gardens, each autumn I plant forty or more terracotta pots of varying sizes with over a thousand narcissus, hyacinth, tulip, crocus, iris and fritillaria bulbs. This takes several weekends from late August to early November, but it’s worth the effort. As soon as the first flower buds start to show colour in spring I move the pots into position to create a bulb theatre – a rather grand description for an assemblage of planted containers arranged to display flowering bulbs to their best advantage. Bulb theatres can be small-scale, or vastly ambitious, subtle or showy: the choice is yours. The glory of growing and displaying spring bulbs this way is that individual containers can be shifted about as each ‘goes over’, creating new scenes each time. Gardens are, after all, theatres for plants, and we are the directors. And provided one is fit and healthy this serves as marvellous exercise and an opportunity to enjoy a front seat in your very own playhouse.

Getting Started

There are no real rules for creating a bulb theatre, but here are a few pointers:

• Order your spring bulb catalogues in plenty of time: late May, directly after Chelsea, is often when they are published. Choicer varieties will sell out quickly, but if you are brave enough to hold back until September you may bag bargains. In my experience, mail-order companies offer a wider range and larger sized bulbs than your average garden centre.
• Choose carefully to get the best results:
  • Even two or three pots can reward with weeks of colour and scent if you select varieties that flower at different times. Crocuses, snowdrops and narcissi such as N. “Cedric Morris” and N. “Rijenveld’s Early Sensation” can be in flower at Christmas, whilst Tulipa “Queen of the Night” and Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus will see you through until early May.
  • Choose bulbs that produce plants of different heights for a dramatic tiered effect. Alliums and Fritillaria imperialis (crown imperial) are perfect for the back of the stage, with miniature irises, scillas, crocuses and snowdrops to the fore. Cultivars with an upright, sturdy habit that don’t flop around work best in a bulb theatre, unless they are positioned in the front row where a little laxness may be tolerated.
  • Pick a colour theme for your bulb theatre if you want to create a masterpiece rather than a melee. Sacks of mixed colour bulbs may seem like a bargain but will at best place a limit on your artistry. Bags of single colours cost little more and give you control over your palette. I’ve gone for a mix of oranges, purples and plums for the last few years, but combinations of two or three colours, for example yellow, white and pink, or red, magenta and lime green, work well too.
• There’s no need to restrict yourself to bulbs. Evergreen ferns, euphorbias, hellebores and wallflowers will add a different dimension to your theatre and help to break up and vary the display.

Planting and Growing On

• Bulbs of narcissi should be planted in late August because they start to produce roots whilst the soil is still warm autumn. At the other extreme, tulips should not be planted until the weather gets cold to prevent diseases from weakening the bulbs. Tulips can be planted as late as December and will still produce a good display. Planting bulbs of the same variety a few weeks apart can also stagger the flowering period, although bulbs have a habit of catching with one another up over winter.
• Bulbs of different types can be layered within an individual container to create an extended display period or give a greater density of flowers (Sarah Raven refers to this technique as creating a ‘bulb lasagne’). As a general rule, larger bulbs should be planted deepest in a pot (but still with at least 6 inches of compost beneath them), covered with compost, then overplanted with mid-sized bulbs and finally small bulbs and corms. This method requires a lot of bulbs, but the result will pack a punch for weeks, if not months.
• Use a free draining, multi-purpose compost for spring bulbs. The last thing you want is for your precious bulbs to be sitting in a soggy growing medium, so avoid soil-based composts unless you live in the drier parts of the UK or have a particular concern about your pots being blown over in a gale. I’m a fan of Westland’s Jack’s Magic, which is a blend of peat and wood fibre. Peat is naughty, but bulbs like it.
• If you have a problem with squirrels unearthing your bulbs then cover the top of the compost with chicken wire, tucked down the inner sides of the pot, before top-dressing with coarse grit. This should deter all but the most determined critters and even then they will need a good dentist.
• Until signs of life can be seen, usually in January or February, pots can be tucked away in a garage, shed, unheated basement, under a hedge or in a cold greenhouse. They certainly do not need to be on show, but if they are a planting of winter pansies, violas or cyclamen will provide a little interest before the main event begins. Avoid growing on in exposed locations where pots might freeze. Potted bulbs are very much more vulnerable to cold damage than those planted in the ground.

Curtain Up!

• As soon as you can see an inch or more of growth appearing above the top of the pot it’s time to think about moving your pots into position. Larger containers should be placed at the back of the display to give height, with smaller bowls and pots to the fore. Hyacinths and some narcissi tend to flop, so prop with pea sticks before it’s too late.
• During drier spells, don’t forget to water your containers, especially if they are small. Bulb flowering can be impeded by irregular moisture levels. At this stage it’s a pity to let all your hard work go to waste. It shouldn’t be necessary to feed potted bulbs until the flowers begin to fade, and only then if you plan to transplant bulbs into the garden for future seasons. I use bone meal or blood, fish and bone.

• Guard against early attacks by slugs, snails and greenfly. In warm springs lily beetles can destroy pots of fritillarias within days. If spraying any kind of insecticide avoid doing so when bees are active, and avoid slug pellets if you have birds in the garden that are likely to feast on poisoned slugs and snails.
• Now it’s time to enjoy all your hard work. As soon as the mercury rises your bulbs will grow rapidly. Cooler weather will prolong blooming whilst a warm spell can see potted bulbs go out in a blaze of glory. Either way they will be a joy to behold.

After the Show

• Once the flowers begin to fade, daffodils and tulips should be deadheaded. This ensures the plants put all their energy into producing big bulbs for the following year, rather than seeds.
• When the foliage starts to yellow, it’s time to move containers somewhere light but inconspicuous to die down completely. Never remove or tie up old foliage as the plants are still generating energy which will be stored in the bulb.
• Even your finest endeavours may not guarantee a display of similar magnitude the following year. Big bulbs exhaust themselves and may diminish or divide into many smaller bulbs, resulting in smaller flowers or just leaves the next year. Apart from some daffodils, I would not recommend leaving bulbs in pots to flower again. Either plant them out in a quiet but bright corner of the garden where they can build themselves up to flowering size or put them in the bin. Tulips are never worth the bother of replanting. Be thankful for the happiness they gave you and start again with fresh bulbs from a reputable source in autumn.
• Bulbs left in pots need a dry summer rest, with the exception of snowdrops than like moist conditions year-round.

My bulb theatre favourites

Back of stage (not backstage!)

• Nectaroscordum siculum (Sicilian honey garlic) – ugly leaves but elegant, lofty, bee-friendly flowers.
• Fritillaria imperialis “William Rex” – handsome, compact crown imperial with brick-red flowers.
• Tulipa “Queen of the Night”, T. “Redshine”, T. “Menton”, T. “White Triumphator” and T. “Brown Sugar” – these are all magnificent, strong, tall tulips for the back of a bulb theatre, but would look pretty frightful all mixed together!
• Narcissus “Cragford” and N. “Geranium” – both tazetta class daffodils which means one thing – glorious scent!

Centre stage

• Hyacinthus “Woodstock” and H. “Gypsy Queen” – deep violet-purple and peachy orange respectively. I always wish I had planted more.
• Narcissus “Jetfire”, N. “Tresamble”, N. “Felindre” and N. “St. Keverne” AGM. The latter is an absolute classic, yellow daffodil and is worth planting out in lawns or borders post flowering.

• Tulipa “Purissima”, T. “Flaming Spring Green”, T. “Havran”, T. “Prinses Irene”, T. “Recreado”, T. “Exotic Emperor”, T. “Request” …. I could go on!  All mid-sized, stocky tulips for centre stage.

   

In the Footlights

• Crocus “Advance’, C. “Herald” and C. “Snowbunting”.
• Narcissus “Baby Boomer”, N. “Elka”, N. “Jack Snipe”, N. “Baby Boomer”, N. “Segonvia” and N. “Toto”.
• Tulipa batalinii “Bronze Charm”, T. “Czar Peter” and T. “Early Harvest”. The latter is always one of the first bulbs to flower, sometimes in late January for me.
• Iris histrioides “George”, I. reticulata “Harmony”, I. histrioides “Lady Beatrix Stanley” and I. reticulata “Katherine Hodgkin”

 

Favourite Bulb Sources

Weather wise, the start of 2016 is beginning to feel like a re-run of 2015 – a mild winter followed by a chilly spring that refuses to get going. A number of false starts and we are back to cold nights and cool days again, today combined with squally showers. It is April after all. Yet there comes a point when, fuelled by longer daylight hours, most plants decide to forge ahead regardless of the temperature. In our coastal garden an enormous Geranium maderense “Album”, measuring over 7ft from side to side, is preparing to explode into its characteristic atomic cloud of blossom. The bees will go crazy for the myriad white flowers. Blue tits are supping on the nectar-rich flower spikes of Melianthus major and I can see nibs of icy-white in the leaf axils of Iris confusa. This is especially pleasing as I planted these exotic looking irises in November and had no expectations of flowers so soon.

Meanwhile the pots making up my bulb theatre are already disappearing beneath a proliferation of foliage and plump buds. Flowering has been incredibly patchy, with five or six varieties of narcissi yet to bloom and only Tulipa “National Velvet” showing so much as a blush of colour. All this bodes well for late April when we should be rewarded with a spectacular crescendo of colour to rival anything we’ve enjoyed before.

I adore crown imperials (Fritillaria imperialis) and will happily overlook all their faults; the foxy smell, the appeal to lily beetles and the randomness of their appearance above ground. For this spring I have planted F. imperialis “Sunset” (top of post), F. imperialis “William Rex” and F. imperialis “Maxima Lutea”. The former is the only one to flower so far and is very much living up to its name.

Back in early October I published a post entitled “Planting A Narrow Border for Spring Colour”. I am happy to report my little project has cheered up the path to our new house for weeks already and will have done its “thing” before the builders trample it under foot. The pansies and violas were an out-and-out disaster. Those that didn’t rot away at the base before Christmas have been chomped back to their skeletal frames by the snails. Everything else has been a triumph, starting with Tulipa “Early Harvest”, which was in bloom at the end of January, and now Narcissus “Professor Einstein” and double yellow N. “Apotheose”. Ipheions (spring starflowers) abound in neighbouring gardens, poking out between paving slabs and emerging at the base of walls, so I have supplemented existing clumps of an unknown pale blue variety with violet-blue Ipheion uniflorum “Froyle Mill”, a solitary flower of which can been seen at the bottom left of the image below. When the straggly leaves are crushed by my wheelbarrow they smell potently of garlic.

While the garden cruises towards May with minimal interference, there has been frantic activity behind the scenes. I have planted or replanted almost 40 dahlia tubers – too many for my garden, even with my “cram it all in and hope for the best” planting policy – and taken countless cuttings, most of which should properly have been taken in autumn. My gingers and cannas have all moved up a pot size, some now requiring industrial scale black plastic tubs that will satisfy their ambitions of world domination. Both my tiny propagators are bursting at the seams with tomato seedlings, castor oil plants and colocasias, all of which will be desperate for pricking out or potting on soon.

All my fun is about to come to an abrupt end with the start of our house conversion project. I had made a temporary and rather luxurious potting shed out of the half-gutted kitchen at Polegate Cottage. This will be one of the first rooms to be ripped apart to make way for our little garden room. The windowsill which is currently home to succulents and seedlings will be no more. The old metal sink in which I have washed a thousand pots will be relegated to a skip and the cupboards still crammed with nerine and lily bulbs waiting to be planted will be torn out and used for firewood. It was fun whilst it lasted. I am sure we’ll enjoy the new garden room more, even if it isn’t full of compost, grit and seed packets.

Needless to say I am drawing things out in the hopes that the builders will arrive just as it’s safe to start standing plants outside without fear of cold damage. The greenhouse is full to bursting, so there is no room at that particular inn. We have visitors coming next weekend so I have broken the back of what needed to be done, whilst at the same time managing to do something of a damage to my own spine. A week of rest and relaxation is what’s required!

Wishing you all a good week in your gardens. TFG.