Border Beetroot, Anne Boleyn and a Clouded Yellow

If variety is the spice of life, then this has been a vindaloo week. Despite spending too much time jostling in the underground with not even a cut flower for company (if I had my way, nosegays and buttonholes would be compulsory for commuters), I managed to escape into the great outdoors for two wonderful, inspiring days.

My first fresh air was at Blickling Hall in Norfolk. The former home of the Boleyn family (Anne is said to have been born there) is one of my favourite places to walk and after an enjoyable afternoon exercising my legs and jaw with friends, I withdrew to the gardens to commune with the borders.

The hotter end of the double borders was looking particularly exuberant. I was reminded of your comments following a recent post on creative vegetable growing* so I thought I would share this photo showing ruby chard and beetroot ‘Blood Red’ making a valuable, yet cost-effective contribution to the planting scheme.  

The other big discovery I made in the double borders was that time is no great healer where plants are concerned. I have always loved Monarda, but after years of sorry plants with powdery mildew, I took the difficult decision to try to live without this beauty in our new garden. Then Monarda ‘Gardenview Scarlet’ caught my eye and guess which plant has been catapulted to the top of my must-have list? 'Gardenview Scarlet' has better resistance to powdery mildew than most cultivars, so I am hoping for a happily-ever-after ending to my Monarda love story.

Midweek, I found myself sharing shed space with representatives from nurseries and some of the most well-known gardens in the U.K. for a trade show focussing on sustainable ornamentals production; a subject close to my heart. We gathered at Howard, an excellent wholesale perennials nursery, where we were treated to enjoyable and enlightening presentations, followed by a tractor/trailer ride around the field grown areas of the nursery.

It was a day to consider issues of an important and serious nature, but maintaining an air of professionalism and composure is a challenge when you are bouncing merrily along on the back of a tractor through thousands of glorious perennials. The sight of a Clouded Yellow butterfly did little to quash my excitement.

Clouded Yellow butterfly

After a fascinating and entertaining presentation by Fergus Garrett on sustainability at Great Dixter, we turned our attention to sustainable growing media. This is a hot topic for me, as I choose not to buy compost containing peat. Using peat in the garden is inappropriate on so many levels: loss of habitat; CO2 emissions; and, as a friend pointed out recently, it is wrong to use something which has taken thousands of years to form, to grow an annual which will be dead in a matter of weeks. 

Scabious proving its credentials as a Peacock butterfly
 magnet at the nursery.

You may be surprised to learn that there are no plans in the U.K. to ban, or even place a tax on using peat; and while there are targets regarding reducing the use of peat in horticulture, these are targets - not legislation. Away from the trade, I wonder if gardeners really care about peat. Do people buy the cheapest compost irrespective of ingredients? Perhaps some gardeners are still smarting after having tried one of the earlier, less successful peat-free alternatives. I hope not. Peat-free compost has moved on; it's time we all did. 

*http://thegardeningshoe.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/creative-vegetable-growing-and.html 

http://www.howardnurseries.co.uk/latest-news/detail/49/
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/blickling-estate/

http://www.greatdixter.co.uk

Welcoming Wildlife

Isn't it great when a plan starts to come together? When I began our garden last year, my main aim was to encourage wildlife by selecting plants which would offer a source of food and shelter. One year on, we are seeing a marked increase in the numbers of bees, butterflies and birds. Perhaps this is because of the weather and nothing to do with gardening, but when I go outside and find myself in a flurry of butterflies and I see them settling on plants which were selected to meet their needs, I feel certain that I have made sound choices. 

I garden organically; I have never gardened in any other way. If you should ever visit our garden, you will receive no apology for lawn weeds because we rejoice when we see bees enjoying flowering clover in our lawn and we tread very, very carefully! 

Echinops ritro

Gardening for wildlife might be my main aim, but I am selfish enough to design our garden for my requirements too. I have posted before about my need for readable structure in the garden* and although I select plants for other creatures, I want to see them arranged in a way which pleases my eye. Happily, bees and butterflies enjoy plants en masse as much as I do.

Cirsium rivulare 'Atropurpureum'

The farmhouse garden is still far from mature - a budget blown on rabbit fencing put paid to any hope of planting big specimens - but it is beginning to do its job and we have a lively garden where we can enjoy a privileged, close view of the creatures visiting the plants. 

Hyssopus officinalis

I feel very strongly that our decisions make a difference and while we can’t encourage wildlife in if it isn’t within sensory distance, we can welcome visiting creatures with a delicious feast, somewhere to stay and a supportive environment for any offspring.

Knautia macedonica

My next challenge is to try to ensure food and shelter for wildlife all year round and I hope you will forgive me if I return each month to this subject which is so important to me. I am fascinated to hear about any plants you have found to be particularly attractive to beneficial insects and other wildlife.  Meanwhile, I will grab myself a coffee and take a few minutes to enjoy the company of today's garden guests.  

* The structure rant can be found at:

 http://thegardeningshoe.blogspot.co.uk/2013_02_01_archive.html

Wordless Wednesday: Introducing Our New Neighbours....

Creative Vegetable Growing and the Harvesting Dilemma

Many moons ago, inspired at a lecture by the doyenne of creative vegetable growing, Joy Larkcom, I designed and planted a beautiful patchwork quilt of cut-and-come-again salad leaves. As I watered in the last lettuce, I knew that this edible blanket of burgundies and greens would look even better once the plants had knitted together, so I postponed capturing my creation on film. 

RHS Wisley - several years ago, but since
the advent of digital photography.

The next morning, before I left for work, I decided to take my morning coffee by my lettuce (as you do) and to my horror, I was met by bare soil and a few stumpy stalks. For unbeknownst to me, lurking under the canopy of the cedar tree was a hungry muntjac deer with excellent taste in salad leaves, but no respect for lettuce art. 

Since then, I have created pleasing, yet fleeting edible foliage combinations which have been enjoyed by rabbits, pigeons and caterpillars, but not slugs. You may recall that I blithely blogged about the lack of slugs in the farmhouse garden http://thegardeningshoe.blogspot.co.uk/2013_04_01_archive.html  well, I have had my comeuppance. Why wouldn't we have slugs in the farmhouse garden? Because there was finer fare around the corner in our new kitchen garden. 

Having been raised in a hospitable household, my natural instinct was to offer my guests a drink. Being slugs, their chosen poison was beer. Ten little beer-filled containers were duly set out for the molluscy revellers and despite initial fears that I was creating a hugely popular gastropod gastropub crawl, the slugs have been merrily availing themselves of one beer too many and our veggies are finally showing signs of recovery. 

Growing food decoratively is a tricky business, because even if it survives the excesses of slugs, deer, rabbits and birds, we will eat it and in so doing wreak havoc on our edible scheme. Cut-and-come-again lettuces succeed in the world of food art because we can pinch the odd leaf here and there and not spoil our salad tapestry (it is a pity that no one told the muntjac about this valuable attribute of these leaves).  

There are plenty of edibles which look great despite regular harvesting, but many crops simply look gappy. I have tried succession sowing and planting, intercropping and the occasional selectively placed rhubarb forcer, but these methods are too time-consuming for me at the end of a working day and a rhubarb forcer looks downright incongruous in the middle of a patch of onions. Consequently, I have been on the lookout for a solution and I think I have found it. Instead of seeing a gap in the garden; I see a meal I have enjoyed. Absurd as it might seem, this desperate attempt at reframing seems to be working. 

I finally stopped fretting about gaps in the veggie borders following a tour of the two acre organic kitchen garden at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. Now I think, if they are good enough for Raymond Blanc, they are good enough for me. Of course, a two Michelin Star chef in my kitchen, waiting to prepare my homegrown veg would be splendid.... well... I need to fantasise about something as I offer a top-up of beer to the molluscy guests on a tour of my own rather less extensive, but equally organic kitchen garden. 

P.S. If you have never read anything by Joy Larkcom before, I urge you to take time to look at her work. Her books introduced me to so many of the crops I enjoy growing today and I frequently revisit her writing when I am looking for inspiration. 
The last two photos show the kitchen garden at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, where the crops look great, but taste even better.    http://www.manoir.com/web/olem/le_manoir_gardens.jsp

Does Anyone Know When The Gardening Year Starts?

The gardening year is a mysterious concept since it appears to have no official beginning or end. This is hardly surprising given that gardeners in one region are merrily casting clouts for summer, while elsewhere people are pouring themselves into thermal underwear and hunkering down for a long, harsh winter. Matters are further complicated by the fact that in some areas the gardening year is six months long. Even so, wouldn't it be wonderful to have a day when we celebrated our gardening new year?

Wisteria at Magdalene College, Cambridge

Perhaps there is a global New Year Garden Party to which I haven't been invited (which is a shame, because I would turn up to the opening of a compost bin), but I suspect that we all have our own personal gardening new years which are sparked by significant events such as the quiet emergence of a favourite plant or the ceremonial plugging-in of the propagator. 

Wisteria at St Michael-at-Plea Church, Norwich

My gardening new year begins with an event which occurs with annual regularity sometime between mid-March and the end of May. It is the point at which I make a new year’s resolution. The trigger for this is that I get inspired and excited by someone else’s garden or the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and resolve to do better things with my own plot of land. This is all good and well, but 2013 is turning out to be particularly inspiring and I have resolutions coming out of my ears on a daily basis and this has resulted in me celebrating more new years than the Queen has annual birthdays. My latest resolution has been prompted by this...

Wisteria sinensis, a lovely plant in someone else’s garden. In my garden it tends to get neglected. I know perfectly well how to keep this exuberant climbing shrub under control, but by the time I have helped to whip my clients' plants into shape, I fancy a change of gardening tasks, so I give my Wisteria a half-hearted secateurial reprimand and trundle off to do something more interesting. If you have ever been the custodian of one of these brutes, you will know that pruning Wisteria seems like a never-ending task. No sooner do you turn your back than it gathers up a drainpipe and hurls it to the ground. Ignore it and it will come tap, tap, tapping on your window and should you open the window, you may very well find yourself sharing house space with it. 

 Wisteria at the window

Our Wisteria sinensis was growing in the garden when we bought the farm and although I would not choose to plant anything with the potential to grow so large, I cannot grub out a healthy, happy plant which would behave perfectly well if I made time to train it properly. In any case, it is loved by bees and offers great shelter to birds, so it is too valuable to part with. As I type, the front door is open so that I can enjoy the scent of its fragrant lilac flowers and I must admit that I love this plant in spite of its excesses. So today’s resolution is to bring order to the purple tangly chaos. Tomorrow? Well that’s another year. * **

* I will start by gently removing unwanted new growth over the summer, then in February when there are no birds nesting, our Wisteria will see some serious lopper action. 
** Since this is a new year's resolution, I reserve the right to break it. 

Chelsea Flower Show - the hot colour for 2013

Something feisty and demanding has infiltrated the Chelsea Flower Show this year. From paving to plants, it has given a warm glow to the event. It may have been a surprisingly subtle return for a loud colour, but orange is most definitely back.

Paul Hervey-Brookes uses Geum 'Prinses Juliana' and Carex flagellifera 'Auburn Cascade' in his design for Brand Alley (above), picking out the colour in the wall. He isn't the only designer to embrace the warmth; the WaterAid artisan garden is ablaze with marigolds.

Elsewhere, orange is used in a more understated way. Here, in Ulf Nordfjell's garden for Laurent-Perrier, the warm colour of the travertine stone is picked up in Lilium 'Orange Marmalade' and Iris 'Beverly Sills'. 

In Chris Beardshaw's garden for Arthritis Research UK,  Eschscholzia californica unfurl alongside Iris 'Supreme Sultan' (which will soon be showing its true colours - deep orange and purple). 

Stoke-on-Trent's show garden has a palette focussing on orange, apricot and copper.

In Scape Design's garden, After the Fire, the contrast between the orange pool, terracotta seats, the vivid green new leaves and the charred tree trunks is striking.

Even that 1970's must-have orange toy, the Space Hopper, made a comeback   (I spotted two) - this one is in the NSPCC garden.

Orange can be a difficult colour to use in the garden because it clashes so readily with other colours and is so demanding of our attention. Some people find this quality stimulating; others find it too challenging. Used well, it can link plants, hard landscaping and buildings together. Its propensity to clash with other colours such as strong, hot pinks can be exciting, yet it can be used more subtly to enhance bronze foliage. 

Chris Beardshaw's Arthritis Research UK garden

It may be challenging, but a twist of orange really can lift a planting scheme. It certainly worked its magic at Chelsea this year. 

Swishing for Gardeners and a Garlic Bath

A pillar of the community recently invited me to a swishing party. Not wishing to admit that I was ignorant to the ways of swishers, I mumbled something about diaries and hurried home for a restorative cup of tea and a spot of research. 

Phlox divaricata 'Clouds of Perfume' in the farmhouse garden* 

Although a swishing party sounds like a questionable form of entertainment for a pillar of the community, it is in fact a social event where guests swap clothes they no longer wear. Clearly this is an alien concept for someone who possesses two categories of clothes: Going Out and Gardening. In my wardrobe, all new clothes join the first category until I ruin them by accidentally wearing them to garden, after which they naturally transfer to the Gardening category, where they reside until they disintegrate completely. Everything gets worn (all at once if it's cold enough).

Gardeners have been swapping seeds, plants and produce for centuries, so we might argue that we already have our own form of swishing. Reusing and recycling are at the heart of much of what we do and waste products become valuable resources such as compost, well-rotted manure and leafmould. 

As a gardener who likes to uphold the traditions of reusing and recycling, I was delighted to stumble upon this marvellous vat of history lurking in our redundant piggeries.

If you think it looks like three-hundred-year-old dung porridge, you may be right, for this is daub; a delightful combination of whatever happened to be available at the time, like clay, straw, hair and dung. In our seventeenth-century barn, some daub was crumbling beyond repair, so it was soaked in water for a few days, then mixed to a paste with an oversized whisk, before being reapplied to the walls. The builder who stewed the daub assures me that he does the cooking at home. Looking at his brilliant handiwork, I think he should branch out into icing cakes. 

When we were clearing out the barn, we found an old tin bath and with it, the answer to a niggling problem. A combination of poor weather and heavy soil had been conspiring against my ability to grow garlic until the discovery of the bath. Feeling confident that we would be installing twenty-first-century plumbing in the barn, I pierced drainage holes in the bath and spring-planted a hardneck garlic called 'Edenrose'.  

So far, the garlic seems happy - or at least happier than it would have been in our cold, heavy soil. I just hope that I am not being over-optimistic about the plumbing, although if push comes to shove (and only once the garlic has been harvested), I can suspend the pierced bath from a beam and call it a shower. 


* Phlox divaricata 'Clouds of Perfume' has nothing to do with researching swishing, beyond the fact that I stopped to enjoy its scent en route to my laptop. It's a small Phlox - just 30cm high; pollinating insects love it; and it is flowering its socks off in the farmhouse garden at the moment.