Gardens

Six On Saturday: In The December Garden

Now as the year ends, the garden is wet, wet, wet. Wet as in waterlogged, sodden, soggy and all round slithery. But yesterday we had sun. It seemed like a heavenly blessing after days of gloom and serial downpours. And suddenly, instead of finding the garden depressing, I started to notice the plants that were not only doing their best, but in their own way, putting on a show.

1) Top of the list is Nandina domestica, otherwise known as Heavenly Bamboo. It’s not a bamboo and so does not have bamboo’s bad infesting habit. The variety here is Fire Power. It’s compact, dome-like in habit, evergreen, and will grow around 18 inches tall with a two feet spread. It likes full sun, but otherwise is undemanding. It also seems unfazed by hard frost (we had several weeks of freezing weather last year). But what colours! It turns more red with the cold weather.

Number 2) is a plant that has made a good recovery after a very unpromising start. It’s a Japanese Shield Fern I bought on-line back in the spring. After ten days being lost and tossed about by the delivery company, it arrived in very sorry state, much mangled and desiccated. Now it seems very happy in its pot, making new fronds even..

3) The prize for steadfast out-of-season flowering goes to the Phlox paniculata Adessa in the front garden. This is a young plant, bought in the summer. I was not expecting it to flower until next year, but come November, spires of small white flowers appeared, and they’re still going, subtly scented too.

4) Also in the front garden is a tiny self-grown viola. It’s seeded from the pot of violas my sister gave me over a year ago. Such stalwart, exquisite little plants.

5) Another surprise is the number of foxglove plants in the garden, all self-sown. They have been growing huge during the recent wet and mostly mild weather, having recovered from a spell of heavy frosting in November. Happy thoughts of summer then.

6) Finally, and spot on for a December debut is hellebore Christmas Carol. It was a gift last year, since divided and planted out both in a pot and in the new back steps bed. It’s been so cheering on dull days, though, annoyingly, some beastie is biting holes in its petals. Last year it flowered from months and months.

Happy gardening everyone –

whether planning or planting, depending on your hemisphere

Six on Saturday And thanks and Happy Christmas to host Jim. He has shown us so many fascinating plants, to say nothing of guiding us around his stunning planting schemes.

Shadows of Summer Past at Wildegoose Nursery

Wildegoose Nursery in the Corve Valley has been hosting a special winter opening this week (Thursday – Sunday) – giving us a chance to see the walled garden in its late season colours. Not the brightest of days yesterday, and with rain on the air.

Here’s a reminder of how it looked when we visited in September, this after weeks without rain:

Then and now…

From the tea room window

November Shadows #29

Crab Apple Morning

A hard frost overnight, but this morning a big sun; the garden fence lit up; a glow of crab apples.

Passing on brightness among the shadows.

November Shadows #21

Six On Saturday: Showing Their Colours

Back at the end of October the garden was alive with drifts of cosmos, Michaelmas daisies and rudbeckia. And then the downpours began, plus some big winds. The cosmos is still hanging on, but the Michaelmas daisies are no more and rudbeckia down to the final few stems.

1) The rose trio, though, is hanging on, still doing their bit. Cornelia by the greenhouse is looking a little rain battered, but still very pretty. St. Cecilia on the terrace wall has been flowering sporadically for some weeks. But her neighbour, Penelope, has only started flowering this week, beautiful, but unexpected…

2) There have been other surprise openings this week, including the newly planted young Hesperanthus Wilfred H. Bryant…

Other curious (unseasonal?) discoveries this week include buds and flowers on two Vanilla Ice sunflower plants which I grew from seed in the spring. They’re multi-headed plants with medium, in sunflower terms, sized flowers. Heaven knows why they’ve waited till November.

3) In the still going strong since the summer category, Salvia Amistad wins first prize. Actually, this is the best its looked since it was planted in the spring…

4) And in the front garden, a new favourite Crocosmia Harlequin, as seen this morning. Isn’t this a lovely plant…

5) In between torrential rain and misty drizzle, garden tidying, and the usual plant shifting has begun. Our builder and son also came and removed an annoying (literally) stumbling block outside the back door. Last year we had the garden steps reconfigured, but the job wasn’t quite finished and the old bottom steps survived the exercise, were a real eye-sore and general all-round nuisance. But now transformation. They have been demolished and a brand new, semi-shade bed created. I’ve planted it up with assorted hellebores, (Christmas Carol in the right hand corner just in bud), dwarf daffodils, snowdrops under the hedge, pulmonaria Blue Ensign and Diana Clare (silvery leaves), and in the far left, a neat fern, Polystichum setiferum congestum. As the leaves go from the hedge end behind the house, it will get more light. A spring garden then.

6) Last but not least, when it comes to providing long-lasting colour and cheerfulness, to say nothing of eventually feeding the birds, it has to be the crab apple trees: a miniature Evereste in the front garden (header photo) which we can see from the sitting room, and Jelly King at the bottom of the garden, but visible from the kitchen. Even on the gloomiest days, they do their best to glow. Today, though, we have wall to wall sunshine and Wedgewood Blue sky, so here they are looking their brightest…

Six on Saturday Please call in on our host, Jim. He still has some fabulous plants still flowering in his garden

After The Storm ~ Six On Saturday

This time last week, the wind was racketing around the garden, threatening to uproot and mash the herbaceous plants. But in the end, damage was minimal. In fact some plants have been thriving since.

And especially

1) Cornelia rose

She’d been in a big pot by the greenhouse all summer. And as she was new, I’d been concerned about keeping her suitably watered during the long summer drought. She did flower a little back then, but not for long. But since the storm, and removal into a bigger, bottomless pot, she has sent out elegant arching stems laden with buds and blooms. She’s a hybrid musk, and the flowers, though small like wild roses, smell delicious. I’m hoping she will eventually fill the gap between the hedge and the greenhouse.

2) Cosmos bigger and better

The gale might have blown their frocks off, not to mention nearly scooting them out of the ground, but the Cosmos plants on the terrace wall have come back bigger and better, and are covered in new buds. I’ve been filling vases with them.

3) Tree tomatoes?

Nor did the big wind deter tomato production in the cooking apple tree. Daft, I know.

This plant was one of my rejects, a pot-bound Sungold seedling that had hung around on the garden path long after I’d potted up the main plants in early June. Eventually, I stuck it the ground , and generally forgot about it, though I did provide it with a supporting stick. Some time later I discovered that it had climbed way up into the apple tree, and so chopped off its top growth. And again ignored it. Then it began fruiting and has been doing so for many weeks – just a few tomatoes at a time. They’re delicious too.

Here it is – you can just see a strand of green fruit hanging down to the right of Jelly King crab apples, green obelisk behind.

4) The Kabuki calabrese gets the prize this week for making me smile a lot. I always find it exciting when my brassicas start to sprout. And this particular plant has survived remarkably unscathed after the summer attack of flea beetles which make holes in everything of the brassica family. The flower head isn’t exactly big enough for two. Well, not yet. Watching brief activated.

5) Grumble of the week

Well, there always has to be something. Now I’m wondering what on earth is making holes in my Swiss Chard (mature and seedling versions) and also the Perennial Spinach. I thought I’d finally protected all the edible greens from all comers with a covering of fine black netting. All summer I’d managed to fend off butterflies from the caulis and purple sprouting. And kept the pigeons at bay. But now I have holey leaves. He who is a sometime plant pathologist posits caterpillars, but I can see no obvious sign of them. Suggestions, anyone?

6) Sunbathing

And not to end with a fit of gardening disgruntlement, since the storm we’ve been having some wonderful sunny spells, warm enough to make one put autumn woollies straight back in the cupboard. Even the ladybirds have been sunning themselves. I’ve been finding them all around the garden, including some very tiny ones.

And that’s it from our Shropshire garden. Happy gardening, folks.

Please call in on our host Jim at Garden Ruminations.

Six On Saturday

Feeling Blustered: Six On Saturday

1. Storm-struck

This morning at breakfast time – with a high wind whooshing about the place and rain lashing the kitchen doors, the garden definitely looked a no-go area. I could see three dozen bean canes splayed like pick-up-sticks across the top path by the greenhouse. Drat and double drat. When I dismantled the runner bean rows a week or so ago, I had forgotten to tether them securely to the hedge. I could also see the cosmos at the top of the steps being tossed about. Since late September and the onset of rainy days, it has been flowering magnificently. Now it was having its petals blown off. More curses. And I could see that the Selinum (farthest right at the wall top) which is still flowering as well as seeding, was now rearranged at a 45 degree angle.

Not a happy gardener.

Cosmos unclothed; Helianthus blown away.

And then, quite suddenly, towards midday, the rain stopped and the sun came out, although we still have a mighty blow, with now-and-then gusts that lift you off your feet.

I did a quick tour of the garden, but there was not much to be done mid-gale, apart from attempting a bit of support for the Selinum.

2: Apples

With the wind, I was expecting another heavy crop of windfalls. But when I went out to check the damage, I was pleased to see that most of our remaining apples are still clinging sturdily to their stalks. Which is good news as I already had a stack of windfalls in the kitchen. And there’s only so much apple sauce we can eat, and all the neighbours are overwhelmed with apples too and putting them out at their gates for anyone to take. However, I recently discovered an easy apple chilli chutney recipe, and so, as gardening was out, this was what happened next.

3. In love with Michaelmas daisies

I’m not expecting the late flowering flowers to survive the wind, but that won’t include the Michaelmas daisies (Symphyotrichums/Asters whatever they’re called these days). I took this photo with the wind still blowing. Only a couple of small side stems damaged.

Its neighbour, a compact little variety (I think it could be Purple Dome) has only just decided to flower:

And at the bottom of the garden this tall white bushy version, White Ladies maybe, and…

…Aster x frikatii Monch have been flowering since the hot days of summer:

4. Great Dixter Nursery

And so like Jim, I’ve been doing some plant buying. I have recently discovered that Great Dixter House and Gardens has an online plant shop. They sell some very lovely plants (1 and 2 litre sizes) at very reasonable prices. That’s where I found Patrinia as featured in an earlier SoS. And it’s where I also found ‘Symphyotrichum Les Moutiers’ which is now planted in my front garden. We’ll have to wait nearly a year before we see it in action though. Do give the link a quick look.

5. Ongoing edibles

The salad stuff hasn’t been troubled by the unruly weather. The radicchio and endive, rocket, land cress, and Moroccan Cress lettuce are presently thriving, though everything has to be netted against pigeons.

We also have some Swiss chard, beetroot, parsnips and leeks, and a new bed of winter greens (planted out on the runner and borlotti bean bed) is looking quite good. And there are still a few climbing borlotti beans to pick in the side-garden wall bed.

6. A happy face

Now as I’m writing this, the rain is back and the wind is still blowing. So I’m finishing off with another garden stalwart. I was so pleased to find this marigold looking so fresh-faced as I went round the garden late-morning. Of course, we eat these too. Perhaps I shouldn’t mention that though.

Happy gardening folks – whatever your weather. Even on distinctly unpromising days, there’s usually something in the garden to be glad about.

Six On Saturday Please catch up with Jim at Garden Ruminations.

Season Of Mist and All Round Wetness ~ Six on Saturday

Here in Bishop’s Castle the rainy weather continues as we head towards the autumn equinox. Just now it’s pouring steadily, threatening to dampen spirits for today’s Michaelmas Fair. This is always a hugely jolly affair of stalls, parades, Chinese dragons, steam engines, vintage vehicles and street performances – assorted bands, Morris dancers, a jester from Chester, the singing farmer, to name but a few of the events. And then the whole thing is rounded off mid-evening with a magical lantern procession through the town (the lanterns made by children). All very much dependent of weatherly cooperation. But then I’m sure, this being the Castle, everyone will make the best of it, brollies and waterproofs at the ready.

Definitely not a day for gardening though. Also as the season winds down, it’s hard not a feel a touch dispirited by the ongoing sogginess. The few roses on their second flowering don’t like it much either. But come hell or high water, to say nothing of last winter’s three solid weeks of snow and frost, the little pansies, viola magnifico [1] above still soldier on. This plant has been flowering continuously for twelve months.

And talking of pansies, what is it that nibbles the yellow ones? And is it the same thing that bites off the buds from my only lupin whenever it tries to flower?

The Cosmos [2]doesn’t mind the weather either. In fact it seems to be having a new lease of life, and I’m enjoying the drifty looks of it, its stems hanging in raindrops.

The Japanese ‘Uchiki Kuri’ squash [3] plants weren’t as productive as I’d expected, and I had high hopes of some later planted plants. They’ve produced a couple of tiny ones, and I’ve nipped off extraneous shoots, but I think it’s probably too late for them now.

The borlotti bean crop [4] is looking more promising. I picked all the dwarf variety some weeks ago, but the climbing ones are just beginning to dry in their pods. I love them for their looks alone, though they’re pretty good in the pot too.

Despite my weather whingeing, the garden is still looking colourful. The rudbeckia and Michaelmas daisies certainly brighten the place up. There are also still some sunflowers at the bottom of the garden, and my two very small crab apples trees [5], Evereste and Jelly King are looking their vibrant best.

This miniature Evereste is in a corten steel raised bed, along with some origano Kent Beauty, and Santolina. Silvery Artemesia Powis Castle behind.

Jelly King is lighting up the furthest corner of the garden. I’m not sure I want to sacrifice the apples to making jelly (perverse I know, considering this is why I chose it). They look so lovely, and in fact, now I have found sources of wild apples (see previous post) I think I will leave them, first for us to look at, and later for the blackbirds.

Finally, here’s one of my newish garden plants that has been so glad of the rain, Persicaria Blackfield [6], red bistort. It really struggled all through the summer, despite my hand watering. But then with the first of the recent showers, it perked up and began to flower. It’s interesting that the drought seemed to have had a miniaturising effect on the whole plant, as if it was making itself small to save itself. I’m hoping it will settle in now and come into its own.

Six on Saturday Please visit host Jim at Garden Ruminations. He’s been very busy despite the weather.

For Love Of Patrinia ~ Six On Saturday

These first few photos aren’t from my garden (if only), but here to illustrate gardener’s lust [1] ~ that moment when a new plant begins to root itself in the psyche, aka mental compost, until you know that you simply have to have it.

Well, that’s what happened last week when we went to visit the walled garden of Wildegoose Nursery here in Shropshire. (See previous 2 posts). It was a hazy day, but everywhere the garden was alight with the frothy, apple green seedheads of Patrinia monandra/aff punctiflora [2] a tall and gracious plant, and one quite new to me. (And yes, it does seed itself everywhere, but I was told unwanted stems pull up easily).

At Wildegoose it sets off not only the reds and bronzes of late summer sedums, Eupatorium, and Heleniums, but also the fading stems of Verbena, Sea Holly, Echinacea and Hydrangea:

It’s a perennial, clump forming (50cm wide), hardy plant, with spreads of tiny yellow flowers from July to September. The seedheads, though, can last well into the winter. The plant was first collected in China by the Gothenburg Botanic Garden, or so the Beth Chatto site tells me.

And the reason I was looking there, was because it was only later when we arrived home, and I was scanning through the photos that I suddenly saw how lovely Patrinia might look in our so much smaller garden. And I knew Wildegoose was about to close for the winter, and that we were unlikely to get there before it did…And so to postal sources, although of course the plant, if ordered now, will naturally come pruned of those lovely seedheads…(Oh, the self-inflicted anguish of the besotted and too impatient gardener!)

Meanwhile, back at The Gables we’ve been having a week of thunderous downpours with intermittent spells of warm September sunshine; April showers on steroids. The lawn is quite rejuvenated, although I hate to tell it, now it isn’t rock hard, I’m going to dig more of it up to make a new strawberry bed. (Psst. Don’t tell Graham).

So yes, we are heartily glad of the rain, even if it comes like swift deliveries from Niagara Falls. The Helianthus [3] by the greenhouse is certainly having a new lease of life. It’s lighting up one of the shadier parts of the garden, an unexpected full-on display when it’s already been flowering for weeks.

In the border along the terrace wall, the Michaelmas Daisy [4] is at last beginning to flower. It’s been a mass of buds all summer, but was obviously saving itself for more autumnal days. It should be splendid in a week or so, and especially if the Rudbeckia keeps going.

Further along the border, between the Japanese Anemones and Selinum, St. Cecilia rose [5] has been spurred into a second flowering. We inherited her with the garden. She was in a poorly state, but though the flowers, when fully open, are rather wan and saintly, and thus none too remarkable, I decided to nurture her. She anyway smells quite nice, and is appealing when the buds are seasonally dewdropped and seen beside the presently seeding heads of Selinum.

And finally the Morning Glory [6] growing on the trellis by the oil tank looks to be enjoying the cooler, wetter days. I’m surprised it’s still going after the torrential downpours, the flowers lasting longer through the day too.

Happy gardening, folks, whatever your hemisphere.

Six on Saturday Please visit Jim in Cornwall for his week’s garden news.

‘Drawn from the Earth’ ~ Art In The Garden At Wildegoose Nursery

In the last post I said I’d show some of the artworks from Mary Elliot’s ‘Drawn from the Earth’ exhibition, hosted last week by Wildegoose Nursery. The setting is a series of garden ‘rooms’ created in an old and magnificent walled garden. The late summer plants and grasses made an otherworldly backdrop for Sharon Griffin’s ceramic figures.

Her work is haunting. To come upon her pieces, as if by chance, in a garden that is slipping into autumn, gives them added drama; a life almost. There’s a sense of ‘old gods’ invoked; forgotten stories being retold.

Or in her own words:

I make work which explores the universal human condition…clay allows me the freedom for pure expression; a re-connectivity with the land and ancestral storytelling…

Faun with a shadow face and deer ears

‘Not so blind that I can’t see’

And on the plants for sale table: ‘The Gardener’

I only came upon this one work by sculptor, Glen Farrelly. It’s called ‘Formation’. I perhaps find it more personally appealing than the Sharon Griffin works. i.e. in the sense I could see myself living with it. I loved its setting amongst the pale green Patrinia seedheads and red sedum, the spires of dying flower stems and grasses.

And finally some more views of the gardens – plants making their own end-of-season artworks.

Mary Elliot’s drawings and paintings can be seen HERE.

The Blue Bench At Wildegoose Nursery

It’s quite a while since we last visited Wildegoose Nursery. It’s a longer drive from Bishop’s Castle than it was from Wenlock. But this is no excuse. It is the most beautiful place, the nursery created in what was once the walled vegetable garden of Millichope Park, Munslow. (You can read the story of all that has been created, plus splendid photos HERE).

The walled garden itself is planted in a series of ‘rooms’, showcasing the nursery’s range of plants for sale. It is only open during the planting season from March to late September. There are umbrella-ed tables and a pleasing cafe serving delicious cakes and lunch-time snacks made from the garden’s produce. And there are some very magnificent Georgian glasshouses which have been restored and once more put to growing.

Every one of those several thousand glass panes had to be replaced. But the reason I’m showing this particular shot, is because there’s a potting bench in view – i.e. to go along with the header bench for Jude’s Bench Challenge. (I also know she knows all about Wildegoose.)

The reason we roused ourselves to go there last week was because one-time Wenlock chum, Mary Elliot, artist and former 20/20 Gallery owner had put on a four-day art exhibition there Drawn from the Earth. She was exhibiting some of her own work too (much of it inspired by the Wildegoose gardens) and we’d hoped for a general catch-up. There will be more of the exhibition in the next post. For now a glimpse of the garden in its autumnal colours:

And coming up in the next post:

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge