Gardens

Columbine Roofs?

Well they look like pagoda roofs to me. But the other interesting thing is that these bumble bees are breaking into the flowers through the rooftops, drilling into the nectar stores at the end of the flower tubes. This, I learn, is a habit of short-tongued bees, stealing the stash from the long-tongued bumbles (Bombus hortorum) who usually visit columbine flowers more politely, using the front door.

Roof Squares 17 Please drop in on Becky – for a very novel roof, and a brilliant round-up of everyone’s roof offerings

Full Frontal Privies And Still Time For The Chelsea Chop

Reading Ali’s recent post at The Mindful Gardener reminded me that I meant to write about the Chelsea Chop. As Ali says, this somewhat alarming sounding garden procedure is more than dead-heading spent flowers to encourage further blooming, or cutting to the roots plants that will have a second flush in late summer (e.g. oriental poppies).

The Chelsea Chop is scheduled for late May – early June around the time of the annual Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show. It involves using sharp shears to cut back later flowering herbaceous perennials by one third to a half. The plant will then grow vigorously, but flower later, so extending the flowering season.

This of course can work very well in large borders as part of a complex growing scheme – and especially in public gardens where the floral show must go on through the summer-into-autumn season. But in my small garden I would end up with gaps. I was therefore very pleased to hear TV gardener, Monty Don, say you can have the best of both worlds by some judicious cutting into a potential flower clump.

This means reducing only some of the growing stems. Phlox, Helenium, Golden Rod, Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Sedums and Anthemis all respond well to this treatment. You can also do the same with mint and other herbs, so keeping some stems for cooking, while letting others flower. The bees will definitely be happy with this arrangement.

Meanwhile in this morning’s garden, the oriental poppies are on the wane, the foxgloves are still flowering, and rose Teasing Georgia is bursting out all over and giving us a lovely bowery vista from the kitchen door. Oh yes, and the pink-mauve shaded aquilegias have given way to yellow ones that look like garden sprites with their little wings:

Roof Squares

Welcome To The Sunset Garden With Privy View

Here’s a side glimpse of one of our C19th privies. I’m guessing the little aperture above the brick pile was there to provide some light on the situation. The adjoining facility also has one on the farther side. The privies share an internal wall – limestone – a good half metre wide, which seems a bit over-engineered to us, and at present stops short of supporting the roof rafters. He Who Builds Sheds is therefore wondering if he might remove it to make one useful shed instead of two impossible sheds, and all without altering the outside.

Meanwhile here’s the other shed, 2017 vintage, designed and built from scratch – with rubber roof. The double-glazed windows and door were cast offs from chums:

And now the garden full of early evening sunshine plus a few roof glimpses:

Roof Squares

A Laburnum Roof?

Becky has kicked off her June spree of roof shots in square format with a view of Kew. I’d also been thinking of roofs in a garden setting, so here’s a tiny segment of the Laburnum Arch at Arley Arboretum as seen a couple of weeks ago. At 65 metres, it is the longest Britain. But where, you might be asking, are the flowers, the golden cascade thronging with bee-hum. Sorry to say we were a week early. The flowers were only just coming out. Not only that, it seems we walked down the arch the wrong way. The intention of the recent extension being to bring you to a spectacular view over the Severn Valley. Pretty much like this one, or so I imagine. Anyway, I enjoyed looking up into the tracery of entwining boughs – which would not of course be visible if the flowers were out. Always good to find a silver lining in the absence of gold.

Please pop over to Becky’s for more June Roof Squares:

June Squares

Poppy Power ~ The Show Goes On Rain Or Shine

To be honest I’m not too fond of this particular shade of oriental poppy – essence of Heinz Tomato Soup. It was already a garden resident when we bought the house, and although I keep digging it up, it seems determined, not only to stay, but to multiply. Anyway, I like its chutzpah, if not its colour. I can always be sure it will pop up somewhere to annoy me. Then I think, oh well. At least the bees love it. And who can gainsay such show-off vim and vigour.

On Sunday after the storms, I even felt rather sorry for this very rain-drenched one – made me think of an ageing star, past her prime, crying into her gin. Overdone mascara on the run…I should get out more.

Plant Collectors’ Fair At Arley Arboretum

Set within a walled garden above the River Severn on the Worcestershire border is one of the oldest and finest arboreta in Britain. It was begun around 1800 by Earl Mountnorris who owned the Upper Arley village estate. But by the 1950s both arboretum and the village cottages had fallen into neglect. Enter Roger Turner, Midlands philanthropist and iron and steel man. He set about restoring the arboretum and brought Arley village back to life, repairing properties, building new homes and a community centre. When he died in 1999, the estate was left to his Charitable Trust. The arboretum was first opened to the public in 2002, its objectives both recreational and educational. So could one a imagine a lovelier venue for last Saturday’s gathering of nurserymen and women all selling their very special garden plants?

The fair was set up just outside the walled garden entrance and overlooking the parkland. For the small price of £2.50 you could go to the fair and spend the whole day in the arboretum.

And then into the arboretum:

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Arley Aboretum and Upper Arley village for more information.

Six Word Saturday

This Morning Over The Garden Wall…

…we have a forest of Granny’s Bonnets. How did so many of them blow in and settle here?

We do of course confess to a spot of guerrilla gardening on our boundary with the field, and this does involve a tacit understanding with any passing flower life that if we clear back the couch grass and other less interesting invaders outside our hedge, wall and fence, then they are welcome to drop in for the spring and summer season. Two years ago we had the profusion of opium poppies. Then there was a borage jungle. This year the aquilegias are claiming the stage.

Further along the boundary behind our old privies, creamy flowered comfrey has also arrived, and feverfew is a frequent visitor there too. Beyond the privies is the fence, upon which he-who-builds-sheds-and-binds-books likes to lean while ruminating on the next project. Here I have encouraged purple-spired toadflax, wild stock, pink campion, moon daisies and foxgloves to multiply and, in the past, scattered corn cockle seeds that now self-propagate and put on annual show. I also move any ‘spare’ herbaceous perennials out there too – especially plants of the late summer, clump-forming variety that will stand in when the wildflowers have gone their way: Rudbeckia, perennial sunflowers, Golden Rod, Michaelmas daisies, phlox and helenium.

It’s a sort of give-and-take gardening with borrowed landscape (and in every sense). It gives great pleasure, not only to us, but to anyone passing on the field path. You never quite know what will be happening out there. At present, too, the rapeseed blooms are providing a golden backdrop. Though not for too much longer because, even as I am writing this, the crop is busy setting seed. Then it will be on to the next scene at the guerrilla garden theatre. Us the ever-willing audience.

Marigold Auditioning To Be The Sun

Self-sown and grown on my plot.

Six Word Saturday

A Bit Of Magic On Monday ~ Quintessentially Exquisite Quince Flowers

I discovered the quince tree (Cydonia oblonga) at the allotment only last year. It was hanging in large golden fruits like overfed pears. They had a subtle fragrance too. And I was entranced. It seemed as if the tree had materialised from out of some ancient Persian painting. Later I discovered that this was indeed one of its homelands (in that belt of southwest Asia between Armenia, Turkey, North Iran and Afghanistan). On Saturday evening as I was going home, I caught the tree on the last lap of flowering – petals like finest Dresden porcelain. What a treasure. And then I started thinking about quince jelly and quince ‘cheese’ – the dulce de membrillo – as made on Spain’s Iberian peninsula and eaten with Manchego cheese. And then I thought how very generous is the plant world to human kind.

Look What I Found At The Allotment Yesterday – An Unexpected Cauliflower

As vegetables go, cauliflowers are sneaky entities. I could swear there were no signs of this one a few days ago. In fact when I ventured to lift the protective mesh to give the outer leaves a prod, I decided it was probably a cabbage. It and the four other ‘cabbages’ were looking pretty healthy too – an astonishing feat after three lots of winter snow and months of never ending rain.

I bought the seedling plants on line in October from Delfland Nursery, along with sprouting broccoli plugs which have also grown strongly and served us well. I’ve used this company several times, and they are brilliant when you have forgotten to think ahead and sow for autumn and winter crops. Or just forgotten.

Anyway, after the long overwintering I thought the ‘cabbages’ deserved a feed and gave them the last of some vintage homemade comfrey liquor which I discovered in the polytunnel during an unlikely phase of tidying. That was a couple of days ago. And look what happened. I’m going to try for giant beanstalks next, though promise not to facilitate the advent of any outsize fee-fi-fo-fumming individuals. A hen that lays golden eggs might be fun though.

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge