English Garden Eclectic

As a frequenter of gardens open for charity, I am getting to know what to expect and from where. Mostly the standards are high. The causes are good ones. It is a nice afternoon out, there are many things about it all that are very positive.

Being as I am, very keen on plants, the ones where people have the interesting and rare used in imaginitive ways, this combined with good and simple design, these appeal to me the most. As do those where the plants are given what they want, and are thriving. Not ones where they are left to languish in far from ideal growing conditions.

However, some gardens open to the public leave much to be desired.. ..Many have an air of suburban blandness about them. Overly tidy plots in rural areas with not a blade of grass out of place, lots of bare earth, objets placed rather haphazardly around the site.

Too much razored grass, bare earth,and paving/gravel; bulbs that have stopped flowering trussed-up in elastic bands. Also too few individual plants, and a lack of variety overall. The plants displayed owing more to garden centres than nurseries. Subjects that look good in pots, but terrible in a border.

I have worked in retail plant sales, from the middle to the upper end of things horticultural. Most commercial garden centres offer exactly the same plants. All have the same suppliers. It’s always good to see something new, or rarely seen.

So many gardens overall have NO sense of place attached to them.  They reflect nothing of their surroundings. In fact they exist in a vacuum. In urban situations, surrounded by the grey of concrete and charcoal of asphalt, many gardens are singular oases. But where other gardens are visible there is no excuse for this.

In fact I can see why rural populations resent ‘incomers’. Leaving aside the front gardens turned into car parks, and overly neat verges and lawns and putting house-prices out of reach of their children and grand-children. Bad as these things are, some things are worse still.

Far worse than all of these is the insidious suburbanisation of everywhere. Everything overly tidy.

The rise and rise of the outdoor housekeeper.

Perhaps it’s a result of people thinking they can control everything. All shrubs ruthlessly turned into topiary. I particularly hate this with shrubs like forsythia, berberis and buddleia which are naturally arching and elegant with long wands of branches bearing flowers. All turned into ugly ‘mushrooms’ of congested branches.

In rural areas, no wildflowers on verges for butterflies and bees. No longer, wilder grass. No seed-heads and berries for wintering birds. Even farmers flail-mow their hedges in autumn, removing all of the berries and hips that might have fed wildlife in winter.

Perhaps people really are too detached from the reality of nature, of the seasons, differing soil and light conditions, and the fact that in our climate the dominant trees drop their leaves in winter.

I have known people incensed by the fact that a dark, root-infested postage-stamp of a garden, badly overhung by lime trees or sycamores, can’t become a mass of burgeoning, sun-loving flowers.

There are plants that will grow in this. But it will always be predominantly a garden of foliage. Of greens and leaf textures, and less of flowers.

Most horrific of all, bedding plants planted in troughs literally in the dark.

Nature has limits. As a species we seem to have forgotten that. Also, giving plants what they want, and creating associations of plants that enhance, augment and follow on from one another under a given set of conditions, will always be more pleasing than a bedding scheme.

A mossy lawn in too much shade still has more texture, colour and interest than astroturf.

Sea pink ( Silene uniflora maritima ) Brick wall, by Thames at Chiswick

Cerastium tomentosum, Phlox subulata, euphorbia cyparissus and bulbs

The size of gardens in the UK, especially in built-up areas, continues to decrease. New developments seem to be more about car-parking than outddor spaces. For many reasons. this is a bad thing. It is bad for increased probability of flooding in urban areas, for over-heating in summer, for our general health and well-being, reducing air-pollution, for biodiversity, for food-production – the list goes on and on. Definitely a topic that warrants an article all of its own.

However, there are ways of maximising the space we make use of. One of these is vertical gardening. This can vary from the hydroponic living walls of Patrick Blanc and others, to vines and climbers in walls, and to plants growing actually IN walls.

I have been taking a few pics of plants growing out of or, against walls in the past few months.

The possibilities are great. In the two pics above, taken in a Northamptonshire village, the plants are coming out of a dry-stone wall, backed by soil in one instance. Directly out of stone and even out of brick in others.

The kinds of plants that grow well out of stonework are either alpines from drier areas, like the pink-flowered dwarf phlox ( Phlox subulata), cypress spurge ( Euphorbia cyparissus), silvery snow-in-summer ( Cerastium tomentosum)S European plants such as red valerian (Centranthus ruber vars), wallflowers ( Erysimum cheiri) and purple toadflax ( Linaria purpurea).

Add to this such North African plants as Rhodanthemum hosmariense  and natives such as sea pink ( Silene uniflora maritima) and sea thrift ( Armeria maritima).

All do well in these conditions, and all offer a way of greening our urban environments, plus offering scent and colour ( cf. wallflowers), pollen and nectar to bees and butterflies.

Thursday’s hosepipe ban means we won’t be watering our gardens with sprinklers and hoses this summer. The current somewhat damp weekend won’t make a dent in that, and in fact may have hardly penetrated the ground at all.

Already some newspapers are full of tips from gardeners about just what to do.

To be honest this is nothing new. Rainfall has been quite low in London, the South East and the Eatern counties for at least the past three years. In fact even in the winter planting season I have been finding the ground to be dry, especially in central London.

Drought-resistant planting: stachys, euphorbia, centranthus et al

The obvious thing is to plant drought-loving plants.  Some of these we already grow, catmints/nepetas, lavender, salvias and sages, most herbs, such as rosemary, thymes  and plants from the many Mediterranean climate regions of the world.

Also roses, which have deep, thong-like roots that search out ground-moisture and root deeply.

On its own however, this might not be enough. Reverting to some previously common practices is also helpful. Planting bare-root trees and shrubs in autumn and planting smaller specimens of herbaceous plants. Large-containerised shrubs and herbaceous are grown in purely organic composts – which even if peat-free can be hard to re-wet once they have dried out. That means they can be hard to establish without frequent watering.

Mulching is good, but especially with grits and gravels. Organic mulches can make moisture concentrate near the soils surface and root-groth concentrate there also. Not helpful in a long drought when roots should be searching out moisture at depth.

Using waste water from washing-up,or baths but not from washing machines or dish-washers. Best to dilute it about 50:50 – as the phosphates in the detergents can burn new roots at high concentrations.

It also helps if plants are grown in gritty, more loam-based composts. Marina Christopher of PHOENIX PERENNIALS of Medstead, nr Alton, Hants, grows her plants in such compost, also the stock at The Plant Specialist in Great Missenden, Bucks is produced this way.

Having been away so often of late for work, I have gotten a little behind with my posting. I saw this pair of Egyptian geese (Alopochen aegyptiacus ), with their new family of eight goslings almost ten days ago now.

The first young waterfowl I have seen in this new nesting season, and a great indicator that finally we are into a new growing season.

Egyptian geese with family

Never as successful as Canada geese in the UK, these African birds are less commonly seen. In the wild they most often nest in tree cavities, something of a rarity in the UK tree-scape. Also the birds produce their young in February and March, which in the capricious UK climate can become very cold from mild quite rapidly. This past week or so’s warm weather, soon to give way to a relatively cold spell being a case in point.

The goslings are also frequently killed and eaten by carrion crows and herons amongst other predators, neither of which are uncommon along the Thames.

This is such a wonderful time of year. The past three weeks I have been on my usual travels in Kensington, Richmond, the West End and Cheshire taking pics of blossom and bulbs as they emerge.

Central London hosts not only the usual cherries and crab apples, but also such exotics at acacia or mimosa. Familiar to those who perhaps have houses in Southern Europe, this tree – Acacia dealbata has weathered recent winters pretty well in urban areas.

Mimosa - Acacia dealbata

An Australian native, this evergreen tree grows fast on less than pefect soils.

It likes sun and prefers, like many Southern Hemisphere plants, a soil that is not too fertile, and not too much water. If over-fed, the tree may become floppy and prone to being blown over. The mimosa or acacia roots deeply too, so it is best planted as a small specimen.

Being a legume, the acacia tree produces it’s own fertiliser in root nodules with the help of nitrogen-fixing bacteria.  Not a tree for small gardens, as it can easily reach 15-20 metres with 7 to 10 metre spread Despite recent cold winters, this Australian has pulled through frost, ice and snow to gives us a mass of golden blossom.

Late spring is a good time to plant one. There are named clones available, but the ordinary plants available in garden centres seem to flower just as well as any of them.

Snowdrop cultivars

This weekend I was away doing a few visits. Some social, and some horticultural. Last weekend it was Dorset, this one Northamptonshire.

I was pleased to see gardens already open on the National Garden Scheme. Most are for snowdrops and other early bulbs, the season has yet to get underway as winter loosens its grip on our gardens. Back in January I was driving around South Oxfordshire and noticed signs near Watlington for Snowdrop Garden Openings. This made me decide to see some of these gardens when they are in bloom. A look on the National Gardens Scheme website turned up a few that were open this weekend.

So I chose one not far from where I was spending the weekend, Rosemount, Hollowell, Northants. The last time I was here it was summer, and the garden full of summer abundance. This time it was more a case of the subtleties of winter/early spring blooms.

Winter cyclamen - Cyclamen coum

Much of the purpose of the opening was to show a collection of snowdrops – Galanthus species and cultivars. However, there were many crocuses also, some growing self-sown out of cracks in paving, or in drifts in borders, or even in the lawn. The crocuses included both the common or garden Dutch ( Crocus x cultorum/C. chrysanthus ) varieties in purple, yellow, and one with bluish stripes on lilac, and the species C. tommasinianus which is often the first to appear in spring. All of these self-seed, with the exception of the yellow version of the Dutch crocuses. These only bulk up by offsets – or by division – being sterile.

Churchyard snowdrops

Less often seen these days were big drifts of winter aconites – Eranthis hyemalis. These can be hard to establish, and once planted need to be left very much to their own devices – which is probably why you often see them in old churchyards, along with the comon snowdrop – Galanthus nivalis. In fact there were such drifts of snowdrops in the Hollowell churchyard.

Finally, there were some clumps of winter-flowering cyclamen(The hardy species, and not dwarf varieties of the pot plant C. persicum – which are often sold as if hardy – but aren’t below -5C ). Hardy Cyclamen coumcomes in shades from deep pink-almost red, to white, and is much more dainty of leaf and flower than most other species. Eventually this one too will bulk-up into drifts, but this takes time and is by self-seeding.

Winter aconites

The quality newspapers have been full of articles on the continuing drought in London, the South-East, the Midlands and East Anglia. The Guardian and Independent amongst others, have been full of it over the past month or so.

We have had the driest 22 months on record in many parts of the country. In fact the reservoirs have less water in them just now than they did at this time in the extremely dry and hot year – 1976.

Of course I do realise this hasn’t been so for all of us. I keep noticing how the wet weather seems to veer off North and Westwards most of the time.

I won’t be going into the causes at this point, as I am not wanting a blizzard of abuse from climate-change doubters in my inbox. Weather is not climate, but we are abnormally dry and that cannot be denied.

It doesn’t look like this is likely to change in the short term. In fact, the traditional English garden, often contains plants that like even, regular rainfall.  Luckily it also has a few drought-tolerant plants too – lavenders, catmint, sedums and salvias to name but a few.

As things are going, it looks like these plants will start to predominate. For many of us irrigation is not an option, as domestic water-prices continue to soar. Using drinking quality water on the garden is a luxury these days.

There are drought gardens to be seen in many parts of the country. The Gravel Garden at the Beth Chatto Gardens in Essex. The RHS Hyde Hall gardens have a hillside of dry planting – which is currently being expanded in area. There is also a small dry garden at the Cambridge Botanic Garden which uses only natural rainfall and yet still has a traditional feel to it.

Dry Garden - Cambridge Botanic Garden in March

For those who are going to be at the London Ideal Home Show 2012, where I shall be talking on the topic of the drought garden at the How To Theatre on 21st March at 3-30 pm.

The last three weeks or so have seen frosty mornings and some days barely above freezing, and snow for a few days. This after what had - till then – been a very mild winter indeed. In London and the South East at least. I do realise much of the country hasn’t fared quite so well. Scotland for one.

Chiswick by the Thames Winter-Spring

The two pics below show us something of what we have had – but also something of what we will soon be experiencing as spring comes in.

The drought conditions persist – more of this will appear in a future posting.