Wordless Wednesday. It's a jungle out there.

Gardener's World Live comes to town

Compost-stained finger folk take heed - you've got one day left to get over to the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham to catch the last day of BBC Gardener's World Live  (12-16th June 2013) and to visit the RHS floral marquee.

I went on Friday, thankfully - tickets for Saturday were sold out about a week ago - and I was relieved to have chance to get there ahead of the crush. Especially when the heavens opened and everyone herded en masse towards the RHS marquee and exhibition hall to take cover from the elements.

The Floral Marquee was a treat with so many exhibitors to choose from it was essential to proceed in military fashion to make sure all areas were covered. That was the theory at least, but I repeatedly got dragged off course, lured by  a tempting colour here and an unusual form there, or by the urge to tail the contents of a trundling trolley being lugged along by a compulsive plant buyer  - a quick interrogation about the source of particularly lovely specimens was as useful as any show guide.

Plants

As always, there were some plants that seemed to be EVERYWHERE, on virtually every stall and featured in the majority of the gardens.  This year's favourite seemed to be astrantias of every height and hue: the one that crept onto my wish list (if only I could get rid of the leaf miner that plagues the genus) was the one below,  from Letham Plants.

My notebook records it as Astrantia Species (but this sounds far too bland to be correct for such a stunner?)

Another revelation was that my very own plant of the moment, centaurea, can be found in different colour variations beyond the normal electric blue. I was very taken with the dark 'Black Sprite' variety exhibited by Morton Hall nurseries which looked marvellously moody against its lime green leaves.

'Black Sprite'

Pink centaurea 'John Coutts' from Barnsdale Nurseries

Also spotted  pink and Cadbury purple variations on this cornflowery theme, so I wonder what other colours are out there.  Something to investigate for the future...




The Floral Marquee is always an inspiration when it comes to eyeing up plant combinations to try in your own garden. You may find collections of new 'must-haves', or you may just alight on the ideal companion for a homely soul you already possess.  I left the show clutching a pot of cirsium, eager to set up blind date for it with my existing angelica, having seen the billowing display on the Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants stand.

Recycling

I've also taken away some ideas for the garden.  I shall have to keep drinking steadily to recreate Hopley's fountainesque garden feature....

...but am perhaps more likely to undertake the easy project of using old step ladders as plant supports.


Show Gardens

There were two gardens which jumped out and grabbed me this year, even though they are polar opposites in style.  The first was the rural idyll 'Hay Time' by the Yorkshire Dales Millenium Trust, who want to get out their message that 97% of the UK's meadowlands have been lost in the last 50 years. Their garden aimed to raise awareness of the need to save those meadows that remain, and to encourage gardeners to incorporate wildflower areas for pollinators in their own grassy spaces. The  enthusiastic helpers on the stand gave loads of advice in response to questions about how best to achieve a meadow effect on a domestic scale.

The second garden, Tony Smith's 'In Perspective' was a different beast. Very sleek,  emphatically 'designed' and undomestic - the diminutive lettuce bed at its heart was really appealing.  It's huge black towers topped with massive gunneras made even me feel lilliputian and the glowering grey day with bright stormy sun made the contrasts more stark. It's completely unlike my own (or anyone else's) garden but I thought it was a brilliant bit of design.

Fun things 

I left the show with only a few purchases (iron will, restraint and lack of available planting space remaining) but with a lengthening list of things I covet:

This van for my flower stall (but Tuckshop Flowers Van doesn't have quite the same ring as 'The Plant Van'.)....

...... these brilliant beasties from Twigtwisters....

.....and finally the enormous, super-squishy (and amazingly quick drying) Beachbums bean bags in the Garden Lounge.....

Wordless Wednesday. Cottage garden flowers

Where's the splash?

Dry borders - how long is it since I've had those?  Well, they are back for the time being and the water butts are starting to run dry.  A light shower this morning refreshed the garden slightly, but the ground could still do with a bit more of a soaking. I never thought I'd ask for rain again after last year, but here I am.... Hope I haven't jinxed the summer now.

Busy busy busy in the garden - keeping on top of weeds and pests - will be looking to stock up on organic 'Growing Success' slug pellets at Gardener's World Live at the NEC this  Friday - my local garden centre no longer stocks them and I'm underwhelmed by the other organic alternatives available.  Slugs are tucking into my dahlias in spite of coffee grounds and wool pellet barriers. Devilish beastlies.

Had to risk planting out my delphiniums - hope at least some of them will make it to join the two grown up plants which have emerged from last year's efforts. The glorious thing about growing from seed is that you can plant in drifts and big groups as you get so many plants from your packet - it would be hideously expensive to do this if buying pot grown plants from a nursery.

The borders are really growing tall now and the roses are starting to open and waft their luscious smells around the place.  A few bright heads of knautia are bobbing, deep pink, in the sea of foliage, and sweet williams will soon start showing colour in their sea anemone flowers and add to the show.

 I love June for flowers - it's often the best time for my garden.  I shouldn't judge it quite yet as things have not really exploded, but I'm a bit concerned that things are getting too subtle again. So much so that I'm pleased to see the shouty oriental poppy which is going bang in the main border.  Need more eye-jabs of colour to liven things up a bit at the moment.  When the yellow rose comes out, that should add a bit more contrast to the pinks and blues - Christopher Lloyd gets his contrasts right in my book - can't be doing with restricted colour schemes really - too boring.

Desperate for a splash of really vibrant colour to set the borders alight.  Greedy gardener.

More along the lines of that orange t-shirt and poppy burst please.  Flowers are coming. Must learn to be patient.

Jobs for the weekend

Deal death and destruction to aphids - squish them mercilessly between thumb and forefinger before they take over.

Prune early flowering clematis now they are over - they flower on this season's ripened stems, so get rid of the twiggy top growth and get a better, balanced shape so that the growth can be ready for a new flowering framework for next year. 

Tie in your sweet peas to their supports before they flop and become slug fodder.

Tie in other climbing plants like clematis  to their supports.

Plant out seedlings into their final flowering positions - fill your gaps!

Pot on any seedlings which have been in their existing pots for a while - let them breathe!

A* for the gardening life

Aquilegias, anemone, alliums and alchemilla. (A*, A*, A*, A* )

Stirchley Community Market was fun in the sun on Tuesday night and it was a real joy to stand in the Working Men's Club car park with the sun on my face, a load of lovely flowers for sale and a piece of locally home-made banana cake in my hand.  The cold pints from the bar drifting sociably past also looked very appealing....  A really great atmosphere with lots of gardening and plant chat to be had with passing folks - some of whom even knew the Tuckshop from their childhood sweetie-buying days. (It's a bit of a local landmark).

At the end of the market, I felt rather like lady bountiful, doling out leftover posies to my fellow stall holders and the reaction this gets is always one of delight. I am always happy to rehome any larger bunches in my own house and enjoy combining them into superbunches to fill my flared glass vase above (which one lady was coveting at the market - NOT for sale, it's too fantastic!).

Whereas at the end of the teaching day I'd come home with a pile of marking and preparation, my current life sends me back with flowers which I have grown and love. Guess which I like best. When the sun is shining, this new life cannot be beaten. Best job in the world!

All grown up

The boing moment may have happened a few weeks ago, but now the garden is well and truly into its stride.  The plants seem to have been plotting a surprise party for my return from holiday, despite the hail which was apparently hurled at them in my absence.

On my photo safari this morning, I was spoilt for choice as marshmallowy peonies purred for attention, and ruffled granny's bonnets (aquilegia) nodded coyly towards the lens.  Blue centaurea appeared neon in the post dawn light and dog daisies prepared to sprawl across the borders.

Greenfly peeped round rose buds and cowered from the squishing fingers which loomed towards them whilst slugs crawled along lugubriously, content in the morning dew. RIP slugs (evil cackle).  A snail doing early morning calisthenics on a dried stalk was plucked to meet its final crunch.

Gaps are filling, things are sprouting, clematis is smothering the old pear tree with a twisty tangle of pink-frothed vines and all is well in the Tuckshop Garden. It's good to be back!

On trial

A few months ago, Sarah Raven's website put out a call for bloggers to trial packets of seed, so I duly put in for a free packet of her dark cut flower mixture.  The main reason I went for this particular selection was that I have not been able to buy cosmos bipinnatus 'Dazzler' anywhere locally, and this was listed as a key ingredient of the seed mix, along with mammoth dill and scabious atropurpurea 'Black Cat'.  A fine sounding list of names at any rate.

I've been waiting and waiting for the right opportunity to get these seeds into the soil - but it's either been the case that the soil hasn't been warm enough or moist enough to put them in.  Or, I have to confess, I missed a few chances because I'd planted out other seedlings into patches I'd previously earmarked to sow the dark mix into...

On the packet the instructions read 'Sow March to May' but I didn't fancy its chances earlier in the year in this, officially, the sixth coldest UK spring on record.  Even now, temperatures are not reliably warm, but we are reaching the end of the planting window and I'm away next week.  So.... it was down to the allotment to clear and weed a 2 metre squared bed and in with the seeds.  I can now sleep easily, knowing that they are finally sown!  I look forward to meeting them when they are grown ups.

Cosmos bipinnatus 'Dazzler'. Why is this gorgeous selection no longer widely available from the main seed suppliers?

Dahlia day. Taking the plunge.

A container grown dahlia from sunnier years. Will they grow well in 2013 if it ever warms up?

Braved the intermittent hail storms  (it's May for heaven's sake) to visit to the allotment this morning.  My mission?  To plant out a selection of dahlias in my rose and cutting flower bed.  This bed was well manured earlier in the year, so they should have plenty to feed on.  I'm currently out of organic mollusc repellents, so am simply hoping they can fend of the evils until I have time to buy more. The last slug treatment I bought was some wool-based pellets but I have to say that for the price, they don't really go far, as they need to be spread in a fairly thick, wide band around the plant that they are protecting.  They also leave you smelling like a sheep. Think I'll stick to wool foraging on walks in future.

At home, I've re-homed some dahlias into the garden borders, yanking out drifts of forget me nots to reveal planting pockets.  I've still got about 12 more plants to find homes for, so am waiting with my trowel poised for the first signs of weakness in any current border inhabitants.  Leggy lavenders watch out, your days are numbered.

I am quite excited about the prospect of mid- and late-summer flowers as I have not previously grown dahlias in any quantity, or, I have to say, with massive success - but the size of some  my 'Rip City' plants still takes my breath away. I had to pot them on into large plastic tubs usually used for storage as I didn't have any plant pots wide enough. Surely even the hungriest of slugs doesn't have sufficient appetite to decimate something that size!

The plants have all been well hardened off for the past couple of weeks, so the current chill in the air should not be too much of a shock to their system.  With them planted out, I can at least now get in and out of the greenhouse without fear of upsetting a crowd of Witteman's Best, Peaches, Purple Gem, Tahoma Star or Rip City.  They were starting to look quite tough and intimidating.

I hope the plants all romp away, but if they get munched and collapse or are otherwise dismal, I can always call on supplies from Dahlia Dave.  Dahlia Dave came to my rescue for a friend's wedding a couple of years ago as he grows them in abundance at both his allotment plot and back garden at home.  Have I got the knack this year or not? I'll let you know as time goes by.

 

Winter coat, spring flowers

My Arsene Wenger coat keeps being threatened with warm-weather banishment to the depths of the wardrobe, but then the 3rd Saturday of the month rolls around, and I look out of the window and think "hmmm, might get chilly standing around in this".  It therefore gets shoved in the car as a last minute safeguard against the cold as I man my market flower stall.

Maybe a serving of this chilli oil might've kept me warmer.

This weekend I wished I had worn two more layers underneath my snuggly windproof coat - boy was it chilly!  I stood there shivering and eyeing the experienced traders who had all come armed with woolly hats and suddenly, even the most unprepossessing of knitted tea cosies looked desirable.

Hopping up an down like a mildly demented chicken, I lurked behind my lovely flowers and wished that, like the woodturner next to me, I had a physical activity to keep my busy whilst I manned the stall.

Or maybe a blanket of lamb's ears with their thick felty leaves might've done the trick?

I think the hot chocolate man probably did the best trade on Saturday, and for good reason.  But despite the cold, it was good to be part of the local scene and catch up with a few people that I haven't chatted to in a while.  Doing the stall  also gives me a reason to experiment with new flowery ideas and see what kind of things people really love.  My favourites of the day were the 'Poeticus' narcissus above with their wrapping of lamb's ears and gorgeous perfume, and the apple blossom teacups below.

It is starting to get much easier to put things together as the garden is filling out daily.  Can't wait to see the return of the alliums and roses next month as they are brilliant flowers to make arrangements with.