Disorderly conduct

I know as a grower of cut flowers I'm supposed to grow in rows.  But while my back garden provides most of my flowers, I'm still primarily a gardener and a garden is what I grow.  So rather than rows, I've got my usual scramble of patches and blobs - which mean that picking takes longer and I perhaps don't get as much out of the garden as I could in terms of harvests.  But the compensation is that I still can look out on a tapestry of flowers, which comes together as much from luck as from judgement and design.

Blue is the colour at the moment with swathes of bluebells in the shady dry patch under the trees at the bottom of the garden and forgetmenots squiggling their way through any other bits they can fling their seed into.  The vivid blue centaurea or annual cornflower is just coming into flower now as well and the irises will be the next thing to take over the blue baton in the flowery relay.

I've even got roses coming into bud and it's only early May.  Don't usually expect to see that until early June so it's a sign of how mild and warm the winter has been despite the wet.

My greenhouse is full and I've still got lots of things to prick out from their trays - planting seedlings into individual pots for them to grow on big and strong.  I love that job but never fail to be horrified when I realise how much more space they're going to take up.  Mind you, when I look at the hundreds of rudbeckia seedlings that have germinated so brilliantly, I quake at the thought of potting them up!  Only some of them are going to get done as I'd need to be a large scale producer to have the space for all of them.  Wonder if any friends would like some?  I'm sure some of my gardening clients might have space to rehome a few when they're a bit bigger.

Snails seem to be very happy in the garden at present and have munched through a fair number of my baby stocks and have been snacking on dahlia leaves in the cold frame.  It pays to check on the latter regularly as it is easy to get on the molluscs slimy trail and to locate and subsequently squish them.

Have also been purging the blackfly which have set up camp on my centaurea.  Sprayed the whole area with soap solution and blasted the plants with a strong spray from the hosepipe yesterday to force the aphids to release their evil grip on the soft stems.  The plant looked a little shocked initially, but has now regained an upright position and seems non the worse for its ordeal.

Centuarea - now free of pests.

Going to seed

The July flop is happening and the earlier flowers are going to seed.  Where the slow starting annuals have got going, they are bursting buds and showing some welcome colour.  I have fallen back in love with Nigella (the love-in-a-mist variety, not the TV chef), having grown it from fresh seed this year and getting the gorgeous pastel blue shade back.  My self-perpetuating, self-seeded stuff always seems to come up faded grey/white, so its nice to see the blue ones again.

Their delicate sculptural seedheads are just as pretty as the flower itself and they are fabulous for cutting for bunches.  Want MORE. Greedy.

Elsewhere, seedheads are featuring largely in the borders and on the worktop. The fat black cerinthe seeds are still being gathered in quantity and the fine umbellifers of ammi are still proving useful for cutting - shape, but no pollen now!  My main border has still got plenty of height, but not enough colour.  The knautia is doing its annual seed-chucking exercise in a bid for complete domination next year but it is going to get a thinning, so doubtless friends will be glad to receive its potted up offspring into their gardens.

                           

                   

I've got lots of shape, but not enough colour and am desperate for my cosmos 'purity' to get going to add a bit of flowery interest.

In the righthand border where I hoiked out the rambling rose, the dahlias are doing their stuff and are producing lots of flowers at the moment, loving these alternately hot and wet conditions.  Yesterday my  in-car thermometer read 34.5 degrees, but today is warm, cloudy and damp. Good growing weather - time to start taking cuttings of my herbs and lavender methinks and make the most of this propagating climate.

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.....

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!