Contemporary Green - The Chelsea Fringe

I was asked  to contribute to an collection of garden writing for a free e-book, edited by Darren Lerigo of Modern Mint, published as part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival.  It launches today and you can download it here to find out how a wide range of people answered the question:

 "How do you cultivate your garden?".

Find my answer on page 5!

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!

Personalised plants

A friend has just been round for coffee and has departed with a half-boot full of hardy geraniums, lysimachia, and alchemilla mollis - all clumps resulting from my autumn tidying and overhaul.  It's great being able to recycle plants this way as well as via the compost heap and it made me think about all the bits and pieces in my garden which I have acquired from friends and family.

Centaureas from mum and dad

Cheng's cerinthe

Aunty Edie's snowdrops

My borders are home to snowdrops and peonies which have followed me from London to Birmingham and originated (via a green-fingered great aunt) from my parent's garden in Derbyshire.  When I look at my eryngiums, I think of them growing like weeds and self-seeding throughout my sister's sandy-soiled, wild garden, and although not prolific breeders in mine,  they still survive my claggier conditions.   The euphorbia amygaloides robbiae which shouts its lime greenness under my trees throughout spring also came to me via the sibling route, along with mourning widow geraniums and feverfews.

Flowerbeds are, in this way,  populated with  people. Walking around the garden, the plants bring to mind the person who gave you those seeds, that snip, or that shoot of something that is now a large character in your garden - it's one of gardening's great pleasures - a kind of herbaceous memory box with different friends and relatives popping up to the fore throughout the seasons.

Another pleasure is being able to share all these with other plant-lovers (especially when it comes to thinning out thugs like dog daisies, hardy geraniums or lysimachia). Nothing is easier than being a generous gardener -  so come round for a coffee and leave with plants!

 Lychnis coronaria from my sister's garden - just gorgeous, but currently sparse after 3 wet years!

Being brutal...

I've finally done it - chopped down the huge, vicious rambling rose which took up most of a border.  Thorny work.  (The man who helped me with the prunings at the recycling centre doubtless still bears the scars).

Not only have I regained the vast space it took up, I'll now be able to pick my damsons without getting stabbed by its thorns, and also my eyes are no longer at risk of a spiky poking when putting compost in the bin. There's a lot more light getting in to the whole area so should be able to grow a whole new array of plant in that patch and extend my cutting flower area.

Whilst I had my loppers and pruning saw out, I took out the viburnum tinus which thought it was a tree rather than a shrub.  I inherited it with the house, and have let it be til now, but now that the damson tree at the end of the hedge is much taller, I don't really need it as a privacy screen, so off with its head!
Finished off cutting the hawthorn hedge and reduced its height a bit as well, so all in all, a very good (but prickly) day.  When I took my jeans off last night, my legs looked like they'd had a run in with a fleet of hedgehogs.

A bit sparse now, but I've rediscovered my dogwoods!  Looking forward to my 'new' planting space next spring.

Where is the summer?

June monsoons and now July pours down.  When will the sun ever come out for more than a couple of hours?

I may not have to worry about drought and a lack of water for plants while I am away from the garden, but I am plagued with slugs and snails who are delighting in the warm, swampy conditions.

Was hoping to use my day off today to go to the allotment and hack at the weeds but it is far too wet to go near the soil.  Am hoping that Sunday will give me chance to wage war on the encroaching forest of creeping buttercup and sprawling grass....

At least things are still flowering and water butts are full but redundant.

Alec's Red - smells like Turkish delight and has converted me to hybrid tea roses (well some of them anyway)

The first ever delphinium in my gardening career to survive slug onslaughts

Rosa 'Pleine de Grace' - hideously spiky and savage, but then it does this and all is forgiven for a short while.

Bursting buds!

I love this time of year - you go away for a week and come back to find your garden is 50% fuller than when you left. Boinging is occurring. The recent damp weather has done everything the power of good AND the water butts are all full again.

Since I went away, more tulips have come into bud, the pear tree has started to blossom (that was nearly 'plossom' - I quite like that typo), the guelder roses and actual roses are busting with new leaves and the clematis on the garage is hanging with fat nuggets waiting to open.  More fool the ones that do because I was reading a flower arranging book the other day which said that clematis make surprisingly good cut flowers.  Any flowers that were open this morning have been snipped and put into my latest bunch.

The greenhouse has had yet another reshuffle as more things that have germinated in indoor warmth are booted out to toughen up.  I just hope this -4 degrees which I heard rumoured in a recent weather forecast for the Midlands just doesn't materialise.  That's the only problem with early spring seed-sowing enthusiasm and an unheated greenhouse.  Still, the seedlings and plantlets in there at present are looking happy enough, if growing a little more slowly in the current shifting temperatures.

I'm getting very impatient with my most recent batch of dahlia tubers though - they are showing no eagerness to sprout nearly three weeks after being introduced to compost...  I'm going to start shouting at them soon to see if that works!

Rain at last

Just when my water butts were starting to run dry - it's rained properly today, at last.  Heard Charlie Dimmock talking on the radio yesterday and she made a good point about gardeners having to rethink their planting times in future years because of the dry springs we now seem to get regularly.  Must try to get myself organised to do more autumn sowings of hardy annuals this year - it does seem to make more sense as young plants can develop better root systems during wetter, cooler periods than in the warm dry springs we currently experience. (Imminent snow and sleet forecasts excepted!)

What with my lack of time and the lack of rain last spring, I barely got any annuals established - in terms of either flowers or veg.  Seem to recall a good beetroot crop from a later planting, but lots of other things struggled due to the lack of water in March/April last year.

Have now got more water collection things in place at the allotment, so that should make watering less of a chore this season.  Just have to get some guttering put on the shed to make it more efficient too.

Glad to see that my relaid patio also seems to drain away to the flower beds reasonably effectively and the lettuce seeds I've sprinkled about are also germinating during this cold snap, so there are some upsides to the plunging temperatures after all - even if my tomato seedlings in the greenhouse don't agree.

Structure time

Went out with the intention of sowing lots of veggies at the allotment this weekend but never got out of my own back garden.  Instead got sidetracked into making sweet pea wigwams and laying foundations for a brick wall.  Just a little wide of my original plan...

It started out with a quick perusal of the cold frame.  Decided that some of the early sown sweet peas were starting to look a bit less green than I'd like - probably running out of nutrients stuffed into their soggy loo roll tubes.  This spurred me to take a gamble on this warm and sunny weather and get them into a more permanent and nourishing spots... which in turn led me to making a wigwam (or leaning tower of hazel sticks).

This wigwam is something I've always had good intentions of doing, but never quite got round to.  As I have a garage loaded with hoops made out of the clematis stems, I decided to incorporate them into my design.  Am quite pleased with it - much better than last year's last emergency version made out of thick tree boughs (and hopefully it will be more effective too!).  

I've also leaned some of the very tall, twiggy sambucus nigra prunings up against the evil thorny boughs of the rambling rose (Pleine de Grace - or "pleine de **&^%)* thorns" as I always curse it loudly each time I have to interact with it).  Have planted a few sweet peas at the feet of these too - a decorative barrier to stop me having to stoop anywhere near the clothes ripping claws which festoon the rose branches.

Gardening with a budding junior builder is always a good catalyst to make me do the hard landscaping jobs I'd naturally put off forever. So, having emptied the water butt next to the shed, I was able to remove the sagging stand made out of an old pallet, and begin the work to build a brick built platform topped with slabs to stand it on.  Out with the reference books, and in with the concrete into my self-built formwork (just as well my dad always salvages old timber from skips - knew it might come in handy one day).  Feeling very pleased with myself for expanding my skills -  until I discover unforeseen cockups in its construction.   I'll keep you posted as the wall gets erected!


Did manage to set out some lettuce seeds, and a bit of red Orach (my computer keeps changing this to 'roach' - annoyingly) which I hope will give me height, decorative seed heads for flower arrangements, interesting salad leaves and some lovely pinky purple colour in the borders.

More good news: the seed tray of verbena bonariensis which I'd despaired of (just one leggy seedling emerging after three weeks of taking up half my heated propagator) is starting to sprout prolifically in the cold greenhouse.  Not sure if the increased light levels have triggered it, or the cold nights, but either way I'm chuffed to be on the way to re-stocking my garden with one of my favourite plants.  Used to have forests of it ('The Scratchy Plant' as my children called it following various grazings from its sandpapery stems), but it has gradually dwindled over a few cold winters and is now down to about 4 self-sown seedlings.

First bunch of the year

Big fat buds are appearing on the pear tree and I've had to clean out the cold frames to house the greenhouse overflow.  It must, therefore, be spring.

I've even managed to pick enough stuff for a vase of flowers, so hopefully it is the start of a prolific year of flowery marvellousness.

Must prune more of the red-stemmed dogwood used in the arrangement above, so it comes back with more bright red growth late in the year.  Love the lime green of its leaves at the moment. Very eye pokey!  Have planted lots more honesty seeds (the purple stuff) in the garden this week, so should get lots more to pick over the next few months - got quite a surprise to see that flowering this early - must be a self-sown seedling that has overwintered in the hedge bottom.  Also sowed pot marigolds, nigella and cerinthe so I should get a few vasefuls from that investment of five minutes labour.  I love this pink hellebore flower - a seedling from one of my mother-in-law's plants years ago, which is now firmly established in my own garden.

Nearly pruned the straggly bit off the amelanchier tonight, but had the bright idea of holding off for another few days.  If I trim it back when its blossom buds are a bit further on, I can enjoy it in the house rather than just putting it straight into the shredding pile.

This good weather has brought on a ruthless purge on all things which are not earning their keep in the flower border, or which need dividing to promote new vigourous growth.  Leggy lavenders have gone, sambucus nigra is about a third of the size it was this morning, things have a bit of breathing space around them, and plant labels marking out seed beds are now starting to appear in all the borders.

 A friend went home with a tray full of various hardy geraniums, lysimachia, knapweed and knautia as she's just in the process of digging out a new flower border and needs some inhabitants for the bare soil.  Just hope I haven't passed her any bits of ground elder with it.  I DID inspect all the rootballs carefully to see if there were any nuggets of the evil weed lurking within.  I see that stuff when I close my eyes at night at the moment!

Allotment picnics and spring sunshine

 Inspired by the advent of spring sunshine and a glorious solitary day of digging down at the allotment on Tuesday, I suggested that I and my fellow plot-sloggers might throw a family barbecue/picnic at the plot (something I've always intended to do but never quite got round to).  Today is the day - the sun is shining and the birds will doubtless be tweeting on plot 57.

And the fox corpse I spotted on Tuesday still needs burying.  I've therefore got to nip down early to give it a quick funeral before the sentimental soul who adores anything fluffy turns up and has his day ruined by the sight of death...

I should perhaps take the attitude that gardening and working with the cycles of the seasons should teach the next generation about life, death and regeneration and that clapping eyes on the dead body could be an interesting biological study.  However, given the trauma that lost toys from 7 years ago can still sporadically engender to this day, I think a preemptive strike with a spot of deep digging is going to make my life a hell of a lot easier.  So, armed with  a spade, a stout back, grim determination, a disposable barbecue and a tube of hand sanitizer, it's off to work I go....

Sprouting at last

Very excited this morning to see white furry alien roots creeping out of the compost surface in my trays of dahlias - horrified at first glance as I thought (without my specs and first thing in the morning) that it was a mould.  Fears replaced by grins of delight as I realised what was happening - and increased by spotting the first sprouts of leaf buds on the shrivelly stem of the tubers. Yabadabadoo!

 I want loads of colour this year and hope that these boys are going to produce it in bucketfuls for me.

Spring is on the way

Sweet Peas toughening up in the unheated greenhouse.

Signs of stirring everywhere - allium bulbs now poking up through the borders and I'm always amazed at the rate at which they grow away each day.  Globe artichokes are sprouting nicely so I separated some offshoots from an established plant today to try and increase stocks.  Potted them up using fairly gritty compost with added perlite for drainage, so hope that will be enough to avoid any rotting problems.

The staging in the greenhouse is filling up nicely and is host to early sowings of sweet peas, lupins which have been booted off the top of the piano indoors, window boxes of lettuce sowings...

As well as the artichoke offshoots, today's additions were a couple of lengths of guttering into which I sowed some peas - either to go into the allotment or to eat as pea shoots in salads.   Also lifted and divided heucheras which where starting to get a bit straggly, along with eryngiums (sea holly) which I'm hoping to use to pad out the new patio border.  The satisfaction of getting plants for free definitely rivals the pleasures of plant shopping at shows.

Got a flyer through the post about the Malvern Spring Show today - debating whether to risk my wallet or not this year...

Death to ground elder!

Astrantia (pink) and Lysimachia (purple leaf)

Hardy Geranium with euphorbia
(green foliage and bracts)

Spent my afternoon doing battle with the creeping roots of ground elder - I can tell I've been too busy to garden properly over the past 18 months as the evil weed is now firmly re-established in one of the borders.

One happy side effect of ferreting out the insidious roots is that it has encouraged me to review which plants merit a place in the affected border and which ones are just too woody, straggly and generally over the hill. No mercy has been shown to anything falling into the latter category - green recycling bags now await collection stuffed with scruffy purple sage (have another clump which I'll take cuttings from later to replenish my stocks), invasive lumps of lysimachia (which has great purple foliage, but is a real thug) and endless seedlings of hardy geranium which are making a bid for world domination.

Also lifted and divided clumps of herbaceous perennials like astrantia, anemone levellei, primroses and aquilegias, so hopefully the denuded border should fill up again over the coming months and show a bit more vigour.  That's the theory anyhow - hope we don't get a prolonged cold snap or another dry spring like last year...

Shifted some of the hellebore seedlings which were clustered at the feet of the parent plant - Old Mother hellebore is just coming into flower, so I know that the growing season is imminent.  Lungworts are also starting to add a welcome splash of blue and pink in addition to the snowdrops which are putting on a great display this year.

It feels good to be doing some proper gardening again - it's definitely addictive, and I get very grumpy if I can't get out there and do something.

Tip trips and salad boxes

Started off some new salad boxes today - put drainage crocks and compost in old wooden wine crate and sowed mixed salad seeds in it.   Must get some more of old fruit trays from the local greengrocers as well - lined with an old newspaper, they do the trick too.   I've found that growing lettuce in trays is much more successful than growing it in the garden as it seems to survive slug and cat attacks more successfully - also I can keep it by the back door for a quick snip when I need some green stuff for my sandwiches!

Also set some summer bulbs (freesias - never tried these before) in the old dolly tub.  As these will not sprout fully for a while, also chucked some lettuce and mustard seeds in there too - might as well get a double benefit from it while waiting for the bulbs to colour things up!

Finally got round to taking the big bulk bags of tree prunings to the tip and also reduced the rubble mountain from our concrete bashing session at the weekend - clearing out the cracked old surface at the side of the house and hoping to (eventually) match it in with all the paving on the patio - already looks much bigger just because it no longer has 4 different sections of materials sloping in multiple directions. I'm determined to get it finished before seed planting time takes over entirely!

Fencing job to sort out next - would love to get a hedge in, but not sure if there's enough soil to do it as
it edges right onto the concrete bit which we are in the process of bashing out.  I'll have to see what can be done there.  Feel another jumbo bag of topsoil coming on.....

Out with the old

Alchemilla Mollis - Lady's Mantle

A spot of pre-spring cleaning in the borders today.  Cleared away old stems, leaves etc from last year's perennials so things are already starting to look a bit more business like in the borders.  Also moved plants around in the new patio border I've made - all the stuff which used to spill out onto the hard-surfacing, like alchemilla mollis,  now finds itself at the back of a very deep border, so I've had to hoick it forward into a new position at the front so that it doesn't get completely lost when I finish planting up.   Also moved small herbaceous plants like knapweed and snapdragons further forward - want to get the benefit of their colours for impact near the front, and also want to get them repeating through the border  so that it doesn't look bitty.  Amazing how many plants you can get from one sowing of snapdragon seeds last year!  Have to say my planting out last year was of the 'stick them in before they die' variety, but they seem to have survived and flourished - just that the clumps of now respectable sized plants now need thinning out and the tops pinching out to encourage them to plump up a bit.

The lethal blade of grandma's old spade inflicted its divisive blows on a few chunks of hardy geraniums and irises.   Dotted them together in groups in empty patches.  Enjoyed yanking out congested clumps of michaelmas daisies as well - they're lovely in autumn, but real bruisers that will take over swathes of flower border if left to their own creeping devices.  Out out creepy roots....

The first seeds of the year

The propagator now hosts its first sproutings of the year, so things are improving in my gardening world.  Knobbly little lupin nuggets are poking above the surface of the seed tray, so whilst my outdoor garden activities are still limited to relaying the patio, I share the propagator's warm fug of delight at actually seeing things start to grow.

Sprouting potatoes are lurking in the porch, and the 'March' section of my seed shoebox is tempting me to get more things going.  I've got to rein in the urge to sow too many seeds though - as the snow last Saturday reminded me - must try to be patient, hold on and wait for things to warm a few more degrees to give things the best chance of surviving the unheated greenhouse which awaits them...

Itching to get going....