Marvellous meadow or messy mankiness?

You may recall a few weeks ago at Gardener's World Live, that I was very taken with the Yorkshire Dales Millenium Trust Garden below.  Indeed, so were the judges and it received a silver gilt medal at this, an RHS affiliated show.

This set me to thinking yesterday as I wandered around the allotment, that beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder, but also in the context it is found in. Spot the difference between the photo above and those below...

Both beautiful, naturalistic and immensely welcoming to wildlife.  The difference? The Yorkshire Dales garden won a medal, and the allotment will proabably get an 'untidy plot' notice before the season is out.  Seems a bit mad doesn't it?

Maybe at a show, a bit of naturalistic planting is a relief from the landscaping and manicured meticulousness of many of the gardens, whereas at an allotment, nature unadorned surrounds the tended plots and their tenants are trying (often vainly) to hold back the tide which threatens at any moment to engulf their little patch of land.

Perhaps allotment committees should take a leaf out of the RHS judges' book, and put on a non fruit-and-vegetable hat when looking at the merits of a neglected patch? 

Tall trees and tiny plots

"Make it stop!" clients plead as they point towards upwardly mobile trees.  But how can you make a tree stop growing when that's what it was made to do?

Yes, you can prune; yes, you can get the top section removed by a tree surgeon; yes, you can remove badly placed branches and lift up the canopy a bit. But guess what? That tree will still want to grow. Trying to keep something energetic, like a Norway spruce or a towering ash tree "compact"  is just mad. It's like trying to do Chinese foot binding on a giant.  These trees were intended to grow as members of a towering forest gang, not to be decorative in a suburban back garden.

You can indeed hack bits off and chop bits back, but you aren't going to do the tree much good.  If you are trying to keep a large tree small, chances are you are going to end up spoiling its natural, graceful habit and end up with multiple leaders, access for disease via pruning wounds  and a generally less healthy and robust tree. If you don't want your big tree to grow big - don't cut it back, get rid of it and choose something which will be a better size for your garden!  Better still, if you are planting, rather than just inheriting, a tree, make sure you know its predicted size and spread at maturity to see if it suits your purposes.

Also, when you find those little knobbly fingers of baby sycamore and ash growing in your borders, don't let them reach their teenage years before you decide you don't want a self-sown tree shading out your flowers. Be vigilant and ruthless in hoiking them out as you spot them - it's much easier when they're 10cm rather than 10m tall.  All you need is a trowel, not a tree surgeon as long as you keep a look out.

Not all trees are Godzilla.  There are many friendly, reasonable and rewarding ones which will add height, interest, wildlife appeal and structure to your garden.

Amelanchier Lamarkii (15-20ft) works hard to merit a spot for most of the year - with bronze foliage in spring, followed by delicate white blossoms which are rich in nectar for pollinating insects. The flowers are in turn replaced by berries, much loved by birds, in addition to being edible for humans. Its leaves also put on a final show for autumn before it bows out during the coldest months.

Amelanchier Lamarkii in spring

Hollies grow tall but are generally slow growing and are tolerant of being pruned or clipped to shape.

Crab apples (15-20ft) are decorative, useful and produce fruit which is attractive to birds and looks lovely lining the vase of autumnal flower arrangements (use a smaller vase inside the outer one and fill the gap with these small, colourful fruits).  There are lots of readily available varieties, with 'John Downie' being one of the most popular (and reputedly the best fruit for making wine and jellies)

For further suggestions, try some of the links below which give the advice on preferred planting conditions, and the final size of a range of small trees - all feature photos to help you decide on the aesthetic merits of each variety:


The Guardian - 10 of the best trees for small gardens

The Royal Horticultural Society - Trees for smaller gardens

Crocus: suggestions for small garden trees

These are articles and sites which I have found useful and are my personal suggestions. They are not sponsored or advertising links.

For some sound pruning tips, follow this link to Fine Gardening

Bee friendly

Flicking through Ryton's Organic Gardening magazine the other day, and out plopped a packet of  seeds full of a mixture supposed to attract bees.  Thought it would be rude not to plant them, so sprinkled them into two butler sinks which flank the french doors to the patio.  Will be interested to see what pops up as the seeds develop.  I can remember that field scabious was listed in the ingredients, so can add that to my collection of that genus...

My lavender hedge (sorely in need of a clip at present) at the front of the house is a magnet for bees, as is the angelica in the back garden.  Don't use chemicals, so bees are in no danger from those in my garden, but my two cats are quite another matter.  Often to be found stalking bees in the flowerbed -  most annoying.  Domestic moggies are a bit of a disaster zone for garden wildlife in general. The only pity is that slugs are far to slow moving to interest the cats - maybe I could start a slug and snail gym to try to get them to be a bit zippier to transform them into cat playthings. Anything that falls into this category (frogs, mice, bees, flies, wasps, rats, moths, butterflies etc) seems to have their population in my garden very strictly controlled.  Or maybe I should just grow lots of tall bee plants to keep them out of feline reach!

Wanted - Native plants for drought and shade

Question:

"For my eco-house, the council advise indigenous plants that are drought resistant. Do you have any ideas?  
I have a few shallow-ish planting areas. One in shady area. One is area that only gets sun for half the day. 


 I also have two large planters in front of property/in wall. Wanted something that flowered for a long time. Any ideas?  


Answer:

Drought resistant indigenous plants...

A good website to look at to check what might be native near you is:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/plants-fungi/postcode-plants/

I tend to plant things I like whether or not they are indigenous - there are lots of great wildlife plants that aren't necessarily native to the UK.  Lavender is brilliant if you have any dry sunny bits - it will grow in less than full sun but doesn't do as well and gets straggly even more quickly.  I also love verbena bonariensis which is drought tolerant and, in my garden,  has grown in areas which do not get full sun for more than half the day.  I also love (as do bees) Knautia macedonica and globe artichokes.  Angelica is also brilliant for bees.

Non-native but much loved by bees - Knautia Macedonia

Cowslip - will self seed and multiply

Dryopteris fern and Mourning Widow geranium (cranesbill family)

Shade loving natives would include things like wood anemones,  ferns (e.g dryopteris), cranesbill, cowslips (but cowslips like a bit of damp). The ferns, cranesbill and anemones would be happy under trees and fairly drought tolerant.  Alchemilla molls (ladies mantle) would be happy too.

Dog rose and guelder rose are pretty tough, as are oxeye daisies (but are thuggish invaders after a while). They grow in pretty dry conditions at the bottom of my garden close to large trees, so I think would cope with your conditions.  Teasels seem to cope with less than full sun, as do yarrow (achillea)  All of these are happy in poor soil as well, so should be OK for your partly shaded area.

As for your planters, I think you are being a bit hopeful to find something that will flower for 'a long time' - especially as containers tend to run out of nutrients pretty quickly - why not look for something with long lasting interest instead : you could always put in something evergreen and structural like a standard holly, for example, and underplant it with other things for seasonal interest - cowslips, ivy, etc in spring, native cyclamen (sow bread) etc - and whatever else takes your fancy as the year goes on.

Remember also that containers are going to have significantly higher watering needs than plants directly in the ground.  I always forgot to water my container by the front door as it was screened by the big gates to the garden, and my own standard holly eventually keeled over in protest (after a couple of years of criminal neglect).  If you don't want to water regularly, consider making planting pockets in the ground rather than having containers.  You may still need to water sometimes though because of the rain-shadow of the wall.

Hope this helps.