in the gravel garden

One year's seeding, seven years' weeding.  Unfortunately this year I have not got to the fine leaved annual weed grass in the gravel in time.  I'm clearing it away now, but most of the seeds have already fallen, so there'll be more next year, and in the years after that.  It is frustrating how the wretched stuff manages to come up even through the mats of thyme, which are barely acting as a weed suppressant.  How does Prince Charles cope with his great carpets of thyme at Highgrove? Does he have brigades of gardeners to hand weed and manicure them?  I suppose he probably does.

At least the thyme is seeding itself as well, so maybe if I feed it with fish, blood and bone it will thicken up and do a better job of smothering out the grass.  I've largely eliminated that particular specie of weed grass (there are lots of others) from the long bed through the generous use of compost and Strulch, but that isn't an option with the gravel.

We went the other evening to the Green Island Gardens in Ardleigh, as part of the horticultural society tour.  I am not actually a member of the society, but some friends are.  I had visited before, but a good decade ago, and things had come on considerably since then.  The gardens include some areas of gravel, and I looked at them with keen interest to see what was growing, while noting the owner's comments that the site was badly drained and water tended to lie on the surface.  Not like our areas of gravel planting, then, which sit on pure sand to a depth of goodness knows how many feet.  Water will lie in the compacted tyre tracks of the lettuce fields, but left to its own devices carrying nothing heavier than foot traffic, it is impossible to get water to lie in the front garden.

Green Island Gardens gravel area had a rather nice pink flowered Watsonia.  The owner explained that this was only possible due to the benign microclimate.  My orange flowered one has come through one winter, and is sending up flower spikes, but last winter was very mild, so it remains to be seen whether it will be viable long term.  In the short term the clump which was planted out last year is looking much, much happier than the ones overwintered in pots and planted out this year, which show no signs of flowering.

Apart from that her gravel plantings were made up of plants which I too use, though her Parahebe perfoliata was bigger than mine.  I first realised that a good place to grow this was in gravel when I saw one doing very well at a Wrabness Open Gardens several years ago, and since then I've seen it used that way at Fullers Mill.  In a pot it will blacken and die as soon as look at you, if over watered, which may account for it being out of fashion in commerce.  I got my plant in a little nine centimetre pot at an RHS show in Vincent Square, and the nurseryman who sold it to me lamented that it was so out of favour.  It is a curious looking plant, whose grey leaves held in opposite pairs clasp the stem so as to create the impression that the stem grows right through them.  The blue flowers carried on droopy tipped spikes are pleasant, but it's the foliage that's the real draw.