planting in the wood

I finally planted my beautiful new Hamamelis x intermedia 'Livia' in the wood, and enclosed it in a circle of wire netting stapled on to a stake, and held with a couple of bamboo canes.  It doesn't look a very strong defence against a determined browsing or nibbling animal, but seems to be enough.  The Oemleria cerasiformis is sending up hopeful looking suckers inside its wire cage, and growing up above it, but one stray shoot that ventured to poke through the netting has been bitten off.  I planted out my two remaining potted up suckers of Daphne bholua 'Jacqueline Postill' as well, and circled those with more wire.  It doesn't look at all elegant at the moment, but is necessary.  As they get to be larger and stronger plants (if they do) they should have the resources to withstand the odd bite taken out of them.  I have a very vague feeling that daphnes might be poisonous, but maybe that is just the seeds.  They are so expensive to buy that nobody would risk recommending them as rabbit proof shrubs.

I added a few primroses.  They aren't enough by themselves to make much of a show, but should spread themselves around in years to come.  I bought some at work, and work got them from the travelling plant grotto in the van.  They were nice chunky plants, and I could have split them if I'd been minded to, but didn't.  The others came from the farm shop, and looked a bargain when I bought the tray of six, but then two went mouldy and died before I got to the stage of planting them out.  I felt rather pathetic buying foxgloves, when they are not difficult from seed and I need a lot to make any sort of an impact, but I don't have any home raised plants coming on at the moment, and I wanted some foxgloves this year just to give me a taster, after the effort I have gone to clearing the area.  I bought three plain white and three giant spotted, and they should seed themselves usefully about and give me many more plants to bloom in 2014, if I can keep the nettles under control between now and then.  Finally I planted a group of three ferns, Dryopteris erythrosora, which have coloured spore cases that give the undersides of their fronds a reddish tinge.  Ferns do well nearby, and I fancy a change from broad leaved buckler fern.

The snowdrop company has just e-mailed to say that the snowdrops in the green should be with me on Thursday.  Unfortunately I won't be able to plant them before Saturday, when it is forecast to rain, and I will be out for the first part of Thursday morning, so I hope the delivery company will leave them without a signature if they turn up while I'm not here.  I'll have to stick a note to the front door and hope for the best.  I always ask bulb companies to leave parcels in the porch, if there is a space on the order form to let me make any sort of comment, and it is a sad fact that instructions given to the vendor are almost never passed on to the firm making the delivery, be it requests to leave parcels or instructions on how to find the house.

There is a crop of young self sown Helleborus foetidus as thick as cress at the bottom of the garden, under the Zelkova carpinifolia, so I'll move some of those into this newly planted area.  This hellebore is a native of the British Isles, though if you were being picky you could complain that my plants are not necessarily from a UK genetic strain, being garden plants.  I am not going to let that worry me unduly.  Helleborus foetidus has elegant, narrow, evergreen leaflets and smallish pale yellow-green flowers.  The bees love it, and it will look very smart and help cover the ground, which needs covering, since its present ambition is clearly to revert to nettles, brambles, ivy and goose grass.

The two cold nights have hit the Arbutus x andrachnoides hard.  This is a shame, as it was just recovering from the previous two cold winters and starting to look quite handsome again, with a crop of white flowers.  I expect it will pull through, as it did before, but it has lost most of its leaves, the others are spotted black and discoloured, and it will take months before it looks half way respectable.  Once I can see which twigs have been killed I'll have to spend some time pruning them out.  Only the cinnamon coloured bark remains for now out of its former beauties.  It didn't look so bad in the immediate aftermath of the cold snap, but hard freezes are treacherous, and it can take days or weeks for their full impact to become apparent.

I planted a little cottage garden pink primrose, of the sort that used to be called 'Quaker's Bonnet' and we must now call 'Lilacina Plena'.  As I wrote this down in my gardening book I realised I had probably put it in the wrong place, tucking it at the very front of the bed along the ditch when it would prefer more shade.  I must remember to move it tomorrow.

stock taking, bulbs and shopping

On the Radio 4 farming programme this morning there was talk of how the mild winter has led the UK population of rats and mice to explode, so I am not alone with my rodent problem.  On farms they gather around grain stores.  Even if they are kept out of the actual store, it's getting to the point where the risk of treading droppings inside on their shoes is an issue for some farmers.  Rabbit numbers have soared nationally too, which fits with the Systems Administrator's warning to me last night that they are coming into the meadow again.

The new chap has started at work.  Today was the end of his first week, and he still seems enthusiastic.  Even having begun with us during the stock take (easily the most tedious task of the entire working year) has not put him off, as he said that it was a good opportunity to discover where things were.  With a positive attitude like that he will go far.

So many stock categories have now been stock-taken that the only thing to do is to write down everything that we sell, while apologising to the customers for the delay at the till.  Fortunately everyone today was very relaxed about it.  I was briefly dispatched with the new chap to stock take some pots, but as we couldn't find the first pots we looked at anywhere on the system, either by description or by price, we decided we'd have to leave that section until the manager was around.  We did manage to do the faux oriental terracotta lanterns and hollow clay balls with stars cut out, and my colleagues finished the shrubs while I minded the till.

My task for the day was to put a fresh delivery of bulbs out for sale.  This entailed getting the stand for them out of the back of the tractor shed, where it had been stowed right at the very back behind a table, some scaffolding, a broken chair, assorted planks of wood and other Stuff.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and it is in the nature of sheds to attract Stuff.  This one is full of it, with just enough space for the tractor.  A half full stand of bulbs looks miserable, so I consolidated the new delivery with some odd lilies and gladioli that were on the seed potato and onion rack, and spread the latter out to fill the gaps.  The stand itself was slightly alarmingly wobbly, and I propped it up from behind with a galvanised incinerator and a box of plastic plant ties, just in case.

The new bulbs included Galtonia candicans, a tall growing, summer flowering species with white flowers like little bells up stout spikes.  Its common name according to the packet is summer flowering hyacinth, though if you ever want any you'd do better to stick to Galtonia.  It appeared on Gardeners' World last year, and I remembered that following the programme someone had wanted some, and left their details, so I rang him and left a message to say that Galtonia were now in.  He came to get some later in the day, and thanked me profusely for ringing, which was nice of him, so I gave some cultural advice free and gratis, which is that the plant is said to like to see the light, so despite the height of the flower spike it's happier at the front of the border than tucked away at the back among lots of other foliage.  He said he had just the spot for it, and went away happy.

I went away happy too, having succumbed to the beauty of 'Livia' (I thought I would, assuming there were any left) and while I was at it picked up a couple of rare, not too big shrubs to tuck in by the new Enkianthus, as I got the Rosa rugosa stump out yesterday so that bit of the sloping bed is nearly ready for replanting.  One was Mahonia gracilipes, a late summer or autumn flowering charmer with purplish red (not yellow) flowers and chalky white undersides to its (more typically Mahonia like) pinnate leaves.  It is a Roy Lancaster introduction to western gardens.  The other was a female variety of Skimmia called 'Wakehurst White' with white berries and dainty clusters of white, scented flowers.  Also a small leaved myrtle, Myrtus communis 'Tarrentina' for the gravel, since last season we ran out for most of the year.  Apart from the Hamamelis x intermedia 'Livia' these are all staying in my greenhouse for another month, until February's weather is safely out of the way.

some March flowers

I've just taken a stroll round the garden to see what's blooming.  It's drizzling and 4.0 degrees C outside, and most of them look as if they wish they hadn't bothered.

The display of Hamamelis x intermedia is coming to an end.  The red ones are lasting later than the orange and yellow, having opened after them, with the variety 'Rubin' the last.  The hazels are showing what genetic variation there is in the wild population, as some still have bright yellow catkins while others are going brown and shrivelled.  Daphne bholua 'Jacqueline Postill' still has plenty of buds, and the white form hasn't really got going at all yet.  The Viburnum x bodnantense 'Charles Lamont' has flowers open, but the overall effect is a bit pink and brown.  The Ribes laurifolium is still blooming, but I think that whatever animal is terrorising the back garden has had a chew at it.  Mahonia japonica is flowering quietly in its corner.  It got rather overshadowed last year by a rambling rose that is supposed to be growing up a tree, but instead flopped around and over the mahonia.  I have a feeling I shall be returning to the question of training roses up trees.

Shrubs that are new blog entries for March include Corylopsis sinensis var. sinensis, whose yellow flowers are just opening.  This suffered dieback last winter, but seems untouched so far this one, despite it being colder.  Maybe the fact that the deepest frosts came before Christmas this winter helped, if it is less vulnerable to cold damage when still tightly in bud than when the sap is rising.  I think it is going to be far too large for the space where I have put it, and I wonder if I can trim the tips back after flowering.  I don't think the books recommend this treatment, but Chris Lane says it works for witch hazels, which are not supposed to like being pruned.  We visited Cornwall a few years ago, and I noticed how many of the gardens had terribly tall specimens of  Corylopsis, with bare trunks at eye level and the flowers carried way above our heads, so some pruning to keep new growth coming low down might be a good idea.

There are a few flowers on the winter flowering cherry, but I'm sure that when it comes into leaf there will be a mass of dieback.  The water table has risen under it and it's sitting far too wet.  I've been eyeing up possible spaces for a replacement in the front garden.  Pieris 'Katsura' is opening its dusky pink buds like giant heather bells as if nothing had happened, which is surprising and delightful after the winter weather.  I've a feeling the frost danger for pieris is to the emerging leaves more than the flowers, and the flowers were still in very tight bud when the worst of the weather came.  No flowers on the Edgeworthia, though.

At ground level the hellebores are looking good, the Lady series and their offspring in the front garden and assorted hybridus forms and their seedlings in the back.  A yellow form that has not been so vigorous is doing quite well this year, with several nice solid butter-yellow flowers.  H. x ericsmithii is flowering profusely, with petals of yellowish cream with pale plum backs.  'Pirouette' was a new purchase last year, and has made a chunky plant so perhaps it is a good doer.  It is a pinky plum with a formal double centre, and I planted it partly for its own sake, because it is very pretty, and in the hopes of some exotic babies in that part of the garden.  It got rather shaded last summer as a shrub rose leant all over it, but seems none the worse for the experience.  New hellebore varieties are so tempting, but not cheap, so I tend to try just one the first year and see whether they seem to have a robust constitution in a garden setting.

The primroses and polyanthus are starting to get going.  I love the wild yellow primroses, but like the pink ones too, and the more highly bred polyanthus, which I have in soft and strong yellow, and all shades of pink from pale and grubby to magenta and purple.  Some were from an alleged woodland walk seed mix, which came less true to description than any other seed I've grown, and some particularly vigorous yellow ones in a good clean shade of dark lemon were half price at B&Q.  The violets are starting bloom under the roses, my ambition being to cover the ground entirely with them and other ground cover so that there's no room for weed seedlings at all.  The white bergenia has two flowers on it, and not as many leaves as it should have, so something is eating it.  Driving back from Colchester today we passed a mass of a pink flowered variety, which reminded me how full and lush bergenia should be looking at this time of the year, if it is happy.  There are a few pulmonaria flowers out, in mid blue, bricky red, and a good red-blue with bright violet and purple overtones.  The pulmonarias started out as named varieties, but over the years self-seeding and the destructive effects of birds and animals on stick-in labels means that I don't know what most of them are.

The snowdrops still look good from a distance, but close up you see that they are starting to go over.  There are some flowers of Cyclamen coum, but not great sheets as I would like.  I plant a few more each year and they gradually spread and bulk up.  Something has dug up the majority of the crocus bulbs from the borders, though not so far from the grass.  I need to go over the borders and smooth down every last hole and scuffled area, then inspect them daily for fresh signs of digging to work out how often whatever it is comes.  We tried the trail camera on one badly affected bit of border one night, but didn't photograph anything.  It has been set up on that area again for tonight, and we'll see what we get.

The dwarf iris have just gone over, but Iris unguicularis is still sending up new flowers.

another busy day at the plant centre

Today was another busy day, despite the weather having turned grey and a tad drizzly.  Hamamelis are going well, which is fair enough.  They do look very pretty, and choosing your plant when they are all in flower and you can see which you like best seems sensible.  Fast growing evergreens for screening were in demand yet again (I can't warm to Photinia  x fraseri 'Red Robin'.  That's a pity, because it is a useful plant, but there is something soulless about it).

I succumbed to the buying mood, and got myself a Helleborus x sternii Blackthorn Group.  It is a plant of rare beauty and I had been lusting after one ever since they arrived last Monday.    It would almost be worth growing just for the leaves, which are trifoliate (three leaflets), thick and glossy, with red stalks and huge wonderful teeth around the margins.  The flowers are a strange pale green, pale plum on the reverse with a prominent boss of stamens.  It holds the RHS Award of Garden Merit.  Our label says it would prefer neutral to alkaline soil, so I had better plant it with a dusting of lime.  It is a hybrid between H. argutifolius and H. lividus, and according to my Gardener's Guide to growing hellebores by Graham Rice and Elizabeth Strangman should be easy to grow in full sun and seed itself about.  I did once have the Boughton Beauty strain of the same hybrid, which did not last with me, but maybe it was in too much shade.  At any rate the plant is so beautiful that I'm willing to try again.

Addendum  Having marshalled my failing energies to write a post after a day at work, and my mind running on hellebores, I sat down in front of the fire to read more of the hellebores book.  The very first photo at the start of chapter one is of H. x sternii 'Boughton Beauty', and I see that while it is lovely the leaves just have plain margins and not the fabulous teeth of the Blackthorn strain.

more winter flowers

A month into the blog I had another look around the garden to see what flowers were out.  That could be a regular posting for the first of each month, unless I'm on holiday, or ill.  There's not a lot of progress to report since the first of January.  The snowdrops are showing white, but still not fully out.  I think this is about the point that I worry each year that something has happened to them, and they have dwindled instead of making increase, then in a few more days they're properly out.  There are a few small cyclamen, but they look rather overwhelmed by the cold damp greyness of it all.  The witch hazels are great, glowing with colour and spicily scented, though I don't find they throw their fragrance across the garden so well as the Sarcocca confusa.  I wonder if that was flowering on New Year's day and got unfairly overlooked when I walked round the garden.  It was drizzling.  The buds on Daphne bholua 'Jacqueline Postill' look promising.  She has lost nearly all her leaves whereas she normally doesn't, but I think she'll be OK, given some other D. bholua forms are deciduous.  The buds on Ribes laurifolium are looking good too.  I'll return to the topic of those once they're fully out, as it is a good shrub that deserves its own post.  Viburnum bodnantense 'Charles Lamont' has opened some flowers, though the brown remains of failed earlier attempts slightly marr the overall effect.  Iris unguicularis is still not really performing, another subject to be returned to in a future post.  The Helleborus foetidus under the shrub roses have pulled themselves together in the past month and look much stouter and more cheerful, with greenish yellow flowers.  I hope these will start seeding about, as H. foetidus is wont to do, and start a colony in the gloom.  The catkins on the hazel along the edge of the wood and in the boundary hedge are looking really good.  We should prize our native Corylus avellanus much more if only it came from the Himalayas, and was expensive to buy and fiendishly difficult to grow.  The catkins provide an excellent pollen supply for early flying bees.

Overall the garden is looking rather beaten down and sad, with squashed patches where the snow has lain on evergreens and some of the twiggy deciduous shrubs, and the odd broken branch.  I'll just have to keep working my way round with pruning tools and string.

witch hazels

In the past few days the witch hazels have suddenly started into flower.  I looked out of the bathroom window this morning and there they were, a haze of yellow, orange and red in front of the wood.  I planted my first couple of bushes in the open ground years ago, in one of the few relatively moist parts of the garden, thinking they would not like the free-draining sand elsewhere.  They probably wouldn't have, but they didn't like the place I had chosen for them either, which turned out to be badly drained, heavy and stagnant as distinct from moisture retentive but open.  After a couple of years I tried lifting and potting them, but the rot had set in, literally as well as figuratively, and they never came to anything.  By then I had got keen on the idea of Hamamelis in pots, so replaced them, and am now up to seven, which may have to be my limit as I'm running out of space.

They are not supposed to like container life particularly, but this lot seem to be doing pretty well so far.  I keep an eye on the amount of extension growth made each year, and start worrying if they stop growing.  I read a very lucid account of their cultivation in an old RHS magazine, which stated something I've observed myself, that once witch hazels have stopped growing it is difficult to get them going again.  They don't flower on their newest wood, so a vigorous plant should have a length of smooth unflowered twig beyond the flowering part of the stem.  The flower buds look like small clenched fists, and start to develop in late summer for the following year, while the leaf buds are flatter and pointed.  The oldest and largest of my collection are now in 45cm unglazed terracotta pots, which is the largest size the two of us can handle.  I firmly believe in the merits of unglazed clay, and never line it with black plastic as so many garden writers suggest.  Yes, it would cut down on water loss by evaporation and hence the amount of work watering, but that evaporating water is cooling the roots.

They sit well in a country garden.  The leaves look very like those of native British hazel, so after flowering they blend into the background for the summer.  Keith Wiley used this characteristic at the excellent Garden House in Devon when he was head gardener there.  He has moved on to new projects, but his book On the wild side is worth a read, if you are interested in the relationship between gardens and landscapes.  Despite their similar names, and appearance when out of flower, witch hazel and hazel are not closely related.  Hamamelis are in the family Hamamelidaceae, along with Corylopsis, Fothergilla, Liquidambar and Parrotia, among others.  Hazel is a member of the Corylaceae, together with Carpinus (hornbeam) and Ostrya (hop hornbeam).

My yellow and orange forms are opening ahead of the red.  H. x intermedia 'Vesna' makes a splendid show, with large flowers of deep yellow.  'Orange Peel' is a more orange shade of yellow, with a red flush at the base of each petal.  Both of these varieties do have the irritating habit of hanging on to a few dead leaves, so I must wizz round them with the secateurs.  'Jelena' is more coppery still, with petals shading from red at the base to orange at the tips.  'Pallida' is not yet fully out, and looks a bit sparse in comparison, though maybe the yellow flowers will expand more in a day or two.  This variety is reckoned to be one of the best for scent.  Hamamelis mollis, the Chinese form, is fully out, and the lemon yellow flowers are smaller than some of the hybrids, though again this is one of the best for scent.  Christopher Lane has written a plant collector guide on witch hazels for the RHS, published by Timber Press, which has long been on my wish list of books, though without yet resulting in a purchase, so I can't offer you a review.  He will tell you how to prune them, should their size become an issue for you, and wrote a good piece in The Garden magazine about two years ago.