Stock Photo: Robin and Snow

Stock Photo: Robin and Snow

LET IT SNOW! LET IT SNOW! LET IT SNOW!

Oh mercy me. It seems only months ago we hung up our snow shovels, yet here we are again entombed in the chilly white stuff. But since we've got no place to go, let it snow ....

The box balls look like outsized Christmas puddings and everywhere is overlaid with a crisp thick layer of royal icing. Very seasonal. Plump, chatty robins, ever the opportunists seem to be almost pleading for me to step out with a few vittels and as I write this, one has just perched rather atmospherically atop a box ball. Excuse me whilst I dash a quick pic off on my phone..... Xmas card material ... Bugger. He made off before I got there.




Now you are probably a tad nervous about the outcome once the snow melts. If your garden if packed with hardy plants, you really don't even have to furrow your brow. Your plants will come through. A bit chilled and browning in spots, but come spring they will surprise you with their endurance and be as good as ever. But what about the less hardy plants you've been growing? 

If you didn't manage to protect vulnerable plants with either thick layers of fleece or bought them inside to a frost-free zone, the chances are they may well have turned their toes up. 

Nothing you can do now.If they are goners so be it. 

Wait for the thaw and inspect the damage. If the tops of the plants are soggy, mushy and brown, just remove the slimy growth. Now pack the crown of the plant with bracken, straw or fleece. I am not saying they will survive, but if the rootstock has remained unharmed you are in with a slim chance (roughly translates as wafer-thin) that they may revive come warmer weather. Otherwise you are just going to have to grin and bear the fact, you did too little too late and the garden is going to have to be re-stocked to compensate for those fatalities. Never mind, we learn through experience.

However, all is not doom and gloom. As one plant dies, another is born and to this end, don't forget it is Tulip planting time. I am the worst offender for planting tulip bulbs late, as I normally manage it around Christmas Eve. But this year the snow has served as a timely reminder; as I searched around for the snow shovel, I came across the stache of tulip bulbs I bought in Amsterdam earlier in the year. So now they are all lined up in a kitchen cupboard, waiting for the big thaw and I shall for once be on time with my bulb planting. Hurrah! Don't plant straight away. Let the snow and water run off for a few days (and pray there isn't any more white stuff on the way) before you go a-digging.

I was also reminded of how magical snow was when we were young. Forget our 'bah-humbug' adult view of snow. Remember the fun we had speeding down hill on old tea trays and soaking wet socks steaming on the radiators when we finally made it home, cheeks as red as Rudolph's nose and eyes shining with excitement? Instead of seeing it as a grave inconvenience,  embrace it in childlike manner. When was the last time you made a snowman? Well, snowman- making tops today's To-Do' list. Maybe even a castle igloo or perhaps I shall be a snow angel for a few minutes.
(No snickering those who know me well and will immediately refute the word 'Angel' and 'Lucy' would ever be found in the same sentence.


I've just passed the sweetest little boy reclining on dad's sledge, his head propped up on a bag of groceries, cocooned in a blanket, his little eye round with wonder. That's the way to travel.

Oh and most importantly of all:

HAPPY YULETIDE 

Planting Asiatic Lily Bulbs

Pruning Wisteria

Division by Lucy Summers author of Greenfingers Guides

Lucy's Top Ten Plants for autumn - Love Lucy

OK. So I know it's been raining for ages and everything is keeling over from being sodden for days. However, if your garden looks dull and colourless after the razzmattazz of summer, it's time you pulled your finger out and jazzed up the autumn flower beds, because we could all do with a bit livening up in this dull weather.

For more ideas on how to keep a steady stream of colour and interesting foliage in your borders throughout the year, try my Border flowers book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0755317602

Here's my top gorgeous perennials for adding zing to your autumn borders. 


Anemone hupehensis 'September Charm'
Has pale pink single flowers and golden centres held on tall upright stems above the deep bushy green leaves


Chocolate cosmos (Cosmos astrosanguineas) Ht. 90cm x 45cm
Luxurious, deep chocolate, maroon-brown velvet flowers

Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca 'Citrina' Ht. 1m x 1m

Pale green pea-like leaves with pale lemon yellow flowers almost non-stop throughout the year, but its particularly unusual colouring in the autumn and winter months, plus it's frenetic flowering make it an all-round winner





Dahlia 'Bishop of LLandaff' Ht. 90cm x  90cm 
Opulent deep red flowers with claret-stained foliage


Gaura lindheimerii Ht. 1.2m x 1m

Arching stems with trembling
delicate winged white flowers all the way
to the first frosts

Gentiana x stevenagensis Ht. 10cm x 15cm

Charming, flared trumpets of zure blue  with white and dark striped throats sit against deep green narrow leaves; sulks in overcast weather only opening its blooms with the sun. But boy what vivid autumn colour

 Heuchera 'Obsidian' Ht. 45cm x 30cm

Dark, almost ebony black-purple rounded polished leaves with claret stems of small airy, creamy white flowers from June to July; but it's the outstanding jet foliage that makes this a must for spring, summer and autumn borders

Phlox paniculata 'David' Ht. 1.2m x 1m
Gorgeous, gloriously scented pure white flowers on upright stems from July to November

Verbena 'Homestead Purple' Ht. 30cm x 60cm
Mine's been in violet-blue flower since late May and will continue to flower generously well into November








Verbena bonariensis Ht. Up to 2m
Self-supporting wiry, sparse stems topped with open sprays of rich purple flowers

I stole this delicious recipe from a friend who bakes like an angel.

You will need:

Finely chopped rose petals OR rose sugar

OR

English lavender

300g plain flour

100g caster sugar

200g butter

(Make sure you ONLY use English lavender petals; Lavandula augustifolia is ideal as other species can prove quite astringent.)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C

2. Cream together the butter and caster sugar. 

3. Add the petals or rose sugar and blend well into the creamed mixture

4. Now sieve flour into the creamed mixture until you get a soft dough. Chill the mixture in the fridge for about an hour.

5. Roll out your dough to the required thickness (about 0.5cm is ideal) Cut out into desired shapes, round and hearts look pretty.

Place them on a pre-greased baking tray and dust lightly with caster sugar.

Bake for approximately 15 minutes until pale golden brown. 

Cool on a wire rack and eat them up. One batch lasts about 3 minutes in our house!

Horseguard Heaven

In the main, I abhor pub gardens. Nasty ill-mown grass, ghastly childrens' play areas where no self-respecting child would be tempted to play, banned dogs and nasty, splintery wooden tables arrayed with lonely ashtrays.

HOWEVER

If you ever happen to be winding by Petworth in West Sussex on a day when the sky is blue above, birds are on the wing, the snail's on the thorn and all's right with the world - then a small diversion to the village of Tillington to the Horse Guards Inn will complete your happiness. It is rare a thing to sit in a pub garden endowed with unpretentious cottage garden charm, careless whimsy and so obviously tended by a loving hand. 

The garden at the Horse Guards Inn is the nearest thing you'll get to a hug. 

 

Delightful touches abound; small upturned terracotta flower pots remove the peril of any sharp snags on the hurdle fencing; sunflowers past their best still sway gaily amongst a profusion of cottage plants providing food for scavenging birds and whirling butterflies alight on the budlejas as you sip your bitter shandy. Scattered hay bales make suprisingly comfy seating amongst more traditional wooden tables and benches whilst courgettes, fennel, white cosmos and herbs all thrive side by side in cheerful harmony. Plants and trees are potted higgeldy-piggedly in old lead planters and old stone flagons decorate the paths.

There are too many seductive touches to this garden than I care to mention. It has no grand planting plan or clever plants and certainly the snottier garden critics amongst you won't see what all the fuss is about. This garden isn't in the style of anything, doesn't try to be something it isn't and therein lies it charm. It's there because a pub needs a garden for the  punters but the wise Misha, the garden's creator and publican, understands that a public space and a private garden needn't be mutually exclusive.

Her husband Sam wryly commented, "You know what they say, a well-tended garden - a neglected husband..." 

(Oh I doubt that very much Sam.) 

Play it again Misha.

P.s.  Sunday lunch was good too and the offered cream teas could not have a more apt backdrop.

Even the log pile was architectural and stylish, whilst no doubt providing a luxury apartment for over-wintering lace wings, so the ecological slant was accommodated too.

Damage limitation in drought

Just a quick update. I am repeatedly being asked how to rescue plants that are already scorched, swooning or have fried in the the heat. So how or indeed, can you rescue a plant that already has been torched? Is it dead or not?

Yes and No. 

For perennials; If there is still a fair amount of healthy green growth, cut the plant back to the the low basal growth  give it a feed and just water it regularly and you should be able to nurse it back to reasonable health. If the plant is brown from top to toe but when you tug it, it still clings solidly to the soil the chances are the roots are still hanging in there. Cut back all growth completely and ruthlessly, water regularly and it may well put out new growth between now and October.

Shrubs; Much the same as above. Cut out all browned growth (where practicable) and reduce the overall height of the shrub by say a third, so that the plant doesn't have to work so hard keeping all that foliage going. Put a thick ring of organic matter around the base of the plant. Water it well three times a week- a few gallons please not just a tiddly splash from the watering can! Crispy-looking trees too can benefit from organic matter and  perhaps a leaking hose at night to sustain them.  

Let me know how you get on ...

Tulips from Amsterdam

I am in love. 

I have just spent three days in Amsterdam.

The canals, the relaxed pace of life, the pretty streets and bijou shops.  And the flower markets of course. A veritable Aladdin's flotilla of greenhouses chock full of every bulb you can think of, with small packets of cannabis stuffed in the gaps to tempt the tourist into a novel souvenir.   Large recently dug agapanthus tubers coud be bought by the kilo but I fell for the scrambling charms of Gloriosa Rothschildiana (Glory lily) a North African native which is elegant as it is beautiful. Deep green polished leaves show off the large spidery, crimped petalled magenta-pink petals in July making this a climber of distinction.

It's a tender tuberous rooted perennial climber related to the Lilium family and will require cold and frost protection in all but the mildest areas in the UK.  It gets to about 6ft so I intend to start it off in a pot pot and transfer it into the border around May when all frost risk has passed.  Perhaps I shall also grow one on the patio against a sunny wall for exotic colour and shape. But they are adaptable and you can grow them against a trellis, sunny wall, up an obelisk or against a short pillar.

Why not have a go at growing this lovely exotic climber next spring as it really is easy?

The roots come pre-packed in chippings. So just plant them on their sides in pots, say, about 3-4" deep  and cover with compost.  Water them well, thoroughly soaking the compost and then allow any residue to drain away. If kept in a warm room new shoots will appear in two to three weeks. Keep them watered regularly as they grow, but don't drown them - they won't appreciate waterlogged soil. If you want to save the tubers for next year, simply stop watering around October and let the foliage die back and the compost dry out completely. Store the pot housing its tubers in a warm dry spot over winter and then its back to the green house for them the following spring so they can show off all over again next summer.

Plants Swoon in Mini Heat-wave!

These beautiful hot sunny days are absolute bliss aren't they? If only England could have a summer that was reliable like this five months a year. Still,  summers very decidedly here, so let's enjoy while we can.

But whilst our spirits soar and our level of optimism improves when the sun warms our cheeks, your garden plants don't feel the same way.  They get hot, dry and wilt.  Many of you will have wished that you knew how to help your garden cope with these hot spells as you dash about with the hose morn till night to quench the inexhaustible demands for water.

First off you could buy my book, 'Drought Tolerant Plants which goes all the way in detailing how you can sit back with a glass of wine on a summer's evening instead of running about like a trainee fireman to satisfy your plants' demands for water.

Available on Amazon  

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drought-tolerant-Plants-Greenfingers-Guides-Summers/dp/0755317599

However, if you don't have it yet, damage limitation is the key.

1. Water early in the morning and late at night when the soil will hold on to water more effectively.

2. Add some swell gel to extra compost and top dress your pots with it; better that you mix the compost and granules together to fill the pot at the start of the year, but we are where we are, so a top-dressing is better than none. This will reduce your watering time to a couple of times a week instead of every day.

3.Replace some of your traditional plants with some gorgeous drought tolerant plants that can withstand arid conditions. Or aim for a drought proof border entirely, so at least that is one bed you won't have to fret about. 

http://theopengardencompany.co.uk
 

"Summer afternoons - the most beautiful words in the English language.

Nobody does a summer's day like England; but when we get it right (alas those days are so few) an English summer's afternoon takes some whacking.

I had the pleasure of taking off for the afternoon to visit a beautifully sited wall garden on the Surrey/Sussex borders. It is only in it's seventh year and there is some promising activity going on. Lovely long pathways flocked with lavender; not entirely innovative but it's a proven formula and works effectively. Good old blousy roses were doing a great job; I espied the lively brash 'American Pillar' flowering its heart out as it always does. A lovely raised narrow rill flanked the south side of the garden, planted with water lilies that now the heat of the sun had gone, had closed their flowers and were dozing in the early evening shadows. Water features are rarely executed well, but this was the right size and scale for the garden and added a calm serenity as evening fell. One of the things that was noticeable that there might well be a dearth of colour or interest from summer into autumn.

If you know that your garden falls into a sort of dullness in summer, try the old trick of growing some annuals in pots that you can plunge into the gaps that inevitably occur in once the spring borders have done their thing. Should your garden  lacks any 'oompah' in autumn, go out and buy some great autumn flowering plants now to jazz it up a bit. How about the deep burgundy Penstemon 'Blackbird' the grass skirted golden yellow flowers of inula hookeri or those very effective brown drumstick flowers of Helenium 'Autumn Lollipop?" My new book 'BORDER FLOWERS' ( available from WH Smith, Amazon and all the usual suspects) wil give you some great ideas and the plants are arranged by season, so it's easy-peasy to choose something fab.

Keep an eye on the watering front; these hot spells take their toll and the winds too make soil dry out that much quicker. By the way keep dead nettles (lamium) well watered in this weather as they are the first to fall prone to powdery mildew.  

But most of all enjoy your garden this summer. As Henry James was so fond of saying:

"Summer afternoons - the most beautiful words in the English language. " 

 Hear hear, Henry.

Chelsea Garden Sponosrhsip

We are attempting the difficult task of finding a sponsor for the Chelsea Flower Show. If anyone can recommend any companies with large budgets that have gardening synchronicity please let us know. Thanks

DROUGHT-PROOF YOUR GARDEN

For years I gardened on heavy clay in East Anglia, which has one of the lowest rainfalls in the UK, and a long period of drought meant potential ruin for many areas of my garden. Large cracks opened up in the dry soil and plants keeled over from heat exhaustion.

It was more through necessity than choice that I began employing drought-combating measures in the garden, having witnessed far too many plant fatalities over a long, hot summer. There was insufficient water to cope with all the plants crying out for a drink, let alone time to water in the first place.

Mulching was my first course of action, what a difference it made! My water regime was cut in half leaving more time for other gardening tasks.

Then I started reading up on plants that were naturally drought tolerant and visited well-known ‘dry’ gardens to beg, steal and borrow any ideas, from drought-cultivation techniques to plant choices I could implement in my own garden. This meant choosing plants that were capable of withstanding prolonged dry weather, instead of being seduced by the more showy, leafy herbaceous plants that were so typically in my borders. Roses, lavenders and red hot pokers are drought tolerant so you can have fragrance and fantastic flowers in dry weather.

WISTERIA IN BLOOM

Home \ Garden Blog

Wisteria planting, pruning and after care

7th May 2010, by Lucy Summers

Wisteria is the king of climbers. It is the stateliest of climbing plants, with an imperial elegance, enchanting fragrance and the most spectacular flowers.

The wisterias are vigorous twining deciduous climbers with light green pinnate leaves, but it is the fragrant chandeliered flowers that you can see at this time of year that make them so admired.

There are a great many varieties to choose from, some with larger flower pendants than others, and each with its own individual appeal. All, without exception, are highly perfumed, widely esteemed and ornamental.

If you want to grow wisteria take time to plant it in an ideal spot, where it has plenty of room to grow – it can potentially grow into a large climber

Some are tempted to grow wisteria over a large garden structure, but, because of the relatively brief flower period, it is best teamed up with later flowering clematis or roses to extend the period of interest.

Which ever wisteria you plump for, they all need:

• Full sun
• Fertile, well-drained soil
• Strong supports from the outset – these are potentially very large heavy plants
• Careful formative pruning – this will prevent them from being all leaf and no flower

Lucy's Easter plant pick

The wild primrose (Primula vulgaris) is a delightful semi-evergreen native perennial forming low leafy mounds, each topped with sweetly fragrant, single, pale yellow flowers with marked, darker yellow eyes.

Flowering from March to May, it’s a real Easter baby. The wild primrose is a charming plant for pots and containers in north-facing gardens, ideal for the small cottage garden, wild flower or woodland garden. Personally I just leave them to naturalise in wild grassy areas or along banks.

Butterfly pea (Clitoria ternata)

I have just discovered this fabulous, fast-growing climbing plant from the pea family. We are probably going to have to grow it as an annual in the UK as it just doesn't do cold winters and you can buy seed easily enough. It will grow quickly and flower in the first year. It has oval mid-green leaves and large large, slightly funneled purple-blue flowers with white throats followed by long ornamental pea-pods. I have just planted it here in the garden in Turkey, so I will report on how it fares, as in our mountain top village, winters can be cold, ferociously windy, although thankfully frost free.  I've put it against a sheltered wall so, expect it to behave as a perennial - fingers crossed.

Still have the worst lemon tree on the planet. Something is ailing it - as nearly a year on I have one lousy, shrivelled lemon and  feeble foliage. Maybe a root problem? Or may be something boring into the bark?  The orange next door is positively blooming, so I really am at a bit of a loss why the old lemon is so dire and there is nothing more deeply unattractive than a meagre fruit tree. Any suggestions welcome.

Summer flowering bulbs

Ah - spring has sprung and that's official. I try to keep visits to garden centres to a minimum - all full of ghastly Easter eggs and useless bits of frippery, that you could almost forget that they really should be all about plants. Nurseries are my thing. However, I had need of some seeds ASAP for an overseas  friend and as I was wandering around the garden centre the other day I was surprised to see what a good selection of summer, autumn flowering bulbs they had. If you want to add more intricate layers to your garden planting, shoot out or go online and get some choice plants to enjoy later.

The huge Crinum powelli bulbs, available in both pale pink and white flowered varieties should set you back £2.00 -3.00 each, but will bulk up into a robust colony in three years or so provided they're planted a sun-baked hot spot, giving you lavish, exotic blooms for late summer to autumn. An old favourite Acidanthera 'Muriele' (Gladiolus callianthus) will give height (about 90cm/36in) to your borders with their graceful arching stems topped with exotic white, fragrant flowers with sooty-maroon centres.

Off you go then, spend, spend, spend!

THIEVING GOATS & GARDENERS

Just returned from a landscaping project in Turkey and my belief that Euphorbias are repellent to goats is irrevocably proven. The little blighters will graze on anything lush and green in the garden but all the euphorbia now in full florescent flower studded down the hillsides remain pristine and unmunched.

Leading us neatly to the small problem with the orange/lemon trees, recently planted in (what I consider to be) elegant avenues in a client's garden. In this case  it is not the goats doing the pilfering, but the gardeners. 

You may patiently explain to them, with multiple hand signals and full-blown interpreters that whilst it is perfectly OK to supplement their three squares a day with whatever fruit happens to be ripening that month, ultimately they are they are there to look after the garden whilst an owner is absent. 

So they take two or three oranges a day each to eat with their meals ... then at the end of the day they fill buckets with nine kilos or more of any ripe fruit to take home for the family, leaving me to account for the disappearing fruit phenomena to the owners. The garden owners (quite understandably are deeply suspicious) and believe that since they have never seen a fruit ripen in their garden, let alone ever tasted any of them, I must have somehow planted non-fruiting trees!

It is almost impossible to try to convey to the Turkish gardeners that we in Northern Europe like to grow plants for ornamental purposes. They seem amazed and staggered by this ethos. Why on earth would you grow something that ultimately won't bear fruit or supplement the daily diet in some way? Well, if you are a poor family working the land, understandably ornamental gardens just aren't that high up on the agenda. So when I stand there getting all arty-farty, trying to convey I would like the heads of the trees pruned to make large round lollipops, all they see is that I am removing potential fruit bearing limbs.

So you can see what we are up against. Still, I shall keep repeating my mantra in the hope that one day soon, they will understand our position. 

In the meantime, a kilo of apples, oranges, lemons, pomegranates etc a day, keep the owners at bay.

Gifts for Gardeners on Valentine Day

MY TOP SIX GIFTS FOR VALENTINE' S DAY

1. The biggest bunch of flowers your budget can afford - I never tire of being bought flowers

2. Subscription to their favourite  gardening magazine

3. Any of the PG Wodehouse novels; the Everyman series has wonderful cover illustrations too; not about gardening at all,  but guaranteed to bring an easy smile

4. A fragrant shrub; How about Lonicera fragrantisimma for winter perfume; Daphnes for winter/spring perfume and Philadelphus 'Virginal' for light orange scent in summer?

5. If money is no object - buy your beloved a hot tub to help soothe those gardening aches and pains
6. Sign them up to my blog- informative, FREE and fun.

SNOWBOUND - ESCAPE TO THE VILLAGE

Ah at last - the snow has gone. It took me two days to shovel my way to freedom and boy was I glad to see another human face. As I walked up to the village, after three days of increasing cabin fever I felt like I was on the set of one of those disaster films where you awake to find you are the only person left on the planet. Drama Queen - me? Surely not.

Anyway up. Now the snow has melted you can see what has become of your garden plants. Survived better than you expected? See, plants are tougher than they look. They certainly fare better than most of us. I forgot to strap up two cabbage palms, (Cordyline australis)  - they hate snow sitting in their crevices look sorely sorry  (sound like anyone you know?). Their leave are flattened, pasted to their stems forlornly hang-dog. One of them is a definite goner, with a mushy stem from freezing and thawing. The other will take a few months to brighten up but will be fine. See - it pays to dash around with the fleece. However, I was saving my energy for my snow escape and I knew this would be the likely consequence of my neglect. If I am to be honest, I really did not like the bronze one anyway, it's a sort of lack-lustre-dull-neither-here-no-there colour. I prefer the red and green cordylines so divine intervention has killed it off for me. Anyway, planted out a few new Hellebores, which I squeezed like sponges as I took them out of their pots, before planting. Very very wet. Still they will be happy in their new home. I always have a little chat with my plants, just to see how they like things and to reassure them how much they are going to like it in my garden. It's soothing. Whether they reciprocate I cannot tell, but they grow happily for me so they must appreciate my efforts.  

Roll on spring.

Happy New Year

It occurs to me as we look back over the triumphs and disappointing debris of the old year, that it is just as well none of us really knows what lies ahead in this fresh, pristine new year - a snowfall yet unblemished by our trials and tribulations.

We have every reason to remain optimistic at the beginning of 2010. For some of us it will be a better year and others of us it may prove to be even more difficult. But as none of us know what 2010 will bring let's try to embrace the new year with optimism and cheerfulness and see if we can't keep that going as a mantra for the months to come. Yes we are going to have a few pitfalls, but some unexpected good fortune may equally be on the cards.   Nature, being what it is, is really rather more dependable than the economic climate or the weather, and as it is comforting to know that our gardens will rarely disappoint us.

So wishing all of us, gardeners and non-greenfingers folk alike,  a bright and hopeful year,  I hope too that we shall see a growing number of followers this year and look forward to some lively chats as the gardening year gets underway.