Garden Page

14:52:32 o'clock BST

Those of you who have been following the famous Garden Page for some time may be shocked and horrified to hear that this is the very last entry. Unlikely, unwelcome, unbelieveable....but true!

BUT.....as is so often the case, we have bad news and we have good news. A new Blog is to rise from the ashes of this fine, rambling tale to be reborn as....(drum roll)....the all- new, organic, environmentally correct, macro-biotic, warm, cuddly: Gardening Page.  Please click on the link to continue your blogging and gardening enjoyment (no, this is not some con to steal money/ password /kids /home from you, just an attept to tell you where the Blog has gone: believe me, I'm a gardener!)

Back to gardening then: the sister in law is dropping in for a few days on route (en route?) to Australia from France. So clearly I had to mow the lawn and get my hair cut. The grass is going crazy at the moment, with the mild weather and all the rain we've been having, which is just as well as at work we have just layed a 250 sq.m. lawn from turf for a client. We prepared the ground really well over many weeks, waited for ideal conditions and laid the turf in two days. After a couple of days of hose pipes and sprinklers the rain took over (and did a better job!) the watering duties for us.

I gather from the news that gardeners are at the front line of the battle against global warming. So what's new? We have been dealing with the issues as long as I can remember and planting warm / dry climate species for years. Real gardeners work with nature, not against it: it's not rocket science if I can do it!

Anyway, I have a few photos for you, taken in the gardens at home and by the office yesterday and today. Enjoy these and please do come over and chat in my new Blog page: Gardening Page

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13:41:43 o'clock BST
Hearing Rufus Wainwright

While at Ness Gardens last weekend the plant fair was my first stop. I am very unused to paying retail prices for plants and like to talk to knowledgeable growers about their products, so the regional plant fairs are great for me. With talk of a house move forever in the background I tend to be more cautious than I would like when it comes to buying plants but one stand excited me in particular and I spent my £25 pocket money on a pot of the American Lady’s Slipper orchid Cypripedium reginae.

Orchids have become increasingly popular houseplants, encouraged by price reductions resulting from modern breeding and propagation techniques. These days orchids are available for most of the year, even from the supermarket shelves and people who would not think of themselves of competent gardeners are surprised to find how easy orchids are to grow in the home.

The popularity of hardy orchids has not developed at the same pace but they are becoming more available and prices are starting to reflect this. Few could argue they do not deserve to be more widely grown. My Lady’s Slipper is a truly lovely thing and will be grown in a pot until we can find a suitable cool and shady spot for it in the garden.

This summer we went dog walking with friends on to the Downs between Luton and Barton-Le-Clay (Bedfordshire) with me pointing out the many species of native orchids to be found there. On my parents nursery in Cornwall we had a field which was impossible to cross without treading on Marsh Orchids, such was the density of plants growing there. Here, close to the office, there was a meadow with perhaps one hundred Bee Orchids in it, a wonderful sight in the summer until the farmer decide to ‘improve’ it by spraying weedkiller. Hardy orchids are not nearly as rare as you might think, but you have to keep your eyes open to spot them.

If you would prefer to cultivate these most gorgeous of plants and have them in your own garden, many are available through specialist nurseries. The nurseryman I chatted to at Ness Gardens offers over 75 different hardy orchids for sale and I have no doubt an internet search would throw up many other suppliers. Depending on type, hardy orchids are suitable for a wide range of garden conditions from damp shade to dry grassland and with some ideal for those wanting to establish wildflower meadows.

To remind me both of the West Country and of the Saville Gardens in Windsor (where I worked for a year), my next orchid purchase should be some of the showier Dactylorhiza Marsh Orchids, perhaps D. fuchsia, the common spotted orchid or better still, D. foliosa (from northern Madera) or one of its hybrids. These form clumps and may even seed themselves if they are happy, with spikes up to 50cm long, composed of many hundreds of individual magenta purple spotted flowers. Be the first in your neighbourhood to have them in your garden!

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16:11:05 o'clock BST

Funny old weather at the moment (when isn't it?) but we have been able to eat outside again for the first time in ages: great!

We were just finishing off a bottle of wine for lunch yesterday and a photographer from Gardening Which rang to say he wanted to come over. It seems he had been asked to take photos of our plants because of a trial on biological control I am taking part in. If I had known, I might have done the weeding and got my hair cut; as it was, it was as much as I could do to sober up before he arrived, 20 minutes later!

With my son back off to Uni this week, I have not got as much gardening done as I might have. I did make a good start on pruning our Rosemary parterre in the front /side garden. Typing this, I am filling the house with a warm herby scent.

I e-mailed a local maintenance landscaper to see if he could help with our garden. I thought it only fair to warn him who I was and that as a result I might be a bit demanding. He turned down my offer of two days work a week: silly me; next time, I'll keep my mouth shut!

Lettuce sown directly in the ground last week have already germinated. Lets hope they push on fast enough to get a crop out of them.

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10:48:56 o'clock BST
Hearing Soundgarden

Posting a copy of last months Hertfordshire Countryside article to my web-log on AOL, I received a charming e-mail from a lad suggesting I “get a life”. He would no doubt be delighted to know that my work took me to the Chester area recently and I took the opportunity to visit a couple of garden centres, the very impressive  Grosvenor garden centre and Gordale , owned by an old horticultural college mate of mine. The highlight though was the botanic garden of the University of Liverpool, just around the corner from Gordale, at Ness

 

Ness is on the Wirral Peninsular, facing North Wales and the Dee Estuary and open to the humid and salty south-westerly winds. The lovely local red sandstone is just below the surface here and occurs as outcrops which have been utilised as rockeries and for terraces and waterfalls. The soil is acid and, in places, very free draining: ideal conditions for experimenting with dry garden plants.

 

The house and gardens were begun by a Victorian cotton merchant Arthur Bulley, who sponsored the courageous plant-hunting expeditions of Kingdom-Ward, Harold Comber and the prolific George Forrest (whose son I have worked with at the royal gardens in Windsor). The candelabra primrose Primula bulleyana was just one of the plants named after him and I gather their specimen of Pieris formosa Forrestii was grown from seed collected by Forrest in China. Bulley started the famous Bees seed company on the site, later moving to a 1,000 acre farm closer to Chester.

 

It is fascinating to connect the plants we know to the people who discovered and introduced them for gardeners and we can only be grateful to these pioneers for helping to make UK gardening what it is today. The plants themselves are the real stars and although the gardens seem to be in the middle of a period of development and renewal there was plenty to see and admire. On the day I visited they were holding a plant fair and garden enthusiasts event including Gardener’s Question Time.

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15:57:24 o'clock BST
Hearing Elvis Costello

I hate to nag, but having spent half an hour on the blog, to watch it all disappear with the power cut was most frustrating. This is version 2; the earlier version was better! Now, save your work.

As I was saying, I am determined to get this garden under control this year and we are considering employing a gardener to help me achieve it. Can you imagine what it will be like working under me, in my garden? He (or she) had better be good, I was saying. If you know anyone, send them around. I'm thinking of setting a plant ident test for the interview....that should sort the wood from the trees!

What else was I saying; ah yes: one of the first projects will be to remove a fence, the large bed of grasses behind it and lay the area down to turf. This will open up the space close to the house and make it easier to maintain....and it always looks smarter when the grass is cut. It is not the best time to be moving grasses, I know, but needs must.

I was also telling you about the vegetable garden, the fact that little is now of use and I have started clearing it. I did also sow a row of lettuce in the hope of getting some salad before the frosts arrive. The cherry tomatoes were fantastically fruitful but did not survive our holiday and my plan to have lettuce for our return by cutting back existing plants failed spectacularly.

The first of the autumn fungi are popping up now. Only Parasols in Ampthill Park so far and we find them rather bitter, but I picked some field mushrooms at work last week.

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15:15:43 o'clock BST
Hearing Chris Rea - Blue Guitars...amongst other things

A Bank Holiday: and even gardeners get the day off. Chantal in minding the office, so you wonder what the point is until the dog tells you she wants a walk and one thing leads to another and you find yourself enjoying it.

I did the bottle bank run, an hour in Ampthill Park with the poodle and then mowed the lawn. After a bit of weeding ( the ground is so soft its a shame to waste it ) I sat down in the sun with a pint of beer and a bowl of peanuts and watched the world go by.....for several hours.

I watched a Passion Flower bud open fully; a snail climb all the way from the lawn to the top of the Cotinus (no idea why!) and some lovely clouds behind the dark green of the Oak trees at the edge of the field next door. I watched the rain clouds pass by, pulling in the air, causing the Eucalpyptus to dance about.

For much of the time music shut out all background noise: I had borrowed my son's earphones for my Ipod. I took photographs.

It occured to me sitting there: you can't test for hate with a metal detector: someone should tell the authorities. It occured to me: I might miss this when I'm gone.

Gardening should be on the National Health. All is well with the world  (believe me...I'm a gardener).

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13:28:54 o'clock BST
Hearing Dave Matthews Band

A Bank Holiday weekend and Chantal and I have agreed that she will cover the office on Monday while I have done Saturday and Sunday.

Its been all very quiet and what with one thing and another I felt in need of a little gardening therapy. We have a 25 yard path running from the garden centre's car park to the fountain in front of our office. Either side are alternating dwarf hedges of  Santolina or Lavender with narrow beds which I plant with annual bedding. I have trimmed all the hedges (including the Box hedges in front of the office) and cleared the beds ready for planting with Pansies next week. Finally the approach to the office is looking professional and tidy again!

The idea with the hedges is to encourage a little regrowth prior to the first frosts. I always push my luck by cutting back as far as I dare, sometimes well into old growth, or clients would never get down the path. I run the risk of getting no more growth at all but mostly get away with it, although at home I have killed portions of Rosemary hedge doing the same thing a little too late in the year.

As at home, the rains have encouraged some plants to flower again: the Roses are doing especially well. Otherwise colour is provided by some late-flowering herbacious plants like Aster, Anemone and others beginning with 'A'.

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18:15:57 o'clock BST
Hearing Tool: 10,000 days

A fine end to a wet, dull day and my 'weekend'. It has been great weeding weather but after a 2 hour tennis match with my son yesterday I can hardly move!

I have been able to hobble about and see what is flowering in the garden and I attach a few photographs for your viewing pleasure. Yesterday we picked blackberries from Ampthill Park and made rather nice jam. It was a little runny so we disolved a little gelatine in a hot water/jam mix and added that while it was still warm in the pot: worked a treat. Today we picked wild plums and are making another small batch: will it be too sharp for jam? We shall find out in a couple of hours.

The vegetable area is a mess after our holiday although there is still sweet corn and cherry tomatoes to pick. It needs clearing out and leaving clean until next season. I might just get a quick crop of late lettuce if I am lucky but otherwise that's about it for the year.....unless anyone has any suggestions for me.

The big question is, as every year at this time: "are we staying here long enough to bother planting fruit trees?" As usual I dont know and that is why I have not done so these last 5 autumns. I may just do it anyway: I can always lift them if we do something crazy and leave for France perminantly. 

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16:25:17 o'clock BST

The Elliott family spent the first half of August in Central France; we have a property in a pretty village that nestles on the south bank of the River Cher, part of the Loire Valley complex of rivers.

 

Those who think England is the centre of the gardening world just haven’t travelled and really should get out more. In rural France, a country where genuine civic pride is still alive and well, the roads and side streets of even the smallest village are resplendent with well-tended bedding plants of the highest quality. Automatic irrigation is standard but where this is not possible a gardener is out with a tank on the back of a lorry to water every day.

 

We also live in a village in Bedfordshire with, by coincidence, almost exactly the same population but none of the facilities or infrastructure of our French home town. In France we have, amongst other things, three bakers, four butchers, two supermarkets, two banks, a post office, a news agent, half a dozen bars and a poodle parlour. In the UK we have none of these and just a handful of plants by the village name sign to compare with the magnificent displays in and around the high street, the market square and down to the riverside park.

 

Before I am accused of over-icing the French cake, I must point out that I was a judge and sponsor of England in Bloom and I am well aware how talented some of our local authority gardeners can be. I merely report what I see and I am delighted to see high quality gardening where-ever it exists. There is unfortunately quite a contrast between the average English town and its average French equivalent, in many more ways than just their planting: the cake shop in Valencay has to be seen to be believed!

 

I’m not allowed to do gardening when on holiday. I did do a little weeding by the front door when the family was not looking, but mostly enjoyed the public gardens on trips out into the surrounding area. We visited Bourges for the first time and were very impressed by the quality and range of bedding in their park in the old part of the town, close to the ancient cathedral. A large number of huge, newly-planted, pleached Limes provided shade when viewing the garden or, on the day we were there, shelter from the rain.

 

On another occasion we drove through Blois. Quickly realising we would need a full day to do it justice we carried on, but did find time to take a look at the formal rose garden on the terraces below the town hall and some amazing carpet bedding close by. We had been to Chaumont for most of the day, on our annual pilgrimage to the International Festival of Gardening, and were running out of energy anyway.

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16:25:16 o'clock BST
Hearing You think I have time to listen to music?

Back from our travels in France, today is my first day in the office after a fortnight at our place in the Loire Valley. The break was a relaxing and happy one, although the weather could have been kinder. It stayed bright enough for us to go out and look at a number of public gardens, between long walks in the countryside, canoeing on the Cher and some seriously good eating and drinking.

As promised, we visited the garden festival at Chaumont, an annual "must see" for garden designers. I hope the photographs included here illustrate the theme of "play in the garden" for you to get a feel for it.

I spent a few hours this morning at our current garden construction, a five acre plot just around the corner from the office. All seems to be going well and the lads are enjoying playing with the large machinery needed for this big project.

Tomorrow I have a new client to see and a plan to present to an existing one. More tales about our break when I have a spare moment in the afternoon.....

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