Gardening Page

I have been receiving emails wondering where I have got to. It's nice to know there is someone out there and I am grateful for the concern. I've had my eyes treated for cataracts and while they were at it they thought it would be fun to replace my lenses with new ones. So now I can hardly read the monitor: it will improve, they tell me!

In the mean time, we have moved to our wonderful new office in a Finnish log cabin at the other side of the garden centre and after months of trying should have the phones sorted tomorrow: thanks for that, BT.

And did I mention we are moving gardens, er, homes? In a couple of weeks we are shifting most of our stuff out to France where we have a house in the Loire Valley, while at the same time selling our home in Greenfield (Beds) and moving to a smaller place in Stotfold (also Beds).

With all this fun and games on the go, clients to satisfy and gardens to be designed, I have had little time for my own garden although the seed I sowed a few weeks ago have produced plants which now need potting. Normally I would be in the middle of the spring production line and the greenhouse would be full. but the greenhouse is overdue for dismantling and moving so I have been holding myself back.

And the weather! Snow over Easter and two weeks later we have it again. In between the temperatures have been high: all in all, a tricky spring for the gardener. Magnolias and other spring-flowering shrubs were looking a little worst for wear this morning.

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With the spring calling we have been irresistibly drawn out to the garden, or more specifically, other peoples gardens and nurseries.

This little group of photographs are from a trip we did recently to the Valley Gardens, part of the Royal Gardens Windsor but open to the public.

Huge Magnolias and Camellias were coming in to flower alongside drifts of Daffodils and other spring flowering plants.

As a lad, I spent some time working in this park and although much of my time was wasted endlessly raking leaves and piling them on the beds, I did experience much that I hold dear to me to this day.

Now is a great time to visit and if you hurry, the main car park on the A30 is being renovated and there are no charges. Now that's what I call a bargain: world class gardens there for the taking!

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On Friday I was very brave, driving several miles up north to the land the natives call Solihull. Far from being an industrial wasteland, I note from the sign that the town is the proud winner of a Britain in Bloom award, and there were Daffodils in flower seemingly everywhere as we approached the centre.

After an uncomfortable hour or so when surgeons and staff in Lode-of-Money Road fetched out their screw-drivers and attacked my right eye, I was in a mood for gardening theropy and a stiff drink. By the time we got safely back home (it's amazing how fast you can drive with one eye) the time for gardening had passed, so drink it was.

However, my sense of humour eventually returned and the next day I was as happy as only a gardener can be, potting my cherry toms and cutting back grasses in the front garden. Have you seen all the cameras on the M62?

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This is always a tricky time for us gardeners: we want to get on with the start of the growing season but the risk of cold weather damaging our plants is very great

The more house-proud garden lover will have cut back the growth from last year’s flowers long ago but, by leaving the old stems in place, tender emerging shoots are protected from the sort of cold snap we are currently experiencing. In my garden the clear-up is some time off and I find the sight of frosted stems an attractive one; Miscanthus grasses, which I tend to lift and divide in the spring are, at time of writing, glistening in the clear, crisp morning sun. As always with nature it is the stage of growth rather than the Gregorian calendar which is in charge of these operations.

The same is true of many shrubs; the buds of my Hydrangea are starting to open, shielded beneath a light canopy of papery flower heads from last season. Cut back too early the pithy stems and young growth can easily be damaged by the cold. I would love to tidy our hedges of Rosemary and Escallonia, clip back tender Cistus and other late flowering shrubs, but these tasks will have to wait until all signs of frost have past.

Lawns can also be damaged by mowing too early and although we should be safe enough now I am writing this during a frosty period and can hear the mowers of jobbing gardeners all around the village.

February and March are seed-sowing months at our house. The first few trays of seedlings begin their life in odd corners: the utility room, the kitchen, spare bedrooms and especially the conservatory; you need a tolerant family! Then, once the quantities become too great to ignore, the heating is turned on in the greenhouse and they are all moved out.

It then becomes a matter of juggling space as new batches of plants germinate and eventually require potting on. Ideally I would have cold-frames to harden them off and create further growing space in the greenhouse, but by that stage I have produced more plants than we can cope with anyway. I have to remind myself I am no longer a nurseryman.

If this all sounds like hard work I should say I do it for the pleasure rather than for any real economic benefit. I am finding that many clients with demanding jobs are also discovering the relaxation to be gained from creative gardening tasks and from the gentle exercise involved in some of them. I consider it the ultimate stress buster!

While it may have been too early to start many outdoor growing jobs, this has been ideal weather for garden construction and landscaping. We have already built several gardens locally this year and have many more on the drawing board. With bookings at record levels for the time of year we are recruiting more staff and further excitement (and a great deal of hard work) is being provided by our move into new offices on the Wyevale site.

Several recent appointments have involved me reviewing work done by other (so called) professionals and a more depressing task it would be hard to invent. Time after time I see poor workmanship and materials, sometimes dangerous but often just unattractive. We offer an “expert witness” service but I can’t say I enjoy it. Writing twenty-page reports to explain to a court just how incompetent or dishonest a tradesman has been is a long way from my idea of an enjoyable weeks work. On the other hand, there is satisfaction to be gained from knowing you have helped your client and discouraged a rogue.

The biggest problem for these unskilled builders and gardeners seems to be the technical issues surrounding changes of level. Supporting walls are not sufficiently well constructed and eventually fail, while inappropriate materials such as old railway sleepers are commonly used. Many homeowners eventually discover that the cheapest quote represents the poorest value and the cost of correcting a sub-standard job can be very high. It is doubly frustrating to see my own designs badly installed but most of these do not have a drawing or even a quote to refer back to when it all goes horribly wrong.

My least favourite builder makes no effort to do an honest job, demands cash in advance and is not available when problems occur. Often the waste materials will end up despoiling some local lay-by, field or beauty spot and the client will be intimidated throughout the process. It goes without saying that the work will be of the poorest quality. I value my property, family and sanity too much to associate with these people myself, but it is self-evidently true that many people are not nearly so fussy.

It would be nice to think that mostpeople recognise the need for a specialist when it comes to planting. I have been enjoying watching a T.V. program featuring Monty Don and his ‘round the world garden trip, but cannot be alone in finding his preference for native plants slightly irritating. It is perfectly fair to observe a tropical paradise, far-flung cliff-top perch or some other area of natural beauty and applaud the use of local plants in specialist gardens, but our own landscapes would be all the poorer for excluding exotic species.

While it is important to consider where plants grow naturally and it would be absurd to create an English Cottage Garden in the middle of a Brazilian jungle, successful planting comes not from artificial political boundaries but by considering the geography, geology and biology of a garden and its planting. To take an example of a garden we designed in France: the soil was poor and the climate hot and dry for much of the year. The garden we created used plants from the Mediterranean, South Africa, Australia, North and South America, anywhere in fact, where plants are adapted to those conditions. We use similar plants in the sunnier patches of our own garden and those of clients: not native, but excellent where the environment is suitable. Beds set into a patio and backed by south facing walls are ideal.

If you have shady areas there are many appropriate ornamentals and it is worth remembering that there are no no-go areas for plants. You only have to look in the countryside to see this is true: even badly disrupted patches are soon covered with plants in this country. So it is that in the shade we select species adapted to woodland and woodland margins around the temperate world, many of which are at their most attractive in the spring. Because woodland soils tend to be acidic and full of organic matter the plants that grow in association with them may prefer these conditions. This is where the gardening comes in and with the addition of leaf mould, compost and other organic materials the top layers of soil can easily be made suitable for the shade loving plants from continents near and far.

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My current garden construction is for a Jewish family in north London and I discoved this festival when trawling the web to make sure I dont offend anyones religion in my ignorance; a wonderfully appropriate time to be building a garden, as it turns out.

This snipped box of information is taken from the Wikipedia article on the sibject of this "festival of trees" at the start of the Jewish agricultural New Year. Find the full article here:

Tu Bishvat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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A garden we are currently building in north London (if it ever stops raining) needs a large Olive tree in a warm corner. I have only limited experience of growing Olives in the UK: we have a small potted plant that spends most of the year in the vegetable garden but is currently in the greenhouse. Chantal and I went off to visit nurseries to find a specimen and the one in the photograph caught our fancy. We will send the picture to the client and see what he thinks but in the mean time we could not resist these white Hellebores.

At home, most of the action is in the conservatory. There are loads of orchids in flower and we bought a few more: £2.00 from Wyevale, reduced from £14 and £15 because they were no longer in flower. We mostly buy our orchids this way and are often rewarded by new flowers soon after we bring them home. We have quite a collection now, after being tempted by such discounts years ago.

Two other houseplants are looking great: the Poinsetya from Christmas has been joined by an orange-red Amarylis. While the Poinsetya will be thrown out after it has gone passed its best (no sign of that yet) I will try to get the Amarylis bulb to flower again next year.

If these logs are getting a bit thin on the ground I do have excuses: we are moving house very soon and our office even sooner. In the UK we are downsizing and moving a few miles East to the village of Stotfold. This frees up cash to begin serious work on our property in France, where we will spend much of our time as soon as we are sorted.

Oh, and I need operations on both eyes. As I say, a busy time!

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It has been a while since I have put pen to paper, but having been awarded a few days off I have no excuse.

Weather continues to be strange with torrential rain following hard frosts and proceeded by mild, windy days when the temperature has reached 12 degrees C. Photos show some of the effects: the poodle looks worried.

In the first stint of home gardening for ages I took the long-arm pruners to the Freemontia that grows against the kitchen wall. It had split in the gales and I wanted to reduce the weight so that it can recover. It should be fine but I took the opportunity to give it a good haircut so flowering may be limited this (I mean next) year.

At the other end of the same wall we have a golden Hop that climbs the drainpipe, generally reaching bedroom window level each year. The smooth plastic pipe is not ideal but it does mean when I need to cut it to the ground at about this time it is fairly easy to pull off its support. That's another job done!

While I am off for a few days there are two jobs I really must do:

1.Order seeds for next season and

2. get my Chelsea pass application in. I gather I may be asked to help on a garden this year, so that will get me on site at the construction stage: always good fun. And I am promised a ticket for one of the later days, but my favourite day is the one reserved for the press.

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Call me old fashioned, by I like to see a few bedding plants in a garden.  When we built our patio at home we constructed a couple of raised brick beds to give it a more intimate feel and it is these beds we plant up twice a year with bedding. On my day off I removed the remains of the Geraniums which I had grown myself from seed. I had sown several varieties in many shades of pink and red and these had performed well in a difficult year. Their replacements were F1 Pansies in Rose and Yellow, bought from the local garden centre; somehow I never seem to be organised enough to sow my own. Protected by a shielding edge of brick they should flower well throughout the winter and be at their best in the spring, when I will replace them with more bedding plants for the summer season.

Over the years we have tried many plants in these beds. Favourites included Impatiens (Busy Lizzie), Non-stop Begonias, Afro-French Marigolds and Dianthus, all of which performed over a long period with little effort from us. I mention this because I have just sent off my order for this year’s flower and vegetable seeds to Thompson and Morgan, of which more in a future article.

I am always delighted to get something for nothing and many bedding plants sow themselves around our garden, the result of five years of growing them and allowing them to produce seed. A classic case is Calendula, or Pot Marigold, which comes up every year amongst the heathers, where I planted it several years ago when the heathers themselves were quite small. Flowering throughout the summer when their host plant is just green foliage, I remove them later to enjoy the pink heather flowers in thefront garden over the winter. Also adorning the front garden with free summer colour is the rather trendy Verbena bonariensis, tall stems of which poke up from any patch where I care to leave them and wave their lilac-purple flowers in the breeze.  I planted the originals amongst American grasses but they have gradually wandered off and appear where they please.

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Several sunny days with clear nights and the temperatures have dropped. Proof, if proof is needed, in these frosty photos. Last night the dog wandered out into the garden and came back covered with snow.

We have been very busy with the business lately. Wyevale have decided to sell off the bungalow we rent from them as an office so we are clearing up in preparation for the move. We have purchased a fabulous log cabin - it should be built in January - and have been given a home for it right by the garden centre entrance. In the end it could be very good for us but we need the upheaval and expense like a hole in the head!

In the mean time we have set up an office at home to run alongside the one at work. Suddenly I do not have to commute so often, but the logistics of having two offices is a nightmare. Gradually I am learning what files I have to move back and forward, what files to back-up between the pc at home and the lap-top that I take when I go into the office.

Not a lot is happening in the garden. I have decided to keep the Lemon trees overwintering in the (unheated) greenhouse this year to free up more space in the conservatory. Other tender plants share the space but I have yet to dig up the Cannas from the garden and add them to the collection. We are also undecided about the Olive: leave it out or bring it in?

Classic FM Radio are having a huge charity auction in December and we have been pursuaded to donate a garden design (worth up to £1,000!) to help them. I am rather hoping I will be asked to do something interesting and exotic - a trip some some island paradise would be nice - but we will see. Here's a link to their site: Classic FM Music Makers

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