With all the heavy rain we have been having my Japanese Anenomes have gone all floppy. I have tried to stake them but it looks so false. So to carry on enjoying them I have cut them along with some twisted Hazel, popped them in a tall vase to admire indoors.
Flowers from the garden
After the recent winds blew down alot of fir cones from the trees I decided to put them to good use. I have been topping my pots with them to reduce water loss and look decorative. The only problem with this type of mulch is that the garden birds think it’s a game, they throw them of the pots and I replace them. I did hear that the fircones can also make the compost in the pot more acidic, so not too good long term unless the plants in the pots are acid lovers. Oh well back to making good old garden compost!
Fir cone mulch
Hiding snails
I have been away on a wonderful driving holiday in Scotland. Amazing weather, scenery and fantastic driving, on near empty roads, such fun. Anyway coming home, my garden is really parched even though we have had some rain the plants are desperate for water which I have had to do with a hose. On one of my watering evenings I noticed that a Hosta had been badly attacked. This confused me as there was our Ecocharlie slug and snail deterrent spread liberally around the plant which normally does the trick. As I looked closer tiny slugs had found a nice wet place to live in the bottom of the stem where the water had collected. I hooked them out with my finger and put them on the compost heap. Hopefully I have found all of them and this Hosta will be safe.
Now is the time for planting out your pots with Summer bedding. Those of you who are really organised may have done this already and put your planted pots/hanging baskets into a green house for protection. We should be safe from frosts now here in the South, so I have started the change over of plants for the Summer colour. Something I noticed from our trip to Scotland was that their seasons were later, which was interesting seeing as we had such glorious weather when we were there I sort of expected it to be the same.
I am sad that at this house I do not had a vegetable garden so I have planted some veg in pots. A friend gave me some dwarf beans and courgettes and I am going to get started with some salad crops. I do of course have herbs in pots always.
Other jobs I have been getting on with are tying in climbers, weeding, edging the lawn, cutting back shrubs that have grown out of their space, all over paths and generally keeping nature tamed just a little. I have also had my trusted contractors in to cut the hedges that we can’t manage.
Well now I am going to check on the slugs again. Happy gardening.
I always find that Hyacinths tend to be top heavy. So this year I used some branches that I had cut back from the baytree as supports. It worked rreally well and looked very natural. I will do it again. I also used some fallen silver birch branches to waeve together to support the Hellebours.
Home made support
With the beautiful weather comes watering. My pots are very dry as are the hedges under the trees. I used the murky water from the water feature to water the hedges and then the sludge at the bottom to mulch the hedges.
clean water feature
A bit of a stinky job but at least the pump will work more efficiently now.
It’s amazing what you can do with a very old step ladder. Whilst clearing out a garage last week, I found this ancient step ladder, which nearly found it’s way to the dump! I had a flash of inspiration, and turned it into a very attractive plant stand, and found some old fashioned flower pots, filled them with spring plants and this was the result .. I even impressed myself!
Did you know that tulips continue to grow even when they are cut. My local florist mentioned this fact to me when I brought a bunch this week. Apparently, that’s why they go all floppy in the vase.
To brighten up the house today I brought some pots of Daffodils. I placed them into attractive clay pots and tied some raffia ribbon round the tops. They will last for a few weeks and can be planted into the garden for next year.
Daffs
Picea orinetalis 'Aurea'.
Trends and fashions in garden plants wax and wane just as they do in clothes or music, and one decades “must-have” garden plant can all too quickly become the next decades “wouldn’t be seen dead growing it”. Often such plants have become victims of their own successes – so ubiquitous and widely grown that they come to represent an era in their own right.
Picea likiangensis - startling cones of red/purple.
Kniphofia – Red-Hot Pokers – and Cortaderia – Pampas Grass – are pretty good examples. Quintessential plants of the ’70′s they were both relegated to the compost heap of all “fashionable” gardens in the 90′s. The plants themselves, of course, weren’t to blame, and, as is the way with fashion trends, both are now back in a big way, with Kniphofia, in particular, one of the hippest plants for the border all over again.
Cunninghamia lanceolata
What does any of this have to do with conifers, much less winter gardening you may be asking…well, at about the same time that front gardens were being filled with those Pampas and Pokers back gardens were being planted out with faux rockeries and dwarf conifers. Both of these fell foul of gardening fashionistas sometime later that same century and, aside from use as hedging, the use of conifers in many gardens became all but unthinkable. A situation that, for many gardeners, remains largely unchanged to this day.
Pinus bungeana - python-like flaking bark.
It’s pretty hard to consign such a huge and important group of plants to garden history, however. The problem for conifers in gardens arose not so much with the plants themselves but the way that they were used and the selections that were promoted via garden centres. The dwarf, often shapeless blobs that came to dominate so many gardens denied colour, variance and (ironically) seasonal interest to many plots and were seen as the epitome of suburban gauche, whilst mis-planted leylandii hedges just compounded the problem.
Sciadopitys verticillata.
Conifers are, of course, a numerous, diverse and fascinating group of plants. Having paid homage to giant Sequoia in California, amongst others, I can testify to their enormous appeal and often astounding beauty. These two-thousand-year-old giants are a world away from some golden dwarf perched in a dodgy rockery, but delve into the vast array of conifers now available to the gardener and you open up a treasure trove of forms, textures, scents & colours.
Athrotaxis laxifolia.
AND (finally arriving at the crux of the matter…) Winter is the season when they truly excel. No matter how many winter-flowering bulbs, shrubs and perennials you gather together nothing better gives an air of majesty, structure and sheer personality to the scene than a well chosen and well placed conifer or two. What’s more the effects of frost, snow and winter light can transform coniferous foliage into a thing of sparkling magic.
Pinus wallichiana.
I must say, however, that I still have an aversion to those blobby, often gold-leafed dwarf conifers with very finely divided foliage – Thuja, Juniperus, Platycladus are perhaps the main culprits. For me they lack the two primary joys that conifers can bring to the garden – striking bark and bold foliage. Instead I’d like to turn your attention to three key genera - Abies (the Firs) Picea (the Spruces) and Pinus (yep, the Pines).
Abies koreana - numerous blue-ish cones produced from an early age.
These are three big groups of plants that offer an array of bold leaves, beautiful bark, elegant forms and sometimes spectacular cones. A few of the species are suitably small growing for almost all gardens – the beautiful violet-coned Abies koreana and the fabulous Lacebark Pine – Pinus bungeana are two such for example – but there are also a multitude of slower, smaller, stiffly upright and weeping forms that have been selected.
Many of these offer tremendous beauty and potential for moderate or even small sized gardens. Even in limited space the addition of just one specimen conifer – say Picea omorika ‘Pendula’ – will add tremendous personality and depth to the garden in winter as well as providing a perfect backdrop for winter-flowering shrubs like Hamamelis.
Picea omorika 'Pendula' - every individual forms it's own unique shape.
Whilst these three key genera should perhaps comprise the backbone of the winter garden supporting roles could also be played by a cast of somewhat less familiar coniferous beauties, many hailing from the southern hemisphere. Cunninghamia lanceolata is a fabulous and deeply exotic-looking gem from South America with huge, spiky foliage; Athrotaxis species are small, highly architectural conifers native to Tasmania; Podocarpus salignus is an extremely graceful Chilean native with drooping, willow-like deep green foliage; Sciadopitys verticillata is a unique and extremely ancient species with tremendous personality and a fascinating appearance; Wollemia nobilis is the headline-grabbing newly discovered Australian relic that is proving to be remarkably garden hardy here in the UK.
Wollemia nobilis.
Whichever you opt for the key is to think big, and think bold. Consign the apologetic blobs to yesteryear and allow the full beauty of these magnificent plants to reign supreme in the winter garden.
Podocarpus salignus.
In my last blog entry I suggested that nothing much grows at this time of the year. That’s not entirely true, of course, because there are a small, but crucial band of plants that can and do emerge into life in Winter. These seasonal pioneers re-appear pretty much regardless of the vagaries of the British winter weather and I’d have to say that nothing throughout the whole gardening year is more pleasing to behold than those first plants that pop their heads out in Winter. They herald the start of new life throughout the garden and really feel like they’re marking a new beginning. With a handful of these plants strategically scattered through the garden it’s easy to kid yourself that spring is just around the corner – even if may still be months away in reality. Garden centres will be bulging with gaudy winter-flowering bedding plants right now – Pansy’s and the like – but let’s not go there…much better to focus on plants that can provide ongoing interest in the garden year after year and winter after winter.
The boldest, most vigorous plants in our garden right now are Arum italicum ‘Marmoratum’, a well-known marble-leaved beauty that has been in growth since late autumn, but which is peaking just about now. Despite the extremes of cold and snow of the last month the foliage looks completely fresh. The Arum flowers and vivid scarlet berries will appear in later seasons, but in January the lush foliage looks incongruous against the drab weather and so all the more appealing.
Arum italicum 'Marmoratum'.
The last couple of winters have seen the early arrival of snowdrops, often in December, but February is their more usual month, and things seem to have got back to normal this year. Eranthis hyemalis – the winter aconite – is always earlier, though, and it’s fern-like divided foliage and giant buttercup flowers are an essential ingredient of the woodland understory or shady border. Tuberous Cyclamen coum appears a little later in winter, it’s silver-marbled heart-shaped leaves providing a foil for the pink to white flowers.
Eranthis hyemalis.
Careful selection can give your garden a near-continuous succession of Crocuses from Autumn thorough to Spring. The beautiful Crocus laevigatus flowers right in the centre of the season with lilac-stained white flowers appearing in late December. C. tommasinianus is much bigger and more robust and produces large flowers in a variety of purple shades from late January, whilst C. sieberi closes out the season with white flowers that open in February.
Crocus laevigatus.
Hellebores pretty much dominate herbaceous perennial beds at this time of the year, their exact floral timing varying with the weather and general temperatures. H. x hybridus (often, though wrongly called H. orientalis , which is a true species in it’s own right) is an absolute stalwart of winter, and now comes in a dazzling array of forms and colours, but most of the true Hellebore species and their many hybrids also perform in winter and are well worth checking out.
A whole gaggle of winter-flowering shrubs can be deployed, and many brighten the garden with both flowers and fragrance. Hybrid Witch Hazels – Hamamelis x intermedia - are particular favourites of mine, and late January is when the flowers hit their stride in a big way. The citric fragrance (strongest by far in the yellow flowered varieties) is intoxicating and the bright spider-like flowers are a joy, particularly when viewed close-up.
Hamamelis x intermedia 'Barmstead Gold'.
Chimonanthus praecox – Wintersweet – is more understated in flower, but equally fragrant, whilst Daphne odora and the larger growing, semi-evergreen Daphne bholua are phenomenally perfumed and exquisitely beautiful with their winter-borne tiny pinkish white urn-shaped flowers. Daphne relative Edgeworthia chrysantha is rightly the most prized of all winter-flowering shrubs and opens it’s tubular, fragrant, furry flowers of gold and crimson on bare stems right about now.
Daphne bholua.
Not to be outdone the Honeysuckle family can also pack a winter punch. Lonicera fragrantissima, it’s close relative L. standishii and their well-known hybrid offspring L. x purpusii ‘Winter Beauty’ all do their thing round about now, and though none will win any awards for structural prowess these tough occupants of the winter garden reward with a mass of fragrant flowers.
Mahonias are a tad more dramatic, and, if they weren’t so familiar to British gardeners, it would be easy to imagine that they were delicate denizens of some tropical forest. Most Mahonia species don’t actually flower in winter, but the few that do are highly prized. M. japonica and it’s various winter-flowering hybrids are all pretty much bomb-proof, whilst M. lomariifolia and M. napaulensis are more dramatic species that require some shelter to succeed. Each flowers for a lengthy period and often throughout the entire season.
Mahonia nepaulensis.
Viburnums are a large and incredibly valuable genus of plants that collectively can offer something at most times of the year. Winter sees the unfurling of the earliest flowering species and various selections of the hybrids V. x bodnantense, V. x burkwoodii are widely available, reliable and easily grown in most gardens. Sarcococcas are pretty easy to cater for too, and are very much at their best in mid-winter, when the tiny white flowers appear and scent the air with vanilla.
Viburnum x bodnantense.
Garrya elliptica is another subdued prospect, flower-wise, but it’s elongated winter tassels give the winter garden a unique elegance.
Rhododendrons are almost entirely associated with spring, but the delightful tubular-flowered hybrid ‘Yellow Hammer’ bucks the trend and kicks off in January. A number of Camellias do flower in winter too (though not reliably so in our garden) but these need careful placement if those early flowers aren’t to be regularly burned off by frost. The winter flowering Cherry – Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’ – is well known and widely grown and, although it can’t compete with it’s spring-flowering cousins in terms of flower power, it’s tissue-paper petals certainly brighten the season effectively. Prunus mume – the Japanese Apricot – is more showy, but less reliable as a winter-flowering tree, the blossoms being held back until spring in colder years.
Rhododendron 'Yellow Hammer'.
There are very few true climbers that flower in winter. Canary yellow Jasminum nudum is widely referred to as one such, but is really a sprawling shrub that will forever need to be reminded that you’d rather it was a wall climber. Clematis, though, can provide a couple of true winter-flowering species. C. cirrhosa is surely the queen of them with beautiful bell-shaped flowers of cream through to burgundy, depending on the variety. The delicate ferny foliage is a big bonus too. C. urophylla is a less well known but equally worthy species, and the selection ‘Winter Beauty’ produces an abundance of pure white nodding bells in the heart of the season.
Clematis urophylla 'Winter Beauty'.
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