A young Hawthorn, or May Tree.

One of the most marvellous and beautiful of our native trees Crataegus mongyna – AKA Hawthorn, Whitethorn, Haegthorn, Quickthorn or May Tree – has an ancient relationship with mankind.

The old Anglo-Saxon name Haegthorn – literally the “Hedge Thorn” – as well as Quickthorn – referring to the value of the plant as a living, impenetrable barrier – shows that it has long been the most valued of hedging and boundary plants. But the Hawthorn has much more to offer than a life as a prickly hedge. These are truly multi-season trees. In good seasons the foliage turns bright red in October.

Hawthorn berries, all a-glow.

Autumn also sees them smothered in tiny bright red berries (the “Haws”). These are packed with antioxidents, vitamins and minerals and are an invaluable pre-winter food source that is harvested by anything and everything that can get to them.

As well as providing great autumn viewing interest to us those berries are a guaranteed bird magnet and they alone make a Hawthorn a near-essential element of any wildlife garden.

Actually much of the plant is edible in one way or another. As well as the fruit that are traditionally turned into jellies and jams the young leaves can be eaten as a salad vegetable, or cooked and added to soups whilst the flowers and flower buds make a pretty and tasty garnish.

Would you like Hawthorn leaves with that, Madam?

Hawthorn wood has long been used for carving, whilst the tough root wood is traditionally used for box making. The trunk wood is also unusually dense and burns at an extremely high heat, so was the wood of choice for smelting iron.

Those individually delicate pure white flowers open from tiny, pink-blushed buds and, after being pollinated, the flowers age back to pale pink before falling in a carpeting confetti shower in early June. Other forms have much deeper pink flowers and these make a pleasing landscape contrast with the white.

Not surprisingly, given it’s long association with mankind and ubiquity in the landscape Hawthorns have many magical and pagan connections, legends and tales associated with them.

Their thorny nature as well as their often somewhat gnarled, Tolkein-esque appearance saw them approached with some trepidation and considered the haunt of  faeries, elementals and assorted enchantments.

A pink, double-flowered Hawthorn.

The common name of May Tree comes from the plants role in traditional May Day celebrations, when both people and their houses were dressed with May blossom (“bringing home the May”).

The popular rhyme “Here we go gathering nuts in May” was sung by the young men, gathering not “nuts” (which are around in Autumn rather that Spring) but “knots” of May blossoms for those May Day festivities.

Those celebrations, which are still richly enjoyed across much of the country - including our Devon neck of the woods – are all about welcoming the arrival of spring, new life and new growth.

Folks “wear the green”, by decking themselves in Hawthorn greenery and flowers, whilst the appearance of the early May blossom always had great significance and itself symbolised the beginning of new life and the onset of the growing season.

Snowy white blossom.

Hawthorns are also extremely long lived. The most ancient of all trees in France is a Hawthorn, reputed to be over 1700 years old.

The oldest British specimen, known as “The Hethel Old Thorn”, grows near Norwich and is believed to be around 700 years old, whilst the most legendary is undoubtedly the famous Glastonbury Holy Thorn in the old ruined Abbey.

Possibly even better news is that Hawthorns are ridiculously easy to grow, and failure is pretty much impossible. They will grow in virtually any soil (aside from a perpetually wet one) and will cheerfully inhabit any aspect.

A single flowered pink form.

Here we have them planted everywhere from full sun to deep shade, although they certainly flower better when given a sunny aspect.

In a completely ideal and open situation they can eventually reach as much as 8 metres (25 feet) in height and breadth. Where space is more limited Hawthorns can also be severely pruned to any acceptable size and shape without compromising flowering.

So from a historical, cultural, culinary, wildlife and aesthetic point of view the Hawthorn is one very special native tree. Why not join in an ancient English tradition and find a spot to plant your own May Tree today.

Which plant, when grown here in Blighty,

1) has absolutely no garden pests – nothing from slugs to rabbits to deer will touch them,

2) despite being a shrub requires no pruning,

3) once planted is unlikely to need real maintenance of any kind in the garden, save for maybe a decent annual mulch,

4) is ridiculously hardy, down to about -25C at least,

5) produces some of the most spectacular, highly fragrant and breathtakingly beautiful flowers of any plant anywhere,

6) was, very possibly, the first plant anywhere on earth to be grown for purely ornamental reasons,

6) is flowering right now,

7) oh, and is the number 1 subject of Japanese tattoos…

Give up?

The answer is the Tree Peony, or more accurately the Tree Peonies.

Paeonia Golden Thunder.

Emblematic of several Eastern countries, Peonies have permeated Japanese and Chinese art and culture for millennia where they have always been deeply revered.

Paeonia, the slightly awkwardly spelled genus to which they belong, is a highly distinctive group of less than 40 species.

Despite many attempts to lump them in with various other plants, (particularly the buttercup family) recent genetic studies have revealed that these ancient and highly aristocratic plants are not closely related to anything else.

Paeonia suffruticosa.

Of those 40 species more than 30 are herbaceous and disappear entirely below ground each winter.

The remaining 8 are woody and slowly build a permanent branching structure, much like any other shrub. Reducing things still further just 4 of those 8 species (namely: P. delavayi, P. ludlowii, P. rockii, and P. suffruticosa) are widely cultivated.

Thanks to several thousand years of intensive cultivation and hybridization in the East those 4 have, between them, been responsible for the creation of a multitude of forms and colours, some of which are now readily available for gardeners to plant and enjoy here in the West.

Cultivation.

Paeonia delavayi.

Tree Peonies are not hugely fussy about most aspects of their cultivation and are extremely easy to please in the garden. Plants may be seed grown (the species) or grafted onto a rootstock (the named cultivars).

If grafted, and supplied bare root, then they should be planted deep, with the graft union around 8cm beneath the surface of the soil. This helps to stimulate the grafted plant to create it’s own roots, and forms a stronger plant in the long run. Potted plants should be supplied in very deep pots, having already been planted with the graft union underground.

Soil type is not particularly important. The driest and wettest sites should be avoided, certainly, as should sites in deep shade. In the wild most species grow in quite bright, open situations, on poor soils, and although the plants will thrive in complete shade in cultivation, they will certainly flower much better in a reasonably sunny position. Good air flow is useful too, and will help prevent any fungal disease, although a site with too much exposure risks having the often large flowers smashed in high winds.

Growth habit.

P. ludlowii - new growth unfurling.

Tree peonies are never fast growers, and could certainly never be accused of romping away. Typically a plant will put on perhaps 15cm of new growth each season and will eventually form an attractive, dome shaped shrub of around 2 metres by 2 metres.

The foliage is extremely handsome in it’s own right. The leaves of P. ludlowii & P. delavayi in particular are very large and very heavily divided into various intricate patterns. This foliage is generally cut back by the first hard frosts leaving the thick, densely woody stems over winter. New shoots start to appear in March and (in my experience at least) are completely untroubled by frosts.

The enormously fat flower buds develop alongside the new foliage and  open in succession throughout May and on into June, depending on the temperatures. The species will also set large amounts of seed, from which new plants can easily be germinated.

The species.

Paeonia ludlowii.

Although the hybrids are very spectacular the smaller flowered species from which they were derived are also extremely garden worthy.

P. delavayi (with incredibly intense, blood red flowers) and P. ludlowii, (with larger canary yellow flowers) are very closely related to one another and often considered part of the same species.

Both are widely available as very good value seedling plants, which will flower when only 30cm or so tall, and are to be highly recommended.

P. rockii form.

P. suffruticosa is the Chinese species that forms that backbone of all of the Tree Peony hybrids.

It is widely variable in the wild, with flowers ranging from white through pink to deep crimson and it’s this variation that has provided so much material for generations of plant breeders.

Finally P. rockii (named after the Austrian-American botanist Joseph Rock) is another widely variable Chinese species, but the finest and most sought after forms have single or demi-double flowers that are pure white with black-red markings in the throat. Although there are numerous variations on that theme they are collectively known as the Rock Peonies.

The hybrids.

Paeonia Botan Pink

With such a long and important history of cultivation there are, not surprisingly, innumerable hybrids and named forms in China and Japan.

Widespread interest in the UK has only really taken off in the last 15 years or so, and there are now a number of specialist suppliers who are introducing the Asian hybrids (often under their true Chinese names, sometimes under Anglicised versions) in increasing numbers.

Most of these are regarded as heritage plants – i.e. amongst the heirlooms of the gardening world – and many command hefty price tags that reflect the slowness of grafting and the limited quantities of plant material.

A single flowered P. suffruticosa/rockii hybrid

Flower forms encompass singles, semi-doubles  and full doubles, whilst colours range from white through all possible shades of pink and red, together with yellows and a few peachy/oranges, some with contrasting streaks and stripes in the petals and many with darker centres, where these are visible.

For me, though, the beauty of the Tree peony flower comes through it’s simplicity and purity of form.

The single-flowered white, yellow, and intensely red plants, each with a contrasting boss of golden stamens, some with that dark central “eye” and many with a beautiful perfume, together sum up the glory of the garden on the very cusp of summer.

Asarum caudatum.

You know those slightly dodgy sci-fi movies & TV series from the 60′s, where our intrepid heroes land on some far-away mysterious planet and find it’s surface rich with bizarre and other-worldly plant forms?

Well, one of my great joys in gardening life is to seek out new, and improbable plant life-forms that can be grown in the garden.

These we affectionately refer to as “Star Trek Plants”.

They’re fun; they’re fascinating; they’re highly collectable: they’re strangely beautiful; best of all they will greatly enrich any garden. Here’s just a few favourites:

Saracenia.

Saracinia flava - red form.

Carnivorous plants are, by their very nature, pretty unusual from the get go, and many defy earth-bound floral conventions by doing away with various things that we’ve come to expect from plants. Like leaves, for example.

Following in that tradition are the Saracenia’s, the hardiest of all Pitcher Plants, and certainly the only ones that can be considered garden hardy in this country. Native to the eastern seaboard of North America, the leaves of these little beauties have vanished, fused instead into a slippery funnel that traps insects and digests their prey in a soup of enzymes.

Great fun (unless you’re a hapless fly, that is) and compellingly beautiful plants that are very much at home in a bog garden too. S. flava and S. purpurea are the ones to look for, along with a huge array of hybrids, each with distinctively patterned pitchers.

Asarum.

Asarum maximum.

If there’s an award for the most fashionable/collectable/in-demand plant in the temperate world then one or other of the 100 odd species of Asarum would have to be a serious contender. The “Wild Gingers” are actually completely unrelated to true gingers but they do exude a warm, gingery fragrance from their foliage.

They are slow-creeping plants of the woodland floor with beautifully patterned, marbled and veined heart-shaped leathery leaves. Beneath their often fabulous leaves they hold an extraordinary floral secret.

Asarum delavayi.

Their flowers vary widely but all defy conventional description. Fleshy, sometimes tubular, sometimes with hugely elongated “tails” and flaring lips in colours such as jet black-and-white, death-grey, lurid purple.

The most flamboyant varieties command huge prices in Japan and the US, but the likes of A. caudatum, A. delayavi and A. maximum are all readily available, and readily grown.

Miracles of nature on any planet, I would never be without them.

Aristolochia.

Aristolochia macrophylla.

Aristolochia, or “Dutchman’s Pipes”, are a large genus of almost exclusively tropical climbing plants with some wonderfully bonkers flowers which can reach epic proportions in the largest species.

Just one species, A. macrophylla, can be regarded as hardy, and, whilst it’s nowhere near the scale of it’s giant cousins, it does share their fabulously bizarre flower shape (the “Dutchman’s Pipe”), coupled with beautiful, large, pale-green leaves that are a perfect heart-shape. The plant is easily grown on a sheltered, sunny wall.

Paris.

Paris polyphylla.

Close relatives to the Trilliums, Paris are another legendary genus of woodland plants, that sadly have nothing to do with the French capital, but are instead, rather prosaically named after the fact that their floral and foliar parts are “paired”.

One cute little species, P. quadrifolia, is a rare British native, but it’s the Asian species that command the most devotion with their extraordinarily sculptural flowers. The petals are reduced to hair-like filaments but the remaining flower parts are hugely enlarged to expose their fascinating arrangements of orange and purple stamens and green or red-brown sepals.

Paris enjoy the same conditions as Trillium and some species follow their floral displays with arrangements of vivid scarlet fruit.

Rheum.

Rheum nobile.

Rheum are rhubarb plants on steroids. Not quite as large as the familiar bog-loving Gunneras, they nevertheless can’t fail to command attention with giant, slightly thorny foliage that is often tinted wine red.

Bold and handsome though it is the foliage in itself isn’t enough to qualify the plants for Outer Space recognition though. It’s actually the flowers, and more particularly the vast, bract-enclosed 2-metre tall floral structures of the near-mythical Nepalese species R. nobile that catapult it to the top of this list.

These yellow towers are actually protection for the true flowers that sit, completely enclosed, within. The effort of producing the flowering stems is such that the plants die after flowering, but the huge quantities of seed held in the other-worldly  flower statues ensures continuation of the species.

Dracunculus.

Dracunculus vulgaris.

Dracunculus – literally “Dragon plant” – is one of the many highly dramatic members of the Aroid (Arum Lily) family. This is one of the largest and strangest of all of the worlds plant families, and, with the mighty 3 metre tall and 2 metre wide Amorphophallus titanium,  includes the largest single flowering structure of any plant on earth.

Dracunculus vulgaris is nowhere near that size, but it does bring much of it’s giant cousins bizarre charm to the garden. Basically it’s very large, velvet textured, blood red and black flower, which has evolved to resemble a rotting corpse, with a smell to match – although only for a few days, luckily!

The species is native to the Balkans and enjoys the warmest spot you can find in the garden, where it will produce magnificent, heavily divided foliage and, just occasionally, one or two of those fantastical 90cm tall flowers.

Echium.

Echium pininana.

Echiums are another large-ish family of flowering plants, but it’s E. pininana, the so-called “Tree Echium” that makes the grade here. These plants are endemic to La Palma in the Canary Islands, but have also proved remarkably adaptable to British gardens, albeit in the most sheltered and warm positions.

E. pininana is a biennial. The plants produce a not-very-inspiring clump of low foliage in their first year of growth, but, if all has gone well and sufficient stores of energy have been built up, then year two will see an extraordinary tower emerge.

Densely packed with narrow foliage and many thousands of small blue flowers this soon becomes a giant flowering spike that can eventually reach 4 metres in height before setting seed and dying away altogether.

Cardiocrinum.

Cardiocrinum giganteum.

Not to be outdone in the giant stakes, Cardiocrinum giganteum is, essentially, a trumpet lily. But, as their name suggests, these are trumpet lilies that are keen to take the starring role in Jack-and-the-beanstalk, defying gravity to produce colossal, nearly 5-metre-tall flowering stems that are capable of putting even the loftiest Echium to shame.

It’s not just sheer size that Cardiocrinums have to offer though, their huge, pendulous white trumpets are also intoxicatingly fragrant and spectacularly beautiful, stained, as they are, with burgundy. Even the foliage is magnificent – each leaf up to 60cm across and highly glossy.

Like several of these plants, individual Cardiocrinum plants die after flowering (which can take 5 or more years from a young plant), but being bulbous they also produce a multitude of offset bulbs that can be grown on to form the next generation of giants.

They are really very hardy, but consideration should obviously be given to the size of the flowers and foliage and the most wind-sheltered spot selected, preferably with the protection of nearby trees. The more food and water the plants have access to then the bigger the flower spike that they can produce. What are you waiting for??

The problem of plant names.

Ever since human kind developed language we have had names for the plants around us. Very often these were highly descriptive, but also highly localised and regional.

Arum maculatum - "maculatum" = speckled.

The common wild arum (Arum maculatum), so familiar from British hedgerows, is a good case in point. Widespread across these Isles, and also the source of many myths, as well as having been pressed into use for food, starch and even soap, the plant has, over the centuries, acquired over 100 different common names .

Lords-and-Ladies and Cuckoo-Pint are some of it’s more widespread monikers, but Devon folks called the plant Dog’s-Dribble, whilst in neighbouring Somerset it was Babe-in-the-cradle and in Sussex Ram’s-Horn.

All of which meant that even close neighbours wouldn’t necessarily know which plant everyone was referring to. This is just one example, but virtually every single European plant is in much the same boat in terms of the multiplicity of their common names.

The birth of Taxonomy.

This situation was greatly compounded when plants started to be introduced into cultivation from other countries and far away lands. It became clear than an unambiguous and universal system of naming was needed so that Botanists and gardeners alike could all know to which plant they were referring.

Linnaeus - the Swede who even gave himself a Latinised name.

The elegant solution to this problem was devised in the mid 18th Century by Carl von Linné, a Swede now regarded as the grand-daddy of Biological nomenclature.

Linnaeus, as he named himself, developed the Binomial System which was applied to plants in 1753 and then to animals in 1756. Under this system all plants are given a two part name with the first identifying the genus to which they belong, and the second the unique species that they represent.

Each species is also placed into an overarching classification that identifies exactly where it sits in relation to all other plants, and ultimately all other living things. This arrangement and classification of life is known as Toxomomy, and is overseen by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

Botanical names.

Under the rules of Taxonomy the description and name of a plant must be published in Latin in a suitability respected Botanical journal or book. Back in Linnaeus’ day Latin was the unambiguous and pan-European language of scholarship, and it’s the adoption of this (rather than Swedish or English, say) that has secured the permanent future of his system of naming.

It’s common to refer to Botanical names as “Latin Names” but actually they are Latinised versions of words or names from many other languages, particularly Greek, so the term “Botanical Name” is both more useful and more accurate.

The meanings of names.

This is where things get really interesting from a gardeners point of view. Those Botanical names are never chosen at random and each carries useful information about the plant to which it’s attached.

Deutzia scabra - deutzia = after Jan van der Deutz + scabra = rough-surfaced (referring to the leaves).

The first half of each name is known as the Generic name, and identifies the limited group of close relatives (the genus) to which the plant belongs. Some random examples with handily descriptive names are:

Nothofagus – “fagus” is a Beech tree, “notho” means false, so a Nothofagus is a False Beech, i.e. a tree that resembles a Beech, but which is something different.

Aquilegia – “aquila” is an Eagle, and Aquilegia refers to the eagles-claw shape of the flower parts.

Magnolia, Fuchsia, Deutzia, Camellia & Stewartia – are all examples of commemorative names that use Latised versions of the surnames of the men associated with early the descriptions of each genus – in these cases, Magnol, Fuchs, Deutz, Kamel & Stewart.

Lavandula angustifolia - lavandula = blue-ish herb + angustifolia = narrow leafed.

The second half of a plant’s name is called the Specific Epithetic and identifies it’s particular and distinctive species.

These specific epithets are always usefully descriptive and cover a wide spectrum of derivations including the habit, shape and colour of a plant, it’s flowers, leaves, bark, fragrance, it’s country or region of origin, it’s season of growth or flowering, as well as various commemorative names.  Some examples:

acaulis = stemless
aestivalis = flowering in spring
alba = white
alpestris = from mountains

angustifolia = narrow-leaved
argentea = silvery
aurantiaca = orange
australis = from the south
autumnalis = of autumn
azurea = blue

Pronunciation.

Trying to figure out the correct pronunciation of Botanical Names is, without doubt, the barrier that prevents some gardeners from embracing them.

Rhododendron sinogrande - rhodo = rose-like, dendron = tree + sino = from China, grande = big!

Names like Arisaema zanlanscianense may seem a tad daunting at first, but they all carry that same valuable information about the plant that they describe,

In this case “arisaema” = closely related to Arums  + “zanlanscianense” = coming from the Chinese region of Zanlan.

In fact all English speakers already use quite a few scientific names in common speech without too many problems.

Amphibian, pachyderm, and Tyrannosaurus all qualify along with familiar, but actually quite long plant household-names, like Rhododendron for instance.

There are also five simple rules that will make the decoding of Botanical pronunciation much easier:

1. “ch” (as in Chrysanthemum) is always pronounced as a hard K

2. “ae” (as in Aesculus) is always pronounced EE

3. “ii” (as in wilsonii) is always pronounced EE-EYE

4. most vowels (including “y”) are pronounced short rather than long (as in maths, ethics, fish, box, bus, and cyst)

5. the emphasis is normally placed on the second to last vowel or pair of vowels, so Clematis should be clem-AY-tiss (rather CLEM-a-tiss) and henryi is HEN-ree-eye (rather than hen-REE-eye)  for example.

Hepatica henryi - hepatica = kidney-shaped (leaves) + henryi = after the famous Irish plant hunter Augustine Henry.

Following these five rules will enable you to pronounce virtually all Botanical names correctly. When faced with a new or unfamiliar name it’s best to sound them out one syllable at a time and then just run the syllables together.

You’ll also find that new names become much more recognisable from the constituent parts that you’ve already come across.

With a little practise the whole world of plant Botanical names and the valuable and interesting information that they hold will open up to you, and your relationship with your garden and it’s floral inhabitants will be that much the richer for it.

Tomatoes.

The most obvious and perhaps even traditional of these are undoubtedly tomatoes. There are now a vast array of varieties and types of tomatoes available for the home grower, some of which can be successfully cropped outdoors if the weather is kind. Down here in “sunny” Devon the last two summers of eternal wetness have well and truly put paid to any attempts to produce outdoor tomato crops, with most plants succumbing to blight and weather-related fungal attacks  long before they were able to set fruit.

For those plants grown under glass, though, the outcome was much happier, and although 2008/2009 will certainly not go down in any veg growers record book some decent crops were eventually produced despite the cold temperatures and general lack of anything resembling a traditional summer.

Tomato variety Sunbaby.

The upright, cordon tomato varieties such as ‘Sunbaby’ and ‘Shirley’ should be selected for greenhouse use. Seeds should be sown in mid-March, with the subsequent seedlings being ready to transplant in mid-May. There are also many outlets for young plug and seedling plants which will perform equally admirably and which allow you to catch up if you didn’t have a chance to start from seed earlier in Spring.

Transplant seedlings into 12 inch pots with a rich, free draining compost, and make sure to include a tall cane or other support for each of the plants. Given a little care, plus lots of water and tomato feed, the extra heat afforded the plants under glass will produce much higher yields of fruit, with much better ripening than would be the case outdoors.

Cucumbers.

The range of cucumbers for home growing has expanded considerably in recent years with the arrival of a range of easily obtainable F1 hybrid varieties (such as ‘Fernspot F1′) that are easily grown and produce consistently good results.

Cucumber plants tend to be rather fragile under the weight of the heavy fruit, but should be carefully supported on canes.

Care is pretty much as for tomato plants, with seeds sown in March and seedlings or plugs transplanted into 12 inch pots in mid-May.

The wild plants from which cucumbers have been developed are trailing, rather than climbing, but the fruit ripens far more successfully with good access to light and air, so plants should be supported with canes or tied into wires that run along the length of the greenhouse.

Once the first half-dozen leaves have appeared on the young plants the growing tip should be pinched out to encourage the production of several growing shoots.

Cucumber plants are only weakly twining at best and obviously carry very heavy fruit, so it’s particularly important that these developing shoots are carefully tied in to their supports to keep them upright and stable. Plants should be kept well watered and a rich tomato-type feed given every two weeks.

Aubergines.

Far less commonly grown in this country, aubergines, like tomatoes, are South American members of the nightshade family that most definitely need the extra heat and protection from wind that a greenhouse can provide. As with cucumbers, much work has been done to develop varieties that can be easily grown at home, and very heavy fruiting varieties like ‘Moneymaker’ make for easy and extremely rewarding  greenhouse crops. The plants are also very attractive, not just for the rather spectacular fruit, but also the for the foliage and large purple flowers.

Aubergines - highly decorative, highly tasty.

Aubergines should be sown indoors or under heat in March or in an unheated greenhouse in April. Once they have produced four leaves – any time from mid-May to mid-June, depending on when they were started – they can be pricked out and transplanted into 9 inch pots, together with the same staking/support as for tomatoes and cucumbers.

Plants should not be allowed to develop lots of small fruits or none will be able to ripen properly. Each plant is capable or maturing anywhere from three to six fruit in a growing season – depending on how warm and sunny the summer turns out to be - so pinch out any weak or poorly developed fruit-lets to let the plants divert energy into a few really good ones instead. Lots of water and regular supplies of tomato feed will, once again, ensure the best crops.

Capsicum.

Saving the best to last, we come to the real hot-house gems, the Capsicums or peppers. Until fairly recently hardly anyone grew these South-American beauties in their home greenhouses in this country, but now they are very much the “vegetable de jour” and plug plants are almost as readily available as tomatoes and cucumbers.

Capsicum Sunrise.

Capsicum plants are somewhat more tender than toms, cus and aubergines, particularly when first germinated. Seed should only be sown under glass when temperatures are remaining consistently above 12C, and the seedlings (or bought-in plugs) transplanted into 8 inch pots once they have developed three of four true leaves.

Capsicum are not true climbing plants, but, rather like cucumbers, they certainly do require additional support of a short cane etc., in order to successfully bear their large fruit. The plants should be shaded from mid-day sun and kept slightly on the dry side, without actually ever quite drying out completely. A half-strength tomato feed should be applied every two weeks once the plants are growing strongly.

Capsicum Tequila.

There are now a wide array of Capsicum varieties available to the gardener, from the sweet bell peppers that start out green and ripen to yellow, orange, red or black/purple (like the fabulous ‘Tequila’), to the smaller, much hotter chillies than all turn scarlet upon ripening – they are all part of the same Mexican species: Capsicum annuum.

Aside from the obvious culinary uses Capsicum are such beautiful fruiting plants that you’ll be continually admiring their progress. Personally I can’t think of any more rewarding use for your greenhouse space this summer.

Erythronium dans-canis bulbs - the Dog-Tooth.

The 25 to 30 species of Erythronium are mostly woodland natives, but some species range up into sub alpine and even truly alpine regions of Europe, Asia and Western North America, this last being the place that most of them call home.

Much like Trilliums Erythronium can be divided into two botanical groups. the Eurasian species (the Dogtooth violets, if you will) are the smallest and are represented by E. dens-canis and it’s close relatives/variants –  E. japonicum, E. sibiricum, and E. caucasicum. The North American species (the Trout Lilies)  that form the second group are taller and represent the large bulk of the species. These two groups do not overlap geographically, are don’t seem to be very closely related botanically, having evolved in divergent directions after the break up of the supercontinent where their ancestors must have first appeared.

Erythronium americanum.

In the Eastern states of North America there are 5 native species, but the remaining 18 species are all native to the forests of the western seaboard, with particular concentrations in Oregon and California.

Erythroniums are quintessential Spring flowering perennials and display many of the typical qualities of other plants from the woodland floor. Like their native companions such as Hepatica, Trillium and Uvularia they emerge from dormancy between February and April, before the woodland canopy has leafed out, and then flower and set seed fairly quickly before dying back down again in early summer.

Erythronium Susannah.

In common with pretty much all bulbous plants the flowers and general performance of Erythroniums in one season is dependent upon the reserves of energy that have been laid down over the previous season.

The longer that a plant is able to keep in leaf the better the vigour and the display of foliage and flower will be the following year, and this length of growing season can be effected by water and food supplies, to it pays to keep a close eye on plants once flowering has finished.

Unlike their relatives the true Lilies Erythonium bulbs don’t respond at all well to being dried out and should ideally never be bought as “dry bulbs”. In addition many species have very delicate, fragile,  thin bulbs that are easily damaged if you do attempt to dig them up and dry them out, so careful handling is definitely required when dividing or splitting large clumps.

Erythronium Craigton Cover Girl.

Without doubt the best way to introduce and establish plants if to look for healthy, lush, pot-grown plants that are in full leaf, although the rarer species can also be successfully purchased damp packed having been freshly lifted in Summer from specialist bulb suppliers.

The alpine species, are, not surprisingly perhaps, quite demanding and tricky to accommodate in most garden conditions, but many of the woodlanders are amongst the easiest and most rewarding of all Spring perennials.

Erythronium californicum is a tall, stately and very easily grown species with bright white flowers that have a contrasting golden yellow centre. The form ‘White Beauty’ is widely available, and totally reliable in the garden.

Erythronium dens-canis Snowflake.

The little 15cm tall European species Erythronium dens-canis is early flowering and is widely available in a plethora of different forms and selections, which, for the most part don’t differ hugely from one another. All have lovely, dark-speckled leaves and ‘Snowflake’ is a distinctive beautiful white flowered form.

Erythronium oregonum is a normally white flowered species with wonderfully patterned and mottled leaves; E. oregonum ‘Sulphur’ is a form with equally appealing lemon yellow flowers.

One of the most widespread American species (and one that has also been used extensively in hybridisation programmes) is the pink flowered Erythronium revolutum.

Erythronium revolutum.

This 30cm tall plant is quite variable in terms of leaf quality and flower size and depth of colour, but there are a number of well tested selections – including the Devon form ‘Knightshayes’ Pink’ - that are worth seeking out in preference to the general species.

Amongst the many fine hybrids involving this species are E. ‘Joanna’, a particular favourite of mine, with gorgeous apricot coloured flowers that change colour as they age and E. ‘Craigton Cover Girl’ with very large flowers of pale pink.

The variety most frequently seen in cultivation, though, is definitely the bright lemon-yellow flowered old hybrid E. ‘Pagoda’, a tough, vigorous and widely available garden plant with broad, glossy foliage that emerges with a pleasing bronzy tint. E. ‘Sundisc’,  E. ‘Kondo’ and E. ‘Susanna’ are similar, and are also widely available, but both have rather superior flowers.

Erythronium Pagoda.

Erythronium love conditions that replicate their wild habitats. A spot beneath deciduous trees in an open, loamy soil that dries out a little in Summer will suit them admirably, but any conditions that accomodate the likes of snowdrops will also work well. pH is not particularly critical, although thin, chalk-based soils will certainly need bulking up with organic materials and heavy clay soils will require opening up to improve drainage. Where soil conditions are unsuitable then Erythroniums can also be grown very happily in raised beds or in large containers, which also makes it easier to observe the extremely beautiful flowers in close-up detail and at eye level. The most vigorous varieties can also be naturalised in grass and can look spectacular in large groups planted around the margins of trees and shrubs.

Erythronium Joanna.

All of the more vigorous forms will multiply well at the bulb and the longer they are kept in leaf the quicker they will bulk up. Preventing them from setting seed will also increase the rate at which they increase underground, and can be easily achieved by simply removing the dead flowers.

Erythonium do set seed in quantity and this can be easily collected once the seed capsules have ripened, dried and are starting to split. The seed should then be stored dry and sown in August into a deep container which is then left outside to overwinter, since seed requires a period of winter cold to stimulate germination.

Growing from seed is a rather slow process though, and plants take anything up to 5 years before reaching flowering size. As with adult plants, keeping the youngsters in leaf for as long as possible is the key to speeding the process up as much as possible.

Erythronium californicum.

Luckily Erythonium are not greatly troubled by pests and diseases and the woodland species don’t have any great specialist needs in the garden.

Slugs and snails can be a pain during wet springs but most other problems are due to poor drainage causing rotting and fungal damage to the bulbs.

A honeybee, covered in Dandelion pollen.

Plants in nature employ a fascinating array of strategies to ensure pollination of their flowers. When they first evolved wind was the only agent that could use to move pollen from one plant to it’s neighbour, and ancient lineages of plants such as cycads, ferns and conifers still make do with drift pollination to this day.

Much, much later on came the flowering plants. The myriad forms, colours and patterns of flowers that now exist, and in which we gardeners take such delight, all developed for one single purpose: to ensure pollination.

Flowers do this, of course, by using their none too subtle signals to attract an equally large galaxy of insects, birds and mammals to carry out their work for them.

Clouds of Pine pollen released on the wind.

This has proven to be an incredibly effective strategy and, as a result, flowering plants are able to reproduce themselves despite only producing tiny quantities of pollen.

Your average conifer, by contrast, consigns truly industrial quantities of pollen to the air each spring in the hope that a minuscule proportion of it will land in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, to ensure successful pollination.

It’s fair to say that most wild plants do successfully manage the trick of pollination in most years and are thus able to set seed and attempt to reproduce themselves.

Pollination in the garden.

An Aquilegia - a typical hummingbird pollinated flower: red and with elongated nectaries.

In the garden however, things do not always go so smoothly. Almost all of the plants that we grow as ornamentals and for food are well outside of their wild environments, and often totally isolated from their natural pollinating partners.

Not too many of us have hummingbirds visiting our gardens for instance, yet it’s they that are the wild pollination partners for a number of our red-flowered garden favourites such as Aquilegia.

Which is where hand pollination comes in.

Hand pollination.

Hand pollination is simply the pollination of a plant by “mechanical” means – i.e. by you the gardener. There are three good reasons why you might want to hand pollinate flowers in the garden.

Tomato flowers.

Firstly, many fruit and vegetable plants (tomatoes being a prime example) often need help in pollination to ensure a good crop of fruit develops.

This is particularly so when the plants are grown under glass where any potential pollinators may not be able to reach them, and where the plants may well be flowering artificially early, before most pollinators are on the wing.

Secondly, you may wish to ensure a crop of seed is produced that you can successfully harvest for sowing or distribution. In the absence of natural wild pollinators some plants will only set seed if given this additional help.

A mature stigma with a few pollen grains already attached.

In addition, in order to limit the number of genetically identical copies of themselves, many plants have developed various strategies to prevent self-pollination.

These plants are referred to as being self-sterile (heterothallic, if you want to get really technical) and they will need artificial assistance from a second donor plant in order to fruit well or to set seed at all.

Thirdly, you may, like me, wish to have a go at playing god and try to make your own hybrids. This can be extremely rewarding, and it’s certainly great fun watching new babies develop and seeing how they differ from, and hopefully improve upon their parents.

Techniques and strategies.

Anatomy of a Tulip. Dark brown pollen on the anthers of the male stamens which surround the white female stigma in the centre.

The simplest form of mechanical help that you can give a plant is to simply give it a gentle shake. Some fruit and veg plants that are self fertile (but that suffer from a lack of insect pollinators) can benefit greatly from this as the loose pollen is easily dislodged from the stamens and transferred  via gravity to the stigma. A number of glasshouse crops are pollinated in just this way and electric “shakers” are used commercially on a vast scale.

Of course this isn’t much help of you’re looking to create a hybrid or to be certain of pollination of a particular, individual flower, so this is where true hand pollination comes in.

Although the anatomy, structure and size of flowers differs hugely, the basic reproductive elements are present and correct in all of them.

Simply put, dust-like pollen grains are produced on the anthers of the male stamens and need to be received by the female stigma.

Once on the stigma the pollen grains will germinate and grow towards the ovary where they can fertilise the waiting seeds.

Hand pollination tasks.

Lily stamens and stigma.

The stages of the hand pollination are:

1) To correctly identify the stamens and the stigma in the intended flowers. Sometimes it’s blindingly obvious what’s what, but other floral anatomies, especially in small flowers, can be a bit more cryptic. The internet can usually help.

2) To figure out when the stamens are ripe and shedding pollen, and when the stigma is receptive. This is crucial.

Stamens are of no use unless they are shedding fluffy, light pollen. They only do this for a few days, so timing is important.

The stigma becomes moist and sticky when receptive, and most also change shape and curl outwards, all ploys to try to trap pollen.

Normally the stigma ripens first and then the stamens mature some time later (although some flowers operate the other way around) so you will need to keep an eye on several different flowers and use each at the right stage.

Pollen grains on a tulip stamen.

3) Transfer clean pollen from stamen to stigma. Traditionally this has always been done with a very fine artists paintbrush…which I personally think is a terrible idea.

Firstly much of the pollen is lost either in the bristles or in the act of moving from flower to flower. More importantly, once used the brush is then tainted with the pollen of that flower and needs to be sterilised with alcohol to kill the pollen residue before being used on the next variety of flower.

Unless you are only pollinating one variety of flower this is totally impractical and some flowers produce such tiny quantities of pollen that almost none would be transferred on a brush.

Hand pollinating an Iris using tweezers.

Another popular technique uses cotton buds. These are pretty good at collecting pollen and can be discarded after each plant, so there’s no danger of pollen contamination.

In my experience though much of the pollen is again lost in the fibres of the cotton and some of the flowers that I hybridize - Epimediums for example – are far too small for a cotton bud to be of much use.

By far the simplest and best idea is to use a pair of long handled, narrow pointed tweezers to pluck the ripe stigma and us it to “paint” the stigma with pollen. If the flower parts are large enough, you can simply use your fingers instead of tweezers. This way you get the maximum possible amount of pollen transferred and there is absolutely no possibility of contamination. Easy!

Painting the stigma of a courgette flower using a plucked stamen.

4) If you’re attempting to hybridize you must prevent anything else from pollinating the flower afterwards. There are two aspects to this.

Firstly you’ll need to prevent the flower from pollinating itself. The surest way to do this is to simply remove all of the stamens before they ripen and shed their pollen. This process is called emasculation, and is easily done with those same long tweezers.

Secondly you need to prevent any insects from visiting the flower.

If you are pollinating a small-ish plant then you might want to have it in a pot which will allow it to be moved indoors for a few days until whilst the stigma is still receptive.

Alternatively you can hood the flower, to prevent anything gaining access to it. Paper bags secured with cotton or cotton are ideal, and allow good movement of air and humidity, which is crucial if the pollen is to germinate successfully. The third option is to remove all of the petals from the flower so there’s simply nothing left to signal to an insect.

Epimedium sutchuenense - one of the finest of the new Chinese introductions.

Back in 1938 there were just 21 named species, two thirds of which were natives of China with the remainder hailing from Eastern Europe and the most Westerly regions of Asia. The Chinese species had been discovered, named and introduced into the West by the great Victorian plant hunters, but the virtual closure of China to outsiders – and most certainly to Western plant hunters – for much of the 20th century left the genus as little more than a footnote in most gardens.

That situation started to change in the last decades of the 20th century, when a handful of botanists and plant collectors (Chinese, Japanese and western alike) were able to access the spectacularly rich plant treasures of south western China once again.

Epimedium Ibis - new spring foliage.

Over a period of 20 years some 30 new Chinese species and a number of wild hybrids were discovered, named and introduced into cultivation, and that number continues to grow each year. This represents a unprecedented recent explosion in numbers of species, completely unrivalled by any other group of garden plants.

What’s more these new species aren’t just botanical curiosities, or subtle variations of the same plant with no individual horticultural merit. In fact these new Chinese species are the most beautiful, diverse and garden-worthy members of the whole genus, and it’s their arrival in the West that has sky-rocketed Epemidiums in general to the status of “must haves” for so many gardeners.

Epimedium Kittiwake.

The landscape of Yunnan and Sichuan – the Chinese provinces from which these Epimediums originate – is composed of deep river gorges separated by sheer limestone cliffs. The extreme geography means that much of the territory is virtually inaccessible, which is why so few of the species were found by the Victorian plant hunters, but it also means that populations of plants are completely isolated from one another.

Few plants or animals (that might otherwise move seeds or pollen) are able to migrate from one valley into the neighbouring ones, so each exists as a kind of botanical island, set adrift to evolve independently in it’s own direction.

Epimedium davidii.

The final factor in explaining the huge diversity of Epimedium species in the region is that they are considered to be in a state of active and rapid evolution, this being triggered by the demands of the landscape in which they grow. This means that the species as we now perceive them have only very recently become “fixed” and stable, and are potentially still pretty volatile – which also explains the unusually large number of hybrid forms found in the wild.

Epimediums are herbaceous perennial members of the Berberis family, which may seem quite odd at first, but becomes more apparent on close examination of the flowers. The genus is divided into two groups, one with long, running and spreading rhizomes, and the other with a very compact, woody and non-spreading rootstock.

Epimedium latisepalum x wushanense Caramel

Plants can be evergreen or more frequently deciduous, with delicate flower stems emerging in mid spring, followed immediately by new foliage.

This foliage may be heart-shaped or greatly elongated and dagger-shaped, is generally gently spiny, and and, upon opening is often beautifully patterned, marbled and coloured in shades of red, orange, purple and bronze. By summer the leaves assume a solid green colouration, with some once again taking on rich autumn tints in autumn.

Rarely more that 60cm or so in height, Epimediums were traditionally viewed as ground-cover plants in the garden, and many of the older and more vigorous forms are still amongst the most effective and decorative, as well as the toughest, most reliable and adaptable of  choices for ground cover, including for that most tricky of garden positions: dry shade.

Epimedium Cinnabar.

The newest and most choice selections are all quite robust and easy to accommodate, preferring a fairly sheltered position in dappled shade. Although they occur on alkaline limestone in the wild, they actually grow in the shallow acidic/neutral leaf-litter  layer the sits onto of the bedrock, so none of the species seem to be fussy as to pH although an open and humus-rich soil (mimicking their wild conditions) will certainly suit them best.

Hardiness was initially considered questionable, but as more of the species have been tested in more sites they have proven to be extremely resilient. Certainly none of the Chinese species in our garden have been damaged in any way by the extremes of this last winter, when temps plunged to -17 Celcius on one occasion.

Epimedium x versicolor Sulphureum - autumn foliage colour.

Epimediums are slow to increase at the root, but can be fairly easily divided every two or three years as required. Most species also produce copious amounts of seed and new plants can easily be obtained by sowing this as soon as it ripens in summer. Plants will germinate early the following spring and, if well grown, many will be be up to flowering size within 12 months.

The ease with which the plants hybridise, coupled with the expansion of new species available to use as parents has produced an array of exciting new hybrids which are just starting to become available to gardeners. Many of these are very tough and relatively vigorous in the garden, and they further expand the selection of forms and colours available.

I’ve yet to see any Epimedium that is not worthy of garden cultivation. All are beautiful in their own way and many are simply stunning in both flower and leaf as well as being highly collectable and easy to accommodate in most gardens.

Practical and functional, no garden should be without a greenhouse.

Installing a greenhouse is one of those pivotal moments for any gardener. Having a covered area in the garden, be it a conservatory, porch or even a cloche or cold frame, greatly enhances the scope of what you can grow and when, but once you have a greenhouse you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.

Greenhouses create longer growing seasons, provide protection, warmth and additional humidity for their leafy occupants. They allow you to grow entire ranges of plants, both edible and ornamental, that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

Seeds can be sown much earlier and bulbs and containers started safely into growth in late winter or early spring. Perhaps most important of all, greenhouses also provide a sheltered, dry and wind-proofed working environment which will work wonders to encourage you out into the garden on otherwise grey, cold and uninviting days.

Site.

A wooden potting table - essential greenhouse kit.

Generally speaking you might have only limited possible sites available in your garden, or quite possibly no choice whatsoever as to where to situate a greenhouse. There is a temptation to locate them as you would a shed – i.e. tucked away out of site in an unused and probably uncultivatable corner of the garden.
Unless you’re planning to house a specialist fern collection in your greenhouse, this kind of location is really not going to work. Another common mistake is to situate with the longest side facing due south into the sun. This will create unfeasibly high summer temperatures and you may end up oven-baking all your plants as a result; at best you will be continually struggling to keep ventilation and humidity high enough and may end up having to shade the entire greenhouse in an effort to keep things stable.

Where possible the very best site will have the longest sides of the greenhouse facing east and west, the door/ventilation end facing south and the northern end against the protection of a wall, hedge of fence.

Choice of greenhouse.

A typical flat-pack aluminium greenhouse.

The best value greenhouses are those that come flat packed for self-assembly. If you have the patience and (ideally) a couple of willing helpers on hand then these aluminium and glass constructions are extremely good value and can provide an ideal solution.

Go for the very largest size that you can afford and can accommodate. You may not think that you’ll fill up all that space, but believe me, no matter how large your greenhouse you will soon find yourself wishing you could squeeze in a little more.

Also the larger the enclosed space the more stable the humidity, temperature and environment within, and the less susceptible it will be to heat loss overnight and over-heating during the day.

Finally, ventilation is an absolutely part of any greenhouse so make sure that yours has as much as is available, preferably allowing for a cross flow of air from end to end and/or side to side of the structure.

Access to services.

In order to make the most of your greenhouse you will need access to electricity and a water supply. Once you have a collection of plants under glass you will want to ensure they don’t get hammered by extremes of cold, and, depending on what you are growing, you may also need to guarantee a frost free environment year round.

A water butt set up to collect run-off from the greenhouse roof.

There are a variety of gas heaters available, but they can be tricky to run and expensive to buy. The best of them also need to be installed by a qualified engineer, and might end up costing more than the greenhouse itself. Having power available in your greenhouse will allow for cheap and easy low level heating if and when it’s needed and of course will also allow you to add a light for those dark winter days.

Access to water is even more important, since you’re going to be using this, quite possibly on a daily basis, for a large portion of the year. Consider installing a tap or at least running a dedicated hose to the greenhouse, and most definitely install a water butt to capture the rain that falls on the large glass surface of your greenhouse. Using captured rainwater not only makes good environmental and economic sense but is also far better for all plants, and absolutely essential for the likes of Orchids & carnivorous plants as well as many seedlings.

Think also about your own access to and from the greenhouse and consider adding some additional paving or gravel in order to keep the entrance clean and prevent mud being traipsed in from a soggy wet garden.

Cleanliness.

All of the warm, humid & sheltered conditions that allow for great plant growth will also create an outstanding breeding ground for fungi, bacteria and plant viruses, not to mention weeds and a whole gaggle of flying insect pests. Keep work surfaces, glass and flooring clean, tidy and hygienic and you will greatly reduce the opportunities for any of these nasties to gain a foothold.

Greenhouses are not garden sheds and should not be used as dumping grounds for all the things that you want to tidy away – the transparent sides should put the kibosh on that idea anyhow, since everything inside is effectively still on display.

Equipping a greenhouse.

There are a few useful bits of kit that you should have lined up ready for your new glassy space. Top of the list is a solid, steady work surface set at a height comfortable for you to work with and strong enough to hold pots, compost and whatever else you’re likely to need. Consider using a table and perching seat – they don’t take up much room and make can make working conditions far more comfortable.

Working tray.

A large, shallow sided tray is also pretty essential. This will allow you to do a whole range of gardening tasks – mix composts, pot up plants, turn out old pots etc. – and all in contained, clean and hygienic conditions.

You’re also going to need an easily accessible and preferably containerised or divided tidy or storage area for tools, labels, pens, ties, plant foods and so on. Think about layout too, and where best to accommodate composts, pots, trays, canes and all the other items so that they are ready for use.

I like to have two separate bins running in the greenhouse. In fact it’s the very first thing that I set up and won’t start any work without them, as it’s amazing how much debris you produce whilst working in a greenhouse. Much of it can be composted, but some things, like old broken plastic pots and seeds trays or diseased plant material, need to be kept separate for waste disposal.

Shade netting - have some on hand long before it's likely to be needed.

Tools will vary according to your needs and the nature of what you will be growing, but secateurs, scissors, a hand watering can and a couple of sprays are all pretty indispensible in my experience.

Finally, unless you have indeed been forced to locate your greenhouse in a dark, shady corner where a shed might otherwise live, then you will almost certainly need some shading ready for extremes of temperature.

You can easily attach shading net to the inside or your glass walls, and some greenhouses come with their own shading systems too, but in either case you’ll need to have it ready to use well in advance of summer.

Children and plants should be a naturally winning combination.

Whether it’s creating a beautiful flower-filled garden or growing veg on an allotment there’s no doubt that many people are keener than ever to get their hands dirty in their own homes, and it’s vital that this passion and interest is passed down the generations.

As well as being a healthy and rewarding outdoor activity gardening, and particularly shared garden projects where the whole family gets involved, can also be a great way of spending quality time together.

When given responsibility for a task, and the suitable tools, children almost always respond positively and the rewards can last a lifetime.

So in that spirit, here are some suggestions, hints and thoughts to encourage children to become interested in gardening.

Keep it fun.

First off, here’s a suggestion of what not to do. Although gardening certainly has it’s fair share of dull, repetitive, but very necessary tasks, please don’t offload these onto the kids. It’s pretty tempting (for both parties) to enter into a garden-chores-for-cash type arrangement too, but doing so is likely to have your children categorise gardening firmly in the drudge department. There are at least as many tasks and projects the completion of which offer rewards in themselves, and these are far more likely to engage young minds and fire imaginations.

Get down and dirty.

Result!

From a very young age many children enjoy digging in and playing around with and in soil – it’s the same principal as building sandcastles on the beach really.

It might be easy to find this inconvenient or messy, but with a bit of forethought it can be the perfect introduction to the world of the garden.

Try to find an area that can be just for the kids or let them mess around in newly dug areas before they are planted. Get them kitted out in old clothes that you don’t mind getting muddy, and let nature take it’s course.

Tools for the job.

Garden tools, child size.

All young children like to imitate adults, it’s a large part of how they learn, so giving them their very own set of garden tools not only allows them to get involved with all the same sort of activities as the adults but also gives them something uniquely their own.

Many garden tools also come in child friendly, mini sizes, and buckets, spades, rakes, gloves, watering cans and wheelbarrows are all ideal.

Either allocate the children their own patch of the garden, or get them involved in all of your gardening tasks – making a potentially dull set of jobs into fun family activities.

Planting seeds.

Planting seeds using the egg carton method.

Growing plants from seed is a basic task for most gardeners, and perfect one for children to learn too. Sowing and growing from seeds allows kids control of a whole little project and lets them see the effect of their attentions on a day-by-day, leaf -by leaf-basis.

It can be immensely rewarding and a source of great pride to grow something as mighty and downright impressive as a sunflower or a sweet pea from a seed. Start small, with a few seeds in few old margarine pots, or even in an egg carton, and see how they get on.

You can enlarge the task further by getting children to record their plants progress – they could measure or draw them at each stage of growth for instance. Stick with fast germinating, and quick flowering annuals for the most immediate results, if all goes well then try some vegetables from seed – whatever your child best likes to eat.

Collecting and categorising.

Shapes, colours, patterns, textures - leaves in all their glory.

Like the adults that they will some day become, many children enjoy collecting “things” and then arranging or categorising them into groups.

Think about what’s prolific on your plot – leaves, flowers, seeds, bark are just a few of many possibilities – and they can all be collected, decorated, drawn, identified and used to create other things.

Think also about expanding and building up on your child’s’ existing interests and seeing how you can incorporate the garden into them. A spin off activity might also be designing, decorating or making labels for the garden.

Using containers.

Terracotta pots take paint very well & are easily decorated.

A great way of getting creative in the garden is to encourage children to decorate and then plant up their own containers. You can start with a basic terracotta or plastic pot, although any suitable container will do just fine.

Decorations can be painted, glued or tied, shells, seedcases, leaves, paint, sand & stones are just a few of the possible materials that can be tried. Then take the children along to a nursery or garden centre, give them a small budget and let them choose something suitable to plant.

They can even research a bit about their chosen plant, where in the world it comes from, how to look after it and so on. Again, the whole idea is to encourage their ownership of the plant and the planter, to get thoroughly involved and let those green fingers start to grow.

The birds and the bees.

Ladybirds are perennial favourite of children and adult gardeners alike.

Many kids have a natural affinity with and fascination for animals of all shapes and sizes, so exploring the greenery in search of insects is often a very popular pastime. Some of these can also be collected, identified and released once again…maybe not the vine weevils though.

Keeping a list of birds that visit the garden, and what they do when they’re there is a good alternative. The ultimate garden biosphere is definitely the garden pond, the number and variety of creatures that will call it home is really astonishing, and often a source of wonder to even the most jaded tot. If that seems to be working well then the next stage would be to build feeders, nestboxes, habitats and food plants, maybe even create a new pond.