News Tagged ‘Butterflies’

Planting for Wildlife: The Wild Roses.

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

There can be few gardens across the land that don’t contain at least 1 or more roses. Whether they were planted by their current gardener or inherited along with the house and the rest of the original planting, our love affair with the rose has seen them proliferate across our gardens like few other varieties of plant. In many ways, though, they have become a victim of their own success – too ubiquitous and therefore too common to be in any way fashionable. The “modern rose” is also often a very man-made affair – all pumped-up in a powder-puff multitude of petals and a bewildering array of colour combinations – not the kind of thing that sits well with the trends for naturalistic planting and wild-looking plants.

Rosa rugosa, together with a feeding bumblebee.

The hybrid T also comes with some serious baggage – associations with disease (Blackspot in particular), aphids, annual pruning regimens and gaunt, bare, ugly looking bushes through winter. It’s fair to say that many Modern Roses cannot, in fact, be successfully cultivated without resorting to an armoury of defensive sprays and potions to fend off the worst of their many enemies. You could even say that they represent the worst excesses of old-style gardening as a kind of attack on nature, something to be tamed rather than celebrated in it’s wildness. But to tar all roses with that same brush would be a serious mistake.

Rosa canina - the small hips are both attractive and loaded with vitamins.

Rosa is a pretty large genus with over 100 species. Most of these are native to Asia, but, quite remarkably perhaps, some 20 different rose species grow wild in Britain. The majority of that number are made up of non-natives that have escaped from early attempts at cultivation and have naturalised themselves, and still others are varieties that differ only slightly from their species. We do, however, have 4 identifiably seperate native species of rose, all of which are quite charming and none of which suffer from any of the drawbacks associated with their over-blown modern hybrid relatives.

Rosa canina in flower.

Rosa canina (the Dog Rose) is probably everyone’s archetypal idea of a wild-rose. The best known of our native species, it’s a familiar sight in many hedgerows and banks where the slender stems scramble through the stronger supports of other shrubs. Like all of the wild roses the fragrant flowers are simple and single, and open flat to reveal a central boss of golden stamens surrounded by petals that vary in colour from pure white through to deep pink, but are most commonly seen in pale, apple-blossom pink. These flowers are followed by striking flask-shaped, bright vermillion-red fruits.

Rosa arvensis - smothered with summer flowers.

Rosa arvensis (the Field Rose) is a more vigorous climbing species that readily forms dense mounds of stems and foliage and is ideal for growing through a tree. In the wild the species is most usually found at woodland margins, as well as in older hedges, but it’s long been cultivated too and forms one of the essential elements of the traditional English Cottage Garden, which is never complete without it’s climbing rose around the front door. The flowers are invariably white and somewhat smaller than the Dog Rose. The fragrance is also less notable than in that species, but what they lack in individual prowess they make up for in abundance, with the plants becoming smothered in flowers throughout summer and equally numerous small, rounded, sealing-wax red fruit in autumn.

A Blue Tit samples the hips of Rosa arvenis deep in a snowbound winter.

Rosa rubiginosa (Sweet Briar) is a free-standing shrub, rather than a climber, and has thick stems clothed with a formidable armoury of thorns – hence the common name. The foliage is deliciously scented of apples and the beautifully formed flowers are clear-pink fading to a white centre and are also wonderfully, and famously fragrant. Once again, the flowering display is followed by an even brighter one as the teardrop-shaped red hips swell through the autumn. Sweet Briar makes an excellent and very dense hedge in it’s own right, and is readily grown, even in quite poor soils.

The distinctive fruit of Rosa rubiginosa.

The last of our native species, Rosa pimpinellifolia (Scotch Rose), is perhaps the least well-known, at least in it’s true, wild form, but is certainly my favourite of the four. It forms a small bush, commonly found growing wild amongst coastal sand dunes, and limestone pavements, but completely adaptable to virtually all garden conditions. The entire plant is more delicate than the preceding species; the foliage is very heavily divided giving an almost fern-like quality to the plant. The stems are extraordinarily bristly and the young foliage is bright red fading to deeper red with maturity, whilst the white flowers are small, but are borne in profusion throughout May and June when they perfume the air. The globular hips appear from mid-summer are deep purple eventually maturing to shining ebony-black.

Rosa pimpinellifolia.

Added to these four species I have to also single out one of the escapees, now very well established in the British countryside, namely Rosa rugosa, (Ramanas Rose). This is a medium-sized, free standing shrub, strong-growing and rather coarse in appearance, but invaluable in the garden in so many ways. The large flowers are typically dark pink, but the best form, ‘Alba’, has flowers of pure white with a contrasting golden centre. These are very powerfully and intoxicatingly fragrant, filling the air with a spicy warmth – truly outstanding. The plants flower continually for many months running from mid-spring right through to late autumn. As a result they never create a huge floral display but the enormously long flowering season is ready compensation. The hips mature to bright tomato-red and, indeed, are also shaped exactly like cherry tomatoes – highly decorative. Rosa rugosa makes a fantastic hedging plant either in it’s own right or mixed in with other native species.

The large, plump hips of Rosa rugosa alba.

All of these 5 roses are beloved by wildlife and make a near-essential edition to any wild or wildlife friendly garden. Those beautiful and fragrant flowers are visited by a large array of insects, butterflies, bees, moths, hoverflies, beetles and wasps. Bumble-bees in particular seem continually drawn to wild-rose flowers and readily gorge themselves on the plentiful pollen and nectar within. Rose hips are equally important sources of food, particularly since they are extremely long-lasting and often persist well into winter when many species of fruit eating birds, along with deer, rabbits, mice, squirrels and other winter foragers rely upon them for sustenance. Finally the bushy, vigorous, multi-branched and thorny nature of roses makes them perfect for nesting birds and small mammals who can readily create a secure and well-defended home in amongst the branches.

Rosa pimpinellifolia fruit, slowly ripening from deep red to black.


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Planting for Wildlife: Daisy, Daisy.

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

It’s no exaggeration to say that there is a crisis looming, or already in full swing, for many of our native insects. Something in the region of 70% of our native butterfly species are in steep decline and many of our bee species are now regarded as threatened, with the short-haired bumblebee having gone extinct in the last few years. Even one third of our native wasp species are now on the endangered list. All of these insect groups are vital for the ongoing health and well-being of the entire ecosystem of our countryside, and the reasons for their declines are not hard to pinpoint.

A Honeybee feeding upon an Ox-Eye Daisy.

Climate change is certainly a factor, as the seasons that species have evolved to exploit change their nature or become more unpredictable, but of far greater significance is the rise of intensive agriculture and the fragmentation or loss of wild habitats that has resulted. To put that in perspective, 97% of Britain’s wild-flower meadows have disappeared in the space of the last 70 years. When viewed from that stand-point it’s surprising that more of our native insects haven’t succumbed altogether, but part of the reason for their continued survival, and that of much of the rest of our native wildlife, is that many species have managed to transplant themselves into our gardens and the margins of habitats that might otherwise be thought of as wasteland.

One of my favourites - the Spotted Longhorn Beetle, a guaranteed visitor to a flowering patch of Ox-Eyes.

The enormous economic importance of pollinating insects is only just being appreciated. Without them virtually all of our arable agriculture would, overnight, simply cease to exist. The very nature of our landscape is also inexorably linked to the fate of it’s pollinating bees, butterflies, hoverflies, moths, beetles and wasps, and their continued survival is very much in our own hands.

The Buff-tailed Bumblebee is our most widespread species.

Alerted, as never before, to the alarming declines of insect species and their populations conservationists are becoming evangelical in their calls for us to plant more wildflowers. Food sources and living spaces are the two key areas that we, as gardeners, can readily provide for our our invertebrate neighbours, and both are served by planting wildflowers. Attempting to reverse that fragmentation of habitats, that I mentioned,  is particularly important, as insect populations can all too easily become trapped in an ever dwindling micro-niche that is both genetically unstable and highly vulnerable to climate or other physical changes.

A Heath Fritillary feeding on nectar.

The goal is to provide a network of linked wildlife corridors through which species can move and slowly expand their numbers and their range, and these corridors are created and defined by the planting of native wildflowers. Road verges, car-parks and railway tracks can all be pressed into valuable use, but the largest green area outside of farmland, and the one over which we collectively have the most control, of course, is that contained within our gardens. Each of our gardens can be thought of as a cell of the environment, and by keeping the habitat of our own “cell” happy and healthy then the whole organism will thrive, along with all of it’s wildlife diversity.

The Ox-Eye is unpretentious and naturally charming.

A good emblem for this wildflower resurgence must be the Ox-Eye Daisy - Leucanthemum vulgare. The specific name “vulgare” means common, and there’s something pleasingly unsophisticated and fundamentally natural about the look of this native wildflower that sums up the whole ethos pretty well, I think. The Ox-Eye thrives on roadside verges, poor soils and neglect. It’s the antithesis of formality, with it’s cheerful, but raggedy appearance, as the stems tumble over one another and present their flowers to the sun. Traditionally the species was a stalwart of natural wildflower meadows, and, where allowed, it is an early coloniser of meadow grassland and newly disturbed ground. The plants do equally well in a traditional English border, and can easily be incorporated into a wide variety of schemes and designs.

One of the many species of hoverfly that frequent the flowers.

Flowering more or less continuously from May through to early September the Ox-Eye is one of the quintessential British summer wildflowers. You can grow them in turf, and indeed it’s possibly to buy-in turf which already contains growing plants, and these will happily survive being mown along with the grasses, but to properly benefit your wildlife, they must be allowed to grow to their full size (around 60cm) and to flower, which they do prodigiously. You can readily raise your own Ox-Eyes from seed, which will generally flower the same year it’s sown, and is entirely undemanding in it’s requirements. The plants are perennial, but often rather short-lived, thriving best in sunny situations, which is also where they will be of most benefit to your insect population.

Common Malachite beetle, feeding on and smothered in pollen.

Ox-Eyes are adored and relied upon by a wide array of insects. Flower Beetles of many species, such as the jewel-like Malachite Beetle, will be attracted and nourished by the pollen the flowers produce, whilst the nectar is a guaranteed draw for a constellation of butterfly, day-flying moth, bee and hoverfly species. Where space and your garden conditions allow the plants will very readily self-seed, but if you need to limit their ambitions it’s easy enough to remove the spent flower heads and prevent them from multiplying.

A Green-Veined White Butterfly pays a visit.

So this is one area where we really can all make a difference, and we really can all do our bit –  sow some wildflower seed or plant some plugs, and bring swathes of meadow flowers back to life in our own back yard. In so doing we’ll be helping to maintain the health of our own garden, and that of it’s wildlife inhabitants, as well as contributing to the whole network of wildflower habitats throughout the land.

The magnificent Emerald Flower Scarab seated on his pollen meal.


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Planting for Wildlife: Honeysuckle.

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

As late Spring merges into Summer many of the hedges that border our garden here in North Devon are festooned with the most beautifully scented pink & yellow Honeysuckle. This is not something that we have planted, but instead forms a natural part of the woven fabric of the ancient hedges – our native species of this glamorous clan, Lonicera periclymenum, a plant without equal in terms of floral perfume, and also an essential element in the composition of any wildlife-friendly garden.

Lonicera 'Sweet Sue'.

L. periclymenum is a vigorous, scrambling climber, native to woodland margins and hedgerows throughout the land. The species bears large, open clusters of flowers, each comprised of greatly elongated tubes, typically red or pink on their exterior and creamy yellow within. These flower tubes flare open and re-curve back onto themselves, lending the flowers their highly exotic and intricately beautiful appearance. In truth, though, the Honeysuckle is another of those near bomb-proof native plants that will thrive in a range of garden situations without a great deal of attention or fuss. They can readily be trained over a fence or through a tree or companion shrub, and of course can easily be planted and left to develop in their natural habitat of the hedgerow.

Lonicera 'Munster'.

The species will grow in shade, although it certainly flowers better with at least a few hours of sun, but it is also highly tolerant of dry, and nutrient poor soils. The plant climbs not with arial roots or tendrils, but merely by the actions of the growing stems that have a powerfully twining, circular, clockwise momentum. This habit produced the old common English name for the plant: Woodbine – a reference to the “binding” effect that the twining stems can have on their tree hosts. A stroll through Honeysuckle woodlands will quickly reveal an array of curiously twisted and contorted tree branches, all of which will have been moulded and sculpted over time by their Honeysuckle neighbours.

The twining stems of a Honeysuckle, clambering above and below the now twisted branch of it's host tree.

Those wonderfully scented flowers first appear in late May but the season continues throughout summer, with the perfume intensifying greatly in the evening, a clue to the intended audience for the flowers. Honeysuckle blossoms are visited by bees and hoverflies, but their greatly elongated flowers are difficult for these insects to access and the nectar tubes have instead evolved to benefit an entirely different group of pollinators – the moths.  Many species of moth will visit a flowering Honeysuckle over the course of a night, feeding upon the copious nectar, and pollinating the flowers as they go. The spectacular Hawk-moths, in particular, with their greatly elongated tongues, have just the right feeding apparatus to get to the base of the flowers. All of the moth action in turn attracts bats, and an entire nocturnal mini food-chain in born.

An Elephant Hawk Moth pays a night visit to a Honeysuckle flower.

Honeysuckle flowers are only one of the many assets that the plants provide to wildlife.  The leaves are the larval foodplant for an array of Lepidoptera, most famously the majestic and all-too rare White Admiral Butterfly, but also many smaller moth species too.  In early autumn the flowers give way to bright scarlet, waxy berries, and these are a favourite of bullfinches, thrushes and a variety of  species of warbler. Honeysuckle bark is also targeted, both by birds, including Sparrows, blackbirds and pied flycatchers, as well as by dormice, all of whom use the soft, flaking, peeling bark strips to line their respective nests.

Lonicera berries.

On top of that the plant itself, once mature, creates a very dense tangle of often impenetrable, inter-woven stems which make the perfect, fully protected nesting site for an array of small birds. Sparrows, robins, blackbirds and all manner of tits will invariably make use of a Honeysuckle plant in the garden, and even outside of the breeding season the dense cover the plants provide will make a ideal sheltered roost for many of the same species. Periodic hard pruning will encourage the plants to become extra bushy and maximise the protection that they can offer to garden birds.

Those delicate, flaring, nectar-bearing flower tubes, in close-up.

Not surprisingly for such a widely cultivated and much loved native plant, a variety of forms have been selected and named over the years. The habit, foliage and vigour is pretty consistent throughout the cultivars that are available for the gardener, but the flower colours and sizes do offer a subtle range of options. The best known, and certainly the longest established are ‘Belgica’, an old Dutch selection that has been grown since the 17th Century that has red-purple flowers that fade to yellow-cream, produced early in the season, and ‘Serotina’, a much more recent selection that extends the flowering season into October.

Lonicera periclymenum 'Serotina'.

L. periclymenum ‘Graham Thomas’ is another very widely grown cultivar, this time originating in Warwickshire where the original plant was found growing wild in the 1960′s. It produces flowers that are nearly pure white in bud, opening to butter yellow. ‘Munster’ goes in the other direction, with rose pink buds that open to white with pink streaks on the tube and the reverse of the flower lobes.

Lonicera 'Graham Thomas'.

Two of the very best forms are also amongst the most recently introduced. ‘Sweet Sue’, was found and named by the famous plantsman Roy Lancaster to honour his wife; the plant has exceptionally fragrant and very large flowers of creamy white, ageing to soft yellow, whilst ‘Heaven Scent’ has equally large and equally fragrant flowers of deep cream that open to pale gold.

Lonicera 'Heaven Scent'.


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Lilac Time.

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

Amongst of the most evocative, popular and widely planted of all late Spring flowering shrubs, Lilacs - Syringa species – seem to be having something of a boom season this year. The exceptionally warm and dry April weather has pushed forward the flowering time for many specimens of the common Lilac – Syringa vulgaris – in particular, and gardens near us here in Devon are flowing over with the bumptious, highly fragrant blossoms that wouldn’t normally be putting in an appearance for another few weeks at least.

The Lilacs are a small genus of around 20 species that, in the wild, range from South-Eastern Europe to China and Japan. They are, rather surprisingly perhaps, members of the Olive family – Oleaceae - and, like most members of that clan, they gravitate towards sunny, well drained habitats in the wild.

Syringa vulgaris 'Andenken an Ludwig Spath'.

The cultivated history of the common Lilac is extensive and ancient. The plant is native to the mountainous regions of the Balkans and was widely grown for millennia in the Ottoman gardens of what is now modern day Turkey. By the 1500′s specimens of these cultivated plants found their way into British gardens for the first time, where they quickly became essential ingredients in the newly burgeoning English Gardening scene.  Initially a great rarity, prized above all for their fragrance,  the ease with which S. vulgaris can be propagated from cuttings, as well as it’s handy habit of self-seeding, meant that the newly fashionable plant soon took root in all the best gardens across Europe, and from there the USA too.

Syringa vulgaris 'Primrose' - the closest approach to a yellow flowered Lilac.

Today there are many hundreds – conservative estimates suggest at least 500 - of selected forms and hybrids of S. vulgaris from which the gardener can choose. In almost all cases the plants themselves are identical in habit, size, leaf etc., and have been selected and named purely for their different flower colours and forms. It’s fair to say that a huge number of these are nearly identical to one another, and their existence perhaps says more about the desire of gardeners & nurserymen to name their own form, rather than any special qualities that they posses. On the plus side, it’s almost impossible to find a bad form, so the excessive abundance of varieties at least have quality control going for them.

Syringa vulgaris 'Madame Charles Souchet'.

When left to it’s own devices Syringa vulgaris forms a very large, multi-stemmed shrub. If carefully pruned and shaped the plants can be formed into small, single-stemmed trees and often look highly attractive when grown in this way. The individual flowers are small and tubular, with flaring petals, but they are produced in huge numbers in very densely packed, upright panicles.

Flower colour varies from white through every permutation of blue-purple, to magenta pink. There are also a small number of varieties with a hint of yellow pigment in the flower, giving an overall creamy impression. Many double flowered forms have been selected, in which each individual flower is expanded and/or flattened  and the petals multiplied. These double forms are often referred to as “French Lilac”, a name that has arisen because, like very many of the best single flowered forms, they were raised by Victor Lemoine and his son Emile at their nursery in Nancy, France. Lemoine was also the first to extensively hybridize between the Lilac species, generally using S. vulgaris as one parent and S. x persica, (the so-called Persian Lilac), S. x hyacinthiflora, and x S. chinensis are amongst the now well-known offspring that resulted from his experiments.

Syringa vulgaris 'Madame Lemoine' one of the double-flowered forms developed at Lemoine's nursery

It’s not all plain sailing in the Lilac world, however, since the flowers are also considered to be extremely bad luck, or even harbingers of doom if brought inside the house. This strange reputation stems from the time when highly fragrant flowers were used indoors to cover the smell of putrification that resulted from a death. Being so widely grown, and abundant in flower, Lilac was very frequently employed in this way, and as a result became associated with death itself - ironic really, considering that the flowers were used to combat the signs of death. It’s an idea that has persisted, though, and even to this day the flowers are not supplied by florists.

Syringa vulgaris 'Sensation' - one of the very few Lilacs with truly bi-coloured flowers.

Aside from the ubiquitous S. vulgaris and it’s many forms and hybrids, there are several other highly ornamental members of the genus that are well worth investigation.

Syringa pubescens subsp. microphylla ‘is distinctive and now widely available. It forms a pretty shrub that rarely reaches more than 2 metres in height or width and contrasts it’s open, fragrant flower panicles with delicate and very small leaves. The form ‘Superba’ was selected for it’s very free-flowering habit, with blooms being produced intermittently from May through to the first frosts.

Syringa pubescens subsp. microphylla 'Superba'.

The Chinese native Syringa pinnatifolia is definitely the most unusual, or at least the most un-lilac like of the genus, looking much more like a Daphne at first glance. It’s flowers are held in small, nodding panicles, far smaller than those of the common Lilac, but are very charming nonetheless. The foliage is equally attractive, being divided into multiple small leaf-lets that give the whole plant an airy, but also exotic appearance.

Syringa pinnatifolia.

The king of the Lilacs has to be another Chinese species, the magnificent Syringa reflexa. This absolutely gorgeous plant bears large, elongated, cascading flower panicles of deep, pure pink, with each individual flower have a contrasting white throat. I will always remember my first encounter with a flowering plant of this species. It completely revolutionised the way that I saw the Lilacs and I vowed to track down a specimen ASAP!

Syringa reflexa.

The rather clunkily-named Syringa sweginzowii is another, extremely similar Chinese species, and a hybrid between this and S. reflexa, was raised in Germany in the 1930′s and named S. x swegiflexa. Happily I now grow all three of these and can testify to their enormous appeal for both eyes and nose alike.

Syringa sweginzowii


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Gardening Tips May

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

May – just before all heaven breaks loose – is a big month in the garden.  Fending off serious slug and snail invasions is a serious business.  I use a combination of methods and copper and grit barriers (such as the highly effective one from EcoCharlie) feature heavily.  In fact with Hostas and spreading plants such as Brunnera ‘Jack Frost, I cover the entire crown of each with the coarse, extra rough stuff, so important is it that their lovely leaves stay intact.

The other must-do job for May – if you haven’t done it already – is a thorough appraisal of all herbaceous border plants to decide what supports are needed:  If you don’t get things in place now, it will be too late and you will find yourself in a few weeks time standing on one leg in a crowded border trying to ‘rescue’ plants that have flopped after heavy rain.  With plant supports, it is definitely a case of horses for courses:   Unless I have a decent source of twiggy sticks with which to make a supportive forest, I make sure that each growing stem of lofties such as delphiniums gets a slim cane to which it will be tied in every few inches as it grows – really worth the bother, since most spires become catastrophically top heavy after rain.   Other plants will need metal hoops on legs placed so that they will stop them from falling all over each other, and herbaceous geraniums such as G. ‘Johnson’s blue’ are completely transformed if they are grown through a circular grid frame (no more flopping open in the middle as they age).  Put in place before the border fills out, all this corsetry becomes invisible in high summer.

Finally:  You can stop the cat getting stoned and sunbathing in the middle of your nepeta by bunging an obsolete hanging basket over its heads (the nepeta not the cat).


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Pollination.

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Flowers and pollen.

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.


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Trees for the garden.

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Stewartia - one of the finest of all garden-sized trees.

As night follows day, having blogged about how to plant a tree in my last post it seems pretty logical to follow with some suggestions as to which trees to plant.

Most gardeners obviously don’t have rolling acres to play with, and at best might only be able to make room for a couple of small to medium trees in their garden, so it’s pretty essential that any tree has to really deliver to earn it’s place. With this in mind I’ve been ruthless with my selections and have only included small-ish trees that offer multi-season interest. Aside from the beauty and appeal inherent in any tree, many can also offer various combinations of ornamental bark, flowers, foliage, fragrance, fruit, and autumn colour, as well as being appealing to wildlife, so I’ve gone for recommendations that tick as many of these boxes as possible.

Cornus kousa - tasty fruit.

I mentioned Cornus kousa – the Japanese Dogwood – a few blogs ago, and I’m going to start with this beauty here too.

Moderately sized, even at maturity, and easy to please in all but the harshest environments this supremely elegant plant definitely has a prolonged appeal.

Showy floral bracts of white, pink and cherry red slowly enlarge throughout May and June, to be followed by equally ornamental, edible, large, strawberry-like fruit in early autumn.

The show culminates with vivid displays of leaf colour in October. Lots of selections are available, but the deep pink flowered ‘Satomi’ is pretty tough to beat.

Amelanchier - autumn finery.

Flowering earlier in the Spring the Amelachiers are slender, graceful members of the rose family. There are a number of species, many of which are essentially shrubs, but A. x grandiflora is more definitely tree-like.

Commonly known as the Snowy Mespilus, throughout April the trees are smothered by delicate white or pink blooms which contrast with the new foliage that unfurls a bronze-red colour.

Sweet, purple-black blueberry-like fruits are formed in autumn and these are highly edible to humans and birds alike.

If all that wasn’t reason enough to plant one, many Amelachiers, such as A. grandiflora ‘Autumn Brilliance’, also have red, orange and gold autumn leaf colour.

Abies koreana cones.

For something completely different how about Abies koreana, the Korean fir, an easily accommodated, slow-growing conifer with a typically Christmas Tree shape.

The foliage is bi-coloured, with each needle dark green on its upper surface and bright silver beneath.

Attractive at any season this little guy really comes into his/her own when the cones start to appear – which they do on even the smallest specimens.

These are blue-violet, covered with a silvery white bloom and are held upright, looking like candles all along the branches. Just beautiful.

Arbutus x andrachnoides - the polished trunk glowing after rain.

Another evergreen, though not, this time a conifer, Arbutus x andrachnoides is a hybrid form of the Strawberry tree.

One of my very favourite plants, this has handsome, glossy, lightly serrated foliage all year round, with clusters of little white urn-shaped flowers appearing in spring, and often again in late autumn and winter.

Some of these go on to form the bright-red fruit that do indeed resemble wild strawberries, but actually the real glory of the tree lies elsewhere.

As the plants mature they form very appealing, sinuous, twisting branches, covered with papery, deep red bark which flakes away to reveal a gorgeous, deep red glossy trunk – spectacular after rainfall.

Another tree renowned for it’s bark is Prunus serrula – the Tibetan Cherry. This well known little beauty has a satin-like trunk that resembles highly polished mahogany. Although it’s far from the showiest cherry in term of its flowers or fruit, spring does see the tree transformed with a dusting of pure white blossom, plus the small, bright scarlet fruit are attractive to birds in autumn.

Malus tschonoskii - a crab-apple for all seasons.

Malus is a large genus that includes the apples and crab-apples. Many of them are well worth growing, and the best combine showy flowers and fruit with fine autumn colour.

My favourite three are the stiffly upright-growing M. tschonoskii – the Pillar Apple – with open, white flowers, red-tinted crab fruit and startling autumn colour; M. transitora, which never fails to amaze me every year with it’s super-abundance of flowers and the little orange-yellow fruit that follow, before the whole tree turns to shades of apricot in Autumn; and M. baccata, the Siberian Crab, with deliciously fragrant white flowers, equally delicious deep red fruit and, in a good year, bright red autumn foliage too.

Cercis siliquastrum.

Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ is an extremely widely grown small tree with deep purple-red heart-shaped foliage.

The species is very showy in flower in its native North America, but the British climate doesn’t quite suit it and it rarely puts on much of a show here.

I much prefer its Asian relative, C. siliquastrum – the Judas Tree. This has equally beautiful, rounded foliage but is also smothered with purple-pink flowers (there’s also an even more beautiful pure white-flowered form) in early summer, followed by elongated, bean-like seed pods that mature to an ornamental deep red.

Parrotia persica - unrivalled in autumn.

It often amazes people that a tree whose native home is Iran should do so well in overcast Britain, but Parrotia persica comes from the Alborz mountains in the far north of country, which are actually home to lush, cool upland forests.

Parrotias are well know for spectacular autumn tints, when they turn into multicoloured arrangements of purple, gold, orange and red, but the trees also have patterned, bark that flakes away in small sheets to reveal the pinky-yellow colour beneath.

A final surprise comes in the dead of winter, when petal-less deep red flowers erupt straight out of the bare stems, eventually falling to form a ruby red carpet beneath the trees.

Styrax obassia.

A real garden aristocrat, Styrax obassia almost didn’t qualify for inclusion on this list, since it can’t boast any dramatic fruit, bark or autumn foliage finery.

What is does have, though, are large racemes of beautifully fragrant, pure white bell-shaped flowers that resemble large bunches of snowdrops. These are, rather usefully, produced in summer when few other trees are doing their thing.

The other thing I love about this tree is the foliage; Pure green, almost circular, and around 20cm across, each leaf resembles a small dinner plate with a little drip-tip added on one side.

Sorbus vilmorinii - a real wildlife magnet.

Like Malus, Sorbus is another big genus of trees and shrubs, some of which are amongst the most ornamental of all garden plants.

Separated into the “Whitebeams” with large, entire leaves, and the “Rowans” with heavily divided, fern-like foliage, most of the best for garden use come from the second group. Our own native Rowan M. aucuparia is a highly attractive small tree, very appealing to insects when in flower, and to birds when laden with bright red autumn fruit. M. commixta ‘Embley’ is it’s Japanese counterpart, and adds bright scarlet autumn leaf colour to the mix. The Chinese S. vilmorinii is perhaps the pick of them all, with exceptionally fine, very heavily divided foliage that colours well in autumn and large clusters of fruit that change from pink to violet, eventually ageing to white

Stewartia psudocamellia - large flowers and bright autumn colour are seasonal, but the flaking, peeling trunks are attractive year round.

I have, arguably, saved the best to last. Rarely seen outside of specialist collections I truly believe Stewartias to be the finest of all garden trees. Close relatives of the camellias these beauties leave no ornamental stone unturned.

S. sinensis, S. rostrata, and the more frequently seen S. pseudocamellia are the three that do best in British cultivation. They all have the most gorgeous peeling, flaking, and eventually polished trunks that look like the body of some giant python, coupled with large, creamy white, camellia-like flowers, and stunning purple red and orange autumn colour.

Give them a sheltered spot in the garden, ideally in semi-shade, and they will reward you with a lifetime of year-round beauty.


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Making a wildflower garden.

Monday, February 8th, 2010

The wildflower meadow - ablaze with colour.

Over the last 15-or so years there’s been a major shift in gardening tastes, with the emphasis moving ever more towards natural, ecological and wilder-looking gardens, and for many the ultimate goal is for a least a patch of their plot to emulate a real floral habitat.

Along with the ever popular woodland garden, undoubtedly the number 1 environment that most gardeners would like to invite back home is the wildflower garden. The appeal of swathes of colourful flowers growing harmoniously in a meadow, or at least a mini-meadow, is pretty powerful and evocative, and for many sums up what they like most about the British countryside.

So far so good, but it’s crucial to realise that a wildflower garden is not simply a piece of land that’s been left to it’s own devices. If you were to try that out in your own garden you would quickly find the whole thing running riot, enveloped in thick, choking weeds and scrubby interlopers whose wind-borne seeds would waste no time in taking root.

Cornflower - one of the quintessential British wildflowers.

The simple reason for this is fertility. Gardens, particularly those that have been tilled for generations, are, relatively speaking, extremely fertile bits of land that can play host to a vast array of plants. Wildflower meadows, by contrast, are notoriously impoverished of nutrients. The flowers that we all admire succeed there because they are pioneers that have evolved to exploit niches that would cause any self-respecting shrub to curl up and wither.

What all this means is that to successfully re-create that wildflower meadow in your garden is going to require some planning, work and ongoing maintenance.

Wildflower gardens can be as small as a dedicated bed or as large as a full-blown meadow, so firstly decide on the boundaries of the area that you will be working with, and also consider how it will work in relation to it’s surroundings – i.e. the rest of the garden and the hard landscaping/buildings etc. You will need a site that is, to all intents and purposes, in full sun, ideally with a southerly aspect.

Greater Knapweed - one of the best of all butterfly and bee attracting wildflowers.

Then, every vestige of whatever is currently growing in this defined area has to be completely removed, and that means the seeds in the soil too. In practice this is best achieved by whipping out the first two to three inches of topsoil. This is also the area of maximum fertility in the soil, so you’ll also be dramatically reducing the quality of the soil – which, of course is exactly what’s called for.

Alternatively consider removing an old piece of lawn. Areas with old turf can make ideal wildflower beds, since the soil beneath the grass won’t have been cultivated and will therefore be pretty impoverished. Either way once you’ve got back to the bare soil you then want to gently turn over the very surface, really just the top inch or two, and no deeper, just enough to give your incoming wildflowers something to get their new roots into.

Birds Foot Trefoil - a foodplant for many butterflies & moths.

Although it’s not essential, if you have the time and patience a good option at this point is to cover the entire area with plastic sheeting for a period of 3 months or so, which will effectively cleanse many (though not all) of the weed seeds that your new cultivation will have brought to the surface.

Your preparation efforts should be geared towards a spring planting, so that your new arrivals can get an immediate start into growth. As for what to plant, it’s absolutely crucial that you consider your soil type and moisture levels. Lots of the country’s finest wildflower meadows occur on dry chalk grasslands, which is fine if you happen to garden on similar soil, but don’t expect the same plants to survive if you have a damp, acid soil site. Try to take inspiration from the natural habitats around you, and consider the range of plants that are likely to succeed where you are.

Selfheal.

When it comes to the planting itself you can buy wildflower seed mixes and broadcast them over the whole area. The seed tends to extremely small, almost dust-like, and it can be useful to mix it with fine sand to ensure you get a good even coverage. Rake the soil over very gently after sowing, and keep it all watered if you’re planting in a dry spell. You can also buy small plug-type plants – although this is obviously impractical on a larger scale – and it’s often best to combine both approaches to get a good diversity of plants as well as a quick establishment.

Red Fescue - ideal for quickly filling in bare patches.

If you are planting a large area then you’ll also want to incorporate low growing creeping grasses such as Fescues. These will help to cover the area quickly and prevent the establishment of couch grass and other nasties.

Once everything is up and growing then keep an eye out for invading weeds – nettles, docks, and other broad-leafed weeds can arrive, but if your soil preparation was good then they won’t survive long. Also, make very sure that no fertilizer/compost run-off reaches your new wildflowers, or you’ll likely be back to square one.

When the wildflower garden is fully established then long-term maintenance consists mainly of mowing (at the very highest possible setting – or better yet strim or grab a scythe) in mid to late autumn, by which time the perennials will have started dying down and the seed heads from the annuals will be ready to return back to the soil.

If you’re lucky enough to have a large area to dedicate to a wildflower garden then think about leaving mown paths that will allow you to get right out into the midst of the action. Surrounded by the hum of bees and hoverflies, what could be better on a warm summers evening.


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Border patrol.

Monday, January 25th, 2010

As the very first signs of new garden life are beginning to push into growth in the form of Snowdrops and Witch Hazels, now seems like the ideal time to consider the borders. If yours were disappointing last year, or maybe had a quick blast of wow-zinginess before rapidly fading to bare earth and leafless branches, then some of these ideas might help spruce things up in the coming season and beyond…and since everyone loves a top 10 list, here are my tips on maximising a borders potential.

1. Seasons

The traditional English border was very much a summer fancy, and typically lay dormant or even completely empty for almost half of the year. That’s all very well if you garden on a country-estate, but most gardeners should want their border to provide year round interest. Try to incorporate at least one or two flowering elements for each season, and for trees and shrubs try to choose from those that give the most bang for their buck – not just seasonal flowers but colourful bark, attractive, possibly evergreen foliage, fruit and berries. Smaller herbaceous plants can be multi-season too, with seed heads following flowers and evergreen grasses looking more dramatic when frosted in winter than they do glinting in the summer sun.

2. Wildlife

Sedum - one of the ultimate bee attracting plants.

As I’ve mentioned on my last blog entry, bringing wildlife into a garden adds a whole new dimension of interest, and it’s a year-round thing too. From butterflies, bees and the like in summer, to flocks of feeding birds in winter, they’re all out there waiting for an invitation, you just have to send the right garden signals. Having a garden attractive to wildlife doesn’t mean that you have to have borders filled with nettles and brambles, there are a huge array of highly ornamental plants which will do the job just as well. Top herbaceous bee attracting plants include the likes of Sedum, Ajuga, Echium, & Verbena bonariensis. Butterflies thrive on Lavender, Lunaria annua (Honesty), Hesperis matronalis (Sweet Rocket), Centranthus ruber (Valerian) and of course Buddleja, to name just a few. Birds will initially be attracted into gardens that provide them with shelter, from which they can scope out potential meals. Good seed and fruit bearing plants for birds include Blueberry, Elderberry, Crabapple, and Cotoneaster.

3. Soil

There’s a lot of truth in the maxim that you only get out what you put in, and nowhere more so than in the garden. Borders tend to have a pretty high appetite, and with a mass of plants competing for food and water resources the soil can quickly become leached of nutrients, particularly in gardens where fallen leaves and general garden debris are tidied away. To keep plants performing well for you year in year out it’s crucial to give them something they can sink their roots into. By far the best way to do this is by mulching to a minimum depth of 3 to 4 inches throughout the entire border, ideally in late autumn or early winter. This will provide food and structure to the soil, as well as help reduce watering, and the microbes and worms will do the rest for you.

4. Arrangements

If your border is to have long-lasting and season-round appeal then you’re going to need several different elements. There needs to be a permanent skeleton – these would be the trees and shrubs – some of which should ideally either be evergreen or at least have year-round interest. The smaller growing plants, be they woody or herbaceous, perennials or bulbs, then form the flesh on the bones. Although it’s appealing to buy 1 of everything to try to grow as many different plants as your space allows, this never makes for a very good border arrangement. Much better to plant in 3’s 5’s or 7’s and to plant the groups together rather than spread them around, this way you mimic how plants would be found in the wild, as well as create much a stronger visual impact.

5. Colours

Yellow & purple complimenting one another.

It really is a good idea to have a colour scheme in mind, if not for the whole border then at least for sub-sections of it. Planting a whole variety of colours together can lead to some nasty combinations that do nobody any favours; a little forward planning will see harmony restored. If you do want lots of different colours, or want to grow particular plants that would clash with one another, then use foliage plants in between them to give a green breathing space. Think of the border – including all the foliage – as being like a giant flower arrangement.

It’s often best to go with two or three colours and plant accordingly. These can be contrasting and opposites – orange and blue, yellow and purple etc. – or harmonious – blue and white, yellow, orange and red, and so on. It’s fun to find as many different plants as you can that fit into your colour scheme and then play around with them in your space

6. Hights

The “normal” way to plant a border is to arrange the larger plants at the back, perhaps with a fence or hedge as a backdrop, have the medium sized in the middle and the low growers in the foreground. Personally, I’m not crazy about this arrangement if it’s applied too rigidly; it all looks a bit too much like a still life for my liking. Whilst it’s true that low growing plants do need to be near the front of a border if they’re going to be seen and receive enough light, the same doesn’t apply to other sizes, and it’s much more fun – not to mention more naturalistic – to mix and match. A few tall plants near the front of a border can provide a great foil for ground-huggers beneath them, and tall growing seasonal bulbs like lilies can also work well near the front, particularly if they are scented.

7. Spacings

It’s important to consider the ultimate size of trees and shrubs before using them in the border, something that, in my experience, very few gardeners ever do! These larger beasts of the border need to be arranged to allow room for growth and for their companion plants not to be blocked from view or shaded from light. I’ve come across many older borders where all you can see is a wall of shrubby foliage right at the front, whilst the back is hidden and bare. Perennials, though, should be planted closely to minimise the amount of bare soil on view. This not only looks more attractive, but also helps to reduce evaporation (and so watering) as well as helping to prevent weeds from taking hold. In new borders wildflower seeds can be scattered amongst the plantings to create a quick seasonal fill-in, far better than rows of disposable garden-centre annuals.

8. Senses

Miscanthus for movement, texture and colour, here paired with Asters.

It’s a common mistake when planting a border to think primarily in one dimension, and focus entirely on the visual, or even just on the colours. Consider instead how much richer a border can be if you also plant for your nose – fragrant flowers and leaves too; for your ears – grasses, bamboos and other plants that rustle in the breeze; and for your touch – all manner of different textures can be selected, from shiny bark to velvety leaves.

9. Contrasts

The best borders are full of little tensions and visual contrasts. Large leaves look best beside smaller, delicate cut leaves, rather than next to other large leaves, for example, and tall works best against low, rounded beside spiky and lance-shaped etc. Follow this principle and you’ll find that plants compliment one another rather than compete for attention. You can go one step further in you incorporate colour, by having plants with contrasting shapes and textures but with similar colours. Bold, bronzy red foliage can be mirrored by small flowers that draw from the same palette, and the same goes for silver, white, green, and yellow, even blue.

10. Features

Even after you’ve carefully planned your plantings for height, colour and space you might find that there’s a lack of focal point in the border. This is particularly common in cottage garden type plantings, where the emphasis is generally on non-structural herbaceous plants. This doesn’t mean to say that you have to stick an evergreen shrub in the middle of your wallflowers and roses, all sorts of objects can provide a focal feature to draw the eye. Options might include a small pergola or climbing frame, a bird-bath or feeding station, or any wooden/metal/stone object that takes your fancy and around which you can plant. Reclamation yards are great for finding all sorts of inspiration.


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