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The forecast: Snow in March (and throughout April).

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

Hmm…sounds improbable perhaps? But then, what are those delicate white flakes drifting and fluttering on the lightest breeze?

The answer is petals….and the original owner of those petals is the Snowy Mespilus, or Amelanchier.

One of the finest and least demanding of small trees for the garden, whose virtues I’ve already hinted at previously, as March gives way to April and the countless thousands of poised Amelanchier flower buds open, I thought it high time to give these plants centre stage for a while.

Members of the Rose family – like so many other of the finest Spring-flowering woody plants – Amelanchier is a small and rather confused genus of trees and shrubs. There are anywhere between 6 and 35 species, depending on whose definition you believe. They are all, essentially, identical in their ornamental features, and what’s more the species have interbred with abandon to the point that definitive identification of many plants is all but impossible.

One species, A. lamarckii, is a good example. Considered to be a naturalised British plant, where colonies have spread thanks to the assistance of birds, this plant is, like all but two of the Amelanchiers, a native of North America, but “our” Amelanchier is not the same as the species that grows in the USA, and could be a different species, such as A. canadensis or A. laevis, or a hybrid of one or more of these species, or a hybrid with one of the indigenous Euro-Asian species. The truth is that the differences between all of the species are so small, and variable, that the best anyone can say is that an individual plant is closest to, say A. lamarckii…well, maybe.

Amelanchier x grandiflora 'Ballerina'.

But enough of that confusion, let’s focus instead on the many good points of these delightful trees. Their common names give a few hints of their attractions and also the considerable importance that the plants played in the lives of Native American and European settlers alike. Snowy Mespilus, as already noted, refers to the wonderful blizzard of innumerable tiny petals that grace the trees and then the ground beneath the trees as Spring progresses. “Mespilus” are the Medlars, further members of the Rose family, and ones to which the Amelachiers bore a resemblance in the eyes of the first Europeans to document the new North American flora. The names “shadbush”,” shadwood” or “shadblow” are also references to the flowering season, which coincides with the arrival of the Shad – a fish that formed a staple food for many of those same early settlers.

The flowers are only one of the appeals of the Amelanchiers, however and “serviceberry” and “juneberry” are further much-used common names. These, of course, refer to the fruit – a red-purple berry that eventually matures to black which was considered to resemble the berries of the wild European Service Tree – Sorbus domestica. The fruit are edible, and in the best varieties, quite delicious, which characteristic gives rise to yet more common names including “sugarplum”,”wild-plum”, and “Indian pear”, again, all hinting at the importance of the plant in the lives of the early populations of  North America.

The fully ripe fruit of Amelanchier alnifolia.

To the Cree Native Americans the plant was “misâskwatômina”, a name that was Europeanised into “saskatoon”, after which the town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was named. Finally, while we’re talking names here, Amelanchier itself is derived from “amalenquièr” the Provençal name for the European species: Amelanchier ovalis, and, despite some sources that might state otherwise, the name is pronounced:  amma-LANK-ee-er, with a hard “K” sound, which perhaps becomes more obvious when seen against it’s French language counterpart.

Amelanchier x grandiflora 'Robin Hill'.

Amelanchiers produce an abundance of flowers from a very young age, and even the tiniest specimen will pop out a handful of blooms. Within a few years all of the branches of that plant will be fully laden with blossom each Spring. Once opened the flowers are joined by the new foliage which is often flushed with bronze or copper, making for a magnificent contrast and highlighting those dazzling white flowers all the more.

Amelanchier lamarckii with deep red/bronze new foliage.

So we have a tremendous Spring display followed by branches smothered by small, but highly decorative, edible fruit, but these trees have one final trick up their sleeves as the foliage can turn to glorious shades of orange and red in a good, crisp Autumn.  Amelanchiers display their autumn finery with great gusto and reliability in North America, although the colour can be patchy of even absent here in the UK, but that is entirely to do with our erratic, maritime climate rather than any failing on the part of the plants.

Virtually all Amelanchiers are capable of producing fiery autumn foliage under the right conditions.

Despite the presence of numerous selections in cultivation – the RHS Plantfinder currently lists 44 named forms – Amelanchiers are a pretty homogeneous lot, and really there is very little to choose between them. A. x grandiflora ‘Ballerina’ was selected for it’s larger flowers and is now very widely distributed. It’s a lovely plant, but we have it growing amidst 10 or so other named forms, and frankly I’m hard pushed to tell them apart from one another.  There are a few genuinely different selections however. The lovely pale-pink flowered form A. x grandiflora ‘Rubescens’, and pink-fading-to-white-flowered ‘Robin Hill’; the slender, upright growing A. alnifolia ‘Obelisk’ & similar A. canadensis ‘Rainbow Pillar’ and the much smaller growing A. rotundifolia ‘Helvetia’ and equally compact species A. stolonifera are all distinctive.

Amelanchier 'Obelisk' - not exactly fastigiate, but the closest to an upright form the genus has to offer.

Aside from these last two, all Amelanchiers are vigorous, as well as undemanding and easy to grow in many garden situations. Depending on how they are treated and grew as young plants they can form graceful, slender trees or multi-stemmed, more-or-less globular large shrubs. The plants can eventually get quite substantial, but they retain an airy, light quality to them and the slender leaves don’t cast a great deal of shade, even in mid summer. Plants may also be pruned after flowering to retain a desired shape or keep them to a fixed size. Amelachier are tolerant of a wide range of soils, including heavy clay and even water-logging, although young plants should be mound-planted if soil is permanently wet to allow the roots to find their own way through rather than simply plunged into a soggy hole.

Amelanchier canadensis in full autumn colour in the UK.

All parts of the plants are edible and are evidently quite appealing to a variety of browsing animals, from harmless leaf-cutter bees through to more potentially damaging rabbits and deer, so young Amelanchiers should be given some protection where appropriate. They are generally very healthy plants too, although they can suffer from fungal leaf spot, particularly if grown in sheltered areas with limited air movement. Treatment of the newly emerging foliage, together with collection of fallen leaves in autumn will keep this problem in check should it appear, and an opening up of the canopy of more congested plants will help prevent it’s re-occurrence.

Amelanchier stolonifera - the smallest growing of the species.

If sheer flower power in early to mid Spring is your thing, then, whichever form, species, or selection you choose, you won’t find a better small tree than the Snowy Mespilus, and adding one to your garden will ensure that you’ll always have at least a little of the right kind of snow, right where you want it every March and April.


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Welcome the Wood Anemone.

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

Some plants are just full of contradictions and surprises, and our British native Anemone nemorosa – the Wood Anemone – is one such case in point. The most ephemeral and delicate of our British Spring wildflowers, these little beauties are at the very peak in late March and early April. They look for all the world as if the  next heavy downpour or strong gust of wind will flatten their foliage and shred their flowers. They can sometimes be quite tricky to establish in some gardens, only truly thriving in particular habitats. And yet if you visit any number of British woods, or even drop in on the most unpromising, shady and dark chunk of undisturbed waste land you may be greeted with the sight of a vast carpet of these little gems, covereing every nook and cranny, moulding around the rocks, logs and contours of the earth.

Wood Anemones forming a flowering carpet in typical shady, woodland habitat

Another surprising aspect of the plants is the way they just seem to suddenly appear, their ferny, heavily divided foliage springing from bare earth during March, the flowers a week or two later, and then, just as suddenly, they are gone for another year. All woodland-floor perennials have a short season of growth, timing their appearance to miss the deep frosts of winter and peaking as the overhead canopy leafs out, but Wood Anemones take this to extremes and cram all their above ground activity into just a few short months.

Growth starts earlier than most other spring flowering plants, and it is this habit that gave the Genus it’s name, deriving, as it does, from the Greek legend in which Anemos, the wind, sends his namesakes the anemones, in the earliest spring days, to herald his arrival. This is also the origin of the common name for all Anemones: “windflower”.

Anemone growth emerges from small and highly unassuming rhizomes that look for all the world like tiny lumps of aged wood. These increase and creep around just beneath the surface of the leaf-litter, successfully colonising suitable sites. The beautiful, star-like flowers are faintly fragrant, yet contain no nectar, and, despite appearances, have no petals either – two further contradictions.  The flowers are instead formed by six modified sepals, predominant coloured white, with a delicate pink tinge, although some forms and occasionally entire colonies have flowers heavily streaked with purple, most particularly on the outside surface.

Up close and personal with an individual flower.

One of the most delightful attributes of Wood Anemones is that their flowers close and nod on their stems at night and in heavy rain, raising their heads and opening once again to greet the returning light. The flowers also closely track the position of the sun, often forming a full 180 degree rotation through the course of a day. This habit makes it all the more surprising, perhaps, that the plants are specialists of deep shade. We have substantial colonies growing wild and quite naturally here in the garden and in the surrounding woodlands, but, aside from the odd individual straggler, all of the colonies grow in virtual darkness, and the deeper and danker the location the more vigorous and successful they are. This probably says more about the lack of direct and seasonal plant competition in such mini-eco-systems than it does about the limits of the Anemones potential range, since many such colonies are only accompanied by mosses and perhaps Ivy, so low are the light levels in their preferred habitats.

The flowers just on the verge of opening to greet the light.

That natural habitat is also the key to successful cultivation in the garden. Too often gardeners have tried to grow the species in an open, sunny location, where they generally dwindle away after a season or two. Planted deep beneath the canopies of trees and shrubs Anemone nemorosa will flourish and replicate something like it’s natural proclivities for colonising sites that can otherwise be tricky to “green-up”. A humus-rich, very free-draining (ideally leaf-mould based) compost or soil will greatly encourage growth and also widen the range of potential garden sites in which the plants will succeed.

Anemone nemorosa Blue Eyes.

Like many/most/all of our native wild flowers, the Wood Anemone has been subjected to intense scrutiny by gardeners down the years and a modest gaggle of 40 or so named varieties and forms now exist. The best known of these, and one that has stood the test of time in cultivation, is Anemone nemorosa ‘Robinsoniana’, with its large buds of slate grey that open to wide stars of pale lavender blue, with a contrasting ring of golden stamens.

Anemone nemorosa Robinsoniana.

At the other extreme some forms dispense with coloured tepals altogether.’Virescens’ is one such in which each sepal, anther and style is transformed into a miniature green leaf to create an improbable chartreuse lions-head of a flower. Being infertile these are also much longer lasting than are the flowers of their wild cousins.

The improbable looking flowers of A. nemorosa Virescens.

There are also doubles, including the inevitably named ‘Alba Plena’, and semi-doubles, such as ‘Multiplicity’ in which each sepal is sub-divided into narrower segments, as well as ‘Blue Eyes’ with frilled flowers of pastel blue, each with an indigo ring in the centre. Pure pink-flowered forms are rare, but the soft rose of  ’Latvian Pink’ fits the bill nicely. I’ve never seen even the faintest hint of blue pigment in any wild forms of the species, but evidently someone else has since there are a few blues to choose between as well as ‘Bowles Purple’ with flowers of a deep lavender.

Anemone nemorosa - pink form.

I have to say, however, that this is one wild flower where the hand (and eye) of man has yet to improve upon the simple beauty and of the common wild form: snow white, with the subtlest insinuation of rose-purple.  Pure perfection.


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Hedgerow Blossom.

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

The last few weeks have seen a very welcome  and sustained period of warmth that has triggered an explosion of activity amongst the inhabitants of the garden and the countryside. The colours of Spring – pink, yellow and white – are present everywhere now, and often in great washes – a sight for sore eyes after such a harsh winter.

That same warmth that triggers the flowering of native plants also allows the first waves of insects to emerge from their winter hiding places. Over-wintering butterflies – particularly Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock – can be found sunning themselves and re-activating those long-dormant flight muscles as they take to the wing. Hoverflies, wasps and, most importantly, numerous species of bee are also venturing forth from their burrows and nests and the air is once again filled with the sound of industrious activity. What all these insects have in common is an urgent need to feed and make up for the huge losses in body weight that they will have sustained over winter, and the natural first port of call for many will be the hedgerow.

Peacock Butterflies are one of the species that over-winters in their adult form.

From March onwards our British hedgerows are brimming over with buxom blossoms, and the symbiotic relationship and timing between these flowering plants and their insect pollinators is crucial. The importance of pollinating insects in sustaining everything that we hold dear about our native flora, and indeed the entire appearance of the countryside can hardly be over-stated. Many of the individual insects are relatively short lived. Those same early emerging Tortoiseshells and Peacocks will soon have mated, laid their clutches of eggs and died. Several further generations can occur in the space of a single year, but without those vital food sources the adults that kick start the entire cycle would be condemned to perish almost as soon as they emerge, leaving no eggs and larvae to continue in their wake.

Bumblebees, honeybees, mason bees and hoverflies together constitute our most crucial and significant pollinators and all are even more indebted to the hedgerow blossoms of early Spring. Whilst the sight of a Bumblebee zipping busily from blossom to blossom in the Spring sunshine is surely one to warm the human heart, the reality for the bee (or hoverfly) is far more stark. In the early period after the winter emergence their survival hinges entirely on their ability to harvest enough nectar and pollen every day before the cold night temperatures make flight impossible.

A bumblebee feeding on newly opened Blackthorn flowers.

Which is where those frothy, delicate-blooming hedgerow trees come in. The joint emergence of flower and insect provides pollination services for one and a vital diet for the other. Hedgerows themselves were under attack for most of the second half of the Twentieth century, falling prey to ever more industrialised agricultural practices. Thankfully those days are now largely behind us and the vital role of hedgerows as “wildlife corridors” is now widely appreciated.

Of course the vast majority of gardeners live well away from open countryside, and only a small proportion of gardens are bounded by hedgerows of any description, but that same relationship of pollinator and pollinated exists wherever plants are grown. What’s more the value of those pollinators is now better understood, and certainly more widely appreciated than it ever has been. As  many of our insect species come under threat through loss of habitat & foodplant all gardeners can play a role in their long-term survival by planting and encouraging the growth of these spring flowering native trees wherever possible.

Naturalistic hedge plantings, bursting with Spring bloom.

Beech (Fagus sylvatica ), Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) and Field Maple (Acer campestre) are all species not generally noted for their flowering display, but the abundant production of pollen and nectar of all three marks them out as important trees for emergent insects. Much more obvious to our eyes, and particularly so when blooming on leafless branches in their hedgerow habitats, are a host of flowering trees from the Rose family – Rosaceae.

Flowers of the Beech - Fagus sylvatica.

Flower-wise these all share a common pattern – simple, widely opening cup-shaped flowers of white or pale pink, loaded with pollen baring stamens – a huge magnet for insects. Wild Pear (Pyrus pyraster) is a fairly rare sight these days, but it’s thorny, twisted stems burst forth with relatively large flowers of pure white right about now. Malus provides us with the long domesticated Orchard Apple – not technically a British native, but still a regular member of the hedgerow family thanks to the widespread distribution of the pips – as well as the true British Native, the Crab Apple (Malus sylvestris).

The common Crab-Apple - Malus sylvestris.

There’s little doubt, however, that the leaders of the hedgerow blossom pack, both from the point of view of human and insect appreciation, are found amongst the genus Prunus .  Wild Cherry (Prunus avium) is widespread throughout the UK, whilst Bird Cherry (Prunus padus) is more localised, although both have been widely cultivated for millennia.  The Wild Plum (Prunus domestica) is another, often under-appreciated species that can be found in many older hedgerows, whilst it’s cultivated counterparts are already present in many gardens.

Wild Cherry - Prunus avium.

As I sit and write this article, however, there is another Prunus that has, as every year, beaten all of it’s cousins out of the starting gate. Vast wreaths of snow white flowers demand your attention, and the source of those flowers is Prunus spinosa, the Blackthorn or Sloe. Arguably the most important tree in the lives of the early emergent insects, it is the combination of early blooming and a super-abundance of flowers that make the Blackthorn king of the Hedgerow in March. The near-indestructible nature of this species also makes it perfect for planting in those difficult spots in gardens, or, in fact anywhere you can, and when you do you can be sure that your resident population of bees, butterflies and hoverflies will thank you for it.

Blackthorn flowers - beautiful in their spidery simplicity.


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Pond TLC.

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

Winter certainly takes it’s toll on the garden in many ways, and none more so in recent times than the winter of 2010. Tree branches damaged by ice and snow and the seemingly endless troops of dead Cordylines and other southern hemisphere plants are all to apparent, but some damage is not so immediately obvious.

For our denizens of the underwater parts of the garden the winter has been just as tough, and in many cases fatal. The long weeks of deep frozen ice back in November & December will have had an array of effects on ponds. In the more shallow and smaller ponds these effects will have been most severely felt, and some water bodies may well have frozen solid, near enough to their bases. Overwintering Amphibians and fish would have been unlikely to survive such conditions, and the same goes for some of the more delicate pond plants too.

Around our main pond here in North Devon we have (or rather, we had) a number of less hardy plants growing very happily as marginals. Several forms of Zantedeschia – Arum Lily – for instance, had thrived in the shallow water at the pond edge for many years, but sadly this last winter proved too extreme for them and they have all turned to a slimy mush. Young Gunnera have also fallen victim in many gardens and in many parts of the UK it doesn’t look too promising for the marvellous, carnivorous-flowered Thalia dealbata either.

Thalia dealbata - an aquatic relative of the Cannas that haD previously proven fully hardy in thE UK.

Even larger ponds will have suffered. When serious cold strikes the fish, amphibians and the many invertebrates that dwell in ponds all migrate to the warmer depths of the water and fall into a torpor, essentially a semi-hibernation, where their systems just about tick over, but their needs for food all but disappear. The one thing that they do need to survive, however, is a decent supply of oxygen dissolved in the water. When a pond surface freezes over for a prolonged period that vital oxygen supply starts to dwindle. At the same time decomposing plant and animal matter release methane that can build to toxic levels without access to the open water surface and this gaseous double-whammy can spell disaster for  many over-wintering animals.

So, in short, it’s been a pretty tough winter all round, so now is the time to restore the balance and rectify any pond problems before the huge rush of plant and animal activity gets under way. Making major changes  and overhauls of wildlife ponds will inevitably cause some damage to their systems no matter what time of year the work is undertaken. There are always a multitude of organisms present in any healthy pond, and some of them will inevitably get lost in a clean-out, but, for the longer-term welfare of the whole pond community, that particular bullet just has to be bitten.

Non-wildlife ponds – by which I essentially mean fish ponds – can take considerably more disturbance without upsetting their balance, but, in both cases the first job is to deal with the bulk of dead material lurking beneath the surface. Once they are well established wildlife ponds are efficient digester’s of waste, but even they can become dangerously overwhelmed after a hard winter, and, if left untended, the accumulation of rotting organic matter can destroy the healthy balance in their ecosystem.

Frogs are starting to arrive and spawn right about now.

Water lily leaves can contribute huge volumes of dead plant matter, but fallen leaves from surrounding trees and shrubs as well as the remnants of aquatic marginals and, unfortunately, the bodies of fish and amphibians also all need to be removed to prevent the water from being overloaded with nutrients, or in severe cases, becoming anoxic – severely depleted of oxygen. Even if plants and animals are able to cope with the increased nutrient levels then massive algal blooms – so called “green water” and the dreaded blanket weed – will inevitably result.

Blanket weed - a clumping form of algae that thrives on heavy nutrient loads.

All this material need not go to waste and it makes for an excellent tonic for the dry-land parts of the garden. All organic pond debris can be added to compost, used as a mulch or dug into soil, as needed, but be sure to leave everything at the water’s edge for 24 hours or so first, to give a chance for insect larvae and amphibians to make their way back into the water.

Now is also the ideal time to consider splitting, replanting, adding to or cutting back your aquatic plants. Many of the oxygenating plants will have died back to their bases, so their care is best left for summer, but rampant water-lilies and marching bull-rushes can be readily taken in hand whilst spaces and winter-losses can be readily identified, and replaced, as needed.

Smaller ponds as well as fish ponds may well need a water change too, but you should look to remove no more than half of the water, making sure than animals are returned intact, as much as possible. When the time comes to refill then tap water is always the least best option, loaded, as it is, with both chlorine and nitrates. Collected rain water is the ideal pond top-up and a little forward planning together with some water butts can provide a successful solution, but if tap water is the only option then a dechlorinator should also be added to compensate.

If algae, either of the free-floating or the blanketing varieties, has proven to be a problem in previous seasons then, once you’ve removed excess dead and decomposing material from the pond, now is the time to add barley straw bales or bags. These work as a natural algaecide, but are most effective at preventing the appearance of algae at the start of the season – so there’s no time to waste!

Barley Straw bags.

Finally, if you have filters/fountains/pumps/UV algae cleaners or any other pond machinery, now is also the time to clean and check their correct levels and function, particularly if they have been switched off throughout the winter months, whilst leaks in liners, again resulting from the severe winter, can more readily be identified without their summer covering of plants.

All this disturbance may leave you with a rather battered and murky-looking body of water, but nature heals quickly at this time of year, and a little TLC right now will pay dividends throughout the whole of the rest of the year, enhancing your pond, it’s inhabitants and the whole of your garden as a result.


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Heralds of Spring: New Foliage.

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Think Spring, and think of Daffodils and their blazes of yellow, Crocuses in their multi-coloured liveries, and a galaxy of other flowers that quite literally brighten the season. But I’d like to invite you to look outside the flower box, as it were, and focus on the some of the unsung heroes of Spring. Gaze around the landscape or garden as the tree-sap rises and the warming weather ushers in the season, and the principle plant display you’ll be viewing is not created by flowers at all, but rather by foliage.

Aesculus wilsonii.

The weather may be wildly erratic but the newly unfolding and emergent foliage of plants, big and small, is the one sure sign of the arrival of Spring. There’s a lush, fresh, vivid green-ness to foliage that can be enjoyed at this time of the year, and it’s is pretty much unique to the season too. The story doesn’t quite end there though, because green isn’t the only hue on display amongst the new leaves. A fairly substantial band of plants add to the seasonal interest by producing new leaves flushed with other colours. Most typically these are shades of red, but sometimes bronze, copper, purple-blacks and, in a few cases, even near-white can be seen.

Epimedium x versicolor 'Sulphureum'.

Some of these Spring foliage effects are subtle and muted whilst others can be every bit as flamboyant and startling as the most vivid floral displays, but in all cases there’s a sound evolutionary advantage that lies behind the colours. New leaves are obviously pretty crucial to the ongoing success of any plant, and they also contain an unusually large quantity of sugars and nutrients that make a highly tempting target for browsing insects, birds and mammals.

Acer palmatum 'Orido Nishiki'.

It’s in the interests of any plant to protect this valuable investment in it’s future and they are often able to do so by loading their new leaves with doses of toxins that are intended to dissuade would-be predators from munching on their hard-won resources. To advertise this fact the leaves are coloured, and, being a more-or-less universally recognised warning colour throughout the animal kingdom, red is the primary colour of choice.

Acer palmatum 'Corallinum'.

The toxic warning effect seems to work remarkably well too. A goodly number of the trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants in our garden here in North Devon were planted, at least in part, for their Spring foliage effects, and very few of them are ever subjected to attack in the way that some of their entirely green-leafed neighbours are.

The pigment serves another, equally important function too. Many of the spring colours, and particularly those displayed by trees, are generated by anthocyanins, the same chemicals that are responsible for the red and orange leaf colours of autumn. These function as a kind of sun-screen, and are particularly important for protecting the tender new foliage from damage by ultra-violet rays.

The colour effect dissipates as the plants produce and circulate chlorophyll to their new leaves. The production of chlorophyll is itself triggered by increasing levels of light and warmth. If those newly emerged leaves coincide with a cold snap or even just extensive cloud cover, then the greening will be stalled and foliage will remain red for an extended period. So the spring foliage effect is every bit as variable as it’s autumn equivalent, and for many of the same reasons too. In addition some plants take far longer to produce chlorophyll than do others, the effect lasting just a few weeks for some, whilst extending over the entire season in others. In either case by the time it has greened the foliage will have toughened up and the need for all-out protection will have lessened.

Toona sinensis 'Flamingo'.

The variety of plants that create this spring display is extremely wide. The new foliage of the vast majority of deciduous, hardwood trees flush red to some extent, but some really go all out and are worth planting and growing for this reason alone. Good examples include Acer (the Maples) and Aesculus (the Horse-Chestnuts), both of which genera contain an array of varieties that excel in the field of bright new foliage.

Aesculus x neglecta 'Erythroblastos'.

In fact there’s an entire subsection of Japanese Maples (collectively Acer palmatum, japonicum and shirasawanum) that have been developed in cultivation specifically for their “Spring effect”, which ranges from the glowing tangerine and lemon combinations of A. palmatum ‘Orange Dream’ through to the fire engine red of the likes of A. palmatum ‘Corallinum”. Other Acers, such as the aptly named Acer pseudoplatanus ‘Brilliantissimum, open to cream and pink’ and still others to bronze, whilst a few, such as A. buergarianum ‘Nusitoriyama’, start the season with leaves of ghostly white. Quite the rainbow of colours from a group of plants normally only associated with their autumn foliage.

Acer palmatum 'Orange Dream'.

Aesculus boasts a much smaller number of species, but almost all of them look pretty impressive in Spring. A. wilsonii opens bright red, quickly turning to chocolate bronze, for instance, whilst A. x neglecta ‘Erythroblastos’ dazzles in bright shrimp pink. The same colour appears even more dramatically in the almost garish new foliage of Toona sinensis ‘Flamingo’. One of my favourites though is a Lime, Tilia henryana, whose furry, heavily toothed leaves open a silvery colour before flushing with plum purple, a colour they maintain until the end of Spring.

Pieris 'Forest Flame'.

Some of the best known and widely grown of all ornamental shrubs are grown principally for their spring foliage too – think of Pieris ‘Forest Flame’ & Photinia ‘Red Robin’, for instance. There are hundreds of other shrubby examples, but I’ll mention just one. Less well known, and a tad less showy perhaps, is the nevertheless extremely beautiful Neolitsea sericea, a relative of the Laurels whose new foliage opens a soft copper/fawn, with the texture of suede on the upper surface and of silk beneath.

Neolitsea sericea.

Things are every bit as colourful at ground level too. A quick glance around the garden this morning shows new leaves of maroon Paeonia, plum, bronze and crimson Epimedium, golden yellow Aquilegia, silver to near black Ranunculus, a whole array of metallic colours amongst the ferns, and the breathtaking bronze and silver marbled foliage of Podophyllums (to name just a very few) all about to burst into view.

A Podophyllum delavayi hybrid.

Spring delivers so much garden colour and variety to explore and play with, and that’s all before you even think about flowers…


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Heralds of Spring: Catkins.

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

All ornamental plants have their peak season, the time when, however briefly, they eclipse their neighbours and demand your attention. For those that flower later in spring the job is made that much harder, since they have to compete with so many others, big and small, that burst into colourful bloom at the same time. But right now, with almost all leaf and flower buds still tightly furled, the garden stage is relatively clear, and there’s a great sense of anticipation and possibility of the season to come.

All of this allows one species of tree to be pre-eminent in it’s subtle beauty. For right now Hazels - Corylus avellana – are festooned with their male catkins, flowers that might be overlooked if they were produced alongside bold foliage or simultaneous with showier, more traditional floral displays.

Male Hazel catkins aglow in the early spring sunshine.

Many people are probably unaware that catkins are flowers at all, but these are flowers that put all of their energies into pollen production, rather than colourful petals. The vast majority of catkin-bearing trees are pollinated by the wind, rather than by insects, so have no need for flamboyant, but energy-intensive structures with which to attract a pollinator.

Catkins are actually the earliest of all flowers to have evolved, long before the advent of flying (and thus pollinating) insects. The basic structure, though, is both so simple and so effective as a means of fertilisation that is has arisen independently in several different plant families, ranging from Nettles to Birches.

Stinging Nettles bear catkins too.

Catkin-bearing species of plants all produce separate male and female flowers. In some, including our native Hazel, the two different structures are produced on every plant, but more frequently the male and female flowers appear on separate plants,  a strategy that ensures cross-pollination occurs every single time.

The diminutive female flowers of a Hazel nestle above the male catkins.

Catkins develop over the summer months, but they remaining tight, closed and largely inconspicuous until their expansion. Typically this occurs in early spring, starting in the British landscape, as we have, with the Hazel. Most catkin bearing species of tree flower either before the leaves unfurl, or certainly before the leaves fully enlarge, a strategy that allows the pollen to be successfully spread on the slightest breeze without interference by the foliage. Once fertilization has occurred, then the male catkins wither and fall, so, in warm weather in particular, the period of their display can be all too brief.

Of course it’s not just our native Corylus that produces catkins, the Birches, Alders, Sweet Chestnuts, Mulberrys, Poplars, Oaks, Beech, Hornbeams, Hickorys and Willows all employ this method of reproduction too, and together represent perhaps the majority of the trees in our landscape.

The flowers of the Mulberry, Morus rubra.

Some members of this band of trees are relatively modest in their catkin structures – the Alders, for example, produce small-ish cones and the Birches have rather non-descript fawn coloured catkins, neither of which are noted for their aesthetic qualities. Others, though can be highly ornamental as well as fascinating structually.

Castanea sativa – the Sweet Chestnut – produces highly conspicuous cream coloured catkins as long as, or even longer than it’s huge leaves.

The dramatic catkins of Castanea sativa, the Sweet Chestnut.

Several species of Quercus (the Oaks), and particularly the American Red Oaks, bear very pretty clusters of bright red and tangerine orange flowers that make an effective contract with the unfolding foliage.

Quercus nigra - the Black Oak - in full flower.

Garrya elliptica, an evergreen shrub native to the West coast of the USA, is widely cultivated specifically for it’s catkins too. In January and February the male plants produce 30cm long cream coloured flowers that give the species it’s common name of “Silk Tassle Bush”.

Garya elliptica - unmistakable in flower.

Itea illicifolia is another evergreen shrub, this time from China, that has similar appeal, but which, unusually, produces it’s catkins in summer rather than spring.

There are several purple-leaved forms of various of the Corylus (Hazel) species, and these have added appeal for catkin fans, since the red pigment extends to the plants’ flowers (and the fruit too for that matter). Corylus maxima ‘Red Zellernus’ & ‘Purpurea’ and Corylus colurna ‘Te Terra Red’ all produce highly attractive pink-red catkins on completely bare, leafless branches at the very start of spring.

Corylus colurna 'Te Terra Red'.

One group of trees, though, has become synonymous with the appealing nature of it’s catkins, and are often cultivated purely for it’s flowering display. These are the Salix species – the Willows. Hardly anyone can be immune to the charm of “Pussy Willows” – the soft, fur-like catkins produced by a number of species of Salix, and our widespread native tree Salix caprea (the Goat Willow) in particular.

Salix caprea - Pussy Willow - catkins.

Willows, as a genus, take the catkin to dimensions shapes and colours that are present in no other group of plants. Salix gracilistyla ‘Melanostachys’, for instance, produces completely upright, ink-black catkins that contrast vividly with the plants’ bright red winter stems. Salix daphnoides is a variation on the same theme, this time with fluffy silver catkins held on scarlet stems.

Salix daphnoides.

Leaving the best of all catkins bearing trees to last, though, we come to Salix magnifica – literally the “Magnificent Willow”. This Chinese species is special in a number of ways. When he first discovered a non-flowering specimen of the plant in 1909, the famous plant-hunter Ernest Wilson believed he had found a new Magnolia, so large and lush were it’s leaves. The flowers follow suit, and both male and female catkins are show-stoppers – up to 25cm in length, purple and yellow in colour and held upright, like candles on the branches. Truly a magnificent Willow, and truly magnificent catkins.

Salix magnifica.


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Light at the End of the Tunnel!

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

I can see and feel the first signs of Spring!  My husband always comments after the shortest day in December that we are over the worst, Summer is on the way and the days will be getting longer, and yesterday I saw this with my own eyes.  My beautiful snow drops are in bloom, bulbs are starting to send out green shoots which probably means weeds will start growing again too!

Sadly, during the extreme cold snap we lost one of our chickens, Siennna (Miller), due to a very nasty illness which luckily didn’t spread to the other four chooks.  Egg production has been greatly reduced for the last 6 weeks, and I have had to buy eggs from time to time from the local farm-shop.  When chickens moult and also when it is so very cold, the chooks have to preserve themselves to keep warm, and grow new feathers, so their body very cleverly stops manufacturing eggs …  nature never fails to amaze me.  Anyway, on Friday I phoned up my chicken man, to check if he had any chooks available, and fortunately he did.  So I popped over to his farm with an empty Ocado crate and collected two new birds …  Versace and Mildred!  Mildred is very similar in colouring to Matilda, so seems to have been accepted by the others readily, however they have taken a dislike to poor Versace and are pecking her and bullying her, but I have been assured that this is quite normal, and this is where the term ‘Pecking Order’ comes from.

My vegetable patch is looking a bit sad at the moment, with just a few leeks and parsnips left to harvest.  My red chard suffered from it’s covering of snow for about 3 weeks, so it is nearly time to plough up the soil and add some manure in preparation for this years crops.

We continue to feed the birds with high energy bird nuts daily.  However, I am struggling to feed my own family at the moment thanks to a shortage of LPG Gas in Southern England, and the backlog of deliveries due to snow.  I have turned off my Aga and will probably have to turn off the heating by the end of the week if my delivery is not made …  oh how I wish I lived with mains gas!  So today I am not inspired to cook and hopefully will add a recipe next time.


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Erythroniums.

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Another genus that provides some of the real stars of the spring garden is Erythronium. Commonly known as dogtooth violets – referring to the bulb of the species E. dens-canis, which does sort-of resemble a canine fang – as well as trout lilies – after to the speckled leaves of many species, that supposedly look like trout scales…if you’ve been on the ale, maybe – these are truly beautiful lily relatives.

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.


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Thoroughly modern Epimediums.

Friday, April 16th, 2010

True rising stars of the gardening world, the Epimediums have only very recently been elevated from being also-rans  to amongst the most treasured favourites of the spring garden.

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.


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Magnificent Magnolias.

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Magnolia 'Wildcat'.

April is the month when flower power really arrives in the garden. It feels like things are springing into life almost as you watch them, with new buds opening everywhere each and every day.

It takes real floral star quality, then, to shine through all this colour, life and activity, and be crowned the undisputed (by me at least….)  ruler of the garden in April, but this month nothing can come close to touching the Magnolias.

Aside from their flowering spectacular, which I’ll come back to shortly, Magnolias have a fascinating story to tell. They are considered to be the first flowering plants ever to have evolved on this green earth. Fossils of those very early flowers date back over 100 million years and preserve records of flowers that look almost exactly the same as today’s wild Magnolia species.

Magnolia 'Felix Jury'.

What’s more, these very early proto-Magnolias evolved well before flying insects. It’s actually the arrival of their flowers that triggered an evolutionary arms race that would eventually lead insects to take to the wing so that they could more effectively reach those same flowers.

If you take a close look into any Magnolia flower today you’ll most likely find a seething mass of tiny, pin-head sized pollen beetles, and it’s actually these little guys who today, as 100 million years ago, serve as the plants’ principal pollinators. All beetle-pollinated flowers share a few common characteristics – very large, simple flowers coloured white pink or red with masses of pollen and virtually no nectar.

Magnolia 'Judy Zuk'.

Nectar arrived later, in more highly evolved flowers where it serves to attract the likes of butterflies, moths, bees and eventually bats and birds to serve as pollinators. Magnolias do, in fact, exude a nectar-like substance in small quantities, although it’s function is to capture pollen from passing beetles (to improve pollination chances) rather than to feed flying insects.

There are well over 100 species of Magnolia currently recognised and many more hundreds of cultivars and hybrids, but until very recently here in Britain you’d be very lucky to see more than three or four of these anywhere outside of large specialist gardens and collections.

Magnolia 'Atlas'.

M. x soulangeana is the rose purple and white bicolour-flowered plant (eventually a medium/large tree) that is so widely planted here in the UK, including as a street tree. M. stellata is the smaller Star Magnolia, usually grown in pure white forms, whilst M. grandiflora is the North American evergreen species in which the best forms have large, felted leaves, and which is often seen planted against the walls of stately homes. M. x loebneri is the fourth, though less commonly planted Magnolia, producing huge numbers of strappy flowers of white or pink.

For the last 50 years or so handfuls of dedicated breeders have been working on improving the selection of Magnolias available for the garden. Some of the aims were to improve hardiness by pushing back flowering time (thus avoiding the earliest frosts) widen the selection of sizes, colours and perfumes and attempt to create smaller Magnolias better able to fit the average garden.

Magnolia 'Daybreak'.

There are a huge range of wild species to draw from, but developing new Magnolias is a painfully slow business that also requires huge amounts of space so that new crosses can be grown on to flowering age – we’re talking decades rather than seasons. Still, now there really is a kaleidoscope of colours and forms of these majestic plants out there just waiting to be planted.

Although three of those widely grown varieties are still very much worthy of any gardeners attention, the ubiquitous hybrid M. x soulangeana has been completely surpassed and superseded as a garden plant.

Magnolia 'Sweet Merlot'.

The magnificent giant Himalayan tree species (all very slow maturing and early flowering and hence pretty frustrating outside of very large, sheltered, southern gardens) have been crossed with later flowering and smaller growing species and hybrids, bringing intense violets like ‘Black Tulip’, ‘Sweet Merlot’ & ‘Old Port’,  near reds – ‘Felix Jury’ is one of the best yet – a wide range of true pinks including  ’Daybreak’, ”Star Wars’, ‘Apollo’ & ‘Spectrum’, and many large flowered bi coloured & whites like ‘Athene’, ‘Sayonara’ and the truly giant flowered ‘Atlas’.

Magnolia 'Eva Maria'.

The very late, American yellow flowered M. acuminata has been crossed with everything possible, creating a very exciting, extremely hardy range late flowered hybrids.

Colours range through pinks – ‘Daybreak’ (which is also regarded as the finest of all Magnolias for fragrance) ‘Pink Royalty’, ‘Rose Marie’, ”Coral Lake’, ‘Denis Ledvina’, ‘Blushing Belle’, ‘Phil’s Masterpiece’ – creams – ‘Ivory Chalice’, ‘Yellow Lantern’, ‘Gold Cup’ – yellows -’Daphne’, ‘Yellow Bird’, ‘Limelight’, ‘Lois’, ‘Judy Zuk’ – and even peach – ‘Peachy’, ‘Eva Maria’, ‘Amber’, ‘Apricot Brandy’.

Magnolia 'Goldstar'.

Finally, the smaller M. stellata (itself one of the parents of M. x loebneri) has been successfully crossed and backcrossed to widen the range of smaller Magnolias. The yellow/cream flowered ‘Goldstar’ is a real favourite, as are the semi-doubled ‘Wildcat’ & ‘Powder Puff’ and the beautifully formed, pure white ‘Donna’.

Once it’s been planted (and well tended of course) a Magnolia will grow to form a very substantial garden feature for generations to come, so it’s got to be worth taking the time to seek out and plant one of the superior forms that are now available. In gardening terms the reward, each spring, will be almost unparalleled.


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