Treats from the RHS

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Sara Davison

Two trips out of my garden this week – one on Tuesday to the RHS Great Spring Show at Westminster which was choc-a-bloc with treasures.  Mindful that whatever I bought would need to be transported home on the train I limited myself to a white flowered, variegated Honesty (Lunaria).  I had this in my previous garden many years ago but it died out, so high time to reintroduce it again.

This morning saw me at the RHS gardens in Wisley for the second day of the Auricula Festival.  I love these flowers, the Victorians had the right idea in creating ‘theatres’ to display them to their very best.  It will be a while before I have anything resembling a collection, but I’ve started it off with two choice specimens.  Auriculas at Wisley

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Wet Bank Holiday Monday

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Sara Davison

But not a reason for the blues – although I suppose it could make a song title.  It has rained for almost the whole day today, but it is a good thing for us gardeners who have been fretting about the drought warnings and devising schemes for capturing ‘grey’ water from the house (more in another post).  It means that the seeds I sowed direct last year will at last be tempted to germinate and I will have dark purple Opium poppies (Papaver somniferum) to look forward to in May/June.  Of course it will mean the weeds will be just as busy getting on with growing, so more time spent up close and personal with the borders next weekend to make sure they don’t gain too much of a foothold.  It would also be a good time to mulch, if you are that sort of gardener – I’m not.  There is no point at all putting mulch on ground that is dry, as when it does rain the mulch will soak it up and so the soil remains dry. Ideally the ground will be freshly rained upon (but not waterlogged), then you will put down the mulch, after which it will rain just a little more – if only the world was that obliging.   The photo in this post is of Crab Apple blossom, don’t they resemble tiny rosebuds?

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Community gardening

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Sara Davison

Spent a couple of hours in ‘my’ other garden this morning, one I share with other like-minded people in the neighbourhood.  We’re reclaiming a partially walled kitchen garden in the grounds of what was once ‘the big house’ locally.  Allotments are at a premium here, the waiting list is many years long, and actually the shared garden is so much better.  Admittedly not everything you grow will be of your own choice, but then that can be a really good way to try something new, without being landed with a glut of it if you really don’t like it, and the care and worry is shared – which I think with a drought looming this summer will be a bit of a godsend.  This way, there is a reduced fear of everything drying out and dying if you spend a few days away, likewise as things become ready to crop (being optimistic here) they will be harvested in good time and hopefully before the rabbits get them.  It also means that whilst my own garden has very little space to grow vegetables and fruit, I still have that opportunity and in a space I would not have otherwise – not to mention meeting co-gardeners and getting to know my neighbours better.  Divided up my two-hour slot between some heavy digging, the little rain we’re getting is making no difference whatsoever, and pricking out and seed sowing in the glasshouse.  Having a go at growing Rosemary and Thyme from seed – it will be interesting to see how well they germinate.

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The plan revealed!

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Sara Davison

The moment had arrived, my designer presented the plan to me – I’m not sure who was the more anxious.  She wanted to know that she’d interpreted my ideas correctly, and I wanted to see how she was planning to transform my garden.  Fortunately we were both happy, in fact I was totally taken aback by how she’d envisaged the space, and that in my view is the benefit of bringing in outside help, I was just too close to it to have the objectivity that was required.  I knew what was wrong, the lawn had to go – on the other hand she could see that with the lawn removed, and the trellis taken away I had a lot of space to play with.  It was a narrow space there was no changing that but techniques to give a sense of width, to slow down the journey from one end of the garden to the other could be called upon, and a transformation achieved.

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Coming home

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Sara Davison

I spent a few days away from the garden last week and it is always good coming home to see how the plants are developing.  Because of the very warm weather and sunshine there is much to see – and also gaps that I must note down so that I can fix them later in the year.  For example, I thought I had plenty of dwarf narcissus ready to brighten things up, but I haven’t – so they are on my bulb list.  Likewise the new crocus I bought have been lovely, so I shall order some more, and make notes for myself now of where they will look best.

Looking ahead to late summer colour I planted up the new dahlia tubers, their names make for an interesting scenario – try this.  What comes to mind when you put the Bishop of Canterbury & the Bishop of Auckland together with Summertime, Swan Lake, Roxy and Rosamunda?  A  seasonal night out at the ballet for members of the clergy perhaps? I’ve ordered the dahlias from Sarah Raven again as the ones I bought last year were so fabulous – I’m hoping for a repeat performance, weather permitting they will start to flower in late summer and continue right until the frosts.

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Sunday thoughts

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Sara Davison

Mother’s Day today and most of the family to lunch with me.  The all-day rain that had been forecast earlier in the week fell yesterday (very welcome) which was good because it meant that Mum and I could take a look at the garden together, something we always do, whether I’m visiting my parents or they are visiting me.    A walk around each other’s garden, always in the company of the gardener, to see what is coming up, doing well or struggling, is a shared ritual.  Very often there are plants to be donated; Mum  is great at propagating and can get nearly anything to grow – and today she brought me some plants of Ammi majus (think Cow Parsley type flowers – it’s very pretty) that she’d grown from seed.

In turn I’ve promised her some Aquilegia, once they have made larger plants and I can tell if they are the purple A.’Miss I H Huish’ or the green A.’Lime Sorbet’; both of which I grew from seed last year.  We did not stay out too long, the wind had turned cold again, but it was good to spot the many allium and tulip bulbs I planted last autumn starting to show above ground – I’m hoping for good things from them in May.  Digging nearly everything out of the garden last year, in preparation for the new design, gave me a good chance to give more consideration to what I planted and where.

I’ve tried, and the coming weeks will tell if I succeeded, to place bulbs by colour, either to give strong contrast or softly compliment each other – but I have a suspicion that nature is going to throw a surprise or two my way.  I’ve a sneaking feeling that some very advanced looking tulips are the offspring of some letter-box red tulips that have come up every year without fail; tulips often don’t come back a second season, things eat the bulbs during the summer months or they just put too  much energy into flowering the first year, but the red ones – I’ve had them in every garden I’ve owned, whether I put them there or not.  Because they give a splash of colour I never have the heart to get rid of them, even if they are in the wrong place, but this year, alongside the carefully selected pinks and purples they might be a contrast too far.  We shall see.

This photo is of my garden taken last April, just before work started – you can see the red tulips.  The purple/pink flowering tree is the Cercis siliquastrum I wrote about earlier, and you can see the beautiful white stems of the Silver Birch, or Betula jacquemontii.

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Planning the new design

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Sara Davison

Part of the design process involved my garden-designer neighbour spending a couple of hours with my partner and myself, and extracting from us both what we wanted from the garden.  He is not a gardener at all, and whilst happy to lend me a hand when something I want to dig out puts up a fight, he is happiest sitting out of the direct sun with a good book.  I consider this to be ideal; I get my own way with all the planting decisions.

So into the design mix went space to have a seat in a shaded area, a larger space for sitting for when there were more than than two people in the garden; it was presently like trying to sit in a corridor – and this was the most important of all; to give the illusion of width to the plot.  The garden is c23.5 metres long, and c4.8metres wide, which is 77 feet long and 15 feet wide in old money.  Other items on the wish list were a pond of some description, the existing pond was more like a muddy puddle despite my best efforts to improve it, but I like having water in the garden.  I had also seen climbing roses growing on thick ropes slung between stout wooden posts and wanted to include these somewhere.  Above all, I wanted lots of space for my plants, both existing and those I had still to buy.

Beyond this, she could let her imagination run wild, just allowing for three trees that I had planted in the garden and wanted to keep in situ – they are a multi-stemmed Betula Jacquemontii which had been a present from my parents, and I’d deliberately selected it and positioned it so that the winter light would catch its lovely white stems and be clearly visible from my kitchen window, a Cercis siliquastrum that I had planted to remind me of the ones that had self-seeded themselves in my sister’s garden in Provence, and a Prunus serrula chosen for its vibrant cherry red peeling and polished stems that was planted right outside the kitchen window.

I waited to see what the final plan would look like.

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Down in the weeds

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Sara Davison

Today has been the most perfect Spring day so I ditched all my other plans for the morning and spent it in the garden, weeding.  I fail to see why people hate this task; for me it is the best way to really sense what is going on in my garden.  This time of year weedlings don’t put up much of a fight, dandelions come up with minimal tugging for instance.  Everywhere I looked I spotted would-be sycamores putting down tap roots – so out they came – the boundary at the back of my garden is denoted by sycamores, self planted every one of them.  They are not mine, if they were they would come down and I’d plant more appropriate trees – but I don’t have this option, so I just control the ones I can.  The other benefit about being down in the weeds is that you spot the seedlings you want to nurture; hellebores for instance.  Each year I pot some on, hoping that maybe I will find a new ‘treasure’ among them – but this requires patience, it will be several years before this year’s infants will reach flowering age.  I never begrudge paying out for a special hellebore, I take my hat off to the skills of the plant breeders.

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Introducing my garden

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Sara Davison

A 'before' photographI’ve gardened here for over 10 years now, and worked with what was there was when I bought the house, mainly adding to it plant wise.  I’m passionate about herbaceous perennials and concentrated on building my collection, but that meant I gardened like a collector preferring to buy  single plants and having many different ones, rather than focusing on impact planting.  But I was happy, and each year trimmed back a bit more of my lawn (makes it sound much grander than the reality) so I could fit in more plants.  Then I decided  to treat the grass to a regular visit from one of the lawn care franchises – and for a season it looked fabulous!  However, in the following year something went horribly wrong with one of the treatments in the Spring; I think the mix was too strong – and it looked awful – for pretty much the entire summer!  My kitchen sink looks out at the garden, so there was absolutely no ignoring it – and no matter how lovely the plants were looking, the grass let down the overall effect.  I made the decision that the grass would have to go.

I have a friend and neighbour who is a garden designer – we got talking about my plans to take up the grass. We walked the length of my garden together, she pointed out to me that owing to the way I’d allowed my garden to evolve  I was shutting off what amounted to about one third of the entire plot.  My garden is not large, it is quite long but very narrow, so a third of it was a lot to lose.   We agreed that she would draw me a plan.

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Preparing the ground

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Sara Davison

So, as this is my first post on my blog which as the name suggests will be about my garden (mostly) this post is the equivalent of me starting to dig the ground, to throw out the large stones and other bits of rubbish I encounter and generally get it ready for planting and making beautiful.  I  know far more about gardening than I do blogging, but I’m confident my knowledge will improve with experience, just as it did when I first started to garden.  If you are joining me, welcome.

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