Winter-flowering wonders

Well I knew I had spoken too soon. What fantastic frosts and a really, really cold spell has crept up on us. The difference it is making is not only to the gardens we look after, but to ourselves. It is a joy to wake up with sun and blue sky as opposed to grey skies and pouring rain. You don't need to suffer from SAD to feel depressed and blue when there is unremitting grey rain.

And it is with this colder weather and the leaves off the trees that some of our winter plants come into their own. One of my favourites is Cornus Midwinter Fire. The fantastic orangey red colour of the twigs stand out like neon lights without the covering of their leaves. It looks awful when you first plant it. The leaves look yellowy and can be prone to frosting. Leave the plant unpruned for two years to let it get establihsed and then prune back hard every late spring. The result wil be these gloriously stunning coloured stems. The Lonicera is an unsightly, spreading-itself-everywhere, type of plant. However the small honeysuckle flowers scent up the cold winter air with a lovely lemony fragrance. Plant it at the back of a border or in a shrubbery that you walk past. Sarcococca is more of a jasmine-scented plant that can be overpowering if too many are planted together. But in a small group it has a wonderful fragrance that lasts as it ages.

Welcome to my Sunday

6 December

Well the day started spectacularly; stunning sunshine and blue skies. The great thing about most Sundays is that if you get up and out before 9am there is usually no-one around. So I crept out of the house (as much as you can with 3 Jack Russells, one of whom is as obedient as a recalcitrant teenager) and into the beech woods that run behind us. The winds that we have had means that all the leaves are now carpeting the ground rather than the trees – fantastic fun if you are a dog with ‘manic’ as your second name. The leaves also hide a great source of food for a number of small and larger birds. The chaffinches are there in droves fossiking around; jays – I saw a group of 3 together – are busy burying acorns; and all the small tits are scurrying around trying to find the last of the insects; blue tits, great tits and my favourite the long tailed tits. The joy about the woods too is that it is relatively dry. Unlike the gardens we currently look after. The rain has left many of them a squelching mess (and the day has now turned grey with more rain pouring down). At this time of year we are doing the last grass cutting (if we can even get onto the lawns). It is a bit like playing box and cox around the place. All of our clients pray for a dry day when we are due to visit and then of course it pours with rain - again. Luckily most of the gardens we look after are so up and together that there is very little last minute work to do before we close for Christmas.

That said, December is one of our busiest months. We are frenetic cutting back perennials; cutting lawn edges and putting down layers of soil conditioner which act as a mulch and over the winter gets pulled into the soil by the worms.

Bulbs are already showing their new growth; I have seen early daffodil and snowdrops poking their first points of green above the soil. And, I have also seen new green leaf buds on some hazel behind us. I hope that there will soon be some seriously cold weather else spring will be upon us before we have even had winter!

Gardening ideas for Christmas presents

I don't know about you, but I find that whenever I am asked for ideas for Christmas my mind goes an instant blank, while the rest of the year my wishlist for the garden is forever growing. Here are a few suggestions for green-fingered Christmas lists and some of my reommended sites.

With all this rain, it really is a crime not to be collecting run-off from your roof into water-butts. Some of my more particular friends complain of the aesthetics of green plastic and I do know what they mean. But you can find beautiful examples made from recycled oak barrels – try www.oak-barrel.com for a wide range of sizes and tap options, starting at just £89 for a 40 gallon butt.

I first came across Green Gardener when I was researching sources of bugs for eco-pest control, but I am delighted to see that now their range includes all kinds of useful (and entertaining) products for the eco-gardener. If you have a friend or relative unhappy about putting food scraps into compost because of the faff involved, the Bokashi bin might be the perfect conversion tool! Completely sealed and unintrusive, this two-sided bin accelerates the composting of household scraps and is on offer now for £39. My favourite, however, on this site are Green Gardener's Camera Bird Boxes. Easily installed in the garden and connected up to a PC or TV, they come in black and white or colour versions. A wonderful present for the whole family that will come into its own through the Spring and early Sumer months - £139 for a colour version.

For all kinds of rustic presents, try www.plantstuff.com. Traditional wooden riddles for that perfect tilth start from £22, a Wellie Boot knocker can be yours for £10 and I also rather like the multi-coloured wellie-liners from Hunter, as the first frost arrives.

Are Gardens Art?

I find myself worried. It is not often that I find my thoughts echoed by mainstream publications. The Garden Design Journal landed on my desk several days ago, and I have only just got round to opening it and glimming through it. Horror of horrors. I find my thoughts echoed almost exactly in their articles. What has happened? One of the joys (yet another I know) about living in the countryside is that I tend to live outside mainstream design; added to which of course I am not qualified which has its advantages and disadvantages (more of that another time). Nowhere is this more evident than in the designs we have submitted at Hampton Court, where both the design and planting has been completely opposite to what is generally being shown. You may notice when you go to Chelsea and Hampton Court shows, how, despite the designers coming from all over the world there is a similarity that manifests itself in colour and planting.
I digress. Tim Richardson in his column discusses the ‘G-word’. Ie. ‘garden’. He bemoans a fact that we come across frequently. Gardeners (sounds so derogatory put like that) are often paid less than cleaners; yet our level of skill and plant knowledge needs to be almost encyclopaedic. Gardens are expensive to design and maintain – they are living growing organisms (see previous blog entry) – yet gardening is often seen as the prerogative of the old and amateurs. And this encompasses the whole industry from designers down to professional gardeners. There is nothing wrong with being either old or amateur, but if you look around you there is an increasing amount of work being done within this industry by younger, active people who find gardening as a profession sustaining, creative, satisfying. Which is more than can be said for a lot of professions.

Which brings me onto the article (and this is not an advertisement for the Garden Design magazine – I just find it a refreshing magazine with great layout, and some seriously good ideas for design and debate) about Are Gardens Art? which in itself is a provoking question. Yes of course there are the gardens that are created like a living canvas of colour, form and texture; and others that are not. Similarly the same could be said of paintings, sculptures, installations etc. Some good, some mediocre and an awful lot of horrors interspersed with the truly brilliant. Are they all functional – no some are not and many are. And art is different things to different people. Should it engender debate; of course. Should it inspire; of course. Should it comfort – yes, that too. Art is a wonderfully encompassing concept and the same is true of gardens. To use a direct quote from the article, attributed to Stephen Anderton “There is no battle; there is an extra which is on offer” – and that ‘extra’ is the artistic quality which we as designers seek to create. I think that perhaps the question is larger than this. Everyone is capable of creating art and beauty in all its different forms. It is just that not everyone likes what is created and some of us are intrinsically better qualified (and I do not mean on paper) to do it than others. I think the question links into Tim Richardson’s column and the perception of gardeners, gardening and the work/design involved with them.

Another great gardening writer (and amateur gardener too) was Vita Sackville West, whose garden at her beloved Sissinghurst is probably a greater piece of art than all her reams of poetry. The two sentry trees that guard one of the cottages at Sissinghurst are pictured above. She had this to say: "Every garden-maker should be an artist along his own lines. That is the only possible way to create a garden, irrespective of size or wealth."

Back to my Garden Design journal and I turn a page and find an article about the concept gardens at Hampton Court, written again by Tim Richardson (has this man been inside by head recently, I wonder?). I can only agree with him again, although I would take issue with his comments about Tony Smith’s garden at Chelsea, which made me smile and which I thought was a fantastic combination of beautifully executed design and brilliant colour. Tony Smith is a truly inspirational designer with a great ‘edge’ to him. He is also one of the most delightfully generous characters you will ever meet. The concept gardens at Hampton Court, were, I thought, the best part of the show. I hardly dare agree with Tim as I might be accused of being sycophantic but let us hope that both the RHS and the designers continue to push for leading edge concept design that at its best is truly art.

Garden therapy

The wonderful thing about gardening is that I am removed from radios, television and newspapers – except on Saturday when I indulge in the paper over a cup of well earned tea. So when I do get sidetracked by a newspaper article or a particularly lurid account of what the various political parties are doing, it is like having a rather cold, unpleasant shower. And I have to wonder how much of what happens is really true. The upside of not reading and listening to news the whole time is that I get to make my own decision about what is happening around me. Sure, we have clients who have been affected by the recession, but living in the countryside as I do, we perhaps have a more practical way of getting on with business. The upset in the financial markets has hit the cities particularly hard and London has been incredibly depressing to visit over the last year or so, although that is now changing, because despite whatever the pundits say we are still all here and alive. And no more so than in the beautiful weather we have been having.

That is one of the huge advantages of living in the country. It is very, very difficult to remain completely self-absorbed in misery when we have stunning sunsets such as the one last night; or you see a red kite sweeping over a late harvested field. Nature has a way of putting our lives into dramatic perspective. It is a shame that more of us don’t realise this.

In praise of Swiss chard

The gleaming red stems of chard in the vegetable garden look wonderful at this time of the year. But, of course, they are not just grown for their beauty – but for their wonderful, slightly peppery, flavour.

Here is one of my favourite recipes using chard, and as it happens perfect if you are entertaining vegetarians. I cook on an Aga so you may need to adjust the cooking time if you cook on gas or electricity.

You will need:

2 red peppers
1 pack of feta cheese
20 small or 10 large leaves of fresh chard
1 packet of filo pastry
About 4ozs butter to melt
Black pepper

Halve and de-seed the two red peppers and roast in the oven to char the skins. Remove the skins and cut into strips.

Wash the chard and remove any really fibrous stems, tearing the large leaves (don't cut) into loose pieces.

Cut the feta into cubes.

Brush a shallow heatproof dish with melted butter and lay the layers of filo, leaving large flaps over the edges (which you can eventually fold over the top), and brushing each layer of filo with butter as you go.

When all the sheets are used up, evenly fill the middle with the red pepper, chard and feta.Add freshly ground pepper. Close the flaps over the top and brush with melted butter.

Put into a pre-warmed oven at about 200 Centigrade (bottom shelf of hot oven for Aga-owners) for about 20 minutes, or until the pastry is a golden brown and crispy.

Serve warm with just a mixed salad or some new potatoes.

A glut of butterflies

As per the post below, our garden is filled with butterflies this summer. This beautiful peacock spreads its wings in a rare moment when the sun managed to creep through the interminable rain.

What a wet summer does to the best-laid plans

Apologies for being so out of communication, but work and life have been hectic with several new developments (about which there will be news later on), and trying to work around our weather.  Well, English weather has always been a topic of conversation, but this time round it has even made the news.  Trying to plan what we do is becoming impossible.  It does not matter where you go for information it is contradictory.  In the end, we just take the best guess scenario, and keep our clients informed.  And of course, it can go wrong!  It would not be English weather if it didn’t throw the occasional cog into the works.

As a result we are now experiencing the type of growth that we normally see in May, not the end of July.  Phenomenal weed production, lush, heavy growth on hedges and perennials. And of course mildew in epidemic proportions on the roses.  So planning as usual, goes out of the window and we have to amend our work accordingly.

However, one of the great joys this year has been the explosion in the number of butterflies.  Although it has been overcast the last few days with the ubiquitous heavy rainfall, as soon as the sun peeps out our buddlejia are simply covered in butterflies.  The Peacocks are now making an appearance in their droves with the odd Red Admiral, Brimstone and Tortoiseshell. And there are bees and hoverflies everywhere.  I don’t use sprays in our garden, except soap and water, particularly on the roses.  My Mdme Alfred Carriere suffers a bit, but I simply pick off the black spot leaves, cut back and feed heavily.  My other rose, Penny Lane seems to suffer from virtually no disease at all, and Poetry in Motion just gets well fed on a regular basis.

The vegetable garden too is looking like a jungle.  Because we are comparatively high up, germination was a real problem in June, which meant watering.  However, now the opposite is true and it is hard to get into the veg patch.  The Cabbage Whites are making hay whilst the sun shines and I expect that the various small birds will be feasting on a glut of caterpillars.  Meanwhile I have finally seen my first runner bean; it is unlikely to survive the transition from plant to pot!  I am going to try and put in some late seed in the hope that we may have an Indian summer!  However the evenings up here are increasing cooling off with the resultant cooler soil – not good for germination.  However it does mean that a late sowing of rocket may not be munched by the wretched flea beetles.  The last lot disappeared before it was less than .5cm high!  And of course the lettuces and chard is bolting faster than we can eat it.  However one of the added perks of growing chard particularly, the red variety is the stunning colour you get when the sun strikes the stems.  Absolutely beautiful.

In praise of the small gardens at Hampton Court Flower Show

Hampton Court Flower Show 2009 has as usual suffered from the weather; as for the last two years it has been incredibly hot beforehand and then poured during the show with the inevitable knock on effect on the flowers and foliage.

This year it was strange to be standing the other side of the track. And how I missed the set up buzz, the sense of comradeship caused by trying to do the impossible with a great group of people. I do love the Hampton Court Flower Show. To me it is far more ‘real’ than Chelsea. There is the room to move around; families are welcomed; and it has the feel of a country fair. That said, the wretched carriers that everyone fills with plants and pulls around after them, is enough to cause heart failure never mind broken ankles, legs, and generally a filthy temper as yet again someone swerves in front of you. Grrrrrrrrr.

I really missed the water gardens this year though. They have been utterly superb, and having some experience with ponds and the like I take my hat off to those fantastic companies and designers that created them. Their standard of excellence was sorely missed and I hope that they return next year.

That said, there were some excellent gardens, particularly in the small garden category. It was also good to see that the organisers have apparently learned a lesson; many of the gardens you could walk through or walk round. It makes them so much more approachable and easy to see as well as assisting the design. You don’t have to take into account your next door neighbour’s boundaries, which, let me tell you can be a complete headache, particularly when you have no control over what is going next to you.

The garden’s that really stood out for me were Fiona Stephenson’s Oak Tree: Lying in State. The stark image of a stunning dead oak tree underlined with achilleas was stunning. It would have looked even better if it had not been tucked underneath the trees and surrounded by tents.

I also loved the Dark Side of Beauty by Raine Clarke-Wills and Fiona Godman-Dorington. I take my hat off to them for creating a garden out of poisonous plants – I am just surprised that they were not swarming with the Health & Safety brigade with clipboards. (Anyone who has planted up at a show knows that the Health & Safety brigade produce more paperwork and more worry than anything else.)

I also enjoyed the planting – there was, dare I say it, far more variety than Chelsea. This is of course, partially because it is later in the year than Chelsea, but also I think because the whole event is less ‘precious’.

The concept gardens go from strength to strength. There is often a simplicity about them that I find incredibly attractive; in particular It’s Hard to See which was beautifully executed as was Concreation where the contrast between the hard concrete and the tactile presentation of the plants was stunning.

Where the wild things are

Carrying on from last week and the theme of grasses, I had a perfect example this week of how meadow grass can prove to be the perfect addition to a garden.

We have a client who has a lovely garden but who is plagued (and I know I am going to be deeply unpopular here) by badgers. Now, to those who suffer from badger visitations as opposed to watching them on television, and who are up in arms at the idea of proposed culls, the vision of trampled on plants, lawns that looks as if there has been an invasion of miniature alien life-forms crash landing small spaceships is all too familiar. Badgers, like much else are fabulous when they are doing what they do best – fossicking around in native woodland – and when there are not so many of them that they wreak havoc (and they do and can). In short when you are on the receiving end of badger visitations there is not a lot that you can legally do to discourage them – talk to any poor farmer whose fields are pockmarked with badger setts. You can stop up the fence lines (try and stop a fully fledged male badger – they are the countryside equivalent of a tank but that will not last long. They are entrepreneurial and smart. So if your garden has been earmarked as the next best thing to a living online delicatessen, it will not be long before your fence will be trashed and the familiar spaceship invasion takes place. Sooooooooo; having looked at the problem it was decided that the best thing to do was to create a wild grass meadow in the bottom half of the garden. The area nearest the house which was not invaded with badgers (thankfully) retained its beds and the wonderful profligate abundance of alchemilla mollis, sweet rocket, hostas and roses, and the lower area which was damp (soft on snouts and providing a never-ending supply of badger delicacies) and had been an old orchard was left to get on with it. Perennial weeds such as nettles, docks and thistles were removed (there were not many of these) and paths were mown through the meadow grass to give it form and access – for humans. We then let nature take its course. The results after three years, particularly this year are simply stunning. The meadow grass is cut twice a year, and the paths fortnightly so everything is kept very very simple. And it is the paths that give the whole context and link the meadow to the existing garden.. The short green grass is a fabulous contrast to the ever-changing moving, seed heads and heights of the different meadow grasses. And you do not need a large patch of garden to do this too. You can have a small corner of your garden put aside. But it is very very important that the soil is not in good condition – else it will not support meadow grass. It is quite simply too rich. And the huge bonus is the incredible number of butterflies and moths that will add to your continuing delight. And of course, the badgers are still there – as evinced by the narrow trail that makes a beeline straight across the meadow. So a win win situation all round.

Up close and personal with Stipa Tenuissima

Salvia with White Lychnis

As I mention in the post below, these are beautiful together

The small everyday miracles of growing things

I must be getting old. Or perhaps it is just that I am becoming more aware of what is around me. It is still a miracle that anything grows for me. I find the fact that vegetables are produced from seeds still extraordinary. Never mind that I can eat it. I will never forget my first vegetable garden; carrots, beetroot and peas. So so exciting. And the same excitement grips me when I look at my flower bed. Weeding on my hands and knees brings me up close and personal with what grows there. Grasses in particular stand up well to close examination. Their seed heads can be outrageously beautiful. And there is nothing that is quite so beautiful as the sight of a field of barley being ruffled by the wind. Here Stipa Tenuissima (or as I call it, the ‘fine hair’ grass) looks beautiful either on its own, or with lavender which is planted here in the foreground. The Salvia East Friedland looks wonderful with a white Lychnis, or as it is more commonly and romantically called the White Rose Campion, as a backdrop. I don’t know why this plant is not used more; it is quite beautiful. Perhaps it is just that after such a long and hard winter spring seems even more precious and blowsy than usual.

Early Sunday morning

What gorgeous weather we are having; and how worthwhile it is getting up early in the morning – Sundays seem to be particularly wonderful. There is no noise as the rest of the human world seems to be asleep. Sitting out on the step this morning admiring the stunning deep greens that this early summer has bought us, there was a small hullabaloo going on in the trees. A pair of great tits appear to have reared the first of their broods and were busy hoovering up small insects to feed to their voracious young.

The dew is full on on mornings such as this. Alchemilla mollis, or more prettily named Lady’s mantle gathers the dew into individual drops. In medieval times these drops of water were collected for beauty purposes as people thought they had magical properties.

Despite the lack of rain, the garden is looking rampant. There are some wonderful pairings that have occurred without my say so! My geums, Mrs Bradshaw, are presenting me with a sea of red. Seeding themselves amongst them is Love in the Mist (goodness knows where it came from), and it sets off its pale blue next to the hot red. It has also paired up with my favourite Euphorbia ‘Silver Swan’. Later on as the helenniums come to the fore, the geums will put up one or two stalks throughout the summer presenting me with bright red highlights amongst the planting.

My other great pleasure at this time of the year is the advent of one of my favourite shrubs philadelphus. One of the advantages of living on chalk (and they are few and far between!) is that philadelphus thrive on it. I have various varieties; Manteau D’Hermine, and Belle Etoile; their scents mingle with the the heat during the day. One of the most memorably scented gardens I have ever worked in was a small garden not far from here. For about a month going to work there meant a heady scent of honeysuckle and philadelphus. What a joy. A garden without scent is like living life without chocolate! A great loss.

Chelsea 2009

The one thing about gardening is that it gives time for reflection. For once I am not up against it time-wise; the Bank Holiday is giving us glorious weather and all the office work can wait until tomorrow (when apparently we are going to have thunderstorms and rain). In the meantime I can poddle around my veg patch which is sadly neglected and do all those things that good gardeners do (and I never have time for); removing stones, breaking up the soil, adding compost and dare I say it a few seeds. But most importantly of all it gives my mind time to reflect, to mull over this last week and what we have seen and done. Chelsea. My first impressions were ..... interesting.... if not in some instances depressing. My problem is that I love ‘brights’. Time in Australia has given me a huge appreciation of colour. I love subtlety but too much of it leaves me feeling that something is missing. Don’t get me wrong the Daily Telegraph garden was outstanding. Beautifully planted and executed. Its colours a mastery in the shade cast by the huge plane trees that inhabit Chelsea. And therein lies some of the problem. For Chelsea you have to plant so that when there is no sun and those fabulous plane trees leach out the contrasts from your planting the garden still looks great. So white, silver, light and shade are incredibly important. As a result some of the gardens left me with a feeling of depression not upliftment.

In the midst of this sobriety several gardens stand out. The fantastically over the top, palette breaking colours of the plasticine garden by James May. The RHS has a sense of humour! I loved it. It reminds us that we are all children; playing is fun; gardens are fun and should sometimes be controversial. It made me laugh. Secondly the Quilted Velvet Garden by Tony Smith. I loved it. He is a perfectionist and stays true to his vision; harder than you might think when you have a weighty sponsor behind you and all credit to the sponsor on this. Tony’s slate walls were amongst the most beautifully constructed I have ever seen. His planting a fantastic mixture of constraint and colour. So what if bizzy lizzies are not the in-vogue plant? They are loved by many gardeners and add much needed colour and life to many gardens. Here they provided a fantastic sea of pink out of which the steps of slate rose creating a ladder to the refuge of the seat. Sometimes I think that we take gardening too seriously; we are all afraid of making mistakes. How can we learn if we do not make mistakes? Chelsea should allow that.

It was also good to see that many of the show gardens this year were being reused and recycled. The stunning rose Perfume Garden was possibly going to be installed elsewhere.

And yes, I forgot my camera...... but then the link to the website can give you access immediately to all the photographs and virtual tours!!

Chelsea

Well, next week, I am off up to Chelsea to have a wander and enjoy. It will be interesting, as even this world-famous show has been hit by the recession both with ticket sales and with exhibitors. We will take lots of pictures, and will let you know how it goes

Spring Candles

Spring is in full throttle, and going back to one of my main joys of being in the countryside, namely trees there is one specimen that is currently standing out. The horse chestnuts at the moment look magnificent. They are stunningly green and sporting their spring Christmas tree accessories in the form of their fabulous white candle flowers. They are utterly beautiful, and all the more so, as last year saw their spring dressing decimated with the larvae of the leaf-mining moth which turned their leaves a premature brown. There is a particularly spectacular tree at Pimperne near Blandford. If you turn off the A354 into the village, it sits in solitary splendour in front of you. The space underneath it has been cleared away and heavily mulched to protect its root system. It is quite, quite beautiful.

Spring forward

I seem to spend an increasing amount of time in my car, driving from pillar to post (desperately environmentally unfriendly I realise, but very friendly as far as my clients are concerned). Despite this, one of the real pleasures at this time of year, and I know I have mentioned it before, is the arrival of spring. I remember years ago when I first came and lived in Hampshire a friend mentioned having a picnic in the woods on May Bank Holiday surrounded by bluebells. That was about 1996. Since then I have seen the bluebells arrive earlier and earlier, but finally this year I think they would have enjoyed repeating the experience. We have a number of bluebell woods in this area; there is nothing to beat the sight of the sky being reflected at ground level. It is almost Dali-like in its surprise. Topping the rise of a hill and seeing the sky below you only to realise that they are not trees floating unanchored in the clouds but sheets of bluebells interspersed by blooms of wild garlic.

In addition to the bluebells frequenting our woods, I cannot help but notice how many cowslips we now have; both on the banks of the motorways (where they outnumber the primroses) and in some of the chalk land around us. Near the Sixpenny Handley roundabout, where there is some intermittently grazed pasture, the fields have literally been covered with them. As a child (a very very long time ago) I remember the excitement of finding them peeking out of long grass beside a track; even then they were uncommon. Now they are even prepared to seed themselves in my vegetable garden!

Where do all the Show gardens go?

Performing in shows has its draw backs. And performing is what it is. Whichever RHS show you enter the design and planting has to put on a performance. There are huge highs and lows. And one of the lows, for many of the designers is watching their creations (that is if they can bear to) being binned at the end of the week. It is nice to see that one of our leading designers, Tom Stuart-Smith, rescued his Telegraph design and transplanted it into his own garden. But this does beg the question: what we are designing for and with? The RHS does its best to ensure that each garden has its element of recycling both in it and from it. However they are limited by what is achievable. Both our gardens in The Hampton Court Palace Flower Show were small. We are a tiny company and we funded the gardens ourselves and they were a substantial investment. As a result, we had no intention of throwing them away. We were fortunate to sell the first one, and the second we have disassembled and used throughout other gardens. But nothing was thrown away – not even the slate used for the paths. To create a garden that is going to be reused requires a whole different design and construction mind-set. And a whole different set of costs; particularly if it is going to be taken down and reassembled – effectively one garden for the price of two. The hugely expensive set pieces at Chelsea and Hampton Court provoke thought, debate and help taking design to another level. But selling off plants at the end of the day, whilst a tradition and assisting with raising funds (in some cases) or at least giving the plants a home, seems to me to be a sop to the larger problem/attitude that we have about the disposability of some of our more valued assets.

Mobile phones and Blackberries

Mobile phones and emails are the bane of my life. Great when they work and dreadful when they don't. But the main problem is that they simply don't make mobile phones like they used to. No, not the ones currently doing the rounds in the Virgin ad (love the ad) but the smaller more recent hard to destroy Nokia phones. About 4 years ago we had fantastic basic phones that were fairly indestructible. They took the knocks, the mud, the being dropped from a great height, and the never-ending fishing through deep pockets in the pouring rain which results in marked screens and muddy phones. Nowadays the phones are so slim, so sophisticated (am I really going to want to access Facebook when I am upside down in a flower bed) and so fragile that I am lucky if they last 3 months. So please could some mobile phone company come up with a phone that will give me access to email, messaging, phonecalls and alarms (very much needed when the dawn chorus doesn't work) that we can use and use outside!!

On trees

Trees to me appear to be one of the unsung heroes of gardening. They create a sense of time, place and history within the landscape. Having a house perched on a bare piece of ground creates a feeling of exposure, rawness and incompleteness. Place a largish tree nearby and suddenly the house belongs. Trees provide history, a course of events. They create a sense of belonging in the landscape. At the same time there is nothing worse than a tree that is misplanted; one that does not belong. We are all guilty of doing this. Finding a plant in a nursery that we love the look of, but failing to read the label. Do we really want a 60' giant in our small back garden - however good it looks when it is 6' high! I love eucalyptus trees (my time in Australia converted me to them) but they are singly inappropriate in most of our gardens. Thuggish root systems searching out all water sources they tend to drop their branches whenever they feel like it and grow at the rate of knots. Not only that they are highly inflammable. The Blue Mountains in Australia get their name from the haze that lies across them; bluish in colour it is created by the oils released from the eucalyptus trees and is highly inflammable - not a good tree to plant alongside houses with chimneys. In addition they do absolutely nothing for our wildlife. However, if you do plant one (and I have a very small one in my garden) you can keep it short with pruning and it can provide endless foliage for indoor flower arranging.

Climate change?

A client and I both opened a national newspaper the other day to observe that there was a headline saying something along the lines of spring arriving early this year – to do with Naturewatch and the observations of thousands of people around the UK. Where are they coming from? Up with us, the snowdrops are only just over; we have a couple of daffodils out and that is it. Everything else is only just starting to break – and that is the way it should be. In the towns it is a different story, and here climate change is engendered by sheltered spaces; the warmth of tarmac and concrete and a completely different micro-climate. Here spring is well advanced and almost halfway through. Yes, the birds are starting to think of nesting, but the partridges are not paired up yet (well behind other years) nor are the pheasants. Welcome back to the more ‘normal’ winter and spring of earlier years. Who knows we might even have a hot summer. Just as I was about to post this, I saw my first Brimstone butterfly in the garden, so who knows what is happening? (No this isn't a picture of the Brimstone I just saw - as you can see it's feeding on lavendar, but I thought you might like a little reminder of their wonderful acid-yellow with the signature black dots on the wings).

Hedges

I have been driving a lot around Devon and Somerset over the last few weeks, and it never ceases to amaze me the difference in the skill of those hedge cutting the sides of our roads. Sometimes there is a real artist at work; the hedges are cut cleanly, the trees left alone and the mess is minimal. You can see the care and attention to the plethora of species that comprise a good English hedge. Others are positively barbaric and I wonder if the blades of the cutters are ever sharpened, if they even know or care about the difference between a hedge and a tree? Branches and trunks are skinned, half cut off and shredded and the whole is a complete and hopeless mess with blackthorn and gelder rose strewn all over the road. I wonder if they have a contra deal with the local tyre fitters. How many times have I lost a tyre to the sharp point of a blackthorn? But there is one overriding observation – spring is definitely round the corner.

Our new-look website

As the sun streams across the lawn on this, St David's Day, it really smells of Spring. And what better way of celebrating the arrival of the new season than by launching our refreshed website

As always with these things, it has taken longer than we thought it would, and there are still parts of the site we need to flesh out with content, but at least it gives a good overview of some of the really exciting projects we are working on and have completed. I just love seeing the transformation that comes with our gardening work. Whether we are just clearing a forgotten part of the garden that has become overgrown and unruly or in those cathedral-like projects where a whole scheme is realised from bare earth, the exhilaration and excitement never palls.

We are just at the brink of a new phase of work in the garden when all the good husbandry of autumn starts to shoot forth. The garden is awakening and with it there is a sense of revelation, renewal and rebirth.

Big trees are in

I have just got back, exhausted, from Germany where we have been sourcing some mature 30 foot trees for one of large landscaping projects. Germany has long held a fantastic reputation for growing superb native European trees, and after this visit, we can see why. There were 57 hectares of beautifully-planted, pruned, turned and therefore symmetrical trees, including beech and hornbeam. Big trees are much in demand at the moment as they form arboricultural anchors for landscape schemes, and lend an immediate sense of longevity to the newest project. It is a joy, though, to see real expertise at work and we were privileged to be shown round these pinnacles of horticultural skill. The euro's strength against sterling may favour UK nurseries, but I fear we have a great deal to learn before we can rival Germany's pre-eminence in providing big trees.