Medlar

Autumn produces two of my favourite fruits; the medlar pictured here, and the quince. The medlar I love because it is such a wonderfully quirky British type of fruit - after all you don't eat it until it 'blets' or rots (it tastes of caramel and is lovely with cheese); and the quince because quite simply it is a wonder of nature. How can such a sour ordinary looking fruit produce such a sublime range of flavour particularly when cut up small and cooked with a little sugar and apple. Divine.

Autumn?

I am not sure that autumn really came at all. But there were a few fabulous colours about - it is my absolute favourite time of year. These leaves of my maple epitomise the glories of the autumn. Berries too are abundant on the hollies around here - but they are not going to last long as the first fieldfares have arrived and will strip them for food, particularly now that most of the hedges have been cut.

Spring?

Yes, it really is coming. Well, I think it is. It is going to be very interesting with the early planting this year. The soil is still really cold, and it is not easy to grow plants on, never mind plant up flower beds at the moment. The soil is cold, wet and dank. Which makes the sight of the snowdrops all the more welcome. I have even spotted a few early daffodils - just up the allotments near the roundabout going into Blandford off the Salisbury road. They are always the first ones up. My tulips have put their heads above the parapet but the daffodils most certainly have not.

Thank you!

One of the main reasons I love the work that I do (problem solving basically), is that I get to feel so good about it. Selfish I know, but there you are.

Yesterday was a case in point. I went to see some clients who have a lovely little garden, locally. The garden has become too much for the lady of the house, who now works more or less full time, so she asked us to come and have a look to see what we can do to help. The upshot of a walk around the garden was that I can put three of my lovely guys into her garden for a day and it will be sorted out for them. What made it such an uplifting experience was the pleasure she received from having her problem solved. To be told that you have made someone feel better for having solved a problem, is one of the most satisfying things about the work we do. It is a real privilege.

In addition, and I don't know if you have noticed, but the birds are starting to make merry in the morning. The morning chorus is on the increase - the first sign of spring starting to stir. And whilst I will not tempt fate by saying that the weather is improving - it is becoming marginally warmer!!!

Here comes the rain!

Just as we were starting to get our feet under the table again, and the occasional snowdrop was daring to put its head above the parapet, the wretched rain has arrived! But there is still a feel in the air that spring may be just around the corner. The catkins are coming out; snowdrops are evident in small patches (apparently they are well out in the Scottish Borders, but are less brave down here). Business is picking up with our clients starting to realise that the snow has left damaged shrubs and trees; fences and that the grass is looking a bit like it has suffered from scorched earth policy! In such circumstances the best thing to do is to make a list of what you can see is damaged; remove any obviously broken branches or limbs with a sharp pair of secateurs to give a clean cut (or pruning saw for larger branches). If the damage is minor, it may be best to leave it until the weather improves. Quite simply we may well be in for another very cold spell and the more of the plant that is left the better, as it acts as a protection against the hard frosts. just keep a eye on things: once March arrives it can be looked at again and in the case of roses, pruned towards the end of the month. If the last few years are anything to go by, we will have a fabulous spring which will arrive with a rush!

Apologies, excuses...and some news

I must apologise for my stunning silence on the blog but there has been a huge amount going on. Most importantly I have just formed another business called Independent Gardening (IG). This is going to focus on creating and designing gardens for those suffering from traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress disorder and other neural disabilities. This does not mean that Down to Earth will suffer! In fact is is intended that Down to Earth will continue with designing and building gardens as we always have done, and will build the gardens for IG when and where appropriate. Do please have a look at our new website and post any comments on it too – feedback would be much appreciated.

If you are keen to hear more up-to-the-minute news of our TBI work, then I have also rashly launched a blog especially devoted to this. Let me know what you think.

Procrastination reaps rewards

Happy New Year! What a fantastic start to the year. All those wonderful childhood dreams of a white Christmas coming true. And how the snow changes the way we view our environment and our interaction with it. As you may have gathered by now, I am an avid birdwatcher (not a twitcher, I hasten to add).

My grandfather was the most wonderful man called David Wolfe Murray: he painted under the name of Fishhawk and was a gentle giant of a man (at least in my memory!). He first taught me to fish and cast a line. And he loved the call of geese flighting across the evening sky; a sound that has always held a deep personal meaning for me. It was 'Grandad' who first caught my interest in the small garden birds and the importance of feeding them and providing them with water. I will never forget feeding his tame robin with mealy grubs; the first time a small bird perches on your hand is, I think, indelibly etched into one's memory. They are so fragile, so light and so wild. Grandad's back garden looked like Fort Knox to marauding cats. It had wire and netting all around it, but inside it was a haven. Blackbirds, robins, dunnocks and tits all nested safely there and raised their young. Grandad would sit in his studio with a catalpault at his side, and between painting, would keep a beady eye out for any cat foolish enough to consider entering his back garden. They never did it twice. Which brings me to the subject in hand.

My kitchen looks out across a piece of lawn to a stumpery replete with ferns, hellebores, moss and a resident short-tailed vole. And around this heap of stumps there is a mass of leaves, left over from autumn. They were supposed to have been cleared up and put on the compost heap, but I am so glad that they have been left. The activity over the last few days, even with the snow, has been frenetic. The leaves have obviously acted as a refuge for all sorts of insects which the birds have had a field day enjoying. I am determined to leave part of my garden particularly the shrubbery border to overwinter au naturel so that all insects and bugs can do what they will. That way I will have birds to watch throughout the winter months (although I do not need a catapault – our Jack Russells keep unwary cats at arms length!).

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.