GARDENER'S WORD - IDEAS AND TIPS

I saw this handsome fern, Asplenium cristatum, at the RHS garden centre in Harlow Carr today whilst mooching around, like I do.  I love ferns but I don't have the space for monsters and if I buy one at all it will have to be a little something that will tolerate some sun.  This one demands partial or full shade.  Although I have a north-facing garden border which is quite shady in winter, during spring and summer when the ferns are up out of the ground and confronting the elements, that border still manages to get some hours of serious sunshine and I don't know that many ferns will tolerate that.  Shade loving Asplenium cristatum Asplenium cristatum sporangia Asplenium cristatum sporangia after releasing most of the brown spores One fern that I grow that tolerates sunshine is Dryopteris filix-mas 'Euxinensis'.  I am growing mine in a large terracotta pot and it receives partial shade, that is to say that it gets early mornin...

I was really sorry to have to make that final decision to remove the wonderful Malva moschatas from my south-facing garden border. I had two pink ones (Rosea) and one white one (Alba) and they grew about 4-5ft (120cm to 150cm) tall, half as wide, and began to take over the border.  Some say that they are invasive, self-seeding prolifically, but I never noticed.  The reason that they have been removed is simply because they were causing deep shadow on the climbers behind and blocking out the light for other, smaller, plants like the lovely anemones and the penstemons which I don't want to lose.  My greatest regret at removing them is that the bumblebees loved them so, rolling around like pollen junkies on the hearts of the flowers.  Fortunately, the bumblebees have many other flowers in my garden that they can enjoy. Ready for take off!   White-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lucorum) on Malva moschata 'Rosea' This White-tailed bumbleb...

I have developed a 'thing' (not quite an obsession) about Penstemons since I discovered that they grow so well, so healthily, in my garden.  At least, they look healthy and they did survive a relatively harsh winter 2014/15 unprotected except by their own lush foliage.  You know, the leaves remained healthy and bright green throughout the winter, come rain, snow, or freezing temperatures and I do not have any idea why or how when they are supposed to be, after all, somewhat tender.  My latest addition to my growing family of Penstemons is a rather pale one which I have been admiring for some time: Phoenix Appleblossom'.  It's lovely in a quiet sort of way and I like the way the little dark stamens show up in contrast against the pale throats of the flowers which are, by the way, attractive to pollinators as well as me. Penstemon 'Phoenix Appleblossom'  The label says that Penstemon 'Phoenix Appleblossom' is a reliable and colourful perennial of...

Ok, I'll try again.  I've been trying to grow this type of beautiful and delicate fern for decades without any success.  Within a short period of time - weeks or months (not days!) - I usually manage to kill it off somehow.  It's very picky about light (likes it dappled, not too dark, not too light), temperature (definitely not very hot, nor very cold), not drafty (it doesn't like drafts), likes plenty of humidity, likes to be watered but don't overwater it.  And yet.  And yet I knew a woman who could stick this plant in any position she liked in her house and it would be happy.  She had loads of them all over the place including one, believe it or not, rather dangerously in a pot on the top of her TV (in the days when TVs were the size of a barn).  Her house was open plan, light, bright, dry, and full of comings and goings with her young Afghan Hound bouncing around all over the place.  Go figure, as they say nowadays.  I do everything I can...

Now you would think that my Diascia 'Little Dancer', a half hardy perennial, would have perished over last winter, here, high on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire and it should have.  During the summer months I had placed this delicate looking plant, in a small pot, amid the other plants of my south-facing perennial border and I went and forgot all about it right through winter until early spring.  There it remained through wind, snow, and freezing temperatures, exposed and totally unprotected.  When I discovered that it had a little life left in it this spring, I repotted it into fresh compost and moved it to the sunniest spot on the patio at the top of my garden, sheltered by other pots.   Now it's full of healthy little green leaves and flowers, and looks even healthier than the day I bought it.  Diascia 'Little Dancer' The label says: Diascia 'Little Dancer' has a compact habit with flowers that change from lilac to pink....

The damp weather seems to bring out the birds in all their variety.  I would have thought they would be busier in dry weather and looking for worms in the rain.  It was lovely this morning watching them from my kitchen door, coming and going.  It's difficult to tell the difference sometimes between the Coaltits and the Great Tits.  The Great Tits have a dark line dividing their chests and the Coaltits have a small splash of white at the very back of their heads.  Otherwise, they look very much the same to me.  The Greenfinches and Goldfinches are easy to identify.     Greenfinch, and Goldfinch (right) on the lookout Blue Tit (top), Coaltit? (middle) and Goldfinch (bottom right)

I've become very fed up lately of having to clean out the wild birds' water dish once, twice, or more times daily.  They will keep pooping in it and it spreads disease.  It's not the little birds that do it (they're too busy decorating my garden swing!) it's the big ones, like the Wood Pigeon, that are the culprits.  So, while mooching at the garden centre today I bought a good investment in time saving: a Gardman 'Water Drinker' for birds.  No sooner had I filled it and hung it up outside, birds were coming for a drink.  So sweet.  It holds plenty of water but the water dish is too small for the big birds to perch on.  I've not been mean, they will be able to drink from it by standing on the top of the garden shed but they will have a difficult time of it trying to leave a 'deposit' in the water.   Blue Tit at Gardman 'Water Drinker' I shall still have to clean it to try to prevent the spread of disease, but at least I won't h...

Earlier this year I removed a honeysuckle, Lonicera serotina, from my north-facing fence.  I had planted it in 2014 and it was showing signs of being very strong, rampant.  For the position in which it was planted, I didn't really want something that might get out of hand, and it had no sign of flowers buds, so the other day I dug it up while it was still relatively young and easy to remove.  I have no mercy with plants in my garden.  If they don't do what I want them to, well, it's off with their heads and out they go!   I have decided, in its place, to grow Hydrangea paniculata 'White Lady' which I bought today.  It's a shrub, not a climber, and one that I have had my eye on for quite a few years.  I like the way the flowers are shaped and that they are great for cutting. Hydrangea paniculata 'White Lady' 29 August 2015  Hydrangea paniculata 'White Lady' 31 July 2015 The only concern I have about hydrangea paniculata 'Whit...

Although my relatively small garden is rather packed with plants and flowers, and they are all jostling for space, I always seem to go and buy another and I always seem to find the space.  Some plants come and go over winter, never to be seen again, but there are others which are survivors.  I thought that the Penstemons were supposed to be on the tender side but the ones I grow have not only survived but thrived.  The other day I bought another one which caught my eye some time ago:  Pensham Laura.  What a beauty it is.  It's not yet planted and will remain in its pot while I deliberate as to where I might be able to squeeze it in. Penstemon 'Pensham Laura' pretty pink and white flowers so attractive to bees   "The label says that Penstemon 'Pensham Laura' is a reliable and colourful perennial of upright habit with attractive rich-green, lance-shaped leaves.  Bell-shaped rosy-lilac flowers with clear white throats hang from tall strong s...

My Dryopteris filix-mas 'Euxinensis' is at it again.  It's a wonderful fern and now stands about 2ft high in its terracotta pot.  It's always bright and healthy, and tolerates partial shade very well.  I also understand that it can tolerate being on the dry side from time to time.  Mine is in a place where it gets sunshine in the morning for an hour or three (depending on the time of year).  Each year it produces fascinating sporangia on the underside of the fronds.  At least, fascinating under the scrutiny of my macro lens.  I do wish I could get total clarity (focus) but considering each sporangium is about 1mm in diameter, I don't think the images have come out too badly.  The black spores look like Beluga caviar.   Dryopteris filix-mas 'Euxinensis' sporangia (2) with black spores showing Dryopteris filix-mas 'Euxinensis' sporangia ready to burst with black spores showing   The fascinating sex life of ferns...

After picking unblemished, abundant, and yet unsprayed Polka raspberries for the last two or three weeks, the old canes (which sprang up tall and green in summer 2014 and provided autumn fruit in 2014) are now finished and I have cut them off at ground level.  But wait, that's not the end of the story.  I grow Polka—considered an autumn fruiter—as a double-cropping raspberry.  All the new canes which have sprung up this summer, 2015, should provide a crop of raspberries some time this autumn, weather permitting.  When that crop has done, I shall leave the canes in place over winter and these canes will provide fruit in summer 2016.  If I did not want Polka to provide a double crops then I would cut down the autumn-fruiting canes in early 2016. This year's green canes of Polka raspberry are tied in and should provide autumn fruit I understand if you grow Polka raspberry canes just as an autumn fruiter that the raspberries are bigger and...

Apparently the reason for cherry splitting has less to do with the uptake of moisture from the roots than moisture (rain or hosepipe water) falling on the actual skin of the cherries. Cherries are like balloons.  They begin as small, green, embryo cherries and the pit (or seed) develops while they are still small and green.  Then the cherry begins to swell quite rapidly.  The amount of skin it starts off with remains the same and as it stretches the skin becomes thinner, developing microscopic cracks which allow moisture to enter.  It is the moisture entering these tiny cracks which softens the protective skin and allows the skin to split.  Prunus avium 'Stella' Gisela 5 sweet cherries splitting Some types of cherries are more prone than others ('Bing' is prone, I understand) and this is the first year that I have seen this happen to my 'Stella' cherries.  The first year that I had the tree, the first small crop it produced didn't exhibit th...

Even though not so long ago I thought my crop of Prunus avium 'Stella' cherries was going to be a disaster, they've got a move on in the last couple of weeks.  Initially they seemed to have ground to a halt at the green stage, no bigger than a regular-size pea.  The weather can do that, put the brakes on fruit development, and we've had some horrible weather this spring, but my luck was in.  Today I've picked a small handful of ripe cherries and there are more to come.  Doesn't sound like much but when I consider that the dwarf tree (planted in a large container, sunk into the garden border) has only been growing in my garden just over two years and that last year, when the crop was damaged by weather to the extent that only about six cherries remained, I feel like I've had a bumper crop in comparison.  Prunus avium 'Stella' Gisela 5 (dwarf sweet cherry) ripe for the picking I wrote in my last post about the cherry tree that I wouldn't go ...

I'd be lying if I said that the images that I took of this little Bumblebee today didn't shock and upset me.  I'd never seen anything like this before on all the numerous Bumblebees and other kinds of pollinators that regularly visit my garden.  Call me soft if you will, but callous I am not.  My first instinct was, you may laugh, to kill the bee to put it out of its misery but, thankfully, I did not.  On investigation on the internet, it would seem that mites don't necessarily cause harm to the Bumblebees.  That's as may be, but I cannot see that they do it any good.  Anyway, this little Bumblebee seemed happy enough flying around my strawberry flowers and when it got sick of being the subject of my lens, flew away without any effort at all.  Bumblebee infested with mites Apparently Mites can have mites Serves 'em right! VJ Bumblebee infested with mites  About Bumblebee mites (Bumblebee Conservation Trust link)

I've left it a little late to take a photograph of this beautiful perennial, Symphyandra, with its bell-shaped blue flowers, dark stems, and dainty little light-green leaves.  Many of the flowers have faded now but it still looks great next to the yellow Arthur Bell floribunda rose, and I love the way the blue turns to cream before they fade away entirely.  As you can see by the little bee, it is attractive to pollinators.   Symphyandra Zangezura and Arthur Bell rose The label says that Symphyandra has lilac-blue flowers above geranium-like foliage.  It is suitable for borders and containers in full sun or partial shade on well-drained fertile soil.  It flowers early summer to autumn and achieves a heigh of 25cm and spread of 40cm (10" x 16").  Personally, I wouldn't grow it in a container but plant it in a border, as I have.  It looks good among roses and other perennials but has a straggly type of growth and needs a little space so that...

I've tried growing peas in my garden borders or containers before now and haven't had a great deal of success.  Either I don't get enough peas to make it worth while, which really is what happened in 2012 when I tried to grow them in a container, or they are mildewed, or something.  To be honest, I begrudge the space they take up in a border because although I love reaping and eating the rewards of my labour (that's a laugh!  I'm a really lazy gardener) I want my garden to be filled with pretty things, and pretty things peas are not.  However, sowing peas for pea shoots to eat with salad is another matter entirely.  Sugarsnap peas grow in 2012 Sowing peas for pea shoots is a relatively new idea to me.  I only heard about it a couple of years ago.  It's so easy.  What I do is I stick some peas 2" below compost surface level, a few inches apart, into a good sized pot (I've just used a 10" pot) and wait for them to germinate and...

For a number of years I have grown various types of strawberries with varying degrees of success.  I gave up on the well known types which are commonly seen in the supermarkets because they were often either deformed, diseased, or didn't develop at all.  I turned my attention to the more successful Perpetual strawberry variety, (also called everfruiting or everbearers) which is all I grow now.  I grow them in a pot and in a free-standing trough and although the fruit is rarely large, they don't seem to suffer from that awful grey mould known as botrytis.  To discourage disease, every couple of years I discard the old plants and replace with new ones grown from the runners which the parent plants create.  I noticed, last year, that there was a strawberry growing amid the perennials at the top of my sunny border and I decided to leave it right there to see what happens.  This is what happened: Strawberries from plant found growing in my per...

Earlier this year my cherry tree began to make fruit but when the cherries were tiny and green, the Wood Pigeon which visits my garden took its life in its beak and started to pull off the cherries, so I put a net over the whole tree.  That, although the tree is only a dwarf, was no mean feat. Then, the green cherries seemed to stop growing after a spell of cold weather, and it seemed as if they would be a lost crop this year, so I removed the netting which stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of the perennial border.   Now, perversely, the cherries seem to have grown somewhat and are looking as if they might ripen after all.  Such is the plight of the farmer/gardener and watch out, now that infernal pigeon will be back again.   When I was a child my father used to bring home pigeons and my mum would make a pigeon pie.  Pigeon pie, anyone?  Ripening cherries - Prunus Avium Stella Gisela 5 I just cannot bring myself to mess ar...

It's pounded with rain again today, amid spells of sunshine.  I came home to hanging baskets almost breaking their chains under the weight of water which had cascaded off the house roof.  I grabbed a skewer and punctured more holes into the plastic which lines the baskets allowing more drainage - not punctured right at the bottom but about an inch or so above so that during dry weather there is a place where a reservoir of water can settle.  This weather, sun and rain, has been great, so far, for the raspberries and strawberries.  The Polka raspberry, despite the challenges of rust disease and white drupelet disorder , is providing lots of healthy fruit.  I picked a big cereal bowlful yesterday and another one today with plenty more yet to come.  Everfruiting strawberries Polka raspberries Unfortunately, the big fat so and so of a Wood Pigeon is attacking the raspberries.   Much as I love birds, this bird is so destructive that...

It has been a day of mixed weather with sunshine and storm today.  After a mild and sunny morning, thunder clapped and down rain poured.  I watched through my window hoping that the petals wouldn't be smashed off my Generous Gardener and Wild Eve roses that look so fabulous on my south and north facing (respectively) fences right now.  Then the sun came out again, everything sparkled, and I was glad that I had already mown the lawn.  The birds and busy are keeping busy and seem to be enjoying the mild weather.  Bee clambering amid violas   I worried about a couple of bees the other day.  If they aren't buzzing around, but walking, I think bees are about to die and I don't worry.  There has been no insecticide spraying in my garden for over a year and I read there is such a thing as a ground bee.  They'll certainly be ground if they accidentally get under my feet!  The bee above was clambering over viola flowers and eventually...