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Author: hortoris

Lemon Scented Petunias

Lemon Scented Petunias

A good idea that failed in my garden this summer involved Petunias. Rather than plant the brash coloured Petunias I thought I would go for some scent and colour coordinated schemes. So I opted for these Lemon F1 plants I bought as seedlings. The idea was to grow Lemon Verbena and Geranium Lemon crispum alongside the petunias for the leaf scent. The weather was not kind to the petunias and they suffered badly in the ground. Those in pots fared better but still did not excel and had no scented plants with them. I like the idea and will try again next year probably with a different combination.

Self Colours

  • F1 varieties allow us to select single colour Petunias and a new series from Chilterns comes in Lady Purple, Lady  Blue, and Lady Cherry.
  • Thompson Morgan have Mirage Midnight a dark blue and Cascade Blue (double) which I think is purple.
  • Prism Sunshine F1 is another yellow grandiflora as are Baby Duck and Madness.
  • EasyWave™  is another series with self colours in Red, Blue and White
  • Single colour with white frills may be cheating but I like Pirouette Purple, Pirouette Red and Plum Crystal.

Petunia from Thompson & Morgan
Also read Help Growing Petunias

Starting Types of Petunias

  • I find the seeds too fine and hard to germinate consistently. Being a lazy gardener I like ‘kinder plants’ and plug plants to get me started.
  • Petunia ‘Citrus Spritzer’ is a Mini Petunia also called Calibrachoa. Withmasses of flower power producing in excess of 500 blooms per basket, mini Petunia ‘Citrus Spritzer Mixed’ are simply made for hanging baskets. Free flowering and easy to grow, these astonishing calibrachoas make a spectacular summer display. Height and spread is 30cm (12”).
  • Surfinia’ petunias are still the most loved and reliable petunias, producing hundreds of beautifully coloured, trumpet shaped flowers. Support Petunia ‘Surfinia’ on a climbing frame and it will rapidly climb up to 2m/6ft high to create a non-stop tower of colour. These petunia flower from June right through to the first frosts of winter.
  • Fill your patio containers with the wide, citrus yellow, bell shaped flowers of Petunia ‘Fanfare Yellow’ shown below
  • Petunia ‘Waves Mixed’ F1 were a version of the earliest petunias.
  • The ‘most weather resistant’ is claimed to be Petunia miniflora ‘Mini Bella Picotee Mixed with the appearance of stripped flowers.
  • Spreading petunias are only about six inches tall, but spread so rapidly that they cover a huge area in one growing season provided they’re watered and fertilized frequently.
  • If I am lucky enough to get a good crop of seedlings it is usually from a small selection and I miss out on the variety.

 

Flowers Attracting Insects

Flowers Attracting Insects

Images to get your thoughts and garden buzzing.

The wasp has the right colouring  to act as camouflage on this Tagetee.  For a small flower, little bigger than a 5p piece, the tagetee is punching above it’s weight for insect pulling power. Caught late in the day when the shadows are beginning to lengthen there is always something to spot in a well planted garden.

Tagetees are used in the green house to attract white fly away from Tomatoes or better still deter them in the first place.

My old favourite the Cystus is flowering again after its earlier summer performance. Not as much blossom but all the more welcome for this second flush and a chance for insects to stock up on more nectar.

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Old Lupin Photograph for Cottage Gardens

Old Lupin Photograph for Cottage Gardens

An old cottage garden favourite

Old hand coloured glass plate photographs from the USA National Archive which have no current copyright restrictions. The colours are brash but the Lupins and Iris stand out.

The Landscape Architect of these Parterres, Flower beds and Walkways was Horace Trumbauer, in 1930. The Box, Annuals and Ageratums are formally displayed with the fountains as a backdrop.

Both these photographs may look a bit out dated now but it is part of our gardening history. We can see how the yellows and blues work well together and notably how tidy everything seems to be.

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Improved Clay Soil

Improved Clay Soil

Mulch mulch and more mulch is a must for getting humus into clay soil.

HC 057

Does your soil sticks to your shoes and garden tools like glue? Is your soil slow to warm up in the spring and hard to manage? If your soil is slow draining, forms big clods, crusts over and cracks in dry weather then you have clay or even heavy clay soil.
Clay soil is made up from very fine particles that make pure clay good for potters but not plant roots. One redeeming feature is that clay soil is generally rich in nutrients.

Improving Clay Soil

  • If gritty sandy soil is the opposite of clay soil it follows that mixing the two may get the best of both worlds. Add copious quantities of grit or gritty sand to your clay soil to open it up. Do not use builders sand as it is very alkaline or fine sand that will set like concrete.
  • Add even more copious quantities, 6 ” plus, of organic matter such as compost. I have tried wood chippings, spent mushroom compost, old feathers, composted bark and various other items to open up the texture. Dig it well in to the top 10″ as you not only incorporate the organic matter but you add air to the soil and help drainage.
  • Mulch with compost as often as possible and let worms drag it down into the soil.
  • Earthworms thrive on humus and breed rapidly if the conditions are right. You only need a handful or two to get things going so put a few on the soil when incorporating the compost.
  • Improving your clay soil will take time and patience.

Plants for Clay Soil.

  • Special seed mixes of wild flowers are available from Amazon

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Healing Plants and Treatments

Healing Plants and Treatments

Book Cover

 There are many plants and ways of using them to boost your health and help with healing. Herbalists since the 17th century like Nicholas Culpeper have recorded some of the best garden plants for healing.

Treatment Methods

  • Eating herbs and plants both raw and cooked is so natural we sometimes do not think about foods healing properties.
  • ‘Decoctions’ are created by boiling a plant whilst ‘Infusions’ or ‘Teas’ have water poured on them and brewed. A ‘Syrup’ is one of the former that has had sugar added and reduced to a syrup.
  • ‘Oils’ are produced when herbs are infused in vegetable oil and a small amount of vinegar.’ Tinctures’ are extracts preserved in alcohol.
  • ‘Cold Compresses’ are used externally and ‘Poultices’ are commonly applied warm or hot.
  • ‘Ointments’ are either mixed with petroleum jelly or the term can apply to the sap of plants used directly.

10 Top Treatments

  • Aloe Vera often called the first aid plant. Use the sap for minor cuts, bruises and burns applied  directly on to the wound.
  • Chew a Parsley leaf as a breath freshener.
  • Calendula or Pot Marigold flowers can be infused and used for dry skin or internally as a digestive aid
  • Lavender for scenting linen, making sleep pillows or just sprinkling in a bath.
  • Sempervivum sap can take the sting out of insect bites and Dock leaves from nettle stings.
  • Rosemary or Camomile teas are used as a hair rinse to make your hair shine
  • Thyme or Verbascum leaves infused as a tea becomes a treatment for sore throats
  • A handful of fresh herb leaves including Bay dropped into a bath can stimulate the senses. You can use the leaves to make bouquet garni for cooking.
  • Onion as a soup especially with sage is great for treating coughs and colds.

Book Cover
Book Cover

The Healing Garden Eden Project by Sue Minter

Grow Your Own Pharmacy by Linda Gray

Grow Your Own Drugs by James Wong

Tips to Increase Greenhouse Capacity

Tips to Increase Greenhouse Capacity

Grow with the flow and in early spring that flow is in the greenhouse

Greenhouse

Acclimatised to Global Warming?
Easter snow flurries and April frosts have hampered planting so far this year, but gardeners will be hoping that the May bank holiday weekend offers some respite from the unseasonable cold and rain. Gardens will catch up from the colder than average start to spring. In fact we have been getting ahead of ourselves in recent years with earlier and earlier starts to the year and warmer than average spells in May and June.

To coin or corrupt an old phrase ‘Ne’re plant out till May is out’. Or if in doubt protect young seedlings from cold and frosty weather. I am referring to the month of May not May blossom the flower of the Hawthorn (Crataegus Monogyna) which is often used to celebrate May Day.

Temporary Greenhouse Capacity

Greenhouses will be full to bursting before it is safe to plant out so consider other temporary protection. First though make sure you use staging and shelves to optimise your main greenhouse. Don’t forget to water plants left under staging. You can hang some plants from the roof of many greenhouses.

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Tulip Tree – Root and Branch Review

Tulip Tree – Root and Branch Review

Liriodendron tulipifera or Tulip tree is a tall striking tree related to the magnolia with similar Tulip shaped flowers. It has been planted in Britain since 1688 as an ornamental parks and gardens tree.

On my Tulip Tree_4-30-08

Key Features of the Tulip Tree

  • Latin name – Liriodendron tulipifera – other common names Tulip poplar or yellow poplar
  • Height – 90-100 feet
  • Type of tree – decidious
  • Leaves – Deeply lobed green turning yellow-gold in autumn
  • Flowers – Six petals pale green at the edges and orance corollas at the centre
  • Fruit – Cone like woody unseeded fruit with one wing.
  • Bark – Pale grey-green with white furrows
  • Family – Magnoliacaea

Origins and Distribution of the Tulip Tree

  • Eastern seaboard of North America.
  • Now more widely spread as a specimen tree in UK and elsewhere.

Interior of Sprawling Tulip Tree, Tudor Place

Uses and Attributes of the Tulip Tree

  • The fine grained soft wood is used for plywood and pulp.
  • Ornamental due to the flowers and leaf colouring.

Gardeners Tips for the Tulip Tree

  • Flowers are not produced on young trees. Flowering can take over 8 years from seed sowing.
  • Fastigiatum is a slender columnar tree suitable for more constrained spaces.
  • Flowers are generally high up in the tree and thus less visible.

Tulip tree shovel shaped leaves

Other types of Tulip Tree

  • Until the 20 century it was thought tulipifera was monotypic. Then a plant was discovered in China with leaves more glaucus and smaller in flower and stature Liriodendron chinense.
  • Liriodendron tulipifera Aureomarginatum have edged leaves and Liriodendron tulipifera Integrifolium has leaves without lobes.

Tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera, Flower

Credits
On my Tulip Tree_4-30-08 by jimbrickett CC BY ND 2.0 ‘These are the blooms on my Tulip Tree in my yard today (there are a hundred of them). Most too high to see well.’
Interior of Sprawling Tulip Tree, Tudor Place by ok-oyot CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera, Flower by nipplerings72 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
“Tulip Tree Flower 7236 by pjriccio2006 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 ‘The Tulip tree is a large, deciduous tree, which easily reaches 70′ to 90′ tall, and large trees to 150′ or more are common. The flowers are 2″ to 3” long, tulip-shaped, upright blossoms, borne singly at branch ends, and blooms late may through mid-June. The petals are yellow-green, and the inside of the corolla base is orange. Unfortunately, most flowers are borne in the higher reaches of the plant and are not easily observed. These flowers were collected on a series of cool windy days.’
Tulip Tree Flower 7236

Beech Tree – Root and Branch Review

Beech Tree – Root and Branch Review

barrow 096

I used to think Beech trees grew on the beach but now I know a little better but not much. This is one of the UK’s most useful trees and deserves to be grown where ever space permits.

Key Features of the Beech

  • Latin name Fagus sylvatica other common names include ‘Lady of the Woods’ or European Beech
  • Height up to 45m 150 feet trunk can be 10 feet in diametre
  • Type of tree Deciduous, broadleaved, dictoyledon tree
  • Leaves – Light green turning deeper in summer are ovate shaped with wavy edges. Decorative in autumn with copper and russet foliage.
  • Flowers Male are in yellow pendulous clusters whilst female flowers are inconspicuous in leaf axils on the same tree.
  • Fruit Beech nuts are 3 sided brown nuts contained in pairs or singly inside prickly green/brown husks
  • Bark is silver gray thin and smooth
  • Family Fagus

Origins and Distribution of the Beech

  • Grows widely throughout Europe and likes chalky and limestone areas.
  • Native to England it may have been introduced by stone age man for the food property of the nuts.

Beech Trees

Uses and Commercial Attributes of the Beech

  • Beech nuts or ‘mast’ are still used to feed pigs and parkland deer.
  • Wood from the beech is tough and used for flooring and furniture.
  • Wooden implements like bowls, spoons and tool handles are traditionally made from beech
  • Beech woodlands often act as home for mushrooms.
  • Beech hedges are popular as the young plants are easy to train and retain their leaves through winter
  • Beech fruit are edible and have a nutty flavour but should not be consumed in great quantity as they can be toxic.
  • Beeches can live for 300 years and are used as wind breaks and field markers as well as part of mixed hedges particularly when young.
  • Wood from the beech is used as a fuel.

Gardeners Tips for the Beech

  • Leaves remain on the tree until the spring making beech popular as a hedge.
  • Wood is easy to turn and work for carpentry particularly if soaked first to make it pliable.
  • Limited topiary is possible with a beech tree.
  • Older trees have buttresses to improve stability.
  • Read Copper Beech Hedges

Root and beech beach

Other types of Beech and Species

  • Copper Beech or Purple Beech Fagus sylvatica Purpurea atropunicea has purple leaves some turning deep green by mid-summer.
  • Weeping Beech or Fagus sylvatica Pendula has branches that hang down as the name suggests
  • Fagus sylvatica ‘Rivers Purple’ also known as ‘Riversii Major’ has been awarded an Award of Garden Merit
  • A narrow cultivar of beech Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck’ develops into a striking cone shape.

Beech Comments from Elsewhere

  • ‘A coppard is an ancient tree that was coppiced hundreds of years ago and then later pollarded. This prolongs their life and this beech tree could be anything up to 1,000 years old and was first cut by Anglo-Saxon woodmen’ Jacks Hill Epping

Credits
Beech Trees by Joost J. Bakker IJmuiden CC BY 2.0
Lake Wood, Uckfield – Beech Nuts by Dominic CC BY 2.0 below

Part of a Slideshow / Set forming a virtual tour around the lake at Lake Wood, on the outskirts of Uckfield, East Sussex, England, UK. [Map]

The artificially expanded lake and woodland is adjacent to, and to the north of, West Park Local Nature Reserve. The two areas are separated by Rocks Road (the B2012 Uckfield / Piltdown road). Both areas formed part of the Rocks Estate, owned for 200 years – and landscaped in the style of Capability Brown – by the Streatfield family. A tunnel beneath the dividing road (now bricked off) enabled carriage access to the lake from Rock House.

The area has numerous Ardlingly Sandstone outcrops. Where these obstruct the path around the lake, a tunnel – and also steps leading down to an underground boat house cave – were excavated.

Lake Wood is managed and protected by The Woodland Trust

Lake Wood, Uckfield - Beech Nuts

Read about our series on British tree reviews with a bakers dozen fact sheets

Baobab – Root and Branch Review

Baobab – Root and Branch Review

baobabs

Baobab is a remarkable tree with striking appearance identified by it’s swollen trunk which stores water. Slow growing the tree is believed to live for centuries but has no aging rings in the trunk.

Key Features of the Baobab

  • Latin name – Adansonia digitata Common names – Upside down tree, boab, dead-rat-tree, boaboa or bottle tree
  • Height – 30-70 feet
  • Type of tree – Deciduous
  • Leaves – dark green glossy hand like leaves with 5-7 fingers
  • Flowers – Solitary large scented white to cream
  • Fruit – ovoid, brown, hairy capsules of black seeds
  • Bark – Grey-brown and fibrous. No annual growth rings of trunk.
  • Family – Malvaceae

Origins and Distribution of the Baobab

  • Native to Madagascar and central Africa.
  • The tree is adapted to arid conditions and is also found in India.

Baobab

Uses and Attributes of the Baobab

  • Fruit and leaves are edible. The seeds are used to thicken soup.
  • Water is collected in the clefts of branches.
  • The fibrous bark is used to make mats and fishing nets

Gardeners Tips for the Baobab

  • The tree is able to survive bark ringing.
  • The large white strongly scented flowers attract pollinating bats – alas not in my garden.
  • Seeds are available to grow bonsai trees.

Baobab Africain

Other types of Baobab and key species

  • There are 7-8 key species of Adansonia.
  • Adansonia digitata L. – African Baobab, Adansonia grandidieri Grandidier’s Baobab, Adansonia gregorii Boab or Australian Baobab Adansonia madagascariensis– Madagascar Baobab Adansonia perrieri – Perrier’s Baobab Adansonia suarezensis Adansonia Za. – Za Baobab .

Baobab comments from elsewhere

    • ‘The Baobab is called the Tree of Life with good reason. It is capable of providing shelter, food and water for the animal and human inhabitants of the African savannah regions.
      The cork-like bark is fire resistant and is used for cloth and rope. The leaves are used for condiments and medicines. The fruit, called “monkey bread”, is rich in vitamin C and is eaten. The tree is capable of storing hundreds of litres of water, which is tapped in dry periods.
      Mature trees are frequently hollow, providing living space for numerous animals and humans alike.There are also numerous superstitions amongst native African people regarding the powers of the tree. Anyone who dares to pick a flower, for instance, will be eaten by a lion. On the other hand, of you drank water in which the seeds have been soaked, you’d be safe from a crocodile attack.’ From Baobab solutions for more information

Baobab Tree

Credits
baobabs by asfd01 CC BY-NC 2.0
“Baobab by sociate CC BY-SA 2.0
Baobab Africain by dinesh_valke CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ‘The Baobab has long provided people with material for cloth, rope, soap, dye, glue, fodder, and medicine. In West Africa, the young nutritious leaves are cooked and eaten like spinach.’
Baobab Tree by K W Reinsch CC BY-NC 2.0

Maidenhair Tree (Ginkgo) Root and Branch Review

Maidenhair Tree (Ginkgo) Root and Branch Review

ginkgo

Fascinating leaves are grown on this unique tree that has been around for over 200 million years. Last one of a kind the Ginkgo has no close relatives. Now famous for its extracts and herbal remedies it is also a revered tree in the Buddhist religion.

Key Features of the Maidenhair Tree

  • Latin name Ginkgo biloba other common names Pin Yin, Kew tree or Japanese silver apricot
  • Height Up to 100 feet very long lived.
  • Type of tree – Deciduous the only surviving species of its kind from 200 million years ago
  • Leaves – Fan shaped green leaves aging to yellow
  • Flowers – Male catkins are yellow in bunches. Female on another tree are green on stalks
  • Fruit – Greenish-yellow plum like fruit with a fleshy coating and edible kernel.
  • Bark – Grey Brown
  • Family Ginkgo a one off

Origins and Distribution of the Maidenhair Tree

  • Origins over 200 million years ago but now grow wild in China, Japan and Indonesia.
  • Widely planted in Buddhist temples and now grown as a specimen tree around the world..

Young Ginkgo

Uses and Attributes of the Ginkgo

  • Seen as a symbol of longevity, hope and unity.
  • The finely grained wood is used for carving.
  • Extract from the leaves and fruit are used herbally.

Gardeners Tips for the Ginkgo

  • During autumn the leaves turn a bright yellow and quickly fall.
  • Sunny well-watered and well-drained sites are needed to grow a Ginkgo in your garden.
  • With stands an amount of pollution.

Other types of Ginkgo

  • There are no living relatives Ginkgo are often referred to as living fossils.

Ginkgo leaf

Ginkgo comments from elsewhere

  • The old popular name “Maidenhair tree” is because the leaves resemble some of the pinnae of the maidenhair fern.
  • Ginkgos are dioecious, with separate sexes, some trees being female and others being male. Male plants produce small pollen cones (Wikipedia).
  • The Ginkgo Pages is a dedicated website for the tree

Credits
ginkgo by ivva CC BY-SA 2.0
Ginkgo leaf by monteregina CC BY-NC-SA 2.0