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Gardening articles that may not include tips

A Trio of Purple Leaves

A Trio of Purple Leaves

It is hard to ignore plants with leaves as stunning as these in a Parks garden. The purple is from one of the Sumachs or Rhus family. Selecting plants that contrast in colour shape or form is part of the skill of gardening but starting with plants like these is a good beginning.

Purple is one of my favourite leaf colours of the moment and the Lamium below is called Perilla fructenscens. I am putting several plants in one area of my garden and will see how well they get on with one another.

This Heuchera below surprised me growing in a wall cleft with thin soil. I do not remember planting it in what I thought would be a hostile location. It must have been self sown but I have not got any other plants except the parent.

Kew a Year of Visits

Kew a Year of Visits

Book Cover

Six DVD’s in a boxed set ‘A Year at Kew – The Collection’ (Series 1-3) with Alan Titchmarsh is available from Amazon  in time for a Christmas gift. Over 1000 minutes of gardening in a month-by-month journey via the BBC through the world’s greatest botanical garden.

I enjoyed a winter perusal of the BBC Book that accompanied the series. With monthly highlights and in sights into the inner workings of various specialist department there is enough to encourage return visits.

Kew 066

Rather than punt the book for the negligible commission we get if you buy after clicking the cover or link above I will just post some seasonally coloured photos of plants taken at Kew.

Kew 200

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Roses with Single Petals

Roses with Single Petals

dog-2

My book de Jour is ‘Fifty Favourite Roses’ Michael Gibson. A second reading has given me some new insights and some varieties to look out for: 5 petalled Tea Roses Dainty Bess,  Mrs Oakley Fisher (golden) and Ellen Willmott (white) rugarosa Robusta and colour changing Mutabilis

Above is a true red rose that also flowers very early on a robust plant 5 feet tall.

canary-bird

Now a more commonly available single rose this Rosa ‘Canary Bird’  is a tall growing very floriferous lemon- yellow rose with good foliage.

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Ground Cover for Formal Gardens

Ground Cover for Formal Gardens

Vinca ground cover

Formal gardens generally rely on geometric shapes and repetition and so you may not think about ground cover in these situations. Balance and proportion are also key features of a formal garden and generally have fewer species of plants than may be found in in informal gardens.

With the structure of a formal garden in place from paths and symmetrical beds in squares, oblongs or circles you can then consider appropriate plants. The ground cover should complement the focal plants in colour, leaf-shape and height. They should also be manageable and not prone to take over or the formal effect may be lost.

  • Liriope spicata or Lily turf  is evergreen with neat, low, grassy foliage. It can be left undisturbed for many years to form low-maintenance ground cover in beds of its own, or in light shade beneath trees or shrubs.
  • Sempervivum tectorum and Hens-and-Chicks are small scale spreaders that may combine with Aremria maritima to create clear outlines in concentric shapes within a formal layout.
  • Saxifraga umbros or London Pride is apt to wander over path edges but is an easy to grow and gives prolific, spreading ground cover.
  • Hellebores and Hostas can also work well or Barbara Ellis in her book ‘Covering Ground’ recommends Tiarella cordifolia the Allegeheny foamflower.

Colour may not be the key issue in ground cover for a formal garden but Blue grass Festucu glauca can be massed planted so that clumps join together. Other grasses to consider include Hakonechloa macra or the lower growing sedges Carex pensylvanica.

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Vivid Ground Cover Plants and Ideas

Vivid Ground Cover Plants and Ideas

A colourful carpet of ground cover plants may be a creative, low maintenance alternative to a lawn. Alternatively a pattern of coloured stone or chippings with feature plants in containers may be your preference.

Collection of Low Growing Plants

  • A mix of flowers and shrubs can include conifers like Golden Juniper Juniperus x media ‘Golden Sovereign’, Juniperus horizontalis, Juniper squamata ‘Holger’ and Picea pungens ‘Glauca Prostrata’ all around one foot tall with varying spreads.
  • For colour in summer you can’t beat some Petunia multiflora and vibrant Busy Lizzie Impatiens. Try the ‘accent’ series from Thompson Morgan
  • Bulbs of Dutch Iris, Cyclamen, Crocus and Muscari can provide spring and autumn colour.
  • Fillers and good doers include Bugle Ajuga reptans, Pinks Dianthus Indian hybrids, Geranium, Sedum and Vinca.

Design Features

  • Wide flat rocks can break up the verdant space and give the gardener a place to stand and weed.
  • Think in terms of 8-12″ as the average height with accent plants if required.
  • Create a backing or edging with taller uniform plants. Roses box or taller Conifers may suit.
  • Plant in bold blocks of colour with annuals close together for maximum effect.

Patterns of Gravel

  • Ground cover of pebbles, chippings or gravel can add colour. I like plum coloured slate chippings.
  • The covering can be used to stand elegant containers perhaps containing trailing plants like lobelia or geraniums.
  • Make sure you have a weed barrier under the gravel.
  • Gravel should be comparatively low maintenance but keep it spruce and moss free.

Similar rule apply when planting ground cover that grows taller. Select a height 18-24″ in this case and plant appropriate plants in the designated area. Tree ferns have been used as accent plants in this design.

hay-093

Ground cover plants ‘beat weeds’ and many of the plants recommended below will flower year after year. Plant healthy young plants from pots or modules about 12 inches apart and the fast growing ground cover will produce a dense carpet of colour for many years.

Ground Cover Selection

Helianthemum grows strongly in my garden with bright orange flowers. Reds and whites are available.

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My Ground Cover Ideas

My Ground Cover Ideas

Ground cover plants are designed to do what they say in the title. They can cover the ground by design, happy accident or conscious neglect.

Creeping Jenny

Benefits of Ground Cover

  1. Treasure the ground cover plants that clothe the soil and rocks with leaves or stems preventing wasteful moisture loss.
  2. Ground cover reduces weed seed germination as the seed can’t reach the soil. Any weeds that do grow will likely be smothered or hidden from view.
  3. Most ground cover will flower and even foliage only plants are more aesthetically pleasing than bare or patchy ground.
  4. Ground cover is useful on hard to access land such as scree or steep slopes.
  5. Ground cover may creep or mound but most will grow lower than one feet high and be ornamental.
  6. They are easy to maintain with an occasional clipping after flowering or an edging trim to keep them in control.
  7. Ground cover can support wild life and help create a special habitat.

Hart’s tongue fern Asplenium scolopendrium

Selected Ground Cover Plant Species

    1. Ajuga reptans like plenty of water to produce purple-green leaves and spring flowers of blue spikes.
    2. Erigeron karvinskianus has small white flowers like lawn daisies. A copious self seeder.
    3. Lysimachia nummularia also called creeping jenny for reasons you will discover as it moves around your garden. In summer it has numerous smal,l yellow flowers.
    4. Sedum acre or Stone crop is a popular low growing succulent for ground cover.
    5. Stachys byzantina has grey wooly leaves on 6″ high stems. They look like Lamb’s ears hence the common name.
    6. Often excluded from ground cover plant list is lawn grass. I guess meadow achieves a similar purpose.

Saxifraga

Happy Accidents

Many times a garden will develop its own style with a series of what I call ‘happy accidents’. Looking at ground cover I would include the semi-evergreen strawberry with its habit of forming runners in my list of accidents. Other ground hugging evergreen plants include a range of recumbent or prostrate dwarf conifers such as Juniper horizontalis or Juniper squamata blue carpet.

Whilstnot planted as ground cover I notice saxifrage, Euonymus, Bergenia and even clumpy Dianthus are all fulfilling the cover role. The special evergreens have the edge over plants that loose there leaves in winter but I have some great covering clumps of cyclamen at the moment. Ivy, I would not consider a happy accident more a gardening disaster.

Pink Flowered Strawberry Lipstick

Conditions for Good Ground Cover

  1. There are plants for most circumstances and conditions. Problem areas of poor soil and poor access are often the drivers of the decision to plant ground cover.
  2. Heaths and heathers are good for soils with acidic ph and will cope with a comparatively low top soil on top of stone or rubble. Some ferns may be suitable in these conditions.
  3. Flowering ground cover generally appreciate full or partial sun with a soil that retains some moisture.
  4. Damp conditions offer there own challenges and plants from the primula, iris, polygonum or marsh marigold families may suit.
  5. Once the ground is virtually covered you may not want lush growth and for that a reason I do not apply extra fertiliser as it is not required.
  6. Delineate the boundary of the ground cover to give a smart appearance.
  7. If you are happy with an informal aspect allow several varieties to inter-mingle.

 

My Ground Cover

When I moved into my new house in 2004, I dug up a lot of grass to increase the size of the borders. However, having done that I found I had less time for gardening than I expected. This meant it has felt hardwork keeping on top of the weeding. Therefore I have come to really appreciate the role of ground cover plants. The best thing about ground cover plants is that they reduce the time of weeding and prevent weeds from seeding. When you are ready to plant specific plants these ground cover plants are easy to cut down and replace. But, it is much better to have these ground cover plants than leaving blank soil. Blank soil is an invitation to nature to send some weeds along!

  1. Comfrey. The plant pictured here is comfrey. It really is an excellent plant and worth growing for its own sake. It has nice delicate flowers which attract bees. It also helps to make excellent compost, you can regularly cut down its leaves to add as accelerator layer to your compost and it will quickly grow back. As you can see from its dense coverage, it is also an excellent weed suppressor.
  2. Geraniums. Great at low growing ground cover. Just cut back after flowering
  3. Pulmonaria officinalis: Lungwort
  4. Mahonia aquifolium: (oregon Grape) shrub
  5. Hosta species as long as they don’t provide cover for slugs..
  6. Campanulas
  7. Strawberries
  8. Peltaria alliacea: Garlic cress
  9. Sedums
  10. Lamiums
  11. Winter heathers
  12. Ivy – though can become invasive

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Allotments Replaced by Trees

Allotments Replaced by Trees

 

allotments

We used to have allotments in our village until the blight. That was not a gardening blight or a problem growing anything but a planners and local politicians blight.

A large green open space surrounding an old hospital ‘High Royds’ was too good an opportunity for power broking and developers profits so the old hospital and the village allotments all had to go. I blame ‘care-less in the community’.

Now the ‘new’ village is built and called Chevin Park (not High Royds because the hospital was a former lunatic asylum. Other name changes such as Windscale to Sellafield also springs to mind.)   Many properties are empty partly due to the property recession but also due to the paltry size of the gardens and lack of allotments that could so easily have been restored.

What has replaced our allotments? As you can see a veritable forest of plastic tubes protecting newly planted trees and the flimsiest stakes you could imagine after 3 foot canes. As I said earlier this week this is an updated post for National Tree Week 2018. The plastic tubes are now litter around some decent young trees.

6 Years on and the trees are growing well as if to proove the allotment soil was in good condition. Unfortunately much of the area has suffered from flooding after intensive housing building.

Tips for Planting Trees

  • Dig a good sized hole and incorporate some slow release fertilizer like bone meal. The tree should be there for a long time.
  • Spread the roots of a bare rooted tree or tweak the edges of a container grown tree to give roots the encouragement to spread. Trim off any broken roots.
  • Plant at the same depth to which the tree has been grown.  There is usually a soil mark on bare trees to help. Do not bury any graft.
  • Drive the stake into the bottom of the planting hole before planting the tree and try to ensure that 2/3rds of the stake is underground when the soil is returned to the hole. …

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A Plantsman’s Nursery – Holden Clough

A Plantsman’s Nursery – Holden Clough

Heuchera
Heuchera

A nursery should grow there own or at least a good proportion of the plants they sell. Well you can’t complain at the sight of these Heuchera growing in Holden a small hamlet near Bolton by Bowland in Lancashire.

Auricula
Holden Clough nursery has a great reputation and tradition for alpines that survive the wet local conditions.

Unfortunately these glowing Auriculas were in a quarantine area having already been sold but awaiting collection. Still with an eagle eye I could look at the special varieties someone else had chosen and consider my needs for the next visit. (I got a 10% off voucher for registering for the newsletter that I can use with my next purchases.)

Heuchera

I was impressed with the amount of bark chippings used to mulch and trim the pots. At check out I was told is saved the staff weeding but that in this location watering was no real problem due to the amount of rain.
Thinking about grit or chippings I wondered if the former compacted the soil more than the chippings and I think I will run some tests when I get home.

Passion flower

For 95 years the nursery has nestled in a charming hillside spot growing alpines and it is still going strong! Now they not only grow alpines, but also a larger range of plants including many new and unusual perennials.
The one drawback was that the new young team are keen to show their plans for site development which include a tearoom. Welcome though tea may be they could leave that to the ubiquitous garden centres and keep the nursery focus.

Heucherella

Photo above is of Heucherella Tapestry a hybrid between Heucheras and Tiarellas with many of the best qualities of both parents. This and a limited display of plants in their own small garden area show how and where a good plant can grow.

Compared with my visit on the same day to my local Garden Centre  the range of plants at Holden Clough just what I wanted.

Hydrangeas At Thorp Perrow

Hydrangeas At Thorp Perrow

This Hydrangea panniculata Limelight was one of several under-planted trees at Thorp Perrow Arboretum. In full flower at the beginning of September this Hydreagea was one of 70 or so species and varieties planted in the grounds. Different parts of the arboretum have soils with PH values of 6.7 to an acidic 4.6 . There is marshy and wet ground despite the 15,000 trees drawing water from the land.

Paniculata

This Hydrangea quercifolia or oak leaved hydrangea looks a bit bedraggled in the photograph but it looked marvelous insitu. Quercifolia are medium sized shrubs worth growing for the leaf colour in autumn.

The volume of flowers and bracts on the one head was astonishing. There are many interesting Hydrangeas to see at Thorpe Perrow and I recommend buying the authoritative catalogue (£3.75) listing the featured trees and shrubs by location, name, origin and often age.

Hydrangea Villosa group are hairy leaved shrubs. This glorious specimen was at least 8 feet high and made a startling feature in moderately acid soil.

Hydrangea

For more information on Thorp Perrow see Gods Own County

Thorp Perrow

After a good wet year for Hydrangeas,  please can we have more sun next summer.

This was first posted  in September 2012 now with updates

Prunus & Flowering Cherry Facts

Prunus & Flowering Cherry Facts

Picnic in the shade of Cherry Trees

Botanic Facts

  • The following fruit are all Prunus species; plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds. They are part of a family of 430+ species
  • Blossoms usually have five petals and five sepals
  • Fruit are categorized stone fruits or scientifically as drupes. Freestone fruits have flesh that pulls away easily from the pit, Cling-stone fruits have pulp that sticks more firmly to the pit.
  • Prunus are broadleaf deciduous trees and are some of the first  species to flower in spring.

Fastigiate Cherry with branches almost parallel to the trunk

Ornamental Facts

  • Cherry Blossom trees, are renowned for their magnificent blossoms that cover the branches in many different shades and forms.
  • Some varieties  offer stunning autumn colour, purple foliage or glossy bark.
  • Picnic under blossoming Cherry trees to enjoy their beauty whilst it lasts.
  • It is said that such picnics were ‘… originally reserved for the elite persons within society’ as shown above in the spa town of Ilkley.
  • USA and Germany even have their  own versions of the Japanese Hanami cherry blossom festivals
  • More botanic information Mume is another prunus species of Chinese or Japanese plum

‘Hybridization is an important evolutionary process that results in increased plant diversity. Flowering Prunus includes popular cherry species that are appreciated worldwide for their flowers. The ornamental characteristics were acquired both naturally and through artificially hybridizing species with heterozygous genomes. Therefore, the genome of hybrid flowering Prunus presents important challenges both in plant genomics and evolutionary biology.’ et al

Cherry blossom time strikes again in this public park. The colour is saturated until the rain comes and the ground is then saturated by fallen petals.

Cherry Picking Some Points of Note

  • I was taken with the grouping of these trees that were planted close together many years ago. The combined fluorescence is amplified in this park land setting. Still we can consider groups of various plants in our own gardens to good effect.
  • The probable shape of trees in bloom should be considered when planting along with the likely spread and height. This triangular canopy of flowering cherry’s could be thought of as a flattened cone.
  • For more growing shapes of flowering cherry trees read GTips
  • Varieties of flowering cherry trees can be found to suit most gardens but the expanse of green grass in these photographs adds contrast.