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Gardening articles that may not include tips

Eucalyptus Trees in Britain

Eucalyptus Trees in Britain

Eucalyptus or Gum Trees are fast growing shrubs and trees best noted for their attractive scented leaves and stems. They tolerate a variety of soils preferring a deep loam. The leaves on this young tree are still coin shaped but will develop as the tree matures.

Gardeners Tips

  • You can grow Eucalyptus as a short lived shrub and do not need to let it grow to full height. Dig it out when it gets mis-shapen.
  • Plant in spring so roots can develop in the warmer soil but they are surprisingly hardy for trees from Australasia.
  • Plant near a Cotinus or a red Acer for contrasting colours.
  • There are 20 varieties of Eucalyptus seed available from Jungle Seeds
  • See Australian trees including Eucalyptus Snow Gums at Marks Hall garden and arboretum Coggeshall, where 200 Eucalyptus trees have been planted and ‘on warm days the oil aroma provides a heady scent’.
Weeping Beech Fagus Pendula

Weeping Beech Fagus Pendula

Beech or Fagus are a small genus containing some of the most noble trees that can make a fine specimen tree. This weeping Beech’s full name is Fagus Sylvatica Pendula or the Weeping Beech although I have christened in the Crying Beech.
It is a large and spectacular form with the main stem or trunk covered in droopy hanging branch lets. There are several related weeper but this tree was quite singular in it’s habit and grew to 50 feet yet still looked immature.

Fagus sylvatica ‘Purple Fountain’ as an excellent tree with cascading branches and dark, bronze/purple/green foliage. Very similar to other weeping beech but much more columnar in shape. Leaves turn more green throughout the summer.


Beech in Autumn at Valley Gardens Yorkshire.

Amazon supply Beech trees and Purple Beech. but a nursery would have a wider selection.

Formal Garden Design

Formal Garden Design

Not everyone has the space or finances to design and stock a formal garden on this scale but a bit of design thought can go a fairway to achieving your objectives. Gardening is primarily about plants but the setting, presentation and juxta-positioning combine to make your unique garden design. The best tip I can give is ‘design to suit and please yourself’ as you are the one who will be spending most time in the garden.

Stages of Garden Design

Make a wish list of your priorities and the features you would like to incorporate or remove. You may not like all features equally so grade priorities or mark them into order eg Essential Flowerbed, Lawn, Garden seat, Vegetable patch – Desirable Compost heap, Shrubs, Greenhouse, Fruit trees – Optional Pond, Patio, Rock garden, Wildlife area, Sculpture etc.

Measure and sketch the garden taking into account the fall or slope of the land. Mark the sun, prevailing wind and rain shadows on the plan. Make your first mistakes on paper it will be easier and cheaper to correct.

Put the plan on to gridded paper so you can do the plan to scale. Cutouts may help. Start with permanent features like the house, boundaries and fixtures that you know will not move. Do several sketches to explore ideas and  do not worry about individual plants at this stage they can change.  Look at garden books and photographs for inspiration if you are struggling.

When you get the bones of a design that you like, fill it out with textures like paths and focal points but still resist planting schemes. Peg out the design on the ground, using rope for curves, so you can get a better feel.

Prepare a planting plan to give shape and character starting with tall and feature plants. Keep an eye on planting distance, height and spread of chosen plants. Check compatability, colour shape and form so you plant to achieve a harmonious design. Finally fill in with low growing plants and ground covers.

Drafting  your formal garden design on paper gives you opportunity to test ideas and visualise what might be possible. It can and should be a happy and interesting prelude to your garden implementation phase.

Check out the BBC for design ideas

Tips for growing Magnolia x soulangeana

Tips for growing Magnolia x soulangeana

Spring flowering Magnolia x soulangeana can be planted now. Container grown plants from grafts or cuttings will flower sooner than bare rooted shrubs. Check the container is not pot bound and older, grafted plants will perform quicker. It is a case of paying a bit more to get what you want as it can take up to 5 years for Magnolias to start flowering.

Growing Tips

  • Blooms may fall during spells of warm weather so avoid planting in very sunny parts of the garden. Also avoid early morning sun and wind which can damage young growth. Other than that magnolias are hardy shrubs and trees.
  • You can under plant Magnolias as their structure is open but avoid damaging the shallow, delicate roots. I suggest you try Muscari (grape hyacinth) or other small bulbs.
  • You can layer your existing magnolia in August using current year shoots but rooting may take a couple of years.
  • Pruning should not be needed except crossing branches and reshaping. hard pruning can set back flowering for several years.

Varieties to Grow

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Heather Moors and Gardens

Heather Moors and Gardens

On Ilkley Moor the heather is blooming and smelling a treat. Certainly the horseflies seemed to think so until we got to the top of the moor where the heather really made a statement.
In your garden heaths and heathers can be very useful perennial plants. They have all year round interest and are generally low maintenance plants (and being hardy they take a bit of killing).

There is a Heather Society for the enthusiast which can be found on this link

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Carpet Bedding Tribute to Girl Guides

Carpet Bedding Tribute to Girl Guides

100 years of Girl Guiding is being celebrated in September 2009 by Girl Guides around the country with a range of appropriate events.

This floral tribute is in the grounds of Carlisle Cathedral and has been created from just 4 types of carefully chosen ‘carpet bedding plants’. Contrasting shades of leaf and low, slow growing, uniform habit are more important than flowers. In fact flowers can distort such a display.

Carpet Bedding Plants

  • For leaf colour and regular form Alternanthera lehmannii varieties take some beating like ‘Dark Purple Black’ Alternanthera lehmannii ‘Rosy Glow’ and Alternanthera lehmannii ‘Yellow Green Betty’
  • For grey foliage Lavender or Cerastium species with compact silver foliage and a white flower in summer.
  • Sempervivum arach’ ‘Rubin’ or Sedum spathulifolium ‘Purpureum’ for reds
  • Echeveria elegans for grey or the Glauca for a blue tinge
  • Sedums are probably the easiest for your first efforts with the wide selection available

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Soft Garden Colours

Soft Garden Colours

Planning colour schemes can be an interesting exercise for summer when the garden needs less attention. You can sit and admire your current efforts and plan from the new catalogues that are arriving.  Observe what has worked well in your local gardens this year and do not be afraid to copy or improve on someones idea. I have been take by soft colour schemes that forswear reds oranges and purples in favour of a more pastle approach.

Pastel Pink Colours

  • Soft pink rather than shocking pink is restful and ‘the very essence of the traditional garden’ (Lance Hattatt Gardening with Colour)
  • The combination of this low growing Dahlia ‘Rosea’ has worked well with the continuous flowers of the hardy Geranium Anna Folkard. The strappy leaves of a pink Schizostylis will come in to flower in autumn hopefully before the dahlia has finished.
  • An off white or cream flower can also be used with pink to lighten up the general effect.
  • Phlox paniculata ‘Fairy’s Petticoat’ is a personal favourite with a pink eye and a lighter outer to the petals.
  • Pink can vary from the white with a pale blush through warm and cool shades to orangey pinks or blue tinged pink. This is seen in a range of single Roses   including    ‘Pink Bassino’ with a prominent white eye, the magenta ‘Pink Meidiland’ or the distinctive apricot pink of ‘Irish Elegance’.

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Acer Palmatum Asahi Zuru

Acer Palmatum Asahi Zuru

Progressively becoming one of most popular Acer varieties Acer Palmatum Asahi Zuru is still quite rare in English gardens. The deep pink and white variegation in Spring is followed by three tone pink, white and green foliage until Autumn. Asahi Zuru grows quickly when young then slows down and becomes more dense. This tree at Harlow Carr was about 15 foot high and will grow 9-12 foot wide in time.

Tips for growing Acer Palmatum Asahi Zuru

  • Shelter cultivars of palmatum from cold winds and late frosts.
  • With humus rich soil the leaves will unfurl vividly pink and white, then green appears giving a three tone effect.
  • Also found at garden centers called The Rising Sun Maple or The Dawn Swan.
  • The shrubby display is at its best with some afternoon shade.
Trendy Tree Ferns

Trendy Tree Ferns

Some plants achieve Trendiness others have a trend thrust upon them and I think this is what happened to the Tree Ferns during  the last decade.

What causes an outbreak of trendiness?

  1. Chelsea and other shows have a lot to answer for with their large budget gardens and the desire or obsession to be different. High profile gardeners are paid to produce sponsored gardens that in many cases no real gardener could want or afford.
  2. I am sometimes called ‘a sardonic cynic’ but I think trends are often driven by the horticultural industry. They want to sell what they have grown not always what we want to buy. Again flower shows, magazines and TV programmes are used to force feed gardeners with a diet of ‘new’, ‘exciting’, ‘must haves’ but as with too much fertilizer we can get too much of a so-called good thing.
  3. Gardeners aesthetic values and wishes can become trendy. Usually these trends or movements take a deal of time to come to fruition and are a reflection of society and other external pressures. RHS’s Harlow Carr has a series of gardens through the ages and it is interesting to see how tastes and gardens have evolved and developed over the decades and centuries.

Returning to Tree Ferns the RHS offers it’s usual quality advice to members on the web site. I think it is interesting that out of 1.2m hits on the web the two top ranking nurseries  selling Tree ferns are The Urban Jungle and The Palm Center two places I am unlikely to buy from.

Hebe Shrub from Cuttings

Hebe Shrub from Cuttings

This purple Hebe is flowering about 2’6″ high in a compact format. I would like to make a low hedge of Hebe (Veronica)  to breakup the outline of a large border and this variety amongst many others suits me well.

Hebe Cuttings

  • Now is a good time to take a series of cuttings to root this Autumn and be ready to transplant next spring.
  • You can pull off a 4inch shoot leaving a bit of a heel and pot it in sharp compost or soil with some sand added.
  • I cut with a knife  or take my cuttings with secateurs if I am busy.
  • Trim off the bottom leaves and try get a cutting with the wood just beginning to harden at the base as this summers green wood may not root as easily.
  • Take more cuttings than you need and if some fail it won’t be a problem. If you have too many plants you can always find a happy home for these flowering shrubs.
  • Theoretically you should use cuttings from unflowered branches but I find so much floral profusion that it is hardly worth seeking them out.