Monkeying around

Well, that's better.

The week before last I took three whole days off work to cram my head choc full of foundation depths for single-skin versus retaining walls. At the same time as learning appropriate plants to use in carpet bedding schemes and the maintenance routines for prairie plantings. All part of the eclectic syllabus that is the RHS Level 3 (the Advanced as was: these days have to use the new but singularly uninformative new way of referring to the same qualification).

Then I took two utterly horrible exams. Well, they weren't that horrible as it was such a relief to offload all that information from my perilously overstretched brain and splurt it out onto the paper, but I won't know if I passed till at least the end of this month if not August.

I'm doing my RHS3 at Bicton College in Devon: set in what was once a stately home in Grade I listed parkland, it's really a very fine sort of place for what is, in the end, rather a down-to-earth sort of establishment. It's full of teenagers messing about trying to crash tractors and build York stone patios in fields and do obscure things to meerkats (there is an animal care centre of some sort there: I think, but am not sure, that it trains veterinary nurses).

And then there are the oldies: people like me and the motley crew of gardeners, plant nursery workers and general horticultural whizzes I was privileged enough to share a class with. They included the former editor of the Westonbirt magazine and the lady who organises Sidmouth in Bloom. It was all a little humbling, as these things should be.

Anyway, the reason I started explaining all this is because my final exit from Bicton (until next year: if I take a third module I get my Diploma so I thought I may as well get it all done at once) was down the college's world-famous 500 metre long monkey puzzle avenue.

This has been a real joy to drive along every time I visit the college. I'm not usually a big fan of monkey puzzles (Araucaria araucana) when plonked as a piece of Victoriana in otherwise sensible gardens; but planted like this, like proper trees allowed to be as majestic and sweeping as they're meant to be, they transformed my view of them altogether.

I have grown to love this long, noble driveway: I particularly love the way the oldest of the monkey-puzzles form fat, ridged feet at ground level which look for all the world like the feet of elephants.

There are 25 trees on each side, the originals grown from seed at the Veitch Nursery (which was not, as many reports would have it, based in London but in fact in Devon, with an outpost in London: it still exists, though re-named St Bridgets, and a fine nursery it is: do visit if you're ever in the Exeter area).

They propagate hundreds of monkey-puzzle trees from the avenue every year in Bicton's greenhouses and sell them on: and some go to replace those in the avenue which have finally decided enough is enough. The result is a pleasing variation in size and texture in the trees which gives the avenue a kind of rhythm all its own.

Planting began in 1843, and several of the original specimens still survive (you can tell which as they're tallest, and also most moth-eaten).

There is a proper certified Champion Tree among them (one of several of various types at the college): I think (but am not entirely sure) that it might be this one:

It's 26 metres tall, the largest specimen in the UK, and its girth is 4 metres round. Quite a tree.

Of course monkey-puzzle nuts are also edible: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, no less, has attempted to climb Bicton's trees to snaffle some to try (he didn't manage it: monkey puzzles are notoriously difficult to climb, so difficult, in fact, that they would puzzle a monkey. Funny, that).

The nuts are described as soft and like pine nuts or perhaps Brazil nuts - light and delicious. Trouble is, you need at least six female trees to each male to get nuts: so as long as you've got the sort of room Bicton has, you can grow your own. Otherwise, I can't find a supplier in the UK: so you'll just have to go and talk very, very nicely to the gardeners at Bicton. See you there.

Postcard from Hampton Court: Perfect combinations

Achillea 'Anthea' and Leucanthemum x superbum 'Goldrauch'
Barnsdale Gardens, Rutland

Seline armeria, Geranium pratense 'Violaceum', Malva sylvestris 'Zebrina'
The Botanic Nursery, Wiltshire

Achillea 'Fanal' and Salvia nemorosa 'Ostfriesland'
Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants, Hampshire

Heuchera 'Lime Marmalade' and Selaginella apoda
Madrona Nursery, Kent

Cenolophium denudatum, Pilosella aurantiaca, Achillea 'Walther Funcke', and Anemanthele lessoniana
The Landform Garden, designed by Catherine MacDonald (gold, Best Summer Garden)

Postcard from Hampton Court: Of grey roses

I have a little ritual whenever I visit the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show: I visit the Roses and Romance marquee to have a look at the latest Rose of the Year.

I'm secretly in love with roses: I keep trying to give up growing them, as they're far too romantical-like for my wellies-and-wasabi mental picture of myself as a gardener. But they keep wriggling back in somehow. I'm currently hatching a plan to sneak more in under the guise of being species roses, therefore having hips which are officially Useful.

Anyway: this year, it's 'You're Beautiful', bred by Graham Fryer: pic above. Very pink, very classic, rather handsome in a Barbara Cartland sort of way: this shade of candy pink isn't quite my thing but I could see why it won.

However: while I was there I began to notice there is an ominous trend which is creeping into the rosey world. They've started breeding grey roses.
 

This is 'Grey Dawn': it's the colour of faded curtains, or the dresses in BBC costume dramas, or maybe the papery skin of old ladies. This picture makes it look quite nice, but believe me, it's grey.

I blame the recent unseemly race to breed a true blue rose: it produced a lot of roses they said were blue when in fact they were undeniably lilac. 'Rhapsody in Blue' was about the closest they got (even David Austin admits it's purple, but 'fades to slate blue' with age). Here's another one, 'Blue for You' (with apologies for the lack of focus):

 

See what I mean? Lilac.

Luckily the Japanese put an end to all that a few years ago with a bit of genetic engineering injecting a delphinium gene into a rose to make The Blue Rose (still think it's a bit violet though). But the experiments have left their legacy.

As well as the grey roses, there are brown roses: a wave of washed-out colour that isn't apricot and isn't cream and isn't anything, really. This one reminds me of a properly nice apricot (Apricot Silk, perhaps) smudged down with one of those blues or greys:



It's 'Julia's Rose': and it's beige. I like it better than the grey one, but it's definitely a meh sort of colour.

Part of the problem is that these colours are so hard to place in the border. One of my neighbours has 'Rhapsody in Blue' planted among a little mini rose garden outside her house (she's elderly, so be nice). She's bang up to date: but that's the one rosebush that doesn't look right. It's weird, out of synch, the wrong colour for roses.

On the other hand, all this messing with what is good and right has had some positive side-effects. Once you go down the brown route, you reach a fork in the road: the poo option is clearly to be avoided, so obviously the only way is chocolate.

And this is where brown roses start to show why they should exist. Just look at this.

It's 'Hot Chocolate', a sumptuous floribunda that justifies all the misguided breeding efforts in the world if the point of them was to lead to this. Yum, yum.

Postcard from Hampton Court: Carpet bedding is back

The floral (well, green) clock on the wall of summer garden The Wheels of Time (Bronze)

Vertical planting... or carpet bedding?
Another green picture in the Low Cost High Impact garden Summer in the Garden (Silver)

Carpet bedding galore, and all exquisitely executed by the masters of the art at Bournemouth Borough Council's show garden A Very Victorian Fantasy (Silver-gilt) 

Shed roof at The Garlic Farm (gold, and best exhibit in the Growing for Taste marquee)

And more edible carpet bedding, this time from Dobies: Pak choi 'Chuchoi' and 'Rubi' with quite the brightest marigolds I've ever seen

Postcard from Hampton Court: Conceptual

'Light at the End of the Tunnel': Matthew Childs' moving depiction of his journey from injury in the 7/7 bombing through to jacking in his job in advertising and starting a new life as a garden designer. It was the deserved winner of Best Conceptual Garden.

Walking through the industrial boards-and-corrugated iron structure, you start in a dark and dank tunnel lined with hummocks of Asplenium scolopendrium and moss: the parallels with the Underground are unnerving, and the ceiling was dripping when I was there so I started thinking of other claustrophobic, underground places like coalmines.

As you walk through, the gaps widen and the light creeps in: the old, worn, stained sleepers give way to new oak and the planting lightens to dancing Gaura lindheimeri and pretty Astrantia 'Roma' and 'Buckland' amid airy grasses. Thoughtful, detailed, lovely.

The Coral Desert, by Antonia Young (Silver-gilt)
I loved this, with its clever juxtapositions (the driest plants in the world - cacti and succulents - made to look just like underwater coral) drawing attention to the plight of the coral reefs. And the ceiling was a two-inch transparent tray of rippling water. How cool is that?

I admit I make a beeline for the Conceptual Gardens at Hampton Court. More challenging (and often better-executed) than the big show gardens, they're edgy, interesting, thought-provoking.

They always break the rules: they make me perpetually re-think what I mean by the word 'garden'. I've seen conceptual gardens that are upside down, under the ground, under water and inside boxes. Most don't look like 'gardens' at all: and that's why they're so inspiring.

I've always thought that the fact that conceptual gardens are so popular is a tribute to the gardening public. It's easy to think 'most' people who say they like gardening are just boringly traditional and set in their ways, growing veg in straight lines and lining their clipped lawns with bright pink rhododendrons.

And some are. But many - I would even venture to say 'most' - of those who take the trouble to go to a flower show are far more interesting, and interested than that. That's hundreds of thousands of people who relish a challenge and want to garden in a more intelligent, creative way.

There are now conceptual spin-offs at Tatton Park and Chelsea: and they are attracting more crowds and more discussion than anything else.

So perhaps it's not surprising the mainstream designers want a slice of the action: ideas first seen in conceptual gardens are slowly, surely creeping in to the mainstream and sparking other little flashes of inspiration. It keeps design alive, new, inspiring, moving forward: and that can be nothing but good.

Postcard from Hampton Court: Monday

Sorry (again): another long silence.

I have been camera-less which has left me bereft and strangely incapable of wittering on as I usually do. Not sure why not having visible proof silences me quite so efficiently but luckily (or unluckily, depending on your point of view) another flower show came along forcing me to buck up my ideas and acquire a new camera post haste. Canon SX40, since you ask, and yes it is far more complicated than the last one and no I still haven't got further than the auto setting.

The show, of course, was the wonderful RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show: huge, fizzing with energy and ideas, slightly exhausting, thought-provoking, unmissable.

The extraordinary garden in the picture is Anoushka Feiler's 'Bridge over Troubled Water', which won a gold and Best in Show: and for me it stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Show gardens at Hampton Court can be a bit hit-and-miss: what Tony Smith was doing sticking plastic bottles on Arundo donax for Ecover I don't know (his paving conceptual garden was a bit... mmmm... too). Still: at least they try to push the boundaries and do something different, even if it doesn't always come off.

But Anoushka's garden was pure gold: or rather pink. It was the most sensuous, feminine, diaphanous garden: passionate, loving, emotional. The idea behind it was quite simple: a bridge as a journey over hardship (more specifically, overactive bladder - but I did my best not to think about that too much as it just made me want to cross my legs. Click the link if you want to know more.)

Either side were great banks of lush ivies and ferns dripping down to the water - a gorgeous and practical use for vertical planting - on which was built a sumptuous hummocky grassland of pinks and greens over which floated airy honey locust trees (Gleditsia triacanthos 'Elegantissima').

I adored the planting: here Echinacea 'Fatal Attraction' (mysterious and other-worldly without its petals), Dicentra 'King of Hearts', Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' and, I think, the feathery plumes of Deschampsia cespitosa 'Pixie Fountain'.

We've seen Anoushka's work before: she created last year's upside-down conceptual garden, 'Excuse Me While I Kiss the Sky'. Another passionate creation, full of laughter and hope. I'm so glad she's back for more: and I hope we see a lot more of her gardens in years to come.

Seeds! Seeds! Seeds!

Ooooooh! The RHS's seed list for 2010 has been published!

One of the many great things about being an RHS member is that every year you get to choose 20 packets of seed collected from RHS gardens for the princely sum of 60p each. And they're mostly quite unusual, so you get to pack your garden with some choice lovelies for next to nothing.

There are annuals and biennials on the list - including things like sweetpeas, though not your average Spencer hybrids - but I use it mostly as a chance to indulge my irrational desire to raise perennials and shrubs from seed. This takes ages, isn't always successful (actually, isn't very often successful), and you generally end up with, say, 30 pokeweeds of which you need maybe two or three at absolute most. But oh, it is such fun.

You can give away the ones you don't want (sometimes - there's a limited market for pokeweeds, I find), and besides, if you want to fill a patch of garden with a swathe of something, you need lots of plants. Swathes come expensive in the garden centre: a measly three hardy geraniums will set you back around 15 quid if you're lucky, but for my 60p paid a year or so ago for a packet of RHS seeds I now have 9 Geranium pyrenaicum 'Bill Wallis' which have been flowering their pretty little socks off in a satisfying swathe at the front of my border all summer, and will do for years to come. And I gave another 10 or so away to friends. Yes, I had to wait a while: but isn't that curious mixture of delicious anticipation and near-heroic patience a lot of what real gardening is all about?

So, though many of these won't make it through under my occasionally erratic care, and some will drive me crazy with their capriciousness over, let's see, whether or not to germinate, here's the list of plants common and not-so-common which I have a chance of looking forward to in the coming years:

Camassia leitchlinii
Galtonia candicans
Musa velutina
Aconitum napellus
Euphorbia x pasteurii
Geranium gracile
Gillenia trifoliata
Heuchera micrantha
Inula helenium
Kitaibela vitifolia
Penstemon smallii
Phormium cookianum subsp. hookeri
Sanguisorba minor
Tricyrtis pilosa
Alchemilla fissa
Coronilla valentina subsp glauca
Daphne mezereum f. alba
Pawlonia tomentosa

Novelty value

I found out what my mystery honeysuckle is today!

I eventually got around to taking a sample over to Wisley's spectacularly useful Advisory Service a couple of weeks ago. For those who don't know, this service is perhaps the most useful thing you get along with your RHS membership: you get to take any problem, and any unidentified plant along to your nearest RHS garden (or you can send it in) and you have instant access to the country's leading plant experts to identify it for you. I always have the "I'm not worthy" feeling when I go in there - why would they want to be bothered with my humble little garden? - but they're unfailingly friendly and extremely helpful.

Anyway - back to the honeysuckle. It turns out to be Lonicera xylosteum - a new one on me. In his email the RHS botanist tells me it's "a native shrub sometimes known as fly honeysuckle... It normally forms a medium-sized, deciduous shrub producing small, creamy-white flowers in early summer. These may be followed by red berries in the autumn. Although of very restricted native distribution, it is grown in gardens and has become naturalised throughout the country."

I love having an Unusual Plant in my garden. It makes me feel like a trustee of something important - something to do with there not being that many around, but one of them's in my garden. I'll get ideas about National Collections next...

Plant-buying season again...

I have the extreme good fortune to live not very far from RHS Wisley, which is about as close to a centre of horticultural excellence as you can get. The gardens are wonderful at pretty much any time of year, and it's one of the places I go as a reference for how things ought to be done.

They also have the best garden centre for miles there, and though the plants are a bit on the expensive side, they are without exception beautifully grown and the highest-quality plants it's possible to buy. I've never had a single one I've got from there keel over on me, which is more than you can say for a lot of nurseries.

The garden centre runs an excellent ordering service, allowing you to source obscure plants simply by putting your name down for it at the information desk. I did exactly that for the last few plants on my list for my Dixter tribute border, and they've come up trumps - a postcard dropped through the letterbox yesterday telling me they've now got Spiraea japonica "Gold Mound".

The young leaves on this compact shrub are more of a pale yellow than its parent, S. japonica "Gold Flame", in which they're a kind of butterscotch orange. I dislike "Gold Flame" for the revolting clash of colours which happens when it flowers - candy pink and butterscotch orange have to be the most horrible combination ever. But pink on greeny-yellow might look a lot nicer, and the habit of both is a really lovely compact fountain, which combined with the prettiness of their new spring foliage makes them very good garden shrubs, so I'm happy to give it another try.

A taste of the tropics

Maybe it's because I'm fed up with the winter (and who isn't) but I'm in the throes of planning the area around my pond at the moment, and I'm going for the tropical jungle look.

It's partly inspired by the seed distribution list I've just received from the Friends Society of the Ventnor Botanic Garden. I love these horticultural groups - at the very least, you meet lots of other enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardeners, and often, if the group is attached to a botanic garden or similar, there's the sheer delight of a seed distribution. I have a particular affection for Ventnor, too, and make a point of visiting it at least once a year to see its fabulous semi-tropical and mediterranean displays. It's on the Isle of Wight, which is well worth a visit in any case as it has its own microclimate and they can grow some wonderful plants there which are borderline hardy in the rest of the country. The gardens there are wonderful.

Other seed distributions are pretty good - I did the RHS's wonderful seed distribution this year, mainly for a client who wants to stock up her garden at minimal cost, and it was like being a kid in a sweet shop. But the Ventnor distribution list is something else - a horticultural odyssey through the wierd and wonderful, from every corner of the globe. You always find something you never knew existed but sounds utterly sumptuous. How about Myoporum sandwicense? Ever heard of it? Me neither - but it's a gorgeous plant, tiny pink or white flowers and big leathery-looking leaves. Another one I might try is Sinocalycanthus chinensis - I read about this just recently in an article by Roy Lancaster and thought it sounded absolutely fabulous. And here it is for free... can't believe my luck sometimes!