Variety is the spice of life

Even in a washout of a summer like this one has been with very little sun to encourage them, plants still need to produce flowers which in turn need to be pollinated, to set seed and produce the next generation. We’re very lucky here that the climate allows us to grow a wide range of flowers besides our own native species and if we take the trouble to look it’s amazing how much variety there is among them from dense clusters of tiny ones packed together in umbels like achilleas, separate hooded shapes on long stems like foxgloves and the simple open saucers of hardy geraniums. These are just a few of those nature has selected through evolution and when it comes to cultivars which we’ve manipulated to suit our own tastes over the years we find that some have become so complicated that they’ve lost any resemblance to their wild ancestors. Some flowers like the very full and multi petalled roses have actually ceased to be the reproductive organ of the plant and have lost that part of themselves which gave them their reason to be. I like these blowsy flowers as much as anybody but I do think that they are completely missing the point, if they no longer produce pollen and nectar to attract pollinators then as part of the garden’s ecosystem they are entirely pointless. Flowers have different colours, shapes and sizes because they have evolved together with their particular pollinators, each of which have their own preferences and means of obtaining pollen and nectar, their reward for the service of pollination. It’s no accident that there is such variety in the world of flowers and lucky for us, the more variety we have the more opportunity there is to be creative with them in the garden.

Whether our aim is simply a bright and cheery display or a more sophisticated colour co-ordinated arrangement , the choice is there and just like the insects, we have our own preferences too. Most of us select our plants for their flowers and those flowers for their colour, but their shapes and forms are important too. In my work I place plants in gardens so that they enhance one another and if I’m in doubt about how things will look together I experiment. When it comes to flowers, instead of digging up the whole plant it’s much easier to put them together as cut flowers in a vase. At the moment I have an arrangement of acid green parsley with the airy wands of purple toadflax and the sultry dark plum spikes of hedge woundwort in the hall and in the kitchen is an arrangement of baby pink clouds of Persicaria campanulata with tall spikes of the palest purple Veronicastrum ‘Lavendelturm’ and the lovely lavender and soft grey sprays of catmint. Although only short lived, flowers add interest, structure and variety to the garden and as we all know, variety is the spice of life.

New toys - new discoveries

When we think of new toys in the garden they are invariably big and bouncy, built to keep the children amused and out from under foot, or something butch like the latest in cordless hedge trimmers or a big beefy shredder. My daughter and I are proud owners of two new toys, not very manly but very exciting things for both sexes and children of whatever age. I’m an avid watcher of garden birds and although I’m fine at identifying them by sight, more often than not I haven’t a clue telling them apart from their songs, that is until now. My new toy is a book with a big difference, the birds in the photographs sing at the press of a button and today I’ve recognised a grasshopper warbler and a blackcap, they must have been just feet from the back door and although I couldn’t see either of them they were definitely there making themselves known in song. My book helps me identify creatures I can’t see and my daughter’s toy does the same by opening a window onto a previously unknown garden, it’s a digital microscope, a birthday present from her brother and it reveals a whole new world invisible to the naked eye. Just a few drops of water show themselves to be alive with the tiniest of animals and plants in a range of shapes and colours. Dark spinning spheres rotating swiftly out of view, colourless wriggling worms, armour plated insects with fearsome jaws and the oddest of all, a bright blue chubby little creature fastidiously cleaning its short fat hairy legs – if anybody knows what this is I’d love to know! . I designed my garden to be beneficial to as much wildlife as possible and I know it’s successful from the number of insects, birds and amphibians making their homes in the habitats I’ve provided for them, but it’s only now that I’ve had a glimpse into its microscopic world that I’ve realised just how teeming with life it really is and how little I truly know the patch I thought I knew so well. Our gardens are as familiar to us as old friends but they have an unrivalled capacity to surprise and delight and there are always new discoveries to be made, what better new toys than those which help us to make them.

To move or not to move, that is the question...

I would like to move house. Nothing new in that and nothing wrong with this one, it's just that it isn't really 'me'. I'm a country cottage kind of person and this is a new estate house, fine while we were four of us but we've been two for a few years now and so I'd really like to move on. Except for one issue, which to a lot of people wouldn't be a major one, but to me it's a big deal. The house itself is a 'family home'and all the families which the agents - we're on our second set now - have convinced to come through the door like the house but the garden, well that's the 'issue'. I designed this garden small though it is, for wildlife and reticent as I am to blow my own trumpet, it has been and still is rather good. The mixed native hedge is full of birds, the wild flowers are swarming with insects including many species of bumble and honey bee and the pond is alive with newts, frogs, dragonflies etc etc. And that's the problem. According to these and the former agents, a 'typical' family wants a 'typically conventional' garden, you know the sort, lawn in the middle and borders round the edge so apparently the only way I can move on to the cottage of my dreams, or as near to it as the budget will stretch and create a bigger and better wildlife garden, is to trash this one. So what do I do, weep into my cup of tea as I imagine newts suffocating and burly men lay a nice flat lawn over the carefully contrived range of habitats, or do I just accept the status quo and stay put. Maybe we just need another agent....

A fun study day in a beautiful location

Know your enemy

I love plants and spend every working day encouraging other people to appreciate them too but particularly during the summer, for hay fever sufferers, not everything in the garden is rosy. Most of us welcome the prospect of fine sunny weather to get out there communing with nature but being in the garden surrounded by the cause of so much misery is no joke if your eyes are streaming and your pockets stuffed full of paper hankies. Anti histamines are great and Vaseline smeared around your nostrils can trap allergens before they can get up there, but an already red and runny nose given the added allure of a greasy shine isn’t everybody’s idea of an attractive feature so it makes sense to do a bit of detective work and get to know your enemy. Two of the worst offenders are tree pollen early in the summer and grass pollen later on. Like other wind pollinated plants they rely on getting masses of pollen into the air in the hope that it will reach a female flower of the same species, indiscriminate and designed to cover as wide an area as possible, your nose included. Willow, alder and the Acer family are a few of them, from our point of view hazel isn’t usually a problem because it’s done its stuff before we venture out with the better weather but grass get us later in the summer when we’re outdoors much more and it isn’t just a problem when it flowers either. When we cut the lawn it gives off a chemical called Coumarin which can be an allergen to some of us and as the mower cuts it churns up all the dust, pollen grains and fungus spores trapped between the blades of grass. Cutting the hedge releases the same trapped particles too, privet seems to be a particularly bad one and the dreaded x Cuprocyparis leylandii can cause contact dermatitis as well as annoying the neighbours. It isn’t all doom and gloom though, there are many ways to make the garden a much less hostile place. Lawn isn’t compulsory, a mix of paving materials, preferably recycled and low spreading plants like Ajuga, Alchemilla, Geranium, winter heathers, Epimedium and Astrantia look lovely all year and instead of a hedge try a trellis screen for the boundary with climbers like Clematis hybrids, climbing Hydrangea, passion flower and purple leaved grape vine. Some of the prettiest trees don’t produce any pollen at all, like the double flowered Prunus avium ‘Plena’and lots of our favourite blossom and fruit trees in the Prunus and Malus families don’t cause a problem generally because they’re pollinated by bees. Shrubs like Hebe, Spiraea and Escallonia are fine too as are a wide range of fabulous perennials like Anemone x hybrida, Paeonia, Phlox and Veronica which chosen carefully and put together well can give colour all summer long so you can sit outside and enjoy the garden sneeze and tissue free.

Study Day

A fun day learning how to design and plant your garden the wild way!

Spoiled for choice

At this time of year we’re spoilt for choice by the sheer variety and volume of seeds and young plants for sale, it’s hard for inexperienced gardeners to know where on earth to begin.
A trip to any garden centre or a quick flick through a catalogue is evidence enough that traditional bedding is as popular as ever and eye popping colour mixes that have me reaching for my sun glasses are still there, but suppliers know we’re a bit more sophisticated now and offer mixes in enticing shades like ‘moody blues’,‘sunny yellows’ and ‘pretty pinks’ and it’s a recipe for success. Most plants for summer schemes are chosen for flower colour alone and for bedding in containers that’s fine, pots can be filled with perfect compost , placed wherever the species dictates and fed and watered to their heart’s content.

If the plants are going into the border though, the way we make our choice needs to be more thoughtful. Soil type and aspect should be the first consideration and if you aren’t sure what sort of soil you have look at the wild flowers growing in it for clues.
Buttercups and lady smock like to keep their feet wet so if you have lots of them then your soil is probably heavy and moisture retentive, forget me not and wild violets prefer dry free draining soil but if you have docks and nettles which like it rich and fertile then you’re lucky, most annuals thrive on it . But all is not lost if you don’t have perfect conditions, the wild flowers that like your particular garden might have flamboyant relatives if you prefer something fancy. Foxgloves have been bred to give bigger flowers, more compact plants and more colour variations but they will still tolerate fairly dry semi shade. Aquilegia are available in lots of colours now and are still happy in moist shade and for open sunny places what could be lovelier than the annual poppy, not just the vibrant red of cornfields, but in all shades of pink too.

We’re all aware of the plight of bees and other pollinating insects so they need to be taken into consideration too and the more pollinators in the garden the better our crops of fruit and vegetable will be so it makes sense to grow flowers to help them. Single open flowers like Cosmos and mallows are great as are daisy look alikes Rudbeckia, Aster and marigolds. Flowers in umbels like Achillea and Ammi are wonderful for insects and add diversity in shape and form as well

There is more to choosing summer bedding than which colour petunias this year and as for my choice it’s wild flowers every time, not for me the formal single species blocks the Victorian bedders were so fond of, but native species happy and healthy in my soil, the bees love them and so do I.