Wordless Wednesday - flame

An unexpected journey

I have not been to Gardeners World Live for about three years I think.  This has been mainly due to work commitments, (I cannot keep taking time off to go to shows and whilst I could go at the weekend that eats into gardening time so I don't see that as an option), and partly to do with not a bottomless pit of funds so I have to choose which shows I want to visit and also I had actually got a bit fed up with it.

Sorry to say I thought it had lost its way.  One thing I love/d about Gardeners World Live was its unashamed focus on buying.  It was in my mind the opposite of Chelsea Flower Show, no high-brow show garden considering to be done here, here was where I came to spend.  So when they started to introduce show gardens, well actually when they first did this I didn't even notice!  Then when I did notice I thought it somewhat pointless and a waste of my shopping time - and - I have to say this, the gardens appeared a bit tokenistic (sorry).  Add in to this when they started to put it on alongside the Good Food Show well then I just gave up.  The whole point of the show for me was muddied, there were other more focused plant fairs that had appeared and they were far more to my liking.

This year I was not going to go, I ignored all their imploring emails offering various amounts of discounts off the ticket prices.  I was steadfast in my resolve, no GWLive for me!  Until I saw a competition on twitter from the Real Men Sow blog.  I rarely win competitions but I decided to have a go, why not I thought.  Well I won two tickets and thankfully I had already booked the Friday off from work to do some gardening so I could easily attend.  It was short notice though so I could not call on a companion to join me so I went along and gave my other ticket away to someone standing in the ticket queue, waste not want not.

I wandered around and I had a great time, I had a very small shopping list of plants, I wanted some blue meconopsis.  It took me a while to find some that a) looked good plants and b) were a tempting price and so three were duly bought.  Three Icelandic poppies also seemed to come home with me, they were bargain too and just so pretty!

I will do a separate post on the gardens as, and believe me this surprised me hugely, they have come on leaps and bounds from the early years.  I nearly did not take my camera but for some reason did at the last minute and I was glad I had.  There were several different planting areas, smaller gardens, starter design pieces and more conceptual type gardens, but these doors charmed me hugely.

Some had better planting than door, some had better door than planting, but no matter, I thought it a great idea and I loved them.

 

and I want this door (below), no seriously, I really do want this door.

 

 

This door's planting also featured a few heucheras.  Heucheras were the plant of the show - I shall explain more in my next post.

Despite the torrential downpours and flashes of beautiful sunshine, these were definitely the doors in summer.

 

(and if you are wondering where the pretty stream like photo was taken at the top of this post, that is on the path back to the car park at the NEC, they have wonderful mainly native planting around the car parks and these dells and streams/culverts.  I thought it overlooked but hugely pretty).

A touch of the orient

"A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust." (Gertrude Jekyll)

Some of you will recognise this as a favourite quotation of mine.  I do believe that it is true, though there are some who would look at it and say that I am not a patient person.  In truth I am not always patient, in regards to some things I am very impatient, but when it comes to my garden I have found remarkable patience, almost to an unbelievable extent.

I give you exhibit (a)

Now it is fair to say that I do like poppies.  I like many different types of poppies and it is hard for me to actually choose a favourite type.  They all have their reasons to be the best sort there is, so I refuse to choose an all time number 1.  In the top ten, however, there will always be the Papaver Orientale.

They are big, they are everything on a large scale.  They are clearly a type of poppy they have all the resemblances that the family has, but just that little bit more.  They also have the joy of being perennial so they come back, year on year, looking the same but a bit bulkier than the year before.

and they unfurl beautifully.  Suddenly the buds are there and slowly, slowly they start to open, looking like they will suddenly pop.

Which they do, they pop into what can only be described as a handful of crumpled silk.  Its like a clean hanky you have just scrunched up and you are allowing to unfurl.

Yes oriental poppies are special.

Hang on a minute I hear you say, what has this to do with patience?  Well I have said that it can take a few days for the flowers to open and actually at that point I am fairly impatient, I want to see its majesty.

No, this specific plant is patience personified as it was grown from a root cutting taken in 2011 whilst at a propagation workshop at Swines Meadow Farm Nursery.  I have nurtured this root cutting and it has now delivered this beautiful poppy.  It has the dual qualities of being beautiful and a plant that was propagated by me.  What is not to love?

Wordless Wednesday - la bee on rose

A Box of delights

Or a tray of tantalisation

Or the great divide

There are few things as enjoyable as a day off from work, when you go to a great garden, listen to an informative and entertaining talk, get a very nice lunch plus access to an incredibly good nursery. It can be no surprise that I left with a tray of plants.

I visit Coton Manor usually two or three times a year for their Garden School sessions.  The programme is quite varied in that they have names you recognise and names that I do not know.  Some of practical courses, some are talks, some are a mixture.  They are always enjoyable and just a very nice way of spending a day.  I have already been once this year to listen to a talk from Anna Pavord (very interesting indeed) and this week I went to listen to James Alexander Sinclair.  It is probably the third time I have been to one of his sessions and they are huge fun and I leave usually with a plant or twos name written down I didn't know before and other bits of useful information. For instance I now know that before you can eat a garden snail it has to be purged and this involves carrot.  I admit I don't think I would particularly want to eat a snail but I definitely don't want to eat something that has had to be purged.  It also made me think about molluscs and other filter feeders and then shudder at their lack of purging.

Anyway, I digress, after a very pleasant lunch it was time to hit the nursery.  As has been my whim this year, I was particularly looking for ferns.  The looking for a fern led to a couple more purchases and then a couple more.  I ended up leaving with: Matteuccia Struthioteris, Trollius x cultoram 'cheddar', Geum 'karlskaer',and Polemonium carreum.  I also bought a really nice plant for the bog garden but the label dropped out between buying and getting it home.

The plants cost in total just short of £30. I spent some time choosing which particular ones I was going to get.  I knew that I wanted to divide these plants when I got home so I wanted the ones with the best potential. Well, apart from the fern which is not a happy divider, or is it?  When it gets larger will I be able to just saw it up?  I bet one of you can answer that?

So, the Polemonium became 4 plants, the Trollius became 2 plants and the geum became 5 plants.  The very nice unnamed bog plant became 2 plants.  So my £28 actually bought me 14 plants in total, that's £2 a plant, now that is me happy! (Well, as long as they all live anyway).  I am finishing writing this on Sunday, I divided the plants on Tuesday, I am keeping them watered and so far so good.

I love dividing plants for a variety of reasons.  It is plants for free and when you have limited funds then free plants are a great thing.  It is also just huge fun, any propagating is fun and it always feels a bit like performing a magic act.  You start with one plant, then suddenly you have several - that has to be magic.  It also means I can repeat a plant along the borders quite easily and that is something I do like to do.  As I look at my garden at the moment I am mentally noting plants that will be divided as I can see they have got a bit large and also that I just want to have more of.  The other benefit of dividing is that if the plant is a few years old and getting a bit large it will perk it up and refresh it.  I half wonder if they put on this new growth as some sort of plea for me to stop hacking at them, but that is only in my darker musings.

It is quite a relief when you realise that you do not need to buy three/five of everything, most people probably can't or won't afford to do that anyway, by keeping to my policy of buying one good dividable plant and growing lots of things from seed this means I can save my money to buy the more difficult plants to propagate/obtain.  After all, it is meant to be a garden, not a money-pit.

I need more rheum

Rheum is another word for drool, or that watery stuff that sometimes leaks from eyes.  It is not a great word.  It is also a name of a species of plants and in this instance I am focussing on Rheum palmatum, the ornamental rhubarb.

I first great this some years ago in a previous garden.  I had seen one somewhere and admired it greatly.  I think I bought a plant of it (I do not think I grew my first one from seed) and I became very fond of its height and its structure.

When I moved to my current garden it was a much larger space to fill.  It was pretty much a blank canvas and also out of the question that I could buy enough plants to do what wanted.  I have to grow a lot from seed and Rheum palmatum was in the first batch of seeds that I sowed as I did not want a garden without it.

I ended up with six of seven plants, which I planted around the garden in its first season.  This was too many and as the borders have developed I have removed all but two.  These are large plants and they take up a lot of room and light to plants around them.  Several were also just in the wrong place, as the borders have grown and developed they were not where I wanted them to be.  I have become quite hard-faced about plants in the wrong place these days so out they came.

This year the Rheum are a joy.  There is the beautiful red one and the beautiful white one.  I think the rain this year has helped them this year and they are now maturing into fantastic plants.  I remove some of the lower leaves as they get raggy and to let some light in around them, but they are as I write this one favourite plants I have flowering in the garden.

They are amazing at every stage of their growth, from the first wrinkled growth of the season to when the flowers start to spill out and explode from the huge buds that form.

 

 The great plumes burst out and create a real statement.

 

Definitely a plant to find space for.

Wordless Wednesday - Davidia leaf