Friday 8 November 2019

The year in the gardens

Top to bottom, left to right: Hellebores; Allium 'Purple Sensation'; Paeonies; Heuchera 'Palace Purple' with Erigeron karvinskianus; Acer palmatum 'Sango-Kaku' with Pittosporum tenuifolium 'Golf Ball'; Achillea millefolium 'Cloth of Gold' with penstemons and clematis; Rosa 'Rhapsody in Blue'; Dicksonia antarctica; Salvia 'Amistad'.

It's been an unsettled year for gardening in London, with frequent unseasonal changes in the weather, although nothing like the challenge of last year's three month drought. An icy January gave way to a very muddy February, neither conditions ideal for getting early planting underway. Then came a long dry spring characterised by continued cold nights which inhibited growth in new plants.


Some plants thrived in the conditions: tulips came late, but very strongly once they were in flower; hellebores loved the long start to the year and paeonies were the best they've been for many years across several gardens. Acers suffered in the cold winds (and probably some waterlogging in some specimens) - I was called out to inspect and assess several Acers with withered branches - in some cases affecting as much as half an established plant. Those in sheltered sites in dappled shade seemed to fare the best.

Roses also had a good year, especially climbers heavy with blooms from June onwards. Other summer reliables such as Agapanthus and Hemerocallis had a steady, if not showstopping, year.


As summer gave way to a wet and sometimes windy autumn, leafy ferns came into their own in the damp conditions and trees showed their autumn colours early. Hylotelephiums (formerly sedums), dahlias and the tall Salvias such as 'Amistad' and 'Black and Blue' brought dramatic late colour to many gardens.


As I write this, the Nerines are just coming out, and we have the delicate blooms and sweet vanilla scents of Hamamelis, Sarcococca and Daphne odora to look forward to over winter, along with bright berries and the glossy green leaves of many evergreens.

The good, the bad and the puzzling - the year at the allotment



It's been a mixed year in the kitchen garden, with unpredictable successes and failures. Last year, it was easy to see that the long heatwave at the beginning of summer would be good for tomatoes, chillies and sweet peppers; this year has been much more unsettled.

There has still been plenty to celebrate. About six weeks ago, the bare earth container which holds the saffron crocus bulbs, started sending up little shoots, and for the last month I've been carefully tweazing out bright red stigmas to store as my first proper saffron crop.

Also coming good for the very first time is the fennel, a crop that has tended to bolt in previous years. I think the consistently wet autumn helped deliver steady moisture to the developing plants and produce some lovely crisp swollen stems.

Stalwarts that didn't disappoint included the globe artichokes: the plants, once established, produce multiple buds between May and July, then, after a rest in high summer, start sending up new buds again in September. We are just finishing them now.



Potatoes were terrific again this year: beautiful Lady Christls like unblemished hens' eggs in June, followed by delicious pink-skinned Rosevals and a long season for the maincrop Pink Fir Apples.

The weather was very slow to warm up in spring, which meant that chillies, peppers, tomatoes and aubergines couldn't go outside until much later than usual, and the seedlings stayed tiny until June/July. The sweet peppers, tomatoes and aubergines caught up quite quickly once they were finally planted out in the polytunnel and greenhouse (and the sweet peppers happily went outside); the chillies on the other hand, are still mostly green and I'm not sure the Carolina Reapers will ever fully develop.

The outdoor tomatoes fruited late but then they all fruited at once. We had about a month until the blight arrived at the start of October and then of course the plants were all gone over in the space of a few days. The greenhouse plants normally keep going until December, given mild enough weather outside, but having picked a load of little Black Cherries and the last few San Marzanos last week, I doubt we will get any more now.



Tree and soft fruit yields were similarly mixed. The red, pink and blackcurrants all fruited reliably but the whitecurrant bushes produced significantly fewer berries. I managed to net the cherry trees in good time (for once) and enjoyed a good cherry harvest. One day it would be nice to save some to make jam, or liqueur, but they are a bit too delicious to resist eating straightaway.



The quince tree, normally so prolific, only set four fruit this year. I think this may well be because we gave it its first proper pruning last winter. There was certainly plenty of blossom in late spring. And the pear trees nearby were so laden with fruit that I was giving away carrier bags full of fruit for a couple of  months in late summer. The perpetual spinach all bolted and I heard similar tales from other allotmenteers. The winter radishes, so plentiful in 2018, are this year still tiny and showing no signs of plumping up so far. We will just have to hunker down with the parsnips, beetroot, oca and yacon over the winter.


Friday 18 October 2019

Grow your own - saffron


They say that saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, gram for gram.  Historically and indeed in the present day, it is much-prized for the golden yellow colour it adds to food or cloth, and for its warm sunshiney aroma.

Its high price by weight is partly because the saffron threads barely weigh anything: you need around 450 filaments to yield a single gram. It's also labour-intensive to harvest: the three long red stigma (below) are the parts of the flower that are picked and all saffron is gathered by hand.


Saffron originated in the Eastern Mediterranean, probably in Iran, which remains the largest producer of the spice in the world today. While it likes the bright Mediterranean sunshine, saffron grows perfectly well outside in the UK given a sunny position. It's also an attractive, with pretty striped mauve flowers, golden yellow anthers and the distinctive red stigmas.

You cannot just harvest any old crocus, however: not all crocus stigma are edible and some are poisonous. You need the long red filaments from Crocus sativus, or saffron crocus. It's an autumn-flowering variety which lies dormant for much of the rest of the year.

For that reason I grow mine in a large container, an old discarded water tank. If I had them in the open ground it would be all too easy to let the area become overgrown with weeds, or, worse, to forget about the crocus and start trying to grow something else in the space. 

Growing in a container also means you can ensure it's the in right place, which in this case, means the sunniest spot on the allotment but also one that is fairly sheltered. The saffron crocus bulbs like to bake all summer long before throwing up leaves and flower buds in September/October. They also like well-drained soil: easier to control in the container which has gravel lining the bottom, then layers of multi-purpose compost before a surface layer of topsoil.


Each bulb, or more accurately, each corm, will throw up one flower in a season, so you need plenty of plants to start off with. The corms will, however, divide in following years, so your stock should increase so long as the plants survive. 

The bare corms are generally available in mid to late summer. Plant each one about 10cm deep, pointy end facing upwards, and leave 15cm or so between them. You may well have to protect the bed from birds and squirrels who like to dig the corms up. I initially thought this would only be an issue while the bulbs were establishing but it turns out that they will happily dig for crocus corms at any time. So my plants grow through black narrow mesh netting stretched across the top of the old water tank and stapled into place. 

Once planted out and protected from foragers, you can pretty well leave them alone. They're perfectly hardy in a UK winter. I got a few flowers to harvest in my first year, but in year two they started producing much more prolifically. The leaves die down completely over winter so your saffron bed will be bare throughout the summer until the shoots start poking through the soil surface again in August/September.

Once the flowers start to come, you should harvest while the red stigmas are just showing, and on a dry morning: in the wet all that lovely golden pigment starts leaching out. Carefully pull them away at the base - this, finally, is where I have found a use for the teeny-tiny tweezers in my Swiss Army knife.

The threads need to dry out before being stored for culinary use. Optimally, this should be done in a warm place, even over gentle heat - Aga owners have an ideal saffron dryer. The rest of us can use the airing cupboard. Once dried, the saffron can be stored in an airtight container such as a small jar, in the a dark cool cupboard, and a pinch used for flavouring paellas, sauce, rice and so on as needed.

Saffron crocus corms available from Farmer Gracy, Suttons and J Parkers, among others.

Thursday 4 July 2019

Show gardens at Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2019

Beautiful day for the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival - where the predominant theme over all the show gardens is the future for gardens and managed space in the face of climate change and weather extremes. Several of the others explore how gardens can help with physical and mental rehabilitation.
My personal favourites are the Stop and Pause garden, which I think brings a real sense of balance and harmony to a small garden in a very accessible way. And of course, the Drought Tolerant Garden created in homage to Beth Chatto, who died last year. This garden was attracting huge crowds today (almost more than for the RHS garden co-created by the Duchess of Cambridge) and deservedly so - the planting is beautiful throughout, just as at the original Beth Chatto gardens in Elmstead Market.

Dream of the Indianos garden, which reflects the style of the gardens created by migrants returning to northern Spain at the end of the 19th century after years in the Caribbean. 

You can see many of these gardens throughout Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria on the north coats of Spain: the signature palms, and profusion of hydrangeas and agapanthus are unmistakable markers of the historic northern Spanish garden.

Beautiful planting in the Drought Tolerant garden, which attracted huge crowds throughout the day.

The Drought Tolerant garden - a tribute to Beth Chatto with many of the plants echoing those in her Dry Garden.

I loved the distinctive planting, especially this juxtaposition of bright pink Astilbe and Asarum europaeum under the birch trees (if there is a tree of the show this year, it would be Betula and all its varieties)

The Stop and Pause Garden, inspired by meditation and the various ways in which it can be practised. A lovely calm space, beautifully balanced.


Now this is how to build a vertical succulent garden: a show-stopping display at Surreal Succulents in the Floral Marquee

Another garden with planting designed to adapt to increasingly dry and unpredictable conditions: fascinatingly diverse planting in the Thames Water Flourishing Future Garden. 

A beautiful, accessible space with lovely planting: the Urban Pollinator garden concentrates on plants which encourage visiting pollinators, especially bees.

Monday 17 June 2019

Roberto Burle Marx: a visionary landscape architect and plantsman

These pictures of lush tropical planting in bold compositions come from the exhibition currently showing at the New York Botanical Garden, celebrating the work of Roberto Burle Marx. I was lucky enough to visit the exhibition on my recent trip to  New York.


Flowing undulating shapes and swathes of colour characterise a Burle Marx garden, and in the mid-20th century this was a new look, contrasting with the formal geometric, straight-edged shapes that had been used in public and private spaces previously.
Burle Marx was an artist and landscape architect who had a massive impact on landscape design in the 20th century. Born in Brazil, he practised mainly in south America and the US: his seafront landscaping at Copacabana Beach and in Miami are internationally renowned.


File:Calçadão de Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro (2).JPG
Part of Burle Marx's large-scale landscaping at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro (Image available via Creative Commons licence.)
He was also a plantsman, travelling extensively in Brazil and south America to find and conserve rare and threatened plants, His concern for the preservation of the environment was some years ahead of his time and he was instrumental in the slowing down of the desecration of the Amazon rainforest.


Burle Marx popularised the use of bromeliads in landscape design; they were some of the many plants he found during his plant hunting excursions off the beaten track in south America.
The exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden includes both his art and his landscape designs, complete with a garden created especially for the event by Miami-based garden designer Raymond Jungles, which wonderfully evokes the spirit of Burle Marx and his love of bold planting design and architectural tropical plants.

Many of Burle Marx's best known works were in public urban spaces, but he also designed private residential gardens, with his signature single-colour beds, sculpture and geometrically designed groundwork.

Many of Burle Marx's artworks were broadly abstract but he would also create astonishingly detailed sketches for his planting designs.

This tapestry demonstrates Burle Marx's love of bold colour and shapes which are also found in his landscape designs. He was at home in many media, designing jewellery, fabrics and stage sets, as well as creating landscapes.
The Living Art of Roberto Burle Marx exhibition is at the New York Botanical Garden until Sunday September 29th. Tickets around $23.00 with concessions available.






Thursday 16 May 2019

New planting and patio in north London



Not all projects redesign the garden from scratch. This north London garden just needed a refresh. The new paving, steps and paths were installed by Graham Thompson of Creative Landscapes.



The new planting by The Urban Hedgerow is designed to integrate with existing plants such as the dramatic irises and bring bold shapes and year-round colour to this secluded garden.
The garden is generally in partial shade with the surrounding trees, but with some sunny hot spots. We planted dahlias and agapanthus in the brightest spaces and surrounded them with more dappled shade-tolerant specimens such as Paeonia ‘Bowl of Beauty’, the bright magenta flowers of Lychnis coronaria and snowy-white Allium ‘Mount Everest’.
Paeonia ‘Bowl of Beauty’, Lychnis coronariaPenstemon ‘Alice Hindley’
We added informal edging to the beds with Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ for that hazy lavender colour but with a plant rather more tolerant of clay soil. The dahlias provided spotlights of late summer colour, with Penstemon ‘Blackbird’, ‘Alice Hindley’ and ‘Sour Grapes’ adding a background palette.


The new Hit And Miss fence, supplied by Jacksons Fencing and installed by Creative Landscapes, provides an attractive backdrop and an ideal framework for climbers – we planted Clematis ‘Piilu’ towards the rear of the garden and C. ‘Remembrance’ behind the irises. A Trachelospermum jasminoides brings scent and white starry flowers to the fence opposite.






Sunday 31 March 2019

New deck in north London

Photo by Krisztian Sipos

This north London garden slopes steeply away from the house and needed, as a matter of priority, a new deck to replace the old softwood platform. We used Senate Composite decking in teak and ebony to create the two-colour, split-level deck. The balustrade was fitted with horizontal steel wires rather than timber banisters, so as not to obstruct the view of the garden from the house.

The gabion retaining wall marks the boundary of the lawn, and the planting area below it, with a mini-orchard of fruit trees – plum, greengage and two dessert apples, with an apricot planted against the west-facing wall just below the new deck – at the bottom
of the garden. A profusion of alpine strawberry plants were planted under the fruit trees, giving the client a ready supply for summer breakfasts.





Photo by Krisztian Sipos
The client is a keen gardener and we were able to keep and replant her favourite hellebores, Euphorbia and hydrangeas among others during the reconstruction process. The new plants concentrated on adding year-round colour and texture with many requested by the client: stately Sisyrinchium striatumRosa ‘St Swithun’ to scramble over the fence by the lower deck, a Passiflora caerulea to add exotic blooms to the main planting area.
Photo by Krisztian Sipos


We fed and reconditioned the soil to give new plants a good head-start and to rejuvenate some of the existing ones – a Callicarpa produced its bright purple berries for the first time ever in the autumn following the redesign.
Many thanks to Daniel O'Neill, Sam Maindonald and the team at Nordland Landscapes for their great work on the hard landscaping. More details on this and other Urban Hedgerow projects at www.urbanhedgerow.co.uk.