Time for a Change!

Posted on January 31, 2017 by davidsgardendiary

I have been rather dilatory of late and I apologise to my faithful followers for the lack of posts and updates from my garden and my visits to others. To be honest, apart from a few small tweaks here and there, my garden has now settled into a rhythm and ticks over through the seasons. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been busy!

Some of you may recall that I was briefly Vice Chairman of the Cheltenham Horticultural Society and was rather frustrated that my ideas for modernising and updating the society and its activities were continually thwarted and questioned. Although I was able to bring a lot to the Society in a short time; BBC Radio 4 Gardeners Question Time, plant sales linked to Open Gardens events, publicity from the Tools Shed recycling project with the Conservation Foundation and helping our Vice President, Chris Evans of The Butterfly Garden win the Daily Telegraph ‘Gardening Against the Odds’ award, revamping the Society website and getting Chris Beardshaw to talk about his Gold winning Chelsea garden and his new book, I realised that my future ‘gardening club’ activity lay elsewhere.

I have always admired the homespun charm of the Cottage Garden Society and eagerly read their quarterly magazine and take part in their excellent seed exchange. However, apart from a group local to South Gloucestershire and the towns in the Stroud valleys, they do not have a local presence in the Cotswolds. Even the Worcestershire Group has amalgamated with the Staffordshire Group and has now migrated northwards. So it occurred to me that they might like a new group in my part of Gloucestershire from Cheltenham north and east. They instantly agreed!

So, as a lot of my gardening activity is now going to be centred around the new Cotswold Group, I have decided to make my blog a record of how I get on starting a new gardening club (for that’s what it really is) and sharing my thoughts and concerns, triumphs (let’s hope there are some!) and disasters (let’s hope there are few!), with my followers, visitors and members of the group.

Onwards and upwards!

Compost Overload

Posted on November 15, 2016 by davidsgardendiary

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One of the big problems and opportunities of growing herbaceous perennials is the amount of material you need to cut down at this time of year. Problem because I only have 3 compost bins which are now full to overflowing. Opportunity because once it is shredded and left for a year or so I will have more wonderful compost to add to the borders.

Echibeckia Update

Posted on November 8, 2016 by davidsgardendiary

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The Echibeckia Summerina ‘Yellow’ was a big surprise this year. The plants from Hayloft survived the winter in pots plunged up to their necks in a raised bed but looked dead until April when a few small green shoots appeared. I dug them up and transferred them to the greenhouse where they took off! By early May they were ready to plant out and with a dressing of bonemeal they romped away.

I think they worked well next to the Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ but they were gradually pushed over by the thuggish Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ behind.

I will be interesting to see if they survive another, and perhaps harder winter.

My Garden This Week

Posted on October 21, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

Just a quick update because I was out photographing the sweet peas. The garden is full of colour this week. The asters and chrysanths are in full bloom and the overwintered dahlias are boldly holding their positions. The salvias have been outstanding this year and some of the patens varieties are better than ever, particularly ‘Blue Angel’ which just goes on and on until the first frost.

This combination of bronzy yellow and purple chrysanths works well and is a complete accident!

More later!

Echibeckia

Posted on August 27, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

I know it’s not much of a plant at this stage, more of a box really, but inside is a bit of the horticultural future…..apparently! We are all familiar with Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’ and R. var. ‘Deamii’ and have probably had a brush with the larger flowered and more colourful annual Rudbeckia hirta in the form of ‘Marmalade’ or ‘Green Eyes’ or similar. We are also probably all familiar with Echinacea purpurea and have discovered that only the species is truly hardy; the myriad cultivars I have been suckered into buying have been hopeless and die in their first winter…too wet in the UK. They need long, dry, cold winters as they get in the mid western United States to survive. My friend Rob Cole at Meadow Farm Nursery is selecting open pollinated variants and testing them for the factors required in a British garden worthy plant and is pretty close to releasing a couple on the market but, in the meantime, the Echibeckia has been introduced from the United States to satisfy our desire for a hardy, early and long flowering perennial that is hardy and disease resistant. As the name implies, it is an intergeneric cross between Rudbeckia hirta and Echinacea purpurea. So what’s in the box????????

Certainly well packaged by Hayloft Plants; arrived safe and well grown……

far bigger than expected, at least 25cm high and one even beginning to flower!

However, we are going to have to wait until next summer to find out a) has it survived and b) was it worth it!

Which? Gardening photo shoot!

Posted on August 24, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

Each year I offer to grow seeds in the Which? Gardening Trials and submit my results along with hundreds of other keen subscribers. Last year for the first time they set up an 8 week temporary on-line forum for the trialists to make comments and share experiences during the trial and I was a keen contributor, particularly regarding the climbing French bean ‘Monte Cristo’ which, although delicious to eat, were extremely curly! This got people talking and sharing photos and ideas. I loved it!

So this year I volunteered to grow two varieties of Zinnia to see which one attracted more butterflies and pollinating insects, Garlic Chives to assess their usefulness for salads and boiled potatoes, and Ipomea (Morning Glory) ‘Dacapo Light Blue’ to see how quickly it came into flower from germination.

Chives are chives and not very exciting but the flavour of garlic chives are more garlic than onion so you need to like garlic!

I have featured the Ipomea elsewhere in the blog and they are a real winner, as good or better than the popular and better known ‘Grandpa Ott’ and ‘Heavenly Blue’.

It was the Zinnias that became the stars this year and mainly because I got an email asking if I would be a case study for the magazine and feature my plants and comments when the results are published! Wow! What a privilege. The Trials team had seen the photos I had uploaded on the forum and wanted their own professional photographer to visit my garden and take shots of the plants and me!

And so it was that on a sunny Thursday last week, Matt Fowler, the Which? photographer, drove from High Wycombe to Cheltenham for an hour long photo shoot, him surrounded by equipment and me on my knees amongst the Zinnias!

I am not used to being in front of the camera so it was a little nerve-wracking. However, Matt was used to it and just got in with his job while Cathy was taking pics of him taking pics of me!

I grew the Zinnias in a raised bed in the veg garden so I could keep an eye on them and this turned out to have been a good idea because we could photograph them from all sides and very close up.

I think the light was bouncing off my bald head!

It was a good day and not your average Thursday morning. The varieties were ‘Oklahoma’ and the shorter, rather non-Zinnia like ‘Starbright’. Great plants, easy to grow, undemanding and drought tolerant, long flowering and attractive to bees and butterflies. What more could you want? Well, perhaps more flowers and less of me!

Bees Lovely!

Posted on July 24, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

I have found alliums love my garden. They do well in clay, they are drought tolerant and totally reliable. I love them all but this little beauty with the difficult to pronounce name, Allium sphaerocephalon, is particularly useful as it flowers slowly throughout July and therefore mingles with other plants where it is well behaved and attracts bees all day every day. They love it so I love it. It is also one of the widest available and least expensive at just 10p or less per bulb. I got 12 for £1. It grows well in pots too and doesn’t care if you forget to water it, as I often do. As you can hopefully see, it begins as a green flower and gradually turns purple from the bottom up. The flowers shrug off wind and rain and remain upright even after being bent double, they are bone hardy and multiply each year. I am growing them with white scabious this year which is a charming combination. I would urge you to try them, they are one of the few things that everyone and anyone can grow regardless of local conditions. Utterly reliable, very cheap and bees adore them. What more can you ask for!.

Nice!

Posted on July 9, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

I took 80 photos today but when I got back and downloaded them, this one struck me more than the others. We were at Stanway House and Gardens, the one with the 200′ fountain which ‘plays’ twice a day, twice a week. It would have been easy to post a pic of that. and I probably will, but this one was different. I suppose it represents everything I love about established gardens in country homes……mystery, solidity, and in some cases, absurdity.I cannot imagine how much it would cost to build this palladian doorway today but whatever it was, it would be worth it.

My Squash, they are escaping!

Posted on June 28, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

We came late to squash. My wife and I just never fancied it until one day we were offered some roasted Butternut squash and that was it, now we love it. That’s not to say we like all of them, I still can’t bring myself to eat pumpkin. Last winter one of my lovely gardening friends, Bridget, gave us a huge ‘Crown Prince’ from her allotment. It must have weighed 3 kilos and was absolutely beautiful to look at and to eat. Firm orange flesh which roasts well and makes wonderful soup. So I kept some seeds and grew a few plants this year. I also kept a few seeds of a ‘Sweet Dumpling’ variety bought from Morrisons and grew them. I gave most of the plants away to friends with allotments and just kept two of each which I decided to plant in my Access frame through black plastic to keep the ground moist and to keep the fruit clean. What I hadn’t figured on was just how enormous they can get!

There are just four plants in there, one in each corner of the 10′ x 4′ frame but they grew so quick I had to remove the glass on the top and most of the glass on the sides before they pushed it out! Not sure what I am going to do now. They have made a bid for freedom and are beginning to explore their new surroundings. These triffids grow a foot a day and could be next door by August.

There are plenty of flowers so as long as the bees are finding them we should get plenty of fruit although where they will be nobody knows!

There will be regular updates on this topic! All and any comments, suggestions or experience welcome please!

Question

Posted on June 27, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

Does anyone know what this is please?????? It looks like an onion/allium but this seems to be the flower! A sort of knobbly hairy thing with no petals, stamens or any other ‘nice’ bits. It wouldn’t win a beauty contest and seems rather confused.