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!

Jewels

Posted on August 16, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

Like glossy red jewels, these sticky little Japanese Wineberries have been a delicious treat in the fruit garden this year. Just one small bush bought for £2 from Barnsley House last year has produced a tremendous crop and we are picking this many every other day at the moment. Not as prolific as raspberries or blackberries but sweet and dainty.

Smaller than a five pence piece and looking just like a tiny raspberry, these are definitely worth some space if there is room to contain their arching prickly stems.

Blackfly Feastival

Posted on August 12, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

This year has been the worst I can remember for Blackfly on my climbing French beans. The Black Bean Aphid, Aphis fabae, is the culprit and nothing I do seems to reduce the infestations. I don’t spray with chemicals so every control is organic or mechanical and despite washing them off with a hosepipe and rubbing them off with my fingers, they are back in even greater numbers the next day.

The bean harvest is in full swing but really, would you eat these?! The upside, if there is one, is that I am supporting the local ladybird and hoverfly population as they and their larvae are having quite a feast themselves!

Redcurrant Revelry

Posted on August 10, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

It is difficult to imagine but this is just a small part of the 9.5kg of redcurrants from just one bush! The variety is ‘Rovada’ and it is now 5 years old. It was moved 3 years ago to the new soft fruit area but took the relocation in its stride and fruited perfectly the following year. This year’s harvest, however, is quite exceptional.

I don’t know whether I have finally discovered the right way to prune it or if it’s the weather, the horse manure stacked around it each winter or the regular watering but it seems to get better each year. The slight downside to any soft fruit is the attraction for birds and beasties but redcurrants seem less prone than most. The blackbirds have the odd peck at the lowest branches but prefer the June drop of windfall apples nearby. I probably lose a few to marauding voles and field mice but, on the whole, the harvest remains intact. However, as a precaution and out of habit, I do throw a bit of fleece over it as the fruit ripens just for peace of mind. I do see the occasional rat and the odd squirrel which the dogs haven’t managed to keep at bay……oh yes, and Labradors are partial to soft fruit as well!

Even allowing for these minimal losses, the harvest is enormous and I certainly wouldn’t want more than one bush. I mean to say, what can you do with 9.5kg of redcurrants?! We freeze most of them but we also share them with friends and neighbours and Cathy makes great jam and jelly too. Redcurrant sauce over ice cream is delicious and the chutney is wonderful with cold meat, cheese and lamb burgers.

Overall, I am simply amazed at the bounty just one small bush can produce and sustain. Isn’t nature wonderful!

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!.

Judgement Day!

Posted on July 20, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

I don’t consider gardening to be a competitor sport but when the opportunity arises, it’s nice to see how you’re doing by getting the opinion of those in the know. So I entered the Charlton Kings In Bloom competition for the second time and it will be judged today! Sunday 19 July 2015 It’s 4pm and I am waiting for the judges to appear to inspect and critique my garden in the annual Charlton Kings in Bloom competition. My judging slot is 4.30 – 5.30pm which is the last of the two days and the 30 gardens which have entered. I hope they are not fed up and dying to go home! The weather is beautiful, warm and sunny with a light breeze, perfect for garden visiting. Officially, I am not even supposed to talk to the judges, I don’t even have to be here. They usually just turn up, walk around, take loads of photos, mark the scores on their clipboards and leave. However, I have a cunning plan, I am going to greet them and offer to give them the tour! I have spent the last two days pruning, plumping, propping and preening…….weeding, watering, mulching, deadheading, mowing and edging……weeding, weeding and weeding! It looks good…not perfect but good enough I hope. It has been so warm and dry that many of the plants I hoped would be in peak condition are already over, the delphiniums, knautia macedonica, salvia greggii and microphylla are past their best but balanced by the echinaceas, heleniums and some of the early chrysanths which are out earlier than usual.

4.50pm They have arrived…..six of them! I know three of them including a former nursery owner and a professional gardener. This is going to be difficult. Wish me luck!5.35pm They’ve gone! Phew! Actually it went very well. They loved the design and planting schemes, raved about the Agapanthus africanus lined up in front of the bungalow and looked at everything with experienced and critical eyes. They were keen on finding any rare or unusual plants and were furiously writing notes on anything they found. I suppose there are only so many petunias, begonias and pelargoniums you can take! This worked to my advantage as there are several unusual things around the garden one of them being the Leopard Lily, Belamcanda chinensis, which no-one recognised. Others were Salvia uliginosa and the beautiful but easy white Lysimachia ephemerum which got them talking and writing even more furiously.

Time for a glass of wine and a sit down. No gardening tomorrow!

Highlights

Posted on July 13, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

Leucanthemum ‘Broadway Lights’ is at it’s best this week. Short and stocky, it opens a creamy yellow and fades to almost white. Never flops unlike it’s tall white cousins which I always have to ‘Chelsea Chop’ to keep them upright.

The Agapanthus africanus lined up in their big pots facing south along the front of the bungalow are getting lots of admiring glances from passers-by.

The Heleniums are in full flow and providing a feast for the bees and butterflies. This one is the shorter ‘Wyndley’ which at just 80cm is very sturdy and it’s beautiful yellow/bronze flowers really shine in the sun.

It seems scabious are attractive before they open…….

and after!

I have discovered that the climbing Fuchsia ‘Lady Boothby’ makes a very good standard which, if supported by a short obelisk forms a good head. Friends tell me they cut it down to the ground like other hardy fuchsias but I find it shoots from the ripe wood each year.

Another first for me this year is Echinacea pallida which I grew from seed last year and easily overwintered in plastic pots plunged up to their necks in one of the raised beds which are well drained. They all came through unscathed and are flowering well. It remains to be seen if they will survive a long wet winter in the beds. Not sure whether I like them or not! They look a bit frail for my taste.

The last Allium of the season to open is Allium caeruleum ‘Azureum’, the only true blue allium. Makes a nice change from all that purple but I just wish they were bigger!

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.

Smelly but nice!

Posted on July 6, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

I wonder what the collective noun would be for a group of Lilies….a smellatron?? I suggest this because the scent emanating from these beauties is simply overpowering! Almost at their peak now, I leave the door open to allow the sweet smell to waft in. It is divine!

The pollen splashed petals are working hard to attract every passing flying insect and it looks like it has been succeeding!

Fire & Ice

Posted on July 3, 2015 by davidsgardendiary

I am absolutely smitten by Lychnis of all kinds and grow several types including this, my current favourite, Lychnis chalcedonica, or Maltese Cross (for obvious reasons!) It must be the easiest plant to propagate from seed. One seed head will produce literally hundreds of new plants.

The ice is provided by these little beauties, Lilium regale, which are easy and reliable and have doubled in quantity in their large pot since last year. The scent is just heavenly all day and into the night (as I found out at 3am this morning – no questions please!) and there is no doubting why. Just look at the amount of pollen on those stamens!