The Living Rainforest

I can't believe it's taken me over a week to get my arse in gear to write about this. The Thursday before last I went on a HTUK visit to the Living Rainforest. We got group admission and I got my student discount on top of that, so was well pleased!

Practically the first organism I saw as I stepped into the rainforest was the giant fern Angiopteris evecta:


There were lots of staghorn ferns (it was the perfect environment for them), looking just like Fugly:


I'm not very good on plant IDs, but I adored the deep iridescent purple of this foliage:


The butterflies were all drunk on fermenting fruit, and rather took a shine to one of my fellow forumers:


A rather blurry Hibiscus:


And then it was off to Andy's house for tea and bacon butties, where I was able to check out his awesome Tetrapanax "Rex":


A great day was had by all. I came back loaded with swaps, including an enormous banananananana, two Arisaema to try out, and a ginger. Fortunately at least half those plants are fully hardy, otherwise I'm going to be buying up all Homebase's stock of fleece in a month or two!

Friday Fern #16

Let's go with these random no-id ferns I bought the other week then. So despite them all being labelled Pteris there is no way they're all one genus. And the moment I started looking up popular houseplant ferns, and found a few Pteris it was obvious in the sort of way that Blechnum doesn't look anything like Dicksonia. I'm not very good at fern taxonomy yet, but I'm getting a good feel for what certain genera should look like.

So this one was the easiest to identify:


I'm about 99% sure this one is Pteris cretica, but there are so many varieties that I really don't want to try to narrow it down unless someone owns this very variety and wants to pass on the knowledge. I'm usually happy with genus and species to be honest...


This one looks like Adiantum cunninghamii, but after my trip to Wisley today where I saw an identical one for sale (at an extortionate price), I have identified it as Pellaea rotundifolia. Interestingly enough, it's being sold both as a houseplant and as a hardy fern. I wonder which is more appropriate for it.

And then there's this one.


I have absolutely no idea what it is, whether the fronds naturally point up like that or whether it's in some distress! Anyone recognise it?

Excitement

I'm going to Wisley! I'm going to Wisley! I'm going to Wisley! I'm going to Wisley! I'm going to Wisley! I'm going to Wisley! I'm going to Wisley! I'm going to Wisley!

So, um, yeah. I'm taking myself off to RHS Wisley for the day. It'll be interesting to wander around without a bored/guilty/hungover/cold Hubster in tow. I wonder if I'll spend more time or less time there than I usually do.

It's Plastic!!!

Time to admit that I'm a bit of a retard. For the two years we've lived here, I have assumed that the big wide downpipe is cast iron. All the other big wide pipes at the back of the house are. Where the paint is chipped there is bright orange, especially at the bottom of the pipe, which I assumed was rust. And the one or two occasions I reached over to touch it, it felt cold (which was about a year ago, the last time I could reach it without getting a face full of Phoenix canariensis (an experience I don't recommend).

But bugger me if it isn't plastic after all! I was leaning over "enjoying" a close encounter with the CIDP, and gripped on to the downpipe for support, and it was warm. So I tapped it, and it didn't feel metal. In fact, it sounded and felt plastic. And I was able to scratch a bit with my penknife.

Yet, because nothing is ever easy, now I have another dilemma. The biggest rain trap I can find to connect the downpipe to a water butt is for a 10cm diameter pipe. I measured the circumference of the drainpipe - 51.5cm. Dividing that by π gives 16.4cm or thereabouts. Bit bigger.

So, does anyone have any good suggestions? Just how does a rain trap work anyway? How furious would my landlord be if I sawed off the last 1.5m or so of the pipe and shoved a water butt underneath???

Squirlie Stew

You all know that squirrels have been the bane of my gardening life. A week ago I came back from my parents' house to discover that squirrels had been digging in my pots and chucked out all the moss I'd put down on the moist plants.

Clearly this is prime burying-nuts time, so I must get spraying. The spray won't deter the worst of them though, so I'm looking for more tips.


Sadly I suspect it would be frowned on for me to make "squirlie stew", and I certainly think Bubba and friends could gang up on me. So I thought I'd try a more humane deterrent.

I now have a sonic rat and mouse repeller. It says it won't harm non-rodent wildlife, so the birdies should be fine (I'd assume rabbits, moles and hedgehogs would be okay too). The little field mouse we had won't be too thrilled, but it will find other places to hide, I'm sure.

The repeller is sitting in my growhouse flashing away. I'm hoping it'll keep the squirrels just far enough away from my garden to carry on with their lives but without wanting to come and bury their nuts in my pots.

Nice Little Jungle

Spent the best part of the afternoon in the garden. I had a headache before I went outside, and a headache within half an hour of coming inside, but I felt great while I was gardening (hope this doesn't mean our boiler's on the blink and I'm going to drop dead of carbon monoxide poisoning...).

I turned the compost heap for the first time ever. Hubster almost always does it, but I needed to see if I had some good compost to use for potting (I did) and it needed to be turned and mixed up.


Now, the compost bin is one of those lovely green Hounslow Council jobs. And what I didn't realise was that when you lift up the bin, the compost expands to at least three times the volume that it occupied in the bin. My neighbours were horrified at the scenes of carnage, but unbelievably it all went back in with no problems.

There was some absolutely gorgeous compost in there, and I was able to get enough to upgrade the size of Matildus' pot (one of the scariest garden things I've ever done, to repot the Wollemi pine) and put the Metasequoia into Matildus' old pot, which is quite a bit bigger than the one it was in before.


This is apparently the best time of year to repot a Wollemia, at the end of its summer growth but with enough time for the roots to establish themselves before the first frosts. Matildus has a beautiful set of roots if I do say so myself. I hope they are very happy in their new home.

It was also an opportunity to get a few photos of earlier improvements. Bastard II looks very happy in his big outdoor pot:


And indoors check out my awesome electric propagator, which may or may not successfully germinate the cycad seeds:


My upstairs neighbour walked past as I was potting up a couple more swaps from last week, and said if I carried on I'd end up with Kew Gardens outside, and I'd have to charge everyone entry.

And then as I was tidying up all my kit, one of the guys who works for my next-door neighbour came out onto his staircase and commented that it was a "nice little jungle" I had going there. Despite the fact that somewhere in west central Scotland there's a former geography teacher of Hubster screaming at the use of the word "jungle", I have to agree. It is quite the jungle...

Seed Catalogues

As September rapidly approaches, a gardener's thoughts turn to the next season, and seed catalogues start to pop through letterboxes, to be pored over in great detail over breakfast.

I'm probably a little early in getting stuck into the business of seeds, but I've only just ordered the 2008 Jungle Seeds catalogue, so I'm allowing myself some excitement (not least because there's a sale on!).

It was not a great vegetable year. The purple sprouting broccoli got eaten. The radishes were small and bitter. The elephant garlic has never materialised and is probably rotting away fertilising my dinosaur gourds. The strawberries managed one tiny, sour berry before the squirrels took care of all but one plant. The potatoes were small but tasty, and there is a chance I'll get a few tomatilloes. If the tomatoes ripen they will be my best crop.

But it's too much for me to do in containers. I only have the time, space and money to do one thing well - Jurassic Park or vegetables. And I choose Jurassic Park. I've set up my heated propagator on the kitchen windowsill (and am currently trying to burn off the fur on the cycad seeds), ready for any autumn sowings.

So what to buy? Well, top of the list is more dinosaur gourds. They're a silly novelty plant, but I've loved having climbers and I want some more to train up the brick wall. Having in all likelihood killed my Banksia I'm going to get a packet of Banksia marginata. I'd also like to try my hand at Magnolia grandiflora - otherwise I'm going to spend a lot of money on a larger specimen. And maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but with a Sequoiadendron giganteum and a Metasequoia glyptostroboides I really have to grow a Sequoia sempervirens.

And all that is before the 2009 Chiltern Seeds catalogue comes out!!

What A Difference A Week Makes

Tetrapanax papyrifera "Rex" on 15 August 2008:


And the same plant on 23 August 2008:


Putting out at least one new leaf a week. I know this is as non-Mesozoic as you can get, that "T-Rex" is from one of the youngest angiosperm groups out there, but I think you must realise that I have it purely for the name...

Is There Anything More Cheerful?

As you know, I'm not big on flowers, but I couldn't resist taking part in the GW Seed Trial. I only had a 20% success rate, but I have an adorable little sunflower.


This is the "Little Dorrit" variety, and as you can see, it's titchy. But it is so cute that I couldn't resist sharing with you.

Friday Fern #15

I have a large number of new ferns, all cryptically labelled as "Pteris forms", which will require a bit more identification. All teeny tiny 99p jobs, which will not be hardy, so I'm going to keep them indoors right from the start. And for the first time in a while I'm a little stuck for my own pictures of the other ferns.

But yesterday I went to the Living Rainforest, which was great fun. It's worthy of a whole post to itself, but for the Friday Fern I want to post some pictures of the numerous crocodile ferns, Microsorum musifolium "Crocodyllus".


I love the big, reptilian fronds. I want it for my indoor plant collection.


It'll get quite big, which is fine by me. Especially as Bastard II is now getting used to life outside - I have a bit of space left in the bay window...

Repost 13 March 2008: Searching For A Fern

Never got myself an Anderson's holly fern. And while I now have a variety of proteas, a Ginkgo biloba and an Equisetum hyemale, the bumper pack of cycads failed to germinate and the rest remain on my to-buy list! That's it for the reposts now. All on to original stuff from this point on.

A few weeks ago, Hubster and I went on a trip to RHS Wisley (where I became a proud member of said Royal Horticultural Society). I of course was in my element, and even Hubster (who normally only appreciates my plants for their success in stopping me from buying clothes and shoes) really enjoyed himself (a bonsai workshop and associated bonsai garden helped matters). On our way back to the main entrance we walked through a walled garden, and spotted a particular species of fern:

It was called Polystichum andersonii. Well, being an Anderson good and proper, I'm quite taken with the idea of having an Anderson's holly fern. And Polystichum is a good, solid, generally hardy genus, much like my dear husband.

But it's not very common, to all intents and purposes. Fernatix and Trevena Cross don't have it. Rickards Ferns list it in their 2007 catalogue but nowhere on their website (must actually give them a call and see if they have it for 2008). I will have to wait until I get paid at the end of the month, but I'm now a woman on a mission. Don't know if Hubster will be overly impressed if I present it to him as a second wedding anniversary gift though!

It's rather exciting having things to search for - the pursuit of/lusting after new plants for the garden is often more satisfying than the reality of having them in the garden, especially as so many of my plants are really low maintenance. I love seeing the box/tube/parcel from the mail order catalogue arrive. It worries me, but I am continually amazed at how tolerant plants are of having all their leaves stripped off and being dumped in a dark box and transported halfway across the country. I can't wait to get them home and plant them up. Incidentally, the Metasequoia is doing really well now, and I have to stop myself from stroking a leaf every time I walk past.

My bookmarks now include a section entitled "Plants - to buy list". As of today, I'm after Araucaria bidwilli (had to really - would it be a proper Mesozoic garden without a bunya tree?), the bumper pack o' cycads, Equisetum hyemale (although I know I MUST keep them well containerised), Ginkgo biloba (yes, I want that variety purely because of the name, and yes, I want two of them), Lycopodium clavatum (*looks sheepish because she thought they were extinct until a few weeks ago*) and Sciadopitys verticillata. Quite a few Lazarus taxa in there, which will be good fun. I'm also intrigued by proteas, and figure if I have Magnolia and Camellia I may as well have some proteas too. Wonder how many of them will be hardy...

Woman's Hour

I tend not to enjoy Woman's Hour on Radio 4 (in much the same way as I tend not to enjoy women-only gyms...), but I could not help but listen, absolutely rapt, to today's episode, following Beth Chatto around her garden. It included extracts from the book "Dear Friend and Gardener" by Beth Chatto and the late Christopher Lloyd, and I was astounded and delighted in equal measure to hear her wise words on ecological gardening written many, many years ago:

Concerning whether to irrigate or not, [...] my thinking on the subject is based on the assumption that water is our most precious commodity as the world population continues to explode, and modern demands for water are often in excess of actual need. Combine this with the likelihood of hotter and drier summers to come, then surely we must be prepared to reconsider some of our gardening practices.

And then I got very melancholy. Because I have my little potted garden, on borrowed gravel on top of old bricks, mud and aggregate. I have to water the plants so regularly in their pots. Even the proteas need very regular watering (which I have discovered to the detriment of my Banksia - I hope it recovers).


I can't siphon off water from the enormous downspout because it's cast iron, and there is no way my landlord will allow me to drill into a cast iron drainpipe.


I have desert plants like my Agave tequilana sitting right next to moist woodland plants like Dicksonia antarctica. I long to have a garden where I can make use of or design my own habitats. I want my desert plants to have a dry, rocky gravel bed, where they can bask in the full heat of the sun. I want my cycads and proteas to be able to bake in the rubbish soil they will love so much. I want my palms to be able to sink their roots deep down and to grow big and tall.


I want to be able to make use of damp soggy bits of the garden to grow horsetails, ferns, baldcypress and a massive Gunnera or two. I want to be able to put my plants with plants they would normally share a habitat with. As great as the combined effect looks, proteas should not hang out with ferns.

I know what I would like. I would like a little two-bedroom cottage on top of a hill, with a garden that slopes down to the bottom. I could tier the garden, have different "rooms" or vistas, or at least zones, much like the different gardens Beth Chatto and her late husband created. The pond could be at the moist bottom of the hill, or even better, I'd have a little stream at the bottom to line with bog-loving plants. It would get drier to the top of the garden, so that the desert merged in with the patio from which I would survey my kingdom. Hubster could plant out his succulents, or bring them out in pots on the patio. Flaming torches would surround the patio at night...

Our lottery numbers are 8, 13, 16, 27, 32 and 49. If these could come up at some point in the next year (crucially only in the Saturday draw though), I would be much obliged.

Exotic Versus Native

An automated post, because as you're reading this my brother and I are attempting to cook a sumptuous three-course meal for our parents to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary earlier in the week. Nottinghamshire Fire Service, this is your warning...

Watching some old garden programmes, I saw the Postcode Plants Database at the NHM mentioned. I gather it's been kicking around for quite some time, but I wasn't aware of it. And I thought it would be rather good fun to see how many of my plants were local.

So here is the plant list for my postcode. Quite a lot there. How many of them do you think I'm growing, at least intentionally?

One.

The only local plant I have is Asplenium trichomanes. There are some common genera - Dryopteris and Equisetum, but I don't have local species. I am at least pleased to see that the maidenhair spleenwort is deemed "garden-worthy", although I don't know that I would care if it wasn't.


But I do sometimes get a bit of navel-gazing going, and sometimes I wonder whether I'm doing more bad than good by growing exotic plants. Some of my plants are drought-tolerant, yes. But a lot of them require a fair bit of water, and more so because they're all in pots.

So. What do you think? Is the world still better for my plants being tended and growing and absorbing carbon dioxide? Or is all their hard work negated by the fact that the majority of them have thousands of air miles attached? Could I do with more angiosperms? Do the bees and butterflies hate me, or will spring bulbs and summer annuals in the front garden appease them?

Friday Fern #14

I'm in a bit of a rush, trying to wrap a very large wedding anniversary present for my parents, make a summer pudding for their dessert tomorrow and pack up to head up to the Grim North for the weekend to see them.

So it's a very quick one to show you Cheilanthes lanosa, the hairy lip fern, sitting in one of the Wilko's wall baskets. It's native to much of the USA east of the Rockies, and if it can cope with Minnesota it can cope with Isleworth.


Obviously you can't see on the rather crappy cameraphone shot I took (in the middle of hanging out the washing!), but it has lots of little hairs on each frond, from which I can assume that it's geared up to windy exposed locations as it's got a protective layer preventing the wind stripping it of water.

It should be able to deal with facing directly into the prevailing wind coming through our garden from Twickenham then.

Moving Up In The World

I stopped by Wilkinsons yesterday to see if they had any cheapo Dicksonia antarctica (they hadn't, but any excuse...). And they had these wall baskets on offer, normally £2.29, but on sale - half the marked price. So I bought four, for £4.58.


I plan to put at least three on the fire escape banisters. The fourth I may (depending on how heavy it is) attach to one of the pipes.

I WILL NOT buy any new plants to go in here. No - these are to be filled with plants I already own, to free up some floor space. So I need to find three or four victims to be pulled out of their nice terracotta pots and stapled to the wall. The ferns will get a fair bit more sun, and they'll be quite exposed to the elements. I also suspect they'll lose more water as a result, despite my watering efforts.

The first, and most obvious, choice for me is Cheilanthes lanosa. It likes dry, exposed, hostile conditions so will be well at home wherever I put it. Next one up, I reckon will be Polypodium vulgare, on the basis that I have seen it growing on trees in darkest Derbyshire. It might persuade it to, I don't know, DO something. Then I think Polystichum munitum could bear to be put somewhere exposed. It lives in Alaska, for FSM's sake!

Those three would do for the fire escape. Then, if I have one on the pipe, it'll be under the perpetual drip from the extractor fan, so moisture is not a problem. I'm tempted to see if Cyrtomium fortunei would be happy there, failing which, how about Athyrium otophorum, or even one of the two Asplenium scolopendrium I have? Something to think about, and not rush into. Rather makes me hope I'll be signed off next week too, so I can pot everything up!

The New Face Of Gardeners' World

It's just been announced. Toby Buckland is to take over from Monty Don as lead presenter of Gardeners' World. Very rare for me to have made it to the news before the ever-vigilant Garden Monkey but I presume they have a life and aren't idling away the afternoon on the computer.

Hubster told me, and then asked me who he was. To be honest, I hadn't really heard of him before his recent appearances on Gardeners' World, but I was impressed with his location piece on exotic gardening. I am a little disappointed that Carol Klein hasn't been promoted (and I'm afraid poor Toby doesn't quite match Chris Beardshaw in the totty stakes either), but if Toby has a fresh approach to gardening, is going to do more with exotics, drought-resistant plants, xeriscaping and environmental issues, then I'll be happy.

Vegetables and allotments are soooo 2007 anyway.

*UPDATE* Didn't beat Adam Pasco to it though. But I suspect it helps to be the editor of the official companion magazine!

Repost 20 February 2008: More Mesozoic Leaf Babies

My birthday, in case you're interested, is 13 February. And this was the first year I was able to ask for gardening-related birthday presents. So Hubster bought me a Metasequoia glyptostroboides and RHS membership, his parents bought me a load of stuff from Crocus, and a couple of my girlfriends bought me more Crocus vouchers.

My birthday present from the in-laws arrived yesterday, in a mahoosive box (I'm going to get home from my conference tomorrow night to find that Hubster's been pretending it's a car and scooting around the lounge in it). So, I have a myrtle (Myrtus communis), a Chusan palm (Trachycarpus fortunei), a shuttlecock or ostrich fern (Matteucia struthiopteris) and a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana). And you know how I sometimes name the plants? For example, Bastard is my Cycas revoluta, Sideshow Bob is my Nephrolepis exaltata, Matildus is my Wollemia nobilis and Karma is my Camellia x williamsii. Well, I picked up the monkey puzzle, and saw how it was tied to the cane, with its branches sticking straight out at right angles and said "It looks like it's being crucified!". So Jesus it is. My Catholic husband has approved, saying "It's not blasphemous. It's irreverent, but not blasphemous". Then I threatened to name the Chusan palm Mohammad, but apparently that is blasphemous...!

A couple of the leaves of the monkey puzzle are a bit brown, but I'll keep an eye on them to make sure it's nothing that's spreading. I'm really looking forward to the first encounter Bubba the Squirrel has with it. I hope I'm there to witness it. The myrtle smells gorgeous - almost the same sort of smell as a box hedge. Can't wait to see it flower (see, Sarah, I DO sometimes get flowering plants in my garden, they just have to be basal angiosperms!).

And as I mentioned on Monday, the Metasequoia arrived. Somehow I got it home, although it seemed every twat on the delayed South West Trains service to darkest Surrey wanted to stamp on the root ball (except the twat who decided that being crammed onto a train meant he could grope my arse and pass it off as an accident). But anyway, this is it yesterday morning:

It's the straggly twig to the left of the Wollemia nobilis. I've been advised to cut it back by about half, which is a terrifying prospect, but will help thicken it out. To quote Granny Weatherwax, it aten't dead - there are little green buds all the way up the stem (I hesitate to call it a trunk!). This will be a challenge, but one I'm looking forward to.

Messing About With Nature And Picasa

I took my American friend to Pooh Corner yesterday. We had tea and cakes, and then strolled through the fields to Pooh Bridge, through the 100 Acre Wood. I uploaded my photos (just taken with the little camera on my mobile phone) today, and then started playing around with effects. I've used Picasa for a while for uploading and storing photos, but have only just started using it to enhance my images.

So this is the 100 Acre Wood, with sepia and glow effect, looking like a photo from the 1920s:


And this is the 100 Acre Wood (in the other direction), with warmify and soft focus centred on the vanishing point:


And this was my pal, wholly unposed, looking over Pooh Bridge, with black and white filter and film grain:


I quite like how they came out. I don't know if they're better or worse than the original colour versions, but they're different at least. And it gives me something else to do with my copious free time.

Gardening Gifts

Impulse buy today! Whittard of Chelsea have come up with a range of ceramics for gardeners, and I just could not resist getting myself a mug and coaster set. It says "You've got to propagate to accumulate". I think that's probably a philosophy I need to adopt, rather than the "buying to accumulate" I've been doing for the past year!

They have a full range, but one of the most adorable pieces isn't on their website.


The teapot is a watering can! The sugar bowl is a plant pot! The milk jug is a proper old-fashioned milk churn! And the spoons are all little spades!! Could it be any cuter???

Friday Fern #13

Out all day today, talking palaeontology of the animal persuasion with one of my supervisors. So exhausted that I slept through the last 15 minutes of Gardeners' World tonight (as well as the first half of the bonk-busting The Tudors).

Anyway, getting in just under the wire is today's Friday Fern.


This was one of my purchases from Wisley the other weekend. Rumohra adiantiformis looks very similar in frond shape to Polystichum tsussimense, but this chap is much more open, and prone to sending out runners. So much that I was actually able to divide the original pot into one big plant and two smaller ones. The smaller ones in their little pots are very easy to shove in spaces between larger pots.

R. adiantiformis should be hardy for me in Zone 9a. The leatherleaf fern is evergreen, so all I'll do is trim back some of the old fronds when the new ones come through in spring. And with its creeping stolons, when the eventual happy day comes that I have my own "proper" garden, it won't take me too long to establish the ground cover.

Teeny Tiny Snail

I found this chap on Monday morning, on a hiding to nothing (scaling my Phoenix canariensis). There's a theory (that may be somewhat bollocks) that cuteness is a selective advantage in juvenile animals, and that cute babies are less likely to be eaten/killed/chucked in a bowl of salt than their uglier counterparts.

I can confirm that this is true for invertebrates too.


It was under 1cm long. And because I'm a big softie, I took the little chap to the compost heap, where he'll be happily munching through the semi-liquid spinach I found in the back of the fridge on Tuesday.

Repost 27 January 2008: Big Garden Theropod Watch

A brief look at the vertebrate inhabitants of Jurassic Park...

In the UK, this weekend has been the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. Members of the public have been encouraged to sit in their garden or a nearby park and count the number of birds they see in one hour.

Now, despite living in the flight path of the UK's Busiest Airport^TM, we're usually pretty lucky with the bird life. Bubba the Squirrel has been well and truly stumped by the ethical husband's cunning plan to peg the fat balls out on the washing line rather than on the altogether too squirrel-friendly hanger, and we're getting a fair few of the little dinosaurs visiting. Now that the neighbours who had the cat have moved out (sad to see the cat go but really really happy to see the crack addict go), I hope the family of robins will be okay this year.

But it seemed that, as I was sitting out this afternoon, the little buggers had decided to hide from me. Because I saw almost naff all during my hour outside. Let's see - there was one wood pigeon, one blackbird, one great tit, and a parakeet. Yes, London's most common bird is now a ring-necked parakeet. So, because I doubt most of those theropods have crossed the Atlantic ocean, here for your viewing pleasure are the three British birds I saw today (photos courtesy of the RSPB website - click on them to be taken to the information page):

    
Oh yeah, and have a look at the ring-necked parakeet too. I'm lucky - usually when there's one there are very rapidly a dozen of them, all screaming like anything. Somehow I suspect the RSPB would have thought I was taking the piss if I reported a pigeon, a blackbird, a great tit and 12 parakeets...


I feel quite fortunate having them around though - they're such a splash of vivid colour. And they seem to be as outraged by cold weather as we are, shrieking through the air seemingly saying "What the fuck is this shit?!". It's one of the sounds of London, at least out where we are - the roar of the airport, the late night lullaby of police sirens, and some rather bewildered tropical birds.

What Would Grandpa Think?

I saw HappyMouffetard's post on three generations of garden lovers, and our comments to each other have started me thinking and wondering.


My maternal grandfather had the most amazing garden. Outside the back door was a large raised fish pond and rockery. He had a greenhouse, and loads of conifers and fuchsias all the way down the patio and onto the lawn. Surrounding the lawn were his prize-winning roses. Beyond the garden and across the footpath, he had a vegetable garden, and another fish pond. Behind the hedge was a full-sized tennis court, and the other side of that he had a large field in which he kept peafowl, bantams, Muscovy ducks and geese (including a gander called Horace, who was pure avian evil). I'm sure Mum or my aunt have photos. I must get copies sometime.

I terrorised Grandpa's garden, and my own parents' garden. I ate gravel (early geologist checking for grain size?), and I picked flowers. Dad called me Attila the Flower-Picker. I never picked the roses, but pansies were fair game. Grandpa must have despaired. And then for years I showed no interest in plants or gardening whatsoever, except for the several successive polka-dot plants I killed while a student.

Grandpa died while I was in the USA in the first and only year of an ill-fated PhD, and I only took up gardening some two and a half years later, as Mum's suggested cure for post-nuptial depression. I decided to put my own slant on the style of gardening, and the rest is history.

Mum doesn't know whether she should be thrilled that I have taken to gardening so enthusiastically, or concerned that she has created a plant-buying, seedling-propagating, palaeontologically accurate monster. But she thinks the garden looks very nice, and sometimes more mature than her own (to be fair, she's got eight gazillion times the space to fill with plants!).

But what would Grandpa think of Jurassic Park? I think he would approve of the layout. Would he like the palms and cycads? I don't think so (and he'd be simultaneously horrified and amused at my attempt to grow a Sequoiadendron in a pot). There wouldn't be enough colour for him though. No way. Not even with the blue pots and the blue lights, and the Leucospermum with its scarlet ribbons and the fluorescent Camellia blooms.

Grandpa embraced bright colours and put them next to each other, displaying flowers in all their hideous, garish, breathtakingly striking glory. His roses, and the bedding plants elsewhere in the garden, were a kaleidoscope. I'm sad that he never knew that I followed in his footsteps, at his own daughter's suggestion, but I hope from spending my early years watching him at work that some of his knowledge rubbed off on me.

A New Dawn

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good

"Feeling Good" by various artists

This is what my Hamamelis x intermedia would be singing if it could.


For several months most of the leaves have resembled the dried crusty leaf in the top left of the photo, but today I saw new bright green growth. I don't know why it went dry and crusty, as it has easily had as much water as the Magnolia and Camellia, and I don't think witch hazel has much higher water requirements than those plants. But in any case, I think the very damp few days have been good for it.


I have biiiiig seed pods on the Hamamelis. I gather they explode open up to a year after forming. Am I going to be tying plastic bags over them to catch the seeds and propagate them? If that's what I have to do, you betcha!

Wisley Last Weekend

As promised and hinted at throughout the week, here are some of my photos from my impromptu trip to RHS Wisley last Saturday. First off, a huge Grevillea with Hubster for scale:


Normally I loathe anything that could be described as "municipal", but I'll make an exception in this case because it's been done almost entirely with succulents:


Magnolia grandiflora in full bloom. They're coming into stock in the garden centres now, and I think I'm going to be buying myself one before the end of September:


I hid under a Gunnera manicata, for no other reason than the fact I could:


I could not find any label for this very unusual fern, but it looks delightful:


There is no way any of my Colocasia esculenta leaves are going to get this size:


And another very pretty little fern in the alpine house, Cheilanthes standleyi:


Tropical borders are everywhere now - I wonder if Wisley set the trend for this season:


And I suppose it wouldn't be a trip to Wisley without a photo of the amazing glasshouse, from across the lake:


Sadly, as has been pointed out in this month's "The Garden" magazine, Wisley is in danger of accommodating children so much that it becomes a posh park rather than a horticultural garden. I like the policy that Chelsea Physic Garden has. So many of its plants are highly toxic that children have to be very closely supervised, and as a result, they learn more going round the garden with their parents than they otherwise would.