Marian Boswall Landscape Design and Garden Studio

Behind every great garden..

2010-10-16T14:18:00.002+01:00

... is a great gardener.

If you are interested in Historic Garden Conservation, Chiswick House is a good place to see what can be done. A huge injection of Heritage Lottery funding, plus donations from big business and generous individuals have enabled a thorough and careful restoration of this most important of London gardens. Designed originally by Lord Burlington and William Kent in 1729 - he who 'Leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden' - the garden has several layers of design contributed by the generations of owners, until it became a private mental asylum in the Victorian era and thence a public park.

By the turn of this century it was woefully neglected, and whilst the house was under English Heritage the garden was maintained by the cash strapped local authority. An ill advised restoration project in the 1970's had filled the main lawn with trees, graffiti covered the entrance walls, dogs fouled the grounds and mattresses lurked under the brambles in the undergrowth.

The grounds have been transformed by the injection of money, the paths are resurfaced, the follies are gleaming and the exedra now has statues with heads above the hedge as they should be, rather than hidden in the hedge as they were.

An iconic cafe and toddlers' playground brings a twentieth century layer and the garden now welcomes thirty thousand people a year, but what really makes the garden special is the people.

One cannot help immediately liking the quietly spoken Head Gardener Fiona Crumley. Former Head Gardener at Chelsea Physic garden she was enjoying being at home organising funding for young gardeners to get started on their careers (see The Merlin Trust) when her arm was twisted to take on Chiswick. Despite early scepticism she soon won the hearts of the Chiswick House Friends group, a very influential and well organised set of local people who came together to protect their park at its lowest point, and were understandably at first unsure about plans to remove hundreds of trees from the gardens, until Fiona's good communication explained the historic reasons and replacements planned.

Fiona maintains the garden with two - yes two - grounds contractors, but they are supplemented with 25 volunteers in the main garden, and 25 volunteers in the kitchen gardens.

The huge amount of good will and time that has been invested by local people has turned the kitchen garden into a community project, where local school children come to pick and picnic on the fresh produce - tasting their first lettuce in several cases. The gardens are tended by a cheerful group of mostly retired barristers, journalists and other professionals with occasional younger work experience gardeners. They called themselves the Goosefoot Volunteers after the famous patte d'oie layout of the main avenues:

The Greenwich BA Garden Design students who came with me last week were impressed by the restoration and particularly interested in the current exhibition of Rysbrack paintings which show the garden in its original splendour. But what really bowled us all away was the volunteers, and none more so than our Continental European students. A very well educated mature student looked on in disbelief as Fiona spoke of being able to double the volunteers next year; until eventually he raised a question: 'Excuse me... these volunteers, how does it work - is it that they makes for free?' 'Oh yes' said Fiona, 'they all 'makes for free'.'

Wild Windy and Wet with a dash of Wisdom

2010-09-17T13:11:00.003+01:00

Most of my friends think we are barking mad - and I'm not sure about the less friendly, but it is true that camping in the almost guaranteed rain of our West Country is not everyone's idea of a perfect holiday. However that is precisely what my husband and children like to do best, so I follow along each year, getting slightly better at making pancakes in the rain, and charting the location of every local swimming pool with military precision to allow a seemingly opportunistic visit to the shower to tie into each day's outing.

The base for our wild and windy wet week is always my husband's uncle's farm in Devon, at the end of a creek which leads to the sea. On a really wet year when the sea came up to meet our tents, and I worried about my double mattress being washed away (a girl needs one luxury..) my husband was over joyed, as he was able to canoe the whole way down to the sea with my son, as he had every year as a boy.

My husband's uncle is an extraordinary man, and I would like to tell you about him.

He grew up in Trinidad, the son of a wealthy sugar grower, and came back to farm on Church Commission land in Devon as a young adult. The Church said a farmer needs a woman, so my mother-in-law moved in as temporary land girl until a lovely wife was found.

With a non stop enquiring mind John tried all the best methods of farming, which in the fifties and sixties meant all the best chemicals. Gradually he became disenchanted with the divorce between land and husbandry, and began to look into an unusual practice then, called Organic Farming. He started with pigs and a dairy herd. He has left a legacy to his children of one of the best known organic farms in the UK. Riverford Farm now has country wide franchises that send organic boxes (run by son Guy) that include vegetables, milk (run by son Oliver) and meat (cue son Ben) to doorsteps all over England. Marketing is by daughter Rachel and young stock are brought up by daughter Louise.

Time to retire you may think, but John is determined to make this planet a better place, and to that end is experimenting with several types of renewable energy. He has a wind turbine in his orchard, a water wheel in the stream and last year was experimenting with a rather dodgy looking methane gas collecting pit - I had visions of us all going out with a bang in the night.. This year he has invested in a huge swathe of solar panels on his barn roof, and had been experimenting with rendering cattle bones in vats to see how much energy could be produced - this on behalf of some university or other. I was just quite glad he'd finished boiling bones by the time we arrived. He aims to live a carbon neutral life, and survives on a tiny amount of electricity and fuel year. The only time I have seen this kind and smiling man annoyed was a few years ago when one of my children went to the loo in the night, and left the light on..

At 80+ he runs a local organic vegetable gardening cooperative around these polytunnels, with a fabulous crop of veg, all lovingly tended under their half-plastic-bottle cloches and tied up with carefully reclaimed string.

The children were intrigued to hear that this year we were sharing our orchard with a couple of 'Woofers'.
But no cuddly dogs in sight - John had installed a caravan in order to host two intrepid part time workers participating in World Wide Opportunities in Organic Farms, working and learning their way around the UK as they look for a smallholding of their own.

As we left John was preparing to harvest his apples. He was collecting hundreds of recycled bottles to wash and fill with home made apple juice to be made during a bring-your-own apple pressing day he runs locally. All proceeds go to Oxfam. Which as you may tell from the top photo John also supports by buying his clothes.

I think he deserves a knighthood - but it's my guess that Buckingham Palace would be too far in fuel for the carbon footprint to allow.

Baked Washed & Blown Dry? Come for a walk

2010-07-17T16:25:00.001+01:00

We've been baked, jet washed and blown dry in the last few weeks, and the strong winds are still reminding us of staking 'Could-Do-Better's, like this Inula magnifica who looks a little worse for wear in his drunken sea of long grass.

But apart from a bit of tidying up after the storms, the garden is in holiday mood. The season extenders grown from seed have been planted and the weeds are slowing down. The grass has paused in the heat and a sea of clover has taken its place, alive with happy noisy bees, so there's time to walk the dogs..

One of the best things about walking, is the feeling of familiarity as you pass the same spots through the seasons. We don't own the land through title deeds, but we all belong to the land, and in a spiritual way it belongs to us.

Tramping my daily beat with my spaniels circling my heels, I get terribly excited as the first buds on the trees herald the beginning of the end of winter. With the birth of the first lambs I feel triumphant and the arrival of the wild orchids along the side of the road makes me feel protective and then positively subversive as I dream of lying down in the path of the inevitable Council mowing machines.

As I walk I feel grounded and gradually peaceful. Nature is taking its course and all is in its place in this little corner of England's Green and Pleasant land. England seems through my lifetime to have been forever going to war, but it has always been at one remove, in a distant place and often for someone else's quarrels, so despite the news and the brave friends who return, we can be thankful that for many years war has not been to us.

Strange to think then that my favourite fields were once the spring board for D-Day. That the fields of sheep and crops were runways and Nissan huts, and that fierce dog fights took place over my house each day.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, and to commemorate the brave American and Canadian airmen of the Ninth US Air Force and the 2nd Tactical Airforce, our local farmer Roger Munn has allowed a monument to be put up on his land in their memory.

I am very grateful to them for my peaceful walks.

These days the fields are the springboard for dozens of sky larks, jet propelled vertically into the sky as we pass, whilst on the way home the human fly past is almost silent:-

But the dogs have been busy collecting new weed seeds for the garden, so I won't be idle for long..

My thanks to Anni, who lives on the other side of the airfield and who gave me the black and white photos - here she is waving from her top right window:-

Fish in a Dish (washer), Garden Party Sunday

2010-06-28T16:57:00.000+01:00

This time last year I had just about forgiven my husband for landing me in it - barely a week after a public exhibition for which I'd been working all hours, he had volunteered our garden to be open for a charity lunch party. He had charitably told me at the time that I mustn't fuss, or to do any extra work for the opening, but any gardener reading this will know that having your garden open to the smallest of Groups is the horticultural equivalent of a critical inspection of your knicker drawer. We did of course survive the opening and the guests were kind, and I was almost grateful for the injection of fear and adrenalin that had me up at Sparrow's, replanting entire beds that did not quite pass muster in the design department.

What bliss then this year, what relief and joy to be a mere guest, to waltz off without a care or responsibility to someone else's garden party for the same charity luncheon. Of course that would not be quite fair or friendly, so when he asked me to do some salad I was chuffed to have a home for my extra lettuces and all those pretty violas and marigolds. When he asked me to help cook one of the dishes I was domestically docile.. when he appeared with the biggest salmon I have ever seen, and asked me to cook it to perfection for thirty people, I was domestically daunted.

Step in my lovely planting assistant of previous posts, who told me that she always cooks big salmons in the dishwasher. She wasn't joking and google showed me that Alaskan fisher/skaters and English fish-cooking gardeners have a common love of multi-tasking. I didn't go as far as they suggested, and put a load of dirty dishes in at the same time whilst I disappeared off for a skate (weed), but I did wrap the salmon in foil, duly herbed and buttered, and a hot wash later we were barely 5 minutes late for lunch, salmon perfectly cooked.

The garden was a real treat. It is the private project of a clever fellow, born in America but here for years, he apparently retired early to do things that he loves. The garden shows that love, with clever use of colour and bold planting that sets off the Elizabethan walls and enhances the original layout of this beautiful manor house.

Dressed To Kill

2010-06-19T20:12:00.008+01:00

Secateurs, wire-cutters, dust sheet, dirty clothes, trowel and spade - not quite the usual accessories in an evening bag for an soiree at the opera. As I got out of the London taxi at the gates of Holland Park the driver couldn't resist eyeing the handle of my spade sticking out of the bag: 'Going to bury a body are we love?'

Yesterday's client was a site more associated with models than mud, where cuttings mean fabric samples and shoots involve cameras and elegant girls. For my favourite planting assistant the most pressing question for the day was not just what to take, but 'what to wear'?

The space was tight, a fourth floor courtyard on Bond Street, surrounded on all sides by the floor to ceiling glass of directors' offices - having a meeting going on four feet away from us in the afternoon felt like gardening on stage. I'm not sure it's going to make it as a spectator sport, but my lovely assistant does raise the tone when it comes to builder's derriere.

It's a small plot so everyone gets involved in the final detail - from moving planters to shovelling soil and washing pebbles. There is a Japanese theme to this garden with its reflection pool, bonsai Ilex crenata and shoji screen. I wanted to introduce a place of calm and stillness into the whirling world of high class women's wear - the evergreen plants, forms and layout were chosen to represent continuity and communication, for this is business that has survived and thrived as a family firm through turbulent times.

The final build goes well thanks to Chris and his tireless team who have been on site over the past few weeks. After a long day only the lighting remains to be checked, but it won't be dark until ten and my other life calls. There's no time to go back to Kent to change, so I duck into the sumptuous powder room in my muddy smock, and duck out a few seconds later as corporate wife.

The opera was fabulous, the evening as sultry as the girls outside the cigarette factory. Carmen bewitched us all, but in the final scene the taxi driver was right, and there was murder in Holland Park.

(Thanks to Chris for his camera-phone photos)

What nonsense it is to shave it as often as foolish men shave their faces!

2010-06-05T15:47:00.003+01:00

These wise words of William Robinson refer of course to the newly fashionable process of mowing the lawn - newly fashionable in the Victorian era since Mr Budding's lawn mower was invented in the 1820's. These days face-shaving is in fashion in my part of England, but we are reverting happily to the idea of leaving areas of lawn unmown to welcome in the deliciously diverse wildflowers of the past. In fact William Robinson is back in vogue like formica kitchens and miniskirts. I have the 1977 version of the Wild Garden, with forward by the now venerable Robin Lane Fox. In 1977 as now, the 'times were in favour' of cutting down on labour costs. It may be no coincidence with the world recession that there is a new edition of Robinson's book coming out in August - this time with photographs as well as the fabulous original woodcuts.

With 95% of England's meadow pasture gone under the plough and then 'improved' through fertilisation and pesticides we are very lucky in Kent to have Marden Meadow to remind us how it should be done. Owned and managed by the Kent Wildlife trust the three fields of just under 6 acres are easy to drive by, if you miss the discreet butterfly sign by the side of the lane.

Once inside the meadow is a riot of green-winged orchids and meadow buttercup in late May, with thousands of the less showy adder's tongue for the eagle-eyed. These will be followed by pepper saxifrage, dyer’s greenweed and yellow rattle as well as daisies, vetches, and wild grasses. The furthest and original field also has a rare wild service tree, and two ponds. The other two fields were bought in 1999 and are being recolonised gradually. The process is simple, following the ancient hay making patterns, with the hay being cut in late summer, left to stand (dropping its seed) and then removed (talking with it the nutrients not needed). Grazing would have followed in the past, treading in the seed and close cropping the grass to allow the flowers to compete.

William Robinson was also agin the Victorian practice of 'bedding out' of tender plants and in favour of 'placing plants of other countries, as hardy as our hardiest wild flowers, in places where they will flourish without further care or cost. ' Robinson was a great friend of Daisy Lloyd, creator of Great Dixter who followed his methods by mixing native and new, and whose son Christopher continued to make Dixter the Mecca of this methodology today.

Not that Dixter advocates the 'low maintenance' approach, which Christopher Lloyd abhorred, calling it 'low braintenance', but the mixing of native and exotic is nowhere better demonstrated than the old rose garden, where Banana jostles with Rose and Clematis climbs Amicia.

As well as turning the rose garden into a tropical extravaganza Christopher Lloyd let the Topiary lawns grow up, and his head gardener Fergus Garrett is one of the great advocates and gurus of the Wildflower lawn today. At the recent Friends day he explained the the process they use, and showed us the newly re-annexed fields which are being returned to meadow with the help of willingly greedy sheep.

Each area of meadow in the garden has a slightly different flower population, depending on localised conditions. Daisy and Christopher Lloyd famously gathered their orchids from the local countryside - illegal today but perhaps an act of mercy before the sprays of the 1970's got to them. It goes without saying that together with the native orchids and all-important yellow-rattle, you will find intermingled the North American native Camassia and eastern exotic Gladiolus byzantinus, both as happy in Kent as Dixter's Byzantine Head Gardener and its many American friends.

Uplifting mornings

2010-06-04T19:32:00.000+01:00

One gets up earlier and earlier as the days get longer and planting time shorter - so much to do and so much to miss if you snooze!

This is my favourite early morning view, from my bedroom window - and every morning recently I have heard ringing in my ears these beautiful lines from the famous poem:

When you awaken in the morning hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight....

Pilgrimage to Rousham, William Kent's unspoilt masterpiece

2010-05-27T09:11:00.001+01:00

Finding myself in Oxfordshire for a client I did a 2 hour detour to fit in a visit to the best know secret in landscape design - Rousham.

The house was built in 1635 by Sir Robert Dormer and is still in the same family. The garden is open to the public but very quietly so - it needs no introduction to those that know, so the small hand painted yellow sign on a country lane is advert enough, and a refreshing change from the hideous Euro-style brown tourist signs that make a theme park out of our landscape.

An honesty machine takes your money and you are free to wander, map in hand, through the glades and shady walks down to the river Cherwell in the south, or into the exquisite walled kitchen garden nearer the house.

The upper cascade with Venus and cupids. Dedicated to an Englishman's best friend: Ringwood, an 'Otter Hound of extraordinary Sagacity'

The Watery walk, a delight to stumble upon in the woods, as it leads you down to the Cold Bath
and on through to the open glade of the Octagon Pond.

The view from the front of the house is imposing and as was the fashion in the 1730's was designed to 'Bring in the Countryside'.
Laid out by Charles Bridgeman the garden was perfected by William Kent and is a stunning example of the first phase of the English Landscape period.

As the guide pamphlet says:

'Rousham is uncommercial and unspoilt with no tea room and no shop. Bring a picnic, wear comfortable shoes and it is yours for the day.'

The herbaceous borders are behind these walls, a different and delightful world, a purely sensorial antithesis to the more literary woodland journey.

The 11th Century church is next door to the Dovecote - as I arrived they all swirled up into the air and away.

Creativity or Cacophony? Kaleidoscope of Colours at Dixter this week

2010-05-09T12:18:00.001+01:00

Dixter is never boring. The planting design class and I went to look at colour and texture this week, and we were not disappointed with the amount going on!

Beautiful ballerinas in the sunken garden above, drifts of tangy tangerine scent and contrast with the acid green Euphorbia polychroma, quite a tart palette..

Until we met sweet red drifts of crimson tulip, bellis and dusky forget me not.

A regal balance of deep purples and white, leavened by the lighter Honesty behind.

For texture and form the repetition of shapes in the soft leaved Cardoon and the soft pink arching petals is excellent:

This sage and disky lilac was one of my favourites, albeit unusually demure for the Christo/Fergus show!.:

Bronze fennel is on many of my planting plans at the moment, I blame Luciano Giubbilei for his deliciously tactile planting at last year's Chelsea.. I hope my clients remember to cut it back and don't blame me

when it self seeds..

The red -> lilac -> purple path below is a classic foreground -> background palette, and draws you down the path as to a horizon:

White is a tricksy one in many colour combinations, I think it would have worked here if the tulips were limited to the two matching purples, but add the darker and the stray buff pink, and it begins to fall apart..
or do you think the exception enhances the rule?

Again white proves a difficult colour to mix with the brights, here self seeded Honesty:

An utterly classic vision of Spring beauty, Magnolia, Tulip China pink and Forget me nots on the Lutyens steps:

The long border filling up, no visit would be complete without a quick peak at that:

I don't know how wonderful Fergus Garrett is managing to keep going at the moment, he teaches, he gardens, he inspires his team and the house at Great Dixter is undergoing huge renovations at the same time.
There is a Friends' day there on May 17th, which I hope to sneak out to.. so I'll ask him!

For info on visiting and becoming a friend see The Great Dixter website

Finally a fabulous colour combo that Christopher Lloyd would have loved:

The Enchanted Gardener

2010-05-03T09:31:00.002+01:00

There is a mythical sort of gardener that the 'celebrity' gardeners spin us - living an idyllic life of home grown home cooked food in a self decorated house surrounded by beautiful objects all made or found by loved ones.

When the celebrities then offer us a catalogue of all these things to be found around them, and all for sale, the image tarnishes and the reader feels like a child who has bitten into a plastic strawberry. For money cannot buy the life style they are promising, and magazines cannot teach us to be original.

What a breath of fresh air then, a bolt from the skies, to meet a true Enchanted Gardener. An artist by calling and gardener by bent, Charlotte Molesworth lives in a cottage tucked behind a village green hidden from view. The cottage belonged to Cherry Ingram's gardener (He of Japanese Cherry fame - of whom Vita Sackville-West said 'his advice is good enough for me, and should be good enough for anyone').

When Charlotte and her husband arrived there was no garden, and they set about creating rooms and vistas armed with box snippets and cuttings they took themselves.

The result is a delightful haven of exquisite shapes and eccentric structures - a summer house crowned in branches like antlers peers between what could be enormous chess pieces of topiary.

But no Wonderland would exist without an Alice, and the true delight of this visit is to sit and drink a cordial (nettle and aloe with a twist of lemon) and listen to the stories of the making of the garden, the treasures found and put to use, the rescued donkeys in the vegetable patch and chickens in the watering cans.

Charlotte's mother gave her rare primulas and other items were reclaimed from design jobs - a copper urn becomes a water butt and an old tennis court surround makes a fabulous fruit cage.

Charlotte is incredibly generous with her knowledge, a topiary expert and member of the European Box Topiary Society amongst many things, she explains how to take cuttings, and how important it is to study each shrub to see which way it grows before choosing a shape to tame it in to. Larger prunings are used as part of her floristry designs, which she does for weddings and social events.

If invited, a sneaky peak inside the house reveals a mini Charleston, with cupboard doors covered in decoupage and woodblock prints and paintings strung up high into the rafters under the cat slide roof.

The last visit I took there was in February to see the 'bones' of the garden with a Garden Design class - I cannot wait to visit again when the buds have burst in May.

Sissinghurst on a Sunday

2010-04-21T09:56:00.010+01:00

Actually I lied about the Sunday - I would not willingly visit Sissinghurst on a Sunday. It is a hugely successful National Trust Flag Ship, and after a television programme last year which my JP grandmother would have described as 'washing dirty linen in public' and a naughty journalist called 'Adam and Madam', its popularity has even increased, with numbers up 20% last year! So no Sunday visiting for me. Instead I head there as a break in my odd working hours - usually arriving at 5.30pm and returning to my studio as the nice lady from the National Trust begs to be allowed to lock the door and go home.

This visit was particularly prompted by the nice people across the pond who talk gardens at all times of day and night to me via the Blotanical network. It's great to have people all over the world* to whom every bud that opens and every bumble bee that busies itself in your tiny corner of the plant is a cause for daily excitement and joyful sharing - and for whom there can never be enough prattling on about plants! Several messages have said how lucky I am to be 'in the gardening mecca of the world' and several have Sissinghurst and Dixter down as places they want to see before they die. I do feel lucky most days, but this visit was for those that reminded me!

Regardless of the recent publicity, Sissinghurst gardens deserve their fame as a top notch example of 'Good Gardening'. The lawns are immaculate, thanks to Phil and his team, and the beds under the eye of Alexis Datta are beautifully planted, staked, weeded, pruned and mulched. It's a place to take students and to continue be a student too. I take classes there to look at the roses at this time of year. But there are no roses?! True, but the pruning is an exquisite art form in itself!

When I am there it happily tends to look empty like this:-

The Woodland area behind the white garden is full of Scillas, with Magnolia and the Camellia just visible on the wall.

Viola glabella and polyanthus gold laced

Dog's tooth violets Erythronium tuolumnense and E. 'White Beauty' below,
Followed by The hot garden just warming up, Fritillaria rubra maxima is the star of the show at the moment. (Apart from the elegant gentleman in the beret)

Fritillaria verticilliata looks fab in the white garden and the lime avenue is at its best at this time of year with the bulb borders bursting each side. The most unusual Stachyrus chinensis 'Celina' with its hanging bells of flowers is a treat.

My favourites though are the trilliums and the veratrum. Woodland moisture and acid lovers, they carpet the nut walk together with epimedium and hellebores, just delicious. The yellow is Trillium chloropetalum and the deep claret is Trillium sessile.

Sweet buds of Clematis Alpina Ruby to show me the way to the door..

* A very few of the very large cast: (click on the names to see their blogs too!)

Thomas atgroundeddesign, Deborah at Kilbourne Grove, Deborah at Debsgarden, Autumnbelle in Malaysia, Teza in Ontario,Tiggerlot at Thegalloping gardener, Edith Hope in Budapest and London, Michael in Dorset and many many more

The original Secret Garden

2010-04-17T08:57:00.001+01:00

There is a little piece of the Secret Garden in all of us, a yearning for our own patch of peace and solitude, with just a few special friends, be they human or animal, and a smidgeon of order amongst the tangled beauty of a busy life.

Frances Hodgson Burnett tried to find her way into the garden at Great Maytham Hall when she rented it 112 years ago. It was then a 1760's Georgian manor house. Whilst exploring the badly neglected garden, a robin perched on a nearby plum tree showed Frances the way to a rusty door knob overgrown by ivy. It was the door in the garden wall and this inspired her to write 'The Secret Garden' when she returned to America in 1915.

She wrote 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' whilst living here.

.. and I thought of the pauper boy at the gates of the palace looking in..

But it in 1909 Sir Edwin Lutyens concealed the original Secret Garden door behind a pigeon house. He had been commissioned by John Tennant to build a grand country house in the style of Christopher Wren. John Tennant didn't last long, he died collapsed on his billiard table in 1936 - after which the house was sold, and later requisitioned by the government as a school and then for the army in WWII.

The craftsmanship is typical of Lutyens.

Gertrude Jekyll designed the borders, which are now maintained as a communal garden for the private apartments there managed by the Sunley Trust. The views are stunning, and I met a man who had been to view an apartment - apparently there are two for sale - all with original Lutyens fireplaces!

The Bees Knees

2010-04-14T14:05:00.000+01:00

The buff colour tail of Mrs Bombus terrestris (or should that be Ma'am as she is the Queen)

I followed her to an unlikely looking small hole under some leaves which I guess is the new nest-in-progress.

I will be careful not to stick a fork in there in the coming months!

On a neighbouring Skimmia another Queen, this looks like the red tailed Bombus lapidarius.

The skimmia smells like pure honey with the sun on it, I am not surprised it is full of bees. Not as full as our chimney mind you - that is where these honey bees have nested for the past few years - It gets quite noisy sometimes!

Not a real bee but a fly - a Bee Fly - Bombylius major, a fast wee fellow who did his best to elude my lens!

Whether a true bumble bee or just a cuckoo bee? It's all in the hairiness of the legs!
The Bumble Bee Conservation Trust has a super helpful identification webpage if you want to get that close!

Stunning Hole Park - open for the NGS tomorrow

2010-04-13T21:42:00.001+01:00

A quick visit to Hole Park today to see the magnificent Magnolias. Planted 40 years ago the star of the show has reached over 50 foot. They are open for the National Garden Scheme tomorrow, and will soon be open every day for a month for the Bluebell spectacular. Well worth at least one visit for each season.

The view across the fountain pond to the windmill on the left and the cut through on the right.

The entrance to the new area being designed in collaboration with Charlotte Molesworth, more of which soon.

The woodland garden, full of Magnolia , Camellia, and Azalea to come. With a carpet of Narcissus, Primrose and Scilla (below)

40 years old and over 50 foot high!

Early morning posting

2010-04-13T14:43:00.001+01:00

So much is happening now in the garden that the early postman begins to catch me crouched outside under a shrub at a strange angle in my dressing gown, camera in hand!..

Primula vulgaris - so sweet and so stalwart

The peonies are about to cover and hide their twiggy support

Pulmonaria 'Sissinghurst White'

Pulmonaria Lodden's Blue amongst the prolific primrose

Daphne, so tiny but the scent carries so far

Epimedium may offer viagra alternative?!

2010-04-13T10:35:00.000+01:00

Epimedium alpinum

Epimedium x versicolor 'Flowers of Sulphur'

I was very amused to see the following Wickipedia entry on the humble Epimedium that I was admiring in the garden this morning:

Epimedium, also known as Rowdy Lamb Herb, Barrenwort, Bishop's Hat, Fairy Wings, Horny Goat Weed, or Yin Yang Huo (Chinese: 淫羊藿), is a genus of about 60 or more species of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Berberidaceae. The large majority are endemic to southern China, with further outposts in Europe, and central, southern and eastern Asia.

Epimedium species are hardy perennials. The majority have four-petaled "spider-like" flowers in spring. Many are believed to be aphrodisiacs, particularly horny goat weed*

* "Horny Goat Weed may offer Viagra alternative". www.meeja.com.au. 2008-09-30. Retrieved 2008-09-30

I was actually only innocently looking up its provenance, and the Chinese connection explains why we have had such a bumper flowering this spring, after the unusually hard Kentish winter.

Sissinghurst Place

2010-04-11T17:53:00.001+01:00

A few patches of sun this afternoon allowed a visit to Sissinghurst Place, open for charity under the National Garden Scheme. The kindly owner greeted us in his deliciously battered panama with the words 'You do know you're not at Sissinghurst Castle don't you?'.

We did and were allowed through what would once have been the entrance to a very grand house, but now houses a swimming pool amongst ruined walls.

A fire in 1948 gutted the main house, leaving the owners to live, as our host put it: ' In the Servants' Wing, but without the servants'. Vita Sackville-West apparently watched the fire and used it in her writing of 'The Easter Party'.

The Easter lambs were again gambolling happily in the field beyond the haha today, the hedges and woodland walks allowing frequent views out into the Kent countryside.

The gardens were a delightful mixture of formal structure and less formal shrubberies and bulbs planted into long grass, which Julie explained are gradually replacing the more time-consuming beds and fiddly mowing areas.

The atmosphere of old world charm and elegance was only momentarily dented by my asking permission to include photographs of the garden in my blog. They graciously agreed but for a moment I felt as though I had arrived from outer space!

For details of this and other gardens open for charity by very generous owners, please follow this link:
http://www.ngs.org.uk/

Timelessness

2010-04-09T12:39:00.003+01:00

Today is the funeral of Elspeth Thompson. In her writings she painted a wonderful picture of her life; of a gardener's life as it could be, which makes it all the more difficult to bear the fact that all was not harmony and joy for her, as she made it seem for us.

It has made me think about why we write articles, share blogs and even create beautiful gardens. It seems to me that people who see beauty acutely tend to see and feel pain sharply too. By seeking the beautiful and sharing it we share some of the comfort and joy which we find there. By surrounding ourselves with lovely living things it makes the harder facts of life easier to bear, it puts small disappointments in context and allows us time to reflect on the larger picture. By giving a little happiness we are happier ourselves.

Much as we try to create beauty and harmony though all gardeners know that they cannot control all things. I take a little comfort from that too, allowing my usual trail of unfinished projects and general chaos to gently remind me that perfection is unattainable.

No photo of my own garden could do such an inspiring person justice, so in memory of Elspeth's timeless qualities here are two images of a landscape which remind me that they are made by another hand.

Advanced Planting Design at Godinton

2010-03-08T16:10:00.001Z

Do I need a licence to cut down trees?

2009-11-24T17:09:00.009Z

A query from a worried lady today regarding cutting down a dangerous-looking tree over her drive. With a local man killed by a falling tree last night one can understand her concern.
Does she need a licence to cut it down if it does not have a TPO (tree preservation order). What are the situations in which she would not need a licence? (ie Exemptions)
In answer the guidelines from the Forestry Commission are helpful and clear, so I reproduce them here:
Exemptions

Felling Licence exemptions can be grouped in the following way:

Location
Type of tree work
Volume and diameter
Other permissions
Legal and statutory requirements

Use the information below to check whether a licence is required.
Please contact the Forestry Commission before felling to check that
a licence is not necessary.
To find out the address of your nearest Forestry Commission office click here.

Exemptions
Location	You do not need a licence to fell trees in: a garden an orchard a churchyard or a designated open space (Commons Act 1899)
Type of Tree Work	You do not need a licence to carry out: lopping topping pruning pollarding
Volume and Diameter	You do not need a licence: To fell less than 5 cubic metres in a calendar quarter (Please note that you cannot sell more than 2 cubic metres in a calendar quarter) For trees that have the following diameters when measured 1.3 metres from the ground 8 cm or less 10 cm or less for thinnings 15cm or less for cutting coppice
Other Permissions	You do not need a licence if you have a current permission under: An approved Dedication Scheme plan Planning permission (granted under the Town and Country Planning Act)
Legal and statutory requirements	You do not need a licence if you need to fell trees: that are dangerous or to prevent a nuisance to prevent the spread of a quarantine pest or disease in accordance with a notice served by a Forestry Commission Plant Health Officer to comply with an Act of Parliament to enable you to carry out work as a statutory undertaker

Tree Felling - Getting Permission (1748k - pdf)
Charter standard statement for felling licensing (201k - pdf)
Felling licence application forms :
England (86k - pdf)
Scotland (86k - pdf)
Wales (80k - pdf)

Natural Swimming Pool

2009-11-22T21:42:00.002Z

I loved designing this natural swimming pool. They are becoming more and more popular in the UK, having been around on the continent for some time. Combining natural filters and oxygenating plants, a natural swimming pool will cleanse itself without the need for chemicals like chlorine. Plants insects and the environment all benefit - not to mention the joy of being without 'green' summer blonds and bleach-scented skin! The technology is taking off, and it is now possible to have natural swimming pool with a regeneration (planted) area as this one, or one with natural filters alone if space is very tight. (Double click for a larger image)

Day Flower

2009-11-18T16:12:00.003Z

Several people have asked the name of the plant on the new Garden Studio Course information cards (for dates and details see courses).
It is a Commelina coelestis or Day Flower - A fast-growing herbaceous perennial from Mexico with mid-green, lance-shaped leaves. Throughout the summer it bears these unusually bright blue flowers with yellow pistils and long curved stamen, each lasting only a day. I love the colours and also it fits so well with my gardening philosophy: Carpe Diem!

Four thousand years in the making of Sissinghurst - KGT Talk on December 3rd

2009-11-12T12:56:00.004Z

Four thousand years in the making of Sissinghurst

3^rd December 2009 7pm

Kent Gardens Trust

Tom Turner, Landscape Architect and Garden Historian teaches at Greenwich University and is the author of many books including Garden History – Philosophy & Design 2000 BC to 2000 AD. He will talk about the garden at Sissinghurst and the origins of the ideas it represents. Tom is also author of the excellent GardenVisit website.

Venue in Lenhman, Kent. Tickets and info can be obtained from the Secretary

Tel. 01233 811611

Lest We Forget

2009-11-11T10:57:00.002Z

I wrote about this garden on the GardenVisit website, but here I can post many more pictures and give a better overall feel for what the father and son duo of landscape architects are trying to do at Sericourt. Located in Picardie, France near the fields of Azincourt and Flanders, Yves Gosse de Gorre and his son have created a garden full of topiary poetry and symbols that explore the nature of man in this battle scarred land. The structure is dramatic, softened by thousands of roses in the Spring and Summer, with swathes of poppies lest we forget.

It's a garden of metaphors, some literal, some vague. Edgy and thoughtful, but with humour never far away.

The Armies of Yew soldiers, Two armies face each other and also look rather uncannily like tombstones.

The Council of War

The 'Avenue of Humanity'

A Dove of Peace takes flight

A Cross marks hope in an area filled with billowing flowers.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)

Medlar Jelly

2009-11-10T18:15:00.002Z

A beautiful day to be out harvesting on Saturday, then a dank day to be indoors preserving on Sunday - in some ways a perfect weekend! Medlar jelly is such a beautiful clear rich colour and tastes delicious with cheese or by itself on toast. My children also like it with a Sunday roast.
By picking up the windfalls some are soft and some are hard - you need both for jelly as the soft are sweet and the hard have more pectin to help the set.
I use the old Constance Spry recipes for this kind of thing, they are so simple and no-nonsense.
Here is her adapted recipe which will also do for crab apple, apple, blackberry and apple and unripe quinces:
Wash whole medlars, just cover with water and bring to boil then simmer until pulpy.
Strain for a few hours through a jelly bag. (Don't squeeze the bag as it makes the jelly cloudy)
Measure the juice and add 1lb granulated sugar per pint of juice.
Add the pared rind and juice of a lemon or two to taste.
Bring to the boil slowly, stirring, then boil rapidly until a teaspoon on a cold saucer will set.
Pour into warm sterilised jars.
I have seen medlars in the local deli and farm shop this week - so if you don't have a tree yet you can still have a go!

Use manure now?

2009-11-05T18:18:00.003Z

A very modern query today - by text no less from Mrs R in Benenden Kent:
"Would I be able to put horse dung straight from field around hornbeam hedge and veg patch as it has no straw or hay to rot down?"
The short answer is no. Whilst it is important to add organic matter to your soil to improve the structure, manure needs to be at least a year old before being used. Until then it is too acidic and will scorch the plants, it will have weed seeds which have not been killed by the heat of the rotting process (this can be a problem even with rotted manure if the heap has not heated up enough) and finally it may pong a bit!
Mrs R would be better off starting a compost heap to mix the manure with other garden waste to get a good balance, and wait until it breaks down, when it will have a lovely friable texture, will smell like earth and be full of valuable nutrients - gardeners' gold!
We will be covering soil, manures and mulches together with planting techniques on Tuesday February 2nd 2010 - see our courses page for details

le Jardin de Maizicourt

2009-11-04T17:44:00.004Z

An amazing find in the heart of Picardie, not far from the lovely walled town of Montreuil which is full of illustrious restaurants and hotels. (Have a look at Chateau de Montreuil, la Grenouillere and the less Michelin-endorsed but equally delicious son of: Froggy's - away from gastronomie and back to gardens..) the Jardin de Maizicourt has been created since 1989 by the current bubbly owner Catherine Guévenoux, who bought the house with 'trees growing through the walls'.

She has restored the dovecote, installed parterres and a terrace around the house, and instigated wonderful planting based on broad brushes of shrubs with herbaceous planting below. Sedums, hydrangeas and roses are planted against box and yew in large swathes to create an ambience of calm and decorated order. Catherine Guévenoux claims inspiration from her travelling childhood which included time in Bristol and Morocco.

Like some of the other best Normandy gardeners she must also have been inspired by the Princesse Sturdza who started the local trend for high pruning (see Le Vasterival) . At Maizicourt Catherine has lifted the skirts of the bosque to 20ft, allowing light in whilst keeping out the heat of the midday sun. She has planted ivy as ground cover and studded the view with whimsical topiary below.

Jobs for Autumn - Prune Roses

2009-10-23T19:57:00.002+01:00

Garden Studio old hands have been asking me to remind them what to do in the garden now, so it's time for a few posts about what has been going on here: firstly Pruning Climbing and Rambling roses.

Climbers and ramblers can put on several feet in a season. The aim of pruning is to cut out dead diseased and damaged shoots, and to bring the vigorous shoots as near as possible to horizontal. This will allow new flowering shoots to grow at all levels of the plant, so you get lots of visible flowers rather than just a few waving about at the top.

So, cut out the ddd (dead diseased and damaged) choose the best new vigorous shoots and tie them in sideways, using a figure of eight with string or soft tie (and never just shoving them behind a wire and hoping for more time next week...)

When you have a lovely fan shape against a wall, or up a pergola, you can then prune all shoots off these main stems back to two or three buds to encourage flowers.

It's safest to put cuttings on the bonfire to prevent spread of blackspot etc. As you have removed biomass don't forget to replace it and feed with a nice mulch of well rotted manure or garden compost..

Any questions, email me!

Le Jardin Plume

2009-10-14T16:25:00.003+01:00

I vividly remember my sense of injustice and disappointment when a university tutor dismissed the French Romantic poetry I was raving about as ‘cliché’. I had only just met it, and I thought it was wonderful. Please then, go to see this wonderful garden before it becomes cribbed, copied, and eventually clichéd. It is so new and so original, yet the formula is old, because this garden takes the best principles of the past and applies them in a strikingly modern way.

Sylvie and Patrick Quibel are hortics who built the garden to promote their nursery. Now the nursery funds the garden, and the garden has been voted Garden of the Year by Those That Know.

It is on flat ground in the middle of farm land in Normandy, a climate similar to ours in England, so plenty of scope for copying. The Quibels based the design on the principles used at Vaux le Vicomte by Le Notre (a design so successful that the Sun King jealously imprisoned the owner, stole the chateau, and got the designer to do him Versailles). There are grand allées, formal hedging and tightly clipped parterres. The house is raised above the land, and extra land is ‘borrowed’ by carrying the eye seamlessly into countryside beyond. There is a potager as purely ornamental as Marie Antoinette’s, a pool to reflect the heavens, and secluded spots for indulgent reverie. So far so déjà vue, but what makes the garden modern is the way all this is done.

The raising of the house is by one sole brick step, and that is the only new hard landscaping to be seen. The allées are wide paths in an orchard, mown between geometric squares filled with tall grasses and colourful perennials. Thus French formality is wittily contrasted with the billowing grasses which play so well to the wind swept site .The Quibels saw them as undulating and continued the metaphor by clipping the formal hedges into waves.

The parterre in front of the house is filled with the Summer garden - a jumble of hot colours and tall shapes including over 8 different types of Helenium - on close inspection each bed of the parterre has a side missing, ‘to let in the air’. This looks out onto the orchard, and beneath an enormous apple tree, the reflection pool, which is a simple square cut in place of one of the grass cubes in the orchard.

There are traditional box balls in the Spring garden, but there are over twenty of them, of varying sizes and interplanted with mainly whites such as hellebore and solomon’s seal, astrantia and pulmonaria, all brought alive with the lightest scattering of Molinia ‘Fontane’ dancing above.

The Autumn garden is hidden behind hedges on the west side of the house, and Patrick describes how they built the arbour as this is the best spot to enjoy an evening aperitif. In front of the arbour an enormous ‘table’ of box separates the diners from the crowd of ‘vivaces’, a brightly coloured jostling jungle of perennials, with annuals and grasses, mostly over six foot tall. The Quibels site Dixter as an influence, and like Christopher Lloyd and Fergus Garrett they plant in associations. They will try out groupings in situ until they are happy with a combination, when they repeat it again and again, so that the result is harmonious, whilst looking natural. In the spring everything is cut to the ground, weeds removed and, like Dixter, self-seeders scrutinised and allowed tenancy where they enhance the original planting.

As nurserymen the Quibels were influenced by Priona in Holland, and they propagate a huge range of new perennial style plants such as Aster, Cimicifuga, Veronicastrum, Cirsium, Epilobium Sanguisorbas and Thalictrums and wonderful grasses including their own self seeded Miscanthus ‘saturnia’, a luminous white flowering possible love child of Miscanthus ‘Silver feather’ which is similar but heavier.

It is this mixture of formal and natural, control and laissée faire, old fashioned structure and twenty-first century planting that makes this garden special. It is a very sensual garden, crammed full of colours, scents and movement, and the French are very sensual about their plants. Nursery catalogues talk of finding the plants that have ‘seduced’ you in the gardens, and to overhear the eager replies to Patrick’s question ‘Do you want it?’ (vous le voulez?) in the nursery, you can see why.

The Quibels will be speaking at the Garden Museum on October 20^th www.gardenmuseum.org.uk

(this blog has also appeared on www.gardenvisit.com )

Great Dixter Garden

2009-10-14T07:08:00.008+01:00

Great Dixter looks wonderful in October - yesterday it was noisy with bees, butterflies and all things winged. Like me they were feasting before the winter.

Les Jardins d'Angelique

2009-10-09T16:31:00.007+01:00

How do you describe a garden made in the memory of a daughter who died at nineteen? Romantic hardly seems appropriate, and yet this garden is not a sad or tragic place at all. The enormous energy and empathy of Angelique's mother Mme Gloria Lebellegard is everywhere evident. Since her husband died she tends to the garden they created together almost alone.

The style is romantically abundant, with paths to follow through many types of hydrangeas, under amelanchier and pear tree underplanted with a delicious medley of euonymus, aster, phlox, molinia and miscanthus and evidence of earlier foxgloves astrantias, peony and snapdragon. Roses and clematis scramble through the trees, and whimsical corners and well-placed seats invite reflection and rest, especially the sweet rose arbour planted with hostas and ferns beside babbling cool stream.

The garden created in Angelique's memory was so successful that coach loads can now visit and be treated to home cooked lunch in the old orangerie. A new formal garden has been added to the back of the 17th century chateau, but whilst this adds to the visit and is successful in design terms, you can tell where all the love is invested.

Les Jardins d’Angélique
Route de Lyons
76520 Montmain (between Rouen & Lyons la Forêt)
tel 02 35 79 08 12

Salvias at Sissinghurst

2009-10-09T15:01:00.011+01:00

It's always good to see what colour is still going at 'professional' gardens, and this week the Salvias at Sissinghurst took the prize. Not all are fully hardy and not all will tolerate wet clay unless, as at Sissinghurst, it has been well worked and improved. These are some of my favourites:The crazy 1970's furry velveteen bicolored Salvia leucantha. I had a bridesmaid's dress this colour in 1972 and the bride wore a mini dress!

Sweet little Salvia Greggii x Lycioides, useful for a pot or raised bed where you can get close to the delicate flowers.
Clear blue Salvia 'Cambridge Blue', delicately beautiful against the yew hedge.
Another crazy furry Salvia, this time S.convertifolia, if it had a cultivar I'd want to call it 'hot lips'!
Spires of Salvia convertifolia in the hot garden
Better known Salvia fulgens, still hot but not as furry.
Salvia farinacea 'Victoria', more floriforous than some of the others with a lovely clear blue.
Salvia uliginosa, one of the most popular and you can see why.
Salvia semiatrata, a great pink that worked well with Dahlia 'Michigan'
Salvia coahuilensis, syn Salvia greggii 'Purple'

Salvia Guaranitica 'Purple Majesty', the largest and most majestic, fittingly, of the lot.

New for 2010

2009-10-09T13:38:00.004+01:00

The Nice people at Godinton have asked me to teach over there.

Numbers are filling up fast, which is even nicer!

Glorisosa rothschildiana, Zimbabwe's Flower

2009-09-22T22:09:00.006+01:00

Thinking of our family still farming flowers in Zimbabwe I planted this Gloriosa rothschildiana, or Zimbabwe national flower, in May, expecting to put it by the front door once the tubers flowered. It made me smile so much scrambling through the tomatoes though that I decided to keep it all to myself in the greenhouse. A stunner I shall propagate to have in both places next year!

Lily beetle

2009-06-18T11:39:00.003+01:00

It's worth a daily tour to pick any bright red lily beetles off your prize lilies. The parents are bad enough but the offspring are voracious feeders, hiding under the leaves and covering themselves in a sleeping bag of larval goo..

Tomato leaves

2009-06-18T11:19:00.003+01:00

Silence is golden, but dull on a blog. I have been biting my tongue whilst trying to do finals, NSPCC lunch (thanks if you came - it raised over £2700) and organise the MALA exhibition, but cannot resist 2 mins to answer a question on tomatoes.

What did I mean by stripping the leaves up to the first truss?

Because Tomatoes are the battery hens of the veg world, forced in pots to produce as much fruit as poss and then chucked out after a - well loved and organic of course - life, they can get too crowded in the greenhouse, stopping air flow, promoting fungus and blight. So, if you remove all the leaves up to the first truss you let the air flow around the plants, and also encourage the sap up to the first truss without the nutrients dallying on the way to feed the lower leaves.

Gardens... should be like lovely well-shaped girls, all curves, secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive surprises and then still more curves.

2009-05-10T20:52:00.011+01:00

(A quotation from H.E. Bates' A Love of Flowers)

So much of garden design is linked to other arts. This planting strategy is based on zones and plant needs - it is for a natural swimming lake and green-roofed holiday homes near the sea - but the inspiration was the Indian Tree of Life with perhaps a nod to Burle Marx.

Potting on tomatoes

2009-04-27T07:52:00.008+01:00

Tomatoes sown in January may well be ready for potting on now.

We left them in modular pots both to save space in the greenhouse and to slightly stress them into flowering. Once they are flowering they can go into grow bags or pots.

I use builder's buckets with holes drilled in the bottom as they only cost £1 each and hold water and nutrients better than grow bags. Fill them with home-made, multipurpose or specialist grow-bag compost. Tomatoes are thirsty and greedy, so you will need to feed them once a week once the flowers have turned to fruit.

Keep them inside until all risk of frost has passed. In warm wet weather keep an eye out for tomato blight which turns the leaves and then stems black and destroys both tomato and potatoes. If you get blight all is not lost - pick off all the leaves and destroy them, give the plants a good feed and they may well recover. (Spraying with copper sulphate or mancozeb is an option but I have managed with just feeding in the past)

Tomatoes in modules waiting to flower

Tomato flower:

Pinch out any side shoots as they appear:

Tomatoes in builders' buckets need less frequent watering than grow bags, but it is important to water regularly still to prevent blossom end rot and split fruit. Note the stake as they will need tying in to a support as they grow.

Taking Cuttings

2009-04-27T06:41:00.008+01:00

Now is a great time to take cuttings of tender plants like pelargoniums, as they will have time to root and grow on under cover before being planted out after the last frost (mid May in Kent)

Use a 50:50 mix of perlite and multi-purpose compost. The plant will not need much food, drainage and support and more important.

Fill a 3cm pot with the mixture and water thoroughly

Tap the pot firmly, but do not push down on the compost itself

Choose a healthy stem and cut below a node. Preferably a non-flowering stem, otherways cut the flower out.

Take this cutting and remove one of the leaves - so the plant has less to keep alive and can concentrate on rooting

With a clean sharp knife cut across the stem below the node

Dip the cutting in hormonal rooting powder with a fungicide

Use a dibber to make a hole

Firm the cutting in, so that it will be well supported by the compost but have access to plenty of air within the perlite/compost mixture

You can fit 2 or 3 in a pot, make sure the leaves are not touching as this may cause them to rot

Seal them inside a plastic bag with an elastic bag and water from the bottom - here they have capillary matting in the greenhouse, but an occasional saucer of water would also do the job - they will not lose too much moisture because of the plastic bag, so don't overwater - rot is the main enemy!

Take the bag off once they are rooted, they will then grow away incredibly quickly.

Scented tulips

2009-04-21T07:57:00.011+01:00

I have filled this garden with Ballerina tulips, one of the few scented varieties. It has a smell like a very sweet tangerine, that wafts across the garden in the evening sun.

2009-04-14T11:47:00.006+01:00

Metamorphosis - Emerging Landscapes. Greenwich University's Post-Graduate Landscape Architecture Students will exhibit their Finals projects at the Menier Gallery 22^nd- 27^th June 2009.

This year's exhibition combines the best of the moment design with the current concern for sustainable impact planning. From an Eco-town in Uganda, to a design for 'Boris Johnson Airport' in the Thames Estuary, an Urban National Park for Bucharest to an Earthparc on the Isle of Sheppey, a design for the Elephant and Castle, to a new waterfront for Liverpool, in all twenty five projects will be on show.

The postgraduate students come from many countries and many disciplines and bring their skills to bear on serious projects for a productive future. All have a first degree and many have industry experience, which shows in the maturity and creativity of the landscapes on show. All are concerned with creating landscapes which respond to our current worldwide issues, be they flood management, urban regeneration or wildlife conservation.

Schemes are enterprising and ambitious, showing a diversity of creative and exciting solutions for some of our planet's current issues.

The Show runs from 22nd - 27th June 2009, entry is free.

For more information please contact Marian@MarianBoswall.com

Menier Gallery

51 Southwark Street
London SE1 1RU
Phone: 020 7407 3222
www.meniergallery.co.uk
Hours: 10am to 6pm, Mon to Sat
Admission free
Nearest tube: London Bridge
Located in Bankside, minutes from Borough Market and the Tate Modern.

Weedlings 2

2009-03-22T19:58:00.004Z

Alkanet, the little white spots on the leaves give it away -

it has an effective blue flower and is used as a border plant

but self seeds like mad and I am not that fond of it.

If you like it just make sure you dead head it before it goes to seed!

The humble nettle!

Cleaver, the dogs bring endless burrs into the garden, but they are easy enough to pull up if you get 'em young

A baby dock, with a mega tap root hiding below..

Ground Elder, those darn Romans brought it over to cure gout!

Garden Studio notes - Pricking Out Seedlings

2009-03-22T19:20:00.008Z

Hold the seedling by a seed leaf and gently ease out of the compost with a dibber or plant label

Firm in gently and water from below

Looking good in late February

2009-03-22T19:10:00.003Z

Weedling or Seedling? Below are weedlings in my book, which means that they are thugs if left to their own devices..

2009-03-22T18:54:00.010Z

Creeping buttercup, Ranunculus repens

Arum Lily, Lords and Ladies, white flower followed by (poisonous) red berries, a prolific self seeder.

Arum

Celandine, a pretty yellow flower but better in a woodland setting than in the borders, make sure you get the tiny bulbils or it will be back!

Looking good in early February

2009-02-27T11:28:00.005Z

Garden Studio Seed Sowing Notes - Small Seeds

2009-02-26T21:33:00.009Z

As promised photographic notes to accompany the small seed sowing session:

1. Overfill your tray with a mixture of about 50:50 compost and vermiculite. If using multipurpose compost remove any large lumps or fibres. Push into the corners and refill them to prevent slumping.

2. Use a sawing action from middle to edges to remove excess compost

3. Firm down gently, turn tray around and firm gently again

4. Water with a fine rain, or stand in water to allow it to be absorbed from the bottom.

If you are sowing early or in conditions of low light and cold, spray with copper sulphate to prevent damping off.

5. Sprinkle seed evenly across compost.

You can mix very fine seed with sand to make this easier.

6. Cover with a fine layer of compost mixture

7. Label and put in a sealed plastic bag or under a lid, in temperature as per seed packet or seed requirements. You may not have to water until germination, just check the compost is damp to the touch. If compost becomes dry water from the bottom.

Place either in the light or under a piece of paper to exclude the light as per packet.

Remove plastic lid when you see seed leaves.

Next notes: pricking out

Audacious New Rock Garden at Doddington

2009-02-25T22:16:00.013Z

The scale of Doddington’s new Rock garden is not immediately apparent. As you enter the gates from the formal sunken garden where picnics are held on midsummer’s evenings it looks as though you might be treated to a small rockery with alpines, which might be upstaged by the glorious views across the parkland. Look left though and a series of ponds, mature Cordylines, a quarry face cascade and a picturesque sunken path a la Aysgarth make you realise you are in an authentic Edwardian restoration

Amicia and Richard Oldfield are developing the garden with the passion of the designer-owner. As well as the snowdrop and bluebell walks, acid-loam woodland (unusual on the chalk downs) and famous billowing yew hedges there is talk of a future stumpery and arboretum.

The folly has been described as a ‘bit of Hampton Court’, and the intimate room at the top of a muralled spiral staircase would be the perfect spot for a romantic tryst.

The Oldfields are not confined to recreating the past however, as shown by the bold and effective mirrored millennium sundial. Amicia's style is 'full of whimsy' - watch the website to see if a castellated yew becomes a future reality.

Garden opens for the 2009 season on Easter Sunday

http://www.doddingtonplacegardens.co.uk