A Symphony Of Colour

As gardeners, we’re always looking forward and planning. We look forward to when our particular favourite plants will come into season. We anticipate when various flowers will go to seed and perhaps collect the seeds for the following year.

We plan for the next season, together with the new phase of plants that will appear in our gardens and we even make plans for our gardens for when we’re away on holiday.

It’s already high summer and it won’t be long before autumn is here with its abundance of gold, yellow and brown colours. However, for the time being, lets enjoy what the month of August has for us with regards to the spectacular splendour of colours that are around us in gardens everywhere.

Around now, many people tend to go for a rich kaleidoscope of colours which bombard the senses, however a part of the garden with a more subdued hue can make a garden look quite exquisite.

I think that it’s a nice idea to set aside a part of the garden where you have cooler colours during this time of the year with perhaps an area with more moody darker colours too. If planning such a cool area, then consider the Hosta “Midas Touch” with its leaves of yellow almost appearing to be dissolving into a delicate light green. Do remember though that it’s not only you who will like this particular plant, but so will the slugs and snails as they regard this plant as a gastronomic delight. Another plant that goes well in a cool area, and coincidentally another slug and snail favourite is the Veratrum Viride, with its lovely lush pleated foliage.

There are such wonderful moody coloured plants around now too. One particular elegant looking climber you can see around now is the Clamatis heracleifolio “Wyvale” with its deep purple flowers and its leaves which are a rich blue tinged green. If you have this in your garden, then remember that it needs to be cut back hard in the autumn and that way you’ll be rewarded next year with a bounty of flowers. Nice light blue coloured shrubs around now include the Hydrangea macrophylla “veitchii” which has nice blue flowers with outer florets of white fading to pink and is suitable to most types of gardens as it is lime-tolerant.

In my own garden I have the Perovskia atriplicifolia “Blue Spire”. This is a wonderfully graceful looking shrub with lavender-blue flowers, aromatic grey foliage and forms a lovely almost translucent mist of blue, especially when blown by a gentle breeze.

Although this time of the year is often the brightest and most colourful in many gardens, why not plan something different for next year with some “moody blues” and some cool tones?

Go on, be daring.

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© Copyright Judy Fenyvesi

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Holiday… Vacation… The Outside Room…

Well, the holiday season is truly here and it’s that time of the year when we can enjoy our gardens. The garden as an “outside room” really comes into its own when used for socialising with family, friends and their children spending many hours in the garden. There’s something special about lazily sitting around in the garden during an evening after a barbecue and watching the embers die down as the sun goes down. As well as for socialising this time of the year, gardens can also be a place of freedom and adventure where children can learn and start to understand about nature.

Why let your children get bored during the summer holidays when you could let them help you with some of the gardening jobs? Providing you keep safety in mind, why not give them a small area of the garden and let them create a mini garden? Let them plant their own plants and in the same way that children can learn much about responsibility by owning a pet, I believe that children can learn as much by having their own patch in the garden that they are responsible for. Kids love water, so why not get them to help with the watering? In fact, any help with watering this time of the year is very welcome indeed! Have your children help you this way around the garden and they’ll soon understand about, or better still, help with dead-heading! “So just why do plants grow better when you take the flowers off?”

This time of the year is also a great time for getting free plants and if you haven’t done so, have a go at propagating new plants from cuttings. You can take cuttings from tender perennials such as fuchsias, pelargoniums, osteospermum, verbena and marguerites. Also you can take cuttings from shrubs and houseplants too, pot them up into small pots and grow them on through the winter until next spring on a warm windowsill.

Its never too late to start growing your own crops and during August you can sow root vegetables such as turnips and beetroot, also you can get some salad crops going too, like lettuces, spring onions and radishes.

Other jobs to be getting on with in the garden this month include keeping the lawn under control with regular mowing, but do remember not to cut grass too short during dry spells as it could dry out too much. Slow growing evergreen hedges can be given a trim to keep them neat and tidy. Other shrubs that can be pruned this time of year to keep them from out-growing their allotted spaces include shrubs like deutzia, laurel, philadelphus, and weigela.

If you have Wisteria, then you might like to know that you can induce and promote flowering on a your Wisteria by pruning. Now is the time to shorten all long shoots growing out from the main framework back to approximately 6 leaves and then again in winter shorten those shoots further. That way, hopefully next season you’ll get an abundance of wonderfully scented cascading blooms.

If you would like a burst of bright autumn colour then look out for the autumn crocus bulbs, Colchicum and autumn daffodil, called Sternbergia as soon as they are available and plant them in your borders now.

It’s always nice to be a little self-indulgent around this time of the year and simply enjoy being in the garden relaxing. Many people spend so much time working in their gardens they tend to forget to do that one thing that’s great to do on a hot balmy summer’s day… nothing!

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© Copyright Judy Fenyvesi

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The Right Place At The Right Time

Apologies for not updating recently, but I’ve been lucky enough to have visited the recent Hampton Court Flower Show as well as Tatton Park.  It’s also a busy time of the year in my own garden… what a wonderful excuse

Anyway, what type of soil do you have in your garden?

In some parts of the UK you’ll have clay soil which fortunately is highly fertile, however, the down side is that clay soil sticks together making drainage very slow and in hot weather clay soil dries out and compacts. The solution to this is to add grit or to dig in coarse organic matter.

Luckily enough, there is a large selection of shrubs that will quite happily grow in clay soil. For a sunny position you can go for Berberis darwinii which has cluster of orange flowers in spring followed by black berries. Also many brooms, or the Cytisus will tolerate clay soil. For some heavenly scent go for the Philadelphus, common name of Mock Orange. Other clay-loving shrubs include Escallonia, Spiraea, Potentilla and Weigela to name just a few.

There are some good hardy shrubs that will tolerate both clay soil and partial shade like the Aucuba japonica, the Spotted Laurel with lovely glossy green leaves with bright yellow blotches. For some early spring flowering colour the Chaenomeles, Ornemental Quince is a lovely shrub and Choisya ternata, is an evergreen shrub with aromatic foliage and white flowers. These are just a few shrubs that will grow in clay soil and you’re sure to find many more.

We all have parts in our gardens that get less sun than the rest, however the combination of the type of shade, together with the type of soil is also very important. Do you have full or partial shade with dry or moist soil? Once you know, it’s quite easy to narrow down the choice of plants that will do well in a particular area.

A stunning plant with bold foliage for a moist partial to full shade site is the Hosta, but be aware that slugs and snails love this plant too. Most Ferns like moist shade, but there are just a few that you can get for dry shade.

Dry shade is regarded as a difficult site to grow plants in, as it may be under a dense leafy tree canopy or in the rain shadow of a brick wall or building. This kind of soil could be improved by covering it with organic mulch and watering the area. Luckily, there are plants that will quite happily tolerate this type of condition. As I wrote last week, it’s a good idea to see what plants grow where in nature in order to give us some idea of where to plant them in our gardens. So, plants that are going to thrive in dry shade are varieties that grow in woodland areas. Some plants which do like dry shade areas include Lily of the Valley, latin name of Convallaria majalis, Dicentra the Bleeding Heart, Iris foetidissima and the hardy Geranium known to some as Cranesbill.

I hope that I’ve helped you learn a little more about plants and why they prefer certain areas of the garden. So, the next time you go shopping for new additions to your garden, remember that each plant has it’s own preferred home. It’s up to you to give it the right environment, one that will keep it healthy and happy.
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A Plug For My Husband’s Podcast

Here’s a shameless plug for my husband’s new podcast.

Visit www.newforestpodcast.co.uk

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A Twist Of Orange And A Dash Of Lime!

If your planting colour is looking a bit drab, how about adding a twist of lemon, some orange and a dash of lime?

Creating a well thought out colour planting scheme in a garden can really give it some pizazz and liven it up. How about a lime green planting border with vivid yellow and bright orange?  Colours like this can’t help but cheer up a drab looking garden.

Have you considered painting or staining your garden fence a dark colour to contrast it against the colours in your garden?  Would you dare to colour your garden fence black?  Now that certainly would be a very powerful backdrop to bright planting, creating a stunning effect and giving a garden a “wow” factor.

An excellent shrub to have in a bold colour schemed garden is the Sambucus racemosa ‘Plumosa Aurea’ otherwise know as the Golden Elder. This shrub has super fine-cut leaves that are golden yellow to start with, turning lime green as the leaves grow older.  This shrub prefers a semi shady position as opposed to full sun which may scorch its leaves.

A couple of other shrubs which can give a bright splash of colour include the Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’, the Mexican orange blossom, which has bright yellow aromatic evergreen leaves and the Berberis thunbergii ‘Aurea’ which is a low dense compact shrub with small rounded vivid yellow leaves. Just like the Golden Elder, both these shrubs prefer a semi shady spot.

Hostas are great for adding some foliage interest to a shady corner of a garden.  I think that varieties with leaves of lime green or yellow look stunning. Hostas such as ‘Lemon Lime’ with yellow-green to yellow leaves or ‘September Sun’ which has lime green and yellow leaves and green margins look great. With hostas like these, no garden should have a boring shady corner.

For some vivid yellow and orange colours, the Hemerocallis, Daylily will certainly add some “flower power” to your garden.  This herbaceous perennial has bold trumpet shaped flowers and is definitely worth a try.

For easy low maintenance planting, Eschscholzia California Poppies in mixed yellow and orange will put on a colourful good show and will annually self-seed as well.

If you want to go big, bold and exotic, how about Cannas?  With their large foliage and magnificent flamboyant flowers in yellow or orange, this addition will certainly add a topical feel to any garden.

For ground cover you could choose the Alchemilla mollis with its plain green lobed foliage and its cymes of tiny lime flowers.  This plants makes a wonderful planting companion next to bright yellow and orange flowers.

With any planting plan and scheme always remember to include flowering plants for all four seasons so as to spread the flowering interest and colour throughout the year.

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Water Good Idea…

Water features in today’s domestic gardens are still very popular and nowadays there are so many fabulous designs to choose from.

If you haven’t got much spare time for gardening then you can opt for simple self-contained water feature that doesn’t need much maintenance, however, if you’re feeling more ambitious and would like to get more involved in water gardening, then consider creating your own pond.

Not only will a pond enhance a garden, creating a restful retreat, it will also help encourage wildlife into the garden.

Obviously, one of the most important factors is deciding where to position the pond. Ideally a pond should be situated away from extreme shade and extreme sunlight (four to six hours a day of daylight is sufficient). Also it’s best not to have a pond too near to trees as leaf litter will pollute the pond and it isn’t much fun having to constantly clean out a pond.

An informal pond is easier to construct and will give a more natural look and wildlife will love it.  Just remember to give them some form of easy access to the water and provide some shelter with waterside planting.

Aquatic plants not only enhance the natural beauty of your pond but also play an important role in maintaining a healthy balance of the pond’s ecosystem as well as helping to keep it clean and clear.

Water lilies floating on the surface of a pond will help reduce light levels in the water, which would otherwise promote the growth of algae, turning the water green.

Bog plants are ideal to plant around the pond edge where the pond water may overflow and as the soil remains damp a suitable bog area can quite be easily created. There are some lovely attractive bog plants available, such as the Arum Lily, Astilbes, Hostas and Irises to surround your pond.

Marginal plants are grown in the water around the edge of the pond and are best planted in aquatic baskets.  Not only do they provide cheery colour during the growing season but they are vital in providing some shade in the water and for providing shelter for the fish.

Oxygenating plants are considered to be the most important group of plants for a pond as they release oxygen into the water and they also help to minimise the growth of unwanted algae.

Other useful pond plants are the floating plants and as their name suggests these plants float on the surface of the water providing essential shade.

On a health and safety note, it goes without saying that you should never leave young children unsupervised playing near ponds. There are decorative metal covers available that you can put over the water surface for safety.

So, if you’ve always fancied a pond in your garden, do give it a go this year.

Hooray For Hostas!

Well, what a spectacular week we had with the Chelsea Flower Show this year!

My favourite garden was the “Ishihara Kazuyuki Design Laboratory“… absolutely wonderful.

As for BBC’s Gardener’s World… I’d love to see Carol Klein present it… what do you think?

Anyway, on with this week’s posting.

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I think that a well-designed garden should have good green foliage, as this is where the eye can take a rest from all the other colours going on in the garden. Foliage also adds shape, form and texture to the garden and complements flowers.

One super plant that provides excellent elegant large foliage interest is the Hosta, Plantain lily. This perennial produces long stems with bell-shaped flowers, but this plant is mainly grown for its architectural foliage, which on some varieties can be up to fourteen inches long, and the whole plant can grow to a height of three feet tall.

The bold Hosta leaf comes in four main shapes: ovate, lance, round and heart-shaped and many Hostas also have lovely attractive variegated markings of white or yellow. Hostas come in a wide range of different lush shades of greens, from lime greens through to glaucous grey-blue leaves.

Most Hostas are clump forming perennials and like to grow in moisture-retentive fertile but well drained soil with a bit of shelter from cold drying winds. Hostas also prefer a full or partial shady site and don’t like the soil to dry out, so remember to give them a good mulching each spring to conserve moisture. A regular feed of nitrogen will also keep Hostas in tiptop condition.

The only down side to Hostas are that they are one the favourite foods to slugs and snails (see last week’s article) and after these pests have fed on them they can end up looking very much like lace curtains. Professional growers are now trying to produce Hostas with tougher leaves so that they’re not so tasty to slugs and snails. I personally grow my Hostas in containers to minimise slug and snail damage and use a John Innes No 2 compost with some grit to help drainage.

Hostas are so versatile as they can be used in many ways and in different styles of gardens. They can also be grown as individual specimen plants or ground cover and I think they really look super around ponds or water features.

My favourite Hosta is the Hosta sieboldiana var. elegans as it has rounded heart-shaped, heavily deeply puckered glaucous grey-blue leaves and this specimen makes a wonderful planting combination with my contrasting red Acer and the lovely deeply cut fronds of ferns.

So, for super irresistible foliage plants for a garden, Hostas certainly get my vote.

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More Magnificence From The Month Of May

The month of May brings such an abundance of colour for our gardens, as there are such a variety of flowers around now to really liven up the garden.

If you’re buying flowering plants for your garden borders, then try planting in blocks or sways to get a better effect than just planting single plants. For example a block planting of the same colour of tulip bulbs under planted with a mass of blue forget-me-nots will create a sunning border.

This month is the main flowering period for the wonderfully brash Rhododendrons and Azaleas. Visit public garden to see the amazing spectrum of colours they come in. If you do want Rhododendrons, then remember that they’re best grown in large containers with acid soil, as our London soil is mainly neutral.

A star specimen tree for this month is the Laburnum x watereri ‘Vossii’ with its long hanging racemes of golden yellow flowers. This lovely tree can be grown as a single specimen or can be trained over a pergola to create a stunning archway.

A very pretty shrub with masses of lilac-blue flowers flowering around this time of year is the Ceanothus, the common name of California lilac. There are many varieties of this shrub ranging from low-growing ground cover ones, to wall shrubs to beautiful small trees.

The clematis for the month of May is the Clematis montana, which comes in a white or a pale pink. This Clematis is a vigorous, deciduous climber and is great for covering walls, fences or it can be grown up a tree to give it additional the tree flower interest.

You can’t have a garden without some spring scented flowers, and one particular scented favourite is the Lilac -Syringa vulgaris. This is a vigorous deciduous shrub or small tree has a dense conical cluster of flowers that come in a range of pretty pastel shades to a dark lilac colour.

A lovely May flowering bulb to look out for this month is the Allium, which is an ornamental onion and it produces dense round heads of star-shaped tiny purple flowers. This flower is super in any sunny border and it has such an attractive seed head in autumn that can be dried and used for flower arrangements.

Enjoy the month of May with the colours and scents care of Mother Nature!

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Spinners Garden

As if one trip to a garden I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time wasn’t enough, as well as taking a visit to Furzey Gardens, we braved the Bank Holiday Monday weather, waited for the obligatory rain to subside in the morning and made our way to Spinners Garden.

I knew I was in for a treat, but little did I know what a special treat awaited me.

For a start, before you get to the nursery part of Spinners Garden, you’re lead by a meandering path through the actual gardens. This nicely whets your appetite for some plant buying when you get to the actual nursery part, but more of that later.

Walking along the snaking path, you’re present with such a natural looking habitat for the plants, trees and shrubs that reside at Spinners Garden that it easy to forget that this in fact a planted up garden for the public. You get a sense of the love for gardening that has gone into creating the tapestry of the garden itself.

Much of the garden is of the light woodland type and among other plants you’ll find acers, hostas, hydrangeas, ferns and rodgersias.

Other less common plants you’ll come across include Trilliums and Erythroniums which are a delight at Spinners Garden. With many less common plants, trees and shrubs, if you’re what I call a “plants person”, you’ll definitely find something that grabs your attention while meandering through garden in the dappled light from the trees which include wonderful Magnolias and Camellias.

After taking our time wandering through the garden with me like a child in a sweet shop, we finally came to the nursery part of the gardens. Having walked leisurely through the garden before getting to the nursery part is such good planning I think because once you’re interest has been piqued in the gardens, you’re bound to want to treat yourself to a goodie or two from the nursery… which is exactly what I did.

For long I’ve admired the cercidiphyllum jap with it’s unmistakeable smell of burnt brown sugar or candy floss (cotton candy). It’s such an elegant tree and like I say, I’ve had my eye on treating myself to one for quite a while.

So, two lovely gardens visited on a lovely Bank Holiday as well as a treat for myself, all in all a great time…

…. and yes… my cercidiphyllum is already enjoying it’s new home, in a new pot in a new garden.

Spinners Garden:
Address School Lane,
Boldre,
nr Lymington,
Hampshire,
England,
SO41 5QE

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Furzey Gardens

Last weekend hubby and I visited 2 gardens that I’ve wanted to see for a very long time; Furzey Gardens and Spinners Garden.

I’ll post about our trip to Spinners Garden in my next post and tell you about a little treat I picked up there, however, for this posting I’ll write about Furzey Gardens.

Furzey Gardens is situated in Minstead, a short picturesque drive from Lyndhurst along the A337 and a perfect prelude for what awaits visitors at Furzey Gardens.

We arrived nice and early on Saturday. Luckily the weather was sunny and just the right temperature for a good walk around gardens.

The first thing you notice when arriving at Furzey Gardens is the peaceful, tranquil atmosphere. It’s the perfect setting for the Christian Retreat House which is situated in the beautiful grounds where individuals or small groups may visit and enjoy quiet and tranquility.

As well as the retreat, Furzey gardens also works together with the Minstead Training Project to provide horticultural training and care for young people with learning difficulties and when you see the setting you’ll understand how Furzey Gardens can provide such a worthwhile service.

When you get your entrance ticket to Furzey Gardens in the shop, do remember to pick up a leaflet with a map of all the things to look out for during your walk around the gardens, because if you don’t, you’re bound to be so spellbound by the banks and banks Azaleas and Rhododendrons that you’ll easily miss out on some of the “hidden gems” around the grounds.

I won’t spoil the surprises that await you, but needless to say, Furzey Gardens has a whole host of “hidden gems” for you to hunt ensuring that you’re bound to take in the whole grounds and not miss anything if you follow the trail on the map.

In Furzey Gardens you’ll eventually get to the tree houses and play area, a perfect spot for children of all ages where you’ll find African style round houses, the tree house, swings, a boat and a lovely picnic area.

With a play area, the picnic area, the abundance of plants, the lake, the gift shop and the gallery, Furzey Gardens provides the perfect day out for all the family whether you’re into gardening or not.

To find out more about Furzey Gardens, do visit their website at
www.furzey-gardens.org

Furzey Gardens
School Lane
Minstead
Lyndhurst
Hampshire
SO43 7GL
Tel: 02380 812464

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