Scampston Walled Garden

Tags

Chelsea Chop, Pensthorpe, Piet Oudolf, RHS Wisley, Scampston Walled Garden, The High Line

Scampston Walled Garden

I have long been a fan of the garden designer Piet Oudolf. Dutch born Oudolf has championed a new style of planting and landscaping known variously as ‘new European’, ‘new wave’ and ‘new naturalism’. Whatever you want to call it, it has become THE design style of the early 21st century and his ideas of large blocks of perennial planting have captured the imaginations of gardeners, designers and urban landscapers alike. Grasses such as molinias and calamagrostis and rudbeckias, echinacea and heleniums are all classic Oudolf plants. But it’s not just the visual impact of his design and planting style that have made his ideas so popular. His choice of plants, often inspired by the prairies of North America, tend to flower in later summer and autumn. Whereas many of the more traditional English cottage garden plants have given up the ghost by August, gardens planted with these late flowering perennials are just coming into their own. They also leave behind stunning seed heads and skeletons as the garden descends into winter which gave structure and interest. Another attractive feature of these perennials is that they tend to need little attention. Many benefit from the ‘Chelsea chop’ in late May and need dividing every 3 or 4 years but other than that they can be left alone. The other huge plus is that the plants are loved by pollinating insects. In many ways it is a much more sustainable approach to gardening particularly for parks and country houses which used to rely heavily on intensive and expensive bedding schemes.

Piet Oudolf’s style of planting has proved to be hugely popular with urban planners. The mass planting works particularly well on a large-scale where the dramatic effect of large blocks of colour can be seen at their best. Parks and urban areas in Germany, Sweden, the UK and America have all had the Oudolf treatment. Perhaps his most famous and inspirational project to date is the High Line in New York, a public park built on an old railway line raised above the streets of Manhattan.

Painterly planting – Piet Oudolf

There is something painterly about Oudolf’s designs. The blocks of colour created by sedums, eryngiums and eupatoriums make you feel like you’re looking at a work of art. The first Oudolf planting scheme I saw was at RHS Wisley where he had created his own take on the classic English country garden double herbaceous borders. It was an impressive sight but it was his garden at Pensthorpe Wildlife Reserve in Norfolk which really blew me away.

I’ve wanted to visit Scampston Walled Garden for some time now. Scampston is the largest example in the UK of a privately commissioned Piet Oudolf garden. In 1998 the owners decided to transform the derelict 4 acre walled garden and rather than restore it in a historical way they decided to go for something modern. It’s a brave choice to try to combine the old – a late 18th century Regency house and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown grounds – with something contemporary. For me it worked incredibly well and I loved the combination of old and new.

Katsura Grove

The Piet Oudolf area is contained within the walled garden. A path initially takes you around the edge of the garden. Known as Plantsman’s Walk, the high brick walls on one side and tall beech hedges on the other give the impression you’re walking into a maze. Deep borders are filled with hydrangeas, geraniums and the fabulously red wine coloured leaves of Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ and the unusual berried Actaea alba. From here a path leads into a series of ‘rooms’ divided by more beech hedges. I particularly loved the Katsura Grove. I had heard of this mythical tree, whose leaves smell of cinder toffee, from my tutor at college but I have never come across them before. You know when you’ve been told something is fantastic and then when you experience it you wonder what all the fuss was about, well I’m please to report I wasn’t disappointed – they really do smell like toffee. Beds were planted with multi-stemmed Katsuras (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) and underplanted with Aster divaricatus. It was a beautiful combination and both plants have gone straight to the top of my ‘plants to buy for my next garden’ list. From here paths lead off into areas with more traditional style borders backed with beech hedging and planted with late summer flowering perennials and grasses. But it was the central perennial meadow which was the showstopper. Divided into quarters with a circular pool at the centre each section is planted with a rich palette of colours punctuated by swaying, tactile grasses. And it was teeming with bees, butterflies and hoverflies.

Drifts of Grass – Scampston Walled Garden

Currently one end of the garden is boarded off. The old glasshouse, in desperate need of restoration has been removed in sections to be repaired with the help of Lottery funding. It will be an impressive sight once completed looking out on to the hub of the garden. It’s a pity more thought isn’t given to construction work on tourist sites though. I remember as a child my dad complaining that wherever we went on holiday in Europe there would always be scaffolding or a crane spoiling the very view we had travelled so far to see. The Italians though had a very nifty idea. They used to – I don’t know if they still do – hang huge canvasses over the building which is being restored. The canvas would have an artist’s impression of the restored building which would hide the worst of the building work. It wasn’t perfect but vastly superior than a lot of plywood and a big blue lottery sign.

Piet Oudolf planting at Scampston Walled Garden

In contrast to the colour of the perennial meadow the adjoining area consisted of blocks of one type of grass, Molinia caerula ssp caerula ‘Poul Peterson’. It was simple, striking and hugely effective. It was impossible to walk through without stroking the grasses. There are other areas too, a small orchard and kitchen garden and the landscaped grounds which, on this occasion, we didn’t have time to see, but these really are the sideshows to the spectacular centrepiece. Designs, styles and plants come and go in gardening just as they do in fashion and interiors but I think the influence of Oudolf will be around for some time to come. If you can, try to visit one of Piet Oudolf’s gardens or parks – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

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Lilliputian Gardening

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bedding plants, Crocus plant nursery, garden centres, Nigel Dunnett, Sarah Raven

I’ve had some frustrating experiences in garden centres recently and I’m becoming increasingly disillusioned with them as places to spend my cash. We’re bombarded with the word choice whether it’s where to have an operation, which school you send your children to or the seemingly infinite number of breakfast cereals on offer. And yet you wouldn’t think so if you visited a selection of garden centres.

My attention has been somewhat diverted this spring and summer with all my seed sowing and plant nurturing energies focussed on the plants needed for my book rather than my garden. Once the plants were all happily growing away at the plot I noticed that my garden needed a bit of a lift. Gaps had appeared where bulbs had died down and I didn’t have any plants lurking around to fill these spaces. I didn’t want any perennials, just something that would provide lots of flowers over a long period of time. I didn’t think it would be a problem to find something and paid a few visits to my local garden centres. How wrong could I be.

Meadow style planting on a roundabout courtesy of Newport City Council

I have never been a fan of bedding plants. It seems like gardening for Lilliputians. So many lovely plants that have been bred to be small, which end up losing any charm, and often in the process any pollen and nectar too. I appreciate that some of them have a place in hanging baskets and possibly certain municipal planting schemes. Although I’d much prefer it if councils used more of the meadow-style planting ideas championed by Sarah Raven and Nigel Dunnett. Garden centres and nurseries across the country though are stuffed with bedding plants from April through to June. If you want anything remotely different, something with a bit of height to sway in the breeze or something which provides food for pollinating insects so that the garden is buzzing with life then there’s very little choice in terms of annuals at all. There’s tray upon tray of begonias which I hate with a passion and insipid looking lobelias and alyssum. These tiny, tight, compact plants make me think of a character from Dickens, their face all wizened and screwed up and unhappy with the world.

Cosmos ‘Candy Stripe’

Plants like Cosmos ‘Candy Stripe’ on the other hand, now there’s a plant to love. Frothy, feathery foliage, stems at a height that you can see the flower without having to crouch down and put your back out and lots of pollen for passing bees, hoverflies and butterflies. What about cornflowers, ammi, daucus and rudbeckia? These are all great plants. Now I know what you’re thinking, annuals are so easy to grow from seed and cheap you’d be crazy to buy them as plants from the garden centre. The thing is not everyone has the space, knowledge or inclination to grow these plants from seeds. Even if you do slugs often scupper your plans and sometimes it’s too late to resow and start again. There are times when I’m willing to pay for the quick fix, the plant that someone else has grown and has got it to the stage that I just need to plant it in my sunny garden and within weeks it’ll be flowering. And what about biennials? So many people forget to sow them in June and July probably because they are recovering from the frantic April and May seed sowing and pricking out bonanza. But, come September the only biennials for sale seem to be wallflowers and bedding ones at that. It’s a real pity as there are so many great plants that garden centres and nurseries could sell but they don’t.

Disappointed by the lack of imagination on the annual plant front I turned to dahlias thinking there would at least be a good selection of those. There were a few at the first garden centre but none that really appealed so I thought I’d give some other places a try. With each visit to another garden centre I saw exactly the same dahlia varieties on offer. It was the same with other plants too. So much for choice. Availability and choice for the garden centres themselves is clearly driven by what the wholesale nurseries are offering and, unfortunately for us the consumers, this means less choice rather than more. It feels as if the garden centre industry has succumbed to a sort of supermarketification. I have never really liked the diversification into sickly smelling candles, dubious fashion and travel sweets that so many garden centres have followed in recent years, but I accept that a seasonal business needs to look at other avenues for income. My real gripe is when they don’t get the core element of the business, the reason they are there in the first place, right. I see no point in having 5 independent nurseries within a 30 mile radius when they all sell exactly the same stock.

The online nursery Crocus offers a couple of plants that I see as the new wave of ‘bedding’, taller plants, loved by insects such as Ammi majus and Orlaya grandiflora but mail order isn’t always what you’re looking for on a Saturday afternoon when the time allows for a spot of gardening and inspiration takes over. This is when the local garden centre should come into its own but for me it so rarely does.

Specialist nurseries can be great. Knowledgeable owners and well looked after plants and the specialism means a much wider variety of plants to choose from. But I’ve yet to find one that has tackled the traditional bedding plant market and tried to offer something different. If you know of somewhere I’d love to hear about it. Wildlife friendly gardening is one of the biggest trends at the moment and annuals are some of the best plants for attracting insects and yet the garden centres, or certainly the ones around me, have yet to catch on. I wonder whether it’s because trays of small plants such as marigolds and petunias are so much easier to stack in racks and transport. I can appreciate the logistics but if this is what plant selling has become about, a pile it high sell it quick approach, lacking in inspiration and imagination then it’s sad. I leave you with what must be the world’s smallest dahlia. Need I say any more.

A teeny tiny dahlia

A Glorious Eden – the final bit

Tags

biome, Eden Project, hempcrete, Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tim Smit

Liquidambars at Eden

So I thought I’d finish my series of posts about my visit to the Eden Project with one about the outdoor space. The biomes are such spectacular creations that they do get most of the attention. The indoor space they provide is essential for any visitor attraction that needs to ride out the vagaries of the British weather but it is rather a shame to see Eden as only a wet weather destination, by-passing the planting outside as you make a bee-line indoors. When we first visited in 2001, only 2 months after the opening of the site, the external landscaping had only just been planted and, admittedly no one had come to see some trees and bushes, it was the rainforest and the world’s biggest conservatories that were the attraction. Over ten years later the outdoor biome as it’s known is coming into its own.

Lavendar balls

The team at Eden have really worked hard with the planting to create something that is beautiful, that inspires and which educates and tells a story along the way. I imagine the scale of planting and landscaping at Eden has brought its own unique problems and challenges. The nature of the bowl within which Eden sits and the sheer size of the site have required bold planting schemes. Thinking in threes, fives and sevens would never have worked here. Long lines of Liquidambars, some of the first trees to be turning at the start of autumn, looked like flames lining the paths. Vast plantings of Cotinus were likewise turning colour. Alongside one path was a large bank of Cornus, still in leaf on our visit, but you could imagine how dramatic the red, yellow and orange stems will look in winter. One slope was a mass of lavender. For our visit at the start of October they had been neatly trimmed into tidy balls which created an arresting sight but the thought of seeing and smelling it in full flower is already making me look at my diary to see if we can visit next summer.

For anyone who grows their own the area devoted to fruit and veg is a delight. I particularly liked the ideas for using height to grow more crops in a small space. There were hops and barley growing to illustrate the brewing industry. I’ve never seen hops grown, as they would be commercially; it’s incredible how tall they get. Although there was a ‘dwarf’ variety, which must have been 6ft-8ft tall which I quite like the idea of trying to grow. Not because I plan to make beer but because I love hops when they’re dried. You can apparently make sachets from the dried hops which you can then put under your pillow to induce restful sleep. Growing hops at the allotment would certainly be something a bit different. They are trialling varieties at Eden to see if there are any that can cope with the damp conditions prevalent in the Cornish climate.

Hemp fence enclosing hemp field

Hemp is an amazing crop and has yet to be fully exploited. It has numerous uses from clothing to the car industry, needs much less chemical input to grow it and it grows well in the UK. Hempcrete which is a mixture of hemp and lime is a more environmentally friendly option to concrete. Hemp is, of course, a variety of Cannabis.  The varieties grown industrially tend to be very fibrous and have low levels of the chemical compounds used for drugs but growing hemp as an agricultural crop requires a licence from the government and infrastructure in place to protect the crop. At Eden, because they are required to have a fence around the crop, they commissioned what I thought was a very stylish barrier using hemp ropes.

One of the areas I loved the most though was the recreation of an American prairie. Although it was fading into autumn the colours of the asters and rudbeckias against the blue sky and the gleaming biome were beautiful. Another reason to visit in summer. The sight of it in full flower must be spectacular. The team at Eden manage it by burning every spring, just as the Americans did when they created the first prairies to attract animals to the plains and make travelling across the vast areas of vegetation easier.

A bank of vegetables next to the cafe

For me, the genius of Eden is that it inspires. It takes difficult subjects such as climate change, peak oil, habitat loss, sustainability and feeding a growing planet and engages and educates. Bring these subjects up at a dinner party and you see eyes glazing over and yawns being stifled. But because at Eden they are practising what they preach you feel more receptive to the ideas. This is not some rich, jet-setting, 5 homes in different countries, pop star telling you to look after the planet. One of the main problems for governments across the world is popping the bubble of apathy that thinking about the environment seems to create. It’s all too easy to feel overwhelmed by the issues we face with regards to the future of the planet and what sort of quality of life future generations will have. It’s easy to think that recycling or giving up a car or growing your own aren’t worth it, can these little changes make any real difference? I think what Eden proves is yes they are worth it and that the snow ball effect of one change and then another combine. Supporting local businesses, becoming waste neutral, supporting prisoners and ex-offenders to learn horticultural skills and with plans to install their own geo-thermal energy plant Eden shows what is possible if we just change the way we think about how we do things.

For me, Tim Smit, the man who rediscovered the Lost Gardens of Heligan and breathed new life into them and who then had the vision to create Eden, is someone who doesn’t get enough credit for his achievements. I certainly wish those in power would pay more attention to the ideas and practices at Eden rather than being driven by the same old ideas to deal with problems. But before this turns into a political rant, and no one wants that on a Friday afternoon, I just want to say if you haven’t been to Eden, go, it’s amazing and if you already have, then go again as it never fails to excite and inspire.

For more information about Eden visit their excellent website. They now run a wide variety of horticulture courses ranging from hour long demonstrations to half and full day sessions. Perfect for combining with a visit if you’re in the area. I can also highly recommend the book Eden by Tim Smit, about the ideas and construction of the project.

Something a little bit different

Tags

A Taste of the Unexpected, Lippia dulcis, Mark Diacono, Otter Farm, RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, River Cottage, Yacon

Mark Diacono’s Hampton Court Stand

One of the highlights of my visit to Hampton Court last week was the chance to visit Mark Diacono’s forest garden stand. Mark has a smallholding in Devon called Otter Farm, where he grows the more unusual and a few forgotten plants. Experimenting to see what he can get to grow in the British climate, he has a vineyard, orchards planted with quince, almonds and apricots and a variety of plants most of us have never heard of, let alone contemplated eating.

He has written several books for the River Cottage Handbook series and in 2011 A Taste of the Unexpected won the Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year award. I can vouch for all the books being great reads but it is the latter that I found the most fascinating, challenging my ideas about what I should grow on my own plot. Mark believes that it makes more sense to grow the exotic and unusual, the food that tastes great but is expensive to buy and that is often transported half way around the world to reach our kitchens rather than the staples of our diet like onions and potatoes that are so cheaply and readily available from the supermarket. As a result the fields of Otter Farm are filled with mulberry trees, Asian pears and white cherries, Szechuan pepper trees and Egyptian walking onions.

One area has been established as a forest garden with plantings of mirabelle plums, dwarf peaches, mints and bladdernuts. No, I hadn’t heard of them either. Forest gardens are a form of permaculture which mimicks nature and the upper, mid and lower storeys of vegetation in a forest but uses edible crops instead.

Mark used his stand and his talent for cocktail making at Hampton Court to educate his audience a little to his ideas. Was it his cunning plan to get his audience tipsy and then get them to buy plants? Well I came away with 2 plants, a yacon and a Lippia, so it wasn’t a bad plan.

Lippia dulcis

Lippia dulcis or Aztec sweet herb from the verbena family is a tender perennial from Central America. It’s a low growing and spreading plant, with pretty foliage and small white flowers on stalks. It’s not for its looks that you grow it but for its incredibly sweet leaves which can be used as a natural sweetner. Mark used it, and the yacon, to sweeten his strawberry and thyme syrup cocktails.

My yacon waiting to be moved to the plot

Yacon originates from South America and its name ‘water root’ in Inca, alludes to the juiciness of the tubers which, according to Mark, resemble a jacket potato when dug up but taste more like a pear. A tender perennial, it produces large tubers which should be ready to harvest in late autumn and smaller tuberous roots which you can lift and store for planting next year, just as you would with dahlias. The sugars in yacon are indigestible to humans and, as a result, they have attracted the attention of scientists, particularly in America where they are increasingly being grown to provide natural sweetners for diabetics. For more information about yacon take a look at this fascinating article Mark wrote for The Guardian.

Well, it was dry enough this morning for me to get out and plant up the Lippia in my herb planter and take the Yacon up to the allotment where I managed to find a home for it. Growing your own means many things to many people. Some, like the plot holders next to me, simply grow potatoes, carrots, cabbages and leeks wanting to be self-sufficient in the crops they eat the most. I prefer a mix, with some staples that I know will have been produced organically, with a variety of the more unusual such as purple mangetout, yellow french beans and tayberries. I might not be ready to give up on growing new potatoes, peas and broad beans but I do like Mark’s ideas. As humans we tend to be very conservative in what eat, preferring to stick to a quite narrow selection of crops. Who knows how climate change will actually affect the weather and crop production in the future but we will probably need to be more open to new ideas about what we grow and eat. Bananas, for instance, the world’s fourth most important food crop, are at risk from extinction due to their narrow gene pool and vulnerability to pests and diseases.

A Szechuan pepper tree on Mark’s stand

Mark’s ideas about growing Asian pears, Chilean guava and blue honeysuckle may seem a bit out there but most of us think nothing of adding a few blueberries to our cereal or a fruit salad and they were only introduced to the UK in the 1940s. As a child of the seventies and eighties I don’t think I ate an aubergine or peppers until my late teens and yet now I can’t imagine not using them in cooking. And, although we are more adventurous with our food, trying different cuisines when we eat out, many of us have yet to take the leap to growing the more unusual on our plot. But I’m determined to be a bit braver on my own plot. With recent purchases of myrtle, lemon verbena and French tarragon for the herb planter and plans to add a dwarf quince to the plot this autumn, I just need to dig out the recipe books for some inspiration now.

To find out more about Mark Diacono and Otter Farm go to otterfarm.co.uk where you can sign up to his blog, which I can highly recommend for posts as varied as, the opening of his own wine, to close encounters with Kylie’s bottom.

Super Seaweed Shetland Style

Tags

Bod ayre, clubroot, natural fertiliser, organic farming, Scottish Natural Heritage, seaweed feed, seaweed fertiliser, seaweed products, Shetland

Harvesting Seaweed on Shetland

For me gardening and looking after the environment should go hand in hand. I garden organically and try to feed my soil with compost and manure rather than feed my plants but like many gardeners there are times when I need something a bit extra, whether it’s to boost a sickly looking plant, to feed container grown plants or to help produce more flowers and fruit.

I’m a great fan of seaweed as a fertiliser and wrote a post a while ago about the wonders of this product. There is always the worry with a natural product like seaweed though, that the harvesting of it is damaging the environment. However, it is heartening to discover a business that is harvesting seaweed in the most sustainable way and producing a product that has as little an impact on the environment as possible is fundamental to their ethos.

Böd ayre are based in Shetland and are husband and wife, Margaret and Michael Blance. They are crofters and over 10 years ago were looking to convert to organic farming but were having difficulty finding natural fertiliser for their soil. This is often a problem for organic growers but for islanders, where there is not a ready supply of compost or manure it is a big obstacle.

Research pointed them in the direction of a natural resource abundant on the island’s beaches, seaweed. Historically, seaweed had been used as a fertiliser in coastal areas, making agriculture possible even on the poor, stony soils of the Western Isles. Packed full of minerals, seaweed is a true wonder plant and is often used by gardeners to boost plant health, especially for sick and ailing plants but further benefits are being discovered. Margaret and Michael have carried out small scale trials and possibly the two most interesting findings are the suggestion that adding seaweed granules when planting out Brassicas can prevent clubroot, even when it is known to be present in the soil, and that dusting carrots with fine seaweed powder can prevent carrot fly.

Certainly, the Brassicas I planted out last year on my allotment, where there is club root present, showed no signs of the disease. Maybe this can be attributed to the seaweed meal that I had incorporated into the soil when planting out.

Margaret and Michael now produce a range of products. There is a granular plant food and a finer seaweed meal, both of which can be used by incorporating into the soil. For faster effects there is a liquid extract which can be used diluted throughout the growing season and there is also a powder, which can be used to make a foliar spray or dusted onto your carrots and broad beans to prevent carrot fly and aphids.

From the outset the Blances wanted their business to have limited environmental impact. The seaweed is harvested by hand. It’s important to know what you’re doing as it is essential to leave the root and some of the plant behind so that the seaweed can regenerate. Margaret and Michael’s pickers never overpick from one area and sections are left for 4 years before repicking. The whole harvesting process is monitored by Scottish Natural Heritage.

Nothing is wasted in the process with the seaweed powder product created from the waste product of the other processes. The finest dust that cannot be sold is used by Margaret on her own garden. A combination of rainwater and seawater is used to wash the seaweed. They do use a small amount of oil in a generator in order to dry the seaweed but they have plans to erect a wind turbine to provide the necessary energy for this part of the process, taking Böd ayre one step closer to being a low carbon business.

For more details of Böd ayre’s products (they also sell seaweed to eat and feeds for animals), a list of stockists and how to buy online visit their website www.seaweedproducts.co.uk. There is a special offer of free delivery within the UK until the end of this month.

Posts, Poles and Pea Netting

Tags

espalier apple tree, Herefordshire, Moreton Wood, National Beanpole Week, Planting Charlotte potatoes

Our chitted potatoes waiting to be planted

Another weekend of glorious weather. This doesn’t feel like spring, it’s more like summer, 21C and tshirts in March isn’t typical for the time of year in these parts so we made the most of it and had a really productive couple of days in the garden and on the plot.

Wellyman put in the posts and wire supports for the new espalier apple tree. These are the sort of jobs that invariably take three times longer than anticipated and before you know it a whole morning has been swallowed up by something that seemed so straightforward. Usually Wellyman discovers the drill has no charge, the drill bit he needs is the one that broke last time and the various screws, bolts, nails required are the wrong size. Not this time though, maybe we’re just getting more adept at this DIY thing but it all went really smoothly, which was just as well because we had an appointment to collect some beanpoles.

Coppiced hazel beanpoles from Moreton Wood in Herefordshire

I posted last autumn about National Beanpole Week and how there has been a resurgence in people managing coppice woodlands and selling the products. National Beanpole Week runs from 21st April to 29th April this year but because we wouldn’t be able to make these dates I had managed to find a woodland in Herefordshire where I could pick some up early. It wasn’t exactly local but it was such a beautiful day and Herefordshire is a lovely county that it wasn’t a chore to drive that little bit further. Moreton Wood is classified as ancient woodland with records going back 400 years but in the 1960s the deciduous, native trees were cleared for conifer plantations. The couple who now manage the woodland are slowly restoring it, removing the conifers and allowing broadleaved, deciduous trees to grow again. The practice of coppicing dates back to the early medieval period but declined from the 19th century. It seems to be making something of a comeback as people realise that coppicing is a great way to produce a fast and reliable source of timber without needing to replant and that it has beneficial effects on the woodland ecosystem. At a time when every company is jumping on the eco-bandwagon this really is a sustainable business. We came away with some great, sturdy posts about 8ft long which will be perfect for their job and they were only 50p each.

Baby pea plants ready for planting

Back at home we carefully carried up to the allotment the chitted potatoes with their fat, stubby shoots and some small pea plants for planting out. The potatoes are Charlottes, a very versatile potato that is excellent as a salad spud or left to grow a bit bigger and can then be roasted, particularly tasty with a little bit of butter and chives chopped on top. Wellyman dug holes for each tuber and I put some compost and a handful of comfrey pellets in the planting hole before placing in the tubers, being careful not to damage the shoots, especially as you backfill.

Then came the pea planting. Is there another piece of gardening kit more annoying than plastic pea netting? It has a life of its own and trying to cut it, making sure you cut in a straight line and don’t go off at an angle leaving you with an oddshaped piece of netting that is no use to anyone is easier said than done. Getting exasperated doesn’t help but that’s also easier said than done. We got there in the end, with sections attached to canes so the newly planted peas have something to scramble up. I think only trying to use fleece to cover your plants on a windy day and discovering a kink in the hosepipe at the opposite end of the plot to where I am, can match pea netting for annoyance.

Forced rhubarb stems

Just before we left I checked the rhubarb I’m forcing and we should be able to pick our first stems and the first produce of the plot this year, in the next week. So everything is taking shape. Exciting times ahead.

For more information on coppicing and finding a wood local to you visit Coppice Products.

Super Seaweed

Tags

coral beach, isle of skye, sea environment, soil improver, vitamins and minerals

Seaweed on Branscombe Beach

We’re all familiar with the term ‘superfoods’ referring to foods such as blueberries and cherries that are packed with vitamins and minerals which make them great foods for us to eat. But what about a ‘superfood’ to feed our plants? Seaweed is packed with nutrients that are beneficial to humans. It features as an ingredient in Japanese cuisine and has been an important element in beauty treatments for many years, you can even bathe in the stuff in special bath houses in Ireland. But it is in the garden that most people are familiar with seaweed.

For centuries, humans have used seaweed as a soil improver and fertiliser to feed their crops. It contains the main nutrients plants need along with a whole range of trace elements that are often lacking in other fertilisers.

Seaweed proved particularly useful to crofters on the Scottish islands where the soil wasn’t very deep and lacked nutrients. Crofters practiced what was known as the ‘lazy bed’ system, where seaweed was placed next to trenches for several weeks to rot down and then incorporated into the trenches. The seaweed would provide all the nutrients and organic matter that the crops would need.

Coral Beach – the Isle of Skye

We were on holiday last year on the Isle of Skye and visited the island’s Coral Beach. The beach is made up of maerl rather than sand. Maerl is the remains of seaweed washed up on shore and then their lime rich tissue is bleached by the sun. Crofters used this calcified seaweed as a way of liming their land whilst adding nutrients to the soil. Calcified seaweed is still available but it is often collected from the seabed by dredging and so is damaging to the sea environment. Some calcified seaweed is more sustainable than others so it is always worth checking with the manufacturer as to the provenance.

Scientific study has shown that the beneficial effects of seaweed include increased resistance to frost damage and attacks by pests. It can improve the condition of clay soils and if used as a mulch around the base of plants the salt content can deter slugs (taken from Flora Celtica). Seaweed has been very important to the potato farmers on Jersey since the 12th century. They had the right to collect seaweed and spread it on their fields and it is believed that it is the seaweed that gives Jersey potatoes their distinctive flavour. Perhaps more importantly it is thought that the chemical compounds in seaweed can suppress eelworm a nematode that lives in the soil and attacks potato tubers burrowing into them.

The RHS says it is not necessary to let fresh seaweed rot down and it is actually best dug into the ground fresh. I always thought the salt content of seaweed would be damaging to plants but the RHS says that the content of salt is usually not high enough to damage crops or the soil. It does point out however, that there is no public right to collect seaweed from the shore and that you should get permission of the landowner before filling your car-boot.

I have used seaweed meal, which is seaweed that has been crushed and then dried, on the soil on my allotment and in my garden as a soil conditioner. Apparently it helps to build up the bacteria in the soil that break down organic matter and worms are rather partial to it too. I also like to use liquid seaweed feed, spraying it onto the leaves of plants. The nutrients are absorbed really quickly by the plant this way and is especially beneficial for any sickly looking plants that need a bit of a boost. Taking a tip from Monty Don, on Gardeners’ World last year, I sprayed my box balls that weren’t looking too good after the harsh winter with seaweed feed once a month and they soon had lovely dark, glossy green leaves.

It is possible to get dried seaweed pellets from a company called The Natural Gardener. The seaweed is harvested sustainably on the Shetland Isles and is then dried and bagged up. The pellets can be mixed into a compost heap, sprinkled around established plants or put in the bottom of your potato trenches. I know I’d much rather use a natural, sustainable product such as seaweed than any chemically produced fertilisers.

National Bean Pole Week

Tags

allotment, coppicing, garden, habitat management, National Beanpole Week, twiggy peasticks

Beanpoles (image from gardenstandard.com)

I have been thinking more and more recently about how I can garden in a more environmentally friendly way. I have been spending time on the internet searching for ways I can limit my impact on the environment. One of the ideas I have come across is using coppiced products in my garden and on the allotment.

Coppicing is a traditional way of managing woodland in Britain where trees are carefully cut to ground level and the new shoots that emerge are managed until they are the right size to be cut down again. I always thought it was only trees such as Willow and Hazel that were coppiced, but most deciduous trees and shrubs can be coppiced including chestnut and oak. However, the time between coppicings can vary greatly from 1-3 years for Willow and up to 20-40 years for Chestnut and Oak. Coppicing is an excellent way of producing timber without having to replant and it is also incredibly important way to manage habitats. The cutting down of trees in small areas of woodland allows light to reach the woodland floor encouraging herbaceous perennial plants to grow, this in turn supports a whole ecosystem of mammals, invertebrates and birds. As the shoots grow from the coppiced stumps the open glade is gradually shaded out but then in another part of the wood a new glade is opened up as a different section is coppiced. Creatures such as woodland fritillaries and dormice thrive along with bluebells and primroses. Unfortunately, Britain lost 90% of its coppiced woodlands during the 20th century (figure from http://www.beanpoles.org.uk).

This is where gardeners can come in. What gardener hasn’t got a stash of bamboo canes in the shed? I have, although I have never been much of a fan of bamboo. I appreciate it is an amazing plant that has many uses but it doesn’t really blend into a Welsh cottage garden. I have always been envious of various TV gardeners and their supply of Hazel poles or twiggy pea sticks but I don’t have any trees to provide me with these alternatives. Then I came across the website http://www.beanpoles.org.uk, which was set up to support the coppice business in the UK. The people behind the website want gardeners to buy locally grown, ecofriendly beanpoles instead of bamboo canes. By buying coppiced products you can support the local environment, wildlife, rural jobs and ancient skills and traditions.

To promote knowledge of coppicing and the products that can be purchased for the last 4 years there has been a National Beanpole Week. Next year this week is to be held from 21st April to 29th April. I have found a local coppicer who is holding special events during that week that the public can go along to and best of all I can get hold of my own supply of beanpoles and twiggy peasticks. Even better than just minimising my impact on the environment I will actually be helping it by supporting an important part of habitat management.

For more information and to see if there are any National Beanpole Week events taking place near you take a look at the following websites: http://www.beanpoles.org.uk/ and http://www.coppice-products.co.uk/.