Out with the old – learning to be ruthless

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Anne Wareham, Blackberry 'Waldo', Gardeners' World, Highgrove, hostas, Monty Don, Outwitting Squirrels

Blackberries

I’m not sure why I have persevered with certain plants but this is the year I devote my energies elsewhere. I’m currently reading the wittily written book Outwitting Squirrels by Anne Wareham (review to follow in the next few weeks). Two of Anne’s tips which I have taken to heart are ‘to be ruthless enough to throw out miserable plants’ and ‘to be brave enough to change course if something is turning into far too much trouble’. It seems simple advice but one many gardeners find hard to follow, including myself. For years I have admired the tightly rolled, spear-like leaves of hostas emerge in spring. For a short time their new leaves unfurl, pristine and beautiful, but this stage is fleeting. As spring merges into summer they become increasingly studded with holes, looking increasingly like lace doilies, devoured by the mouths of slugs and snails. My hostas have been grown in pots, hostas in the border would be like treating them as sacrificial lambs. I tried copper tape last year around the pots. It didn’t work. As it was sold specifically for that purpose perhaps I should have made a complaint under the Trade Descriptions Act. I noted with interest that Monty Don on last week’s Gardeners’ World suggested hostas which are attacked by slugs are stressed plants. There’s certainly something in a slug’s homing instinct for the runt of the litter and the weakest plant in the row, and perhaps my pot-grown hostas didn’t have enough food and water. I did look on with envy at his pristine, hole-free hostas just as I did when I visited Prince Charles’ garden at Highgrove and saw his immaculate hostas.

Hosta doilies

I have used organic slug pellets and they work to some degree, but I have seen slugs climbing onto hosta leaves from a nearby fence or from another plant, and it’s hard when my attention is on the more pressing needs of my young flower and vegetable plants to devote time to hand-picking slugs and snails off my hostas. So this year the hostas are going … well, they’ve already gone. No longer will I wince at doily-like leaves or feel the need to hide them when a garden photographer comes to the house. Oh the shame! The gooseberry has gone the same way. Not because it is beloved by pests but because it was the pest. I inherited it when I took on the plot along with at least four other gooseberry bushes. Doing the maths and coming to the conclusion there were only so many gooseberries the two of us could eat I decided to keep just one, and it was one too many. It’s the thorniest plant I’ve had the dubious pleasure of gardening around and this is someone who just removed a pyracantha from her parents’ garden. Every year I would curse as I tried to harvest the berries and weeding underneath it was impossible. There was such a heavy crop a few years ago coupled with a deluge of rain that the branches all sagged and the plant hugged the floor like an octopus spreading out its tentacles. Underneath it a carpet of wild strawberries had established itself which I could neither weed out nor eat because of the vicious thorns that were in the way. I could be tending another bed and bend down absent-mindedly forgetting what was behind me only to be spiked in the bum. I’d been mulling over getting rid of the damn thing for a year or so but after the latest encounter with a thorn in the finger its days were numbered. I made the most of a dry spell last week and out it came. It was odd though. As I made the first few cuts with the loppers I wondered if I’d done the right thing. Seems it’s hard for a gardener to kill a plant. Well, until it spiked me again…

Blackberry ‘Waldo’ waiting to be planted

Its neighbour the blackcurrant has gone too. There were two blackcurrant bushes but it’s too much for us. We don’t make jams and blackcurrants need so much sugar to make them palatable that they tend to languish in our freezer rather than being eaten. Instead a blackberry bush will fit nicely into the space now created by the absence of the gooseberry and blackcurrant. I prefer fruit I can eat without the need for extra sugar – anything that I can scatter on my porridge is ideal. The tayberry, blueberries and strawberries are perfect for this and I think a cultivated form of blackberry will make an excellent accompaniment. Why grow a blackberry when there tend to be plenty to pick from the hedgerows? Foraged blackberries are often quite small and their quality is very dependent on the weather we have. A dry summer tends to produce small fruits with very little juice and a wet summer often results in watery fruits with little flavour. The benefits of growing a cultivar are bigger, juicier fruits and a stronger blackberry flavour. Hedgerow brambles are incredibly vigorous plants, as anyone who has tried to get rid of a patch of them will know. Many of the cultivated versions though are much better-behaved, and some can be grown in a relatively small space, especially if they are trained up against a fence or wall. We’ve chosen the variety ‘Waldo’. Choosing a thornless variety was essential after the problem with the gooseberry and the online reviews all suggest this is a heavy yielding cultivar with great flavoured berries. It takes a certain leap of faith to buy a pot with one unpromising looking stick planted in it and it’ll be next year before we get any fruit as a blackberry fruits on two-year-old canes. We managed one tayberry fruit in the first year of planting. The excitement at this one fruit was enormous and it was halved for us to both try. Perhaps we’ll get a tantalising taste this year too, if not this impatient gardener will have to wait until next summer for the taste of home-grown blackberries. I’d love to know if there are any plants you’ve decided aren’t worth the trouble or you’ve persisted in growing even though you don’t really eat them.

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Is the revolution over?

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Alan Titchmarsh, allotments, Gardeners' World, grow your own, River Cottage

Borlotti beans

Over the last ten years or so a phenomenon has taken the garden world by storm. Nobody could have predicted back in the nineties that growing your own fruit and vegetables would be so big. With so many magazines and books devoted to the subject it’s hard to remember what gardening was like before. Of course, there were people growing their own before it became the trendy thing to do, then, for a whole host of reasons, a new generation was inspired to pick up their trowels and start growing. The problem with anything that becomes trendy though is that it can fall out of fashion just as quickly.

I’ve been wondering about the whole grow your own thing for a while now and whether the bubble has burst. I loved gardening before it became fashionable. I was an incredibly uncool teenager who watched Gardener’s World on a Friday night. As growing veg surged in popularity I was moving around the country from rented house to rented house with no garden to call my own, and with the urge to grow and put down roots of the plant kind getting stronger by the day. When we finally settled in one place it was no surprise to us that there was a waiting list for allotments in our village. Why wouldn’t there be, everyone wanted an allotment. We were lucky, it didn’t take long for us to get a plot but my experience there suggests that the enthusiasm for growing your own food has waned.

The last few weekends when we’ve had dry and even sunny weather, Wellyman and I have been the only people at the allotments. This is the perfect chance to get the allotment ship-shape before growing gets under way. Most tenants are retired and tend to go to the allotment on weekdays. The newest plotholder is a lovely man in his seventies and these guys really do look after their allotments but they were all gardening and growing food long before the recent resurgence. What we don’t seem to have any of are families and those younger people who were meant to have been excited by the idea of growing heirloom carrots and tending a compost heap. They have been there. My neighbour loved River Cottage and the idea of providing fresh and tasty food for her family but, in the end, other commitments were more pressing and she has given up her plot.

I’m lucky, because I work from home I can generally find an hour or so during the day to pop up to the allotment. If it has been wet for days and days and then there’s a dry spell I have the advantage of being able to go and get jobs done. But it has got me thinking, is it possible to manage an allotment when you work full-time and have other responsibilities or are allotments mainly the preserve of the retired? Has the generation swept up by the ideas of their own bit of the ‘good life’ realised that juggling jobs, families and other demands on their time aren’t compatible with maintaining an allotment.

Alan Titchmarsh wrote recently about the accusation that TV gardeners have made the whole subject appear too easy and have lulled a whole group of people into a false idea of just how much work is actually required. Unsurprisingly he disagrees. He believes it has more to do with people being used to instant gratification and not being able to see things through. This is an opinion shared by many on my allotment site who have seen people come and go. Certainly when it comes to cooking, if you look at the vast numbers of recipe books sold every year and the almost wall to wall food programmes you’d think we’d have a better relationship with what we eat. And yet it seems many watch these programmes whilst eating ready meals. Perhaps growing your own is going this way too. The idea is very lovely but the effort required not so. There is no denying though that modern life has become much more demanding. The idea we would work a three or four-day week and that technology would liberate us has never materialised. Plotholders do have the option of taking on really small plots on our site but even this hasn’t been enough to make them more manageable.

Squash flower

It was decided recently to set up a committee to liaise with the council and to try to improve the management of the allotments. The idea was to work towards establishing an allotment association. Unfortunately it was a struggle to get four people to be on the initial committee. I put my hand up and looked around at the sea of faces, no one wanting to make eye contact, hoping others would volunteer themselves. The idea that there would be enough enthusiasm and drive to become a self-managing site is rapidly diminishing. The dilemma for my village’s allotments is that we can’t attract and then keep younger plotholders and the older tenants generally aren’t interested in trying to inject some vibrancy into the place. They really want the site to stay as it is. My other allotment neighbour is 82 and said to me the other day ‘I’m not that fussed about the plot this year, my knees are giving me grief but it gets me out of the house’.

I don’t know about you but it all makes my heart sink. I’d love it if there were people who wanted to put up a polytunnel and introduce an allotment show but ideas like this are greeted with complaints about people trying to change things. It will certainly be an interesting year for my village allotment. I’d love to hear your thoughts. What does your site do to attract and keep new tenants?

Book Review My Secret Garden by Alan Titchmarsh

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Alan Titchmarsh, Ebury Publishing, Gardeners' World, My Secret Garden

Alan Titchmarsh ‘My Secret Garden’

Perhaps the most famous gardener in the UK over the last two decades, Alan Titchmarsh was used to sharing his own garden with the public. For 6 years, as host of the BBC’s Gardener’s World, Alan allowed the viewers into his garden known as Barleywood. Then, in 2002, he left the programme and his home and garden of over 20 years. His latest book, My Secret Garden, is the story of the new garden he has created over the last decade. A space, until now that has not been shown to the public.

I was looking forward to receiving this book. I used to avidly watch him on his BBC gardening programmes, even though I had no garden of my own at the time and I’ll often refer back to his gardening books for ideas and advice now I do have a garden. And, to be honest, I’m quite nosey so the idea of being able to see the garden he has created appealed to me.

It’s quite a hard book to pin down. There are lovely photographs by Jonathan Buckley showing the garden in all its glory which gives it the feel of a ‘coffee table’ book but there is also text from Alan as he talks you around the garden. This is a book about the raison d’etre of his own personal garden. He avails us with the thoughts behind his design ideas and his planting choices.

I don’t think I’ve read a book like this before. It is described as a gardening memoir. I’m not sure that memoir is the right word but then I’m not sure what is. I did enjoy hearing the reasons behind the ultimate look of the garden and where his inspiration came from. He shares his triumphs and disasters and doesn’t feel the need to hide elements that haven’t worked so well, for instance the use of box and the subsequent blight attack. It makes those of us with less experience feel better to know that someone as knowledgeable as Mr. T can still make mistakes.

I liked the photographs taken from the same angles throughout the seasons. These particularly highlighted the value of evergreens and structure in the garden. And, whilst the book is not so much about passing on gardening expertise, I did think it was possible to take elements away from the book to possibly use in my own garden. Certainly by studying the photographs you could take inspiration for planting combinations.

If you like cutting edge design this won’t be the book for you but then Alan is probably not on your radar anyway. The garden surrounds a stunning Georgian house and the garden he has created is classical in style but there is a relaxedness about the space that came across in the photographs. It’s certainly a garden I would like to spend time in. There are elements of the garden that I loved, the topiary lining the terrace, for instance, and his stunning greenhouse but there were other aspects that were less to my taste such as the Union Jack flying from a flag pole. However, I like the fact that he doesn’t feel the need to hide these from the ‘design police’, this is after all his own garden.

I would have liked a few ‘before’ shots of the garden showing what it was like when he first moved there, to give the creation of the new space some context and I was disappointed there weren’t any pictures of the vegetable garden. It was a shame this area wasn’t given any coverage.

If you’re a fan of Alan’s then you’ll love this book. It’s interesting to read about the formation of a garden and the reasons behind it. So many gardens seem to evolve quite haphazardly over time or are created in one fell swoop by a design team. It was good to read about the problems he encountered with his new garden. It wasn’t a blank canvas as so many gardens aren’t and yet this seems to be only rarely touched on in features about gardens. Having someone describe their garden is a interesting idea. It’s quite easy to pick at someone’s personal taste but I wonder how many gardens would stand up to such scrutiny. I think it’ll make me question ideas I have about my own garden in future and the plans I have for it.

Alan’s book is available to buy now from Amazon and all good independent bookshops.

Thanks to Claire at Ebury Publishing.

Toby Buckland – Interview

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Gardeners' World, RHS, Toby Buckland

This is the second part of my feature on the gardener Toby Buckland. Toby started gardening after leaving school, working as a pinks and roses nurseryman at Whetman’s Pinks Nursery in Devon. He then trained at Bicton College, Hadlow College and Cambridge University’s Botanic Garden where he subsequently worked as a woodland supervisor. He has presented a variety of TV programmes including Gardeners’ World, writes for a host of publications and is the author of 5 books. In 2008 he won an RHS Gold medal and Best in Show for his Ethical Garden at Gardeners’ World Live. As he embarks on his latest project – his new online plant nursery he kindly took the time to answer a few of my questions.

1. What is your first gardening memory? – Gardening with my Uncle Bob. He took me down to the beach where I live to collect seaweed and put under the potatoes – it keeps off slugs. I remember being amazed when we harvested them that I’d been involved in growing something.
2. What tool couldn’t you be without? – If you’d asked me in summer it would have been the watering lance, it saves your back no end! But now, I’m quite attached to my Gerber knife – packing up parcels, cutting up string to tie up the bare roots – I use it all the time.
3. What is your favourite meal to cook with produce from your garden?– Well, it depends on what time of year. Pumpkin fritters in Autumn, broad beans and bacon, I love making curries with the chillies. I used to be a terrible cook but now I do most of the cooking. I like the variety and experimentation.
4. Which garden has seduced you? – Bagatelle in Paris – very seductive roses.
5. What has been your biggest gardening success? – The Marines Garden at RM 45 Commando Arbroath. I was asked to design a memorial garden for the families to remember the fallen. We brought in large boulders from all over the globe, everywhere that 45 Commando had served since 1971 when 45 Commando moved to Arbroath. It opened on Remembrance Day, 11/11/11. The marines are amazing how they just get things done. They raised more than £200,000 to build it through their fundraising efforts such as running double marathons. I was very honoured to be involved.
6. What has been your biggest gardening disaster? – Thinking I could open the doors of a garage whilst still driving a mower towards them, not a good idea. I was a reckless youth, and I did learn my lesson.
7. Which gardening book will you be snuggling up with this winter? – Truthfully, I’m more likely to read a novel than a gardening book. I prefer doing the gardening to reading about it.
8. Which garden in the world would you most like to visit? – Kyoto.
9. What would be your dream garden project? – If I won the lottery and could have a 1000 acre landscape to play with that wouldn’t be bad!
10. And finally . . . wellies or boots? – Boots definitely. I’m too hard on wellies – they always fall apart too quickly with all the digging. I live in rigger work boots that are easy to pull on and off when your hands are covered in mud.

Thanks to Toby. To read more about him and his new plant nursery go to his website http://www.tobybuckland.com/.

Growing trees from seed

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Alys Fowler, Gardeners' World, Sorbus

My Sorbus saplings

Last year I saw Alys Fowler on Gardeners’ World collecting berries to grow her own trees from seed, so I thought I’d give it a go. Whilst out on a walk I picked up some Sorbus berries from underneath a particularly pretty tree. It produces lovely white berries that are tinged pink.

When I got home I squished them through an old sieve that I use for straining my comfrey liquid. Often the flesh around seeds contains chemicals which inhibit germination. In nature, the flesh and these chemicals are broken down by the digestive systems of birds or mammals that eat the berries and the seeds pass through the bird or animal ready to germinate. To replicate this I got rid of the fleshy pulp and rinsed the seeds under the tap and then left them to dry for a little on some kitchen roll.

I then sowed the seeds into some multipurpose compost mixed with some vermiculite to improve the drainage. Covered the top of the pot with some grit and left them outside over winter. A lot of seeds need a period of cold to break the dormancy of the seed. This dormancy period protects the seed so that it is only ready to germinate when the conditions are suitable.

So with fingers crossed I left the seeds until Spring when I noticed 2 seedlings emerging. I had 2 little Sorbus trees. I don’t know how long it will be before they are of a size that I can plant them into the garden but that’s fine, my current garden is too small anyway, hopefully by the time they are a good size I’ll have a slightly bigger garden.

Wellyman has also grown 2 oak saplings from acorns he found lying on the ground in the forest that had already sprouted. We certainly don’t have a garden big enough for oak trees so we are going to go along to one of our local wildlife trust’s tree planting days this autumn with the 2 oak saplings. It’ll be a nice feeling to think that the oak trees could be there for hundreds of years.

So why not give it a try. Obviously there are plants and berries that are poisonous so care does need to be taken – wear gloves, wash hands well afterwards and don’t use kitchen equipment you would prepare food with for cleaning the berries. I’d love to hear if anyone else has grown their own trees from seed.

Finally some sun!!

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courgettes, Gardeners' World, sunflowers

The weather has been miserable for a couple of days now and there’s so much to do. Crucially it was wet at the weekend which meant I couldn’t get Wellyman to help me move some of my greenwaste bags at the allotment. The bags have got waste in them I don’t want to compost but I could do with them for my overflowing compost heaps. I’ve got so much material at the moment I don’t know where to put it.

It also meant Wellyman couldn’t chop up the free wood he brought home for the logburner so we’ve now got a huge piece of ash tree in the shed and 5 wooden pallets stacked up behind the shed. I like the idea of free wood but my shed already has to be a recycling centre and tool shed and I’m getting squeezed out of the shed, so much so I had to pot up my hardy annuals whilst sat on the floor outside the shed. Whenever I see Monty on Gardener’s World in his potting shed with his different compost mixes and tools all at hand I’m soooo envious. I know envy isn’t an attractive trait but it would be nice to be able to stand up whilst I’m sowing my seeds!!

Anyway I managed to get up to the plot and pull out some more plants that have gone over; the dwarf yellow beans that were so pretty and tasty, the courgette plants that have just gone on and on. Four plants was too much for 2 people and I did think at one point I would have to stop people in the street and give them courgettes because we had so many and even friends had had enough of them.

I also pulled out the sunflowers and removed the seed heads which I put in my coldframe to dry off and ripen. We’ll have lots of seeds to feed the birds this winter. So a productive couple of hours but its quite sad to be putting the plot to bed for the winter.