Author: TheOtherAdmin

The title of our November meeting was ‘Illegal immigrants – plants from abroad’ which was an interesting take on the fact that most of the wonderful plants that we populate our gardens with are, in fact not native. Most of them were, in truth not illegal immigrants but initially brought here by waves of invaders and settlers in an attempt to expand the choice of food to eat. Later arrivals came as a result of the great plant expeditions searching for ‘exotic’ plants for the great and good.

Our guide through a selection of the vast numbers of ‘non-native’ plants we often find was the very knowledgeable Francis Burroughs.

We discovered that the potato was first brought to England in 1586 and Sir Walter Raleigh planted them on his estate near Cork. Originally it was believed that the leaves could be added to salads and as a consequence Queen Elizabeth I became very ill. John Gerard, the famous herbalist writing in 1597 mentions growing the potato as a decorative plant. It took a while for it to become a staple food across the country as many farmers distrusted it, preferring the turnip. By the early 1800s it had become a staple food crop for the poorer farmers of Ireland but it took another 50 years for potatoes to become popular as street food with vendors selling hot potatoes across London. It wasn’t until around WW1 that the general public started to grow them in their gardens.

Many of our other favourite vegetables have a much older history and we have the Romans to thank for improving the taste of our food! They introduced herbs such as aniseed, fennel, lavender, origano, sage, coriander and thyme as well as basil and purslane from India, shallots from Palestine and cucumbers from Egypt. Pliny explains how to grow cucumbers in a cold climate using a basic cold frame! The Romans were also responsible for bringing us broccoli, asparagus, globe artichoke, radish and garlic.

Of course, there were some vegetables which are non-native but were in the country before the Roman’s arrived. The fava or field bean is originally from Egypt and was introduced to Britain by Neolithic farmers about 5000 years ago. There is evidence of the cultivation of beets from Southern Europe in the 4th century BC but originally as cattle fodder. Peas were an important crop from Asia that became a staple foodstuff from prehistoric times right up until the late Medieval period because peas can be dried and ground to make flour to add substance to pottage and to make pease pudding which went well with cured ham. 

Some of the vegetables we grow in our gardens came later. Brussels sprouts have been imported from Europe since 1213, on the stalk as it was thought they were too tender to be grown in this country! They eventually took off in the 17th century. Parsley didn’t arrive until 1548 from Sardinia and rhubarb a bit later, in 1573 from Siberia. It was originally used for medicinal purposes and edible garden rhubarb was re-introduced into England from Italy around 1620. It wasn’t until the 1780’s that the chopped stalks began to be used as a substitute for gooseberries in pies.

Although the aubergine arrived in Northern Europe in the 16th century, it didn’t really become recognized as a plant that could be grown in this country until 1925.

The UK is world famous for its gardens, but they are full of plants from around the world. Roses were thought to have been brought by the Romans for their perfume, cooking and medicinal qualities. It was the French who began a breeding programme for the rose in the 18th and 19th century and we eagerly embraced many of these, e.g., Fantin de Latour, Felicité et Perpetue, Mme Alfred Carriére and Charles de Mills. 

The Camellia arrived from East Asia in 1739, introduced to Thorndon Hall in Essex and it flowered the following year. To begin with camellias were kept as hot house plants because they looked so exotic. It was only when the heated glasshouses fell into disrepair during WW1 that they were discovered to be quite hardy. The 18th century brought us Fuchsias, Begonias, Dahlias and Wisteria amongst others. Botanists were amongst the crew included on the voyages of Captain Cook, to collect plants and seeds which might have any commercial value. 

The Victorians were great plant collectors. Many of the flowers from South Africa now grace our gardens, such as Tagetes, Salvias, Agapanthus, Pelargoniums and Kniphofias. They also brought back other hugely decorative plants such as Japanese knotweed. We aren’t quite so enamored of that one! Apparently, it cost £70 million to deal with it before the Olympic village could be built in East Stratford.

In March 2023 £213.58 million of live trees and plants were imported into the UK. This was an all-time high (the average monthly amount from 2000 until 2023 was £85.38 million). Obviously with each imported plant comes the potential risk of introducing invasive pests and diseases. We import many bedding plants and perennials from the Netherlands which are grown hydroponically in huge greenhouses. It is a similar story for vegetables. England is self-sufficient in cabbages and root vegetables but almost everything else comes in from abroad, especially if it needs heat and copious water. Of all the vegetables eaten in the UK in 2022, 47% were imported. 

It seems to me that the message should be to try and grow as much as we can ourselves, and if we have to buy in plants, buy UK homegrown plants, from reputable nurseries where possible.

There will be no Yarty Gardening Club meeting in January. So a Happy New Year to all gardeners.

Our new season begins at 7.30pm on Thursday February 15th 2024 at Buckland St Mary Village Hall.                                                                                                                      

Pauline Bartlett

The first meeting of the new gardening year was held in February. It was great to see such a good turnout on a filthy night especially as my husband and I were talking about our own gardening journey; “Developing our Garden in the Blackdowns, the story so far….”

Our previous garden was only 0.25 acre, in a frost pocket, on very thin chalky soil near Salisbury and so our new plot in the Blackdown Hills couldn’t be more different. On the top of the plateau at 230m, the 2.5 acre site is very wet and exposed to the full force of the SW wind; the soil is clay overlying flinty cherts and with a pH ranging from 6 to 7 across the plot. Needless to say, many of the plants we’d carefully brought with us didn’t survive the first growing season!

We discovered that rabbits and deer were frequent visitors to the garden and so we had to protect anything we planted from the start. We planted a beech hedge early on to protect our vegetable growing area from the NE wind and frost coming off Castle Neroche, and we fenced off an area to protect our crops from the rabbits. I spent most of my time that first spring and summer, creating beds, and growing a wider selection of vegetables than I had previously been able to. In this fenced area we also made our first stock beds with the plants we brought with us that had made it through that first very wet winter of 2015. We were astounded to see how much the perennials grew (much more than on the chalky soil) and how quickly the shrub roses settled down, as they got their roots into the fertile soil.

We grew soft fruit in pots in our previous garden and so having brought them with us, we wanted to get the fruit into the ground as soon as we could. The first summer, my husband made a temporary fruit cage to protect the berries from the large population of bullfinches but now we have a 48 x 24 foot fruit cage – complete with raised beds which grow a much more successful crop of blueberries, currants and gooseberries as well as an espalier cherry. Another visit to Rosemoor gave us the idea that we could grow cranberries under the blueberry bushes, and we have had a very successful harvest over the past two years (one advantage of living in an area of high rainfall)

As well as growing soft fruit and vegetables, I wanted to grow cut flowers for the house in our new garden. Our first flowers came from the stock beds, but I particularly wanted to grow tulips and as our soil is too wet, my husband made me a raised bed backfilled with gritty compost. Having, done my research, we’d sourced a large variety of tulips to give colour for several months in a succession of colours that would ripple along this bed. Sadly, despite my excitement, it rained a lot for the next few months and the tulip bed looked more like a swimming pool, so drainage ditches needed to be dug to take the water away. After the rain came an early heatwave and so, despite the planning, all the tulips bloomed at the same time! At least we had a house filled with wonderful blooms for a few glorious weeks – just not for the 2 months I’d imagined. It just goes to show that the weather in the Blackdowns is not predictable!

We eventually gave up on this tulip bed and planted asparagus instead. We hope to taste our first spears this year! A couple of years ago I had some new raised beds made for me around the house so that I could try growing tulips again. This time we have had more success; tulips are followed by other annuals which I can cut for the house. I tried growing dahlias in the garden beds, but the tubers rotted off and so now we grow dahlias in large containers on the patio and take them into the cold greenhouse over winter, covered in spent compost and fleece.

We knew we wanted to plant an orchard as soon as possible and so spent a lot of time researching fruit varieties and visiting apple days and local nurseries. Quite early on we were told that our site was too exposed to grow fruit trees successfully and so we realized that to achieve our dream, we would need to plant a windbreak. The following February we planted 5 rows of bare rooted Birch trees with some Alder, Rowan, Hawthorns & Wayfairing trees mixed in. We also replaced a hedgerow that was shown an old OS map, to delineate our new orchard, planting a mixed native hedge to support wildlife. 

We planted a hedgerow of hawthorn the other side of the area and a third hedge we established over time using prunings pushed straight into the ground which worked very well. It was another 3 years before we were able to plant our first fruit trees and the orchard also had to be fenced against the deer.

Seven years on the thickening wildlife hedge of Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Dog Rose, Hazel, Wild Privet, Elder and Guelder Rose is full of insect life, although it has yet to host nesting birds. The windbreak copse and hedgerow shelter the area successfully and we have planted 29 trees: apples, pears, quinces, cherries, plums, damsons, and greengages. Most of these trees have started to fruit well and we are looking forward to enjoying good harvests for years to come.

We had agreed that when we moved to a larger plot, we wanted to create a meadow. We were delighted to discover the first summer, that by leaving the sloping field unmowed (apart from access paths) there was a huge variety of grasses and wildflowers already there. We have inherited a native wet meadow which my husband successfully manages with a scything and mowing regime.

Of course, living on a damp site is not without its problems. One of the biggest being horsetail. We have field horsetail throughout the lower parts of the plot which we try and control by pulling and mowing. The finer meadow horsetail is in other parts of the garden, and I dig out the roots when I find it. In reality, we will need to learn to live with this plant. 

We also have annual battles with other plants. We try and keep on top of our brambles by cutting and pulling up the tipping stems to stop them spreading. Any roots older than a year are dug out and we have a large bonfire to clear the huge piles gathered. We have left a very large patch for a wildlife area which whitethroats and dunnocks love, as well as lots of butterflies, moths and other insects. We also leave patches of nettles and willow herb for the butterflies and moths. Bracken is in the boundary hedges, and we don’t want it spreading into the garden and so we pull the fronds and leave them to compost down as they make a good ericaceous mulch.

We tolerate moles as they help make drainage tunnels and I can collect the soil from the molehills for potting up. Squirrels are more of a nuisance as they can damage saplings and they dig up my bulbs! We have also had a lot of deer fraying damage on key trees in our copses so we have had to use more tree guards to protect their trunks.

Our slug population is enormous, so we use nematodes, applied throughout the growing season. This certainly helps but I also do regular evening trips out with a head torch and container. I’m still trying to sort out which are the friendly slugs because I feel my slug collections are a bit indiscriminate at the moment. 

The weather, particularly the heavy rain and gusty wind, is an ongoing battle but it’s a case of keeping off wet ground and improving the soil with as much organic matter as possible each year as well as planting windbreaks in key locations. Researching the right plant for the right place also helps me to purchase wisely so that plants have a much greater chance of survival.

The development of our garden has been much slower than I had anticipated when we moved in. This is partly because of the size of the plot which is so much bigger than our previous garden. I also hadn’t realized how much infrastructure we needed to get in place before we could start gardening. Areas that needed to be fenced first, trees and hedgerows that needed to be planted so they could get on with growing while we did other things. There is also an underlying rhythm to the annual tasks that must be carried out before anything new can be undertaken. The end of winter is taken up with tree work and hedge cutting as well as cutting back brambles. Then the borders need to be tidied up and mulched for the new season. As the season moves on, we get into major seed sowing and plant raising associated with growing vegetables, planting up containers, weeding, bringing on plants in the greenhouse and hardening off. As the year proceeds there is the shredding to do and hundreds of pots and seed trays to wash. Summer and autumn bring the harvests and the processing or storing of fruit and vegetables which is really satisfying but also time consuming.

What gives me the most pleasure is the planning and creation of new garden areas and the first of these is the ‘Woodland Garden’. There are three very large black poplar trees in the garden which mark the corner of the parish boundary. Previous owners planted a Rowan tree and maple below them and so this seemed a good place to develop a woodland garden. We started planting the first trees in March 2018; 3 Katsuras (for their candy floss scent in autumn), 3 different Acers for autumn colour and 3 birches (seedlings raised from trees I had planted in my late Father’s garden). The following year I removed the first area of turf and started planting. The soil here is very thin, poor and full of tree roots – so every year we mulch with a thick layer of composted bark and leaf mould which we are making in large cages. I’m gradually adding shrubs such as Oak leaved Hydrangea and hydrangea paniculata, Viburnum Xanthocarpum as well as bulbs and ground cover and shade loving woodland perennials e.g. Brunnera, Epimediums, Aquilegia, Tiarella, vinca, Pulmonaria, and Astrantia.

The soil is gradually improving and now full of life although I will have to hold off growing special woodland beauties for many more years. As Spring moves into Summer, the shade in this area gradually increases, from dappled shade to full shade which makes it an interesting area to plant. Of course, this area has had to be fenced off from the rabbits, but I still have to chase deer out on occasion and the voles love to sit under the shrubs and shred little piles of leaves. 

Eventually the whole of the garden section will be fenced off leaving the Dell, the copses and meadow wilder. We love to share our plot with the wildlife and are delighted that the work we have done so far has encouraged a greater variety of species from owls and kestrels, stoats and weasels to ground beetles and glow worms.

We have many exciting plans for the future development of our garden and have only just scratched the surface of the variety of wildlife that share the space with us.

The meeting in March was about breeding and growing Dahlias with a talk by Christina Angelucci who has only been growing these beautiful blooms for about 10 years.

She began by giving us a bit of background to the dahlia. Dahlias are indigenous to the mountainous regions of Mexico and Central America and were first documented by the Spanish as acoctili (their Mexican name) in 1525. The Aztecs farmed the tree Dahlia (which can grow 10m in a single season) and used their hollow stems as water pipes. Forty-two different species are found in the wild and many of these were cultivated as a source of food. The Aztecs also believed that Dahlias were a cure for epilepsy.

The first plants from Mexico arrived in 1787 to the Madrid Botanical Gardens and were named Dahlias in honour of Andreas Dahl, a Swedish botanist. In 1804, Lady Holland (an English hostess and wife of a politician) was given either seeds or more likely a slip of tuber which she sent back to England where they were grown on into flowering plants by her gardener. 

These first dahlias grown outside of Madrid were single & multi-ray open centre flowers, but the horticulturalists at the time soon discovered that the Dahlia was a natural hybrid and when grown from seed, it would readily change its form and colour. They were highly prized and in the 1820s one tuber could cost as much as #100

Today we have a large range of Dahlia flower types: waterlily, peony, orchid, chrysanthemum, and anemone, which come in a variety of forms like the decorative (flat, broad petals), the cactus and semi-cactus types (rolled, pointed petals) and the ball forms (globular flowers) that have as their smallest relative the popular Pompon Dahlias. Almost every colour can be grown except for blue.

Christina’s Dahlia journey began when she purchased a couple of dozen tubers to see how she got on with them and then by 2019 she was growing about 800 different dahlias. She certainly has a passion for dahlias! She shared pictures of many of these lovely blooms and she picked out a few favourites: 

Totally Tangerine, an anemone type which can flower as early as June,

Honka Pink, a star orchid type with an open centre, preferred by pollinators,

Classic Rosamunde, a peony type with bright pink flowers set off by very dark foliage,

Lady Darlene, a large decorative dahlia with golden yellow petals having a vivid magenta edge, 

Not content with just growing dahlias, Christina thought it would be fun to start to hybridize her own. Apparently, dahlias are ‘octoploides’ which means that they have 8 sets of genes, therefore flowers can have a huge variety of colour and form and be produced from the hybridising of just 2 plants. She began by growing the wild form of Dahlia coccinea so that she could get a seed pod. (This is how the first hybridisers began to breed dahlias).

She sowed the seed from the first pod the following year and managed to produce 23 plants the year after which had been open pollinated her other dahlias. Once she had proved the concept, Christina began to hybridize her own dahlias using flowers grown from a packet of Dahlia ‘Bishop’s Children’.

We were shown how she crosses the dahlias using paintbrushes to collect the pollen on a warm day and transferring it from one flower to the next. Muslin bags over the pollinated flower then prevent any cross contamination from visiting bees. Christina’s aim is to produce open centered varieties of flowers to provide food for our rapidly declining pollinators. She is also interested in producing delicate dark foliage to set off the colours.

Obviously, with such a lot of Hybridisation, many hundreds of seeds are sown each year and so Christina showed us how she germinates her seeds using a stack of pieces of damp kitchen paper folded in half. She can accommodate 3 packets of seeds in 8 pieces of paper. Viable seed will germinate within 10 days and once sprouted are transferred to a cell tray. 

The questions at the end produced some useful information:

• Dahlias thrive in sunny conditions.
• Christina always digs up her tubers to store over winter in crates of wood shavings. 
• Any piece of tuber with an eye will grow on successfully. 
• Tubers can get stale eventually and so it is better to take cuttings as they come into growth to reinvigorate the plant.
• Dahlias prefer to be grown in a loamy soil and to be fed regularly – Christina uses seaweed feed.
• Watch out for slugs using whichever is your preferred method.
• All dahlia flowers are edible, scatter their petals on salads for flavour, texture and colour.

                                                                                                                        Pauline Bartlett

Adam Wallis from the Gold Club revisited us in April to give us a talk called “Grower to Garden Centre”. This was an interesting insight from a third-generation nurseryman on the journey of a plant from seed or cutting to the sales bench in the garden centre.

Adam was keen to point out that unlike the large wholesale nurseries in Europe which produce 80% of the plants grown in the UK, most small independent nurseries are not mechanized with potting machines filling pots or conveyor belts moving plants around huge glasshouses.

If stock is grown from seed there may be problems with cross pollination and so most of the stock of plants grown by Adam’s family nursery are grown vegetatively; either as soft, semi-ripe, or hardwood cuttings (from mother plants kept specifically for this purpose) or from budding or grafting plants.  

Adam demonstrated the steps needed to produce healthy cuttings to grow on. It is extremely important to use a very sharp propagation knife, sharpened regularly to avoid tearing the stem, and to keep everything clean using Citrox or alcohol gel. Cuttings are taken from disease and pest free plants in the very early morning while there is some malleability in the stems. On a plant like lavender, only a small amount of foliage is needed and so most of the stem is cleared of leaves, the top pinched out and a cut made below a node. 

Adam said that to make the whole process of taking cuttings on a large scale quicker, individual tasks were also done on a large scale; so, all labeling is done at the same time. Modular trays need to be labeled with the date, the variety, the exact compost mix and even the particular polytunnel that the plants are grown in. All of this is needed for the plant passport that has to accompany the plant on its journey to the customer. Once labeled, the clean modular trays are then filled with the growing medium; a mainly peat free sowing compost with added mycorrhizae, (although of course in the future there will be no peat at all) mixed in a cement mixer! The trays are levelled off but not compressed and watered with a fine rose from the top. Next the cuttings are put into the side of the modules where they will root better than the middle. In this way two or three cuttings can be made in each modular compartment of a seed tray. (This is a useful tip for us home gardeners).

The trays of cuttings go onto large aluminium staging tables inside the double walled propagation polytunnel. A layer of polystyrene covered with landscape fabric keeps the tray away from the colder aluminium. Clear polythene is placed over the tables in winter and a white fabric, to reduce scorching, in the summertime.

Once the cuttings have rooted, they can be planted into liners and moved to the hardening off polytunnel which has fleece on the sides and over the top to afford some protection. Doors are opened during the day to allow for good air circulation but shut up at night to retain some heat. All watering is done in the morning to avoid plants sitting in the damp overnight.

By feeding plants with Maxicrop seaweed tonic, plants can be held in liners for 12 months and if they become leggy, they can be cut back. To grow the plants on, they are then potted into a 2L pot in shrub mix and cut back two or three times to promote a bushy shrub. Most shrubs except Daphne, Viburnum and Cotinus will respond to this treatment. The pots are moved again into a finishing polytunnel with increased light levels via sky lights and with ventilation at both ends so that they are used to outdoor conditions and can will be able to go straight out into the garden.

The finished plant then needs to be tidied up for sale. Any yellowing leaves are removed, any weeds removed, and the pot wiped clean and labelled clearly. Plants are then stacked onto special trolleys and wrapped for transport to the garden centre by lorry. Finally, they are placed onto the staging benches ready for the customers to buy and take home.

Adam admitted that his nursery’s decision each year as to what might sell well is always a bit of a lottery. Selecting what type of plants or what colour will be trending sometimes two years ahead can be a gamble. There are certain stalwarts such as lavender, viburnum, pittosporum or philadelphus which will always sell but any stock left over is generally composted so that pots can be re-used. This generated debate amongst club members but, as Adam pointed out, a nursery is a business and costs of everything have rocketed over the past few years. The cost of compost, energy, polytunnel skins (need replacing every 2 to 3 years), plant feed and labels have all increased. If a plant is potted up to sell the following year, it must be looked after over the winter and will take up the space that could be used by several smaller liners. 

At Adam’s nursery the year is a short one. Plants are growing from January but the main business period when plants are sold to garden centres is only mid-April to June. Each plant will only be kept on the shop floor for about 6 weeks and then swapped out for something new. This means that plants need to be looking great to catch the customer’s eye.

So, when you are next in the garden centre – spare a thought for all the work and heartache that goes into producing these plants for our gardens. Nurserymen are not making a fortune, but you can’t put a price on their passion and commitment.

                                                                                                                        Pauline Bartlett

Clay soil has its advantages – it’s very fertile, and it keeps plants well supplied with moisture. However, it can be claggy in winter, and baked solid in summer, and only certain plants can survive these conditions.

Any clay soil will benefit from efforts to improve its texture. Mulch generously in spring with well-rotted organic matter, coarse grit or bark – around a barrowload per square metre. In the meantime, you can make a great garden with plants that thrive on heavier soils – here are some of the best plants for clay soil.

Roses

• Roses thrive on clay soil, and there are different types to choose from, including rambling roses, climbing roses and shrub and species roses.

Daylily

• Mostly yellows and tawny oranges, the lily-like flowers of hemerocallis (daylilies) open in succession all summer. Avoid expensive or weak-looking hybrids, as they tend to be too fussy.

Foxglove

• Both our native foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, and cultivated forms grow and self seed on heavy soil, in sun or light shade.

Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii

• Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii is a bushy perennial that has blue-green foliage all year. It’s topped in spring by lime-green flower heads, adding zing to sun or light shade.

Elder

• The pale pink flowers and dark purple foliage of Sambucus nigra ‘Black Lace’ are a winning combination. The berries are edible, and are loved by birds, too.

Hydrangea macrophylla

• This hydrangea has dome-shaped clusters of flowers in blue or pink that smother this blowsy shrub in July and August. Protect from cold, drying winds.

Lychnis coronaria

• Choose a sunny spot for the grey-leaved campion, Lychnis coronaria, with its scarlet cross-shaped flowers held on upright stems in summer

Thalictrum

• The delicate, frothy flowers of Thalictrum dance all summer long on the tall stems of this perennial, which likes semi-shade

Persicaria

• The flower spikes of persicaria, in shades of pink or terracotta, appear all summer. It’s a great plant for ground cover in sun or semi-shade, and the leaves also provide autumn colour.

Chinese lantern

• Grown for its autumn display of papery orange lanterns, which can be dried for indoor displays, Physalis alkekengi var. franchetii is a vigorous perennial that likes sun or partial shade.

Clay soil is often seen as problematic, but it can be turned to your advantage with a bit of work and a prudent choice of plants.

Plants that will thrive in clay soil include roses, hydrangeas, viburnums, dogwoods, as well as perennials like Japanese anemones, brunnera and pulmonarias.

These plants  will combine well to create a soft and luxuriant display and are not expensive or hard to get hold of plus you can plant them in spring, to enjoy in summer.