BIG CAN BE BEAUTIFUL

BIG CAN BE BEAUTIFUL

I have always been very impressed with large specimen plants given pride of place in the landscape.

When studying for my National Diploma at Essex Institute of Agriculture at the end of the sixties there was a magnificent Cedar, (Cedrus atlantica glauca) on the college lawns. I was determined to have one for my garden, so ten years later I planted one in my small garden in Darlington. Six years later I realised my wee garden was just not big enough, though my young specimen was a real show stopper. Ever since then I have always planted a few specimen plants where ever space permitted.

Every garden, no matter how small can accommodate at least one specimen plant that makes that garden special if only for two to three weeks each year.

My first garden in St. Mary’s was very small but I planted a weeping birch tree, Betula pendula Youngii and trained the main stem ten feet up a tall cane before I allowed it to start weeping. When I left six years later it was just reaching the perfect specimen stage.

I have seen numerous gardens around Dundee that are very special with one having a particularly large and colourful Azalea, others with a Camelia, Eucalyptus, Cedar, a long tall fence smothered in Clematis Montana and a lovely specimen of bright red Chaenomeles Crimson and Gold.

Although my present garden is not huge it is big enough to allow me to indulge in a few medium sized specimen plants. This creates impact almost all year round as there is always one part of the garden looking good in each season.

Spring specimens are plentiful but space available will dictate number and type. Rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and even Forsythia will all make very impressive specimens if given ample space to grow unimpeded. If you have a good length of tall fencing plant a clematis montana rubens and let it ramble at free will. It will take a few years to thicken up but once established it covers itself in flowers every year. If you want an impressive tree plant the upright cherry, Prunus amanogawa, or if you have more space try Kanzan or Prunus shirotae both of which have immense flower power.

Summer specimens continue with the white scented shrub Philadelphus and Viburnum mariesii with its horizontal branches covered in white flowers. An excellent small tree is the golden leaved Robinia frisia but can be a bit fickle if we continue to get cold wet winters. It doesn’t mind the cold but not if its roots are in wet soil. Eucryphia can grow very tall as a small tree and gets smothered in white flowers in summer, but it is hard to beat a good climbing rose if you have space to let it grow to its full potential. My white Mme Alfred Carrier is over twelve feet tall and still growing and my scarlet Dublin Bay on a south facing wall about the same height. However they will need pruning in winter to maintain shape, removing some old wood and keeping a balance of young growths.

Autumn specimens are short lived when autumn colour is the theme, but some plants are so vivid they linger in the memory for a long time. Most rowan trees give brilliant autumn colour as well as all forms of maple and if space is plentiful try oaks, beech and hornbeam. Rowans also have loads of highly coloured berries of red, white, yellow and pink. The flowering cherries are also brilliant in autumn as well as spring. My best Japanese maple specimen is the coral bark maple Acer palmatum Sangokaku.

Winter specimens are a bit scarcer, but the maple Acer sangokaku has bright scarlet bark and twigs which are brilliant when the sun hits them. It is a small tree but deserves plenty of space to grow. My specimen fits in perfectly in my winter garden full of deciduous shrubs with highly coloured stems such as dogwoods, Kerria, red stemmed willows and Leycesteria. It is also a great specimen to add height to a heather garden.

A bigger specimen tree is the white stemmed birch tree Betula jacquemontii. It is important to make sure you get a well branched good specimen with a straight stem. As it grows remove just a few of the lower branches to expose the white trunk which peels off to reveal a warmer shade of white bark. In time this bark turns white. My tree is about ten years old and nearly twenty feet tall.

Plant of the week

Petunias are one of my favourite summer flowering bedding plants used for tubs and hanging baskets and come in numerous bright colours. They need warmth and sunny weather to bring out the flowers so recent summers have not been the best. I would never be without the large flowered blue variety as it is good to have strong dark blues amongst the other reds and yellow flowers and the blue form has a fantastic scent. They mix very well with geraniums, Impatiens, lobelia and French marigolds.

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HEALTHY LIVING FOR SUMMER

HEALTHY LIVING FOR SUMMER

Summer always takes a long time to come, and then our Scottish climate only gives us a few sunny days at a time in between showers, so it is very important to make the best use of this period.

The garden and allotment have been cultivated and planted so we have had plenty exercise, and as crops begin to mature we can start to enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables picked and table ready in a few hours. As these crops have had no chemicals added to help them grow or increase their shelf life they could not be healthier.

Radish is so quick and easy to grow that they are nearly always the first of the new season’s crops to be picked. Many salads can be brought on early by sowing in cellular trays in a greenhouse or on a sunny windowsill then hardened off for transplanting in spring. Lettuce, spring onion and beetroot all lend themselves to this method. Other crops such as strawberries can planted under low polythene tunnels to ripen two to three weeks ahead of open ground crops.

Some vegetables such as spring cabbage April sown in July 2012 and overwintered can now be cut as spring greens or left another couple of weeks to heart up.

Soft fruit such as raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries will soon be ready as will my cherries Cherokee though I will have to net them as the local blackbird would just love them for breakfast.

We are spoiled for choice for great fresh healthy fruit and vegetables from now till winter.

They all have merit as a health food product but differ in the levels of minerals, vitamins and antioxidants they possess.

Some of the best can reach superfood status and are also some of the easiest to grow. The following list is always on my allotment plot. I have covered the health benefits of these in depth last November, now archived in date order in my blog, the “Scottishartistandhisgarden.blogspot.co.uk”

Rhubarb is available from late winter as forced stems, then in season from April till autumn. Plant crowns in well manured rich soil about three feet apart and keep it well watered and fed in the growing season to harvest a wealth of stems. These can be used as fresh stems and any surplus frozen for winter use.

Beetroot, Kale, Swiss chard and spinach are leafy vegetables for stir frying, soups, and added to stews. Beetroot also makes an excellent deep red soup that is very nourishing as well as being very tasty. These vegetables are all very easy to grow from seed, and kale is one brassica less appealing to pigeons, caterpillars and clubroot.

Broad beans are my favourite bean mainly as they make fantastic soup as well as added to numerous other dishes. My first beans will be ready in July from a late February sowing, but I had spare seed left so I did another sowing at the end of May. There is always some crop that fails so these will be planted where a sowing of spring onions and Paris Silverskin pickling onions failed miserably. The latter like good soil plus a warmer climate than they have been getting lately so germination was very poor. My broad beans from the late sowing will crop at the end of summer.  

Onions can just about be used with every cooked dish and now I have found a great variety they are very easy to grow. My onion Hytech grown from seed gives me a huge crop of large bulbs that store perfectly from the late summer harvest to May the following year.

Tomatoes need to be home grown. Sorry, but supermarket tomatoes just do not compare. A hard skinned tasteless watery orange ball is absolutely useless as a salad or cooking vegetable no matter how cheap, or on the vine or having a brilliant long life on a supermarket shelf. At home we can grow varieties for flavour and pick them fresh when they are red and fully ripe. These are delicious.

Black fruits include blackcurrants, blueberries, saskatoons and chokeberries. They are all very easy to grow except the blueberry which demands an acidic soil. They are all very high in vitamin C and antioxidants. Most can be eaten straight off the bush, though chokeberries are better cooked and sweetened. The new blackcurrant Big Ben is very large and has enhanced levels of sweetness and vitamin c.

Plant of the week

Rose Gertrude Jekyll has been my first rose to flower this year, appearing in early June, though much later than last year. It gets smothered in large pink Old English style flowers that retain the strong old rose scent. It can be grown as a wall climber or free standing shrub.

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IN AND OUT OF SUMMER

IN AND OUT OF SUMMER

Recent summer weather has really made a huge impact on the garden. However it never seems to last more than a few days then it is back to cool days with showers, though compared to last year the sunny days are very welcome. The garden is trying very hard to catch up on the late season, but we are still running at least three weeks late. I picked my first strawberry on 16^th June this year whereas last year in a very poor summer, (apart from a sunny hot March) the first one was picked on 25^th May. If the dry weather with a few warm days here and there continues this years strawberries will be terrific. The plants are weighed down with a very heavy potential crop, trying to make up for last years disaster when continual wet weather rotted all the fruit before it was ripe enough to pick. The blackbirds have already spotted the first bit of colour and tested them to see if they were ready, so nets are now in place and slug pellets are absolutely necessary as there are still numerous slugs and snails left over from last years plague.

Saskatoon berries are beginning to swell so I will get ready to put my nets over them at the end of June before they start to show colour.

Bramble Helen is in full bloom, very showy with large pristine white flowers, and raspberries Glen Fyne and what I think is Glen Rosa, all showing a lot of flower clusters. I do not know Glen Rosa so I wait to see how it fruits. It can certainly grow as it produces an abundance of canes which need thinning out both along the row and many feet beyond the row as it suckers very freely.

The fig Brown Turkey is full of young swelling figs. If they all ripen I will get well over fifty this year, but leaves which are needed to support the developing fruit are very slow to grow.

Apples and plum fruits are very prolific and now swelling just nice. No sign of scab or mildew as I now only grow strong healthy varieties. Bramley usually gets a few young shoots totally covered in mildew from infected buds overwintering, but I remove these primary infections as they appear in June and this stops the disease from spreading. Plums can get a serious attack of mealy aphid which can defoliate the tree and then the fruit cannot develop, so I will keep a watch to see if they appear.

Garden flowers in summer

Climbing rose Gertrude Jekyll was the first rose to flower this year but now all my climbers and shrub roses are in flower and the bush roses not too far behind..

The weather really suited the azaleas and rhododendrons which put on a fantastic display, but now it is the turn for the ceanothus, cistus, philadelphus and viburnums.

The herbaceous border is ablaze of colour with dazzling red oriental poppies mixed with flag iris and peonies. Then the delphiniums and tall scented lilies will have their day in a couple of weeks time.

I had some spare Cosmos, petunias, lobelia and Livingston daisies, but there is always a bare patch somewhere needing brightening up so they got planted in my winter garden. The kerria, cornus and willow bushes had all been pruned right down to ground level to encourage regrowth of young shoots which will colour up again for the next dormant season. Spring flowering bulbs planted in between these bushes are all finished and the foliage has died down and been removed, but as the stooled shrubs are still only about six to ten inches tall there is scope for a summer splash of colour before the shrubs need more room to grow.

To keep my strength up for all this work Anna has been busy in the kitchen starting the first batch of summer soups made with the last of the leeks, kale, broad beans,(after removing skins),and Swiss chard (all from the freezer), plus onions, garlic, celery, dried herbs and chicken stock.

I hope to follow this with some fresh strawberries for dessert picked from the allotment only when they are fully ripe, and all the more enjoyable when you can have lunch outside on a sunny patio.

Plant of the week

Californian poppies have become naturalised in a small bed underneath my climbing rose Dublin Bay. It shares this space with crocus which flower in early spring then die down allowing the poppy to take over. It seeds very easily and always grows quickly covering itself in bright deep golden and orange flowers all summer. It can spread by seeding to other bare patches and just loves dry, stony poor soil in full sun.

Painting of the month

Alyth Bridge from the rose bed is a watercolour painting from my Alyth village series showing the old 17^th century pack horse bridge over Alyth Burn in summer. Other paintings in the series show the old bridge in winter plus views over the town from the top of Alyth Hill.

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BUSY TIMES

BUSY TIMES

The summer came at last, the rain went off and with warmer weather we got the chance to catch up with planting and sowing. However it was necessary to get the hose out and make sure young plants and seedlings did not suffer from the dry spell, but then once the ground was sufficiently moist the sun disappeared and the rain came back again. What the weather will be like when this appears in print ten days later is anybodies guess, but I am hoping for a return to summer.

Ground preparation

Overwintered Swiss chard runs to seed in spring so after a final harvest of young leaves the plants were dug up and added to the compost heap. The last of the winter Swedes were lifted, and leeks were finished a few weeks ago, so there was a fair bit of soil digging to do before the next crops can be planted. Land kept for sweet corn, courgettes, pumpkins, French beans and a later sowing of peas had been sown down in early spring with a green manure crop of red clover. This made excellent growth but it does not grow tall like mustard so it was easy to trample down and dig in. Clover has nitrogen fixing bacteria on its roots so adds food to the soil when it rots down.

Some garden compost was added while digging as all these crops like a rich soil full of humus.

Sowing

Peas, lettuce, radish, beetroot and spring onion continue to be sown for continuous cropping.

Swede Gowrie (clubroot resistant), cabbage January King and Swiss chard Bright Lights were sown as well as wallflower and myosotis for flowers for next spring. Some seed suppliers should really look after their customers a bit better if they want repeat business, A packet of Swiss chard seed was so sparse that it only sowed a four foot row. A normal allotment row is about twelve feet or more.

The first harvesting has started with radish, lettuce, spring onion and spring cabbage and I hope to have my first strawberries before this goes into print. The strawberry patch has had a deep covering of straw up the rows to stop soil splashing onto the young fruit as they develop.

Planting

Cabbage, cauliflower, kale, courgettes, pumpkins and sweet corn all got planted. The brassicas needed protection with nets for pigeons, and dressings of perlka fertiliser for clubroot. Carpet underlay squares are used under each plant to guard against rootfly maggots, but slugs just love to hide under them to slug pellets are a necessary evil. I was too late with some new plantings and some plants got attacked with about twenty maggots per plant. Fortunately I grow spares to replace lost plants. The battle continues.

On another battle front I pick off numerous sawfly maggots from my gooseberries every other day, but there is always more in reserve for another day. However the bushes look very healthy and the crop looks excellent and black and red currants are also looking fantastic.

Earlier sown peas germinated strongly and have now been supported with wire netting, and also netted to protect them from pigeons.

In the greenhouse Jalapeno peppers are now flowering and looking good. Tomatoes are also in flower and sideshoots are removed from the main stem as they form. Black Hamburg grapes are full of bunches on most sideshoots, but only a few on Flame and none on Perlette. Pruning sideshoots at one leaf on all grape plants is done at least twice very week.

Bedding geraniums, tuberous begonias, marigolds, petunias and lobelia have been mass planted all around the garden and allotment to give us a wealth of summer colour. Shirley poppies on the allotment from earlier spring sowing and Iceland poppies sown last year are all now in flower.

One border planted with tall scented lilies has had an intercrop of pumpkins as I had a few spare plants. They should be quite happy together as they occupy different height needs.

Plant of the week

Delosperma nubigenum also called the yellow ice plant is an evergreen fast growing succulent ground cover plant. Give it the right location in full sun in well drained soil even poor stony soil, and it will smother itself in yellow flowers in early June. When summer appeared in early June for nearly a whole week the Delospermas went crazy with flowers and there was hardly any green shoots visible. The plant was a solid block of golden yellow daisy flowers.

It is also great as a plant to push into crevices in south facing garden walls where it will root and look after itself. Propagation cannot be easier as all you need to do is pull a few shoots off and stick then anywhere. They always root easily.

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