EXOTIC GARDENING

EXOTIC GARDENING

The gardens we create are very much an extension of our personality, and if you have been around for a year or two you will see massive changes in what we grow. Gone are the days when the ornamental border was mainly geraniums, antirrhinums, marigolds and asters with an edge of alyssum and lobelia and vegetables were mainly potatoes, turnips, swedes, peas, cabbages, lettuce and radish. Exposure to foreign holidays and the influx of immigrants of all nationalities bringing over their own variety of food has widened our gardening horizons, and as we all love to experiment with something new, the range of plants grown continues to expand.

Cordyline australis

When my horticultural career moves took me to the south of England I discovered runner beans, leeks, courgettes and pumpkins, and thought I was really innovative, but life (and gardening) moves on so now the range continues to grow. We have heard so much about climate change and global warming that we in Scotland tend to think of it more as an opportunity than a disaster. We have always had our share of rain, but now we get warm rain and often into winter instead of snow so plants previously considered too tender for our climate are being given a trial. Provided the weather behaves itself these tender plants can give us many years of service, but however there is always that one off rogue year like 2010 when winter returned with a vengeance, temperatures plummeted and the deep snow lasted for months. The following spring most gardens had lost a lot of tender plants, such as outdoor fuchsias, Cordyline palms, date palms, Agapanthus, and my special Leptospermum Red Damask. Plants have a very strong will to survive so I never give up on them. The Cordyline palm died down to ground level but then new shoots emerged two years later. It is now ten foot tall with five main stems. Agapanthus and some Canna crowns all died out so they got chopped up and added to the compost heap. The Cannas came back into life a year later and the Agapanthus three years later. Bad winters seem a distant memory so we continue to try out a few exotics and keep our fingers crossed. Next spring I may even have another go at growing the date palm as it makes a great specimen plant.

Peach Peregrine

Up at City Road allotments our plot holders are quite keen to try their hand at a few exotics, so sweet potatoes, Oca, sweet corn, Cape Gooseberries, Goji berry, Honey berry and Kiwis can all be seen somewhere. Success of these new crops often depends on getting a decent summer  with sunshine and warmth, a wee bit less rainfall and then a good warm dry autumn like we always got way back in tattie picking days.

My own garden experiments continue with figs, peaches, cherries and grapes.

Figs are my success story as one bush will give me well over a hundred figs ripened over several weeks so there is never any glut of crop. Picked as soon as the fruit droops and given one or two days to ripen indoors they are just perfect. So far I have picked 35 in August.

Cherry Cherokee is now cropping with enough fruit for both me and the blackbird, though the main pest of blackfly on the shoots requires an insecticide spray in early summer to control it.

Grape Rondo

Peaches can ripen up outdoors in Scotland if grown on a warm south facing wall or fence, but the peach leaf curl disease can be devastating so I am now trying partially tolerant Avalon Pride.

Grapes outdoors and in the greenhouse still depend on good weather. My Seigerrebe grape was ready in mid August, so I have one demijohn brewing away quietly. This variety has loads of bunches which require thinning, but the grapes are small, though they are very sweet with a strong Muscat flavour. Outdoors only Regent and Rondo have a good crop and Rondo is ripening up now, but my Brant still gives over a hundred small bunches of black sweet juicy ripe grapes in October.

Wee jobs to do this week

Onions drying off

Lift onions that should now be ready for drying off before getting cleaned up prior to storing. They are best laid out on a hard surface above ground level in full sun so the foliage can dry off and let the bulbs ripen up. It can take about two to three weeks before they are ready for roping or removing all the dried leaves and storing them in nets.
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CUT FLOWER FOR LATE SUMMER

CUT FLOWER FOR LATE SUMMER

At this time of year especially after a good growing summer, the garden is so full of flowers that we can happily take plenty of cut flower for the house without reducing the floral impact of our flower borders. It is nice to have flowers in the home all year round and there is plenty of pot plants around both for foliage and flowers, but we tend to supplement this with a few cut flowers from the garden. To be honest it is hard to resist cutting some flowers to enjoy them around our homes. In early summer there may not be a huge surplus of blooms to choose from but in August and September we are spoilt for choice.

Lily Stargazer

As a gardener I like to create a great floral impact and not wishing to lose this by cutting flowers for the house I use space on my allotment to grow plants specifically for cut flowers. Thus I have my dahlia collection, spray chrysanthemums, sweet peas, gladioli and now this year my oriental lilies. I have only recently seen the benefit of these when a few stems broken off after the early August gales found their way into some vases and suddenly the house was filled with an exotic perfume for a fortnight. However it will be next year before I get the chance to increase my stock of lilies with some purchase of new bulbs in the autumn.

Scented sweet peas

Sweet peas have been available from early summer as the warm weather in May got them off to a great start. I grow mine up a six foot support of weldmesh, and let them grow at will. This gives plenty of flowers for display as well as cut blooms, but if I just wanted cut flowers then I would train them as single stem cordons and remove all sideshoots and tendrils. Growth would be supplemented by feeding fortnightly and before planting the area would get double dug in winter incorporating plenty of compost. Sweet peas are gross feeders and respond to well rotted compost, manures and fertilizer.

Vase of gladioli

Gladioli are grown on my allotment plot in a double row in good soil where the corms are planted at least four inches deep, then they are usually self supporting in a normal year, but the August gales put that to the test. Every year I add a few extra corms to increase the range of colours. In late summer the plants get dug up and dried off so the corms can be stored safely over winter. The small bulbils removed during the cleaning up stage before storing are usually discarded unless they are a decent size. However if you want to increase stock of some favourites these bulbils can be retained and sown thickly like peas in a six inch wide row to grow and bulk up. They will become flowering size in two to three years.

Chrysanthemum Pennine Ice

Chrysanthemums make great cut flowers and last a fair time in a vase, and they flower over several weeks from August till October in a good year depending on variety. Spray varieties make excellent cut flower stems with impact but if you want bigger heads then go for decoratives and grow one flower per stem by disbudding leaving the top bud only to grow and flower. There are numerous varieties available so keep trying out new ones to find your own personal favourites. One of mine is Pennine Ice, a white spray that always impresses with its purity.

Dahlias provide a brilliant splash of colour in any border and there is always plenty of flowers for cutting for the home. We all have different preferences and mine has always been the cactus shaped flowers as they are not too big so stand up well on the bushes.

Wee jobs to do this week

Most summer strawberries have finished fruiting so now is a good time to cut off the old leaves and remove the straw, both of which can go on the compost heap. Strawberries can be cropped for two or three seasons then they should be discarded. If the rows have plenty of healthy runners then these can be used to start a new strawberry patch on a fresh area of soil that has been well manured and is weed free. Otherwise buy in new runners especially if you wish to try a different variety.

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EXOTIC SCENTS

EXOTIC SCENTS

August has been a fantastic month for scented garden plants. The home has been blessed with the exotic scents of oriental lilies. They had been planted in several locations beside the patio and front entrance to be enjoyed by ourselves and visitors with their huge flowers and strong perfume. However, although it has been a warm and sunny month you can’t expect everything in the garden to be rosy all the time so along came our Scottish gales to bring us back down to earth. Unfortunately my tub of lily Chelsea suffered a few losses as the gales snapped a few stems off at ground level. A similar fate befell the very tall Japanese Golden Ray lilies,

Oriental lily Casa Blanca

but this proved to be a blessing in disguise as these were taken indoors without too much damage and continued to blossom in vases for the next few weeks, filling the house with a fantastic perfume. Everyone has been so impressed that I have made a note to buy a lot more lilies in autumn for both flower power and that exotic scent.

Although our garden is now fairly mature it is never complete as we keep finding new plants to try out, then others get discarded if they have out grown their space to make room for the newcomers.

We walk the garden at every opportunity while the sun shines to enjoy the flowers and make plans for future improvements. We have become aware that scented plants rate highly in our planting schemes. There are scented plants available to cover every month from January to December.

Scented sweet peas

In winter the Viburnum fragrans has its day followed by other Viburnums in spring, and of course if you grow herbs for the kitchen there is plenty of scented foliage around with Rosemary, Lavender, Thyme and Mint. As spring appears the Lilac can be a stunner, and most daffodils and narcissi are also very scented especially the Jonquills and Cheerfulness varieties. Last autumn I purchased a whole range of scented tulips as described in bulb catalogues as I had been very impressed with the scented white tulip Purissima. Maybe they need the right combination of sunshine, warmth and moist atmosphere, but I could not pick up any scent worth noting. However in spring the hyacinths will not disappoint, and I always replant the bulbs from tubs to some border between deciduous shrubs as they will grow and flower every year.

Clove scented pinks

Summer is the time when we spend more days around the garden enjoying numerous scents from the honeysuckle to the border carnations and pinks. These are not always easy to grow in Scotland as they prefer a drier climate with well drained soil, but I found an ideal spot at the top of a south facing wall in full sun. Border carnations and pinks are ideal for cut flower for the home and add some clove scents.

Sweet peas are another must for cut flower and although they may be short lived, they always seem to produce a continuous supply of blossoms if you keep them dead headed.

Two plants with great scent for tubs and summer borders are the blue petunias and the Brugmansia, also known as the Angels Trumpet. The Brugmansia is pollinated by a night flying moth so its scent is strongest in late evenings after a warm summer’s day.

Roses remain high on my list of scented plants for the garden, but they are not as popular today as they were in the past as many are prone to blackspot, rust and mildew, and many chemicals used to control diseases are no longer available. Only answer is to seek out those with strong healthy foliage, but make sure the rose has good scent. I still grow the white Margaret Merrill and red E H Morse for perfect scented blooms though both can be troubled with disease.

Pot of rooted Fuchsia cuttings

Wee jobs to do this week

Late summer is a good time to propagate some shrubs with matured shoots such as indoor and outdoor fuchsias. Take shoots four inches long, removing the lower leaves and dibble in around the edges of a pot containing well drained compost. Keep them shaded and well watered and they should be well rooted by the end of autumn when they can get potted up and overwintered in a cool greenhouse.

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HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION

HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Gardening and horticulture can be very rewarding both for pleasure, stimulation and also as a great career. We may start off as an apprentice gardener, groundsman, propagator, forester, grower or scientist as horticulture has numerous branches and although the starting point may come with low wages, there is no upper limit to where you want to go. If you just love gardening there are plenty of opportunities for good gardening skills, but if you also want a career then look around to find the path to suit your interests.

RHS Gardens at Wisley

Horticulture today is much more technical and advanced than when I was learning the trade, and there is a lot more information around to help young students choose appropriate directions of career. Gardening was always about learning how to grow good plants, keeping up to date with new varieties, keeping up to date with new technology, and no matter what results we got, we always planned to do better the next year. The internet is a massive help to keep up with the changing world in horticulture, but in my case it had not been invented when I was going through my five year apprenticeship way back in the mists of time. However at that time there was plenty of older well trained gardeners around to advise and guide us in the way of good and proper gardening, and the Dundee Parks manager kept moving us around every nine months so we gained plenty variety of every aspect of

Training starts at an early age

gardening, groundsmanship, forestry, propagation and even a short spell working with the landscape architects. Our day release classes where we got both practical and theoretical training was combined with visits to other horticultural places of interest. These included Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, Inverewe Gardens and the Scottish Crops Research Institute. I was so impressed with the science of horticultural research, that I had a career change, and then enjoyed two years of research at the James Hutton Institute that has had a lasting effect on my gardening activities. I continue today to carry out research into new varieties of plants for our Scottish climate enhanced by global warming. However I had always been flexible so my scientific research ended when I tried a short spell as a teacher of rural science, but then an urge to work on a commercial fruit farm took me down south to Pulborough in West Sussex growing apples, blackcurrants and strawberries. Then it was a year out in full time studies at Essex Institute of Agriculture at Writtle to get my National Diploma before returning as fruit farm manager in Hereford. Two years later I decided to get back into Parks work in Dudley, then as my career advanced in management I went to Darlington for eight years before returning to Scotland to Livingston as a deputy manager in Landscaping and Forestry.

When I started off on my horticultural career I had very little idea of the range of opportunities that existed, but slowly with travelling around the country in the pursuit of furthering my career I have become aware of the extent of horticulture.

A qualified gardener is a great place to start, but forestry, science, plant breeding, floristry, landscape architecture, groundsman and propagator are all great careers as well as lecturers, reporters for gardening magazines, garden designers and growers of fruit, vegetables and ornamental plants. With further studies at the horticultural colleges all around the country managerial positions open up at botanical gardens, landscape companies, parks departments, garden centres, fruit and vegetable farms and plant nurseries. In this area, horticultural career advice can be sought from Dundee College, Elmwood College and Edinburgh Botanical Gardens. Today the internet is a great source of information and this link www.growcareers.info is a good place to start.

Wee jobs to do this week

Broad beans, runner beans and dwarf French beans will all now be ready for picking. The broad beans are harvested in one operation as soon as they mature, but the others are picked over a longer period and either used immediately or if bumper crops are picked the surplus can go into the freezer for use later on.

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