Marc de la Torre, Box growers gird your loins, box rust, teeny weeny incy wincy and Coop typo.

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Marc de La Torre

I was preparing a talk on my time at Bourton House  recently when I dug out this picture. It goes back some  25 or so years  and is still a favourite of mine. The  ceramic pot is by Mark de la Torre - a man who does not like to stand still and who has a vast creative energy which he sends off in all directions. His partner Clare  and son Luis  are  also stoked full of the craft maker's urge to design and create. To appreciate the   broad spectrum of this trio's capabilities and how much imagination and ingenuity can be crammed into  one household go take a look at their work at http://www.delatorre.co.uk/index.html

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I have bought a new camera  and somehow managed  to set it to black and white and took a few pictures  before I noticed. I  am glad  I got the settings wrong  because I think this black and white  picture says a lot more than the colour version below. Shapes and shadows become much more important. 

More of this garden  even belower.

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Teeny Weeny Incy Wincys

Startled baby spiders scurrying up and down their  webs to escape predation

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Flower of an unknown succulent plant

Yet  another  flower of an anonymous succulent with my grubby mit  looking like it is made of wood.

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Box Rust

I was cutting back some  box  plants a few weeks ago and spotted these  little black blobs. Turns out they are the  spore producing  pustules of  Box Rust, Puccinia buxi. They  appear in autumn and  persist through winter  to spring. They did not appear to  be harming the plant  and nor were they particularly disfiguring. No treatment necessary. 

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Box growers gird your loins.

No matter how tight you clip your box  hedging  sooner or later it will creep  beyond a size that is suitably balanced and  proportional and there comes a time  when loins  have to be girded, bullets bitten  and a bit of serious  clipping embarked upon.  Sometimes it takes a  client with  a bit of nerve  and a degree of blind faith to take the leap  and  start the process of regeneration.  Fortunately I have such a client who can see  beyond the immediate and  relying on my previous experience of successfully renovating  overgrown box plants  we started clipping  If you look at the pictures below you will see a bit of before and after  and see  we have been quite drastic. In fact  now my only concern is that we have not been drastic  enough  and we might end up with some dead  twigs  with a  base of  fresh  shoots on the long low sections of the hedge. 

We did this in mid April.   

The weapon of choice. 

The clippings catcher  proves mighty useful when it comes to tidying up. 

As scary as it all was  there was a reassuring  number of shoots already sprouting  in the  depths of the old twigs.  

I guess these tiny shoots would have withered if they had not been given the light that  cutting back offered them,

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Spot the typo on this packet of Coop hot cross buns.

Yes I know I should get out more.

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Aaaah, how cute.  - that's cynicism by the way. 

It is one of the Silkweeds, Asclepia speciosa I think, parachuting its seeds into the wind.. 

Great Dixter , Star Rot, Mystery Chinese writing.

New blogs announced on twitter @pwhorticulture 

Not the moon  but my best shot of the eclipse. 

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Mystery characters.

I was planting some  trained  hornbeam  panels which had been  splayed out on  a bamboo  frame   when I spotted these Chinese symbols on one of the  bamboos stems.  I am pretty sure they  are upside down but I  am intrigued as to what they say. Are they  a stock count, a makers name or  perhaps just a bit of Kilroy was 'ere? Are there are any  Chinese readers who know what it means? I am sure it will be something mundane  but it might be  a 'Hey I am in incarcerated in this bamboo factory please get me out of here' though that might be pushing it for the number of characters there are.
And just out of interest what do you think he/she might have cut it with? It is very dexterously done.

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Early Iris

Each spring  I get  completely bowled over by  the exotic look of this hardy Iris . It flowers regardless of frost but looks far too colourful,and  brilliant  to be flowering in March. This particularly variety  is Iris histrioides  'Katherine Hodgkin'. which I have seen colonise  large areas of a rock  garden to brilliant  effect. It is just a few inches/ centimetres tall but boxes well above its height.  

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Great Dixter

I went to Great Dixter on a day out arranged Garden Media Guild.  The first thing I noticed was this view out  from the car park away from the garden. This  building stood very solitary but  also very purposefully in  the middle of this sloping field. I hope to have a few shots of the garden itself  in the next issue.

 If you have never been it is well worth every effort to get there in the summer ,

Great Dixter has fabulous border displays  some of which rely on exotic, tender plants such as Dahlias  and if you think their over-wintering tubers are stacked neatly in tiered trays think again. Here they all are stacked in the cellar  in plastic bread trays (tut - tut) , polystyrene boxes and whatever else comes to hand.  It makes a great if ramshackle sight as you peep  in through the cellar door.

The wood working shop in the great barn is a sight to behold. The garden  produces hurdles, gates, and outdoor furniture from its own woodland and with its own staff . There is a strong tradition of  training and the sharing of knowledge and experience not only in the woodwork department but throughout the garden .
The enthusiasm and energy creates an ethos you can almost feel.

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 Star Rot

I came across this blob of  what looked  like  dense frog spawn  almost in the water on the edge of a lake where I was working. I got quite excited  because I had no idea what it was and you always like to think you have found something new or rare. On my way home I called in for petrol  and was explaining  this stuff to the guy on the till   Phil Clayton who said, oh yeah that is  star rot, almost nonchalantly. I was deflated. He asked was there just the  one blob  because there are usually two  and of course he was right there were two about a foot apart. He explained that it  is frog spawn from a frog that has been eaten by a heron or other predator and that because the spawn is very hygroscopic the  animal rejects it otherwise if it ate it it would swell up inside it using the moisture from the animal and might well kill the predator. Of course once the  spawn gets into the water it can swell to its hearts content. The spawn is produced in two sacks either  side of the frog hence the two 'blobs'.
It was thought to be dying stars that had fallen to earth  at one time and there still remains a mystery about some of the  jelly like blobs that get found on the ground.

It was quite stretchy and sticky.

That's all for now. 

Dancing Ladies? Blue Terracotta. Pine away. Potato omen.

Dancing Ladies?

Barney Vick, the head gardener at East Court,was cutting back these herbaceous borders and tied  up the Miscanthus, which were  starting to collapse, to help  keep them out of the way.The result was these glorious figures; dancing? drunk? laughing? head banging? pogo-ing? or maybe just having a chat.

The Three Grasses

A perfect complement  in colour and texture these willow spheres by  Rachel Carter sit amongst the 

herbaceous plants during winter.

At the ball.

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Succulent flowers.

Nature, doesn't it just  wow you every time?

These succulents  are flowering  now in the greenhouse at the pottery

These are straightforward flowers where it is easy to see the functional parts.The pollen  producing anthers  are the fluffy looking structures ringed around  the  flower. The dark structures  in the middle are the pistil which is the female part of the plant. The pistil  is made up of the stigma  which is the narrow  sticky end that catches the pollen, then the style which is  the tube that   the pollen grows down to the ovary to fertilise the seeds.   

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Heart felt.

Nothing doing for me on St Valentine's evening so I cooked  up some supper. First out of the bag of potatoes was this heart shaped little fella. Maybe a sign of better things to come thought I. 

 I also thought it looked far more interesting this way up. 

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Blue Terracotta Pots

I have just installed these terracotta pots from Whichford Pottery in a local garden.

I think they look rather smart.

If you are thinking the gravel looks a bit too  pink to go with the blue and black  your right but  it is just a coat of stone dust  covering the  grey chippings and will wash off in the first rain.

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Pine  away.

Many years ago Whichford Pottery used a 'gnarled' pine  on one of their Chelsea stands. After the show it was taken back to the  pottery and  stood against the office  wall where it settled in nicely. Over time it grew bigger  and, inconveniently for those in the office, it  blocked out the light to the window.The roots have run out of the bottom of the pot anchoring the tree but this winter it blew over cracking the pot.

We are replanting this border so it was a good time  to get the pine out. It was not possible to dig out all the roots but it was important to get out as many as possible to give the pine the best chance of surviving the move. A pot this size full of tree  this size is heavy  but fortunately there is a good strong crew at the pottery. The guys and gals  managed to lift it out wholesale and  place  it into its new hole.  

To help with stability and  also to hopefully contain the roots to slow down growth  the pot was left on  but buried  to about half its depth.  It might look a bit odd until the planting around it gets established. Here is Will  filling in around the pot. The pallet  is temporarily taking the weight

The plan now is to pinch and prune the pine into shape, first to help balance out the growth and then to keep it compact and restore its windswept look. Anyone have any idea when is the best time to reduce some of the tips?  G.T?  My instinct is to do it now  before  the new growth in the spring. .The planting beneath  will be simple, a carpet of Hakonechloa macra and maybe a rock or two.

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Stinking Hellebore

Not a particularly good picture this. In the flesh it looked very bright in the winter sun. The pink flower stems have a crystaline, glinting sparkle to them.  It is a more colourful form of our native stinking hellebore ( Crush the leaves and take a sniff - it really does stink.). It  comes  from a plant known as Helleborus foetidus 'Wester Flisk' ( Sounds like a region in the shipping forecast  but is a place on the River Tay in Scotland.)  These red tinted stinking hellebores are now known  as the Wester Flisk Group , I guess because there is quite a bit of  variation  between  plants but all have red tinted stems and leaves and a  red/maroon rim to the flower petals. With me they are prolific self seeders, this plant  is a self set seedling some fifteen metres from the parent plant which  has since died.  Be ruthless  with the seedlings and hoe them out. It is very easy to end up with a dense patch of scrubby seedlings. The leafspots you can see in the picture, they have become worse since  the picture was taken,  are a bit of a fact of life with Hellebores  and while there  are  various sprays  both organic and chemical which may or may not be effective I just enjoy the flowers and if the leaves become unbearable I  just cut them off  though when they are at their worst there is plenty else going on in the garden  to distract you.
Hellebores are members of the Ranunculaceae family which means,  somewhat surprisingly, they are very close relatives of the buttercups, Aconites, Clematis, Delphiniums, Anemones and Nigella.

Sexy succulents.Hokusai versus the Paint Tray.Bright blue fungus. Squirrels?

Just before I start  I would like to say if you like this blog and would  like to be notified when  a new one is published you can subscribe to one of the feeds that lets you know though I have no idea how you do that  but I do send out a tweet on @pwhorticulture as a reminder. I am not a regular  tweeter and I am almost ashamed to admit that this is a blatant recruitment  drive. I have a son who is setting up  a food business and keeps telling me  how many Twitter  followers he has gained each day which brasses me off  and I don't want to let him beat me, at least not without a fight - how sad is that.  

Excuse the gratuitous blog title but sex sells. 

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Sexy Succulents

It was raining at the pottery the other day so I thought I would spend some time in the greenhouse  with the camera. We have an interesting collection of  succulents  most of which, when it comes to names, I don't  know  more than the genus and not always that so if you recognise any of the species or varieties please let me know. It is one of my missions this year to get as many of them named as possible There are Echeverias, Graptopetalums, and Kalanchoes amongst them.    

This one I do know, Aeonium tabuliforme. The picture gives no idea  as to how flat this rosette is. It is some 180 mm across and probably no more than 15 mm high.  It is monocarpic  so it   flowers just once from the centre of the rosette which then dies out. It can be propagated from seed or  offsets ( baby plants)  which sometimes appear at the base of the flowering stem. It can also be propagated   by tugging off  and rooting the individual leaves.

This is a Kalanchoe.

I have a feeling this is also  a Kalanchoe.

Pachyphytum oviferum - this  sends me into paroxysms of drooling delight. The sexiest of  sexy succulents. Do you remember, in fact  now can you even  get, sugared almonds ?  Experience more paroxysms below.

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Ups- a - Daisy! 

I planted this narrow bottomed, top heavy, 70cm tall,  terracotta pot just before Christmas, knowing at the back of my mind that it had every chance of blowing over while at the same time thinking  'No it will be okay'. 

Well it wasn't. The very strong winds of mid January up-ended it  but  surprisingly without  a chip.

The wind must have toppled it over but rather than falling on its rim as most pots would, its rounded ellipse shape  allowed it to roll as it fell and  it went with enough momentum to turn it completely upside down. ( 'Well, how about that!' I hear you say.) It didn't do much for  my 'elegant' planting of  Cornus 'Midwinter Fire' twigs, rosemary sprigs ( Did you ever know her?)  and  dead seed  heads  of Sedum 'Matrona' but I  was so taken with the elegance with which  that the pot must have rolled over during the night that I was not too put out that my planting was squashed flat on the  terrace ( I live in an old council house so read patio.).

(If you are thinking of buying such a pot they come with a stone plinth and a bolt for attaching it to the base of the pot to stop such disasters happening, it is just that I was too lazy to use mine.)  

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Funny  how even a hint of frost  makes us get the camera out. 

I like  what might be called wallpaper shots.  No particular subject or focus  but  just an interesting interplay of shapes, shades, textures and colours. Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens' - with frost.

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Glorious Days

The great  pleasure of working in other peoples garden is that you

 get the  chance to enjoy moments  like  this, Moments which you could never get in your own garden at least not if it is on the modest scale that mine is. This was taken on the same cold day as the Ophiopogon picture above which was taken early  morning at home.

I feel that a cartoonist with a sharper wit than mine could come  up with a very funny caption for this picture. Any ideas? 

Life was good this day.

Knowing that  there is a Ha Ha either side of this gate makes it look less pointless than it might otherwise seem.

The same garden but now a  much less harmonious picture. It is an almost ugly picture  but with   a great mix of angles and rounded nature, old buildings and an incongruous energy saving light bulb that made a picture that brought a smile to my face. Twenty past ten: nearly break time.

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Frosted Post Tops

 I enjoy the frosty patterns on these fence-post tops. They would have been even better had the focus been  a bit more crisp but they fit well enough into my wallpaper category for me to enjoy

How is your imagination? Do you see an old oak tree in full leaf on the left? And a sort of ploughed field that somehow goes into the sky maybe with a galloping horse in there as well?  No?  Then take more drugs. 

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More aliens?

Heavily pruned  Limes ( Lindens) on the high wolds of the North Cotswolds  make a fabulous sight  in late winter. Years of annual pruning has lead to  these gnarled and knobbly  branches which, depending on  your outlook, looking scarily sinister or just leprous.  

Each branch-end with its crowded top knot of  cut back  branch stubs looks like  an alien head  waiting to stretch out and  take a snap at you in an unguarded moment. Is there the hint of a  face of Jesus in the middle there?

Walking beneath these sinister shapes as the late winter sun sinks towards the horizon  brings on a feeling of unease.  

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Another of natures surprises.

I was tidying up the garden  and moving some Hazel hurdles which had  stood in a damp corner for a couple of years when I was   dazzled by this  brilliantly coloured  fungi. The picture does not do justice to the  brightness and intensity of this  blue fungi. 

Just a word on Hazel hurdles; if you want a quick screen that you do not expect to last  long then use hazel hurdles. To ensure they don't  even last that long make sure they are resting on the damp  ground, ideally amongst moist  leaf litter  where bacterial and fungal decay can break them down at their  quickest. For a screen that will last a  reasonable amount of time use something else. 

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Hokusai versus the Paint Tray,

I am sure you are all familiar with the Hokusai picture below 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa': mountainous waves, Mount Fuji in the background and three boats each with  what must be  eight of the most mighty scared oarsman and passengers. Further below  is  a series of more abstract  images of  the paint tray  from which I  was rollering  emulsion onto the walls. At first  I was  just taken by the patterns  but then I had a Hokusai moment and thought I would photograph them for posterity.
If a pile of bricks  can do it why not  a tray of emulsion paint -  look out Turner Prize here I come!

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I lichen thee to a summer's day. 

I was tidying a mixed border  and came across  this very late carnation flower. I had already cut back the plant but could not bring myself to throw it in the barrow without recording  some of its beauty. I threaded  it into  the lichen covered  lattice of a nearby metal bench.  

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Here's a teaser for the tree guys ( and gals). 

This aluminium tag was fixed to a tree. Originally it bore a number which was recorded on a plan.In an effort to correlate the trees on the plan with those on the ground I went to check which tree was which only to find that the  number on this label had been gnawed? at. 

It certainly looked like some creature had  had a go at it  and the only  animal I could imagine  that  would have  been able to get at the soft metal tag was a squirrel. The marks looked like teeth marks but I have no idea whether  they are the  marks of squirrel teeth or some other animal, and further still why would it  take so much effort  to gnaw away at this tag. Do squirrels suffer from aluminium deficiency of as their own reflection too much to bear? Let me know.

That's all folks. 

Until the next time.................