December 19th: Who will buy my lovely mistletoe?

On three Tuesdays leading up to Christmas, an auction of holly, mistletoe and freshly-made wreaths is held in the ancient town of Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire. For this brief time the town becomes the mistletoe capital of Britain, with eager buyers flocking from every corner of the country to purchase festive evergreens. All are welcome to bring and to buy, attracting a diverse crowd of farmers, smallholders, wholesalers, florists, tourists and local residents looking to deck their halls in time for Christmas celebrations.

Mistletoe auctions would have been commonplace in the area back in the 1800’s. Over time the market at Tenbury Wells rose to prominence whilst others faded away. Countryside around the town, which enjoys a combination of cold winters and warm summers, as well as an abundance of apple orchards, creates the perfect environment for growing mistletoe. For over 100 years the mistletoe and holly auction was held at the town’s cattle market. After the site was sold to developers in 2004 sales were moved across the county line to Herefordshire, eventually finding a new home at Burford House Garden Store.

For thousands of years mistletoe and holly have been cut and displayed in our homes, principally because of their decorative qualities, but also because of long held associations with love and fertility. For the Romans, mistletoe represented peace, love and understanding. Bunches were hung over doorways to safeguard the household. Druids and Celts considered mistletoe to be a symbol of fertility, probably giving rise to the tradition of kissing beneath it. Once auction buyers turn their purchases into small bundles and sprigs, mistletoe can be sold for ten times the price they originally paid.

Nick Champion has been Tenbury’s official mistletoe and holly auctioneer for more than 40 years. According to his latest auction report, 2431 wreaths and 554 lots of holly and mistletoe were sold at the second sale on December 4th 2018. Successful bidders paid up to £10 per kilo for the finest berried holly, and £6 per kilo for top quality mistletoe. Gold and silver variegated holly attracted a lower price than traditional green holly.

A group called the Tenbury Mistletoe Association ensures that the town’s historic status as the mistletoe capital of the UK is maintained. December 1st was established as National Mistletoe day and the association holds a festival each year to celebrate this unusual British native plant. It’s fantastic to witness old traditions not only being preserved, but being kept vibrantly alive in the places where they originated. TFG.

What better way to start the New Year at The Frustrated Gardener than with a plant that flowers through the darkest, coldest months. The winter heliotrope, Petasites fragrans, is so called because it produces tiny clusters of flower that are said to smell like cherry pie. I don’t quite make that culinary connection, but it’s certainly a pleasant and unexpected fragrance to stumble upon during a winter walk. Others liken the scent to liquorice, aniseed or vanilla.

Winter heliotrope is not a British native wildflower. It was introduced to our gardens in the 19th Century on the strength of its lilac-pink, powderpuff flowers and delicious scent. One can imagine Victorian ladies being greatly amused by this unusual new discovery planted daintily on a stream bank or in a sheltered dell. However, like several other vigorous non-natives, winter heliotrope was far from lady-like in its behaviour, quickly finding itself at home along roads and hedges, in ditches and alongside rivers. A great distance from its native lands of Sardinia and North Africa, winter heliotrope found Britain, the south in particular, a home from home. According to the RHS only male plants may be found in the UK and Ireland, hence every one is genetically identical. The plant spreads vegetatively via creeping, underground rhizomes, forming clumps several metres across when uninhibited.

As an invasive ‘alien’, winter heliotrope is not too offensive. It will not tolerate regular disturbance, so the least harmful approach is to keep digging it up if it appears where it’s not wanted. Otherwise allow winter heliotrope to form large carpets, making sure you can get close to it in winter to appreciate the scent. The flower stems are short, so you may have to bend to get your nose into the little clusters of bloom. Small, heart-shaped, green leaves emerge shortly after the flowers.

I’ve not been able to ascertain a great deal about winter heliotrope’s wildlife value, except to establish that it may crowd out natives given the perfect conditions for its growth. I imagine in sensitive and protected landscapes it could cause serious problems, but for most of us it is, at worst, a persistent weed. The photographs in this post were taken along a stretch of path between Kingsdown and Walmer in Kent. With gardens on one side and the English Channel on the other, the heliotrope seemed much happier in the shingle beach than it did in cultivated soil. Those with sharp eyes will spot young tree mallows (Malva arborea) and the emerging leaves of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) in the scene above. Only the mallow is native and all can be found in the Mediterranean, which says something about how mild this stretch of the Kent coastline is.

Whilst perhaps not a plant for deliberate cultivation in our gardens, winter heliotrope is a welcome sight from now until the end of February when everything else is looking drab and smelling distinctly earthy. TFG.

Spring arrives a little earlier in Cornwall than elsewhere in England. The far South West is blessed with a mild, maritime climate which ensures the county rarely experiences extremes in temperature, although they are not unheard of. In the summer Cornwall never feels quite as warm as elsewhere and in the winter frosts seldom bother gardeners, at least not near the coast. Such benign conditions invite all sorts of exotics to flourish as if they were native to our shores: it’s not unusual to stumble upon groves of New Zealand pittosporum (Pittosporum tenuifolium) or Chilean myrtle (Myrtus luma / Luma apiculata), or to discover a woodland pond choked with Brazilian giant rhubarb (Gunnera manicata). Montbretia (Crocosmia masoniorum) from South Africa makes its home in Cornish hedges and ditches, whilst Agapanthus africanus might even spring from sand dunes in the Scilly Isles. Banksias, proteas, aeoniums and phormiums can often be spotted, but the most common interloper is the camellia, originally from from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia, which can be found growing in all but the most unloved Cornish gardens.

The picturesque village of Gulval near Penzance enjoys an elevated position overlooking Mounts Bay. Facing south, the fields above the village are used to cultivate daffodils, whilst those just a stone’s throw away are home to the National Dahlia Collection. The farmland in this area is blessed with the perfect conditions for cultivating flowers, although closer to the sea an ugly stretch of supermarkets and warehouses blights the coastline and obscures the view back towards the village. Situated at Gulval’s heart, where one might normally expect to find the open expanse of a village green, is a solid granite church. The building is dedicated to a 6th Century saint named Gulval, the original form of which was probably Welvela or Wolvela, names which sound like brands of vitamin and hosiery respectively. Either way I am sure he or she was devout and deserving of such a beautiful memorial.

Gulval’s churchyard is defined by a roughly circular wall punctuated by sturdy lychgates. A road runs unbroken around the perimeter. Inside is a treasure trove of plants, including a spectacular podocarpus (I suspect P. salignus), several stands of bamboo, Chusan palms and a number of mature, healthy camellias. On the day after my birthday, January 13th, every camellia was in bloom, with signs of greater abundance to come. The churchyard is well maintained and must be even prettier in spring when the sward is peppered with primroses. Gulval is not far from great gardens at Godolphin, St Michael’s Mount, Trengwainton and Trewidden. I suspect many of these beautiful camellias were gifted by those estates, or acquired from the nurseries that supplied them. The history of Camellia growing in Britain is intricately entwined with the county of Cornwall thanks to combination of the mild climate, high soil acidity and the attentions of ardent plant collecting families such as the Williams’ at Caerhays Castle and the Bolithos at Trengwainton and Trewidden. By crossing Camellia saluenensis with Camellia japonica John Charles Williams created the hardy Camellia × williamsii hybrids, such as ‘St Ewe’, which are vigorous, floriferous and more tolerant of cold than some of the species.

When one spies a camellia flowering on a dull, dank midwinter’s day it is easy to appreciate their appeal. For the most part camellias grow slowly to form small-to-medium-sized bushes clothed in glossy, green foliage. This neat habit ticks a lot of boxes for gardeners, since little or no pruning is required and the plant looks presentable year-round. Flowers can appear at any time from late autumn until late spring, depending on the species or variety, but often start appearing in late winter when very few shrubs provide serious colour. It’s the sheer size, delicacy and voluptuousness of the bloom that dazzles me. It seems wrong that any flower so tender and flamboyant should be capable of surviving in winter. In that respect camellias are remarkable and worthy of greater admiration.

Unlike rhododendrons, which also insist on high soil acidity, many camellias will grow happily in a large pot for a long period, making them suitable for almost any garden. I have grown a number of camellias over the years and they’ve always lasted well provided they are kept regularly watered and fed. Moisture is essential since summer drought can cause buds and leaves to drop, limiting the floral display the following season. Originally considered to be too tender for outdoor cultivation (hence the gracious camellia houses at Chiswick House and Wollaton Hall), modern camellia hybrids are now hardy enough in most of the country. Early buds and flowers may be blighted by frost, especially if cold is accompanied by rain. White-flowered camellias have a tendency to hold onto their spent flowers when they turn rust-brown, which is can ruin the countenance of a plant in full bloom.

Planted in the garden and left to mature, camellias can reach a considerable size, so they should be planted a good distance apart to avoid the heart-breaking possibility of having to thin out established plants later on. Camellias wont tolerate lime, so in areas like East Kent, where I live, the only option is pot culture. Use a good, moisture-retentive ericaceous compost and feed regularly with a liquid feed formulated for acid-loving plants.

As harbingers of spring there is no shrub to rival the camellia for colour or extravagance. Indeed if one were to award to epithet of ‘Christmas Rose’ to any plant, it ought to be the camellia rather than the hellebore. To my mind no garden, great or humble, ought to be without a camellia, either planted in a pot or border close to the house, as a backdrop to a mixed border, or dotted throughout a woodland garden. The value they offer the gardener and admirer is beyond measure. TFG.

Followers of The Frustrated Gardener will already know that I am an inveterate plant collector. If I’ve not seen or heard of a plant and it looks vaguely attractive I’ll want to try growing it. Once I’ve established that I am capable of doing so (normally a quick Internet search will suffice) and I have my hands on it, there is no going back.

The winter provides some relief from this expensive and space-hungry addiction, although of late I have turned my attention to houseplants and am quickly running out of room for those too. But a trip to Cornwall is not complete without a visit to at least one nursery, and since it was also my birthday nothing was going to prevent me dropping into Hardy Exotics en route from Penzance to St Ives. Hardy Exotics is a small nursery brimming with unusual and unexpected plants. It has a special place in my affections since it’s where I began buying tender and subtropical plants some ten or twelve years ago.

Having admitted that I tend to buy now and research later, I am hereby committing to describing this year’s purchases on my blog, both as an aide memoire and a confessional. I might think twice about buying so many plants if I know I then have to write about them … although I feel this is unlikely!

On entering one of Hardy Exotics’ slightly dishevelled and algaefied polytunnels, the first plant that caught my eye bore a handsome rosette of elongate green leaves atop a fleshy stem. Each leaf had a burgundy-red reverse with raised veins. I instantly recognised this as an impatiens, but was not sure which. The label read ‘Impatiens balansae‘. I have found almost nothing written about this species, apart from that it hails from China and Vietnam. Pictures online show shoals of jazzy little flowers resembling goldfish with big red lips. They swim elegantly over and between the foliage, poised on wiry stems. Lack of information generally serves only to pique my interest further. I shall let you know how I get on with the mysterious Impatiens balansae in due course. My first challenge is to get the plant through the remainder of the winter without an attack of red spider-mite, which so often cripples my impatiens when they come indoors.

Mindful that The Beau might not appreciate me filling his car with plants (I’m still sussing him out in that respect) I decided that I should only purchase one more on this particular excursion. Hopefully it won’t be long until we’ve graduated to full-boot, roof-down, plants-wedged-between-the-legs adventures. Finding it difficult to choose, I plumped for another unknown, based purely on its resemblance to Sparmannia africana, a large, felty-leaved shrub that I find indispensable inside and out. It turns out that Entelea arborescens is quite closely related to sparmannia, as well as being an only child – it’s the sole species within the genus. The leaves resemble a lime or a mulberry, with their large size and silky lustre suggesting ‘tropical’ and ‘vigorous’. In its native New Zealand, Entelea arborescens is called whau and is prized for its very light wood, rivalling balsa (Ochroma pyramidale). The wood is pithy and unlignified, which means it has very little weight and no distinct growth rings within it. The Maori used whau to make rafts, floats and marker buoys, naming Auckland’s Mount Eden ‘Maungawhau’ meaning ‘Mountain of the whau tree’.

As you will see from the lead image, the flowers bear a close resemblance to those of rubus, superficially at least, and are borne in large clusters during spring and summer. They are, apparently, scented too. After flowering, spiky green fruit capsules appear, eventually turning blackish brown to resemble Mediaeval instruments of torture. Entelea arborescens is not considered hardy in the UK and does not appreciate cold or drought. However it does root very easily from cuttings, so I shall be taking several this summer as an insurance policy. In its natural habitat whau is a pioneer species living around ten years, so it benefits from constant rejuvenation and replacement. Whau might also make a handsome houseplant for a bright room, provided one has the space to let it grow and flower.

No doubt these intriguing plants are the first of many additions to the garden at The Watch House this year. How I will fit them all in I don’t know. Stay tuned to find out! TFG.

Lead image: Whau Flower (Entelea arborescens) – Wikimedia Commons / Avenue

This winter’s weather is turning out to be a bit of tease. We experience a short spell of cold, then it’s back to mild again. When it does get cold, my garden escapes the frost, even if cars in the street are encrusted with ice. The winds gets up for a few hours and then calm descends once more, unlike last year when it blew for weeks on end. I am not complaining; indeed I am very happy for benign conditions to prevail until spring. Alas I suspect they might not.

The biggest irritation this January has been the dull weather. Lack of winter sunlight is is a major challenge for houseplants. Even in my garden room, which is sufficiently bright for nine months of the year, many plants are beginning to look a little sallow. Feeding and watering is not the answer. They simply need to be kept on the dry side and free from pests and diseases. Whitefly, greenfly and red spider mite can become a complete nuisance if left unchecked.

This weekend The Beau and I attached two wire plant supports to the back wall of the garden room. They are sold as wall art and have a very appealing rust finish. I had toyed with a system of high-tensile wires, but decided this would not be decorative enough, so saved up and purchased two handcrafted wire roundels instead. The largest is over a metre in diameter. I may add a third in due course. While I source appropriate climbers I have attached a few airplants (tillandsia) to the wires and hope they will enjoy the conditions. I am wondering whether orchids and staghorn ferns might be appropriate companions in due course.

Outside, The Jungle Garden is keeping tight hold of its green mantle. This is quite usual for the time of year. I enjoy the relative simplicity of The Jungle Garden in winter, not to mention the generous space. Just three months ago there was barely room to swing a cat in front of the house. A glazed pot filled with magenta-flowered cyclamen provides the only focal point and can be relied upon to continue doing so until narcissi and tulips take over in March. The brilliant flowers dim to a plummy-purple colour as they fade: I pull them off regularly to ensure that more follow.

In my pots, three quarters of which are still sheltering in the workshop, there are signs of life. Little green duck-bills push up through coarse grit in search of light. As they appear I stand the pots outside and make sure they are kept watered, but not waterlogged. It will only be a matter of weeks before flowers begin to appear in earnest. Before that there will be snowdrops and miniature irises, as well as a smattering of early daffodils.

Meanwhile a break from physical gardening is doing me good, freeing up time for book buying and reading. I enjoy trawling the books on Amazon that are being sold off for £1 – a great opportunity to pick up old and specialist titles that one might otherwise have missed out on. Recently I was very happy to find a copy of Nori and Sandra Pope’s Planting With Colour, as well as Roger Phillips’ Herbs. Both arrived this week in mint condition, perfect books for browsing in front of a roaring fire whilst the capricious weather makes up its mind. TFG.

Galanthophiles rejoice, snowdrop season is upon us once again. In recent years snowdrop appreciation has become a mainstream activity with hundreds of gardens throwing wide their gates outside of normal opening times to welcome eager visitors. Thus we are not only permitted to gaze upon spangled carpets of white blossom, but also to enjoy familiar gardens when they haven’t got their clothes on, as it were.

I maintain a measured indifference to snowdrops, mainly because I have an addictive personality, yet their early appearance pleases me no end. I find snowdrops’ often infinitesimally small differences intriguing, but I am wise enough to understand that I don’t have the right situation to grow them here at The Watch House. My interest is that of an appreciative bystander rather than a knowledgeable enthusiast. But since there’s precious little to admire in gardens right now, I am thankful for the joy snowdrops bring me. There’s no excuse not to wrap up warm and go snowdrop spotting when my own plot is still demanding little of me.

If you’re at a loose end over the next fortnight you still have time to visit one of the 95 gardens participating in the 4th annual National Garden Scheme (NGS) Snowdrop Festival. The rosta includes gardens large and small, grand and humble, each with its own approach to celebrating our favourite harbinger of spring. Here are a few favourites to whet your appetite.

Gelli Uchaf – Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, SA19 7PY

Open February 23rd and 24th 2019 10.30 – 17.30

At Gelli Uchaf you’ll discover hundreds of thousands of snowdrops comprising over 200 cultivars and including a unique collection of Welsh varieties. Snowdrops are used throughout the garden to underplant trees and shrubs alongside crocuses, scillas, cyclamen and narcissi. The 1.5 acre plot is gardened on a mainly organic regime. Owners Julian and Fiona Wormald have a keen interest in encouraging insects by planting meadows rich in wild flowers. Parking at Gelli Uchaf is very limited, so even on open days visitors are encouraged to phone or e-mail ahead and book a time slot.

10 Chestnut Way – Repton, Derbyshire, DE65 6FQ

Open February 17th and 24th 2019, 11.00 – 15.00

A one-acre garden which appears very much larger. Owners Robert and Pauline have a keen interest in Viticella clematis and organic gardening, sometimes offering their homegrown fruit and vegetables for sale in season. During February visitors can enjoy hellebores, fragrant daphnes and of course lashings of snowdrops, followed by a warming bowl of homemade soup. Bliss. There is plenty of seating in the garden for those who wish to take the weight off their feet or to just sit and contemplate the simple beauty of the snowdrop.

Hedgehog Hall – Tilton on the Hill, Leicestershire, LE7 9DE

Open February 23rd and 24th 2019, 11.00 – 16.00

The organically managed 1/2 acre garden at Hedgehog Hall is packed with interesting plants. The owners’ extensive collection of snowdrops is displayed on a series of terraces and in a raised bed, providing a good opportunity to get up-close and personal with these tiny flowers. Clumps are well labelled, which will please committed galanthophiles. Homemade soup and a roll is available for those braving the cold to enjoy the display.

Higher Cherubeer, Winkleigh, Devon, EX19 8PP

Open February 23rd 2019, 14.00 – 17.00

This magical garden in the South West of England is a plantsperson’s paradise. As well as a National Collection of cyclamen species, Higher Cherubeer is home to many handsome hellebores and over 400 snowdrop varieties. Other-worldly, pollarded willows, captured in all their alien glory by Carole Drake’s atmospheric photograph (above) are worth the visit alone. RHS Rosemoor is only 8 miles away, so can easily be explored on the same day.

Lacock Abbey Gardens – Lacock, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN15 2LG

Open February 23rd 2019, 10.30 – 17.30

The National Trust’s Lacock Abbey and the adjoining village of Lacock are much beloved by TV and film makers, having appeared in Cranford, Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth version), Emma, Moll Flanders and, most famously, the Harry Potter films. In late winter the Abbey’s woodland garden is carpeted with aconites, snowdrops, crocuses and narcissi. As you’d expect of a National Trust property, there are numerous opportunities for refreshment both at the Abbey and in the village. Period costume optional, but it will guarantee a winning snowdrop selfie.

The Down House – Itchen Abbas, Hampshire, SO21 1AX

Open February 13th – 28th, by appointment – contact the garden owner for details

Situated on the Pilgrim’s Way and overlooking the peaceful Itchen Valley, The Down House is a true winter garden. Borders of brightly coloured dogwoods and stands of gleaming white birch deliver colour and light on the darkest of days. Beneath your feet (not literally one hopes!) you’ll discover carpets of snowdrops, aconites and pinkish-lilac crocuses. Don’t be put off by the ‘by arrangement’ status of this garden which is well worth seeing, however do call ahead to discuss your visit.

Copton Ash – Faversham, Kent ME13 8XW

Open February 17th 2019, 12.00-16.00

Although it’s only up the road, to my great shame I have never visited Copton Ash, a fine Kentish garden which opens regularly for the NGS. Owners Tim and Gillian Ingram have collected many rare plants and raised others from wild seed. They have a special interest in woodland flowers including anemones, hepaticas and trillium, as well as snowdrops and hellebores. Tim is a member of the Alpine Garden Society and maintains a small alpine nursery to indulge his passion.

Devonshire Mill – Pocklington, North Yorkshire, YO42 1NN

Open February 24th 2019, 11.00 – 17.00

In early spring the orchards at Devonshire Mill are awash with long-established drifts of double snowdrops (principally Galanthus nivalis f. pleniflorus ‘Flore Pleno’).

Two-acres of garden surround the house, a 200-year-old Grade II listed watermill. Devonshire Mill is an intimate garden with many different areas, structured on an old layout with a mill stream running along the length. To encourage wildlife, owners Sue and Chris Bond are guided by organic principles. TFG.

One of the many frustrations of having flu is that everything tastes and smells odd. Apparently viral particles linger longer in the nose and mouth than they do in the blood, altering and inhibiting the recognition of flavours and fragrances long after one’s physical recovery has begun. Whatever causes this phenomenon, it does make one feel both thoroughly miserable and sympathetic towards those who experience permanent impediment to their senses of taste and smell. Eating and drinking is no pleasure when things don’t taste as they should.

Although I had very little appetite whilst I was suffering, all I could face was the blandest, most unseasoned food. The merest hint of salt and all I could discern was the bitter tang of metal. An attempt to mask my sickly miasma with one of my favourite scents made me feel horribly nauseous, and I am still not quite ready to wear it again now.

Whilst I was languishing in bed, my energy levels at all-time low, The Beau was still up and about, sending me photographs from his daily dog walks around Rosudgeon and Perranuthnoe. One day I woke up to a picture of some sweet violets, Viola odorata, sprouting from the base of a Cornish hedge. The image of those shy flowers against a background of emerald-green leaves cheered me up no end. I could imagine the scent without actually having to experience it, a scent which immediately transported me 350 miles to the westernmost tip of Cornwall.

Between the two World Wars violet growing was big business in the West Country, especially in these blessed parts. A special train conveyed glistening bunches of freshly-picked Cornish violets to Covent Garden Market every day through the season, which began in November and continued until May when the plants were lifted, divided and replanted. A variety called ‘Governor Herrick’ proved best suited to the Cornish climate, the drawback being that it was unscented. Unscrupulous sellers would spray the tissue-wrapped bunches with artificial scent to cover this up, especially since the violets grown in neighbouring Devon, mainly a French variety called ‘Princess of Wales’, were sweetly perfumed.

During the Second World War flower farms were requisitioned for the growing of food and violets quickly went out of fashion as a cut flower. One occasionally sees the odd bunch for sale in London, but they are a rarity and no-longer worn as a corsage or button-hole. Compared to the flowers we buy today, they are relatively short-lived, lasting for perhaps 3-5 days if misted with water. However one is highly likely to find them growing wild in Cornish hedges and gardens. Sweet violets have held on since escaping from the small walled flower fields, known locally as quillets, where they were once cultivated.

If I see sweet violets growing I always pick a few stems and pass them through a buttonhole in my jacket. From there, even on a chilly day, the delicate yet unmistakable scent reaches my nose, warding off the strongest of ‘country smells’. No doubt this is exactly why violets were so popular with ladies in 1920’s London wishing to distract themselves from the less attractive aspects of living in a polluted and overcrowded city.

If you’d like to learn more about the historic Cornish flower industry, you might enjoy a charming BBC podcast called The Flower Fields which reveals the challenges faced by those few farmers that continue the time-honoured practice of sending flowers up to London’s Covent Garden Flower Market in spring. TFG.

Friday March 8th 2019, 8.30-9.00pm, BBC2

When I look at my garden this evening, as it takes a battering from Storm Freya, I find it hard to recall how it looked that warm August day when BBC Gardeners’ World came to film. The outdoor kitchen has had its annual spruce up and a smattering of narcissi offer a clue that spring is around the corner. In the greenhouse my fuchsias are starting to produce pale green leaf buds and cuttings that have done nothing for months are starting to put on some growth. In my workshop-cum-potting-shed the first few dahlias have been planted up and many more will follow. Spring is almost upon us, but the glories of summer remain a distant memory.

When BBC Gardener’s World contacted me last summer, quite out of the blue, I was a tiny bit sceptical. Sometimes these things naturally come to nothing and I didn’t want to build my hopes up. But before I knew it a date was confirmed, entered in the diary and I was sworn to secrecy until the film was ‘in the can’. In the days that followed I preened and primped my garden knowing that it wasn’t just for my NGS visitors, but also for the television cameras. I don’t mind admitting that I found keeping such an exciting secret both excruciating and impossible. I let the news slip to a few close friends and acquaintances, partly to explain why I was being even more fastidious about everything than usual.

BBC researcher Yvonne and director Adrian travelled down on Tuesday night ready for an early start on Wednesday. Happily the workshop was already set up for my open weekend and so became the green room for a day. The tea urn I purchased three years ago is the most useful thing for occasions such as these, since all the best teams are fuelled by regular cups of tea and coffee. The cameraman drove up from Brighton and the sound engineer from nearby Faversham, completing a team of four. It’s many years since I’ve done any TV work and the equipment gets smaller and more advanced every time: just as well as my garden is miniature!

For the first three hours of filming I was required to sit on a chair and talk about the garden whilst looking straight into the Director’s eyes – nothing too challenging there. The last time I sat down for that long was when my train got stuck in a snow drift last March. There was to be no presenter for this segment, so it was down to me to do the talking. Normally I find describing the garden the easiest thing in the world, but there’s something about a TV camera that scrambles your brain. I’m sure I said ‘lovely’, ‘exotic’, ‘lush’, ‘tropical’ and ‘enveloped’ far too many times (please don’t count). Most of my gormless repetition will be edited out, since we worked for 10 hours to create an ‘insert’ which will be just 3-4 minutes long by the time you see it.

The whole day was meticulously organised and carefully scripted, although there was still flexibility to add a few impromptu scenes which we felt would be good on the day. I won’t give the game away by telling you what we filmed, but the general idea was to show viewers that it’s possible to cram a great deal into a small garden.

The size of my garden presented a real challenge when it came to filming. The cameraman used every trick in the book to get different angles and perspectives. Every window or table was used to create shots that conveyed a sense of enveloping jungliness (there I go again!). A small screen on-top of the camera allowed us to see what the cameraman was capturing. Of course, there’s no such thing as ‘film’ now, the programme is recorded on tiny memory cards that travelled back to BBC Bristol on the train for editing. We filmed most segments three times using different lenses and camera positions. These will have been cut together to create the final version.

Adrian the Director went to great lengths to make sure everything was done perfectly, with no continuity slip-ups. One poor begonia got watered 10 times in the name of great television. Poor old Solenostemon (coleus) ‘Henna’ was in just the wrong position for all the cables and tripods so took a bit of a battering. I hope this plant makes it on to Gardeners’ World as it really was the ‘It’ plant in my garden last year, giving flame nettles a good name. (My local garden centre has already confirmed they will be growing ‘Henna’ again, so I expect to see it in every garden in Broadstairs this summer.)

The Jungle Garden commanded most of the camera’s attention, but we briefly filmed The Gin & Tonic Garden …. just as it was time for a Gin & Tonic. At 6pm it was a wrap, and the crew packed up their kit and went home. I had just enough energy in reserve to switch off the tea urn and get myself fish and chips (this has become a dreadful habit and is a terrible temptation when one lives by the sea) before curling up on the sofa with a glass of rosé and watching TV. I was so tired I can’t even remember what was on. I was in bed by 10pm and didn’t wake up for 12 hours.

All-in-all filming the garden for television was a great experience and something most of us only get to do once, if at all. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to see behind the scenes and also to spend time in front of the camera. I learned a lot that I can apply to my own short films in future, although I doubt I will be spending ten hours creating them!

A huge thank you to the BBC for singling out The Watch House for inclusion on the show. In just five days’ time we’ll know just how likely an alternative career in television is for The Frustrated Gardener. As it’s the first programme of the new season and still pretty chilly outside, I am intrigued to see how the BBC manage to weave me in to Monty’s commentary. However they do it, I hope you feel transported to my little corner of England and inspired to think big in the smallest of spaces. TFG.

N.B. In case you think you are experiencing déjà vu, a large part of this post was originally published in August 2018, directly after filming. You can read the original post here.

Before I begin, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who posted a comment following the garden’s appearance on Gardeners’ World last Friday. It’s been uplifting reading the many kind, appreciative messages that have popped up here and on other forms of social media. I am delighted that so many people have found my garden interesting, inspiring, curious or simply pleasant to look at. After all, that’s that what we strive to achieve in a ornamental garden: a pleasing picture. The BBC’s cameras captured the essence of the garden, giving viewers a genuine sense of what it’s like to potter about in my little green tropical ravine.

As our nation becomes more and more urbanised, tight pockets of flora and fauna will increasingly be relied upon for repose and recreation. Bounded by reasonably tall buildings, my garden is an example of what can be achieved and of the challenges to be faced in town and city gardens. If you have a small garden, let no-one suggest it’s an easy gig … but let me convince you that it’s a rewarding one.

The weekend following my appearance on Gardeners’ World turned out to be bittersweet. My ironwood tree (Lyonothanus floribundus subsp. aspleniifolius), which everyone so admired on screen, blew down during the gales that swept across Kent on Sunday. Friends tell me that there were trees and fences felled across the county, with one of our local supermarkets losing its roof. Little changes make a big difference in a small space. As you can imagine, the toppling of this beautiful tree has already had a dramatic impact and will take some time to address. I should feel more bereft than I do, but I knew this moment might come and must have subconsciously prepared for it. This cloud has a silver lining, even if I can’t see it quite yet.

Along with the comments, after the programme came a whole host of questions. I have been trying my hardest to reply to them all individually, but please accept my apologies if I have overlooked yours. Since many were along similar lines I thought I would share the answers in a post in the hope they might satisfy a broader audience. Let’s start with an easy one:

– What is the name of the species fuchsia that featured on the programme?

If you’d asked me a fortnight ago, I’d have told you confidently that it was Fuchsia splendens. It was purchased from a well known fuchsia specialist as Fuchsia splendens, and I have been tending to it lovingly ever since. Various expert visitors have also recognised it as Fuchsia splendens. However, a BBC researcher questioned my naming whilst working on the final cut and so now I am starting to doubt myself. Whatever its name, it’s a beautiful, treasured plant which I’d highly recommend for a semi-shaded spot. Not winter hardy but Fuchsia splendens survives for me in an unheated greenhouse.

– Is your garden open to the public?

Yes it is! I open the garden annually for one weekend in support of the National Garden Scheme. This incredible organisation, the likes of which exists no-where else on earth, orchestrates the opening of thousands of special, personal, private gardens every year. I am proud to be included in the famous Yellow Book and looking forward to meeting more of you August 3rd and 4th when I open the garden next. My expectation is that the garden will be busier than normal this year, especially if the weather is fine, so please be patient and make the most of Broadstairs during your visit.

Click here for more details on the NGS website.

– How do you keep your tropical plants alive over the winter?

Let’s clear one thing up – my garden is not tropical (I wish!). It’s probably not even technically subtropical, but I have a microclimate that helps me to create that illusion. Many plants we consider tropical or exotic in the UK are in fact species that grow in the cooler parts of warmer countries, for example at high altitude, hence they are hardier than their looks might suggest.

That said, even these are likely to require some winter protection and I won’t mislead you by suggesting this does not involve some planning and hard work. Most of my plants are in pots, so those that die down in winter, such as lilies, dahlias, gingers and roscoeas are stored in the workshop from December. They don’t require light or water during their dormant period and can be left alone until early spring. The workshop is unheated but frost free and well ventilated.

Plants that require temperatures above 15ºC to stay in good shape, in which I count coleus, streptocarpus, papyrus, sparmannia, philodendrons, tillandsias (air plants), aechmeas and some begonias, come indoors. They occupy every windowsill and ledge I have at my disposal, as well as crowding into my garden room. I don’t let them go back outside until June or even July, when the nights are reliably warm.

Plants that don’t die down in the winter but need basic frost protection – geraniums, plectranthus, nerines, succulents and tropical ferns – are stashed in a small unheated greenhouse. If it gets exceptionally cold then I may cover them with some fleece, but rarely is that necessary.

It is a lot of effort, especially in spring and early winter, but I’ve never been interested in low maintenance gardening.

– How can I replicate the jungle look in my own garden?

In milder parts of the UK we are spoiled for choice, with nurseries, garden centres and specialists offering a good range of exotic-looking plants. Typically we think of big leaves when we speak about jungle gardens and these are offered by bananas, castor oil plants, gingers and trees such as catalpa and paulownia. However I have found it’s just as important to consider texture, shape and colour when choosing foliage plants. Flowers are perhaps less important than in a traditional English garden, but are nevertheless essential for creating little ‘moments’ during the growing season.

In colder parts of the UK the same plants can be grow outside during the summer months but will need protection for longer. Hardy shrubs such as fatsia and aucuba give a jungly effect and are useful for creating permanent structure. This is important as no-one wants a garden that is completely bare during the winter.

Wherever you live you should be prepared for a jungle garden to excel in the summer and autumn and make provision for an alternative winter and spring display. I do this by planting a huge quantity of bulbs and attractive evergreen trees.

– Where can I buy coleus seeds and plants?

It is surprisingly tricky to get hold of coleus in the UK, especially named varieties. Seeds are easy to germinate and widely available from all the major seed companies, mainly in mixtures. Plants grown from seed have a tendency to go to seed themselves, especially if the summer is hot or they are not watered regularly. The best place to shop for named varieties is Dibleys, who send out rooted cuttings from April.

If you’d like to read more about the trials of sourcing good coleus, you may enjoy this post I wrote last year.

– Have the BBC asked you to present again?

Let’s just say ‘not yet’, but if I was asked, the answer would definitely be ‘yes’. With all the encouragement I have received I’ll be endeavouring to record more videos this year and will be posting them to my very underused YouTube channel.

– Why is one of your gardens called the Gin & Tonic garden?

It’s called the Gin & Tonic garden because during the summer it catches the sun at precisely the time I need a G&T. That’s not all day I might add!

– Where can I buy the Catalina ironwood tree that featured in the show?

Architectural Plants in Chichester is my ‘go to’ supplier for trees, not that I have space for any more. They are a great source of unusual and large specimens. Pan-Global Plants also offer Catalina ironwood trees for sale. Despite my unfortunate experience this weekend, this is a great tree for exposed coastal conditions since it is native to a series of rocky islands off the coast of California. TFG.

March can be a wild and windy month, especially in the far south-west of Cornwall. So it was that we turned up at Trewidden to view the magnolias only to find the garden was closed owing to the inclement weather. All Cornish gardens of note rely heavily on shelter created by large trees and shrubs. Now, with many of the original plantings reaching maturity or senility, there is a very real danger that branches might sheer off and crush someone in a gale. Disappointing as it was to turn back, safety always comes first in these situations.

Having marvelled at the lipstick-coloured camellias gracing Trewidden’s sunken drive, The Beau and I were full of anticipation and determined to sate our appetite for spring flowers. A few days before I’d seen a couple of Instagram posts highlighting the marvellous display of magnolias in Morrab Gardens, a public park in Penzance. Remarkably, neither of us had visited before, so we loaded the dogs back into the car and set off for town.

Morrab Gardens sits just back from the town’s sweeping sea front, surrounded by some particularly fine houses. This sheltered enclave is home to an extensive collection of subtropical plants that have been gifted to the people of Penzance over the years by some of Cornwall’s most noted garden owners – the Bolithos of Trengwainton, The Williams’ of Trewidden, the Dorrien-Smiths at Tresco Abbey and Canon Boscawen, rector of Ludgvan and horticulturalist extraordinaire.

Morrab House and its walled gardens date back to 1841 when a wealthy brewer, Samuel Pidwell, purchased a grassy plot running down to the sea. An important man at the time, he invested in mining and the fledgling West Cornwall Railway. He was twice Mayor of Penzance. Following Pidwell’s early demise – he died at the age of 46 – Charles Campbell Ross, MP for St Ives and five times Mayor of Penzance purchased the handsome villa and lived there until 1881. Following a brief period when the house was let, during which time Ross lost his seat at parliament, Morrab House was eventually purchased by a Mr King, His Majesty’s Inspector of Schools in the district, for the princely sum of £2,800.

The next time Morrab House was sold, in July 1888, it was snapped up by the Penzance Corporation to provide a park for public recreation. Since 1867 the town had been accessible directly from London via the Great Western Railway, becoming extremely popular with holiday-makers. A park was needed to give Penzance the air of gentility expected of a Victorian seaside resort; Morrab offered the Corporation a head start. The Georgian-style villa became a library and a competition was launched to design a three acre park in the walled gardens. Competition was fierce, with ten designs shortlisted and four winners selected. A London designer, Reginald Upcher, was declared the overall winner, claiming 20 guineas for his trouble, equivalent to £21.

Upcher’s architypal Victorian park plan was faithfully followed and swiftly executed. His design included serpentine paths, expansive shrubberies, fountains and flower beds, all focussed around an elegant bandstand (finally installed in 1897). Taking advantage of the mild, almost frost-free climate, an already mature planting in Morrab Gardens was enriched with a palette of tender and hardy exotics. It must have created quite a stir as new plants flooded in from surrounding estates, many of which had been the first to successfully cultivate foreign species. The Victorians were fascinated by exotica and here was an opportunity to put Cornwall’s horticultural prowess on public display.

When the park opened in September 1889 the occasion was marked with a half day holiday and a procession through the streets. The Gardeners’ Chronicle wrote: ‘One of its features is a Palm-grove, where tourists may fancy themselves in the tropics or on Mediterranean shores.’ There are still numerous palms, mainly Chusan, possibly surviving from those original plantings, along with a wealth established shrubs and trees. The famous avenue of cabbage palms, Cordyline australis, has sadly been diminished by recent cold winters, with only a handful remaining. The extent of Cornwall’s typically mild climate is evident in just how early plants such as Hedychium and Canna start into growth, with many herbaceous plants not even taking the trouble to die down during the winter months.

On our mid-March visit there was more than enough to keep two plant enthusiasts happy for an hour or two. A favourite tree of mine, Drimys winterii was flowering in the lee of a wall, surrounded by wide-spreading camellias with large, heavy flowers. Towering above a collections of shrubs close to the bandstand, a mighty thicket of Tetrapanax rex had begun to produce new foliage.

Walking towards Morrab House one passes through a damp glade filled with enormous tree ferns underplanted with Aspidistra elatior. This Victorian classic houseplant is perfectly happy growing outside in sheltered gardens, although it can look rather tatty. There are magnolias here, as well as on the main lawn. Everywhere you turn there are feathery rosettes of Geranium reuteri (formerly Geranium canariense) from the Canary Island and Madeira. This is not one of the tender geraniums I have in my garden, but I shall certainly try it now. Geranium reuteri resembles an especially large and vigorous herb Robert, with much smaller flowers than either G. palmatum or G. maderense, but equally pretty foliage.

Sheltered beneath the villa itself a granite retaining wall provides a sun-kissed environment for succulents, including the mighty Agave americana, opuntias, aloes and aeoniums. I’d love a similar feature in my own garden, but since the only way to achieve it would be to dismantle my greenhouse I might find it a wrench. It has, however, sown a seed in my mind.

We came to see the magnolias and we were not disappointed. A brisk and boisterous breeze off the sea means that Morrab’s magnolias have assumed an attractively low profile. This in turn imbues the trees with an air of antiquity which may or may not be an accurate reflection of their age. The shrubberies surrounding the main lawns are jam-packed with out-of-the-ordinary plants, some of which I could not identify and remain on my ‘must find out’ list (am I alone in having such a list I wonder?). Camellias are planted in abundance as is Pseudopanax laetus (a fantastic foliage shrub) and Luma apiculata, the Chilean myrtle.

It is something of a mistake to imagine that every example of our Victorian public park heritage is now desecrated and irrelevant. Naturally some simplification has been required to make parks viable in this era of drastic public spending cuts, but, assisted by a sympathetic local authority and the Friends of Morrab Gardens, it’s evident that this particular example of Victorian munificence is being actively managed and enormously appreciated by a new generation of visitors. Having reluctantly changed our plans, The Beau and I not only discovered a new special place, but also saved ourselves an entrance fee. Sometimes the best things in life really are free. TFG.

Morrab Gardens (Penzance, Cornwall, TR18 4DA) are open every day of the year during daylight hours. Parking is available on seafront and there’s a small, zebra-themed cafe at the park entrance. And why not?

Unpredictability is the name of the game when it comes to British weather, but one old proverb certainly promises to ring true in 2019:

‘March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers.’

Whilst the warmth and vitality of May still feel a long way off, March and April are fulfilling their time-honoured roles as bringers of wind and rain. After the set-back of destructive gales in March, my garden’s pent up energy is being released by cool showers, gentle mists and persistent drizzle. If I put my ear to the ground I might hear the earth humming with life as a trillion bacteria, a thousand bugs and a labyrinth of roots get back to work after winter. The speed at which plants will grow over the next six weeks is astonishing; many are already out of the starting blocks, especially those from the Canary Islands and Madeira where winters are mild and spring arrives much earlier than here in England. Ten or more Geranium maderense plants have made it through the winter unscathed, and hundreds more are popping up in pots, borders and between paving slabs. The seeds are unbelievably resilient, remaining viable for many years after they were produced. This is helpful when an entire generation is wiped out by a cold snap.

Late last summer I planted a very young Sonchus palmensis (La Palma sow-thistle) in the corner of my raised bed. I have no idea how hardy these unusual ‘tree dandelions’ are supposed to be, but it has grown three feet in six months and appears to be happier than ever. Thus far my plant has all the poise and elegance of a weed on a stick. I am reassured by photographs of mature specimens that it will one day rival Geranium maderense for both foliage and flower-power – that is, if I can keep it alive sufficiently long. The image below, showing an explosion of fluffy yellow flowers, is taken from the website of Annie’s Annuals, a fantastic source of rare and interesting seeds if you live in the USA and one of my favourite reference points. The bright yellow profusion of Sonchus palmensis, alongside the scorching pink of Geranium maderense would make quite a spring spectacle.

Meanwhile I am eager to crack on with painting the Jungle Garden’s perimeter woodwork, including a section that was battered when my magnificent lyonothamnus (Santa Cruz ironwood) was cruelly toppled in March. It’s not a difficult job, but it does require fine weather and ready access, which only come together for a short period in spring before all the plants grow up.

Come June I should have new boundary fencing in the Gin & Tonic Garden. This will require a serious amount of time to decorate before my garden opening in August. Unfortunately my carpenter’s skills do not stretch as far as painting – at least that’s what he tells me – but he will do an excellent job of the carpentry and that’s all that matters. It will be huge relief to have this work completed as the mere sight of the current fencing makes my eyes bleed. Putting up new fencing will be like putting a new frame around a beautiful picture.

Pots of bulbs that I started planting in September and that were not completed until the very end of last year are now coming into their own. I have said before that little harm is done by planting bulbs late, although one has to expect that flowering may happen later. By and large I don’t mind that. Just now I have a lot of narcissi to look forward to. In most English gardens they are long gone. Only N. ‘Cornish Chuckles’, grown from a batch of bulbs I purchased in Cornwall on a whim, has come up stunted and blind. Narcissi prefer to get their roots established before winter and so I’d always recommend planting these before any other spring-flowering bulbs. With luck ‘Cornish Chuckles’ will settle down and flower nicely next spring.

Despite spending a fortune on bulbs last summer and then struggling to plant them all – a task achieved only thanks to The Beau – I now wish I had purchased twice as many. This thought occurs to me every spring (my bank manager, if I had one, would wholeheartedly disagree). There is currently a complete absence of narcissi, tulips or hyacinths in the Gin & Tonic Garden since I have used them all up ‘next door’. I’ve suggested to The Beau that he can choose his own colour scheme for that space if he helps me again this autumn, and so far he seems willing.

Hyacinths are flowers that I never plant enough of. Although not to everyone’s taste, hyacinths are one of the easiest and earliest bulbs to bloom, pumping out ridiculous amounts of scent. In a small garden like mine, two or three pot-fulls are enough to fill the space with a cloud of heady perfume. This year I have only planted Hyacinth ‘Gypsy Queen’, which has soft-peach flowers suffused with coral-pink. Normally I would have planted H. ‘Woodstock’ alongside, but I resisted the urge when my bulb order went over the spending limit I set myself. Now I regret not being more frivolous.

A terracotta pan of Pleione formosana ‘Clare’ has been flowering for weeks. It is neglected for the majority of the year, tucked away somewhere cool and shady. In January I repotted the bulbs (correctly pseudobulbs), being careful to preserve the tiny new ones attached to whisps of dead leaf. I have added to my orchid collection a rust and yellow calanthe (could it be C. bicolour?) and a cypripedium (slipper orchid) which has yet to flower. I am hoping it will be white as the plant was unnamed and could be anything …. although hopefully an orchid! Creating an airy backdrop to my arrangement is Acacia verticillata ‘Riverine Form’, an acacia which impersonates a pine until tiny lozenges of primrose-yellow start appearing along each branch. In its native Australia this large shrub or small tree is called ‘prickly Moses’.

Rain over the last week has freshened everything up. The garden is luminous in the mornings as the sun filters through the trees planted along the eastern edge of the Jungle Garden. It’s so good to have light mornings back. I am getting out of bed even earlier, purely to have five minutes to spend inspecting everything before I head to the station. May, with it’s abundant flowers, will be here soon enough. For now I am content to enjoy all the newly emergent greens and to make plans for the year ahead. TFG.

Cymbalaria muralis: Ivy-leaved toadflax, ivywort, Kenilworth ivy, coliseum ivy, Oxford ivy, mother of thousands, mother of millions, thousand flower, pennywort, wandering sailor, Aaron’s beard, pedlar’s basket, rabbits, ruine-de-Rome (French), zimbelkraut (German), muurleeuwenbek (Dutch).

“Cymbalaria ….. runneth and spreadeth on the ground and clymeth and hangeth on walls even as Ivie or Chickweed doth, the branches are verie small, round and smooth, limmer and pliant.”

John Goodyer, 17th Century Botanist.

I’ve been up north this weekend, sampling the delights of Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire. What a fine town Beverley is, blessed with a long and fascinating history, handsome architecture, friendly people and ample good shops. I booked my train ticket months ago, before detailed arrangements had been made, and so I find myself killing time in a coffee shop before my train departs for Hull, and thence to London’s King’s Cross. My suitcase weighs a tonne as a consequence of having purchased a dozen plant books in various charity and second-hand shops, hence I can’t move very far or very fast.

Approaching Beverley station by way of Friar’s Lane I passed a brick wall festooned with one of my favourite wild flowers, the ivy-leaved toadflax (Cymbalaria muralis). This diminutive plant grows in my walls at home, forming a delicate veil of foliage embroidered with tiny lilac flowers from April until October. During mild winters flowering may be continuous, with each bloom resembling a Lilliputian snapdragon. The effect is magical, as if the plant rightly belonged to a miniature world where fairies employed it to hide their tiny front doors from prying eyes.

It is thought that ivy-leaved toadflax arrived in England as a stowaway in a consignment of marble sculptures being transported from Italy to Oxford, perhaps explaining the alternative common names ‘coliseum ivy’, ‘Oxford ivy’ and ‘Oxford weed’. Another story has it that seedlings snuck out of the Chelsea Physic Garden at some point in the 17th Century. Either way, this Southern Europe invader found British weather to its liking and quickly colonised the walls of stately homes and cottage gardens, paying no heed to social barriers.

Despite the plant’s most common name – and it has been anointed with more than a few – the foliage of ivy-leaved toadflax is more maple-like than ivy-shaped to my mind. Meanwhile the Latin name Cymbalaria alludes to the leaves resembling cymbals. Again, quite a stretch of the imagination needed to make that link. What’s for sure is that each apple-green leaf has five rounded lobes, a waxy texture and a fine edge of burgundy-red. The sprawling stems, which can grow to a length of three feet, are also reddish in colour. They possess a special quality which allows the plant to spread and regenerate rapidly. Initially flowering stems are positively phototropic, meaning they move towards the light, but once successfully pollinated they become negatively phototropic. The stems change tack and seek darkness, in doing so pushing fresh seed into a new nook or cranny where it is more likely to gain a foot-hold. It’s a clever piece of plant engineering. As a result it’s not uncommon to find walls completely shrouded in ivy-leaved toadflax. In the garden this is not a problem as any unwanted foliage can quickly be torn away. I let it do its own thing until it becomes too shaggy and then I remove the excess and let it start again.

Each flower is a tiny marvel. Three pronounced lobes are proudly presented beneath a lemon-yellow cleft: in bright sunlight this part may fade to white. Above the cleft two further lobes stick up like a rabbit’s ears, each one finely streaked with purple. A small spur at the back of the flower is a much deeper violet. The flowers are pollinated by bees, some of which nest in walls, so from that point of view it is a useful food source and valuable addition to any wildlife-friendly garden. Less helpfully the dense stems form an invisibility cloak for snails. If you look beneath them you will often find tens of the blighters poised and ready to create havoc after dark.

Ivy-leaved toadflax is not a British native but has been so widely naturalised in the UK for so long as to be an honorary member of our limited flora. If you have walls, ivy-leaved toadflax will generally find you in time, but, should you need an introduction, seeds can be purchased from Chiltern Seeds and other reputable sources. Plant in sun and ivy-leaved toadflax will remain reasonably compact and floriferous; plant in the shade and it will venture further. After that it will continue to arrange itself artfully year after year, rewarding you with a cheery curtain of minuscule flowers from spring until autumn. TFG.

I can see a new addiction coming from a mile off, so on the whole I steer well clear of orchids. Over the ages thousands of plant collectors have been consumed, even broken, by their passion for orchids and I do not wish to join their ranks. Hence they are the only family of plants I spend more time reading about than growing. And whilst I find orchids beautiful and endlessly fascinating, I have not found growing them myself either easy or satisfying – that it, until I discovered hardy orchids.

It all began with pleione, otherwise known as peacock orchids. These pretty terrestrial orchids from China and Taiwan are simplicity itself to grow, provided a few simple rules are adhered to. Pleione are forest-floor dwellers, so they like cool, damp, shaded conditions and a deep carpet of fallen leaves, mosses and twigs to sink their roots into. I lost most of my fledgling collection in the process of moving from London to Broadstairs, so currently it’s just me and a hybrid called ‘Clare’ living side by side at The Watch House. Clare has white flowers with a lemon-yellow throat from March until the end of April and she spends nine months of the year outside. Considering how tiny the pseudobulbs are, pleione flowers are large, intricate and surprisingly robust. It’s easy to get hooked.

Larger hardy orchids such as calanthe, cypripedium, dactylorhiza and bletilla have never been on my wish list since I assumed they needed to be planted somewhere cool and woodsy, not in dry chalk or pots. But last year I saw some fine Madeiran orchids (Dactylorhiza foliosa) growing in a pot at Marshborough Farmhouse and wondered if this might be an option for me. As luck would have it, our local garden centre bought a small lot of mixed hardy orchids from a Dutch nursery and I decided to invest in two plants; one a calanthe (Christmas orchid) and one a cypripedium (slipper orchid). Since I am not keen on having plastic pots on display they were both immediately repotted in terracotta using a proprietary orchid compost. I think this was meant for tropical orchids, but the result so far are encouragingly good.

The basic principles of hardy orchid cultivation are straightforward. Almost all orchids that are hardy in the UK are terrestrial – that is they grow in the ground, rather than in trees. They tend to colonise habitats with low or restricted nutrients, for example chalk downland or dune slacks. Many hardy orchids have also adapted to endure periods of drought and deprivation, which is why they go dormant, often for long periods. (My Cornish grandmother had orchids in her lawn and they only started appearing regularly after she became too elderly to keep it well mown.) Mollycoddling, the default behaviour of many an anxious or inexperienced gardener, is exactly what hardy orchids don’t appreciate.

Each genus has slightly different needs in terms of soil pH, watering and sun / shade in order to thrive. Cypripediums (slipper orchids) like free-draining soil and protection from midday sun. They also like to be cool in summer. C. reginae from North America is considered to be one of the easiest slipper orchids to grow. They prefer a damp spot and a free root-run, although they will grow happily in pots positioned outdoors or in an unheated greenhouse. Calanthe (Christmas orchids) originate from Japan, where they can be found in woodland habitats. Their needs are more similar to hostas and ferns in that they prefer an open, woodsy growing medium and cool summer shade. Calanthe are semi-evergreen, meaning that the previous year’s foliage needs to be removed in early spring before the new leaves and flower spikes emerge. Being fully hardy, calanthe can be planted in the ground if you can provide the right conditions, or in a pot, which is what I have done. Provided the plant is sheltered, the flowers will last for weeks.

Pleione (peacock orchids) come from temperate regions of China and Taiwan where they experience pronounced seasons, as w do in the UK. However they can’t be considered quite as hardy as the other orchids I’ve written about in this post. They need to be kept frost free, which I manage by stashing the tiny pseudobulbs in the workshop and forgetting about them over winter. Pleione are usually cultivated in pans (low pots) because of the their small size and relatively high value. One can pay a lot of money for a single flowering-size pseudobulb of a less ordinary species or hybrid. They require a very open and free draining compost – ideally 3 parts bark and 2 parts moss. This mixture does seem improbably light and airy when you go to plant your precious pseudobulbs, but it works like a dream. In summer I shove the pans, by now filled with long, attractive, crinkly leaves, somewhere cool and shady. I hose them down every so often and let them drain thoroughly.

For a sunny spot, marsh orchids (dactylorhiza) are the obvious choice. The Madeiran orchid, D. foliosa is a handsome beast and strong enough to hold its own in a pot, or a herbaceous border. If planted in a container, make it a large one so that it can be left undisturbed for a number of years. The Madeiran orchid produces substantial spikes of magenta-pink flowers up to 80cm tall and forms a large clump quickly. There are marsh orchids for almost every soil type. In alkaline conditions the Southern marsh orchid D. praetermissa with thrive, whilst in acidic soil the Northern marsh orchid, D. purpurella is well suited. Bletillas (urn orchids) from the Far East will take full sun or semi-shade but require that holy grail of soil conditions – moist yet well-drained. If you are a fan of tropical orchids then the urn orchids are with their graceful sprays of flower – they appear far more delicate and exotic than they actually are. The species you are likely to find in your local garden centre is Bletilla striata, the Chinese ground orchid. It is perfectly nice but you’ll have to search quite hard if you want to find other species or a named variety.

The main drawback of hardy orchids is that they are expensive to buy and that is a deterrent for some gardeners. They are expensive mainly because they are tricky to propagate. Orchid seeds are like dust and have no endosperm – that is the part of the seed that normally provides the embryo with food. To grow they need to form a symbiotic relationship with a mycorrhizal fungus that provides the sugars, nutrients and hormones required to germinate, or to be sown in a laboratory where these can be supplied artificially. Most hardy orchids take 6-8 years to flower when grown from seed, which is what you are paying for. Added to which the majority are not in the horticultural mainstream, so anything out of the ordinary tends to be produced in very low numbers by just a handful of nurseries. Laneside Hardy Orchid Nursery, here in the UK, is a very good source, selling at flower shows and from their website.

All I would say is that you should not let the price tag put you off, or suggest to you that hardy orchids must be ‘specialist’ (i.e. difficult). They are perfectly easy to grow, even in small gardens and unheated greenhouses. A little protection from the worst of the weather will reward you with longer-lasting flowers. I keep mine on my outdoor kitchen worktop where I can enjoy the flowers close up. Very soon you’ll be wanting to try more, although not, I hope, developing an addiction to these mesmerising plants. TFG.

First of all, thank you for your patience whilst I have been away on holiday and taking a short break from blogging. It’s been many years since I’ve had a whole fortnight away from work, and I can heartily recommend it. It’s been almost as long since I’ve travelled long-haul for a holiday, and I can recommend that also. Environmental issues aside, foreign travel can’t be beaten for expanding one’s horizons, provoking ideas and developing a greater appreciation of other cultures …. and yes, that does include the USA, a country us Brits assume we know enough about already, but really we don’t. My batteries are already recharged and I still have a week left ahead of me plus some time to spend with The Beau. Happy days. In the meantime I hope you’ve managed to keep up with my adventures via my Facebook page and Instagram which I’ve kept regularly updated throughout ….. a bit too regularly some might say!

One does not have to spend much time in Florida to appreciate that plants love to grow there. The benign fecundity of a generally subtropical climate is diminished only by the occasional hurricane; even then the natural environment recovers at a remarkable rate thanks to high temperatures and ample rainfall. Miami, located in the southernmost part of Florida, is classified as having a tropical monsoon climate. The city and its environs experience hot, wet, humid summers from May to mid October, followed by warm, dry winters from November onwards. April, when I visited Miami, is considered to be one of the most pleasant months of the year, for human beings at least.

Southeastern Florida falls into USDA zone 10b to 11b for plant hardiness (my garden, for reference, would be considered to be in 9a or 9b, which is a lot cooler, although the Scilly Isles and South West of Cornwall are in zone 10a, so much closer to Miami climatically). Annual extreme low temperatures range from −1 to 4 °C, although such low readings are extremely rare. A combination of global warming, the urban heat-island effect and the warm waters of Biscayne Bay (on which The Kampong is situated) means that the waterside downtown area and barrier islands, including Miami Beach, make it into hardiness zone 11a.

Plants from all over the tropical and subtropical world find the growing conditions in Miami well suited to their needs. Over the last century the city’s inhabitants have taken advantage of the climate, embracing Latin American and European styles to create some extraordinary gardens and landscapes. I managed to visit three of these, and begin my report with a garden of enormous significance in US history – The Kampong.

David Grandison Fairchild, Head of the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction between 1897 and 1928, travelled the world on behalf of the US Department of Agriculture. He was given a mission to enrich the diets of millions of Americans who thus far had existed on a limited and somewhat bland palette of fruit, vegetables, grains and pulses. In his lifetime David Fairchild and his team introduced some 30,000 varieties and species of plants to the USA (some sources suggest significantly more), earning himself a reputation as the ‘Columbus of America horticulture’. Among his discoveries were soybeans, pistachios, nectarines, dates, bamboos and flowering cherries. David Fairchild was especially interested in the introduction of Asian tropical fruits, in particular mangoes.

In 1916 he purchased a long sliver of land running back from Biscayne Bay, in an area known as Coconut Grove. The property had previously belonged to Dr. Eleanor Galt Simmons, Miami’s first female physician. Dr Galt Simmons was something of pioneer during the days when Miami was a frontier town plagued by alligators, panthers, rattlesnakes and swarms of mosquitos. It cannot have been an easy life.

David Fairchild named his property ‘The Kampong’ after the Malay word for a small village. He set about planting the garden with many of the species he had collected during his travels around the globe. When he retired in 1928, he and his wife Marian, the daughter of Alexander Graham Bell, made The Kampong their permanent home. They commissioned a well-known architect named Edward Clarence Dean to design a new house in an unusual oriental-cum-Spanish style. Dean chose local oolitic limestone as the main building material, accenting it with red-toned oriental woods. An imposing rosewood staircase was made for The Kampong in Hong Kong and shipped to Miami.

From his airy living room Fairchild organised support for the establishment of the Everglades National Park. The house became an important gathering place for the intellectuals of Miami, including Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Alexander Graham Bell visited his daughter and son-in-law during the winter when he would continue working on his many inventions, including a solar water still designed to turn salt water into drinking water. An education centre built in 2007 now obscures what must have been an attractive yet modest facade set among the palms of Coconut Grove.

The Fairchild’s fledgling garden must have developed quickly under the tropical sun, and many of their original plantings remain despite a series of seriously destructive hurricanes over the intervening years. A long approach to the house cuts through what one might describe as a very posh orchard, scattered with exotic fruits such as avocado (Persea americana), mango (Mangifera indica), sapodilla (Manilkara zamora – the original source of chewing gum) and pomelo (Citrus maxima), as well as semi-ornamental trees including banyan (Ficus benghalensis), Baobab (Adansonia digitata), royal poinciana (Delonix regia) and the fabulous cannonball tree (Couroupita guinanensis).

Closer to the house there is a small lotus pond, planted with a lotus variety called ‘Bali Red’, considered to flower well in cooler climates; not that this is a problem in Miami. Across the driveway is a lush, shaded area called the Aroid Garden, which is packed with philodendrons, monsteras and their relatives. After a while one starts to become quite blasé about the preponderance of such plants in Miami, but they really are very impressive indeed. Having grown a couple of philodendrons outside in pots at The Watch House last summer, I am inspired to take this a step further and see if I can attach them to one of my trees this year. Of course they’ll have to come back inside during winter, but it will be a fun experiment.

Views out to Biscayne Bay and the island of Key Biscayne beyond are tightly focussed by the dense Mangrove Preserve. This small inlet and boat dock is one of the only remnants of salt-water mangrove forest left along this stretch of the Miami coastline. The preserve contains all four mangrove species native to Florida, as well as one introduced by David Fairchild from the Philippines – the red-flowered mangrove, Bruguiera gymnorhiza. (Try pronouncing that after a few sherries!) We were hopeful of spotting the manatees and saltwater crocodiles that sometimes frequent this spot, but we were out of luck. We made do with a posse of iguanas sunning themselves on the grass where the garden met the sea.

The Kampong does not, like many English gardens, rely on flowers for interest, although there are plenty to see. Generous stands of ginger, brugmansia and clerodendron shelter beneath flowering trees such as the pink trumpet tree (Tabebuia rosea) from Mexico, the wood shaving flower (Strophanthus boivinii) from Madagascar and the unmistakable ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata) which hails from the East and Australia.

Whilst essentially The Kampong is now a botanical garden, one of five sites that form the National Tropical Botanical Garden of the USA, it still retains much of the personality that the Fairchilds, and later the Sweeneys, brought to their Miami home. The plants are exceptionally well cared for and clearly labelled, even if it does require some scrambling about to find them: every plantaholic is adept at the ducking and diving manoeuvres required to correctly identify subjects of interest. Unlike the UK, where a garden of this calibre would be mobbed by visitors, we were one of only three couples meandering around at the time of our self-guided tour. The guide leaflet is devoid of photographs but highly informative, with a useful map in the middle. Guided tours are available on Thursdays and Saturdays. There is no cafe so it’s wise to take a large bottle of water with you as it can be hot, even in the shade.

To visit The Kampong it is necessary to make an advance reservation. I had not anticipated this, but found it quick and easy to get in touch with the manager to book a time during my stay in Miami. Visit the garden’s website for details and don’t let this little chore put you off. You’ll get to experience The Kampong as previous owners and their guests might have done, whilst discovering a little-known part of America’s intriguing horticultural history. TFG.

For further reading about David Fairchild and his remarkable legacy, you should seek out a book entitled ‘Fruits of Eden: David Fairchild and America’s Plant Hunters’ by Amanda Harris, a copy of which now sits in my library awaiting time to read it from cover to cover.

I’m a little bit stuck at the moment. I don’t so much have writers’ block as writers’ constipation; that is, lots of posts backing up that are part written but not yet ready to publish. Like the unfortunate biological condition, I am finding the situation rather uncomfortable. The proverbial prune in this scenario would be the gift of time. My evenings are not long enough to sit and write and my weekends are occupied by gardening, so most of my posts are written during my daily commute to and from London. This amounts to four hours per day, but the environment is not conducive to any subject that requires thorough research. To break the impasse, I am doing what comes naturally and writing about my own garden.

The last two weeks have been marked by unusually cool weather. Having switched my central heating off at the end of March (brave, I know) it had to be switched back on the moment I returned from Miami. Although the garden has not experienced any frost during this time, this cold snap has served as a reminder that early May is generally far too early to be putting tender plants outside for summer. New growth sprouting from delicate plants might tolerate a few chilly nights, but is easily set-back (gardeners call it ‘checked’) by the shock of low temperatures. My grandfather, an experienced Head Gardener, would have waited until the first week of June, or later still to plant out true exotics, gradually acclimatising them to life beyond the greenhouse before that – a process called ‘hardening-off’. Even in these days of climate change, any time earlier than the last week of May is a risk here. So the workshop remains crammed with gingers, colocasias, cannas, bananas and begonias that appreciate a little more warmth and protection to get them going.

My tulip selection this year was woefully lacking. Individually the tulips were perfectly nice, but a number of my favourites didn’t make my online basket last autumn. Those that did failed to complement one another as I’d hoped. There’s being adventurous and then there’s chucking out the baby with the bath water: I tended towards the latter with some very random choices. Next year I shall be more circumspect and ask The Beau to double check before I check out. What came together reasonably well was the length of the flowering season, which has already lasted six weeks and might extend for another if I’m lucky.

Having experimented with a number of colour palettes over the years I think coppers, oranges and plums work best in the Jungle Garden, whilst yellows, greens, ivories and pinks pick up the prevailing spring colours in the Gin & Tonic Garden. Next year I will create more rhythm and harmony by planting multiple pots with the same variety. I also want to introduce more early spring perennials and annuals to add texture and variety to my display. If I am feeling confident in autumn I might even schedule an opening for the end of April 2020.

Have I discovered any gems this year? T. ‘Yellow Spring Green’ has lasted extraordinarily well and T. ‘Helmar’ has stood proud and long in my bulb theatre, but that’s about it. My favourite new narcissus was N. ‘Altruist’, and N. ‘Baby Moon’ is still flowering profusely now. Both highly recommended.

Given my garden is relatively compact, I like to play around with some of the smaller spaces, honing them on a regular basis. The worktop either side of the outdoor kitchen sink has become a gathering place for anything small, new, tender or vulnerable. Keeping these plants off the ground and closer to eye level means that I can fuss over them more, appreciating their charm in the process. Some will graduate to larger pots in the garden, others will die down or be relocated, and some may be treated as annuals and discarded once they’ve given their all. The main objective is to keep the picture moving through the seasons, creating new combinations and plant associations as I go. Through April and May the picture has been dominated by hardy orchids, the jazzy flowers of Tropaeolum tricolor and the combined foliage effects of Cyrtomium macrophyllum var. Tukusicola (giant-leaved holly fern), Ginkgo biloba ‘Mariken’, Acacia verticillata ‘Riverine Form’, Eremophila nivea and Pseudopanax crassifolius F. Trifoliatus.

In March I purchased five plugs of a new primula named ‘Ooh La La Blood Orange’ (dreadful name) from Sarah Raven and am excited to see these in flower. They remain very small, but they each have buds forming. Their magenta flowers will help me to bridge the gap between spring and summer.

Meanwhile the Gin & Tonic Garden has been ticking over. Yesterday it had its second makeover of the year, although I am loath to do too much as the boundary fences are due to be replaced any day now. What’s scaring me is that the space is already almost full, without any of the tender plants slotting in. Time to curb the plant buying methinks …… fat chance of that!

I am enjoying the shrubbier elements in the Gin & Tonic Garden. Magnolia ‘Daphne’, planted in a pot, flowered beautifully this year and is still going strong. I’ve just added a Sinocalycanthus raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine’ which was purchased with loyalty points I’d accrued at my local garden centre. A treat to myself and a feast for the eyes. What a beauty it is.

Watering has now risen to the top of my list of jobs to do in the garden and will remain a priority until October. I am looking forward to sharing the burden with The Beau in due course since the requirement is unrelenting. I have been busy adding a slow release fertiliser to the top of each pot or container so that my plants receive a steady supply of balanced nutrients through the summer, later to be supplemented with regular doses of tomato food to encourage more flowers.

The gardening season, now well underway, lays stretched out before us like a long shadow. Just about anything could happen and probably will. It’s all in our hands and that of the elements, which is a thrilling and unpredictable prospect. Make of it what you will. TFG.

During this busy season you can also keep up with my gardening exploits via my Instagram feed and Facebook page.

If my blog did not already have a title, ‘The Diary of a Plant Addict’ would be a strong candidate. I’ve had the most horticulturally indulgent week one could imagine, starting with the Chelsea Flower Show and ending with a three day stretch getting my own garden in shape for summer. In the middle came visits to three of England’s finest gardens. How lucky am I? However, I’ve purchased plants or bulbs every single day for a ten day stretch and it’s starting to get expensive …. not to mention creating a lot of additional work and space anxiety.

Here’s what I’ve been up to and what I’ve added to my collection at The Watch House over the last week or so.

Tuesday 21st May – The RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Helen of Oz and I meet just after 7.30am under the magnolias outside Sloane Square underground station. A few minutes later we join the throng at the gates to the Chelsea Flower Show and make a beeline for the densely shaded Artisan Gardens, where awards are already being presented. In the distance a loud cheer and clapping can be heard, a sure sign that Kazuyuki Ishihara has won another gold medal, this time for his contemporary ‘Green Switch’ garden.

Someone certainly had flipped the green switch at Chelsea this year. Several gardens were dominated by the verdure which is so prevalent in our country during May. Greens are refreshing, restful, infinitely varied and easy on the eye, creating a strong feeling of calm and restraint.

2019 felt like a mature, grown-up Chelsea, but not a vintage one in my opinion. Lots of the show gardens sought to highlight environmental challenges or mimic natural habitats. There was very little frivolity or technology this time around. This made for a strong and pleasing set of show gardens, but provided less to fuel my imagination than I had hoped for. The show felt unusually busy this year and our overall experience was marred by an excessive amount of filming and recording, which meant many gardens and exhibits could not be appreciated fully without a second or third pass. Increasingly I feel the best way to experience Chelsea is by watching coverage on the television. Perhaps next year I will do just that and forego the hefty entrance fee.

We start on the rosé at 10.30 and meet friends at intervals throughout the day, making it feel like a very social day. I am glad that I took a small step back from from my usual scrutiny as this certainly enhanced my Chelsea experience. I apologise to those of you who would have appreciated more detail from me – it might still come if I can find the time over the coming weeks.

My favourite gardens? The Trailfinders Undiscovered Latin America Garden designed by Jonathan Snow and the Dubai Majlis Garden designed by Thomas Hoblyn. Both gardens sought to evoke regions of the world I am not familiar with and did so with conviction and panache. Andy Sturgeon and Chris Beardshaw pulled off incredibly intricate and beautiful gardens, reminding us all what quality looks like when it comes to garden design.

The Damage:

• 6 x Lilium ‘Nymph’
• 6 x Lilium ‘Kaveri

N.B. I recommend buying lily bulbs at RHS shows and planting them immediately in order to enjoy a succession of blooms throughout the year. Those purchased at Chelsea will flower in July or August, whilst those purchased at Hampton Court will bloom in September or October.

Wednesday 22nd May – The Salutation

We rise late, having had an arduous journey from London to Broadstairs with five suitcases and numerous smaller bags in tow. (If anyone needs material for a comedy sketch, I will gladly avail you of the details of our journey. It was more fun to watch than to participate in.) We take a leisurely stroll around town and I buy cushions. At least they are not plants, but they do bear a floral design featuring marigolds, roses and violas.

We are blessed with beautiful weather all week; not warm by Helen of Oz’s standards, but dry and sunny. Arriving at Sandwich by train we breathe in the town’s quaint Englishness en route to The Salutation, where we enjoy a leisurely lunch and yet more rosé. We are already establishing our routine for the week. The gardens at The Salutation, where Head Gardener Steve Edney works his magic, are brimming with life. The borders are at that spine-tingling tipping point, lightly sprinkled with colour before they explode into summer exuberance.

The Damage

• 1 x Anisodontea ‘El Rayo’ (a particularly pretty and delicate mallow)
• 1 x Persicaria ‘Purple Fantasy’ (I killed the last one)

Thursday 23rd May – Sissinghurst Castle

Having picked up the hire car we bowl through the Weald of Kent towards Sissinghurst. We know to expect crowds as the weather is good and the garden is eternally popular. Somehow the hoards seem lesser within the boundaries of the garden, perhaps because of the walls and yew hedges that create Sissinghurst’s famous ‘rooms’. The result of projects to restore the garden’s ‘gay abandon’ and original planting are plain to see. There are roses and bearded irises everywhere one looks, whilst cow parsley foams through perennials that are slower to get going. It is all very pretty and very well done, as always.

What one-time visitors miss is just how much has changed in recent years, with the opening of the Cutting Garden and Little North Garden, the extension of the Nuttery, restoration of the Sunken Garden and replanting of the Moat Walk. Despite being a garden of enormous historical and cultural importance, Sissinghurst never stands still and always looks immaculate. That’s a credit to the National Trust and Head Gardener Troy Scott-Smith who is soon to take up a new post at Iford Manor in Wiltshire. What an incredible legacy he leaves behind him.

The biggest change at Sissinghurst, and perhaps the most significant since Harold Nicholson handed it over to the National Trust in 1967, is the reimagining of Delos, an area of the garden that Vita and Harold hoped would remind them of visits to Greece. Unusually for this expert pair, they never quite managed to pull the idea off. Under the guidance of Landscape Architect Dan Pearson, the majority of what was planted here, which one might best describe as ‘nice but nothingy’, has been removed to make way for a new layout and planting which might finally transport visitors to the Cyclades. It’s a brave move but a commendable one. I’m incredibly excited to see the result on a future visit as I know it’s going to appeal to me and add a new dimension to my experience. Projects like Delos do not come along often in a garden such as Sissinghurst, ensuring the new Head Gardener will have an opportunity to make her or his mark over the coming years.

The Damage

• 1 x Paeonia ‘Garden Treasure’ – an Itoh peony with double yellow blooms.
• 2 x Lavandula multifida.
• 1 x Lophospermum ‘Magic Dragon’.

Friday 24th May – Great Dixter

We could not decide whether Helen of Oz had been to Great Dixter before, or not. I thought she had, she thought she hadn’t. Turns out I was wrong. The route to Dixter from Broadstairs is similar to that taken to reach Sissinghurst, but we are diverted down a network of narrow lanes owing to an accident at Rolvenden. It is so tempting to marvel at the beauty of the countryside that I must concentrate on not driving us into a ditch. Car hire companies are not sympathetic about such things.

Dixter is already busy when we arrive, shortly after opening. There are scores of coaches spewing out foreign visitors on organised garden tours. I wonder what they make of our gardens, since few give much away in their facial expressions. I should probably just ask. We are bowled over by everything at Dixter; the nursery, the pot groupings, the intricacy and skill of the planting, the vegetable garden, the meadows and, oh, the marvellous weather. No garden provides me with more inspiration than Great Dixter. I come away wanting to throw everything up in the air and start again.

The Damage

• 3 x Actaea simplex ‘Brunette’
• 3 x Mathiasella bupleuroides ‘Green Dream’
• 3 x Persicaria alpina
• Clematis ‘Margaret Hunt’
• Clematis ‘John Huxtable’

Saturday 25th May & Sunday 26th May – The Watch House

Helen of Oz departs from The Watch House at 4am, in time to catch a flight to Dubai. I am sad to say goodbye as I know it will be another two years before we get to do this again. It is already getting light and the dawn chorus has begun. As the taxi departs I take a few moments to peruse the garden and I spot my first lily beetle. I thought I might have escaped this nuisance for a year, but obviously not. I have a lot of lilies this year so I will need to be vigilant.

All week Dave the Carpenter has been working on the replacement of the boundary fences in the Gin & Tonic Garden. It’s gone smoothly, unless you are one of the clematis that was growing up the fence previously. These poor plants are now in various states of disarray and will probably need a belated ‘Chelsea Chop’ to help them recover. All week I’ve been moving pots around to keep them out of harm’s way, but it’s not a pretty sight.

The back of my raised beds needed some major attention, so that was Sunday’s job. I fed and mulched the merging colocasias and gingers (all overwintered successfully outside) and planted the hoard purchased from Great Dixter, along with one or two other acquisitions. Feeling the urge to do something creative, I planted a bowl with bromeliads, salvias, sempervivums and black petunias to adorn the garden table for at least the first part of summer. The gardens at Miami’s Vizcaya Museum inspired me to be much braver and more experimental with my planting, so we’ll see how this combination performs in an altogether cooler climate. Afterwards I spent a happy half-hour wiring my airplants into the Japanese olive tree (Phillyrea latifolia). They were not looking at all happy indoors and will hopefully benefit from the shade and humidity they’ll enjoy under the tree’s canopy.

Today is for tying up loose ends and reflecting on a week packed with flowers, friendship and plant shopping opportunities. I’m intoxicated by all the wonders I’ve seen and bursting with inspiration. At the same time I’m ready to return to work for a ‘rest’. Everyone should take a week off to visit gardens and get their plant ‘fix’ …. and if you can do it with a friend, all the better. TFG.

We were all set to go to the rare plant fair at Tregrehan in Cornwall last Sunday. My train was booked months ago, the was itinerary planned and a wish-list written. Then two highly predictable things happened: I purchased a whole heap of plants elsewhere on Saturday (good ones too …. see below for details) and then it poured with rain on Sunday morning. So instead of buying plants I didn’t have the space for and getting wet in the process we stayed local and went back to Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens.

Through sheets of fine, sideways rain – a Cornish speciality – we were surprised to find that the carpark was full. It turns out everyone was in the restaurant, and who could blame them? It’s excellent. So we shared the garden with just a handful of German ladies who had dressed for inclement weather and returned to the restaurant for lunch just as the sun came out.

Tremenheere is one of those gardens where it helps to know what you are looking at. From a design and layout point of view it is not exceptional, although the view towards St Michael’s Mount from higher ground are panoramic and beautiful. Sculptures add much needed punctuation points to an informal garden that lacks a fine house to anchor it.

For me this garden is all about the microclimate and the plants that flourish in it. From a shaded, babbling brook to open, sunbaked terraces, Tremenheere is jam-packed with fascinating plants quietly doing their own thing. None of them are labelled, which I would usually find frustrating. To avoid irritation I’ve turned each visit into a test of my plant knowledge – ‘what sort of ‘panax’ is that?’; ‘is it a magnolia or a michelia, or are they all the same thing nowadays?’ You know how the game goes. Lately The Beau has started to join in, which makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable and, dare I say, slightly competitive.

Below are just five of the treasures we particularly admired on this visit and which I’d recommend to you if you have the right conditions to grow them.

1) Saxifraga stolonifera (creeping saxifrage)

I know Saxifraga stolonifera well having grown it in London when I lived in town. My clump never looked this good though. I suspect that’s because it revels in damp rather than dry shade. At Tremenheere it’s used to terrific effect as a groundcover, often planted on sheltered, sloping ground. Although it spreads by runners or ‘stolons’, just like a strawberry does, it is not invasive or weedy. Left alone it will cover as much or as little ground as you wish. The flowers are divinely delicate; each one reminds me of the angel that goes on top of a Christmas tree. A few sprays would make an ethereal addition to a wedding bouquet.

Where to buy – Edrom Nursery (N.B. Beware the very high prices being charged by some online retailers. There’s no need to pay this much for a plant that multiplies relatively quickly. If you can’t get a plantlet from a gardening friend, wait until later in summer when nurseries like Edrom have produced saleable stock.) Plants are also available to buy from Tremenheere’s on-site nursery at the time of writing.

2) Wachendorfia thyrsiflora (red root)

This statuesque, large-scale plant is a must for almost frost-free gardens. In my opinion it’s better placed somewhere informal as the clumps of pleated leaves can get a little scraggy over time. In late spring and early summer long torches of yellow flower emerge and keep coming over a period of weeks. Wachendorfia thrysiflora prefers damp, even marshy conditions, but must have its head in the sun. At Tremenheere it’s planted on a sunny slope, where it must rely on water filtering down from higher ground.

Where to buy – Burncoose Nurseries. Large plants are also available to buy from Tremenheere’s on-site nursery at the time of writing.

3) Decaisnea fargesii (dead man’s fingers)

What a headache this plant gave me. I knew I knew the name, but try as I may to confirm my identification I could find no reference to it anywhere. Turns out I was spelling Decaisnea incorrectly, which is easily done. Anyway, here we have a rather unusual shrub, known more for its creepy finger-like fruits that its elegant racemes of green flowers. Decaisnea fargesii produces both male and female flowers. Each female flower contains three separate carpels and therefore produces a ‘hand’ of three distinctive ‘fruitlets’. It’s these bluish-black, finger-shaped fruitlets covered in skin-like peel which have earned Decaisnea fargesii its ghoulish common name, dead man’s fingers.

There is some debate about whether the Chinese D. fargesii is one and the same species as the Indian D. insignis, only with blue fruits rather than yellow. (D. insignis is nowhere near as common in cultivation. The common name ‘monkey shit tree’ probably does not help matters.) Found growing wild at high altitudes, Decaisnea fargesii is hardy enough to be grown outdoors in the UK. Use the fruits as Halloween decorations, if you dare!

Where to buy – Bluebell Nursery & Arboretum, or, if you fancy growing from seed, try Chiltern Seeds.

4) Schefflera delavayi

Impressive, would be one word to describe this enormous Schefflera. Huge leaves, bigger than a dustbin lid when mature, suggest Shefflera delavayi might not be hardy, when in fact it’s at least as tough as commonly grown Fatsia japonica. Plants will reach quite a size in time (12ft+), the one at Tremenheere being as wide as it is high, lolloping across the woodland floor in search of dappled sunlight. If I had a large, woodland garden Schefflera delavayi would be one of the first shrubs I’d plant, not just for splendid, glossy foliage, but for the bristly panicles of ivory flowers that appear in summer and autumn.

Where to buy – Crûg Farm Plants

5) Impatiens stenantha (narrow-flowered balsam)

Every time I visit Tremenheere I am forced past a lush clump of this small-flowered Busy Lizzie relative. It sprouts from the top and sides of a moss-covered boulder, producing clusters of yellow, red-speckled flowers. Native to the mountains of Nepal and Bhutan, Impatiens stenantha feels at home in the cool, wet, West Country and prefers a good degree of shade. Unlike the summer bedding variety, this impatiens is hardy to -15ºC if planted in the ground and mulched. It will die down and obligingly reappear in spring.

Where to buy – Growild Nursery

The irony of last weekend is that I purchased at least as many plants at Treemenheere as I would have done at Tregrehan, so my attempt at abstinence failed entirely. The Beau, when next he visits Broadstairs, will need to convert his mini into a greenhouse on wheels. He had better get used to it. TFG.

I’d love to hear what plants you’ve indulged in over the last few days. Were they planned or purchased on impulse? Did you have room for them or not? Do share your moments of weakness … it will make me feel a lot better.

The Damage

• Agave iophantha ‘Quadricolour’ (Tremenheere / Surreal Succulents)
• Agave iophantha (Tremenheere / Surreal Succulents)
• Lonicera hildebrandiana, the giant Burmese honeysuckle (Tremenheere)
• Agapetes serpens ‘Red Elf’ (Cross Common Nursery)
• Schizophragma hydrangeoides ‘Rose Sensation’ (Cross Common Nursery)
• Iochroma coccinea fuchsioides (Cross Common Nursery)
• Ampelopsis brevipendiculata ‘Elegans’, variegated porcelain berry (Cross Common Nursery)
• Linaria ‘Spanish Dancer’ (from a garden gate in Gunwalloe)
• Fuchsia ‘Thalia’ (as above)
• Costus erythrophyllus ‘Rubra’ (a very lovely gift from The Beau)

Since the last time I wrote about my garden, my sole purpose has been to prepare it for summer. I’ve been potting, repotting, feeding, staking, tying-in and mulching, whilst at the same time doing battle with an army of voracious slugs and snails. All the lifting, shifting, arranging and rearranging has taken its toll on my out-of-shape body. On a Monday morning I ache all over, but it’s a good ache, and satisfying when progress is made. Another fortnight and I should have the majority of plants roughly where I want them for the next four months. (Gardening in containers is quite unlike gardening in the ground, since endless adjustments can be made to ensure every plant looks its best in relation to its neighbours. Once in situ they can mingle, sprawl, tangle and twist as much as they like, until the containers disappear from view and a jungle-like effect is achieved. See below for evidence ….. and this is only June!)

This year my summer preparations have been especially arduous owing to a number of projects and circumstances that have complicated my plans. None of them have thwarted me, but they have each slowed me down to a degree. Here are my top four hindrances, in no particular order:

1. You Can’t Swing a Cat In Here

The greatest hindrance has been lack of room. It has come as no surprise to me (and it won’t to you) that I have too many plants for the space available in my garden. Over the spring a constant trickle of new plants arrived at The Watch House and yet more will arrive with The Beau in a fortnight. In complete denial of the impending plant pile-up, I have been taking cuttings and nurturing seedlings, some of which I planned to give away, but most of which I intended to keep. Finally, I have run out of space in which to indulge my obsession. Any gaps I did have disappeared weeks ago. There’s no two ways about it, the plant buying has to stop.

2) Good Fences Make Good Neighbours

The long awaited replacement of the fence around the Gin & Tonic Garden has been my next challenge. The old fence was already tatty when I first acquired this little plot at the back of my house. It became progressively more shabby and decrepit as the elements took their toll. I wanted the new fence done and dusted by the end of March, but Dave the Carpenter wanted to wait for fine weather before starting the job. Fair enough, but this meant hanging on until mid-May, by which time everything was growing like topsy. Dave got his tan and I got my fence, but the clematis I planted to disguise the ugly old boundaries had a tough time of it. Each was carefully detached from its supporting wires before Dave started work, but a month of laying on the ground did them no good whatsoever. C. ‘Princess Diana’ has recovered fastest – what a classy clematis she is – but C. ‘Princess Kate’ has been chewed right down to ground-level and I am not sure I will be able to save her. She is no match for her late mother-in-law and rather a sickly plant in my experience.

Painting the fence is going to take me several weeks, so the summer will continue to be challenging for all the clematis in this area. In the short term I’ve made them look as respectable as I can and they are valiantly producing a few, bedraggled flowers. Meanwhile my neighbour’s clematis, which are planted in baking sun and biscuit-thin soil, are putting on a marvellous display.

3) A Dripping June Sets All in Tune ….

…. Or so sayeth the ancient proverb, the sentiment being that rain in June will increase the bounty of fruit, vegetables and flowers later in summer. Last Monday alone we experienced more rain in a single day than we normally do in an entire month. If the proverb has any truth it, we have unparalleled abundance to come. The result so far is a green, lush garden with a conspicuous lack of flowers. Although I’d planned to bridge the June gap with potfuls of lilies, these have been held back by the cold weather in May. So far not a single one has flowered. They will now bloom in tandem with the first of the dahlias.

4) We All Find Time To Do What We Really Want To Do

During the summer months everything revolves around the needs of the garden: housework and friends are neglected, meals turn to toast and watering is done in the dark. What the garden needs, the garden gets. Every moment of my spare time is spent outside, in the workshop or tending to my houseplants. Somehow everything gets done, even if it’s only in the nick of time. In the end we find time to do the things we really want to do …. which does not bode well for the ironing. TFG.

May and June are among the busiest months for gardeners. Has it all been plain sailing in your garden, or have you experienced challenges too?

Top of Post: Paeonia ‘Garden Treasure’

The beauty of growing plants in pots is that they can be shuffled around endlessly until the most pleasing associations are made. I do this regularly, moving plants to the front, a little to the left or right, hiding them at the back or removing them from the picture altogether. Although occasionally tough on one’s back, creating an ever-changing tapestry of foliage and flowers can be fun and rewarding. It’s also essential if you’re as much of a perfectionist as I am.

With so much going on in other aspects of my life this year, many plants ended up where they first landed in spring and not where they’d usually be. So it was that Lobelia tupa, the magnificent scarlet-flowered species from Chile, ended up next to a pot of Lilium regale ‘Album’. There was nothing remotely calculated about this introduction, but somehow the relationship worked beautifully.

Both plants appreciate sun and shelter, but Lobelia tupa is altogether thirstier and will wilt if not watered every other day. One of the many advantages of growing in pots is that growing medium, watering and feeding can be adjusted to suit each plant perfectly. The lobelia suits a heavier, water-retentive, loam-based compost, whilst the lilies appreciate something lighter, sandier and freer draining. In a conventional border they might struggle to live side by side, but in pots they can be given exactly what they need to thrive.

What I like about this combination is that both flowers are striking, yet completely different in form and colour. One can see through the lobster-claw lobelia flowers to the smooth white trumpets of the lily. Red and white is a dramatic, if not harmonious colour combination, calmed by plenty of green or silver foliage. I enjoy it in tulips such as ‘Red Shine’ and ‘White Triumphator’ or all together in the blooms of ‘Flaming Spring Green’. I’ve introduced a cooling splash of pale lime in the form of Cryptomeria japonica ‘Sekkan-sugi’ AGM, a plant I was inspired to purchase after enjoying Fergus Garrett’s adventures with conifers at Great Dixter. It also seems very happy in a pot, although it will soon outgrow the one it’s in now. The colour of the new needles gives a nod to the centre of each lily. A nice addition to this grouping might be a bi-coloured dahlia such as ‘Red and White Fubuki’, although I’d want to hide the relatively coarse foliage at the back.

Lobelia tupa has no scent – I guess no flower has it all – but the fragrance from the lilies is more than enough to compensate. The only drawback of this arrangement is that I have to brush past the lilies to reach the greenhouse door, getting myself covered in indelible yellow pollen in the process.

Naturally it does help that both plants have flowered at the same time. They might not necessarily do so in other parts of the country, in different conditions or even next year, which is why advice of this kind is always comes with caveats. It pays to experiment and keep an open mind when planning a garden. It’s also wise to just wait and see. The most surprising things happen when you simply let plants be. If they don’t oblige then just move them and they will quickly make new friends. TFG.

If I had to sum up the business ethic in Thanet, I would describe it as entrepreneurial. Everywhere one looks someone is opening a cool new shop or niche restaurant, starting a micro brewery or launching an innovative new service. It’s one of the advantages of living in an area that’s still relatively affordable: things can succeed financially that might falter elsewhere. However, it’s not plain sailing. Consumers are not spending in the same ways they did five years ago, the local demographic is mixed and we exist on the very edge of England, closer to Ostend in Belgium than we are to London, as the crow flies. To succeed in Thanet you need vision, guts and determination by the bucket load.

Since its inception the Margate Mercury has thrown the spotlight on the talented folk who have contributed to our sister town’s 21st Century resurgence. This summer the team behind that magazine has turned its attention to Broadstairs, issuing the first ever edition of the Broadstairs Beacon just a couple of weeks ago. Through the magazine’s newspaper-style pages you’ll meet Justin and Annita, a couple who have turned a disused shelter and public toilets into a coffee addicts’ paradise; Simon and Corina, the saviours of Britain’s cutest cinema, ‘The Palace’; and Dave Melmoth, founder of a music and action-sports festival called ‘Wheels and Fins’. Somewhere towards the back you’ll find an article written by someone who’s yet to display their entrepreneurial side but has established strong roots in the town – yours truly. Here’s what I had to say:

“I’ve always felt I belonged by the sea. I enjoy the sense of space and constantly changing weather, as well as that certain shabbiness you get when the wind, rain and sun take it in turns to assert themselves on rock, brick and render. But the thing I love most is that the sea makes the land warmer, and for me as gardener that presents all manner of opportunities to grow unusual plants.

After moving from Reading to London for work, I found myself a bolthole in Broadstairs. I am not a city boy and I needed to escape, first at weekends and later permanently. I am an impulsive kind of guy and bought the first house I looked at on my first visit to Broadstairs: being a buyer for John Lewis I know to trust my instincts. The Watch House had atmosphere (my friends call it cosy) and a sunny courtyard cluttered with privies and a bomb shelter. That sufficed for a couple of years, but as I settled in I sensed I could make a lot more of the space. It’s a challenging situation since there are cellars running underneath the garden and hence no natural soil to grow in. On the advice of a garden designer I swept away the outbuildings and created beds generous enough to plant trees and shrubs. I’d spent a lot of time in America where everyone seemed to have an outdoor kitchen, so I decided to build one of my own. Although the first attempt wasn’t perfect it is one of the best things I ever invested in, after all, who wants to be stuck indoors cooking when the sun is shining?

My garden has evolved enormously as I’ve worked out what I can grow. In Thanet we are blessed with far more sunshine and much less rain than in the West Country where I grew up. Now I live on the edge in terms of plant hardiness, thinking nothing of testing out plants from as far afield as Brazil, Mexico, the Himalayas, California, Madagascar and New Zealand. If it’s new, unusual or difficult to grow, I want it. I started my blog, The Frustrated Gardener, to turbo charge my interest in plants and it’s worked – what was a passion is now bordering on an obsession.

Three years ago the opportunity to buy a neighbouring cottage came up. I leapt at it, so now I have another small courtyard, the ‘Gin & Tonic Garden’, so named because the garden catches the sun in the late afternoon and because I grow lots of G&T garnishes in there, especially rosemary, mint and cucamelons. I also created my pride and joy – a library for all my books on plants and gardening. I have hundreds, mostly collected from second hand bookshops. Cicero said “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need”. I agree to a point, but I’d have to add companionship, as without that I’d find my life a lot less rewarding. I am lucky that my partner and I share a keen interest in plants and books.

My latest acquisition is a large workshop that’s attached to my house. It was once the depot for a fleet of ice cream vans that plied the streets of Broadstairs selling Eldorado ice creams. I want to turn it into a winter garden, packed with ferns and lush vegetation hanging from the rafters. That’s the thing, living in the middle of Broadstairs; I’m hemmed in on every side, so I’m now looking upwards for new opportunities.”

The Watch House will be open on August 3rd and 4th from 12pm – 4pm in support of the National Gardens Scheme. Entry is £4 for adults and children are admitted free of charge. Well-behaved dogs are welcome. Teas will be served in the workshop (if I get it tidied up in time!). Owing to the jungly nature of the garden we ask that large bags are left at home or in the workshop to avoid damage to the plants. For further details click here. My plant list, which I’m in the process of updating to include hundreds of new introductions, can be found by clicking here.

The Broadstairs Beacon is available from numerous outlets around Broadstairs and I hope to have copies to pick up on open days. If neither of those options is open to you, you may read it online here.