My Garden

This week we have had rabbits that only Beatrix Potter could be proud of! I have searched in vain for small blue coats on the shrubbery. Joking apart though, they have been decimating the borders with a vengeance: there we were merrily planting bulbs for next year’s display, when out one of them popped from behind the Beech hedge. Less than a foot from where we were working, up on his back legs not caring a jot for us and started to settle into a jolly old snack! Even much shooing from us only saw him retreat to the other side of the hedge before sneaking back when he thought we weren’t looking. Read More...

Tall Bearded Irises are amongst the most dramatic and colourful of perennials so the very best of them must be really impressive. And they are.

The RHS Iris Sub Committee - yes, there's a sub committee just for irises - has recently had its latest awards ratified and three Tall Bearded Irises performed so well in the trial at Wisley that they've been given the Award of Garden Merit.

They were planted in 2007 on the Portsmouth Field, usually known just as the trials field, and were assessed regularly during the flowering season. Using a points system, four specific qualities assessed: the overall quality of the plant, stem quality (robustness and branching), flower quality and the presentation of the flowers.

And out of 110 entries into the trial three gained an AGM, while one other had its AGM withheld until it becomes available to buy.

The lovely ‘Helen Dawn' (above, click to enlarge) is almost pure white. Reaching about 90cm/3ft, with six to eight buds on each stem, the standards (the three upper petals) are almost pure white while the falls (the three lower petals) are slightly creamier with an attractive network of pale veins. The white beard is yellow at the tip, deepening almost to orange in the throat, and the flowers have what iris-expert Claire Austin calls a "heavy sharp scent".

‘Helen Dawn' was raised by Australian breeder Graeme Grosvenor and registered back in 1998. It's a cross between ‘Skating Party' and ‘Scandia Delight'.

‘Diabolique' is almost the opposite in colour. The nearly-black buds open to heavily ruffled deep wine purple flowers, the falls slightly richer and more vinous than the standards. The blooms have good substance so are unusually weather resistant while the deep blue beard is short, but its colour stands out well. Reaching about 38in/97cm and with up to nine flowers on each stem, ‘Diabolique' makes quite an impact.

Raised by the prolific Schreiner's Gardens in Oregon, ‘Diabolique' has ‘Amethyst Flame' and ‘Melodrama', amongst others, in its background.

Also from Oregon is the last of the three Tall Bearded Irises to be given an AGM for 2009, ‘Paul Black'. This is taller, at 4ft/1.2m, with up to six buds per stem and is basically dark purple-blue with a fiery orange beard - like a flame in the night. Both the standards and the falls have a slightly inky look but fade to white in the throat. ‘Paul Black' was raised by Thomas Johnson and named for his partner at their iris nursery Mid-America Garden in Oregon

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We have had an amazing day again in Durban. It started with a trip to the West Park School in Malvern on the outskirts of the city. We started with a school assembley where Simon and Lauren talked to the school. We then had a tour of the impressive permaculture work that the school is doing. The pupils at the school train rural schools in permaculture techniques as well as doing their own work. After the tour the two of us gave a workshop to a group of staff and pupils from every class. we talked about growing orchids and showed them how to deflask seedlings. We have left over fifty seedling likts at the school so that each class can have their own seedlings to grow. West Park school is a special needs school and has a fantastic atmosphere. The school is using horticulture and enterprise to provide experiences for the pupils as well as fund projects and it is really exciting to know that we can help them to help themselves by supporting them setting up an orchid project. Right got to pack. Back in the bush looking for orchids tomorrow and then flying back to the UK after an incredible African adventure.

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Last time I looked at an old American hosta coming to Britain for the first time. Now two brand new hostas from Belgium, both raised by Danny van Eechaute.

‘Color Festival' (left, click to enlarge) is a very dramatic hosta in spite of its medium size. It features rich, deep green foliage, a little over 6in/15cm long and 3in/7.5cm wide, with a bold cream central splash tinted with green as each leaf unfolds and which matures into bright white with rich creamy yellow and greeny cream flashes at the edge. The contrast between the consistently deep green edge and the bright centre is very striking and made more stylish by those neat flashes and the slight variability of the central splash.

Maturing to a clump about 21in/53cm across by about 131/2in/34cm high, pale lavender tubular flowers are held above the foliage in mid summer.

‘Color Festival' is a sport of ‘Enterprise' registered in 2007.

‘Border Street' is a bold variegated hosta with a very attractive pattern of harmonising tones. The green rippled foliage, about 10-12in/25-30cm long and 8-10in/20-25cm wide at maturity, with a slight bluish tint and edged with a variable margin of cream, is bold without being too garish. It also has tubular pale lavender flowers. The plant itself matures into a clump about 40in/1m  across and 24-28in/60-70cm high .

‘Border Street' was raised from open-pollinated seed of a streaked seedling of ‘Lakeside Roy' and registered just last year.

You can order ‘Color Festival' from Bali Hai Nursery and also from Sue Proctor Plants. You can order ‘Border Street' from Bali Hai Nursery.

 
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Exciting times are here at Rosemoor as we have just taken delivery of a new composting machine.

This machine, called 'The Rocket', accelerates the composting process, taking just 2 weeks instead of months. The machine uses frequent turning and heat to speed up the process

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In the workshop Zoe B was teaching people how to replate seedlings. These are the plants that we brought all the way from England. By the end of the day the workshops had made more than a hundred jars of sown seed or replated seedlings, wow. All the jars will stay at the Botanic Garden to grow on in their collection.

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Wednesday was workshop day at the Durban Congress. We gave two long workshops on orchid growing from seed. It went amazingly well with groups of 16 and 17 people and they all loved it. Here Zoe P is working with two of the people and showing how to surface sterlise the seed. The people at the workshops came from botanic gardens all over the world and now they all want to set up orchid projects with schools in their cities. The whole day was just brilliant fun.

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This is 6am at the Durban Botanic Gardens with Chris Dalzell the Curator. Chris gave us a fabulous tour of the whole Gardens including the Cycad collection which is where we are in the photo. The Garden also has amazing birds like Pelican and Vervet Monkey. Today we are giving our workshops on orchid propagation from seed in the laboratory here. We have more people signed up for our workshop than any of the others....it's going to be fun. The talk we gave last night went really well. Actually one of the orchids we found in the wild on Sunday was one that no one knew was at Vernon Crooks. More about that later. We better go and get ourselves sorted for a busy day.
 

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Every year new hostas arrive on the scene. You'd think that with so many being grown already - there've been almost two thousand listed in the RHS PlantFinder over the years - that we wouldn't need any more.

Well, some perhaps we truly don't need. But as hosta enthusiasts bring together new combinations of size, leaf shape, colour and pattern - not to mention flowers - valuable new types are appearing.

Bali Hai Nursery in Northern Ireland make a point of bringing many new hostas to British gardeners. But they also bring over from the United States varieties which have somehow been ignored over here.

‘Big John' has been around in the States for some time (it was registered in 1986) but it's not been available here before. And it really is big. Mark Zilis, writing in his superb Hosta Handbook, says: "'Big John' is synonymous with "huge" in hostas. Not only does the mound of foliage become massive, but the individual leaves are the largest of any hosta, narrowly beating out ‘Sum and Substance' for that honor. The record breaking 21in x 163/8in (53.3x41.6cm) leaf was measured in 1988... Since then no leaf I have measured (probably more than 5,000) has exceeded those dimensions."

Setting aside what we'll charitably call the "dedication" of someone who measures over 5,000 leaves of just one variety of hosta - that really is an impressive plant.

‘Big John' reaches a massive 32in/81cm high by 6ft/1.8m wide! The leaves are bluish green at first, becoming dark green by early summer and have the puckered look of H. sieboldiana parentage; in fact ‘Big John' is a seedling of H. sieboldiana ‘Mira'. It also features bell-shaped white flowers striped in lavender which are held just about leaf level in summer.

If your garden is large enough to feature such an impressive plant, or you have a huge container, you can order Hosta ‘Big John' from Bali Hai Nursery.

Two more new hostas next time.

 
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Eulophia speciosa is one of the orchids that Margaret grows from seed in her lab and here it is flowering in the growing house. We like it. The trip around the growing area was realy inspiring and tomorrow we are getting up at 5.30 to have a special tour from Chris the Curator of the Botanic garden before it opens in the morning. A botanic gardens all to ourselves, how good is that.
 

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