The supermarket gardener

I try very hard not to go to the supermaket hungry, for fear of buying everything sweet and chocolatey the store has to offer. I'm not sure how to avoid the same thing happening with plant shopping. As a retailer I know we put temptation in your way so you can do nothing but buy the shiny sunny-faced beauties we entice you with.
I really don't want anyone to stop buying in the ravenous way I do on an empty stomach, but somehow I feel a duty to help people buy in a way that leads to a beautiful garden all year round and not just for the one sunny day we had in April that year.
It wasn't that long ago that people had to buy in autumn/winter because it was the only way to buy plants. It's a hard way to buy but what it did was make people think about their garden for the whole year and plant for the long term. I love that we can all buy and plant for the whole year but sadly it doesn't make us buy for the year. It makes us all dribbling, plant lusting zombies that cannot control their urge to buy the 'precious'. I have seen two women lock eyes across the plant area in a blood chilling dash to the last Erysimum Bowles Mauve or Choisya Sundance. It is only once the plant is secured that the blood lust subsides and the air is filled with calm once more.
I have, in the past, waited until that moment and then brought out a trolley laden with four different colours of Erysimum just to see what will happen. It's a sad thing but very entertaining.

So what do you do instead of the supermarket sweep? My advice is simple and also just that: advice. I wouldn't dare tell a woman to think more carefully about her shoes or wardrobe and equally I'm not brave enough to do that with plants. What I would say is to apply a more interior approach to outside.

If you want a cool garden then fill it with greens (Hostas) and blues(Nepeta and Festuca glauca) and other cooling shades. If you would like a  garden hotter than the very pits of hell then fill it with Crocosmia Lucifer, Dahlia Bishop of Llandaff and Rudbeckia Goldquelle. In the same way as a Crunchie makes a poor sandwhich filling some plants will not fit your garden no matter how much you want them at the garden centre or nursery. 

I feel guilty telling you all not buy on a whim because, as a plantsman, my garden has very seldomly been manicured or tailored to a colour scheme. I would also say that anyone who has met me would probably pass that comment on my general appearance. In my defence the plants are usually a little out of the ordinary or querky and so would seldomly work well with other plants. As for my wardrobe ther is little I can offer in defence.

I have two very good friends who are extremely adept at choosing plants for schemes and designs but they do work on large scales. I think it is more difficult for small gardens but also tremendous fun. If you have a large garden I would encourage mass plantings with points of interest. Hellebore underplanting with Catalpa or snake bark maple, Digitalis and cherry or crab apple trees. In a large garden individual plants really get lost without a canvas to place them on.

I'm unsure really why I started this blog in particular but I see a lot of shopping trollies filled to the brim with fantastic plants of all sorts of colours. They look amazing.... in the basket and I can see the aim but feel it will never be exactly what the customer was looking for. Our time is really stretched in the nursery at this time of year but all of my staff will always help with the practicalities, and I think it is worth a quick natter with someone before you take home the beginnings of your Capability Brown moment.

Big or small there are plants for them all

One of the most difficult things to do is to find plants you love for the space you have available. It has taken me a really long time to be patient with people asking me about heights and spreads of plants. I have always thought that you can have whatever you want if you are willing to spend the time looking after it. To me it is simple but to other people a plant, like a manufactured item, must conform to the boundaries we have set it.

Well for those who feel that should be the case let me get the ground rules straight. Plants grow to a limit that we can only estimate and some are smaller than others, but one thing is for sure: they grow as they want and not as you would like unless you administer a little discipline.

My major plant type at the moment is fruit. I, along with so many people, feel that it is important for our children to know where their food comes from. I'm not about to embark on a Jamie Oliver style course in how to eat (although I do admire the principal) but I do want people to know it is easy to get apples, pears and plums etc. in a small space.

The Romans conjured up espaliers in order to provide the best growing in the uk and other dingy nations, and all the other fruit trains such as cordon, fan and stepover have all come about in history as a result of practicality and design. The history of fruit is exstensive and I wouldn't dream of boring you with it, so at this point I'll leave it there.

This is all to say that fruit can be grown easily in your garden without sacrificing the Old Trafford style football pitch or even the Hampton Court style flower bed. There are, of course, fruits that can't be grown in small places. Gojii berry and Kiwi fruit are not the plants for small terrace gardens and cannot realistically be kept small. Every garden has walls or fences and this should be the domain for trained fruit. It isn't unrealistic to expect family sized crops of apricots, peaches, nectarines, apples, pears and plums from even the smallest gardens if you use espalier, fan and cordon forms on the appropriate walls or fences.

It doesn't end there, oh no, not by a long way! If eating from the garden is your thing then please remember to use all the little nooks and crannies that are never seen and seldom used. Hanging baskets are perfect for tumbling cherry tomatoes, strawberries,lettuce and other salad crops and herbs of all sorts. Any container can be used for these plants and I must say my favourite displays have been where creativity has taken over. Old tea boxes, Canteen sized tins, wooden crates and even a pick up truck have been used to the most incredible effect with veg and pretties alike. Potatoes, french beans and runner beans are well suited to container gardening and rely only on good watering to provide heaps of food for the house. I know root veg can be grown in the small garden but they are best in the ground and I have always thought that summer foods are the best choice for small garden production.

I have blithered on about veg but the principles are the same for ornamental gardening. One group of plants I can't recommend enough are alpines. Small growing compact plants with a wild array of colours, these little beauties are fabulous for small gardens. Plant them in troughs or baskets, apply grit around the necks and all through the year you can have colour and cover in neat pockets around the garden.

For shady gardens don't forget how powerful foliage forms can be. Hostas, ferns and Ligularia are all plants that love the shade and can create some well needed coolness on hot sunny days.
The last thing I will mention is to ensure that your boundary walls are well covered with good climbers to create some depth to the garden. Why not try using little cheats with perspective. A small statue or figure at the end of a garden or even a trellis made to give an image of distance. Be creative with your wall plants too. Lonicera (honeysuckle) and Clematis are not the only climers on the planet. Try your luck with Muhlenbeckia, Billardiera and Decumaria.

The most important thing is to try it. What's the worst that can happen?

Grow on then!

I started in horticulture when I was 16 years old and was given time and a lot of patience by a super lady called Sheila Hayden. My job really, was spotty teenage till monkey and I did fulfill the duties of a till monkey rather well (even if I do say so myself).
Sheila taught me that horticulture is the one job you can have and spend time legitimately standing seemingly doing nothing. My first introduction to seemingly doing nothing was watering. It is the one job that I struggle to get anyone to do properly and it is the fundamental start to getting plants to do what you want them to do.
This aside, my love of plants started in this job and soon swelled into a desire to sing....... Well actually not sing but to go and learn more for certain.
This thought led me to talk to Sheila who said 'For god's sake don't go and be a bloody designer! Learn about the plants' These not so dulcet tones ringing through my brain drew me to the prospectus of Pershore College. Every concievable course was there from Arboriculture to the evil and accursed design courses.
My first thoughts swung directly to the course that would allow me to wield heavy machinery with gay abandon 'Arboriculture' and then I heard Shiela again 'learn about the plants'. To be honest it wasn't just Shiela, a good friend had said that they never got girls on the 'arb' course and they usually smell a bit due to swinging in trees and being clad in chain mail. Knowing all of this helped me to choose the worst paid of all the horticultural trades, 'Hardy Nursery Stock'
I hear many of you swoon beneath the weight of glamour this yields and the rest of you say 'Why?'
The reason is this: To produce a field of plants from just a small room's worth of plant material is one of the most satisfying things I have ever done and I have never met a truly unhappy gardener. Yes we all moan a lot but truthfully it isn't real moaning, It's mostly about the weather or not enough growth in the runner beans this spring, and usually with a swift half or glass of pea pod it can all be remedied.
I could go on for a lot longer but I know I can dribble on so here's why I have started the blog. I love the job I'm in and I love the smiles people end up with when I tell them 'it isn't dead, it just hasn't had time to shake off the winter.' A good friend has just started a blog about his gardening company and it got me to thinking that I could make more people smile with a couple of pointers that will make life easier. Most of my dearest friends are gardeners or nurserymen and horticulture has always been about sharing knowledge, time and respect for each other and the plant world we chose to learn about. I don't know how regular it will be or if you will enjoy this blog but I hope you do and I challenge you dislike gardening in some form or other.  So as the title says 'Grow on then!'