Garden News Mini Mag

‘Most of the
roses Shakespeare
refers to would have
been wild ones’
My gardening Diary
Potted verbasums
add drama
Shutterstock
Dark-leaved
heucheras
for my talk
Shutterstock
heads of creamy, highly scented
flowers. It’s more likely
Shakespeare would have seen
R. arvensis. We all know our
R. canina dog rose but it’s nice
to be reminded we have more
than one native hedgerow rose.
Brilliant
yellow
tuffets are
erupting
Garden World Images
Mr Bowles’s golden sedge is
probably the most exciting
plant in our garden now. Huge
tuffets of slender leaves of the
most brilliant yellow have
erupted in several small beds
in the brick garden. They were
planted to give the impression
of moving through these small
beds and helping integrate
them into one garden.
Romantic roses
are mentioned
frequently in
the Bard’s work
If you wanted to create
your own Midsummer Night’s
Dream venue, then planting
honeysuckle, roses, violets and,
perhaps, a pretty oxslip or two
should enable you to weave a
magical scenario.
What’s looking good now
Glowing golden sedge
A.E. Bowles loved finding
and collecting strange and
unusual variants of native
plants. Whenever he found
them, he’d dig them up and
plant them in his ‘Lunatic
Asylum’ – a special bed built to
accommodate his quirky finds.
We often find self-sown
seedlings in spaces between
paving stones and the path
bricks; invariably they’re the
same bright glowing yellow as
their parents, they never seem
to revert to type.
Beside purple-leaved
Clematis recta ‘Purpurea’
and chunks of brilliant blue
provided by Anchusa azurea
‘Loddon Royalist’ they make
a winning combination.
Jonathan Buckley
MONDAY Verbascums potted up from open-ground
plants have reached gigantic proportions. We gave them
plenty of root room and they’ve repaid us with a sterling
performance – their spikes are nearly 1m (39in) high. To use
the drama to full effect, they’re standing one to a
terracotta pot across the length of the front terrace.
TUESDAY Our new 126-compartment module trays are
splendid. They’re designed for vegetables but are ideal for
small perennial and biennial seedlings. Only problem is
getting the plants out again once they’ve rooted. Neil’s
working on an invention to extract them easily!
WEDNESDAY While filming recently for a forthcoming
‘Right Plant, Right Place’ piece for Gardeners’ World in a
Herefordshire meadow, the soil was as heavy and wet as in
our field yet it contained such a wealth of wild flowers.
Beginning to believe we could grow such beauties, too.
THURSDAY At the Birmingham NEC for Gardeners’ World
Live. It promises to be a little different this year and the
layout of the marquee has changed to make selling and
buying plants easier. There are more gardens too, including
a rose-swathed gothic ‘ruin’.
FRIDAY Tearing around various stages and theatres
within Gardeners’ World Live. Today’s talk is based on my
book Making a Garden. One of the great advantages of
being at such a show is that there are plenty of plants
around and exhibitors seem very helpful and willing to
lend their wares.
SATURDAY Planning to talk about container planting
while filling a roomy container with a dark eucomis as its
centrepiece, surrounded by dark-leaved heucheras and
dahlias with loads of brilliant yellow flowers to be picked
up by cosmos ‘Zanthos’.
SUNDAY One batch of our seedlings are
looking decidedly unhappy, with different
varieties that were potted into the same
compost all suffering similar
symptoms. I’m going to send it off to
the RHS to get it analysed.
Carol Klein