Dig this?

Covering our plots with Compost

One of the interesting challenges of the RHS Level 2 Practical is, in theory at least, carrying out a range of cultivation tasks on a plot of ground 4m x 3m allocated to each of us.  Blessed with a bright autumn, last year's group were allegedly well into double-digging and even planting before now, but we've had no such luck.



Harry Delany inspects the massed wheelbarrows of his Womens' Land Army

  Apart from one dry morning in mid October when we were introduced to our mini-allotments and instructed by tutor Harry Delany to wheel over four barrows of compost each... actually, let's make that six... in fact, the soil's so poor and clayey, it had better be eight!  Many pairs of boots squelched back and forth from the compost stack; even then it was pretty claggy underfoot.  It's done little but rain since, so there's been no chance to follow up the application of compost with digging it in or any other work for that matter.

Instead, we've been happily vandalising the grounds lifting all manner of perennials for propagation material; dividing some, lopping root cuttings off of others, potting up the offshoots and cuttings in the relative warmth of our shed-like classroom and then transporting the results across the yard to the hanger-sized polytunnels before cleaning up at the end of the day.

Not exactly a racing broom...

I've joked in the past about Reaseheath being like Hogwarts, but we really do seem to spend quite a lot of time using brooms.  I'm not sure any of them are really suitable for a game of Quidditch, though!

A small perk is that any surplus propagation material can be taken home if so desired, enabling us to practise our newly-acquired skills and add to our own stock of plants.  I was busy doing horizontal root cuttings from fibrous rooted perennials yesterday morning, working outdoors in the sunshine for about the fourth time this whole year.  My greenhouse is now home to a nice stash of Primula Denticulata, along with some Helleniums and an Ophiopogon or two from divisions. 

I resisted taking home spare bits of variegated Aegopodium podagraria; it may look pretty in the dappled shade of a woodland setting, but unmasked of its botanical alias, it's Ground Elder.  That's right, we were actually propagating one of the top three or four  most invasive perennial weeds you don't ever want to find growing in you garden!  Last year's 'propagules' were flourishing in the polytunnels and, when we lifted their trays to take them out for planting in the woods around the lake, we found masses of root sticking out of the bottom of their pots and right through the weed-suppressant membrane on the polytunnel floor into the soil beneath!

Apparently, it was introduced by the Romans as a food crop, but to coin a phrase, 'What have the Romans ever done for us?'

South by South-West

Lanhydrock House

Cornwall is justly famous for many beautiful gardens, blessed as it is by a mild climate and sheltered valleys with acid soils much-suited to rhododendrons and azaleas.  It's generally accepted that the time to see these at their best is during the spring, but our recent trip to visit friends and family in that part of the world proved that they can also be subtly beautiful on a misty day in November.

This was our first visit to Lanhydrock near Bodmin, and although the imposing house was closed (except for a Christmas dinner for its volunteers) the extensive grounds were open.  There is a marvellous knot garden containing very fine clipped yew topiary - elegantly and simply done, not the rather grotesque peacock and chessmen style stuff that, to my mind, gives it a bad name!  Gardens in that style work well all year round; in fact they often look at their most dramatic with a dusting of hoar-frost on a bright winter morning.


Topiary in the knot garden

 Possibly also with a view to winter structure, the gardeners at Lanhydrock take a relaxed view of tidying up the summer perennials at the end of the season.  Gone are the days of cutting everything herbaceous to the ground at the end of October: instead, the beds and borders present a pallet of gentle greens, browns and yellows as the foliage ages, dotted with the dramatic seed heads of Agapanthus and Astilbe.  It looks stunning, and I'm sure it's also great over-wintering habitat for all manner of insects too.

Don't cut back your summer perennials too early!

There's a dramatic woodland walk rising behind the house through groves of rhododendrons, which shouldn't be in flower now, though a few confused specimens were.  Drifts of Hydrangea, their predominantly blue tones hinting at the soil type, gave some dramatic splashes of colour from petals and foliage alike though the tendency was increasingly towards the muted shades of autumn.

Lanhydrock House from the woodland walk

There are lots more photographs to enjoy of this lovely site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30634865@N03/sets/72157632113785451/  .  I can't put too many on here without Google wanting me to cross their palm with silver for the privilege, which isn't going to happen while they're busy evading tax!  I'll need to quietly go back and edit out some superfluous ones from old posts and increasingly rely on links to Flickr.

It was raining by the time we finished our walk round in the manner the Irish categorise as a 'fine, soft day', so some of the rather romantic misty look to the photos is simply down to raindrops on the camera lens.  It's safe to assume they get a lot of rain here, even by North Staffs standards - you only have to look at the lichen growth to appreciate that!

Lots of lichen

Luckily for Jon, a few impressive clumps of that had fallen out of the trees, so he should now have plenty of potential foliage for the model railway!

Certified

Autumn sunshine on the lake at Reaseheath

The was a minor celebration this week with the official presentation of RHS award certificates to those of us who managed to pass their fiendish exams in the previous academic year.  I now have an RHS Level 2 Certificate in the Principles of Horticulture, and the rather nice pale green piece of paper to prove it! 

Another qualification!

It was also great to catch up with some friends from last year, especially veterans of the 'Bridge too Far' trip to Arnheim.  We would have had more time to chat if I hadn't made the mistake of assuming the 'main hall' at Reaseheath was the room in which we sat our exams and dragging Jon off in that direction only to find it all locked up.  The climbing wall at the back ought to have been a clue that it was in fact a gym. 

The actual Main Hall is, logically enough, located inside the old stately home itself and is a rather splendid Victorian attempt at a medieval hall, complete with mistrels' gallery (but mercifully no minstrels) and stained glass windows.  Somewhat grander than the potting sheds and portacabins we've been used to!

Herself with certificate

So that's another qualification to add to the collection in my CV folder, along with the various 'O' and 'A' levels, my Ancient and Medieval History degree and Building Studies HNC.  It's tempting to conclude ruefully that despite all these, I still don't have a job that pays the bills, but as I settle down to tackle my online tax return, I can reflect that badly as I might think I've done this year, I am at least not running at a loss, and thus must have a far better business plan than those poor souls at Starbucks!

Pedant's corner

Papaver rhoeas

You know your interest in horticulture has 'jumped the shark' when you're reading your friends sincere and affecting Armistice Day comments on Facebook and viewing their updated profile pictures for the day, and looking at one very beautiful illustration you find yourself thinking 'that's not a poppy!  It's an anemone!  It's got six petals, so it's a monocotyledon, but poppies are dicots, and...'

It's an easy enough mistake to make at first glance.  Anemone coronaria 'de Caen' has a big flat single flower and a common cultivar is the same deep blood red shade as the Flanders Poppy with a black centre.  But it does have six petals rather than the four of the wild poppy, Papaver rhoeas, and they are very significantly different plants, since Papaver rhoeas is an annual raised from seed and Anemone de Caen are herbaceous perennials produced from corms.  And for those of you who like the scientific stuff, anemones are monocotyledons (ie. they have one 'seed leaf') while poppies are dicotyledons (two seed leaves) so in that great family tree of green things, branched off from each other a long, long time ago...

Another Field Poppy

Regarding poppies, it's important not to confuse Papaver rhoeas with the perennial Papaver orientalis or another annual, Papaver somniferum, the 'Opium Poppy'.  It is entirely legal to grow P. somniferum as a garden ornamental but mess about with it otherwise and the long arm of the law is going to be reaching your way!  

It would be a suitably geeky move at this stage to include photographs of both P. rhoeas and A. coronaria looking deceptively similar, but while I am awash with poppy pics of my own, since I love them and grow them enthusiastically, I've never had any luck growing anemone de Caen (I suspect slugs) and although I have some photos taken at Biddulph Grange, they seem to be of any colour except red.  So, alas, I have to refer those of you keen on further information to the redoubtable Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anemone_coronaria

If the contents of this article are correct, the Anemone coincidentally makes a very acceptable substitute for the Flanders Poppy, since it can appear naturally in huge drifts throughout the Middle East in countries sadly all too used to war and conflict, and allegedly even has an association with the British Army from the red berets worn by British Troops in Palestine in the 1940s.

So even the horticultural pedant should probably concede that it isn't what flower you choose, it's the thought that counts.

The Usual Suspects

The lake at Reaseheath in autumn sunshine

An integral part of the RHS Level 2 Practical is the 'Ident' exercise, where a selection of specimens displayed one week with labels are lined up the following week without, and us students have to correctly identify them.  It's handy to have a small camera to hand while the labels are out, and the resulting photos make for a useful resource for future use.

We've recently done vegetable seed identification, with the added challenge of translating the humble spud and lowly leek into Latin, but the ident prior to that was pests, disorders and diseases for which Plain English was quite acceptable. 

So here, fresh from the Defence Against the Dark Arts line up, are a few of the Usual Suspects...

Some of these have fairly simple, non-chemical solutions - for example increasing soil pH by liming is a good preventative against Club Root, and Blossom End Rot can be tackled by regular watering and adequate calcium.  Codling moth is usually sprayed against, though some degree of control is possible using traps smelling sweetly of lady moths that lure in and catch unsuspecting male moths on sticky paper.  Tough luck, guys!

Others, such as Honey Fungus, are seriously bad news and causing incurable havoc in domestic and historic gardens.  Some trees and woody shrubs are more resistent than others but its one of those things you really don't want to find in your garden and can spread a long way underground.

On the creepy-crawly side, we got to peer at Mealy Bug, Scale Insect and Two-spotted Spider mite, though the latter were already in trouble as they were in the final throes of predation by a parasitic bug that essentially does an 'Alien' job on them, laying its eggs inside the mite larvae.

And finally, everyone's least favourite garden gangsters, the vine weevil and the slug got to show us what they can do.  Most of us are probably more familiar with the damage the vine weevil grubs do to plant roots than the adult beetles' attacks on leaves, but it's a useful warning that they're about before you find out through your primulas unexpectedly keeling over through having no roots left.  Apparently, there are nematode biological controls for both, though the classic '50 ways to kill a slug' contains enough other imaginative ways to dispose of them that it seems a shame to resort to such stealthy, and relatively expensive means. 

Especially if you have a sharp stick, secateurs or scissors to hand!

Ashes to Ashes

Deciduous trees at Reaseheath

Teaching today at Reaseheath was interrupted for a walk around the grounds to admire some of the beautiful trees at the height of their autumn glory, but it's hard to look at woodlands right now without wondering how much damage could be done if, or sadly more likely when Ash dieback, Chalara fraxinea takes hold.

It's still unclear how this deadly fungal disease of Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) reached the UK and airborne spores are appear as like a cause as infected imported saplings, but I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering why there was ever a need to import Ash trees.  Ironically, every year I have weeded dozens out of the beds in the garden and usually composted them, although last year I propagated several dozen and gave the young trees to a tutor at Reaseheath for her Guide troop to plant, specifically because, at the time, Ash was regarded as a good disease-resistant choice in the face of increasing problems for oaks.  How quickly things can change.

No doubt there are scores of Ash seedlings growing in the garden here right now, the children of a beautiful tree at the foot of our neighbours' garden, and when I'm raking leaves and tidying the borders for winter, I'll find a good few of them.  I'm tempted to try and save some, potting them up and giving them the protection of a cold greenhouse, but they can't stay there for more than a season or two before they would need an outdoor site.  By then, hopefully there will be some progress in the fight against this killer disease and the trees will be able to safely leave their 'Ark', but it's a depressing thought that they might just need to be destroyed to prevent the spread and persistence of the problem.

Please see the attached article for more information on this disease and keep a close eye Ash trees near you.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20128172