Weeding the Web

Lilac tree succumbs to St Jude's storm damage

Ho, hum. Of all the trees, in all the roads, in my vicinity, it had to be ours. A 26-year-old lilac that was a real eye-catcher each spring, smothered with deep purple flowers.

Lilacs are often deplored as boring during the rest of the year, being rather unremittingly green, but ours not only gladdened the heart with its intense colour but also served a useful purpose.

Growing about as wide, probably wider, than it was high (10-12 feet), the branches stretched along our garden wall, slightly screening us from passers-by, as well as making the south-facing garden a cool, tranquil spot contrasting with our adjoining neighbour's barren waste of brick paving.

Quite possibly it was an Syringa vulgaris 'Ogni Moskvy' which made it onto the recent RHS AGM Lilac list by 10 votes to one, described as, “Very distinctive. Exceptionally dark buds. Vigorous.” (And now, says Sarah Raven, difficult to track down.) Or was it 'Anne Shiach' - “Darkest of all. Very good colour. Lovely panicles”?

The fact that it was 26 years old is significant, as it was planted to replace a pale mauve-flowered lilac that came down, in exactly the same spot, after the 1987 storm.

And thereby hangs the explanation.

Being so wide and still in leaf, in soft, damp ground, and circumscribed on two sides by the front wall and the hard standing in front of the garage, it really didn't have a lot to hang on by on the side buffeted by the gale. I suspect the roots on the side it fell onto spread quite a way under the lawn.

We obviously spotted this problem last time, as I vaguely remember that the paving slab (which I had forgotten was there, and which you can see tipped up in the photo) was put down to add weight to the roots on that side. (Yes, I know, quite obviously a daft and futile action.)

I guess it will have to go. But, if the roots are as I suspect, I wouldn't be surprised if it couldn't survive and continue to flower, even on the horizontal.

What do you think? If I cut most of the branches off and tipped it back upright, might it sprout again?

Presents for gardeners: miniature garden tools to eat with

Here we go - Christmas. (Cue lots of groaning.) No, you can't avoid it. I've not only received Sutton's 2013 Christmas present catalogue (is that a first? Surely there hasn't been one from a seed company before?), but Mary Berry will be opening Wisley's Christmas shop on 26th October (this Saturday!!).

So, here's the first in my annual run of suggestions of unusual Christmas presents for gardeners.

Last year I found a rather nice pewter trowel keyring from Adrian Noble, and this year Glover and Smith have stepped to the fore.

Their cute little pewter 10cm spade, with robin on the handle, is available from both Sutton's and Dobie's (no need to order both Christmas catalogues: they're identical) for £14.99.

However, a browse of Glover and Smith's website reveals miniature trowels to use as sugar spoons or Stilton scoops, as well as the flower pot and trowel seen here which would be good for mustard.

Other designs based on leaves and insects might appeal too, especially if the gardener is also a bee-keeper.

Although I'm sure Sutton's and Dobie's have plenty of the spade spoon, I'd recommend ordering early from Glover and Smith. Their website states that they make their designs to order so you don't want to fall foul of a last-minute Xmas rush.

For more in the way of miniature tools, take a look at The Silver Garden.

 

Garden product review: Nottcutts' tomato feed teaches me a lesson

It always pays to think a little before rushing to do something - in this case, buy tomato feed.

Earlier this summer, Nottcutts offered me a choice of products from their new own-brand range of fertilizers and chemicals and, in a move that makes it look as if I have something of a red-fruit fetish, I chose their Tomato Pour and Feed and their Tomato Feed Concentrate. Both contain seaweed extract and magnesium and I'm pleased to say my tomatoes developed as expected without a sign of deficiencies.

In other ways, though, my expectations were confounded. The concentrate that I thought I'd use a few times and then leave on the shelf has remained to hand. Instead, the Pour and Feed languished unloved. Why? Because I hadn't considered the whole picture.

Certainly, it sounds much easier just to dole out a ready-diluted feed when necessary (100mls, once a week, after the second truss has set), and it would have been, had I grown my tomatoes in a border. But I don't. I grow them in pots.

Were I to water these with a hose, the Pour and Feed would also have been useful. But I don't; I water with a watering can. And, in these circumstances, it is much, much easier to add a capful of concentrate to the can, than water and then feed.

Actually, the container made the concentrate easier to use, too. It has a cap which, though it could do with some calibration for smaller doses, doubles as a measure for the required 15mls to 4.5 litres, whereas the Pour and Feed requires you to find a 100mls measure [Not the kitchen measuring spoons! Husband]. The latter would be much improved by a cap like that on the concentrate, as things like useful jugs tend to go AWOL. It was also clear, the first time I sloshed Pour and Feed clumsily into a jar, that it's much easier to pour from a small container than a very much larger one, especially when almost full.

I'll bet you're laughing at me. Either that, or wondering just how dim I can be.  It all sounds so simple and obvious, when you think about it. But I realised how easy it is to accept blurbs without thinking. Pour and Feed - "simple to use".

Obviously true for some people, but not for me. This little exercise has taught me to concentrate on the way I work. Then I can make sure everything is simple to use - my way.

Cartoon Art Trust Awards: botanist sums up garden insects

Regular visitors will know I'll grab any excuse for a cartoon. The 19th Cartoon Art Trust Awards held yesterday evening saw Mike Barfield awarded the Strip Cartoon Award. He was described as "possibly the only cartoonist with a first in Botany and Zoology".

His take on insects might be aimed at picnickers, but will make a few gardeners chuckle.

 

Batsford Arboretum - Wellington's historic tree

Funny what appeals. With little fanfare, indistinct in the midst of other trees, in Batsford Arboretum I found a cypress. It doesn't feature on Batsford's website, yet it gave me a greater thrill than even the most scenic corners of the arboretum.

The notice nearby read:

Cupressus Sempervivens

On 1st November 1852 The Duke of Wellington's funeral took place in London. A cypress wreath from the funeral carriage fell in Piccadilly. An Eton boy aged 15, Lord Redesdale, secured a cone from the wreath and planted the seed at his home in Exbury in Hampshire. A cutting from one of these Exbury trees was sent to Brayfield in Buckinghamshire. This tree, planted in 1959-60, is a cutting from the Brayfield cypress and so a great-grandchild of the Duke of Wellington's wreath.*

A third generation tree - not very exciting? Well, that securing of the cone was not straight-forward. In a letter to The Spectator in 1942, George Farrer, grandson of the aforementioned Lord Redesdale, revealed:

As the gun-carriage went by where he stood a cypress wreath fell from it and desperately he tried to get this, but an old woman in the crowd was before him and would not part with it for anything. However, at last he persuaded her to let him have a cone off it for a shilling, which was all he had in the world.

The crowd was surely a dense crush. Certainly around St Paul's, it was so thick that the lamplighters couldn't reach the gas lamps to turn them out. Onlookers near the carriage would have been dwarfed as the enormous vehicle, made from melted-down French cannon captured at Waterloo, slowly rolled down the centre of the street.**

So, for decades after, mementoes of that day and the Iron Duke grew at Exbury. I'm not the only one who finds the story moving. New owners of the estate in 1919 (a date when the funeral was still within living memory), Lady Rothschild and her husband grabbed billhooks and "literally hacked our way through a glade dense with scrub and sycamore saplings," in their eagerness to find the trees, which bore very old labels recounting the funeral story.

Today, the trees have gone, blown down in the storm of 1987. So it's only thanks to a happy seating arrangement at a dinner table in the 1930s, when a member of the Mitford family (which includes Lord Redesdale) recounted the funeral tale to a neighbouring Rothschild, and the latter promised a cutting from the Exbury tree, that the essence of the original tree can be found at Batsford.***

For me, standing by the tree, history telescoped. Touching the trunk, I touched a memory of one of the greatest funeral processions ever seen in London.****

Sentimental? OK. But don't you think more should be made of these living relics? Around Britain there are descendants of trees that link us with all sorts of events, people and places (the myrtle from Queen Victoria's wedding bouquet seems to have been spread far and wide). It's the fact that these huge organisms were living and breathing at a time long gone that makes them so evocative. I'd love to hear if there are trees with historical connections that send a shiver down your spine.

Batsford is currently holding a raffle (with some rather luscious pampering prizes) to raise £40,000 to build a new schoolroom. Tickets are on sale at the arboretum or you can donate direct to the Leaves for Learning Project.

PR and Marketing Manager, Susie Hunt, says, "We already offer around 700 local primary schoolchildren the chance to learn more about how plants and trees grow and the importance of natural spaces and conservation. But a new schoolroom will give us the opportunity to extend our education programmes and give us flexibility to hold adult courses and events too."

All good aims. But I do hope the Duke's cypress gets a well-deserved mention.

 

*The date should read 18th November.

**With such an enormous carriage, they really should have practised more, as I discovered when I researched an article on St Paul's.

"When his coffin arrived [at the cathedral] on its monstrous carriage, proceedings were held up for an hour as the bearers tried to figure out how to move it, fifteen feet above them, on to the waiting bier. Thousands of mourners, seated in specially built stands in the nave, suffered as the freezing wind swept through  the open West door."

***It seems possible that the Rothschilds were quite generous with the cypress; Sir Stephen Tallents, also in the Spectator, admits to one with a very similar provenance.

****The fact that it's a cypress makes perfect sense, as it has long been the tree of mourning. (At the time, cypress hatbands were offered for sale, no doubt bought by many of the million onlookers.)

 

 

 

 

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: sign of autumn

Utterly reliable, totally floriferous, and as much a sign of autumn as the sad song of the geese overhead. 

The only problem with our tall Michaelmas Daisies is that they're so top heavy that they tend to flop forward.

To see what's in the gardens of other garden bloggers, visit May Dreams Gardens.

Garden product review: Keira Watering Can

A newly designed watering-can seems a bit unnecessary. Most do the job pretty well, though some are better balanced and easier to tip than others. 

The new Keira, launched in the UK at Chelsea Flower Show this year, comes from the drawing-board of Croatian industrial designer Igor Juric. He seems to bend a little more towards vehicles, as he's responsible for Croatia's first electric car, a rather nifty-looking bicycle design, and a three-seater concept car, but is particularly keen on adding an enviro-friendly dimension to his work.

When he saw how much space was taken up by watering-cans in store and in transit, he turned his mind to creating a stackable design that reduces the space needed for transport and so saves on fuel.

The Keira watering-can carries other eco-credentials (as well as two, five or ten litres of water, according to the size of can you choose) as it's made of 100% recycled polypropylene, which itself is fully recyclable.

I was given the 2-litre size* and rather like it. The position of the handle makes it comfortable and easy to tip up and the long spout delivers water quite precisely to the spot you want, though if you're too enthusiastic and tip too quickly you risk a gush over your toes as it overflows the sides. If you need a fine spray for seedlings, obviously this isn’t for you.

I've also noticed that, after four months outside, the colour is beginning to fade on the handle and the top edge. It's not the sort of thing that bothers me, but some might find it irritating.  I haven't tried the larger cans, so can't say how easy it is to pour with the heavier weight of water.

What I particularly like, though, is that if you leave it outside you’ll catch far more rain in it than in conventional watering-cans because of its wide open top. This point has struck other designers, as can be seen in the Raincan, available from The Organic Gardening Catalogue. The Raincan is cheaper for its size, but when I played around with one in the Wisley shop I found its lid distinctly fiddly. 

The Keira can will be available from Bulldog Tools, who launched it at GLEE this year. They seem a bit tardy in getting their Keira website up and running; however, it is already on Amazon.

*By Keira, for review.