Weeding the Web

Still time to catch garden cartoons by Bateman

Just a reminder, in case, like me, you're always thinking "Ooh, I'd like to do that" and then forgetting to note down dates. 

The Cartoon Museum's exhibition of H M Bateman runs until 22nd July. Still time to to catch a super show, with some chuckle-worthy garden references.

In this one - The Rollers, from The Strand Magazine 1933 - note how the skinny little gardener is making up for the lack of his neighbour's bulk with a great big roller. Or is he just skinny because of all that energy expended?

I could make a cheap female jibe about men and their equipment, but I won't.

Images © H M Bateman Designs. With thanks to the Cartoon Museum.

Discount vouchers for Nottcutts Garden Centres this weekend

There comes a point, usually about this time of year, that you begin to think that the rusty old table you've been making do with has spilt your coffee on the grass below for the last time, and that the "ouch" bit on the garden chair, which catches your skin if you don't sit down carefully, has nipped your thigh just once too often.  

This weekend (starting today) Nottcutts Garden Centres are offering 20% discount on outdoor furniture, so now could be the time to do something about it. The discount also applies to indoor furniture, BBQs and plants, and there's 10% off everything else.

It's the sort of discount that is offered to their Sage Privilege Club members from time to time (membership costs £10/year, offering 10% discount throughout the year, and a certain amount of free refreshment in the café). This weekend they're extending the offer to friends and family - loosely translated here into anyone who's reading this blog.

To take advantage of the offer, either Download Notcutts_FriendsFamily_Vouchers to take to your nearest Nottcutts store or enter the voucher code SageFriendsJune2012 on their website.

A very special present for a very special gardener

Sometimes you need a very special present. I can imagine a few horticultural societies wondering what to give a retiring president - someone who's worked tirelessly for decades, keeping it going.  Or institutions with a much-loved member about to leave.

When our local librarian retired, she wanted gardening equipment for the hobby that she'd never before had time for and so much money was collected that she pretty much stocked the garden shed that was part of the present.

But supposing she'd already had all the equipment?  Well, here's a suggestion for anyone who's looking for that very special present for a very special gardener. You need to be nicely padded in the wallet department, or collecting a large subscription.

Nigel Coope is a talented chairmaker with years of experience. I met him at Craft in Focus at Wisley this spring and when he pointed to a rocking chair and said, "This is the most comfortable chair you'll ever sit in," I took it with a pinch of salt. Furniture makers don't aim to make uncomfortable furniture; it's just that quite often they succeed. But Nigel was right; it was extraordinarily comfortable. OK, so you can't exactly sink into a wooden chair, the way you do a squashy sofa, but such is the skill with which he's fitted the shape to the human body that it felt as if I did.

Nigel's spent years perfecting the curve on the back of his chairs and the "squab" is carved from wood two inches thick, to allow a comfortable shape. I have to say, I was amazed. The rocking chair was truly the most comfortable I've ever sat in, and, believe me, I've tried a few rocking chairs.

Adding to the desirability are the most delightful carvings set into the back, done by a carver local to Nigel in Nottinghamshire. Any subject can be depicted, but of course the gardening motifs were the ones that caught my eye.

Nigel's chairs (he does a variety of traditional designs) aren't just a something to sit on; they're heirlooms. I can see one being passed down to the first-born with the words, "Grandpa loved his garden". And possibly the remark, "And the society really appreciated him." 

The next Craft in Focus at Wisley will run 24-28 November.

Garden photography competition for bloggers from Furniture Village

There's no accounting for taste, as my mother frequently says, usually when looking at those strangely popular low-crotched trousers that make the young men wearing them look like ducks when they run. The same goes for gardens. I've sat in a scrub-ridden, plastic-toy infested wasteland, to have the happy occupant tell me how much she loves her garden. A recent visitor to my own looked round and said, "You have a lot of work to do," in a tone that definitely made it more of an order than a comment on my life in general.

That's the beauty of gardening, though. It allows free expression. And until 3rd July Furniture Village are offering the chance to garden bloggers to win a prize for expressing themselves in their Great Garden Moments Competition. (If you want to enter, the competition details are here). Just let them know why you love your garden and put up a picture.

I, for instance, love my wild bit. The increase in the numbers of crickets has been noticeable since I let an area of grass grow, and every year I discover something unexpected - garlic mustard burgeoned forth this spring.

But opposite this wild bit is regimentation. Raised beds - properly raised, you understand, none of this six inches off the ground wishy-washy approach - balance the wilderness with short, straight rows of veg. I think of it as yin and yang. Soon I'll be sowing for the later summer harvest - oriental leaves, young carrots and fennel. The latter I've found grows much better when put in later in the year.

Of course, not everyone likes its aniseed tang, but there's no accounting for taste.

 

The Good Weed Garden Book Review: Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens

It seems perverse to review a book of drought-tolerant plants while looking out on another rain-soaked day in summer, but this weather isn't all bad. Inspect your garden after sustained and steady rainfall and you'll soon find out which areas of your patch remain surprisingly dry.

For these spots, and for gardens that experience drought at some point of the year Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens offers 200 suggestions. Of course, always the implication nowadays is that we're heading for increased periods of aridity and all need to conserve water; this is certainly not the first book to title itself with this angle in mind. Once inside, however, it settles into a no-nonsense collection of plants that don't need a lot of water, divided into eleven categories, including trees, bulbs, ground cover, palms and cycads.

Authors Lauren Springer Ogden and husband Scott, who share their time between homes in Colorado and Texas, wrote Plant-Driven Design, which won a coveted American Horticultural Society Book Award in 2009. Their sojourns in Europe led them to introduce to the States plants that were virtually unknown over there, which then made it into the mainstream nursery trade.  These included seakale (Crambe maritima) and hardy shrub mallow (Lavatera thuringiaca).

Before you reject the book as purely American, though, Lauren has lived and gardened professionally in the UK, and the authors point out that many of the plants they've chosen will suit the UK. Their criteria for inclusion is described:

If a plant in beautiful, well adapted to the site and region, and not overly aggressive or invasive, it deserves consideration. If it needs little input in terms of soil amendment, fertilizer, or ongoing care, better yet. If it supports a range of creatures with food, cover, or nesting places, it's a win-win for all. We have used these criteria to pick the two hundred plants described here.

The common denominator of the plants is that they all require well drained soil. When fully established, they require only one inch of water every two weeks during the hottest part of the growing season, less in cool weather or when not growing strongly. This certainly makes this book worth perusing if you garden in containers.

Waterwise Plants is definitely not a substitute for Dry Shade Planting, which I reviewed in February. Of the 200 plants, only three are recommended for full shade, one of them being Ptelea trifoliata, a tree. (The others, in case you're wondering, are standard shade standby, Mahonia, and Ivory Sedge (Carex eburnea).)

I must admit that, being lazy, I'd like a little more acknowledgement of the UK climate (there's the usual list of American climate zones, with their minimum temperatures, to give some ideas of equivalents, but that's all) but with a bit of cross-referencing of zones, a casual knowledge of what grows around us, and attention to remarks about the West Coast (which doubles for the Mediterranean), heat and humidity, you can get a feel for what is worth further research for growing here.

Where this book scores highly is in the Design Ideas and Related Plants paragraphs included in each entry. Only brief, these remarks, nevertheless, immediately conjure the sort of planting that would suit, and the companions that would thrive with it. If you're looking to create a dry garden, this will give plenty of ideas.

With good photos portraying each plant, and a one-plant-per-page layout, this is an eminently browsable book which offers plenty of food for thought, and a head start on checking up on the plants that you'd like to grow in the UK climate.

NB: thanks to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for pointing out that I've managed to coincide this post with World Oceans Day. This annual celebration, every 8th June, honours the water that links everyone around the world and reminds us that we should treat our precious resource with respect. OK, so it's not immediately gardening-related, but water is water and we need to take care of it. The WWF would you to give them your tips on saving water in the garden.

And a final NB: I've linked this with the Garden Book Review meme at Roses and Other Gardening Joys. It happens every month around the 20th. Why not pop over and see what else has been read recently?

Queen Elizabeth, a royal rose

Congratulations, Ma'am, and thank you.

I couldn't let this weekend to by without celebrating the Jubilee. It's quite something. Go on, admit it. I bet that even if you're usually quite curmudgeonly about the royal family, you're quietly moved by the whole event. After all, having the same Head of State for 60 years is quite something for a country. 

Having a queen at all is something to treasure.  We enjoy a continuity of history that doesn't happen when a president gets elected every four years and we have an apolitical head of state - one who represents us to the world, unsullied by whatever political hue the UK bears at the time.

So, in celebration, I've investigated roses. A couple were launched at Chelsea this year just for the occasion: Peter Beales came out with Queen's Jubilee Rose (a fully double-flowered shrub rose, white with pink flush) which is nice, but I'm not keen on double flowers; David Austin offered Royal Jubilee (large, deep pink flowers, petals curving inwards) whichI think is, frankly, quite horrible.