Weeding the Web

Life's too short to stuff a...

...mushroom.

Students of the 1970s will be familiar with Shirley Conran's oft-quoted remark. Last year I worked out my garden equivalent:

Life is most definitely too short to stuff a flower tower. 

It also made me realise why, to some degree, gardening becomes easier with time. It's not just down to one's growing experience of how plants behave (though, obviously that helps) but one's gathering understanding of how one's self behaves.

I'd been given both the Polanter and the Flower Tower to try and (blush!) had put them off for a disgraceful length of time. The Polanter is a very sturdy design based on the drainpipe, with the idea that you can buy several, slot them together and make a taller tower. It can be attached to a wall or left free-standing and each section is under two feet high.

The Flower Tower, at just under three feet, is taller and wider and mine is free-standing only, although you can buy a wall-fixed version. On first getting it out of the packaging it seems rather flimsy, but clever construction means that it's light but robust and has handy finger-holes at the top to allow for carrying.  Flower Tower's Facebook page has oodles of pictures showing what it should look like fully planted. 

Last year, in uncharacteristic enthusiasm, I determined to stuff both to the gunwales, display them prominently, and bask in myriad remarks at the throbbing colour enlivening unloved corners.

Hmm.

There are, no doubt, many, many gardeners (such as you?) who thrive on such containers. Done properly, they disappear behind a cloud of blooms which repeat flower all summer, drawing bees and admiration. However, even more than pots, I would suggest, they devour time. After all, the ratio of soil to the number of plants is really rather meagre. They demand forward-thinking - water-retaining granules and granular feed should, no doubt, have been shovelled in industrial quantities down their gaping maws, along with the compost.

As it was, they required water. Much, much water.

To be fair, both Polanter and Flower Tower have made provision for this. Both instruct users to fill the bottom with a layer of gravel to act as a reservoir (and ballast, I guess).  Polanter also provides a Hozelock connection to a seephose that runs down the centre of the pipe. Flower Tower has put an open chimney with holes down the centre of theirs, which you fill from above. 

My problem was that you have to do it a lot. And you have to do it with attention. The Polanter seephose did squirt out water, but mostly at the hose connection. This probably wasn't their fault. Having just read Anne Wareham's Outwitting Squirrels, I am now aware that these connectors should receive considerable pampering. However, as it didn't work very well, and I hadn't at that point heard that changing the washers on the connectors might be the answer, I eventually gave up trying to keep it watered, hauled the plants out and put them in the Flower Tower.

Oh, dear. The strawberries were glad to escape

Watering-wise, the Flower Tower's system was more successful for me, but that still dried out too quickly for comfort. Husband, with scientific background, queried whether the plants at the bottom of the Flower Tower wouldn't be better provided with water than those at the top because water pressure would be less at the top in the chimney. I have no idea, but certainly when I did water I felt it necessary to water around as well as down the chimney.

The strawberries fared better than the lobelia in their tolerance of my treatment, but look considerably happier now that I've wrestled them from their holes and replanted them in the ground.

All this is not to say that others wouldn't find these the perfect addition to a garden full of colourful bedding. If you're set up for hanging baskets (you might have guessed I'm not), fill them with appropriate media, and enjoy ensuring that everything is thoroughly soaked daily, then you'll probably get a lot of pleasure from them. I still love the idea of a "drainpipe" cascading flowers down the side of a house. But if I do pots, they have to contain loads of soil to act as a buffer against my neglect. 

For me, this is the last of the experiments with this sort of container. If there's anything that you know you're totally unsuited to in the garden, I'd be interested to hear what it is (go on, make me feel better).

In the meantime, I comfort myself with the most pertinent approach to better gardening is, Gardener, Know Thyself.

Garden Giveaway: Stacks of Flavour Strawberry Fields, from Suttons

NB This giveaway is now closed.

Some things have instant appeal. Often they're the simplest ideas, as I discovered when my salad crate from Suttons' new Stacks of Flavour range arrived.  I felt ridiculously pleased.

It's cute, nicely proportioned, solidly made and came all ready with a liner to stop soil falling out of the bottom and seeds in a range of salad leaves ready to sow. 

It's also neatly stencilled with "Helen's Salad" (blush!). Passing snails take note. And, indeed, it's possible to have your crate inscribed with a message of up to 20 characters, which is a way to make it a very personal gift.

Stacks of Flavour crates, launched today, come in three depths. Three slats deep for root veg, chillies and strawberries, two slats deep for herbs, and one slat deep for salad leaves. Each has a liner which you can cut to size (I just folded mine to shape and tucked it into place) and seeds or plants. There are seven different collections to choose from and all you need to do is add compost.

You can add to your collection by buying individual crates in a variety of sizes, with the liner but without seeds or plants, so you can expand your growing space to encompass more varieties in time with your growing confidence. You can see the full range on the Stacks of Flavour website.

They should last for a bit too, made of FSC sustainably sourced wood that's a sturdy 12mm thick, with extra pins for structural strength. The wood has been treated to last at least three years but I think I'd give them an annual application of wood preservative to prolong it further.

Growing like this is the box equivalent of square-foot gardening. Only better, in some ways. You can move things around, stack unused crates out of sight if you decide to downsize for a time, or add more growing space as it suits.  With more people having to rent, these provide an ideal solution to a portable garden.

While the crates are particularly good for people with limited garden space or who would just like to start off in a small way, it doesn't stop them being really cute and an attractive option for anyone, experienced or not, who fancies growing a bit more on the patio or using that porch space that's always gone begging. 

I love the fact that I now have a salad "bed" that's been easy to start indoors away from inclement weather and will remain out of reach of slugs. With Strawberry Fields I could segregate my varieties so they didn't get all muddled in the beds, and I could remember which plants were which.

Two Strawberry Fields crates up for grabs!

To celebrate the launch, I've got 2 prizes of Suttons' new and exclusive Stacks of Flavour ‘Strawberry Fields Collection’ worth £32 each.

Included with each are: 

• 8 plug plants of Strawberry Toscana - a unique variety with attractive pink flowers which bears a continuous supply of sweet, juicy fruit right through from July to October (and will do for many years to come).
• 1 x 3-slat crate (5.3cm x36cmx28cm high) plus liner. 
• FREE personalisation

To enter

To be in with a chance to win one of the crates, please leave a comment below. You can also enter by following me on Twitter and tweeting a link to this post (include @helengazeley in the tweet so I know you've done it).

 Do both and you'll be entered twice!

The winner will be drawn at random from all the entries.

 

Deadline for entries: noon on Thursday 26th March 2015.

This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Ryan and Jan who will each soon be receiving their Strawberry Crate.

Terms and Conditions:

1. This giveaway is only available to people with a UK delivery address.

2. Entry closes at noon on Thursday 26th March.

3. The lucky winner will be notified on 26th March either via the email address used to leave a comment below, or via Twitter. If I have not heard from him or her by midnight on 4th April I will draw another winner.

3. I have two prizes of one Stacks of Flavour Strawberry Fields from Suttons to give away. No cash alternative.

4. Suttons will send it out in May, when it will be ready to plant out.

5. Anyone found using multiple Twitter accounts to enter will be disqualified.

 

 

 

Vertical gardening with Victorian verve

There's nothing new...blah, cliché, cliché. but honestly, there isn't, is there? Materials change, engineering advances, but ideas?  Coming around again, as the Carly Simon song goes. But here's an idea for vertical gardening that I hadn't seen before.

I recently discovered the far-too-absorbing website Mostly Victorian. To me, brought up with a pre-war (that's pre World War One) edition of Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia, which was regularly taken out for the poetry and stories contained therein, the pages on the website have a very familiar look. I guess it was the publishing style of the period.

And what features in a Girls' Own Paper as a "Novelty for Small Town Gardens"? A Wall Garden! A Victorian version of Wooly Pockets.

Doesn't look immediately different from the usual array of pots that you might hang up on a wall, but the accompanying letter reveals that all the pots are custom-made with open backs so the soil is up against the wall, and the plant roots (which the writer seems in constant fear of damaging) "delight in the brickwork".

Easy access, easy planting up, no damage by her cat's myriad friends, and, it seems, less watering required.

The only problem nowadays would be finding someone to make the pots. And possibly the wall.

Winter Bedding Plants from Plant Me Now: juggling ajuga with viola and lavender

Some things are obviously complicated. Others, you think, Surely not.

This weekend I had a go at Life Drawing and, yes, it was every bit as demanding as I thought it would be. Last month I was offered a choice of bedding plants from Plant Me Now - how difficult could it be to create perfect winter pots?

Hah!

It was my first venture into both winter bedding and designing pots with it. Thinking tonally, I requested two that are new to their range - Viola Teardrops Pink Blush and Lavender Lavance - and a stalwart bugle, Ajuga Burgundy Glow, which has lovely pinky-violet variegation.

Clever, I thought. Three short, bluey-leaved lavenders in the centre of a pot; pinky-purply bugle encircling them, showing the odd creamy splash; and an outer ring of blushing pink violas. A doddle. Why on earth are there so many magazine articles, telling you how to plant pots?

Hah!

They arrived. I hadn't received stock from Plant Me Now before and I was impressed. From my visit to Ball Colegrave I know that much effort went into researching good packaging and, although the box was left on its side in the porch, it wouldn't have mattered if it had been upside-down. The packaging keeps soil in its place and plants well protected.  The plants themselves looked bounding with health.

The other thing I like about Plant Me Now is that the plants are ready to go. I didn't have to hang around, nurturing anything, I could just plant up the pot.

Hah!

Space: massively underestimated. No way was I going to cram in three lavenders, five bugles and five violas, as planned. 

Combination: bugle = bushy and lavender = petite. Both lovely. Not pot companions.The robustly leaved bugle sort of overwhelmed the more whimsical-looking violas. Not pot companions. 

So here's Plan B: One lavender, surrounded by all five violas.

How did that heuchera get there? Oops, and the weed.

What of the bugle?

Though I says it myself - and in opposition to Husband, who proffered an unasked opinion on colour contrast - I'm rather proud of the way the plants complement each other tonally.

So, rather than remove the bugle elsewhere, I potted one up by itself and set it next to lavender/viola combo. I would have put more in, but the plants are a good size so one is almost filling the pot already, and being in "lonely splendour", so to speak, gives it a certain gravity all its own, which it lives up to with the variegated colouring.  Completely accidentally, I've entered the realms of blending pots together as well as plants.

So, unexpectedly I've now also got four lavenders in a trough, where I think they'll knit together into a rather smart little hedge that I might transfer into the ground when I've found the right spot, and four more bugle that, several weeks down the line, are still in the soil they arrived in and still thriving (obviously supplied in a good growing medium), and awaiting to adorn the top of a much larger pot where I'm intending to place a small tree. 

As a viola virgin, I really didn't know what to expect, so I've been pleased with the way they've taken off. They also, accidentally, fulfil Husband's demand for contrast as they start off yellow and gradually acquire their lilac-y hue from the top petals down (it is lilac more than pink, but plant expert, Tim Milward, of Plant Me Now, suspects that soil and weather conditions play a part in that). The yellow picks out the creamy splashes on the bugle.

Pansies and Violas at Wisley March 2013

I chose violas because I was so impressed by the massive display that Wisley put on last year as part of its Autumn Planting for Year Round Colour campaign. They made a very cheerful show.

Teardrop violas are already a popular series (Pink Blush is a new colour). They have a semi-trailing, cascading habit, which should suit my pot but, even better, in October's Gardening Which?, they report that Teardrops displayed the best winter flowering of all the violas they trialled and continued well beyond spring. By July, apparently, they were trailing beautifully.

Now, all you out there with pot+bedding experience, does the following sound familiar? There's something very addictive about planting up pots. I want to have another go. I want to tweak what I've done with a slightly taller lavender in the middle.

The possibilities seem endless, but do you ever find that you're absolutely satisfied? I fear the answer is no, and that the only remedy is to keep having another go. 

If you'd like more on Plant Me Now, visit Catharine Howard's post Plants by Post - do I rate them?

 

Men's desire for underwear will reduce plant pot options

With the RHS Flower Show season dawning, anticipation grows of what new materials might appear in the show gardens. And recent analysis by Twenga, the UK-based retail search engine, made we wonder about the future of one of the more bizarre recycled materials that's starred at Hampton Court in recent years.

Twenga revealed this week that web traffic seeking out - wait for it - the male thong is up by 10%. 

[Pause, while we all dwell on that flesh-conjuring thought.]

I'm pleased to say that UK men still prefer something a touch more substantial - boxers and briefs made up 51% of the traffic - but if the trend abroad is anything to go by, we may be seeing rather more manly flesh than of yore. The male thong made it into the top three underwear searches in Poland, The Netherlands, France, Sweden, Germany and Italy. The Spanish, apparently, are fonder of the tanga.

But where does that leave recycled underwear plant-holders?  (They hadn't gone away, you know. There are instructions for these things on e-how.) The pants in the RHS's 2009 Hanging Bra-sket Garden would have been reduced to pockets just large enough for a daisy, had the leg-holes of thongs been sewn up.

But there is an up-side: I thought the Bra-sket display was ghastly. If we all encourage our men into thongs, the chances of it happening again will be minimal.

NB  The report says that thongs are increasingly popular because men (you poor things) are feeling the pressure of David Beckham's underwear ads.

I conducted my own research. Did Husband feel the need to bare, well, rather a lot, to compete with H&M's blue-eyed boy? I'm afraid I can't quote him, but his look was very pithy.

And I thought you might enjoy Twenga's underwear infographic, keeping its finger of the pulse of men's desire (so to speak):

Bloggers' tips on growing potatoes in containers to produce a high yield

The post I wrote on growing potatoes in containers last September is currently attracting quite a bit of traffic, reminding me that I promised to round up the advice of bloggers who'd had a go at growing 100 lbs of potatoes in a 4 foot square container.

Just to recap, the idea is to earth up potatoes as they grow, with the idea that the plant will continue to produce stolons (and therefore potatoes) along the length of the stem, filling the container with potatoes at all levels. Results have been, almost without exception, disappointing, with potatoes at the bottom of the container, where the seed potato was placed, and a lot of empty soil above.

But... Let's revisit Phillip Cairns at Mudsongs. He had a go three years running, honing his methods but without great success. Last September he wrote to me: "If we don't get good results this year, we're done trying. We'll update the page on our website if the mini potato tower is successful (though we have our doubts)."

Well, go and have a look! Against his expectations, he harvested 33 lbs (15kg) of potatoes, double his previous year's yield. He says:

Many of the potatoes we harvested from our mini tower this year grew near the top of the tower just below the surface of the soil (and most of them were large potatoes), which seems to indicate that the potato tower hilling process actually works.

Garden project : a DIY planter for succulents and cacti

Every so often you come across a design that is so basic that you can't believe it's so attractive (OK, so that's a subjective opinion - as Fred pointed out in CD Difference?), but over at the website of ReadyMade, the demised magazine, Kelly, who runs Succulent Love, a company specialising in designs with succulents, gives instructions for a brick patio planter and tealight that I think is charming. You need an old brick and a drill (and, possibly, a burly man on the end of it), but otherwise it couldn't be simpler.

Kelly fell in love with succulents while planning her wedding, and makes surprising use of them in her bridal bouquet . Possibly it works best in Californian sunshine, but it's stylish. If you're looking for inspiration on how to display your own succulents around the house, there are plenty of ideas in her gallery.

Hanging baskets for spring

Last August I wrote about Dr Foster's Plant Containers, designed by Alan Larwood. Well, Alan has been in touch recently, given my remarks about his website, to let me know that it's been updated and now contains much more information.

It certainly looks a lot better and is easier to navigate but, more to the point, has some lovely pictures of his hanging baskets planted up. They've even won a prize: Mrs Frances Beeton won silver from Bury [St Edmunds] in Bloom competition with hanging baskets trailing into Alan's two-tier planters.

And no, it's not too early to think about Spring baskets. Pansies, primroses, tete-a-tete daffodils and ivy all combine to make a spirit-lifting display. And the daffodils can easily be replaced when they fade, as long as you've planted them in the top. Have a browse round his site for more baskets planted in other seasons. 

You never know where life will lead.  Alan has recently gained his US patent while doing a nice line in hanging baskets for his local shops. And there's a chap who just wanted to please his wife!

My personal favourite is his suggestion of planting a basket with nothing but violas, which if put in now should flourish until May, and only cost a pittance.