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| Go greener |
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| With a growing number of gardeners eschewing chemicals in favour of natural alternatives, we can suggest some effective products from our organic gardening selection |
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| Relax and refresh |
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| Good food freshly prepared daily, aromatic coffee, chilled wine and a grassy play area for the children. What more could you need? |
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| Food heaven |
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| Our Farm Shop is heaven for food lovers! Delicious handmade food, top quality groceries, fresh fruit and vegetables and stylish cookware and gifts. |
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| The Discovery Walk |
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| As thousands of daffodils herald the spring, stroll or stride around our Walk while the youngsters enjoy the Nature Trail |
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Winter treasures!
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| Thursday, 8th November 2007 |
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IN THE GARDEN WITH PETA MARSHALL
I asked a non-gardener: “What is the best thing about winter?” “They responded: “Sitting in front of a warm fire drinking hot chocolate!” If my friend had been a keen gardener the answer could well have been: “Cornus bark” or “Witch hazel flowers” or “A patch of snowdrops in full glory!” For winter does, actually, have a beauty all of its own.
The blooms that appear during our colder months can compare in brilliance with the more obvious beauty that the summer’s sun brings out. Certainly winter blooms have a charm, and may even be more appreciated on account of their scarcity.
Where flowers are concerned there are more around during winter than in autumn. We can actually regard autumn as being the end of the growing year, whereas winter – although it is a dormant time of year in our climate – can usually be looked upon as the beginning of the next.
It is a sure sign that spring is on the way when you begin to notice the male catkins on the hazel bushes in hedgerows and coppices. The little female blooms are less conspicuous, but if you look carefully you will find them scattered along the twigs, often quite close to the catkins.
When it comes to planting your garden with winter plants in mind, remember that they should be given a place where they are protected as much as possible from strong winds. Also, with winter being a cold and generally inhospitable season, it would be nice to have the facility of viewing the plants from the comfort of the house!
I’m looking specifically at winter shrubs this week, but if I was looking at winter flowering plants in general (including bulbs, perennials and bedding plants) I’d be able to say that the same colours we have in summer are available to us in winter. However I’m hard-pushed to come up with a really blue winter flowering shrub…but regardless of this, there is plenty else to grow.
Several shrubs have a delicious scent when in flower and it would be a great shame to miss this by siting them far from the house, or away from a path. Interestingly, these highly scented shrubs make up for the fact that the flowers are somewhat less than dramatic in appearance.
So, in order to take full advantage of their latent beauty, careful attention should be given to their placing and, if possible, they should be given a solid background, in the form of a wall, fence or backcloth of evergreens.
Having wetted your appetite for winter-flowering shrubs, what’s available? Here are my six of the best:
Winter sweet (Chimonanthus praecox) has small, pale yellow flowers which, when seen from a distance, are fairly inconspicuous. Close-up, however, and the waxy flowers have a curious attraction but it is the powerful scent that will knock your socks off! It’s good for flower arrangers, too: a few sprigs will fill a room with delicious scent in a very short time.
Mezereon (Daphne mezereum) is a small, upright shrub reaching an ultimate height of just 5ft (1.5m). Star-shaped mauve-pink flowers appear in dense clusters of leafless stems during mid-winter. Again, the scent is stunning.
Winter heathers (forms of Erica carnea) are different to heathers that flower during other seasons in that, generally, they are more tolerant of a chalky soil. There are masses of different varieties, and they all establish very quickly in the ground. They are good at the front of borders, and can be used en masse to cover the ground and smother the weeds! Favourite varieties to watch out for include: ‘Aurea’ (deep pink flowers and golden foliage), ‘King George’ (rose pink flowers and green foliage); ‘Myretoun Ruby’ (ruby red flowers and dark green leaves) and ‘Pink Spangles’ (soft pink flowers and deep green leaves).
Tassel bush (Garrya elliptica) is grown for its attractive hanging slender catkins of silvery green, and glossy evergreen foliage. The best catkins are to be had on male plants (there’s an excellent variety called ‘James Roof’), and they can often last well into spring.
Witch hazel (Hamamelis x intermedia) is one of the all-time best winter shrubs. This is a fairly vigorous shrub, but having said that the eventual height and spread is only 6-10ft (1.8-3m). The spidery flowers, which are scented, can be from medium to large when compared with other forms of Hamamelis, and they are generally yellow tinted with copper. ‘Jelena’ is a favourite, with coppery-bronze blooms.
Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) should not be confused with the white-flowering summer form. Winter jasmine has bright golden yellow flowers carried in profusion on leafless stems. The good thing about the flowers is that they come for a long period (from late autumn until early spring), but the bad thing is that they are quickly damaged by cold winds. However, as they come in such profusion this isn’t generally a problem.
Oh dear! To include just six plants means I’ve had to leave out the wonderful winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima), all of the fabulous yellow mahonias, the Christmas box (Sarcococca confusa) and the many excellently fragrant winter-flowering viburnums. It’s just not fair! Happy gardening!
This week in your garden
If you haven’t already done it, now’s the time to put your greenhouse bubble plastic insulation in place. This material is available by the metre from garden centres.
Continue to dig and manure vacant ground for next year’s beans, celeriac, celery, cucumbers, leaf beet, leeks, lettuces, marrows, onions and peas.
Spray peaches for the final time this year, with Murphy Traditional Copper Fungicide, or Bordeaux Mixture, to protect them from leaf curl disease.
Peta Marshall is the plant centre manager at Priory Farm in Nutfield. Website: www.prioryfarm.co.uk
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