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Could wild flowers become so important in Britain and Ireland that they get their own Glastonbury-style festival? You may laugh, but there’s already an orchid festival that’s in full swing right now at Kew Gardens, and in other European countries, there are actual, real-life wild flower festivals. Joshua Sparkes has been to the wild flower festival in Slovenia, and is determined to export that love of native flora back to Britain. He’s a gardener at Sissinghurst, and joins Isabel Hardman on the latest Wild Flower (Half) Hour podcast to talk flower festivals.
Also on this episode: the wonderful Zoe Devlin reads from her book, Blooming Marvellous: A Wild Flower Hunter’s Year, and Rebecca Wheeler introduces our first challenge for 2018, on rosettes. More information on that here.
Excitingly, this podcast is now so popular that it’s going from fortnightly to weekly for the wild flower season. If you’d like to feature on it or if you’re interested in sponsoring it to help us cover our costs, then please get in touch!You can listen to this podcast on iTunes, Acast, Stitcher, Spotify and all other good podcast platforms. Just let us know if it doesn’t turn up on yours and we’ll add our feed. Please also considering leaving a review of the show as it helps other people find it more easily which means that more people will learn about how amazing the native flowers of Britain and Ireland really are.
from #wildflowerhour http://www.wildflowerhour.co.uk/blog/2018/02/26/podcast-a-wild-flower-glastonbury/
Usually for #wildflowerhour, we ask you to post pictures of the wild plants that you have found in bloom that week. However, for our first challenge of 2018, we are also encouraging you to look at the leaves and in particular those arranged in a basal rosette.
In botany, a rosette is a circular arrangement of leaves, with all of the leaves at a similar height. For a basal rosette, these are at ground level. A good example would be a plantain.
Couldn't find a pic of a Ribwort Plantain early rosette, so put in a Hoary Plantain rosette, then Bee Orchid then E.P. Orchid so people can see the differences. pic.twitter.com/XMI2M05uk9
Why would we be asking you to do this? Well, it’s fun, and also it’s a really handy skill to be able to recognise plants when they are not in flower.
What would we like you to do for this challenge? You don’t need to be able to name the plants, you just need to be able to find them. So we would like you to go out and look for a plant rosette. Photograph it, showing the habitat around, zoom in and photograph the individual leaves. Lastly, turn one of the leaves over and photograph the underneath. Also, also note – is it hairy, spiny, succulent or smelly. Then post your photographs on Twitter or Instagram and use the hashtag #rosettechallenge or upload them to our Facebook group, and then our lovely knowledgeable #wildflowerhour community will help you to identify them.
The Diggers Club Garden of St Erth demonstrates simple garden ideas to home gardeners.
It’s a charming and very domestic-scale garden. Every idea in it could be taken back to your garden, wherever you live, to work in small and middlesized gardens everywhere.
Originally an 1860s miner’s cottage, St Erth is now a garden shop, nursery and visitor centre for The Diggers Garden and Environment Trust. But, as you can see, it’s on a very domestic scale.
In case you were thinking of St Erth in Cornwall, this St Erth is the name of a cottage and garden near Daylesford, Australia. But the ideas work whatever your climate.
1: Focus your efforts where you can see them
If you’re short of time or space, then focus your efforts near the house. Aim to create a dramatic, brilliant splash of whatever you love best in the beds nearest your doors and windows. That way you can see your favourite part of your garden most of the year.
The only herbaceous borders at St Erth are in a neat square directly outside the back door. As you open the door, you’re greeted by a blaze of colour from easy-to-grow perennials.
Stepping outside the back door, the herbaceous borders are framed by wisteria. A grass path leads to the rest of the garden beyond.
A close-up of the echinaceas, salvias, gaura and other well-known perennials in the herbaceous borders close to the house.
2: Use shape and texture to achieve easy-care effects
Colour in gardens means hard work. Flowers need feeding and dead-heading. Even the longest-flowering ones are only ‘at their best’ for a few months a year. They may need regular replacing. If you rely on colour for the effect all over your garden, you’re going to be doing alot of work.
That’s why it makes sense to focus your colour efforts where you can see them. In the rest of the garden, you can achieve a wonderful effect by making the most of different foliage and bark shapes and shades.
There are some imposing trees in the St Erth garden. They are underplanted with a range of different shades of green. I particularly like the way they’ve stripped away the tree branches lower down – which makes it lighter.
I love the contrast of the sharp, spiky cordylines with the softer more rounded shapes. Cordylines grow well in many temperate climates, although they’re perceived as exotic.
3: Simple garden ideas and combinations work so well…
Instead of having lots of different plants jumbled together, why not try just two? We spotted an attractive combination of three silver birches simply underplanted with hellebores. It looked so effective and needs almost no care.
Beautifully simple combination of silver birch and hellebores. This will look good pretty much all year round.
4: Don’t be afraid of underplanting under trees…
People sometimes think they can’t have a beautiful garden if there are too many trees in it. The St Erth garden shows that you can have a really quite woody garden and still have lots of different plants.
This striped euphorbia ‘Silver Swan’ creates a patch of light and contrast beneath a tree.
People sometimes seem to be afraid of trees. They worry about whether the roots will damage their property or fret over the shade they cast.
But trees are absolutely vital to cities and towns. They convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, protect against wind and weather erosion, and are one of the best defences against global warming. And trees give your garden a sense of permanence and scale.
Most trees will not damage your buildings. Just don’t plant them bang next to the house.
5: Make the most of vertical space…
St Erth was one of the first certified organic gardens to be opened to the public in Australia. Its fruit and veg areas have lots of lessons for the domestic gardener.
You can make a very small patch of ground extremely productive by using vertical space. At St Erth there is an area around 6-8ft wide and long. They’ve combined poles and string to create a support structure around 6-7ft high. In shape, it’s rather like an upright portable clothes dryer….
A clump of upright poles, tied together, create a high density support for pumpkins, beans and tomatoes. Alot of produce grown in a very small space!
A close-up of a pumpkin growing in this tightly packed few square feet. You can see the bean flowers and pods entwined with it.
Other ways of making the most of a small space for vegetable growing is to major on cut-and-come again crops. Sarah Raven has a good system of easy veg growing for year round success, which helps you work out what fruit and veg will give you the most return for the least space.
6: Grow food up ornamental arches…
There were a number of decorative arches used for growing food. One had pumpkins growing up it, and another created an ornamental support for grape vines.
A small ornamental arch used for growing grapes. You could also use it for beans or pumpkins.
7: Combine food and flowers in the same bed…
Maximise your use of space by combining food and flowers in the same patch.
An arch over a bench at St Erth. To one side you can see sugar cane growing – you could get a similar effect with sweetcorn. The arch supports pumpkins, while verbena bonariensis grows alongside.
8: You can fit an espaliered fruit tree in almost anywhere…
There’s a cafe at St Erth. The area outside is divided up by espaliered pear and apple trees. This is one of the best simple garden ideas for very small spaces. You can use a single espaliered tree or a short line of them to shelter a terrace or cover an eyesore, such as a compost bin. They don’t need to be any higher than 4-6ft, and you’ll get fruit too!
An espaliered fruit tree divides up the outside eating area at the St Erth Cafe.
A small espaliered fruit tree screen can be an attractive option for creating more privacy in your garden.
9: Add quirky touches…
Every garden needs a few slightly surprising touches. At St Erth I really liked a gate made of old tools.
A garden gate made of old tools…
10: Visit other gardens when you’re on holiday…
You may take your holidays in a different climate, but there’s still so much to learn from gardens in other countries. I’m based in Kent, England, but the St Erth garden in Australia has many plants that are familiar to me, such as echinacea. It also has a collection of exotic plants. With the return of exotic plants to English gardens, it’s interesting to see them in context.
Another inspiring garden to visit is Le Jardin Agapanthe in Northern France.
The Diggers Club has three gardens open to the public. I’ve visited the one at Cloudehill, which is much grander than St Erth. It has stunning borders, and also makes a very good use of modern sculpture. If you can’t get to Olinda, near Melbourne (Australia), then take a look at this video:
The Middlesized Garden blog comes out every Sunday morning with gardening tips, ideas and inspiration for your (middlesized?) garden. To get it, just enter your email address in the ‘subscribe’ box on the top right-hand side of this page.
It can be difficult to find the right indoor garden pot for your newly fashionable house plant.
The chain stores, such as B&Q and Ikea, do a good line in white china indoor garden pots, and also some trendy ribbed and patterned neutrals.
And James Wong told me that in London there are wonderful garden centres run by ‘hipsters with post-ironic beards’, which are great for house plants and indoor garden pots.
Here in Faversham, we do have hipsters with post-ironic beards, but I think they’re mainly brewing their own beer or playing jazz in basements. They haven’t quite got around to indoor plants, except possibly of a certain grow-your-own variety.
What a difference a pot makes…
James Hemsley of Plant Furniture imports 1970s indoor garden pots from Germany. ‘For us it’s all about foliage plants,’ he says. ‘And the right pot sets off the plant best.’
My mantelpiece with a cyclamen in its standard pot.
Exactly the same scene but this time the cyclamen is in one of Plant Furniture’s pots.
Vintage garden pots and planters
We do have alot of charity shops in Faversham, plus some great junk, vintage and antique shops and markets. So I trawled them for house plant pot ideas. However, you can’t rely on finding particular things in a charity or second-hand shop. It is a bit random.
These vintage planters came from car boot fairs – you just need to be patient, and go to lots of car boot fairs or garage sales to find the right ones.
However, be patient. Re-visit the charity shop or go to the car boot fair or garage sale whenever it’s on, and you’ll find the perfect pots in the end.
Put out an auction alert…
However, I found a wonderful collection of brass and copper planters in a friend’s Victorian house.
My friends’ copper and brass Victorian planters, bought by leaving an alert with a local auction house.
They place an alert for ‘copper pots’ and ‘brass pots’ with the local auction house. When one comes up, they leave absentee bids and stick carefully to their budget. That’s usually £20-£30, or a bit more for a big one.
My friends say that they only get about one in five of the pots they bid for, but over time, that’s built up to quite a collection.
I love the texture of this beaten brass pot with the fern.
Their house is Victorian. That was the great age of exotic indoor plants, so it really suits the house. But it would also contrast well with a more modern look.
Garden pots from your travels…
The same friends go to various parts of Africa for work. They bring back baskets made by local women’s collectives and use them as containers for house plants.
Baskets woven by women’s collectives in Uganda, plus one of the auction house brass pots. Baskets are easier to bring home than china!
Let me know your suggestions for beautiful indoor garden pots.
Did you know that snowdrops aren’t really native to the British Isles? In the latest Wild Flower (Half) Hour podcast, Isabel Hardman interviews Professor Mick Crawley about where snowdrops really come from and why they can cause an affliction called Galanthomania in some people. Also in this episode: the secret hunt to find a Tongue Orchid, and how on earth it turned up in a corner of Essex; and 6 year old Rebecca on wild flowers for butterflies.
Mick Crawley is one of the leading experts in snowdrops in this country, and has written an identification guide, which you can download for free here. You can follow Mike Waller’s orchid adventures on his Twitter feed, or by joining the Native Orchids of Britain and Ireland Facebook page. And Rebecca’s Butterfly Farm is a vlog that you can follow here.
You can listen to this podcast on iTunes, Acast, Stitcher, Spotify and all other good podcast platforms. Just let us know if it doesn’t turn up on yours and we’ll add our feed. Please also considering leaving a review of the show as it helps other people find it more easily which means that more people will learn about how amazing the native flowers of Britain and Ireland really are.
from #wildflowerhour http://www.wildflowerhour.co.uk/blog/2018/02/11/podcast-the-truth-about-snowdrops/
This has a dandelion-like yellow flower. The flower stalk has tiny reddish leaves sticking out from it. (bracts). To find it look on banks and roadsides where the ground is rough. This time of year, the big lower leaves, may not be seen. When they appear, they are rounded and look like horse’s hooves. (A colt is a young male horse). The leaves are also covered in hairs and are very soft. Coltsfoot was used to help bad coughs. It is not used now as it has dangerous chemicals as well as the good ones.
Download this month’s #herbologyhunt spotter sheet for children by clicking on the image below:
from #wildflowerhour http://www.wildflowerhour.co.uk/blog/2018/02/07/coltsfoot/
It’s time for the February #herbologyhunt! Who is going to be the child who finds all the flowers on this month’s spotter sheet first? Please do post pictures of the plants you find using the hashtag #herbologyhunt on Twitter or Instagram or posting in the Herbology Hunt Facebook group.
Click on the image below to download the sheet. Or, if you join the Wild Flower Society, you can get these spotter sheets sent straight to you.
Congratulations to all the children who took part in the January #herbologyhunt! We are about to publish our spotter sheets for February, but before we do, we need your help. Do you have photos of the following wild flowers that we could use in the spotter sheet:
All you need to do is post a photo and tag our Instagram, comment on our Facebook page, or tweet at us. And we’ll publish the latest spotter sheet on Saturday. It will help children and teenagers fall in love with botany: and who doesn’t want that to happen?
Don’t forget that if you join the Wild Flower Society as a #herbologyhunt member, you’ll also get free printed spotter sheets and a hand lens.
from #wildflowerhour http://www.wildflowerhour.co.uk/blog/2018/02/01/can-you-help-herbology-hunt/
(@herbologyhunt) 
