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This week has been an important one. The digger men are here, carving out the new garden and shaping the land around the house. A great divide of mud has marooned us. Venture out in any direction and you are met by instability.

There is nothing like the crunch of a decision having to be made to focus the attention on what you really need to keep. I have been taking out roses in full bloom to make way for new paths. After holding on for as long as I could, it was strangely liberating. A running rudbeckia and the bolting boltonia are now on the compost heap. I’ve been curtailing their spread since they came here, despite knowing that they were trouble. The inulas that were grown from seed are sitting in a heavy un-liftable knot that was levered by the digger and covered with damp hessian ready to be divided and potted up this weekend. Their removal has tuned my mind to decide where I eventually want them.

In planning for this moment I planted a sanctuary bed that runs at the front of the house, locked in by the path. Most of the plants here were grown from seed. You care more for seed-raised plants somehow and their volunteer seedlings have shown that they like it in this spot. Today’s posy illustrates something of the transparency in the planting. I want to see through it, for it to be light and for it to shift against the weight of the walls of the house. Yellows and greens and browns are the backbone of the planting. Of the half dozen in the bunch, the greater number are umbellifers. They make wonderful companions in associations that are naturalistically driven and bring the same feeling into a bunch.

Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’

I have grown bronze fennel forever, liking the way it is from the moment its new growth pushes through to the point at which I have to cut away last year’s skeletons to make way for it. It loves our ground here, the sunshine and the free draining soil, so I only leave the plants standing over winter where I know the smoky haze of new seedlings can be managed. Now they are just showing flower, which has pushed free from the net of dark foliage. Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’ looks good with almost anything and I love the horizontality of the gold umbels when they mass more strongly later in the month.

Bupleurum falcatumBupleurum longifolium ‘Bronze Beauty’

The acid-yellow umbel in the mix is the biennial Bupleurum falcatum. I threw fresh seed into the rubble around the barns and potted some up to plant them where I wanted them. They have just started to flower and will continue to form a bright cage of flower, so small and filamentous that it creates a haze of vibrancy. Bupleurum longifolium ‘Bronze Beauty’ is it’s perennial cousin. I shall write more on this later as it is an old favourite that deserves more time.

Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum

Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum rises up and above most of its companions on wire thin stems which catch our breezes, but there is no need for staking until they hang heavier with seed. I cut them to the base to avoid the seedlings at this point as the clumps are long-lived and you need just a handful to make an impression. The fluffy flowers are a pure sulphur-yellow and the leaves are the blue green of cabbages but fine, like lace.

Lonicera periclymenum ‘Graham Thomas’

This is a good selection of the wild honeysuckle called ‘Graham Thomas’. I first saw it growing on his house when we were taken to meet him as Wisley students. I had no idea then how influential a plantsman he was, nor how much I would have enjoyed his namesake all these years later. I much prefer it to the brickier, shorter-flowering varieties such as ‘Belgica’ and ‘Serotina’. It also flowers far longer than its native parent and, after its first July flush, continues off and on into September.

Hordeum bulbosum

The bulbous barley, Hordeum bulbosum, was collected on a trip to Greece a few years ago. It has proven to be completely perennial, retreating to a basal cluster of storage organs after flowering. I cut it before it seeds to limit its spread, as it germinates freely. In Greece the storage organs (which give it its species name) would keep it alive during a summer without rain to reactivate growth in the autumn. Here, without a water shortage to speak of, it is happy to return with a second flush in September. The flowers are early, rising in April, to trace every breath of wind outside the windows.

Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan

Artichokes are one of the pre-eminent Italian ingredients and so it makes sense to look to Italy for ways in which to prepare them. This recipe is from the River Café Cook Book Green which, alongside Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book, is the cook book I turn to most frequently when looking for inspiration for good simple vegetable recipes.

Recipes for artichoke are legion, but they usually follow one of a number of tried and tested treatments; boiled and eaten with vinaigrette or another sauce such as bagna cauda, braised with herbs in stock or oil (sometimes with a stuffing), deep-fried, roasted or chargrilled or, more unusually, sliced very thinly and eaten raw as a salad vegetable.

This recipe attracted my attention as the artichoke hearts are used raw to make a pesto-like sauce for pasta. The pesto itself is a pale beige colour and so this is not necessarily the most photogenic of platefuls, but it is the delicate flavour of the artichokes that is so readily captured; their slightly resinous and nutty flavour foregrounded by this simple treatment. The sauce is deliciously creamy and rich, yet it has a completely vegetal freshness. I have halved the number of garlic cloves called for in the original recipe as, to my taste, they overwhelm the subtlety of the artichokes.

At this time of the year I trim the stalks and bases from all the artichokes, even the smallest, as these parts become increasingly fibrous towards the end of the season. If you make this earlier in the season with young artichokes it is possible to use the first 5cm of the stalk too, once the fibrous outer layer has been peeled away.

The pesto can also be used like a tapenade on bruschetta or crostini topped with some shaved Parmesan or Pecorino, or a slice of Parma or San Daniele ham. To use it in this way prepare as for the sauce below, but allow the pesto to cool after adding the butter.

Serves 6

Ingredients

400g spaghetti Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper Freshly grated Parmesan

ARTICHOKE PESTO 6 small globe artichokes 2 lemons 100g pine kernels or blanched almonds 2 cloves garlic 250ml milk 2 handfuls flat leaf parsley 150g Parmesan, freshly grated 150ml olive oil 75g unsalted butter

Method

The globe artichokes (Cynara cardunculus Scolymus Group) were some of the first plants to go into the new kitchen garden. They are a luxury vegetable, taking far more space than they provide reward for and shading their neighbours if, indeed, there is room left in their shadow. Nevertheless, I gave them a bed to themselves, in prime position and against the radiated heat of the newly built wall.

They have grown in spectacular fashion – which is the greater part of the reason for having them – doubling and trebling their bulk in the course of the first summer and continuing onward to take all the space which was offered them. Cold weather in combination with winter wet is their nemesis but, since they were planted, both winters have been mild and they have only had a brief down time in the darkest months when they retreat to a core cluster of leaves.

Their aluminium foliage is wonderful in its ascendancy and as good as acanthus in its architecture. As soon as the weather warms in March it reaches from the clump, each leaf larger and more dramatic than the last, scrolling and bulking steadily until you see that, some time in May, the parent foliage has gathered enough energy for the flower spikes. These push proud of the forest of leaves, but it is whilst the heads are small that you need to curtail their reach and harvest the artichokes.

We grow a variety called ‘Bere’, which Paul Barney of Edulis Nursery offers, and is the selection his father found growing in the walled garden there in the 1950’s. It is spinier than some of the named varieties, but Paul says it is the best tasting of them all. Indeed, it is a wonderful plant if you pick the heads whilst they are still young and before they are fully armoured. The best and meatiest parts are still soft when the leaf spines are forming, but leave them to harden and fulfil their thistly leanings and you end up with an impossibly fibrous mouthful.

Cynara cardunculus Scolymus Group ‘Bere’

I plan to split my clumps in the spring, when growth is on the move and the crowns are manageable. Being mediterranean, they start life as soon as there is warmth and moisture in combination but, being sensitive to the cold, you have better chances in spring than if you move them at end of the season. It is a two-man job to lift the clumps and then prise a division, with root, from the clump. The divisions or ‘starts’ will be planted in the new herb garden, where they will provide ornamental architectural structure amongst the herbs.

I have six plants now, far too many of the same variety, so the plan is to thin the ‘Bere’ to three and equal it with the same number of purple-tinged ‘Romanesco’ to make up the half dozen. ‘Romanesco’ is an altogether friendlier plant without spines, and the scales that form the thistle head are soft and can easily be harvested and prepared without the need for gloves.

Each plant will be spaced a metre apart and inter-planted with stands of bronze fennel, which will cover for the artichokes’ collapse, which happens in high summer once all their energy has gone into flower production. At this point, once the old leaves start to fail revealing bare ankles, it is best to cut the lot to the ground and let the foliage regenerate. It will be back for the autumn, whilst the fennel covers during the recovery period.

In Italy the cardoon is also prized in the early spring for its edible leaves. The midribs, which look like celery, are stripped of the leaves and fibres, and then blanched and buttered, or baked in a gratin. You need rhubarb amounts of room for such a short season vegetable, but if you do have a spare corner in sunshine they are sure to provide you with drama at the very least.

I first grew the ornamental cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) as a border plant at Home Farm. Innocent looking divisions arrived from Beth Chatto, as beautifully wrapped in damp newspaper as they are described in her catalogue. They were planted in an ambitious group of three on a sunny slope and took their position, rearing up in a mound of metallic foliage. Tapering in August to a magnificent pinnacle of branching flower, the plants reach about three metres in height, and need staking if they are not to topple once the flowers break colour. Look up and you see bees staggering about drunk on the fist-wide pools of neon violet filaments.

The butterflies love them too, but the giant needs to be felled if it is not to leave you with a gaping hole once the collapse starts to happen. At Home Farm I planted it within a corral of late summer perennials, spaced at a sensible distance so that they can swallow the hole whilst it regenerates. Asters and rudbeckia will do the job, but you have to give the cardoon space in spring as it is an early season riser.

Cynara cardunculus ‘Dwarf Form’ with Centranthus lecoqii

Fergus Garret pointed me to a dwarf form that they have in the garden at Great Dixter and I grow it here against the barn. I am not usually a fan of plants selected for dwarfism, but this cardoon makes for a better-behaved plant. It is distilled in all it’s parts, and more evil to the touch, the undersides of every leaf defended with an armoury of needle-sharp spines. Its foliage is as beautiful, possibly more finely divided, and certainly more compact. It tops out at about a metre and so avoids the need for staking. In the border where I grow it with Centranthus lecoqii and Romneya coulteri it has taken it’s territory, but the repercussions are altogether more manageable, and I still feel I have the drama I am looking for.

Cynara cardunculus ‘Dwarf Form’

Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan

The third week in June, around the solstice, is when the roses are at their best – first flowers opened and buds yet to come. The week usually coincides with weather and this bunch was picked just before a black sky gave way to thunder, lightning and downpour.

The roses are part of my trial of getting to know good garden plants. There was never room to indulge their showiness in the Peckham garden and, when we arrived here, they were one of the first things that were planted. I felt I could get away with them if they were treated as part of a productive garden. They push against the flow of what we want to do here and couldn’t be more out of place with the landscape backdrop. But a bunch brought in for the house is an opulent indulgence.

They are now in their sixth summer and I am beginning to see which are the good ones and which are the weaklings. There are twenty four varieties in total, all David Austin selections and each was chosen for their perfume, colour, flower shape and general mood. Here are a bunch of a half dozen.

The Alexandra Rose

I like to have singles in the mix as they bring a little of the wild as a contrast to the doubles. The Alexandra Rose is one of my favourites, making a relaxed bush and open sprays of flower that fade as they age.

Jubilee Celebration

Jubilee Celebration is perhaps the weakest plant, but not unhealthy, and it has a strong true rose scent. The colour is a very distinctive old rose which ages to apricot. It is also a wonderful shape with backward curled petals.

From the top; Pat Austin, Lady of Shallott & The Lark Ascending

Pat Austin is a rangy grower, but healthy and consistent. The flowers are a golden peach, slightly pendulous on the bush and smell of Earl Grey tea.

Lady of Shallott 

Lady of Shallot’s bowl-shaped blooms are shot pink over apricot. The colour is duller than Pat Austin but no less lovely.

Teasing Georgia

Teasing Georgia is the most yellow of this bunch. It is a really good rose with plenty of vigour, which can be put to a wall and trained as a climber. The flowers are the most quartered of this selection and open flat.

The Lark Ascending

The Lark Ascending is not such a good picker as it drops quickly, but I love it’s loose pale peach flowers which seem to tumble from the bush. It has fewer petals and it is a pretty grower, never stiff and therefore a good candidate for a mixed planting in a border. Not that this will be the case here. The cutting garden is the cutting garden where I can break my own rules and simply enjoy the flowers.

Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan

Broad beans (Vicia faba) are a kitchen garden staple for us and, gratifyingly, one of the easiest crops to grow. Every year we make an autumn sowing from October to early November, depending on the weather. If sown early in a warm autumn they can grow too large before winter and are then susceptible to wind rock, frost or snow. If sown too late in a cold, wet autumn there is not be enough time for them to get away before winter descends. Autumn sown beans are less prone to black-fly, produce stockier plants and an earlier crop of beans. In a warm spring this is sometimes as early as mid-May.

Our first harvest this year was in early June, but we also made a spring sowing of beans in 9cm pots in early March, which were brought on in the cold frame and planted out in April. These plants are starting to crop now, just as we have taken the last of the beans from the winter sown plants. In a good year this means that we can have beans from mid-May until mid-July.

In our experience spring sown plants tend to be leggier and less productive, so it is worth choosing shorter-growing varieties as the taller ones will need staking. We habitually sow Super Aquadulce in winter and Hangdown Green in spring. As soon as the beans are finished you should cut off the growth above ground, but leave the roots in the soil as they fix nitrogen. Replant with later summer leaf vegetables which thrive on the nitrogen, such as salad or chard. 

At this crossover point from the winter to spring sown beans we often end up with a mixed harvest of large and medium sized beans, with their tougher, more bitter skins, and very small, sweet beans which can be eaten straight from the pod. If so I will cook them in two batches, cooking the larger beans for 3 minutes and just blanching the smaller ones for a minute. 

This is such a simple recipe and one I return to every year in some shape or form. Who doesn’t like fresh garden vegetables on toast ? It is extremely adaptable and, as the season progresses the broad beans can be replaced with peas, chargrilled courgettes, roasted young beetroot or carrots, wilted chard, chargrilled chicory or blanched french beans. The herb can be substituted with others as available and appropriate – dill, fennel, chervil, basil or parsley. If you can’t find ricotta substitute with goat or sheep’s curd, or a soft young goat’s cheese.  

Serves 2

Ingredients

150g podded broad beans
200g ricotta
2 thick slices of sourdough bread 
Extra virgin olive oil
A clove of garlic
Zest and juice of 1/2 a large lemon
A handful of mint leaves, coarsely chopped, a few reserved to finish
Salt and ground black pepper 

Method

When my friend Anna gave me a seedling of ‘Bill Wallis’ a few years ago she said, “You may hate me for giving you that !”. I had admired it seeding about in the gravel that wrapped her house and thought it’s willingness to perform would be good in the rubbly ground at the base of the tin barns. In the early summer, we see Geranium pyrenaicum (Hedgerow or Mountain Cranesbill) clambering up into the cow parsley where it smatters  the fresh June greenery with pinpricks of the brightest magenta. 

Geranium pyrenaicum

Now so common in southern England that it is considered a native, this geranium was not recorded in the wild in Britain until 1762. As the verges grow out we seem to lose sight of it, but not ‘Bill Wallis’.

Bill Wallis was a passionate plantsman who set up The Useful Plant Company after his retirement in 1979. He chanced upon the original seedling (with flowers of a more electric violet than the wildling’s pinker hue) in a neighbour’s garden, and it was named after him by Joe Sharman of Monksilver Nursery, who propagated the cultivar and launched it at the Chelsea Flower Show.

The earliest flowers, which appear in April, are only about the size of a halfpenny but, by the solstice, they have massed in number clambering through their neighbours to pepper them with colour. A low basal rosette is the origin of this energy and, some time late in June, it is wise to cut them to the base and let them start again. The plentiful seed, like that of all cranesbills, is catapulted far and wide, and it is prudent to diminish the number of volunteers if you find that it likes you. Regrowth brings with it fresh foliage and new flower for the latter half of summer and the seedlings that have got a foothold are easily weeded out when they are young.

Geranium p. ‘Bill Wallis’ and Tanacetum niveum

‘Bill Wallis’ seems happy out in bright sunshine, but you get a little more out of it, and the colour is more luminous, when grown in a little shade, as if on a verge or popping out from beneath a hedge. It is not averse to dry ground, so for now I have it growing up into the limbs of white tree lupin and Tanacetum niveum, where it spills out to soften the edges of the path. Competing for the open ground with Papaver rupifragum, Erigeron karvinskianus and Matthiola perennis ‘Alba’ these self-seeding pioneers provide me with chance combinations that I can then call my own. We will see where it ends up next year. 

I may find that, in time, I will concur with Anna’s warning, but for now I am prepared to manage its spontaneity. Such is the joy of a plant that has a mind of its own.

Geranium p. ‘Bill Wallis’ growing through white tree lupin 

Words: Dan Pearson/Photographs: Huw Morgan

It has been a good year for the hawthorn. It is foaming still up the hedge lines and cascading out of the woods above the stream at the bottom of the hill. We have gravitated there in the evening sunshine to stand at the bottom of the slope and marvel. The trees have been drawn up tall and slender and the froth of creamy flowers brightening the shadows of the newly sprung wood. At the margins of the wood, their favoured place, the branches push out wide and low, a hum of insects enticed by an uncountable sum of flower.The hawthorns saw the apples come and go and now they are starting to dim, it is summer. Why they were as weighted so heavily with flower this year I do not know, but it is the best they have been since we arrived here and I am pleased I have planted them as plentifully.

Haw, May, Quick, Quickset; hawthorn is a tree surrounded in folklore. Cut one and you will be plagued by fairies, but turn the milk with a twig before churning and you will protect the cheese from bewitchment. According to Teutonic legend, the tree originated from a bolt of lightning, which is why the wood was used on funeral pyres. The power of the sacred fire was sure to ferry your spirit to heaven.

In ancient rituals the hawthorn symbolised the renewal of nature and fertility, which often made it the choice for a maypole at Beltane. The wood itself is one of the hardest and often used for fine engraving and the young leaves are surprisingly delicious in a salad, with a fresh nutty taste.

The flowers, however, smell both sweet and stale. Some find this unpleasant, but to my nose it is just a country smell, which attracts flies and insects that lay their eggs on decaying animal matter. Crataegus is well known for the diversity of species that live within the thorny cage of its branches or on the bark or the foliage so, despite the superstition around it, it is a mainstay of the countryside.

I have relied upon it as the greater component when replanting my native mixed hedges. It is called Quick with good reason and the hedges that I planted to gap up our broken boundaries five years ago are already six feet high, thick and impenetrable. I wonder how elderly some of the thorns are in the oldest of the hedges here. It is estimated that 200,000 miles of them were planted between 1750 and 1850 as a result of the Enclosure Acts. During this time there were nurseries committed to growing the hawthorn in quantity to meet the demand, and making a small fortune from the supply.

If you leave your hedges and cut them year on, year off, the hawthorn flowers and fruits more heavily. Leave a tree free-standing and it will be reliably heavy with dark red berry in October. The berry is the way to propagate. I leave them for as long as I dare before taking my share, for the birds will suddenly strip a tree when the fruits ripen. The digestive juices of birds help to break the inbuilt dormancy of the seed, but you can simulate this by leaving the berries to ferment for a week in water before lining out in a drill in the garden. Some may germinate the following year after the action of frost has worked its magic, but two years of stratification may be required before you get a full row to germinate. Within a year of germinating you will have young plants a foot or so tall, in two whips ready to make a hedge. Or the beginnings of a maypole.

Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan

Clockwise from bottom left: Centaurea montana ‘Lady Flora Hastings’, Meconopsis cambrica, Tragopogon crocifolius, Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’, Amsonia orientalis, Symphytum x uplandicum ‘Moorland Heather’, Ranunculus acris & Valeriana pyrenaica

The Chelsea Flower show usually falls in a week that is suspended between spring and summer. That is one of the things that gives the show its charge, the freshness and feeling of anticipation. I was not involved this year other than as a spectator and it was a delight to return home after a busy week of looking to find that we are still in this teetering point and haven’t missed the moment.

Marking it with today’s posy brings the meadows and the garden together. Ranunculus acris, the meadow buttercup, is at it’s zenith. It is one of my favourite components in the grassland, rising up tall above it’s neighbours this early in the season. Where we have over-seeded the old pastures with meadow seed from the neighbouring valley, the buttercup is now in evidence three years on. I like the way it is so light on its feet and that there is so much air amongst the bright pinpricks of yellow.

I have brought it up close on the vegetable garden banks and used it to bring together the clumping Valeriana pyrenaica, which I am trying to naturalise in the grass. This European species has been grown in Britain since at least 1692, and was first recorded in the wild in 1782 as a supposed native, and it could easily be part of our landscape. It has been in flower for a month now and though you wouldn’t think that the brightness of the buttercup would sit well with the lilac pink of the valerian, such colour clashes are commonplace in wild plant communities.

I also have it growing alongside the Symphytum x uplandicum ‘Moorland Heather’ close to the compost heaps. This is a chance seedling of our native comfrey found at Moorland Cottage Plants in South Wales. I first saw it at the Chelsea show and was taken by its darker violet flowers which are alive with bees. It is not allowed to seed as it is a coloniser and the roots grow deep, pulling minerals up into the foliage which, when harvested, make a fine green manure or compost tea. Before the plants set seed, all the growth is cut to the ground and used as a mulch or green manure to turn into the soil. To make an evil smelling brew of compost tea, fill a large plastic bucket to the top with it, trample down and fill with water. Allow it to ferment and then skim off the pungent liquid feed rich in nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous and calcium.

I have Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’ growing in the grass under the crab apples. They are at their best this week as the crabs are fading, racing up their stems like sparklers almost as fast as you can enjoy them. I like the creaminess of the flowers and this single form the best. I have made the mistake of planting it in open ground amongst perennials and had a million and one seedlings to contend with. The double form is sterile and better in the beds, but I’m hoping that the singles will seed into the grass where it runs thin with yellow rattle.

I might try Centaurea montana ‘Lady Flora Hastings’, Amsonia orientalis and Tragopogon crocifolius together as they are currently disparate in the garden. This is the first time I have thought of doing so and the advantage of throwing things together in a bunch. Amsonia has a short moment of flower, but great longevity of life as a plant and the tragopogon is a delightful self-seeding biennial that adds flux to the mix. ‘Lady Flora Hastings’ is perhaps one of the best centaureas, flowering for weeks and then again if you cut it to the base when it starts to look tired.  Like the comfrey its roots run deep and come easily as cuttings. Move the parent plant and it will reappear with the certainty of a perennial that will probably outlive you if you find it a place in sunshine that suits.

The Welsh poppy, Meconopsis cambrica, is at is peak in these first few weeks of the growing season. My plants were strewn as seed on bare earth a couple of years ago and are naturalising happily. They are best when emerging as an incidental in places where other plants might think twice about flourishing. Cracks between paving see them at their happiest and they are unflinching in dry shade. They also thrive in full sun, but I prefer their pure, clean yellow when it sparkles in shadow.

Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan

When we arrived here, the house sat alone on the hill. Only the hollies by the milking barn and a pair of old plums in the hedge alongside the house stood sentinel, catching the wind and the rummage of seasonal blackbirds and pigeons. As we moved here in winter it took a while to realise that bird song comes only from a distance and from the refuge of the hedges, which run along the lane and the field margins. Walking down the slope in front of the house that first spring, we soon heard that it is the wood below us that provides the haven for birds.

I was brought up in woodland and so am familiar with its qualities. The sound of wood pigeons close to the bedroom windows, the constant activity of bird life in the branches, wind caught in leaves, the movement of dappled light and shade. Living in London was as intimate in its own way; the world around us so close and connected and plants pressed up against the windows. Although I love the country contrast of letting my eye travel here, I struggled initially with the degree of openness surrounding us. Not only was the space acoustically different, the feeling of exposure was unfamiliar and begged understanding.

“Plant indiscriminately and I was at risk of foreshortening the expansive views…”

I knew early on – certainly within a couple of months – that we needed trees around us, and herein lay a conundrum. Plant indiscriminately and I was at risk of foreshortening the views that had made us fall in love with the property. But, perched on our hillside, we needed to hunker the house down, to feel as you do when settled into a high-backed sofa, with the feeling of comfort enveloping you whilst still being part of the room.

Malus transitoria on the slope behind the house

Before the first winter was out, I ordered a dozen crab apples to make a huddle of trees on the slope behind the house. It took much deliberation to decide where they should go. The track leading to the tin barns provided the anchor point between the hedge on its lower side and the open banks above it. The new trees would add an upper storey to the hedge and provide the shelter for a bat corridor. At roughly eight paces between them, they would also offer an easy hop from one to another for the birds.

As has become the way here, I staked out their positions with six-foot canes topped with hazard tape so that they are easy to see from a distance. I wanted the trees to arch over the track eventually, like the old holloways hereabouts, to provide a tunnel of blossom in spring and a shady place to emerge from into the light in summer. I didn’t want them in rows or for them to feel organised like an orchard. Over the course of a month the markers were moved about and the sight lines tested until the placement felt right. The crabs were suitable for feeling productive, but I also wanted them to have a connection with the hawthorns in the top hedgerow that we had allowed to grow out to provide shade for the livestock in summer.

Malus transitoria

I had been looking at crab apples for quite a few years in a search of a blossom tree that was neither cherry nor amelanchier, which had become my reflex choices when planting blossom for clients. There is a wealth of crabs to choose from and, although I knew Malus ‘Evereste’, ‘John Downie’ and ‘Hornet’ from gardens I had worked at or visited, I wanted mine to be on the wild side, and so I honed my selection to what are probably the best two species.

“The flowers are pale pink in bud and, though small, completely cover the tree and open in a glorious froth…”

Malus transitoria was chosen specifically for its wilding quality and, of the two species on the bank, it opens a few days earlier than its partner. Known as the cut-leaf crab apple its leaves are slim and divided, not entire like the usual apple foliage, and could easily be mistaken for hawthorn. They have a lacy quality and so the tree retains a lightness when in leaf. The flowers are pale pink in bud and, though small, completely cover the tree and open in a glorious froth to weight the branches with pure white blossom. The petals are narrow and separate, splayed around a burst of orange-tipped anthers, giving the flowers a star-like quality. After flowering you could easily think the trees were native, but the tiny fruits give them away in autumn when the amber beads pepper the yellowing branches.

Malus hupehensis

Malus hupehensis, the Chinese tea crab, is the best crab apple according to experienced tree people and another fine discovery of the great plant hunter, Ernest Wilson. Wilson had impeccable taste and the tree, which is quite substantial in maturity, is a spectacle in flower. Once again it is pink in bud, but a stronger shade so that, from a distance, the tree appears pale pink. The flowers are altogether more flamboyant, large and bowl-shaped, hanging gracefully on long pedicels and blowing open to a pure, glistening white flushed with pink. When a tree is in bud and flower, it is a breathtaking moment. The flowers have a deliciously fresh perfume, as welcome as newly mown grass in this window between spring and summer.

Malus hupehensis (and main image)I like to plant my trees as young feathered maidens. This is one stage further on from a whip, so the trees have their first side branches and stand about a metre twenty high. They are easy to handle at this size and with care they establish quickly to outstrip a more mature tree planted for immediate affect.

Malus hupehensis, the Great Dixter form

That first winter I planted the crabs I didn’t know that there are two forms of Malus hupehensis. It was one of Christopher Lloyd’s favourite trees and, naturally, he selected a superior form. Those that shade the car park at Great Dixter are smaller berried, with deep red fruit half the size of the marble-sized fruits on my form. At this size, they are more easily eaten by birds and, had I known, I would have preferred them for the track behind the house for the rush of bird life come the autumn.

 Malus hupehensis, the Great Dixter form

Look closely and you see that the Dixter trees are more elegant in all their parts; the branches are finer and the tree more open, the leaves are elongated and flushed with bronze when young, and the flowers are slightly fuller, a purer white in bud and open, and with longer pedicels that allow them to tremble exquisitely in the wind. Of course, I bought a couple from the nursery as soon as I saw them. One as an entrance tree by our front gate and the other on the edge of the blossom wood, where it is visible from the house. I already have seedlings from these trees in the cold frame, as they come easily and true from seed. Totally smitten, as time goes on I plan to extend their influence.

“…it is very beautiful in spring when covered with light pink flowers,
and resembles at this time a flowering cherry rather than an apple tree;
the effect of the flowers is heightened by the purple calyx
and the purplish tints of the unfolding leaves.”

—Ernest Wilson of Malus hupehensis

Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan

The green sauce in this recipe is not the well known mediterranean salsa verde, but Grüne Sosse, a speciality of Frankfurt introduced to me by our friend Ariane, a native of the city, and a neighbour in Bonnington Square for many years. It is traditionally served with asparagus of the forced white variety, which is particularly prized in Germany, where Spargelfesten are held in its honour every spring. Although green sauce made from a variety of herbs can be found in German restaurants all year round, it is only in early spring that the truly authentic sauce can be made, when the herbs required are coming into their prime and the paper packages of them required to make it are found in farmer’s markets, together with the white asparagus which it traditionally accompanies.

Genuine Grüne Sosse requires seven specific herbs; sorrel, chervil, chives, parsley, salad burnet, cress and borage. However, it is seldom that any of us have access to all of these herbs, and so substitutions can be made. The crucial thing is to ensure a good balance of flavours, with the requisite amount of sourness, freshness, bitterness and spice. There is no hard and fast rule about how much of each herb to use, but a rule of thumb is that no one herb should make up more than 30% of the bulk. When possible I try to get a fairly even balance between all of them, but you should adjust to taste and to what is available.

From left to right: borage, wild chervil or cow parsley, salad burnet, wild onion, watercress, sorrel, parsley

Since it is so plentiful in our fields I use wild sorrel (Rumex acetosa), which I suspect is what the authentic recipe calls for, however you can replace this with the more usually grown French or garden sorrel (Rumex scutatus). If neither of these are available  you could use young chard or spinach leaves and an extra squeeze or two of lemon juice.

When it is available I use wild chervil instead of cultivated. Otherwise known as cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), it is perfect to pick right now, and can be substituted for garden chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium) in salads or sauces for chicken and fish. If you are an inexperienced forager you must be extremely careful not to mistake poisonous hemlock for cow parsley. Use a good field identification guide (Miles Irving’s The Forager Handbook and Roger Phillips’ Wild Food are invaluable) and, if in doubt, do not pick it.

In place of chives I use wild onion (Allium vineale) from the fields, being careful to pick only the youngest quills, as the older ones are tough. The cress can be replaced with watercress, rocket or even nasturtium leaves, to provide the peppery note. And, from the hedgerows, I have also used the leaves of garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), young dandelion leaves and even nettle tops, when the other herbs are hard to come by. 

The salad burnet and borage both impart a distinctive cucumber flavour which it is not possible to replicate with other herbs and which is particular to this sauce. When unavailable I have used peeled and finely grated cucumber in their place. Salt it and squeeze the juice from it before incorporating, to prevent it diluting or curdling the sauce.

It is also possible to make up the quantities with more easily available herbs such as dill, fennel, tarragon or mint but, with their pronounced flavours, these should all be used in moderation or they will overwhelm the flavour. 

This sauce is also traditionally served with boiled new potatoes and halved hard boiled eggs, or as an accompaniment to boiled beef or poached fish.

Clockwise from top left: salad burnet, watercress, sorrel, parsley, wild onion, borage, wild chervil
Ingredients
150g mixed green herbs
250g sour cream or quark
125g yogurt
2 hard-boiled eggs
3 tablespoons lemon juice
sea salt 
7-8 spears of asparagus per person

Serves 4

Method
Wash the herbs. Put them in a salad spinner and then dry on a tea towel or paper towel. 
Remove the leaves from the stems.
Discard the stems. 

Peel the eggs and put the yolks in a mixing bowl. Coarsely chop the whites and reserve. To the egg yolks add the lemon juice, 2/3 of the herbs, 1/4 teaspoon salt and the yogurt . Liquidise using a hand blender. 

Stir the sour cream into the mixture. Add the coarsely chopped egg white. Finally add the remaining finely chopped herbs.

Season with more salt and lemon juice to taste. 

If possible allow the sauce to rest in the fridge for an hour or so for the flavours to combine. Allow to come back to room temperature before using.

Gently bend the asparagus spears until they snap. Trim the broken ends. If necessary finely peel the lower sections of the stalks of the outer fibrous layer.

Put water to a depth of 2cm into a lidded sauté pan that is wide enough to take the asparagus in a more or less single layer. Bring to the boil. Put in the asparagus and simmer until tender. For thicker or older spears this may take as long as 5-6 minutes. Fine spears and those just picked will take far less, 2-3 minutes at most. Take the asparagus from the water and spread out on a paper towel on a plate to drain and cool quickly.

Arrange the warm asparagus on plates. Spoon over some of the sauce. Decorate with reserved herb leaves. Eat with fingers.

Recipe and photographs: Huw Morgan

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