The last week has seen a subtle shift, with a hint of the next season in the air. With cool nights and mist lolling in the hollows, the garden is between two seasons. The brilliant lythrum spires have finally run out of bud and, like sparklers fizzing their length, are suddenly extinguished. The dry days have been spun with the flock from the white rosebay willow herb caught on the breeze. I have planted it on the edges of the garden to blur the boundaries and, after weeks of flower, it is finally running to seed. I know it will need managing as it is a prodigious runner, but thank goodness it is not like our pink native Chamaenerion angustifolium, for the the seed is sterile.
This week’s bunch is a push against this mood, which can all too easily descend as summer runs out of steam and autumn is yet to take over. Over the years I’ve learned to plan for the between seasons lull and now no longer fear it. The Angelica sylvestris is a perfect example of a plant that steps in to fill the gap. In the ditch where we have cleared the damp ground of bramble they are now seeding freely. Although this wetland native has been wonderful since the spring, with it’s coppery foliage and architectural loftiness, the month of August is really its moment. It has been all but invisible for a while, with the grasses staking their position earlier on, but now the pristine umbels are held amongst their spent, tawny seedheads.
Angelica sylvestris
Some years, when we walk the ditch early in the season, you can spot a particularly fine form with dark, plum-coloured foliage. The dark stems are always a lovely feature of the Angelica but, coupled with dark leaves, they can not be bettered. Each year I mean to save seed of the best forms, but have never remembered to mark the plants before they are over and browned to skeletons. This autumn I plan to bring a selection called ‘Vicar’s Mead’ into the damper, lower slopes of the new garden. I have grown it without success in London, where it was too dry for it and mildew took its toll, but I trust the ground to be hearty enough here. Though biennial Angelica sylvestris will seed freely and, as long as you leave a number of seedlings, you will always get a succession.
In the garden, I have a particularly lovely form of the perennial Angelica edulis, which is planted through the white Persicaria amplexicaule. The substance and loftiness of the umbels with their horizontal conclusion is a good compliment to the finely drawn verticals, which echo the now spent grasses that surround the angelicas in the ditch. Persicaria is a mainstay of my plantings, which I have depended on for years. Happy with the cool of company at the root and with its head out in the sun, its lush foliage is an excellent team player. Good for the first half of the summer with its overlapping shield-shaped leaves, you know the season is progressing when the first spires arrive at the end of July. Again, August is their month, but they will sail through September and still be firing away in October with the asters. Here, for contrast with the blue, is a new favourite, Persicaria amplexicaule ‘September Spires’, which is tall enough to be making its way through the Verbena macdougalii ‘Lavender Spires’, and is an enlivening shade of hot pink.
Persicaria amplexicaule ‘September Spires’
The Panicum virgatum ‘Rehbraun’ is a late-season grass. Slow to get started in the early summer and needing space early on so as not to be overwhelmed by early-into-leaf companions. An American native known as Switch Grass, it is happiest on lean ground and in bright conditions. Here it is better in soil that is drier or it will lean and topple. I have it on the upper, free-draining slopes where it is already showing colour with reddened tips to the foliage. The plum-coloured flowering panicles are so fine and delicate that you can see through their dusky framework. By the end of the month they will ascend to a final height of about a metre and will then go on to colour brilliantly in October, fiery and lit with their own inner light it seems.
Panicum virgatum ‘Rehbraun’
I have them planted close, but not too close, to the Cirsium canum, which is as lush as the grass is fine. I bought this perennial thistle from Special Plants where Derry Watkins has it growing in her garden. She swore then that it wasn’t a seeder, as I had been stung by its similar cousin, the native Cirsium tuberosum. The latter has now been banished from the garden to the ditch banks for bad behaviour in the seeding department and, for the past three years, has been kept in check by the competition. When I last saw Derry and asked her if her C. canum had started to seed she said, “a little”, which was due caution, so I will raze my plants when the main show is over to avoid the inevitable. Their stature, reach and poise are beautiful though, the brilliant pink thimbles of flower spotting colour in mid-air just above our heads and humming with bees.
Cirsium canum
Succisa pratensis
Though at an altogether smaller scale, the Devil’s Bit Scabious has a similar feeling in the suspension of flower on wiry stems. Another native, Succisa pratensis is a late-performing meadow dweller, happiest where the soil is moist and picking up where many other natives have gone over in August. My original plant, a dark blue selection called ‘Derby Purple’ was the parent of the seedlings in this bunch. They came easily from seed, germinating the same autumn they were sown and flowering just a year later in the new plantings. Although the flowers are darker than the native, they are not as rich as their parent, but they are a wonderful thing to have hovering around in this between season moment. A neat rosette of foliage, that will slowly increase and clump, is easily combined in well-mannered company. I will keep them away from the Cirsium and run them instead through the openly spaced Switch Grass and be happy in the knowledge that their contribution will help to bridge the season.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 19 August 2017
The meadows that were cut for hay in the middle of July are already green and lush after the August rains. The hay needs to be cut before the goodness goes out of it, but we leave it until the yellow rattle rattles in its seedpods and has dropped enough seed for next year. With the cut go a host of summer wildflowers which have already set seed. Those that mature later are lost with the cut. So in the fields that are put to grazing when the grass regenerates after the hay cut, we will not see the scabious or the knapweeds. If they are present at all, they will not get the chance to seed and, if we were to have orchids, (one day, hopefully) their cycle would also be curtailed as they are only now ripening.
Where the land is too steep for the tractor, we find ourselves with rougher ground and other habitats. The steep slopes dipping away and down from The Tump are left uncut and, with the sheep shaping their ecology, they have become tussocked and home to a host of wildlife that has made this protected place home. The marsh thistle likes it there and can compete, and slowly we are seeing the first signs of woodland, with hawthorn and ash sheltering in the creep of bramble. We will have to make a decision as to where we apply a hand in preventing the woody growth from encroaching upon the grassland, as all the habitats have their merit.
The lower slopes of the Tump above the ditch where the meadowsweet grows are colonised by marsh thistle
Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre)
The field that climbs steeply immediately behind the house is raked off by hand after the farmer mows it for us. It is too steep to bale so it is cut late to allow an August flush of meadow life. It is a task raking the cuttings to keep the fertility down, but one that is getting easier each year with concerted efforts to colonise the grass with the semi-parasitic rattle. This field and the newly seeded banks that sweep up to the house are valuable for being late and, as I write on a breezy bright day in a wet August, it is alive with the latecomers and the host of wildlife that retreats to find sanctuary there.
The ‘between places’ that are formed by banks that are just too steep to manage occur along the contours and below the hedges that run along them. The precipitous slope (main image) between our two top fields (The Tynings) has been something of a revelation and, seven summers in, we are seeing the rewards of making an effort with its management. A neighbour told us that every twenty years or so the farmer before us would fell the ash seedlings that took the banks as their domain. This must have last happened five or six years before we arrived and, although it was then covered in young ash and bramble, it was clear that this south-facing slope had the potential to be more than just scrub, and provide a contrast to the grazed meadows. The second winter we were here, we cleared the bramble, cutting off great mats and rolling them down to the bottom of the slope like thorny fleeces.
The Tynings bank in April with cowslips showing
That spring the newly exposed ground immediately gave way to cowslips and violets that had been sheltering amongst the brambles. In the summer they were followed by smatterings of wild marjoram, field scabious, common St. John’s Wort, crow garlic, hedge bedstraw and agrimony, indicating the limey ground and the south-facing position.
Why the field levels vary so dramatically to either side of the contour-running hedge is intriguing. The ground in the valley is prone to slipping and the twenty-foot slope between these two fields suggests the occurrence of something of that nature in the past. The steepness of the bank and the shale and the clay that has been exposed in the underlying strata make it incredibly free-draining and the plants that have colonised here are specific and a contrast to those found on flatter ground. If you walk along the bank on a hot day now it is full of marjoram and you can hear it hum with life and crack and pop as vetch pods scatter their seed.
Field Scabious (Knautia arvensis) and Wild Marjoram (Origanum vulgare)
Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria)
Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra)
We have given the bank a ‘year on, year off’ cut, strimming in the depths of winter when the thatch is at its least resistant. All the cuttings are roughly raked to the bottom of the slope (and then burned) so that there is plenty of light and air for regeneration. We leave the spindle bushes, the wild rose and a handful of ash seedlings, but the sycamore seedlings that proliferate from the large trees in the hedgerow are cut to the base to keep them from getting away. After three cuts over six years the bank is now thick with marjoram and scabious, hedge bedstraw, common and greater knapweeds and this year, wild carrot, one of my favourite umbellifers for late summer. It is abuzz with honeybees, bumblebees, hoverflies and butterflies.
This bank has been the inspiration for the newly-seeded slopes around the house and last year I gathered seed from here to grow on as plugs to bulk up the St. Catherine’s seed mix that went down last September. The seed is sown fresh, as soon as it is gathered, into cells and left in a shady place for a year. I have not thinned the seedlings and have deliberately grown them tough so that they are able to cope with the competition. Last year’s batch was planted out not long after the banks were sown to add early interest, and some are visible and flowering already.
Crow garlic (Allium vineale)
Greater Knapweed (Centaurea scabiosa)
Common St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
Hedge Bedstraw (Galium album)
This year’s plugs, which are destined for the late meadow behind the house, will be put out in September, straight after the banks have been cut. We have already seen a difference in the wildlife since creating these wilder spaces up close to the buildings, with more swallows than before swooping low for insects, the increased presence of a pair of breeding kestrels, a red kite that formerly kept itself to the farther end of the valley, more bats and, a couple of weeks ago, an exciting moment when a barn owl came sweeping low over the banks as dusk fell. Every year, with careful management, we will see a successive layer of change, and one year in the not too distant future, a sure but certain enrichment.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 12 August 2017
It’s not long now before we head back to Greece for our annual summer holiday. We are creatures of habit and have been going back to the same island for several years. We enjoy the routine of familiarity; the locals who now recognise us as we wander round town, the meditative walk to the black sand beach and the welcoming, energetic atmosphere of the panagyri, the numerous village festivals focussed on food and dancing. Food at the panagyri is free, and you eat what you are given, but this is no hardship as, without fail, everything is home-cooked and delicious.
One dish that always makes an appearance on the communal tables is skordalia, the thick garlic sauce that usually accompanies simple, boiled greens. These are most often beet greens, vlita (amaranthus) or horta, a mixture of foraged wild greens which can include purslane, dandelion, nettle, chicory, shepherd’s purse and sow thistle.
However, the first time we were served skordalia, it came to the table as a dip with breadsticks, and I was immediately reminded of an identical dish we used to eat every night at a beach restaurant on the Andalucian coast just on the edge of the Cabo de Gata Natural Park, the location of our last long-term holiday crush. When I asked, I was told that this garlic dip was called ajo blanco, which confused me, since I was familiar with the chilled soup of this name, sometimes called ‘white gazpacho’. It transpired that the ingredients were exactly the same – garlic, bread, almonds, oil and vinegar – it was just the proportion of ingredients that was different, and with less water added.
When I mentioned the similarity of this Spanish dish to the island locals they were really interested, and informed me that the skordalia on this island was unusual in that it was made with bread and almonds, whereas most traditional recipes are made either solely with potato, or bread and walnuts. Indeed, if you Google skordalia there is a huge range of differing recipes and, as with all such traditional dishes, although the core ingredients remain the same, every region has its own version, which also differs from family to family.
However, both the ajo blanco and skordalia of our holidays had a similarly light and creamy texture, which I knew in Spain was achieved through the addition of cold water as well as oil. So this recipe is the result of some experimentation in an attempt to match these two versions, and so may not be one for skordalia purists.
This is a great dish to foreground our recently harvested garlic and, given that skordalia is little more than a vehicle for it, the garlic you use for this should be as fresh and sweet as possible. We grew four varieties this year; Thermidrome, Germidour, Sprint and Printanor. We did a raw taste test immediately after harvesting and, of the four, we found Sprint to be the sweetest.
The quality of the bread is equally important, so use a sourdough with a good crumb, if possible. Cheap, white bread will turn to glue. Blanched almonds produce a whiter result, but the skins of unblanched almonds add an attractive, wholesome speckle to the dish.
Garlic ‘Sprint’
INGREDIENTS
100g stale white bread, crusts removed
50g almonds, blanched or with skins
3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon sea salt
1-2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
150ml olive oil, or more if required
Up to 175ml iced water
Serves 6 as an appetiser, 4 as an an accompaniment to a main course
METHOD
Soak the bread in cold water for 30 minutes then squeeze out as much water as possible.
Crush the garlic cloves with the salt in a mortar and pestle until you have a smooth paste.
Put the bread, garlic, almonds and vinegar in a food processor and blend until smooth, scraping down the bowl every now and again.
With the motor running on a high speed slowly add the oil until a smooth emulsion is formed. Then add the iced water until it reaches the consistency of fresh mayonnaise. Taste and adjust seasoning with additional salt and vinegar as required.
Transfer to a bowl. Cover with cling film and refrigerate until needed. Remove from the fridge immediately before serving and stir well. If the mixture has thickened considerably beat in a few more tablespoons of cold water.
Spoon the skordalia onto a dish and drizzle over a little more olive oil. Serve as an appetiser with breadsticks, or alongside boiled greens. Spinach, chard or young kale would be suitable replacements for the traditional beet greens or amaranthus.
Recipe & photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 5 August 2017
Last Friday I was honoured to speak at the University of Essex in support of The Beth Chatto Education Trust, of which I am a patron. My brief, to talk about the importance of education in horticulture, was an easy one to meet and that much more relevant with the Trust firmly up and running. Julia Boulton, Beth’s granddaughter and Managing Director of the Gardens and Director of the Trust, has made it her mission to utilise the garden as an educational resource and it was with much excitement that we met to celebrate the fact that the garden now has this important new future.
Beth Chatto (centre front) with behind (left to right) Dave Ward, Garden Director, Julia Boulton, Managing Director, Dan Pearson, Karalyn Foord, Education Trust Manager and Åsa Gregers-Warg, Head Gardener
Beth’s work has always been important and the garden is as relevant today as it ever has been. At the forefront of the naturalistic movement in this country, and instrumental in originating the ethos of ‘the right plant in the right place’, Beth’s displays at The Chelsea Flower Show were ground breaking in the 1970’s. I remember their singularity, for no one else at the show was using the plants that she was cultivating or combining them as intelligently; plants that were wild in feeling, always close to the species and grouped according to their habitat needs, not the whim of colour themes or border compositions. Apparently, in the early days, some show judges are said to have dismissed her displays as being nothing more than cultivated weeds, but the message to gardeners was strong, practical and consistent; put a plant where it wants to be and it will thrive. It is barely credible now that this approach should have been seen as unusual, but in the days of annual bedding, hybrid tea roses and prize dahlias Beth’s was a shock doctrine.
And she was far more than simply the nurserywoman who presented her wares at the show. You could also depend upon her not only for her impeccable taste, but also for her ability to educate you through her plantsmanship. For years Unusual Plants was the only place to go to get the plants I wanted to grow and I pored over the evocative descriptions in the catalogue. My borders in my parents’ garden were stocked with her treasures and it was through a love of her plants that I bonded with my first client, Frances Mossman, with whom I created the gardens at Home Farm. We had both fallen under the spell of Beth’s catalogue and I remember very clearly a key conversation about Beth’s description of Crambe maritima. A seaside wilding brought to life and into horticultural focus through words. A world of opportunity that was suddenly possible once you made the connections. When I started travelling to see native plants growing in the Himalayas, Israel and Europe in my ’20’s Beth’s ethos was plainly articulated in every plant community I saw and helped me make the connections between the wild and the cultivated.
Earlier last Friday, before the talk, we took a tour of the gardens with Dave Ward, the Garden Director and long term member of the team. At the Gravel Garden (main image) we stopped to catch up with Beth, who had come out to greet us and marvel at the Romneya. Just two days after celebrating her 94th birthday she had lost none of her fervour for the importance of horticulture and was vocal about how good education and competitive salaries are essential to encourage young people into the profession. It was so good to see her in her environment and I remembered how she had once talked about being in New Zealand with Christopher Lloyd and had dreamed of making this garden after they had come across a dried up river bed.
Repeated Genista aetnensis set the mood, its peppered clouds of gold, luminous against the dark hedges. Nothing looked out of place, with all the plants chosen for their drought resistance and moving about in the gravel as if they had found their way there and their companions quite naturally.
Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’ and Stipa gigantea
A repeat of vertical verbascum to arrest the eye; Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’, dull white and caught in a gauze of Stipa gigantea, with a smattering of pink Dianthus carthusianorum. Felted Verbascum bombyciferum standing alone and breaking free at the very edges of the planting. Romneya coulteri fluttering close to the path so that you could inspect the boss of golden stamens. A stand of Stipa barbata given their own space and floating like seaweed in the breeze.
The feathered seedheads of Stipa barbata with Verbascum bombyciferum and Romneya coulteri against the hedge
There were many plants that I am using at home which Beth introduced me to as a child (Eryngium giganteum, Lychnis coronaria, Crambe maritima, Romneya coulteri, Stipa gigantea, Dianthus carthusianorum, Phlomis russelliana) and others that I have come to from other directions, but surely because of Beth’s influence. An acid-yellow mist of Bupleurum falcatum through which the dark orbs of Allium sphaerocephalon were suspended. Buttons of pale yellow Santolina pinnata subsp. neapolitana, hunkered down and throwing off light. Splashes of electric-blue Eryngium x zabelii, metallic and architecturally jagged amongst the softness.
Allium sphaerocephalon, Santolina pinnata subsp. neapolitana, Bupleurum falcatum and Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’
Eryngium x zabelii with Bupleurum falcatum
We moved from there into the lower sections of the garden where the compositions were driven by green and texture. Head Gardener, Åsa Gregers-Warg reminded us of Beth’s love of ikebana and the asymmetric triangle that repeats in her compositions. Watery reflections, plants adapted to their foothold, be it edge of the dry oak woodland or spearing Thalia dealbata amongst scale changing Alisma plantago-aquatica in the shallows of the ponds. Splashes of fiery candelabra primula amongst green umbrellas of Darmera peltata and in a narrowing on the way to the Reservoir Garden, the oversized creamy plates of Sambucus canadensis ‘Maxima’, a plant that I haven’t grown since I was a teenager. On enquiring about its availability (I had the nursery set firmly in my mind as a highlight of the day) Dave tipped me off. “You can get that at Great Dixter.” More connections from my early education. A plant I had all but forgotten about but, all these years later, am just as excited to be revisiting.
The Water Garden
Alisma plantago-aquatica with foliage of Thalia dealbata on the right
The best gardens are all about connections and the garden here at Elmstead Market is full of them. Talk to Beth and she will very quickly tell you about the importance of her husband, Andrew’s work as a botanist in identifying plants from all over the world that had the ability to grow together. She will tell you too about her friendship with Cedric Morris, and you will find his collections and selections in the garden if you dig a little and ask the right questions.
My notebook filled rapidly – the nine foot Allium ‘Purple Drummer’ and Agastache ‘Blue Boa’ amongst Deschampsia caespitosa ‘Schottland’ – and it continued to do so in the nursery where we had a behind the scenes look at the industry of the place and saw at close quarters all those treasures that have gone out into the world to fuel passions. My order of new-to-me and untested plants came together without hesitation. Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Schottland’, Eupatorium fistulosum f. albidum ‘Ivory Towers’, Nepeta ‘Blue Dragon’, Salvia verticillata ‘Hannay’s Blue’ and Teucrium hircanicum to name a handful. They have just arrived, within the week, beautifully packaged as ever, bringing all the excitement that has been coming to me from this inspirational place for the best part of forty years.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 8 July 2017
The Woodland Garden
And so the balance has shifted. The energy of the race to the longest day of the year already dimming. It is a subtle change, but even now it is in evidence with the grasses going to seed in the meadows, May’s vibrant greens flattening and the first of the bindweed replacing the dogroses to light the hedgerows. The last few days of searing heat have pushed this high summer feeling still further and this bunch from the garden reflects something of the new mood.
It is with much excitement that the Romneya coulteri flowered for the first time this year, and no surprise that they chose to do so in weather that must have reminded them of home. See the Californian Tree Poppy in the southern parts of the state where it runs through the rubbly hillsides and you understand why it should be given the hottest, most free-draining position you can offer it. I have it here, facing south, at the base of the barn wall, where the soil is rarely damp for long. It is a choice position – and there are few on our hillside that offer such a baking – but it was not a difficult decision to give the space up to one of my all-time favourites.
I first saw the tree poppy growing in Brighton where it had taken over the tiny front garden of one of my father’s friends and had made the seaward-facing ground its home. Towering at eight feet or so above the pavement and all but obscuring the bay window (there was no need for curtains), from inside the house the crumpled, glistening petals were filled with summer light. The luminosity of the flowers is amplified by a yolk-yellow, globular boss of stamens which dust the petals with pollen as they flutter in the breeze. Hovering on long stalks reaching towards the sun, held amongst finely cut blue-grey foliage, they cannot help but capture all the light that is going. For me the mood they create is the epitome of summer. I have given it the space to claim this moment and have repeated it three times amongst jagged, silver cardoons and ethereal Althaea cannabina.
Romneya coulteri
Romneya hate disturbance, so you have to be sure you know where you want it and not succumb to the temptation of moving it, should it decide it likes you. I’ve found they are fickle and can easily succumb to verticillium wilt in our damp climate when they are young, so I usually build in loss and plant more than I need. Hence the repeat along the barn wall but, in this instance, all three plants have so far thrived, sulking a little in their first year, rising up to a metre or so, but remaining blind and without flower. This year they are looking much more like themselves and have begun to take their position. I’II expect them to attain full stature in a couple of years and we will see then if they start to run, as they can and do in search of new territory. However, they are easily curtailed as long as you slice the runners with a spade and are not tempted to pull the runner back to base and disturb the central root system. Although they will regenerate if the winter hasn’t been hard enough to floor last years growth, it is best to cut the stems hard to the base in March after the worst of the winter has run its course. New shoots are rapid and lush and altogether better looking.
Eryngium giganteum ‘Silver Ghost’
Gaura lindheimerei with Achillea ‘Moonshine’ & Lychnis coronaria
In the gravel, that surrounds the barns, I have been playing with a number of self-seeders to make the buildings feel like the garden has made its home there. Eryngium giganteum ‘Silver Ghost’ is one that I sowed directly from fresh seed given to me by Chris and Toby Marchant of Orchard Dene Nursery. I’d admired the plants at the nursery for their more acutely veined and crested flowers. It is showier than the species, without feeling like it has lost any charm. The common name for Eryngium giganteum, ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’, is attributed to Ellen Willmott, the English horticulturist, who was said to have carried seeds in her pockets at all times and distributed them in a trail throughout gardens she visited. If it finds a home that is to its liking, with plenty of sun and no competition to the basal rosette, this biennial is great for never being in the same place and for the chance happenings that come about when you let it find it’s own position. It is good here with the flutter of Gaura lindheimeri that creates a shimmering highlight of white, like the sparkle of light on water.
Lychnis coronaria & Achillea ‘Moonshine’
Achillea ‘Moonshine’ is a plant that I have not grown since I was a teenager, where I had it in my yellow border. It was short-lived there in the window of light that fell between the trees in our wooded garden, but I hope to keep it longer here on our sunny hillside despite its requirement for regular division. It is dancing now amongst the contrasting magenta of Lychnis coronaria in a strong wind that has kicked up after the past week’s heat, but is all but oblivious to the buffeting. Perfectly flat heads that huddle at about knee height are the ideal receptacle to harvest the high light and long days. The colour is the brightest, most vibrant sulphur yellow and, now that I see them together in a vase, its brightness further enriches the golden boss of the Romneya to saffron. A new combination for the future, perhaps (for they would surely like the same conditions) and one that would set the tone for the height of summer that is still ahead of us.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 24 June 2017
The new planting went in on the spring equinox, a week that saw the energy in the young plants shifting. Just seven days later the emerging fans of the hemerocallis were already splayed and flushed, and the signs were also there in the tightly-clasped crowns of the sanguisorba. The chosen few from my trial in the stock beds had to be split to make up the numbers I needed, but energy was on their side and, once in their new home, they seized life quickly to push new foliage.
We mulched the beds immediately after planting to keep the ground clean and to hold in the moisture whist the plants were establishing. Mulching saves so much time in weeding whilst a garden is young and there is more soil than knit of growth. This year I was also thankful because we went into five long weeks without rain. I watered just once, so that the roots would travel down in search of water, but once only so that they did not become reliant. The mulch held this moisture in the ground and the contrast to the old stock beds that went without has been is remarkable. Spring divisions that went without mulch have put on half as much growth and have needed twice as much water to get the same purchase. I can see the rigour of my Wisley training in this last paragraph, but good habits die as hard as bad ones.
14 May 2017
17 June 2017
Since it rained three weeks ago, the growth has burgeoned. As the summer solstice approaches the dots of newly planted green that initially hugged the contours of our slopes have become three dimensional as they have reared up and away into early summer. I have been keeping close vigil as the new bedfellows have begun to show their form, noting the new combinations and rhythms in the planting. Information that I’d had to hold in my head while laying out the hundreds of dormant plants and which, to my relief, is beginning to play out as I’d imagined.
14 May 2017
16 June 2017
Of course, there are gaps where I am waiting for plants that were not then available, and also where there were gaps in my thinking. There are combinations that I can see need another layer of interest, and places where the plants are already showing me where they prefer to be. The same plant thriving in the dip of a hollow, but not on a rise, or vice versa. Plants have a way of letting you know pretty quickly what they like. At the moment I am just observing and not reacting immediately because, as soon as the foliage touches, the community will begin to work as one, creating its own microclimate that will in turn provide influence and shelter. I lost my whole batch of Milium effusum ‘Aureum’, which I put down to the exposure on our south-facing slopes. However, most of them have managed to set seed, so I am hoping that next spring the seedlings will find their favoured positions to thrive in the shade of larger, more established perennials.
The wrap of weed-suppressing symphytum that I planted along the boundary fence is already knitting together, and I’m happy to have this buffer of evergreen foliage to help prevent the landscape from seeding in. However, a flotilla of dandelion seed sailed over the defence and are now germinating in the mulch. We saw them parachuting past one dry, breezy day in April as if seeking out this perfect seedbed. They are easy to weed before they get their taproot down and will be less of a problem this time next year when there will be the shade of foliage, but they will be a devil if they seed into the crowns of plants before they are established. A community of cover is what I am aiming for, so that the garden starts to work with me, and time spent protecting it now is time well spent.
Salvia pratensis ‘Indigo’, Nepeta subsessilis ‘Washfield’, Viola cornuta ‘Alba’ & Knautia macedonica
The comfrey is planted in three drifts. Symphytum grandiflorum, S. ‘Hidcote Blue’ and S. g. ‘Sky Blue Pink’. The latter is new to me and I’m watching carefully that they aren’t too vigorous. I’ll have to keep an eye on the next ripple of plants that are feathered into the comfrey from deeper into the garden as the symphytum can also be an aggressive companion. The Sanguisorba hakusanensis should be able to hold their own, as they form a lush mound of foliage, and the Epilobium angustifolium ‘Album’ should be fine, punching through to take their own space. I’ll clear the young runners where the creep of the comfrey meets the gentler anemone and veronicastrum.
The ascendant plants were placed first when laying out and will form a skyline of towers through which the other layers wander. They are already standing tall and providing the planting with a sense of depth. Thalictrum ‘Elin’ is my height already, a smoky presence of foliage and stems picking up the grey in the young Rosa glauca and proving, so far, to not need staking. This is important, because our windy hillside provides its challenges on this front. Thalictrum aquilegifolium ‘Black Stockings’ has also provided immediate impact, its limbs inky dark and the mauve of the flowers giving early colour and contrast to the clear, clean blue of the Iris sibirica ‘Papillon’. Next year the garden will have knitted together so that the contrasts will work against foliage or each other, but for now the eye naturally focuses not on the gappiness, but where things are beginning to show promise.
Iris sibirica ‘Papillon’
Thalictrum aquilegifolium ‘Black Stockings’ with Iris sibirica ‘Papillon’ behind
There have been a couple of surprises already, with a fortuitous mix up at the nursery reavealing a new combination I had not planned for with a drift of Salvia pratensis ‘Indigo’ coming up as S. nemorosa ‘Amethyst’. I am very particular about my choices and I’d planned for ‘Indigo’ since growing it in the stockbeds, but the unexpected arrival of ‘Amethyst’ has, after my initial perplexity, been a delight. I’ve not grown it before, and I like its earliness in the planting and how it contrasts with the clear blue of the Iris sibirica with a little friction that makes the eye react more definitely than with the blue of ‘Indigo’. I like a little contrast to keep zest in a planting. The Euphorbia cornigera, with their acid green flowering bracts, are also great for this reason with the first magenta of the Geranium psilostemon.
Salvia nemerosa ‘Amethyst’ and Salvia pratensis ‘Indigo’
Thalictrum rochebrunianum with Salvia nemerosa ‘Amethyst’ behind
As the last few plants that weren’t ready in the nursery become available, I’m wading back into the beds again to find the markers I left there when setting out so that I can trace my original thinking. I am pleased to have done this, because it is very easy to start to reshuffle, but the original thinking is where cohesiveness is to be found. Changes will come later, after I’ve had a summer to observe and see where the planting is lacking or needing another seasonal lift. I can already see the original perennial angelica has doubled in diameter, and I’ve added eight new seedlings which, if left, will be far too many so a few removals will be necessary comer the autumn. Patience will be the making of this coming growing season, followed by action once I can see my plans emerging.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 17 June 2017
One of the goals we set ourselves when we started Dig Delve was for the writing to be as current as possible. A piece on crabapples the week they are in full bloom, a report of a garden visit made just a couple of weeks previously, and recipes using the best from the kitchen garden and hedgerows as they come into season. Many of the pieces are written the day before publication, so this ambition is not without its challenges, since Dan is often travelling for work, we need to have holidays, and sometimes other life events simply have to take precedence.
Dan has been up north this week. Firstly visiting the new RHS Chatsworth Flower Show and then on to Lowther Castle in Cumbria, where they are celebrating their official opening this weekend. So it was down to me to come up with this week’s piece.
However, like most of the country, I was up into the small hours of Friday morning watching the election coverage with bated breath. The consequent late morning start, with the accompanying time required to get a handle on what was happening in parliament, meant that I had to think on my feet to come up with a recipe for today’s issue.
I had originally thought to make a gooseberry and elderflower ice. Whether ice cream or sorbet I hadn’t decided, but, after half an hour Facetiming a friend in New Zealand who had called for an election update, it was clear that I wasn’t going to have the time to faff around with sugar syrups or custards or the freezing required afterwards. I needed something simple and immediate.
Earlier in the week I had got my first batch of elderflower cordial going and it was ready to strain and bottle. I try and make a large batch every year, but have been foiled for the past two by a combination of constant wet weather and being away in June. The recent clear, warm weather meant that, for the first time in a while I have been able to pick enough to be able to replenish our supplies.
It is essential to pick the flowers on a warm day when they are dry, and to only pick the freshest ones that have just opened and are purest in colour. If you live in a city don’t pick flowers near main roads (when we lived in Peckham I used to get my supplies from nearby Nunhead Cemetery). Don’t, whatever you do, wash the flowers, as you will wash away the pollen which gives the drink most of its flavour. For the same reason I don’t even shake the flowers before using, as many recipes suggest. Unless you are squeamish any small insects get strained out prior to bottling.
I can never get enough of the flavour of elderflower. Its floral taste announces summer. Sparkling elderflower cordial is the most refreshing way to slake your thirst during a hot afternoon’s gardening. Although I have found that a scant teaspoon of cider vinegar added to a glass is the most refreshing of all. Like orange blossom’s more demure, earthy cousin elderflower pairs well with any number of fruits, from strawberries to rhubarb, pears, raspberries, grapes and even grapefruit. It also works with gently flavoured vegetables that allow its floral notes to shine. A teaspoon or two of cordial adds fragrancy to a vinaigrette for a white chicory and goats cheese salad. A pickled salad of very finely sliced cucumber macerated in a dressing made with cordial, honey and, again, cider vinegar, and finished with poppy seeds and elderflowers, makes a sophisticated partner for poached trout or salmon.
Yesterday’s time shortage meant that I was thrown back on the reliable combination of elderflower and gooseberry, which crops up in a number of desserts I regularly make, including the unavoidable fool, a green summer pudding and a baked egg custard tart. The gooseberries aren’t quite ripe when the elder blooms, but for this drink you want the refreshing sharpness of the younger fruit.
This celebratory aperitif is a version of a Bellini where peach puree is replaced with gooseberries and a splash of elderflower cordial. I may have only had bad ones, but have always found peach Bellinis to be a little sickly. Here the combination of tart green fruit and scented flower create a drink with a distinct muscat flavour, which is dry, fragrant and deliciously quenching on a hot summer’s day. To ensure the best result, it is vital that everything, including the glasses, is ice cold before you make them.
First is the recipe I use for homemade cordial, but you could use a good quality shop-bought one.
Elderflower Cordial
Ingredients
Makes about 1.5 litres
30 elderflower heads
1kg white sugar
1 litre water
2 lemons, chopped
1 orange, chopped
2 teaspoons citric acid
¼ crushed Campden tablet (optional)
Put the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir and ensure the sugar is completely dissolved. Take off the heat and stir in the citric acid until dissolved.
Put the elderflowers and chopped citrus fruit into a sterilised plastic or glass lidded container large enough to take all of the ingredients. Pour over the hot sugar syrup. Put the lid on the container and leave in a cool dark place for 48 – 72 hours.
Strain the cordial through a fine muslin or tea towel that has first been sterilised with boiling water. Finely crush the Campden tablet and add it to the cordial. Stir until dissolved.
Using a funnel pour the cordial into sterilised bottles. Fasten the lid and store in a cool, dark place.
The Campden tablet (potassium or sodium metabisulfite) prevents the cordial from developing wild yeasts and bacteria which would cause it to ferment, and means that it keeps almost indefinitely. If you prefer not to use them the cordial will keep for 2-3 months, or longer if refrigerated.
Gooseberry ‘Hinnomaki Green’
Gooseberry & Elderflower Bellini
Ingredients
Makes 6
100g green gooseberries
Elderflower cordial, chilled
1 bottle dry prosecco
Put the gooseberries in a saucepan with a splash of water. Put the lid on and cook over a low heat for about 10 minutes until the fruit has completely collapsed and given up its juice. Press the fruit through a sieve. You should have about 80ml of purée. Discard the seeds and skin. Put the purée into a covered container, then into the fridge until well chilled.
To make the drinks, take six champagne flutes or narrow tumblers that have been in the freezer for at least twenty minutes. Put two teaspoons of gooseberry purée and two teaspoons of elderflower cordial in the bottom of each glass. Slowly top up with very cold prosecco.
Decorate with a few elderflowers and raise a toast!
Recipe and photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 10 June 2017
Everything is different after rain. The new plantings in the garden went without for almost a month. Sitting tight and not moving. I kept a close eye and watered just once to help them break into the new ground without becoming reliant. The ground opened up with cracks wide enough to put your fingers into and the fields dulled when, at this turning point from spring to summer, they are usually luminous.
Then a fortnight ago, and just in time, the heavens opened. Wetting deep and gently and flushing thirsty growth, which responded overnight with a new vivacity. Only rain has that effect, the growth transformed with a charge and vitality that can only be described as a post-coital glow. The metaphor ends there but, true to say, we are now surrounded with the surge of new vigour, which has touched everywhere and everything, save the wild garlic in the woods, which is receding now in its counter-movement.
Most dramatic was the response in the meadows, which kicked into growth. The camassias, twinkling above the grass, were soon left behind and the little yard beneath the banks in front of the house vanished from view. I seeded the newly graded slopes last September, casting down a St. Catherine’s mix from the valley next door, and adding to it with some sheaves of the wild barley that we collected in Greece a few years ago. I wanted to see if it would cope with the conditions and, to date, it is the first delight in the mix.
We first saw the barley (Hordeum bulbosum) growing by the side of the road on an early April trip to the Dodecanese. It was at exactly this point of growth then, rising up above the last of the spring flowers and shining in the first heat in the sun. The feathered seedheads were swaying in the wind and I was enchanted by its languorous movement. I have always found plants that harness the wind to be captivating and immediately saw it on our breezy hillside.
Friends who live on the island harvested some seed and sent it in the post. It was sown immediately that autumn and bulked up rapidly over the winter to be ready for the spring and then complete its life cycle before the drought of summer. Here, my concern was that it would not be able to cope with as much water as we get in England, but it has shown me to be wrong, flowering heartily in its first summer and proving to be perennial these last four years. The species name refers to the bulbous swellings, the size of an onion set, at or just below ground level. These storage organs keep the parent plant going when seedlings fail in a drought year in the Mediterranean, where it is one of the most common perennial grass species.
The original plants are dwindling now in their fourth summer, but they have seeded freely. Although the seedlings are easy to pull and have not been problematic in an easy to tend strip of ground, I would not want to let them loose in a perennial planting unless their companions were tough enough to cope with their ability to seize a gap. In the narrow bed in front of the house I have it with Digitalis lutea, Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum and early-to-rise bronze fennel. Clump-forming cephalaria and crambe might be good company but, for now, I am trying them in more relaxed company.
Hordeum bulbosum with Digitalis lutea and Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum at the front of the house
So it looks like their new home, in the containment of our hottest steepest, most freely draining bank, might be a good one. We will see if they can cope with our native grasses which, as they establish, may outcompete them when they are no longer the pioneers. I will let them run to seed again and see how they perform. If they dwindle, the seed is easily collected and may make a nice component to an autumn sown hardy annual mix of eschscholzia, white corncockle and orlaya. An experiment perhaps, if this one is just fugitive, but I’ll find a reason to make sure that this hypnotic beauty is always with us somewhere to celebrate the first weeks of summer.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs & Film: Huw Morgan
Published 3 June 2017
As the sun starts its descent towards autumn we are chasing it to Greece for a well-deserved holiday. By the time we return the spiders will be spinning, the apples will need picking and the garden will have begun it’s slow decline. We leave you with some late summer pictures of the garden at Hillside and the surrounding countryside to tide you over until we are back.
Photographs: Huw Morgan
The late summer perennials are upon us. The components of this bunch have all been out for a fortnight and have steadied the garden through the latter part of August, a difficult month that can all too easily see gaps opening up where earlier performers are spent.
Gentiana asclepiadea with Aster umbellatus
Gentiana asclepiadea is the best-known to me. In fact this original plant is one that I have moved about with me since my Home Farm days, where I first used it. It is always listed as autumn-flowering, which is somewhat misleading, but I know when I start to see its colour that summer is ebbing.
Gentians are usually picky plants. We treated them casually when I worked on the Rock Garden as a student at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, but once back down south I soon learned that the majority prefer a cool, moist atmosphere with a humus-rich, acidic soil. Not so this lovely perennial. Grow it in retentive ground on the north side of something taller to give it a little shade in the hottest part of the day and it is remarkably adaptable.
It is a beautiful thing from the moment it emerges in spring, the leaves folded and shiny, like armour. The growth rises to no more than a couple of feet before arching under the weight of bud and revealing why it’s common name is Willow Gentian. The arching habit is what makes it such a delightful companion, for it covers the ground gently without overwhelming smaller partners. Since Home Farm this plant has travelled with me for twenty years and was moved a third time this spring to make way for the new landscaping. I was surprised to find it had grown into a clump that was difficult to manhandle alone. I will divide it in April and put it amongst hellebores on the cool side of the little barn. Here it is teamed with the lofty Aster umbellatus, but in the garden the smaller growing Aster schreberi will add the lightness it benefits from.
Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘All Time High’ and Artemisia lactiflora ‘Elfenbein’
I grew the Aster umbellatus from seed Piet Oudolf gave me when I visited his garden late one autumn. It was out of flower, but stood proud and plateau-flat at two metres. This is its habit and why in America it is called the Flat-Top Aster. In the five years I’ve been getting to know it, it has never run from its clump or toppled or needed support. It is the first of the asters to flower here and I plan to use it with Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘All Time High’, a Japanese burnet which has emerged as a good one in my sanguisorba trial. Its leaves are finely divided and help to keep the overall impression light and lacy. The flowers, dangling and scored like graffiti in bud, produce fine white filaments as they mature, like those of plantain flowers. They will hover around the aster’s tabletop.
I must admit to having given up on Artemisia lactiflora ‘Guizhou’. I liked the idea of its creamy verge-side appearance and the dark, finely-cut foliage, but it always got burnt and has never done well for me. So, it was a surprise to be given this form – Artemisia lactiflora ‘Elfenbein’ – by Chris & Toby Marchant at Orchard Dene Nurseries. Dark green foliage, finely divided again, is the foil to the creamy flowers. It is has been well-behaved to date, happy on our retentive ground and nicely clump-forming. As I look out of the window now, it is filled with afternoon light, caught in its inflorescence and allowing your eye to travel from one cream grouping to another.
Salvia greggii ‘Blue Note’ and Aster umbellatus
Salvia greggii ‘Blue Note’ is not a plant I will combine with any of the above as it likes a hot, dry spot and is low-growing, but it does illustrate the importance of contrast and I like its inky darkness with the off-whites here. It is a great little plant, layering gently where it touches down and smelling muskily of blackcurrants when you brush the foliage. I see it combined with lavenders and have made a note to myself as a reminder to make the coupling next year.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
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