Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2022 i The English Garden

Anisa Gress Anisa’s horticultural training has given her a strong foundation to support three decades of gardening writing. She is currently planning a living roof at her home in Kent and visits Croft Lodge on page 28. Joanna Kossak Joanna is a freelance photographer based in Surrey. Formerly a photographer for the RHS, for over 20 years she’s been capturing gardens and interiors. Find her photos of RHS Garden Hyde Hall on page 59. Nichola Daunton Nichola is a writer and illustrator based in north London. With a background in community gardening, she writes about food, gardening and travel – and, for this issue, the perfect houseplants to give as gifts, on p91.…

Aljos Farjon After learning almost everything there is to learn about conifers, botanist Aljos Farjon has turned his attention to the English oak I suppose it was a given that I’d take some kind of biological direction. I grew up in a small town in the Netherlands with woods, heathland and water on our doorstep. My brothers and I always spent a lot of time in the outdoors. I ended up at the University of Utrecht and supplemented my income from contracted research work there by making drawings of conifers for a former professor. Publishing on this subject in academic journals helped me become known internationally. In time I came to work at Oxford, picking up a project on conifers in the neotropics – Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean…

Evergreen shrubs have an important part to play in the winter garden, providing structure, interest and habitat long after the eye-catching stars of summer have died back. Unusual evergreens abound at RHS Wisley in Surrey, but the Walled Garden specifically contains experimental beds exploring valuable box alternatives, as well as a range of distinctive foliage. Among the foliage candidates hostas tend to dominate, but there are plenty of evergreen choices, including Taxus baccata ‘Amersfoort’ and Trachycarpus fortunei. Here, RHS Wisley curator Matthew Pottage recommends ten garden evergreens with distinctive characteristics. RHS Wisley, Wisley Lane, Wisley, Woking, Surrey GU23 6QB. Tel: 01483 224234; rhs.org.uk/gardens/wisley 1 in ar iflora ‘Tenysu-kazu’ “This is a great variety for form and structure as well as an interesting habit,” says Matthew. “It’s a beautiful Japanese pine…

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS FORAGED FOREST CANDELABRA This wonderful aerial decoration was born out of a beautifully lichened bough, torn off by the wind on an exposed Welsh hillside, its kissing ball of mistletoe still intact. Reluctant to reduce its impressive size and natural beauty, I pondered how to best use it. I tried suspending it from the beams in the hall but it became lost, so I let it rest in and over a huge old iron candelabra that had lain unadorned in the barn for years. The torn branch pokes out from the top, while the olive-green mistletoe is suspended comfortably from the centre of the piece. It’s best to let materials fall and place themselves naturally, since larger woody pieces can look forced, awkward and cumbersome. Forage for fallen…

Justine Burgess was working in the training sector and had dabbled in many crafts before she found the one that changed her life. “I had always enjoyed making things, but it wasn’t until 2013 that I tried basketry. From the moment I started I was hooked,” she recalls. “Using a natural material that’s locally sourced to make something both useful and beautiful gave me a real sense of accomplishment at the end of each day.” From creating her first small basket, Justine has gone on to craft a whole new career out of willow. Her working life now ranges from making an array of traditional and contemporary baskets and planting living willow structures, to running workshops and caring for over 260 varieties of willow on the land surrounding the cottage…

Every year when we finish making this issue and its Christmas gift guide, I send it off to press full of plans to get my Christmas shopping done early, my cards written in good time and my presents wrapped. Every year, none of that happens and it’s always the traditional last-minute scramble, carried out while wondering why on earth we put ourselves under so much pressure. Even with the best intentions, I doubt anything’s going to change this year, but at least there’s plenty of inspiration in this issue to fuel my eleventh hour Christmas prep. Perhaps Christmas Eve will see me dashing around the garden gathering greenery to make a wreath inspired by Jacky Hobbs’ creations on page 83. Perhaps I’ll be racing to the garden centre on a…

MISCANTHUS ‘YAKUSHIMA DWARF’ A compact choice, reaching a manageable 80cm tall. ERYNGIUM BOURGATII The spiky thistle flowers of this perennial are made to be highlighted by frost. CORYLUS AVELLANA ‘CONTORTA’ With catkins hanging from corkscrew stems, this hazel attracts attention in winter. ECHINACEA PURPUREA After its petals fall, the cones remain to impart bobbly structure in winter borders. HYLOTELEPHIUM ‘MATRONA’ By winter, this sedum’s long-lasting seedheads have turned a deep conker brown. SORBUS ‘JOSEPH ROCK’ Amber autumn berries hang in clusters from this graceful rowan, ideal for small gardens.…

HAMAMELIS X INTERMEDIA Witch hazel’s scented flowers add freshness to the winter garden. Try ‘Orange Peel’. SALIX GRACILISTYLA ‘MOUNT ASO’ Unusual pink catkins on a bushy shrub reaching 3m. LAGERSTROEMIA ‘NATCHEZ’ The striking crape myrtle has a gnarled form, with peeling, cinnamon-coloured bark. EUPHORBIA CHARACIAS SUBSP. WULFENII Precocious flowers are often produced by this sub-shrub. COTONEASTER HORIZONTALIS In cold winters, this shrub loses its leaves to reveal its herringbone-like structure. BETULA UTILIS VAR. JACQUEMONTII Silver birch are a classic choice for their white bark, which forms ghostly winter skeletons.…

When someone’s email address contains the word ‘wombat’ and they hold the National Plant Collection of Correa, a shrub that’s native only to Tasmania and southern Australia, you suspect there might be some sort of connection with ‘down under’. Yes, Dr Judy Clark confirms: she was born in Australia and moved to the UK 46 years ago. Yet despite having grown up with them, it was only once she was gardening in this country that Judy came to appreciate Australian plants. “I didn’t really start gardening until about 25 years ago, and it took me a little while to discover you could grow Australian plants here,” she explains. “Then I found an organisation called the Australasian Plant Society to which I’ve belonged ever since, and now I edit their newsletter.…

During the festive season, we all want to fill our homes with light, colour and life. Whether it’s a roaring fire, a handsomely decorated tree or an elegant centrepiece, bringing nature indoors helps bring joy and warmth to December’s long dark nights. In summer we can fill our rooms with lush foliage, fragrant bouquets and cut flowers from the garden, but in winter the outside world is dark and frosty. Despite this, there are many ways to bring a burst of green indoors during the festive period. From delicate ferns and intricate orchids to old favourites like Christmas cacti and poinsettia, here are some of the very best winter houseplants. Watch a hippeastrum unfurl Available in a diverse range of colours, from peach-toned blooms to candy-striped hues, hippeastrum embody graceful…

ASHWOOD NURSERIES A plantsman’s paradise and an independent nursery situated in the West Midlands open seven days a week. We specialise in hellebores, hardy cyclamen, salvias, hepaticas, lewisias, hydrangeas, dwarf conifers, snowdrops, Primula auricula and many more beautiful plants. Our UK mail order service sends plants, garden essentials and gifts direct to your doorstep. John’s Garden is also open on Saturdays 10am-4pm. Please visit our website for full details. Tel: 01384 401996 mailorder@ashwoodnurseries.com | www.ashwoodnurseries.com Ashwood Lower Lane, Kingswinford, West Midlands DY6 0AE HEDGING UK Hedging UK are specialist growers of quality hedging plants. Plants are available to purchase at wholesale prices across the UK through our mail order service. Buy direct from the grower, delivered direct to your door. Readers of The English Garden get a 5% discount (quote…

A pine tree is the perfect Christmas tree for indoors or out. Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris, can be pruned each spring by pinching the tips back with your fingers (blades encourage browning). This will create a compact, bushy habit because the pruning stimulates new growth. Year on year, you can form the perfect, pyramidal tree as seen on so many Christmas cards! After Twelfth Night, put the tree in a root control bag (try Rootex from gardenselect.co.uk) and plant it into the ground inside the bag, watering well. These bags have copper hydroxide on the inside that stops the root tip and encourages fibrous rooting while allowing the sideways movement of water so you don’t need to give them nearly as much TLC as you would if they were in…

Winter asks us to see a garden differently. Spring offers opportunity, with all of nature poised to bloom. Summer, wanton and luxuriant, is easy to love, while autumn provides a familiar embrace tinged with nostalgia or relief, depending on your mood. But winter is an altogether different experience. Subtle, reduced, defined, restrained, it is careful with its charms, bestowing them upon those who notice the slightest nuance of light, scent, colour and form. RHS Hyde Hall, just outside Chelmsford in Essex, may be one of the Society’s warmest gardens in summer, but in winter it receives the full force of the easterly winds blowing in from continental Europe. Without the ameliorating aspects of the Gulf Stream enjoyed in the west, winters here are icy and sharp. “You have to choose…

As carols go, ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ is one of our oldest and best loved. But surely the question gardeners should be asking in December is which holly and ivy? Both plants are generally tough and versatile, with great attributes for winter interest. What’s more, we have a wide and wonderful range of interesting selections of both to choose from. But the sad truth is that it’s usually the same old selections that are seen in garden after garden, despite the riches available. I like the moonlight holly, I. aquifolium ‘Flavescens’, its mottled-gold leaves standing out well on a dull winter day Holly for berries and foliage Hollies, particularly Ilex aquifolium and I. x altaclerensis are often used as hedging, a purpose to which they are well suited, but…

Fans of both houseplants and Downton Abbey will remember the evening a fulsome streptocarpus in magnificent flower made a cameo appearance on the show. There, behind Penelope Wilton’s Isobel Crawley, sat an enormous Streptocarpus ‘Falling Stars’, its arching sprays of soft blue flowers stealing the scene for streptocarpus aficionados – not least because, as its breeder Dibleys pointed out at the time, ‘Falling Stars’ was bred about 70 years later than the 1917 scene being played out on screen. That it looked so at home in an episode of Downton Abbey perhaps points to why streptocarpus, despite always selling consistently well, haven’t been swept up in the houseplant explosion of the last few years. There’s something quaintly old-fashioned about a streptocarpus; one imagines them taking pride of place in the…

TO CONCLUDE ‘‘ Let’s go this way, I want to show you something.” It is a grey, damp, cold day and our corner of South London, which I usually love for its eclectic, shifting energy, is looking dishevelled and distinctly unromantic. It is the week before Christmas and I am distracted by my list of presents still unbought and deadlines still not met as I follow my friend across the balding grass of a small neighbourhood park. We stop at the darkened brick wall and towering chain-link fence that edge the back gardens of a Victorian terrace. Flashes of orange dazzle between tapers of ivy and the open diamonds of galvanised steel. An improbably festive tree glows capriciously alongside an abandoned trampoline, its bare, spreading branches laden with perfectly distributed,…