Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i The English Garden

Alex Mitchell Alex is a garden writer, flower grower and the author of books including Crops in Tight Spots, The Edible Balcony and Gardening on a Shoestring. She explores the garden at Knowle Hill Farm on page 32. Ian Hodgson Over a 30-year career, award-winning writer Ian trained at Kew Gardens and Sheffield University and edited the RHS magazine The Garden for 18 years. He first started visiting the garden at York Gate (p48) in the 1980s. Nicola Oakey Nicola is an award-winning garden designer and freelance writer based in Rutland, who has won Pro Landscaper’s prestigious ‘30 under 30’ award. She admires the daffodils at Stoke Albany House on p56.…

Hazel Gardiner A life-changing illness sparked a new career in floral design and an exhibit at RHS Chelsea for the broadcaster, writer and educator I was the child who knew exactly the career they wanted when they grew up, and for me that was working in fashion. At 13, I already had the prospectus of the London College of Fashion Broadcast and Journalism course I’d end up studying! After a whirlwind time in fashion journalism I joined Done+Dusted, creating live events and working with extraordinary musicians. In 2007, a cancer diagnosis changed the direction of my life. Although my career in production looked fulfilling on paper I wasn’t happy, but I’d thought that leaving to pursue another passion was too risky. My treatment went on for a year and a…

The long days of winter seem never ending once the fun and festivities of Christmas are behind us. As a nation we hold our collective breath, poised for signs that warmth, light and life are on their way. Dainty snowdrops are first to oblige, their nodding white heads piercing the gloom and lifting the spirits, followed by a veritable golden fanfare of daffodils. What better way to put dark days behind us than to visit one of the many gardens that specialise in these most cheering early blooms. SNOWDROPS Across the country, galanthophiles are treated to festivals, trails and events that showcase delicate white snowdrops as they emerge from the soil. Whether you are a serious collector on the hunt for a rare bulb to nurture or are simply seeking…

In those first longed-for days of spring, we look to our gardens for signs of the year ahead knowing it’s all still to come: days to relish indeed. Despite the excitement gardeners feel, March is not an easy month, with some days that feel like winter and others that are positively balmy. Gardens are easily filled with the tough, usual suspects that can withstand changeable conditions, but among these stalwarts are select plants that offer discerning gardeners a little bit more. Shrubs to bridge the gap At the start of the month, winter-flowering shrubs often have a last hurrah. Through the darkest days, evergreen Viburnum tinus reliably produces heads of white, or pink-tinged flowers; it’s so dependable if the weather is not too cold, but so ubiquitous we barely notice…

Seemingly dirty, often cold, usually heavy to move around: it’s tempting to dismiss garden soil and focus instead on the more obvious and more visually appealing life forms growing above it. Yet soil is the point at which all gardening begins, and without good, healthy soil, all efforts made above ground are likely to be more challenging and far less successful – possibly even futile. Long established is the influence of soil type on gardens. If you’re new to a garden, the first thing you should do is determine whether, for example, it’s set on clay and will need lightening with compost and manure, or on greensand, which needs little amendment. Acidity is key, too: ericaceous plants like rhododendrons and azaleas simply will not thrive in soil that isn’t a…

As my garden emerges from winter, I’m taking stock. After a week of sub-zero temperatures and snow prior to Christmas, I’m not sure everything has made it through unscathed. A new Euphorbia mellifera is a cause for concern, currently looking very sorry for itself, but all I can do is wait and see if new growth appears. In the meantime, the sight of emerging bulbs is cheering me up: crocus, snowdrops, daffodils, muscari… a short bout of cold weather hasn’t put paid to them. This issue’s gardens are full of these optimistic, ever-reliable bulbs, so I hope they have a similarly cheering effect on you. Since daffodils are my all-time favourite spring bulb, I’ve been admiring the great swathes of yellow at Stoke Albany House in Northamptonshire, as well as…

Private & Public: Finding the Modern British Garden 22 March – 25 June 2023, London Charles Mahoney, Evelyn Dunbar and Eric Ravilious are some of the artists who began painting their private gardens during the interwar period. This new exhibition at The Garden Museum showcases depictions of their private havens, and also public green spaces, after the Holidays with Pay Act of 1938 led to a rise in images documenting outdoor recreation. Adult tickets £14. gardenmuseum.org.uk Have a Go with Clay 25 February – 5 March 2023, London If you’ve ever wondered how magnificent sculptures are brought into being from a simple ball of clay, members of the Surrey Sculpture Society will be demonstrating their craft for visitors to their exhibition at The Landmark Arts Centre in Teddington. Alongside the…

TOP 10 PLANTS While this is a quiet time of year for the gardens at Oxburgh Hall, the 15th-century moated manor in Norfolk, senior gardener Dea Fischer is already busy sowing summer plants from seed. “People automatically think of sowing annuals at this time of year, but it’s also a good time to get some perennials started from seed. Days are lengthening and, although the soil is still too cold to start seeds outside, plenty of them can be started indoors,” she explains. Here, Dea selects ten good candidates for early sowing, from unusual hardy annuals and climbers you can treat as annuals, to reliable perennials. Oxburgh Hall, Oxborough Road, Oxborough, King’s Lynn, Norfolk PE33 9PS. Tel: 01366 328258; nationaltrust.org.uk 1 Papaver nudicaule Iceland poppies are a stalwart of…

When I moved into Spring Cottage on an early December day 17 years ago, the garden seemed devoid of any plants. When spring arrived, however, I was in for a thrill. Daffodils began to emerge in all shapes and sizes, from wispy and natural, through sock-it-to-you doubles, to red-centred pheasant’s eyes. I discovered that the previous owners, a family who’d lived here for one hundred years or more, had added a few more every year. Many of them had survived for decades, so I found myself travelling along a daffodil timeline. Some looked extremely close to our native daffodil, the lent lily or Narcissus pseudonarcissus subsp. pseudonarcissus. This foot-high species, which was commonly found in damper areas of our Gloucestershire parish right up until the Victorian era, is delicate in…

TO CONCLUDE On a cold and rainy evening last October, a small crowd gathers around the Japanese ambassador. He is opening a show at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft about master potter Shōji Hamada. At the end of a reverential speech, His Excellency’s eyes light up: “Good news!” he cries, “Japan is open again!” Japan is no longer off-limits because of Covid. My journey home on a rattling, half-empty train is transformed. I am in Tokyo at the beginning of November. It is my first visit to Japan and my eyes are out on stalks. Autumn is under way – and how it is celebrated! Even the narrow alleys of rickety wooden bars in Shinjuku are decorated with utterly fake but simultaneously cheering garlands of autumn leaves and…

I had a big problem with badgers digging up plants and dismantling raised beds. To solve it, I installed an electric fence that consists of four electrified wires with the top wire set at 30cm high and the lower wires at heights of 10, 15 and 20cm. It runs off the mains and around the garden perimeter with the wires fixed to wooden posts. It is unobtrusive, cheap to install and has completely solved the problem: there have been no more intrusions. It also keeps out the rabbits, but needs maintenance since long grass and fallen branches can short it. Every spring we enjoy rich pickings of the wild garlic (Allium ursinum) that colonises a shady border by an old beech hedge and under my pleached trees. There is little…

In those earliest blanched days of spring, the improbable sight of a fuzzy catkin can prove enormously cheering. Not only is it a promise of the life soon to burst forth, but it is also a beautiful textural vision in and of itself. Move over dainty snowdrops – catkins, some with pendulous forms that sway in the wind and others with an irresistibly silky covering of down, are the underrated stars of the early months. Taking their name from the Middle Dutch word ‘katteken’, meaning ‘kitten’, possibly because longer types resemble kittens’ tails, or perhaps because of their fur-like hairs, catkins are actually flowers. They appear on various trees and shrubs long before most deciduous trees even begin to produce leaves, never mind flowers or fruit. Petals on catkins are…

March is the month that most of us consider to be the official ‘start’ of spring, but the big question is, will the weather actually be spring-like? The only thing that can be said with any certainty about March is that its weather is unpredictable. Will it come in like a lion and go out like a lamb? That’s anybody’s guess. To make it even harder to predict what the weather might do, our springs seem to be changing. According to the Met Office, March 2022 was the sunniest on record since 1929 and the second sunniest since records began in 1919. It was also pretty mild overall, with above average temperatures for much of the UK – perfect conditions to lure gardeners, already itching to be getting on with…