A Nice Green Leaf: Ten Absolutely Essential Items for the Summer Garden, part 1

There's nothing like a bit of sunshine to get me thinking about what my garden is missing. I go to Homebase, I have a wander around. And yet nothing seems to quite fit the bill.

I have realised this week that this is because the things I am imagining in my head are out of my price range until I get that senior hedge fund management job I've been meaning to apply for. In the interim, here are the top ten things I'll be acquiring for my outdoor space when I have about six million more pounds than at present.

1. Outdoor Shower
Stella Mac got into terrible neighbour trouble for hers, but according
to Naomi Cleaver that's mainly because everyone was annoyed that they weren't going to get to see her naked. Frankly, I don't mind running under the sprinkler or even a camp shower, but for the real glamour outdoor feeling, a teak outdoor shower it's got to be.
(Java Shower, pictured right, from Habitat.)

2. Wetbar

You wouldn't believe how useful a garden wetbar
is. When you are throwing cocktail parties for all your rockstar
friends, it's just so handy to have somewhere you can keep the tequila
cold. Frankly, I'd be happy with just a ledge to lean on after
drunkenness kicks in, but the running water is the icing on the cake.

I was imagining something slightly classier than this, but on the other hand, it's only $379!

More fun, and possibly more robust, is to build your own Tiki Bar;
but my ideal would always be the little French bar, open to the air,
which adjoins Le Corbusier's summer cabin on the Cote D'Azur (see
right). And look! It's got an octopus painted on it!

3.Missoni Bikini

There's absolutely nothing to beat the feeling of sitting outside
sunbathing in an item of clothing that cost your entire expendable
monthly income and which comes with a label saying "avoid contact with
water". Actually, now I come to think of it, let's get the kaftan as
well.

4. Bougainvillea
Nothing
will achieve the feeling that you are in the Caribbean quicker than a
huge stand of bougainvillea growing up and arching over your garden.
Sadly, there is pretty much no more expensive plant. For Londoners, New Covent Garden Market after about 8.30am is a good bet for picking up plants on the cheap; for pretty much everybody else, it's a pipe dream.
(Image from Flickr by Joe Hastings.)

5. Somewhere to snooze

Some folks swear by a hammock.
Others are happy with a park bench and a can of Super Tennants. I'm
gonna hold out for a gigantic wickerwork bed, in the garden.

Go-Modern are the British importers of this furniture, which is made in Spain out of an artificial rattan that never rots.

Although I have to say I prefer it in the natural-coloured artifical with fuchsia covers.

To be continued...
 

A Nice Green Leaf: Big Brother is watching you... growing stuff

I know there are facilities on the so-called internet for finding out about these things, but I tend to get my rolling news from Ceefax while I sit on the sofa watching Kirstie and Phil arguing in Location, Location, Location.

Ceefax's latest revelation had a horticultural twist: I don't know whether there's someone working at Endemol who finds gardening particularly exciting, but I was a bit bemused last night to find out that the TV company's must-watch selling point for Big Brother 9 (beginning tonight on Channel 4) is that contestants are going to be made to grow their own vegetables.

Hmm. Bringing new meaning to the phrase "Dig for Victory", I can't help feeling this may only be marginally more interesting viewing than encouraging contestants to redecorate the Big Brother House and then watching the paint dry.

In incredible breaking news, further revelations included that the vegetables to be grown include potatoes! And carrots!

If they can make the nation interested in a twenty-minute conversation about whether to grow Pink Fir Apple, or stick to good old Charlotte, I'll be impressed. Or perhaps a big foot-stamping sulking-in-the-diary-room argument will break out over whether to fleece the growing veg against carrot fly.  While I might find the subject gripping, I remain unconvinced about whether it's what mainstream Britain wants to watch after it gets back from the pub a bit drunk. Producer Phil Edgar-Jones said yesterday "Ratings are not my main concern." Well, yes, we can see that, Phil.

A Nice Green Leaf: With a little help from their friends

Would you ever dare to open your garden to the public? In my case it would require crates of prescription medication from the Xanax/Diazepam school. But every year, some brave people take the leap: sometimes, by clubbing together and getting friends to do it at the same time, in the hope of diluting the stress.

The best I could do was persuade a friend to come and look at gardens with me: the lovely Miss Joanna and I checked out four gardens in Kew on the Green which are opened by four chummy neighbours under the Yellow Book scheme. I love it when a group of gardens open all together, as there's more of chance everyone will find something to like. But the Kew Green gardens also give a chance to compare four different approaches to roughly the same plot - a long, narrow south-facing garden which leads towards the river.

All the gardens had shared elements: aquilegias and alliums were in full supply. And probably my favourite former allium, too, Nectaroscordum siculum.

And there were some gorgeous views exploiting the length of the space, allowing you to glimpse the whole distance. Check out these artfully arranged urns: the terracotta shapes make the whole view look so collected and intentional. They have a sense of self-possession, and the suggestion that they are somehow restraining the vivid green growth all around.

However, the best test of a Yellow Book garden is how many people are scrabbling around in their handbags trying to find bits of paper to write plant names down on. And as far as the handbag test goes, Kew Green passed with flying colours.

Other monster garden openings to try:

Sunday 8th June

Edington Gardens, nr Westbury, Wilts. Five country gardens, ranging from cottage to former monastery.

Newton Village, Portcawl, Glamorgan & Gwent - Five maritime gardens overlooking the Welsh seaside, with views over the Bristol Channel; 1- 6pm. Two gardens in driveable Llanbethian are also open.

Clifton Gardens, Bristol, 2-5:  Four exemplary gardens in Bristol's pleasant suburb, near to the Suspension Bridge.

Brize Norton village, Oxfordshire - over 30 gardens open to the public from 1-6, with Flower Festival in the church and home-made teas.

Wednesday 11th June

Whixley Gardens, on the A59 between York and Harrogate. Five gardens including a tiny courtyard: 11.30-5. 

A Nice Green Leaf: Pink in a rainy country

Lot of moaning going on at the moment about the rain. But come on, we're gardeners: can't we look on the bright side a bit? For a start, everything is looking fantastically green.

As far as domestic greenophilia goes, the photo shows one of my favourite bits of the garden at the moment. Two of this blog's most droned-on-about plants are in full evidence: a euphorbia, and Chlorophytum comosum, the big old seventies Spider Plant, revving up for a nice summer outdoors. The display is fronted by a fluorescent pink Lewisia which I absolutely adore, for its bolshily-tipped-up habit and desperate floral showing-off.

I can't help thinking the Lewisia is the key to it all, in terms of my own enjoyment. The zinginess of that artificially lurid Barbie colour is enough to make all the rest of the lush growth look incredibly vibrant and healthy.

The arrangement is overlooked by a caper spurge, the tall plant at the back. This is the essence of euphorbia boiled down to a single minimalist stem; I don't know whether you can actually buy them - technically they are a weed, seeming to grow from nothing in my garden. But I never ever pull them out, kneeling down and weeding on my knees so I can check the germinating seedlings for the tell-tale red stem. I think the structure is so elegant, especially those white stripes down the centre of the long, opposing leaves.

Anyway there we go: apart from the slugs and snails (where - whatever current advice is - I am continuing to maintain a Dalai Lama-ish reluctance to do actual squishing) I love the rain. I'm absolutely loving the rain. Rain is great:  just make sure you have some bright pink to cheer yourself up.

A Nice Green Leaf: It's a Mollusc's, Mollusc's, Mollusc's World

At Wisley yesterday I got into one of those conversations with garden-loving strangers where I end up grateful for the community of ordinary gardening knowledge. There is nothing like a slug-battling tip from some real gardeners to make you go home determined to try harder. 

They were delphinium fanatics who'd brought their granddaughter to Wisley for half-term: she was taking notes in a Royal Botanic Gardens Kew notebook, suggesting that Granny and Grandpa normally get their own way about the destination of grandparently treats.

We had a long conversation whilst soaking up the heat in the sweltering trial fields (see picture, right) about how best to keep the slugs off. Slugs are an enormous threat to delphiniums, so this couple had tried everything.

Yet at Wisley the RHS team don't lift a finger to combat slugs. They don't have to: the field situation means there's no slug or snail population, according to the gardener we talked to. But domestic gardeners face entirely different problems, and big slug massives out raving till dawn are a depressingly common reality. 

"Best of all," my new friend said, "get out there on a wet evening and collect them by hand, then kill them by whatever means you prefer. But he," she gestured to her sun-tanned husband, sitting on a bench, "swears by copper tape, too. You tape it around the top of a pot, and it really does stop them. If your plants are in the soil, you can cut the bottom off a pot, run tape round it, and then use it as a protective ring too." 

I've been meaning to try copper tape for a long time, but I finally got round to buying some in the Wisley shop and wrapping all my most vulnerable pots in it - leaving most of the backdoor area at my house looking a little bit like it was Christmas. Hopefully, the tape will do as it promises on the packet, and eventually acquire a bluey-green patina.

I will report in future on whether the tape saves my summering amaryllis from further predation, and gets my brugmansia to flowering trumpet size.

In the meantime, I'm putting my faith in these guys, who I found in the dampest corner of my garden recently and who I think are probably eating many of the baby slugs this year. It may be a mollusc's world, but it wouldn't be nothing without a frog or a toad.

A Nice Green Leaf: Sweet William, Martha, Nigella and Sarah

Down the allotment at half seven this morning I suddenly realised that my first bunch of home-grown flowers was ready for the picking. Not my first bunch this year - my first bunch ever. I feel peacefully happy walking away clutching my handful of stems. Sweet Williams are one of my favourite flowers for their patchwork of pinks and rubies, and have one of those perfumes that sums up early summer.

I don't think Sarah Raven should get worried that I'm after her job quite yet, but I feel just as self-satisfied as when I made my very first cake out of Nigella. Raven and Lawson have a lot to answer for in the Martha Stewart-isation of a whole generation of women like me who were brought up to think we should aim at the very least to be Chair of BP. Now, our fiercest ambition is focused on the idea of having our own cutting gardens.

I don't think this shift is a bad thing, though. It doesn't mean that we're aiming lower - just at different things. (It's even been alleged that Stewart, Lawson and Raven make us feel unbearable levels of social pressure to have a perfect home, make a perfect meringue and grow perfect peonies. In the face of all that, quite a few women might opt for running BP as the easier option.)

Surely none of these domestic goddesses imagines she is putting pressure on others: Nigella is all about making it possible for everybody to bake; Sarah Raven wants everybody to grow flowers at home, to have the pleasure of walking outside and choosing what colours and shapes to bring into the house.

But if you find Raven too much - and some do - try one of my favourite domestic over-achievers: Linda Beutler, who wrote Garden to Vase, about growing and using your own cut flowers. I have to warn you, she has a fairly Hawaiian sense of how to make a flower arrangement. But the book is stuffed with information from someone with years of experience, and is detailed and full of tips. 

In particular, Linda Beutler's practical advice for cutting flowers is great:

• Cutting flower stems with a diagonal cut, to increase surface area for absorbing water, is "the single most important factor in flower longevity."



• Cut flower stems with secateurs, not scissors, for a better, cleaner cut.



• Revitalise tulips and roses by recutting the ends and lying them horizontally immersed in a warm bath.



• Keep flowers longer by adding a quarter teaspoon of bleach to the water to kill germs (must admit, haven't actually tried that one yet).

However I feel ready to graduate to School of Raven. I just ordered The Cutting Garden on Amazon: wish me luck.

A Nice Green Leaf: Come on you Blues. Er, and Reds

For the next 12 hours, if you hear the term "Chelsea" it is probably going to refer to the football team rather than the flower show. In honour of all the potentially hilarious conversational muddles that could ensue today, I bring you my own floral tribute to the Champions League Final.

Camassia "Orion", pictured above, is one of the best bulbs I've ever seen. Take the Camassia - which is already a great, great plant - with its azure starbursts that provide such subtle structure in a floppy spring flower bed. Now make it the zingiest, most electric blue, with a
touch of yellow that reminds me very slightly of Chelsea football strip. Yay! You've done the whole world a favour!

I spotted it on a gorgeous stand in the Marquee: happily, Pete Free
pointed out to me last night that the display in question was actually
a National Collection, as otherwise I'd have been looking fruitlessly
for the nursery name for hours. The collection holder had arranged the
Camassias against wheaten-white grasses to stunning effect.

You can find "Orion" for sale in a few places: Aulden Farm do it, as does Marina Christopher of Phoenix Plants, everybody's secret favourite plant-person. Beeches also do it at £3.50 a bulb, but their mail order (like many other small nurseries, I note) is now closed till autumn.

In slightly less authentic Chelsea colours, but nevertheless a mouth-watering purpley-blue, here is Clematis "Natascha", from Sheila Chapman's sweetly gothic display (yes, you can be sweet and gothic: think of Northanger Abbey).

But watch it: there are two Natashas, each with a different spelling
- this is the one with a 'c' in it, who comes at a reasonable £10 from
Sheila.

Sheila is one of those nursery people who quietly lurks ready to
give the information you need - how can you not love someone who
describes her specialist plants thus: "Clematis have huge appetites,
being in the Billy Bunter class."

Finally, can I offer anything to
those ill-tempered people (my friend Tim, my cousin Layla) who will by now be shouting at me "what about the Reds?" (Well, would be shouting at me, if they weren't in Moscow.)

Check it out! Gloriosa superba, sometimes called G. rothschildiana.
Imagine Paul Scholes with a bit of that draped over him, eh? This photo
is from the National Association of Flower Arrangers stand, which was -
let's just say, pretty unbelievable.

Beeches also does this one, as do Burncoose, Wisley, and Jacques Amand. And Tim and Layla can content themselves with that absolute lucky charm jewel of a Latin name...