A Nice Green Leaf: The Garden Snooper

So much to choose from in the papers at the weekend. In pathetic and plagiaristic tribute to the Indyblogs' Gutter Sniper, here's my round-up of the weekend's best gardening news:

- How to depress yourself in one easy step: Martha Stewart’s immaculate kitchen garden.
- The Heritage Lottery Fund finally sorts out money for Great Dixter.

- Polish plants are taking over Britain (a story surprisingly not reported by the Daily Mail).

- Pampas grass is back.

- English horticulturists confirm their reputation for innovation with underground grow chambers.

- How to get an allotment in Hong Kong.


- Your sister can actually annoy you into growing blueberries.

- James Alexander-Sinclair thinks flowering currant smells of cat pee.

A Nice Green Leaf: Blackthorn Winter

I have finally found out what's been causing all the bad weather! In Beth Chatto's Garden Notebook she explains that "we rarely escape shrivelling cold weather when the blackthorn is in flower". This phenomenon actually has a name, the "Blackthorn Winter".

If you went anywhere near the countryside over Easter you'll have seen both vicious hail, and blackthorn in full bloom, which does tend to confirm Chatto's folk wisdom.

Though just to confuse us city types, the flowers are actually a creamy white: it's called blackthorn because in the autumn it produces rich black sloes. And if your interest is at all piqued by sloes, check out the site devoted to them - which provides the excellent tip to look for the blossom now to remember where the bushes are come sloe-picking time - the site goes under the unforgettable title of Sloebiz.

(Picture from geograph.org.uk by Kokai)

A Nice Green Leaf: Tardy Plant of the Week

Oh look, I'm sorry, I forgot to post my Easter bloom! My only excuse is that Easter was so early this year, the little Pasque flower hadn't even quite got around to opening up. 

I prefer it in bud, though, because of its lovely feathery foliage, and the fur on the buds which look rather appropriately like little baby rabbits. And in the centre of this photo, there's a flower on the brink of opening, a tiny glimpse of the vivid purple and yellow to come (you can click on it to see it bigger).

This particular plant is labelled Pulsatilla rubra on the rock garden at Kew.
(That area is starting to look really nice after massive reconstruction taking many months, and at the moment lots of species tulips are just beginning to come out - it's well worth a spring visit.)

But five minutes of internet research suggests that most botanists would label rubra as a variety of vulgaris, though there remains a bit of disagreement about whether rubra was bred by human hand, or that of a greater creator.

A Nice Green Leaf: Little Baby... Hummingbirds?

If you haven't already heard of Ketzel Levine, it's not that surprising. Somehow in the world of celebrity gardening her talents have got hidden away on NPR, the American not-for-profit radio station which is somewhat surprisingly kept afloat these days on a wodge of cash donated by Joan Kroc, the widow of McDonalds founder Ray.

Ketzel writes and broadcasts wonderfully about plants, especially really big trees which seem to be something of an obsession of hers. Here is a great radio programme she made about Charles Kellogg, an early Redwoods campaigner who lived in America's first mobile home - a hollowed-out tree. And at the moment her blog features pictures of the birds currently nesting in her garden. Not, as in my case, blue tits, but the cutest looking baby hummingbirds.

Besides the baby birds my favourite bit of her site is her archive of Plant Profiles, which offer some really great, funny, informed garden writing that ranks up there with the classics. 

Really bad gardeners, however, may prefer the useful and apparently inexhaustible section devoted to that perennial subject, "Why Did My Plant Die?"

A Nice Green Leaf: (Spider) Plant of the Week

I'm sitting here writing this while listening to Gurrelieder on Radio 3, Arnold Schoenberg's great turn of the century mash-up, the death rattle of Romantic music. It's probably not at all the right setting for talking about the great Seventies icon that is the spider plant: a bit of soft lounge music, or maybe the soundtrack to The Big Lebowski, would be more appropriate. 

Spider plants continue to be great, though, even if Margo Leadbetter's all-in-one kaftan trouser suit is now sadly a thing of the past. 

For one thing, they look fantastic. I took this photo in Chelsea last Friday, and I love the way their stripey leaves look so smart against the Sloane Square brickwork. Also, they're really easy to grow, taking very little care, water or food and still generally managing to muddle through.

They're good for you, too - one of the best plants for cleaning the air around us, leading one US city to start the Portland Spider Plant Outreach Campaign. What you have to do is take baby plants, root them in compost, and then pass them on to neighbouring offices and workplaces. 

But finally, at this tatty old time of year their beautiful sharp blade-like leaves and coyly dangling baby plants do add that touch of Seventies macrame wife-swapping exoticism...

A Nice Green Leaf: Sowing By the Light of the Moon

New growth seems to be in the air and everyone's gearing up for sowing their spring seeds. The problem for gardeners, as everybody acknowledges, is that you want to get started, but you also know that there could be bad weather around the corner. And this morning, weather websites and redtop newspapers alike have been confirming that we are in for a cold, cold Easter. 

Easter is as early as it could be this year, as I finally found out how they calculate it from Charles Dowding's organic website.

Charles Dowding also points out that lunar movements are such that - if you believe in the power of the moon - Wednesday the 19th this week is a particularly propitious moment for sowing your vegetable seeds.
Consult a lunar calendar if you don't believe me! 

So in light of the bad weather, consider holding back on starting off the outdoor peas and beans. But tomatoes and chillis can get going on a windowsill with all the lunar forces to wish them on their way.

A Nice Green Leaf: Can you ever grow too many daffodils?

Walking up to Angel tube In London's Islington the other day I had to stop and get my camera out. If you regularly use the 153 bus you may already have spotted this fantastic display on a flat roof top above a shop (it's on the left-hand side as you head northwards up St John Street). It's just so totally cheerful. I love it when I spot someone who's got a good garden thing going on, and then... I just have to go back and see what it looks like in summer.