Transatlantic life

Transatlantic frost protection

Frost protection,Pennsylvania,fleece,sheets,bedsheets. Image: ©GardenPhotos.com. Do not reproduce in any way without permission. I arrived back in Pennsylvania the day before yesterday, after a very trying flight from London I have to say, to find judy hard at work in the garden. She was protecting the fresh new growth of so many perennials and shrubs against the forecast frost by spreading old sheets over the plants. It had worked in previous years, and for the previous few days, so she was at it again.

Every old sheet in the house was pressed into service, in fact so many sheets were dragged out that I feared my first night back would be spent in a sleeping bag. Anyway, it worked again. But as the garden expands I think we’re going to have to order a roll of fleece (garden fabric, to US gardeners).

Frost protection,British Museum,fleece,Kew Gardens. Image: ©GardenPhotos.com. Do not reproduce in any way without permission. As it happens, just a few days earlier I’d taken a look at the new South Africa Landscape being installed outside the British Museum in Bloomsbury, central London. And with frost forecast there too, they adopted the same approach. In spite of global warming and the advantageous microclimate of central London, Bloomsbury is still not quite like that of South Africa. That’s not to say that a taxi was sent round to the Director’s house to roll him out of bed and collect his bed sheets. The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (Kew Gardens to most of us) were planting the display and used the same fleece we should be buying for our Pennsylvania garden.

The idea of the planting at the British Museum, by the way, is to highlight the extraordinary diversity of plant life native to South Africa’s Cape region and to make connections between plants, people and the objects on display in the museum’s Africa galleries. Sounds fascinating. The display opens on Thursday.

Find out more about the South Africa Landscape at the British Museum.

Favourite British graffiti

Give Peas a Chance,graffiti,M25 Driving round the M25 (London’s orbital road) yesterday, on the way home from the Royal Horticultural Society’s Garden at Wisley, and for the first time I came to a stop for moment in a traffic jam – just at the right place to shoot a very quick pic of this wonderful graffiti. If you’re interested, it’s on the railway bridge between junctions 16 and 17 and can be seen as you travel clockwise.

For some time it simply read “PEAS”, the tag of a local graffiti artist, and was then augmented.

For many years another favourite of mine was painted in huge letters on a wall near London’s Kew Gardens – “CATS LIKE PLAIN CRISPS” (Note for North American readers: crisps  = potato chips). Sadly, it’s long gone.

Next time, back to plants.

Online on the road

Sorry, been a bit quiet here recently.

Primula 'Belarina Cream',RHS,London Flower Show,David Kerley. Image: ©GardenPhotos.com. Do not reproduce without permission. We take it for granted that we can get online. But traveling about Britain recently it’s been, well, tricky. Fine at home, DSL line. No problem. Bought a Vodafone wireless dongle so I could get online anywhere over the mobile phone network. Seemed the obvious solution. But.

At Mum’s retirement community in suburban Surrey, on the southern edge of London, the connection is so slow that websites won’t even load and it’s impossible to know if email has gone off or not. This is an area packed full of heavy mobile phone users. Ten miles away, at the RHS Wisley Garden – nothing: no signal at all. Nothing. At the nearby railway station – we’re back to half a bar.

So, I stop at the service station on the motorway. Free wireless internet! Except that after ten minutes they bump you off the website site you’re browsing – or, in my case, the blog post I’m half way through writing – to make you log on again. Bye bye blog post. At the RHS London Flower show the other day, from where I was expecting to post about all the sparkling primroses and snowdrops and hellebores - the Vodafone Helleborus 'Briar Rose',RHS,London Flower Show, Ashwood Nurseries. Image: ©GardenPhotos.com. Do not reproduce without permission. dongle connection is so slow that it’s completely impossible. Ah - but the Horticultural Halls have wireless internet access – it’s £5/$7.60 for one hour! Not a day, an hour. I’m not paying that. The rather resigned man on reception says he’s had lots of complaints. OK, the RHS is hard up – but why price it so that no one in their right mind would ever buy an hour of access.

Vodafone,dongle.3G,useless. Image: ©GardenPhotos.com. Do not reproduce without permission. Vodafone is hoping for an exclusive on the iPad in Britain. My nephew in New York didn’t buy an iPhone because the AT&T service in the city is so terrible. Here’s the thing. If the government nationalized the tower network, or handed it all over to one company, and let all the phone companies use all the towers – then everyone would have access to the best possible connections. The mobile phone companies could then compete on other aspects of their service. And I could post pictures of the hellebores and primroses at the show – from the show. Instead of from back here in Pennsylvania.

Oh, yes - the plants! One of the splendid new British bred  Belarina Series of double primroses, 'Belarina Cream', developed by David Kerley who also created the Tumbelina double petunias. And the 'Briar Rose' hellebore, an unlikely cross between H. niger and H. vesicarius, was created by Kevin Belcher at Ashwood Nurseries.


Plants for cold climates

Snow blower, driveway, winter, gardening in winter. Image ©GardenPhotos.com. Do not reproduce without permission. In a fortuitous conjunction of unrelated events, I’ve been thinking about plants for cold gardens at a time when Britain is “enjoying” snow and frost unseen since 1963 when I remember the River Thames froze over west of London not far from where I lived, where it’s about 325ft/100metres wide.

[Answers.com, by the way, says “Although the Thames may have frozen slightly since 1814, with rising global temperatures, the demolition of London Bridge and the embankment of the river, it is unlikely it ever happened to any great degree and certainly not in the 20/21st centuries.” – Shows what they know, I was there. Idiots.]

Anyway, Britain is grinding to a halt after the sort of snow we get in Pennsylvania every winter. (Unfortunately, that snow blower went bang in a cloud of smoke and blows no more...)  But let’s be fair, the Brits can’t have flotillas of snow plows waiting 45 years to be us, the taxpayers wouldn’t stand for it. But the temperatures at one Scottish weather station have been down to -6F/-22C and more snow is forecast this week. We have freezing rain here in PA and at this desk is a man wondering what will grow in the very coldest parts of the country.

Phlox subulata 'Scarlet Flame', moss phlox, cold hardy, zone 2 . Image ©GardenPhotos.com. Do not reproduce without permission. For recently I’ve been revising one of my books that’s been out of print for a while and been doing some new research on plants that grow in cold gardens. Of course Britain is positively balmy (mostly in zone 8) compared with, say, parts of Canada’s Yukon Territory, Alberta, and Saskatchewan which are in zone 1 where winter temperatures are below -50F/-46° C. The coldest parts of the USA are a little less cold, in zone 2, and include Alaska plus a few mountains in Wyoming and Montana.

So there’s cold – only just below freezing in my home town in Britain this last week – and there’s cold.

So what grows in zone 2?

Well, the United States department of Agriculture suggests these plants – for zone 1: Betula glandulosa  (dwarf birch), 
Empetrum nigrum  (black crowberry), 
Populus tremuloides  (quaking aspen), 
Potentilla pensylvanica  (Pennsylvania cinquefoil), 
Rhododendron lapponicum  (Lapland rhododendron) 
and Salix reticulata  (netleaf willow). Nothing outstandingly flamboyant, there, I have to say.

But step up to zone 2 (-40 to -50F/-46 to 40C)) and the choice is unexpectedly impressive. There’s the short USDA list and there are suggestions on the Ground Effects (wholesale) nursery website and you can search Rare Find Nursery listings by hardiness zone.

It’s interesting to see that different sources don’t necessarily agree but the two standouts for me, plants that would really cheer me up after all those months of snow are lilac and creeping phlox.

Syringa vulgaris 'Firmament' lilac, 'Krasavitsa Moskvy' cold hardy, zone 2 . Image ©Rare Find Nursery. Rare Find suggests most, but not all, of their varieties of the familiar common lilac, Syringa vulgaris, are hardy down to zone 2; Ground Effects suggests that four forms of moss phlox (P. douglasii and P. subulata) are also tough enough for zone 2. The big fat American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants does not agree. What do you think? Any recommendations for plants to take the most ferocious winters?

And finally, I can’t talk about plants for cold climates without recommending Kathy Purdy’s superb Cold Climate Gardening blog.

Rare Find's recommended zone 2 lilacs:  Syringa vulgaris 'Agincourt Beauty', 'Firmament' (above left), 'Frederick Law Olmsted'. 'Krasavitsa Moskvy' (above right) and 'Lucie Baltet' plus the hybrid repeat flowering Josee™ ('MORjos 060F').

Ground Effects (wholesale) nursery recommend Phlox douglasii 'Crackerjack' and 'Rose Cushion', and P. subulata 'Crimson Beauty' and 'White Delight'. Phlox subulata 'Scarlet Flame' (above) is also reckoned to be hardy to zone 2.

Other nurseries also allow you to search their listings by zone.

Lilac pictures courtesy of Rare Find Nursery.


Cost of coffee

Starbucks-logo Back in the Sixties and Seventies there was standard way of comparing the cost of living around the world – you compared the cost of a Mars bar in different countries. Then we moved on and the Big Mac became the standard. Now it’s coffee at Starbucks.

Having recently been on my horticultural travels through airports in three very different countries – London’s Heathrow airport, New York’s Newark (Liberty International airport) and Cork Airport in Ireland – and having bought a Venti Latte from Starbucks in each I thought I’d compare prices – and convert them all to each currency (using the Yahoo currency converter).

London Heathrow     £2.60 = $4.25 = €2.83
New York Newark    £2.62 = $4.28 = €2.85
Cork                       £3.59 = $5.87 = €3.90

Well, the landscape in Ireland may be beautiful, the people welcoming and music great – but the coffee (and the cost of living generally) is high.

Next time - back to plants!


Our earliest snow storm - ever

October snow on a Japanese maple in full fall color. Image:©GardenPhotos.com Well, one minute I’m looking over the dazzling dahlias in our garden in England, admiring how long the impatiens are flowering in the local gardens and soaking up the autumn sunshine – then two days later here in Pennsylvania it’s snowing. Our earliest snow storm ever, I’m told.

With dark clouds overhead, the fiery maples in full fall color are weighted down with soggy snow and our impatiens look distinctly sad. What’s more, a tree growing near the transmitter that broadcasts WJFF, our local public radio station, has crashed to the ground, bringing the electricity cable with it – so the station is off the air. And that’s our only source of really local weather forecasts.

However, I have to say, that brilliant fall colour looks wonderful laden with clean white snow although the breeze is loosening it now. And no trees or power lines are down here yet. Just as well as we have a house full for the weekend, family and friends here for our local Black Bear Film Festival.

Listening to the radio online the news is: more snow on the way. It’ll be good to be tucked up in the movie theatre.

Ireland: Joy Larkcom’s garden

Apple Alley in Joy Larkcom's garden. Image:©GardenPhotos.com

When we last visited Joy Larkcom’s garden in County Cork, she and husband Don were just starting to work on turning the horse pasture behind their little farmhouse into a productive garden. The transformation is amazing.

The stout windbreak was the first thing to go in, they were just starting to plant their fruit… Now the windbreak is mature and doing a vital job in protecting the garden from strong salty winds, the raspberries and other fruits are cropping heavily and apple alley, with a large range of different apple varieties - including a ‘Blenheim Orange’ with fruits the size of footballs – is thriving. The seaweed mulch certainly helps.

Raised beds are producing melons and sweet corn and beans and salad leaves, the pears on the wall look scrumptious – everywhere you look there’s something edible either finishing cropping, coming up to its best, or working its way up to cropping later. It’s that continuity of cropping which marks out the best vegetable gardens, and it’s not just Joy who can manage this. Check out Joy’s Grow Your Own Vegetables for detailed advice, it’s her best seller both on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.

A patch of attractive salads in Joy Larkcom's garden. Image:©GardenPhotos.com

There are little patches of cut-and-come again salads in a number of little spaces while in the greenhouse the tomatoes are juicy, and Joy and Don finally came to an uneasy agreement about which of the heirloom aubergines (egg plant) Don could have for the kitchen and which Joy could keep for seed! The one Don was allowed went into his lovely pollock dish – pollock he’d caught himself.

From the golden raspberries on the morning muesli to tomatoes in every shape and colour for the lunchtime salad to the beans and chard for supper – why go to the supermarket to buy food when you can grow it yourself? You don’t need the space that Joy and Don have, you can produce food all the year round in a very small space. The fact that so many people, many new to gardening, are doing exactly that is one of the achievements of Joy’s many years championing organic vegetable growing.

Ireland: Collecting Seaweed with Joy Larkcom

Gathering seaweed in Cork with Joy Larkcom and Don Pollard

We’re spending a few days with Joy Larkcom, the long reigning Queen of organic gardening. (She’ll hate me for writing that!). Here in west Cork, in Ireland, she and her husband Don have created their second organic food garden (the previous one was back in England, in Norfolk) and one of the reasons for the generous crops of delicious produce – is seaweed. So yesterday we went to collect some.

It's washed up on a little sandy beach not far away, sometimes in great mounds up to (6ft/1.8m) high, so we headed off with a trailer hitched behind the car to collect it. Joy reckons there’s at least twenty different species of seaweed washed up on the beach and they all go into the plastic sacks for loading into the trailer.

“It seems to be really nutritious for plants as it absorbs so many minor elements from the sea water,” Joy explained. “It’s brilliant for mulching but you need to have it very thick, about 6in/15cm; the colours are glorious when you first spread it.”

Higher up the beach we also found a few plants of wild sea kale, Crambe maritima, a classic but uncommon plant of these shores which grows in sand and shingle just above the high tide line. They were looking a bit ragged at this late stage of the season but were also being invaded by wild brambles (blackberries) so we spent a few minutes carefully loosening the soil and removing the brambles without disturbing the sea kale.

Don Pollard spreading seaweed mulch on cordon gooseberries

Out in the garden the seaweed goes on the fruit bushes and flower borders (not just veggies, plenty of flowers here too) and even on the greenhouse borders. “It has a lovely sea smell,” says Joy, “and after we’ve spread it in the greenhouse I really like to take a nap in there and smell the ocean!”

Of course seaweed comes mixed with a little sand, no bad thing on heavy soil. In some parts of the west of Ireland, over the decades, soil has been created almost entirely from seaweed, potato tops and animal manure. Just imagine what wonderful crops that grows!

Don't for get to check out Joy's many superb books published in North America and published in Britain.

Trials judging postponed by snow

Royal Horticultural Society judges were due to assess the winter foliage of the bergenias in the trial at the Society's garden at Wisley near London today. No such luck - can't do much judging when the plants are completely covered in snow!!

Bergenia-Trial-3-Feb-09-1-500  

In January, some plants in the Cortaderia trial were also still looking good, with their fluffy plumes still intact. Not today.

Cortaderia-Trial-3-Feb-09-3-600 

I don't think the judges were expecting to be assessing the Kniphofia (red hot poker) trial today - but it will be interesting to see if the results of the cold weather and unexpected snow covering.

Kniphofia-Trial-3-Feb-09-3-600 

Thank you to Ali Cundy of the RHS Trials Office at Wisley for these great pictures.


Snowdrops? Or just snow?

Snowdrops at Dawyck garden Over in Scotland, their Snowdrop Festival gets under way today. All over the country gardens are opening to show off their sheets of naturalised snowdrops or their collections of special forms of which, of course, there are hundreds. There’s even a conference on snowdrops at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. The picture of the snowdrops at the gardens at Dawyck, the satellite garden of Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh shows just a part of the spectacle.

Ice formation by the Delaware River. Image: ©Graham Rice/GardenPhotos.com. Things are different here in Pennsylvania. [Yes, it’s time for the traditional “compare the winter weather” post.) My snowdrop collection hasn't even peeped through the soil - it's still under more than a foot of snow and probably will be till March. Not much to see. For while, as I write, it’s 39F/4C at Dawyck near Peebles in the Scottish borders, here in Pennsylvania it’s 9F/-12C. And a couple of weeks ago it was down to -11F/-24C. Not particularly good gardening weather.

But there are compensations – like this lovely ice formation I found on rocks by the Delaware River as I drove to the radio station the other day.

There follows, in particular for British readers, some pictures of winter over here. Click on each for a larger version.  You have snowdrops – at the moment we just have snow.Snow in Oswego, New York      Log Tavern Lake in the snow. Image: ©Graham Rice/GardenPhotos.com.Snow blowing in Pennsylvania. Image: ©Graham Rice/GardenPhotos.com.