WTF and the smallest forest garden in the land!

So the last year or so has been quite amazing. First the lovely Kristi talked me into starting The Physic Garden. Then I joined Twitter and started to talk to the very wonderful @EmmmaB of Bath Garden Design fame, who I have subsequently met several times and has become a true friend.
Between us we have decided that there appear to be an awful lot of folk about who take gardening so seriously that they seem to have forgotten to enjoy it. Its ok to be serious about plants and about good design, but life is short enough and along side that seriousness we would like to see people having some fun. So we have decided to do something about all this but starting the WTF Gardening blog and Twitter page with the idea that if people are having problems, want help or information, they can tweet us and we will blog the answer. Eventually the blog will end up being a sensible yet fun and down to earth guide to how to garden, along with some things that will make you(hopefully)laugh!!
 The blog can be found at thewtfofgardening.wordpress.com and we will tweet all new posts. I really hope you look forward to reading it and that it makes you laugh. Our theory is that gardening should make you smile all year round.

For Christmas I received Martin Crawfords book on creating a forest garden. This is something that makes me smile and so I thought, seeing as how The Physic Garden is concentrating on growing perennial veg and herbs and fruit, that it was really time for me to overhaul the garden. Now my garden is tiny- literally 3m by 3m, and I have had to remove a whole load of stuff, and in doing so accidentally removed half a wall, and there is still more removal to go, but I have worked out that in that space I can get at least 4 espaliers, some step-overs and some dwarf fruit as well as loads of herbs and some vegetables. But watch this space as I shall blog about it regularly(!). The above photo of an espalier was taken at Rousham last summer, a garden which I could, and probably will, go on about at length. However that is for another time.
And while were talking about WTF, why are there daffodils flowering in my garden already. Lord help us if we have a bad frost!!

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The Chelsea Chop

So. as those of you who follow me on Twitter will already know, I had some slight issues with the way the concept of the Chelsea chop was explained on Gardeners World on Friday 8th June. 140 characters is just not enough to explain why so I have decided to blog on the matter as I have had enough of people being given incorrect information. The comment that set me off was that the Chelsea chop was to be performed in the weeks following Chelsea Flower Show. this is just not true as the concept is that Chelsea Flower Show is the reminder that the chop needs to be performed forthwith, and with good reason which I will come to.

 So what is the Chelsea Chop? Well as we all know, summer flowering herbaceous perennials such as Heleniums, Lysmachia, Sedums and countless more, like to grow upwards really fast as the daylight hours lengthen, and can very easily get to the point where they are getting unruly and falling over, even before they have flowered. So the idea of the chop is that the plants get cut back, whilst the daylight hours are still lengthening, in order that they dont collapse, but also, and far more importantly, so that they plant breaks from buds under the site of the pruning and becomes a bushier and therefore easier to control specimen. Many people like to perform this in mid-May and put any staking into the ground that they are going to use at the same time. The important thing to remember is that this can actually be done a number of times. Take, for example, a Verbena bonariensis that you have lovingly raised from a seed. It will want to grow upwards as a single stem. However, this is no good to anyone as no sooner that it gets wobbled by the wind it will be over on its side and it also will just be a single stem with a flower on top. So. once the seedling has three or four sets of true leaves, cut it back above its second set of leaves and the buds there will then move into action and break so that it has two stems. Do this again and again as the plant grows and you will end up ith a beautiful, multi-branched plant that is not so tall it needs its own scaffolding system to keep it upright and which will produce multiple heads of flowers. Each time you cut for cut flowers in the house it will break again and become a better and better plant. As growers we do this with all herbaceous stock in order to produce quality plants.

 Earlier in this tome I mentioned the importance of daylight hours and I shall now explain why. The "thing"with plants is that they are far more aware of the seasons than we are. In order to get all plants growing at their optimum daylight hours need to be long, so your herbaceous border knows that even though it might be a nasty wet day that it is still the beginning of June due to the fact that its light for a long time. Its at this time of year that plants put on leaf, grow upwards and in summer flowering perennials in particular, get themselves to the point where they will begin to think about flowering. Timing your chop is vital as the plant will sulk for a week or two afterwards and you need it to get going again before the summer equinox at the end of June when the daylight hours decrease and the plants realise they need to flower and set seed. Therefore, in the UK, a month before this date is Chelsea week, and hence it is a good reminder that actually it is really last chance time. Obviously, if you have plants that have fallen after this date then cut them back as it will do no harm to the plant, but you may forgo many flowers that season.

 Also commented on was the idea that one plant can be cut back to different levels for flowers in succession, rather than all at once. This is a great idea but I must offer one word of advice. Once the plant has flowered once, if you let it set seed it will be very slow to flower again and you will be disappointed by the second and third flushes. This is easily overcome by making sure that you deadhead the plant before it sets seed as this will fool it into thinking that it hasnt flowered and off it will go again. Finally please always make sure you prune plants back to a bud. Plant stems at the tips have growing hormones in them and you need to cut back quite close to the bud to push those hormones back into the buds rather than let them continue up the stem. Also if the stem is left too long you run the risk of bacterial or fungal infection getting into it and the plant dying or suffering due to that. Also always ensure that the prunings are removed and composted and not left in the plant. And be quite mean and tough, cutting back by at least half if you are only going to do it once. The plants and your garden will thank you for it.

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Transcript of Bowood Talk!!

This is a direct transcript of the talk I gave at Toby Bucklands Garden Festival at Bowood House on Friday 5th June!!

Bowood Garden Festival -Food Security, Sustainability and the Value of Urban and Allotment Soils

We live in a pretty scary world.

We live in a world where our food supply relies on finite resources from the point of sowing through to harvest and then distribution until it’s final delivery into stores.

This summer we were threatened with food shortages not because of scarcity of seed or freak weather, but because there was concern that we didn’t have sufficient HGV drivers for the distribution systems to keep up with demand.

We live in a world where if a child is asked where an apple comes from the answer is as likely to be Tesco as a tree and when you ask the child who answers with Tesco but where did it come from before then the answer could be, and has been, a lorry. Where children look at you incredulously when you ask where meat comes from as the connection between livestock and food is, in some cases, completely lost.

In 1996 The World Food Summit defined food security as existing ….

“When all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food, to maintain a healthy and active life.”

And yet even in the UK  we have people going hungry, relying on food banks whilst on the other hand we throw away a third of the food we produce before it even gets to a store, and often simply because it has been labelled incorrectly, or it has been deemed ugly or unfit for purpose.

In the UK we have used the same 38% of land since the I industrial revolution to grow our food on. Our population has grown tenfold in that time and the only way we have managed to grow such increased yields on that same amount of land is by relying on the petrochemical industry to provide inorganic fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides whilst paying little or no attention to the health and well being of the soils on which they are relying for their crops. it is interesting to note in that time space too we have almost used up the finite resources that it took the earth 200million years to make. A frightening statistic if ever there was one.

In fact in 2014 the University of Sheffield published research that shows that there are only 100 harvests left in some of the soils we rely on to produce our food. Following this the Soil Association have recently published a report that says that we are globally losing 30 football pitches of fertile soil every minute.

So how do we address this? 2015 is International Year of Soils and surely we are addressing this as a nation as a priority……. How do we ensure that we have accessibility to fresh, healthy and sustainably produced food heading into a future where we know that oil is no longer finite resource and that our soils are slowly dying. And what of this word sustainable? What does that really mean, loved and overused as it is by corporations worldwide. What is sustainable food?

If you go home and Google Sustainable Food the sites that come up at the top of the page are all from Syngenta, Monsanto and Bayer, those huge petro chemical companies that agriculture has come to rely on. But truly sustainable food is food that allows us to be food secure.

Sutainable food is accessible.

It is food that is nutritious.

It’s food that keeps us healthy in body and mind.

And it is food that is grown in a way that cares for the world in which it is grown through good methods of agriculture that insist on earth care alongside food growing.

Moving forwards, in a world where the finite resources we have come to rely on are going to become less accessible and more expensive this means relying on local food where possible and supporting local growers. 

And allotments have a vital place in this.

iN 1943 there were nearly one and a half million allotments in the UK and those plots provided 10% of food needed to keep the nation fed, albeit in the difficult circumstances of WW2. Today, according to thE national Society of Allotment Holders and Leisure Growers we have around 330,000 plots, with waiting lists of 93,000. Much of the historic allotment land has been sold off for development but much of it is still there, unused, by the side of railways, being grazed by ponies or simply just sitting there, waiting.

A report was published in 2014 by the University of Sheffield proving that allotment land is significantly healthier than our traditional agricultural soils. In Leicester soil samples were taken from 27 plots across 15 sites in the city, alongside soils from parks, gardens and agricultural land in the area.Amongst the properties tested were carbon levels, nitrogen levels and the ration between carbon and nitrogen which are all signals to show the amount and the quality of organic matter in the soil. The results were quite remarkable.

Compared with the local arable soil the allotment soils has 32% more organic carbon, 36% higher carbon to nitrogen ratios and were significantly less compacted. 

All of this was put down to allotment holders using sustainable soil management techniques, with 95% of the allotment holders composting waste matter created from their plots in order to feed their soils. 

As allotment holders we understand the importance of feeding our soils and the healthy glow it gives us as we barrow around a couple of tons of rotted manure each winter.

We also understand the need to look after pollinators.

To cover the soil with green manures when they lie fallow to stop those pesky weeds using all the nutrition we have worked so hard to fill our plots with.

On our urban plots, across our cities nationwide, farmers regularly bring large deliveries of their waste into the city to feed our soils from the peri-urban surroundings of the city.

So to increase food sustainability and security should we be looking to using those urban soils that traditionally have been used by allotment holders? Should we encourage allotment holders to grow more? Or should we increase the amount of food grown in our cities by allowing local small producers to access allotment land that isn’t being used for whatever reasons. 

We certainly ought to be encouraging allotment use as well as community food growing projects in our urban and peri urban areas, reuniting people with lost skills, skills that could be far more important heading into the future but which are being lost as our connection to food is lost.

But we also should be safeguarding this land. With the majority of Grade 1 soils being in areas that are floodplains these soils may become what is needed to feed us and yet as it stands, road and house building always seems to be more important than food growing land, often with cities making little effort to find alternatives to putting these high grade soil assets under tarmac, losing them forever. Only a change in policy to protect these soils will change this and this is vital if all the allotment sites under threat across the UK are anything to go by. These pockets of valuable land, our heritage and part of what could be the story of creating a sustainable and secure food system need to be shouted about and change demanded.

To quote Nigel Dunnett, Professor of Planting Design and Vegetation Technology at the University of Sheffield, 

“We need to dramatically rethink our approach to urban growing and use the little space we have as efficiently as possible. Cities must become places of food production”

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Snowdrops at The Chelsea Physic Garden and an engagement too!!

So this week has been just a little stressful! Firstly I have more seedlings around the house than anyone would think possible and its taking me about an hour a day to keep them all well and watered, on top of a full days work, looking after family and home and keeping the secret of the year from Kristi!
So the secret. About 3 weeks ago her boyfriend, Bruce. contacted me asking me to book her Monday 14th off as he was going to take her on a long weekend city break to Brussels and propose. Oh and could I find out her ring size!!So by the end of last week I was bursting to tell her and she knew something was going on and so kept probing-I am very impressed that the cat stayed in the bag. Anyway, I can announce that all has gone well and they will return on Monday betrothed!!!!!!
So yesterday, whilst on tenterhooks about the outcome, although I was quite sure it would be positive, I took myself off to The Chelsea Physic Garden to see the snowdrops and winter gardens. It always feels magical to go through the gate in the wall and find such a beautiful, well kept garden in the middle of Chelsea and yesterday was extra special as the sun came out as I arrived and all the colours of the winter flowers shone. Although the snowdrops were stunning my absolute favourite was the winter aconites in the woodland area next to the monocot beds, each of which looked like a little orb of sunlight. It was also lovely to see the beautiful trees in their naked state as they are such amazing shapes and even with no leaf offer a wonderful structure to the garden. It was a lovely afternoon and a place I would heartily recommend to anyone.
This week I have been reading Deni Moores Herbal, a fantastic dictionary type book about herbs and their uses, medicinal, culinary, cultural etc and their places in history. Its a great read for anyone interested in herbs and I am sure is going to influence our range at The Physic Garden.
So with that in mind today I have pottd on I know not how many Salvias and sown Nicandra, teasels,more chillies more Salvia(this time transylvatica) as well as some Coleus which I like as summer bedding. And have cleaned out and sorted my greenhouse and done some work in the garden.
And next week-well hopefully we will fill Kristis new greenhouse with plants and seedlings so we can sow more next weekend!! Busy,busy,busy.....

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British Flowers The Chelsea 2015 Edition Part 2

"Seasonality. 

Its a word we know, and most of us understand but in a world where we can pretty much get anything at any time if the year, its hard to remember that the vast majority of things that are grown, are only available for a limited time in the year. Its somewhat bizarre that strawberries can be bought at Christmas and asparagus at any other time than mid May to June is little short of sacrilege, and yet they are both pretty much available all year round. 

But if youve eaten strawberries at Christmas, youll know they pale into nothingness in comparison to the deep sunfilled sweetness of a strawberry picked and eaten in mid summer. They lack taste, fragrance and their texture is usually too hard or too soft but theyre strawberries out of season and so they are bought,with little thought of how they arrived or from where.

So what does this have to do with flowers or RHS Chelsea? 

Well every year the floral marquee at RHS Chelsea is filled with the most spectacular displays from our amazing nurseries and growers from all across the UK. There are everything from stunning narcissi, to tulips and hyacinths and alliums-all plants and flowers you would expect to see within a six week window at either end of the show week. There is always a strawberry display that you can smell long before you can see it. The bulb companies show off their spring and early summer flowerers whilst the larger nurseries show what they have new for the year ahead. Its an amazing, inspiring, fragrant pavilion that you know youre entering by the fanfare of scents and colours that meet you as you enter, and I for one have been rendered speechless by the beauty of the exhibits on more than one occasion. It can be emotional, particularly when you understand the pressure these growers put onto themselves to produce the perfect bloom, the perfect plant. 

At a nursery I formerly worked at we called it the Chelsea dance. Plants being taken from sun, to shade, from heat to cool and back again, often all in the space of a day,to ensure they were in perfect condition for the day they finally went to the show ground. Working 18-20 hour days in the run up to the show is normal and a culmination of months of preparation and specialist growing. As a grower its exciting and challenging and although the pressure was huge, and everyone says thats my last year, never again, if Im honest I miss it. 

The RHS proudly announced last year that 95% of the Chelsea Floral Marquee was British grown. The pedants among us might have said why not 100% but there are a few stands where clearly there are going to be some foreign grown plants, such as the quite incredible South African and Carribean stands that are so inspirational and educational. 

So with all this being really at the heart of what the Floral Marquee is about, beautifully, mainly seasonal, British produced plants that speak of our horticultural heritage, you would hope that the foral displays produced by Interflora who are bringing us a stand that by design is about the Britishness of garden parties, drinking tea and presumably being surrounded by quintessentially British gardens, would want to support the British flower industry as it rises like a Phoenix from its own ashes, reinventing itself all across the country, and bringing us those perfect early summer blooms. Sweet Williams, one of the British flower growers staples, beautiful scented pinks, Larkspur, Ammi, Geums, Sweet Peas......the list goes on, are all available here and now. 

But instead they chose to try to source Paeonias, Roses, Stocks and Allium Gadiator from UK growers whilst sourcing what else was needed from Holland, but failed to check these would be available or, and more importantly, order the plants with plenty of warning so that the Chelsea Dance could begin. The reality of the stand is that less than 20% was ever going to be British grown and today I estimate that it is far, far less than that. If Marks and Spencer could see that they would need to work with UK growers last year so that their paeonias were ready in time for the show, how on earth did Interflora not look to do the same?  To check that there was a large scale producer of English roses as cut blooms might have been wise, not to mention ensuring that the required Allium variety was grown commercially, and its horrifying to be in the knowledge that this was never done. No Chelsea gardens planting is set in stone until the day it is finished for this reason precisely and to take into account that things go wrong, so why would the designers involved with the Interflora stand not have used that thinking as they were designing? 

And sadly the answer is a lack of understanding or care for seasonality. An expectation that they can have what they want, when they want it, regardless of the cost to the environment or the industry which they are snubbing. Hinting that they felt let down by the UK industry when they actually hadnt even engaged with them, but just gone through a wholesaler, is far from being acceptable but the saddest part is their lack of understanding of the business in which they are set and its dependence on the seasons and the way it regularly reinvents itself when needed due to the vagaries of the British weather and the pressures of the market. And so they will present a stand tomorrow with un scented Carnations from South Anerica whilst next to them are Whetmans Pinks with their stunning display that not only looks like English summer but smells of it too, bringing true seasonality and excellent nurserymanship to the Floral Marquee.

Our British flower industry is blooming, but it needs support from the people who are at the centre of the flower industry as well as from us all. Yes British grown flowers tend to be dearer but they are also beautifully grown by people who are passionate about what they do and long for the recognition they deserve. Often they are grown in places where the environment is being nurtured as closely as the flowers, free of chemicals and by growers who understand the importance of keeping our soils healthy and full of life. These people dont see growing as a job but a lifestyle choice, a way of supporting themselves as they support the land. Going into an uncertain future would you rather spend a fiver on a bunch of garish flowers from the supermarket that are chemically treated and have travelled thousands of air miles or save that money for a monthly treat from a grower at your local farmers market or an online florist? And having read this morning that the huge Dutch greenhouses produce blooms that have a higher carbon footprint than flowers imported from Kenya, can anyone happily buy these chemically produced blooms? 

Interflora could be at the forefront of showing how flowers can be bought seasonally and still be beautiful and bespoke. Théy could encourage their franchisees to buy British blooms where possible and to highlight them as a premium range where possible. Théy could be producing seasonal bouquets of British flowers , encouraging florists to become engaged with the industry that so many assume are behind them, whilst demanding that the Dutch lower that carbon footprint. They could be running a range of organically grown blooms and highlighting the reasons why they are a premium range. And for certain they should be saying to anyone who buys from them that sometimes substitutions need to be made because to guarantee a rose in February really in the UK. Is like guaranteeing strawberries at Christmas-a sad lack of understanding of seasonality and proof that we think if we want something we should be able to have it whatever the cost. 

Part 3 will follow.........

Proof British flowers are available all year-these received from Common Farm Flowers in January!! 

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British Flowers The Chelsea 2015 Edition

After the Valentines Bouquet 2015 fiaso which you can read about here, I was slightly surprised to see a Tweet earlier in the year frrom Interflora saying that their Chelsea 2015 stand would be all about celebrating Bristish flowers and I immediately sent them a message asking someone to contact me. I received an email from a Brand Manager introducing herself and saying how pleased she would be to show me around the stand. I replied, sending the article I wrote, and said, in essence, dont do this half heartedly and dont let the growers of the UK down.

So imagine my surprise to hear from Gill Hodgson of Flowers From The Farm that she had been informed there were Dutch bought flowers being put into the stand. I emailed everyone I could think to email at Interflora and got a message this morning from their Marketing Director that she was happy to speak. And here is the run down of the conversation.....

It seems the decision to go British was to link in with the RHS who at one point wanted a British theme to the Floral Marquee this year. But then the RHS changed their brief, Interflora realised they didnt really need to go the whole hog to use British flowers but just didnt bother to say they werent going to. And my guess is they think they would have gotten away with it if it werent for the beady eyes of those there!!

However, shocking and appalling as that is, its the next bit that really got to me. This Director seemed quite adamant that the UK flower industry was not able to fulfil what she wanted for the stand. I asked which growers she had spoken to and it quickly became apparent that there had been one conversation with one wholesaler, and nothing else and that the flowers had been ordered only in the last few weeks, not months in advance as they ought to have been.  Having spoken with Gill this morning, we now know that many if the required blooms are available, and that growers across the country have a huge array of other blooms ready and waiting.  When this was questioned she asked me how I would feel if I were a bride and the flowers I had been promised or requested werent available, to which I naturally replied I would trust my British florist to know what would be available and expect there to be substitutions due to our climate if and when necessary. But apparently this is not how Interflora work, which is no surprise in reality, but just very disappointing that they have leant nothing from the previous furore. No understanding of seasonality, or that dreaded word sustainable, and I doubt any thoughts for air miles or chemical footprints. 

Interflora had asked me to write an article for their in house magazine, Mercury, and the original idea would be that off the back of the Chelsea stand I would explain to their florists why they should buy British where possible. But considering this exchange, their corporate stand that if they want it they shall have it and their total lack of real engagement with the amazing British growers across the country who are continuing the amazing fight to keep our cut flower business growing, Im not going to write that article. 

Instead Im going to repledge my allegiance to the British flower farmers, growers and the florists who fight for them by using their blooms. And Im going to ask you to do the same. If youre visiting Chelsea buy a British buttonhole to wear to the show. Ask the florists which blooms are British. Ask why they are not all and what Interflora are doing to support our blooming industry. And away from the show ground? Support them with your hard earned pound. Talk about them. Tell your friends and families about the way flowers are produced in South America and Africa and ask them to see flowers as a luxury item that you cant buy for a fiver with your weekly shop.

I guess what we take from this is that the fight must continue and it strikes me that whilst Chelsea is bringing horticulture to the fore in the next few days, we must shout loudly and be heard. Use social media, tweet @interflora, comment on their Facebook and join in with the #grownnotflown hashtag on both Twitter and Instagram!! Lets get this out there whilst we can. The British Flower Industry has resurrected itself, lets make sure its success continues.

British narcissi snapped at Common Farm Flowers! Beautiful, scented and UK grown.

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