Improvements to both front garden and roof terrace have been much delayed due to work on the house interior but I have plans, small plans… which I shall share once I am back up and running.

Andy Sturgeon's Great Ormond Street Hospital roof garden

I’ll be making a bee-line for Andy Sturgeon’s roof top garden at Great Ormond Street Hospital. It was created for staff to relax in and to provide a calm contemplative space away from the business of the hopsital itself. It’s also a memorial for the two staff who sadly lost their lives in the July 05 attacks.

It’s rather monumental as roof terraces go, measuring 40 x 12 m, with 33 tonnes of soil and 16 large Carpinus trees. Four years in the making, its now open all year round to some very appreciative staff until 10 pm at night, complete with an automated lighting system.

To see all the gardens taking part register online for the Great London Garden Trail at:

www.dorlingkindersley-uk.co.uk/static/html/features/gardentrail2010/index.html

Well, its not the same really. The clinical clicking of a mouse can’t really compare with the joy of finding a little wizened plant lurking under a pile of Britney Spears Worstest Hits cds .. BUT wait a moment!  Look at this for a bargain!

www.woolworths.co.uk/herbaceous-perennial-garden—47-plants/702537471.prd?browseToken=%2fb%2f13200%2fs%2fmostrelevant%2c1%2fo%2f17&trail=13152-13200&prdToken=/p/prod2810438-sku4031479

It looks like an explosion in paint factory and I love the badly photoshopped image! Have they got a one eyed baboon working for them in the art department? But you know, it’s almost worth it for the sheer challenge of recreating that packaging in your own garden! And its only £1.62 a plant. Go on, someone, please humour me and buy it!

For those of you whose gardens look like this or who bought the item already, I apologise. Sort of.

Bleeding hearts

There’s something  a little rude looking about these flowers, I don’t know what it is. Perhaps its just me

Anyhoo, they are blooming in my garden at the moment and look perfect and beautiful, like so many delicate ballerinas on tippy toes along the stems. The variety in my garden is Dicentra spectabilis and its bigger than ever this year. Other more interesting names are Dutchman’s trousers, Venus’s car and, more obviously, Bleeding hearts.

Colours range from the deep red of  ‘Bacchanal’ to ‘King of Hearts’ with its bluey green feathery leaves and pink flowers to the pure white form D. spectabilis ‘Alba’ . There is also the yellow climbing variety which is rather unusual – D. scandens. People often use them as a part of a woodland planting scheme and grow them in shade but they are also quite happy in a sunny sheltered spot so long as the soil is kept moist.

I got mine from Woolworths (god rest its soul, I loved its gardening section, it always had something in its bargain bucket and I was always a sucker for a slightly sad looking plant in need of a good home but I digress) where I discovered it as a small rootlelette. I think I made that word up…

If you’re providing water you need to put it in a shallow cat proof container,   away from dense bushes where cats can ambush from,  preferably manufacturered from natural looking products (bright colours scare them),  with either boiled water or water without harmful chemicals in. The container should be cleaned every few weeks to prevent disease.  If you can site it in a shady position this helps to stop the water drying up. Also a rough bottom is good for giving them something to grip on to, so either fill with pebbles or grit whilst still allowing enought depth for them to bathe.

London sparrer

I have the straight Bergenia cordifolia variety in my current garden. I divided plants from the front garden and have now used them to soften the edge of a path and steps in the back.

Bergenia Bressingham White

This is one of my favourites;  I love the whiteness of  the flower in spring.

Plant through with spring bulbs such as snowdrops, wood anemones, snakeshead fritillaries and daffodils. A little later in the year sweet woodruff and tulips. If in the shade combine them with ferns (Polystichum setiferum) and bleeding hearts(Dicentra spectabilis) to soften the leathery leaves.

Suppliers: Beth Chatto Gardens has a good supply of hybrids and some species.

Only in London

I passed this somewhat sad planter yesterday in South London, with its terse and slightly weary message. Had the container been planted up more ambitiously so that it overflowed abundantly with verdant shrubs and herbaceous perennials then there wouldn’t be room for any rubbish. However, this is London and perhaps I should be awarding the aspiring gardener points for at least trying and further points for actually giving a damn…

Plantlock

I should add that the above planter is also a bike lock… comme ça!

Here it has been planted up rather nicely. So Mr. Bike Shop Owner in Stockwell take note! We salute your efforts in the face of adversity but could do better!

Studies of a Plant Lover 1921 Edition

I found this book in a small second book shop in Wales last summer but have only recently sat down to look at it. It was written by Elizabeth William Perry, who was not a botanist as such but as the title says was a lover of plants. She was also a foreteller of things to come – in her introduction in the 1900s she writes:

“Since they  [wild flowers] have come to have a commercial value, it is not difficult to see the time when many of the most attractive will have disappeared entirely from our woods and swamps; the restoration of our denuded forest areas will then be of more easy accomplishment than to set again the Trailing Arbutus, the Orchid and the Gentian in their place.”

She started the book in her late 70s, finishing it in her 82nd year. It was obviously a labour of love, each plant being described with botanical care    but also with a self indulgent flourish.

Cnicus lanceolatum - Common Thistle

It was actually the sketches which initially caught my eye. Done in bold black and white with a distinctive style which captures the plant but like the description doesn’t bow wholly to science.

Camellias come in a variety of forms. This is a semi-double form - with cup shaped flowers, arranged in two or more rows of 9- 21 petals. The yellow stamens are conspicuous.

The Camellia in my front garden is absolutely dripping with flowers this year. There was just one solitary bud opening last week and then suddenly the whole plant was a mass of sugar mouse pink. I’m not too sure of the cultivar but it’s definitely a Camellia x williamsii of some sort. For me, seeing it flower always signals the start of spring.

Camellias are native to India, China and Japan. They come in red, pink, white and yellow as well as variegated flowers. The dark glossy leaves are evergreen. The fruit of the camellia present in the japonica forms and in C. oliefera, is a large round woody capsule. Once ripe this capsule splits and inside are five chambers, each containing an oil rich seed.

This so called tea seed oil has many uses, one of which is to oil the hair of sumo wrestlers in Japan, as well as the hair of Japanese ladies. It’s also the main cooking oil in the Hunan province of China and has a higher percentage of mono unsaturated fats than even olive oil.

Camellia sinensis or Tea, Sri Lanka

More camellias. These are Camellia sinensis or tea bushes. I saw these growing in Sri Lanka in the Hill Country and here are two ladies picking the tea buds and young leaves, a la the PG Tips boxes. Black tea, white tea, green tea and oolong tea are harvested from this plant. It is the processing which gives the  teas their differing levels of oxidation.  Sri Lanka’s production of Ceylon tea makes it the fourth largest tea producing country globally after China, India and Kenya, although the farmer I spoke to said they were the biggest!

Interestingly, the word for tea is almost identical in at least forty countries. It is also the most drunk beverage, after water. Cuppa anyone?

For beautiful camellias visit http://www.trehanenursery.co.uk/index.php

Der little boids is on der wing,
Ain’t dat absoid?
Der little wings is on de boid!

Anon