Godophin, ghosts of formality

Godolphin House in Cornwall, is a relatively recent National Trust acquisition. A great house until the 17th century when the money began to run out, it never got ‘modernized’ by Capability Brown or his cohorts, so retains old formal features. Previous owners popped in the old rose bush and tree peony but little else, or at least not much else has survived a period of neglect. The primroses have gone mad as they do in Cornwall, self-seeding everywhere, loving the wet, the mild winters............ Read on..........

Rounding up the evidence, and perhaps organic growers should stop poisoning their workers

The days of trying to solve all garden problems with a quick chemical blast are, thank goodness, long since gone. However there are still occasions when something in a bottle can make a huge amount of difference. Which is why I wrote a 'Talking Point' in Gardens Illustrated magazine on the use of Roundup^TMa while ago. Only one letter of objection to the magazine so far. Whew!

 

Here I'd like to revisit the issue, and pull a few skeletons out of the cupboard. To recap – Roundup is an enormous help in weed control in a new garden, especially one in a climate which favours the growth of a limited number of aggressive weedy species, and in dealing with invasive aliens, like Japanese knotweed. Conservation organisations have long recognized its value in vegetation management, and without it the battle against invasive species would be, quite honestly, hopeless.

We live in a world saturated with toxins. Overwhelmingly natural ones, but a poison is a poison is a poison. Plants, including the veg we eat, produce a formidable array of toxins to dissuade animals from eating them. Certain preparation techniques enhances the impact – a cup of coffee apparently contains more carcinogens than an annual average intake of pesticide residues (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9677052).

On the subject of bad stuff, I think we need a bit more honesty about the chemicals used by organic producers. I have heard it said that the most frequent source of chemical injury suffered by US farmworkers (many illegal migrants from Latin America) is sulphur, used as a fungicide by organic growers. I couldn't find a recent reference but here is one for a 2001 study which gives some indication of the problem a few years ago: (www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/ohsep/.../migrantfarmworkers.pdf), and oil and sulphur (both ok by US organic standards) are the most widely used (Roundup is no.8). Regulation of dangerous chemicals used by organic producers is much lower than for conventional. Statistics on use are less well kept too.

How do we find sound information on garden and agricultural chemicals? It is actually quite difficult. Scientific papers are hard to follow without specialist knowledge and often do not give any kind of clear result. The use of technical language can also be misinterpreted; the word 'acute' for example means something quite different to its everyday use. There is ample scope for those with an entrenched, ideological, position to misinterprete the language of these scientific papers. On the subject of Roundup/Glyphosate, I do try to keep up with research, and i have not seen anything seriously untoward about it; and it has been quite intensively studied.

The one place not to look for objective information is anything published by the organic movement or environmentalist campaigning groups. It is obvious that the former have a vested interest in scaring us; this is business after all and they want to increase their market share (currently declining here in the UK); and it is a sad fact for those of who care about environmental issues that many campaigning organizations have a history of putting the campaign first and objectivity and accuracy last – the myth of the 'terminator GM gene' being a good example. At the end of the day, regulation is science-led; newspaper and campaign group literature very often isn't. 

 

As a final shot, here's a very good, and balanced, non-rhetorical sceptical piece on organic farming from Scientific American.

This is what I originally wrote for Gardens Illustrated:

Weed control in the garden can take up a huge amount of time, particularly in mild climates when creeping buttercup and many grasses can grow 365 days of the year. Correctly used, Roundup ™ is a very effective tool for dealing with weeds, especially when creating new areas for planting, when total clearance of existing vegetation is vital, and for large gardens with a persistent weed problem. The beauty of Roundup, perhaps the most successful crop protection chemical ever, is its excellent safety record. It is absorbed very quickly by the soil, inactivating it - bacteria then biodegrade it. This means that it can be used to control weeds amongst the plants you want to keep. The only proviso is that it may last longer in the ground on very sandy soils, and like any herbicide, should not be used where there is a risk that spray could blow into water. 

A Soap Opera for Gardeners

Dig, Plant and Bitch - the Soap Opera for Gardeners
    Meet Petunia Martin, creator of Avalon Gardens and her neighbours Archibald and Rose Watkins-Smythe up at the historic garden of Mere Castle. Meet their respective gardeners: Bonzo the ex-heavy metal roadie and born-again Johnny Dalton, a local nurseryman or two and a cast of other colourful characters such as the village herbal healer Catkin Moonspirit and imperious garden school guru Marguerite O’Halloran.
    A story of gardening rivalry, a comedy of manners on the age-old theme of old money versus new money, and a source of horticultural information, Dig, Plant and Bitch is a soap opera style story which will unfold through a series of episodes available on Amazon for Kindle, iPad and smartphone reading. It will be funny, planty and sometimes a little naughty.  

“This is brilliant...I couldn’t put it down” Juliet Roberts, Editor - Gardens Illustrated
 
You can start reading now...

    “Do you realise that when you give someone a bunch of flowers, you are giving them a bunch of sex-organs” bellowed Wayne Martin after James Treasby as he stepped outside with Wayne’s wife Petunia. “Ignore him” said Petunia, “he always makes that joke to everyone who comes round to see the garden, even the old ladies.” “I can see the garden isn’t quite his thing” replied James. “That’s right” explained Petunia, “although he’s very proud of what I’ve done, and as we get nearer to opening it properly, I mean for ourselves, not just for charity, he’s getting kind of interested.” “Ah” said James, “he sees the business potential.” “Absolutely’ replied Petunia as she stopped, to breathe in chill autumn air - it felt like the first cold day of that year’s season of decline and mellow fruitfulness.

    Petunia had taken a few steps out of the house, towards the top of a gentle slope, where she could look down over the garden she had begun to create ten years ago. She had known next to nothing about gardening when she and Wayne arrived here, both taking a distinctly early retirement. Now, here at the place they had called Avalon Gardens, there were sweeping rivers of grass, broad borders of perennials, and young trees just about big enough to give a first hint of their future prime. Everything looked established enough so that those who knew as little about gardening as Petunia did when she came, would turn to her and say “what, only ten years, it looks like its always been here.” That always gave her a warm glow of satifaction.

    James stood, somewhat nervously, a few steps away from her.  He generally carried about him an air of brusque and superior confidence, but he found it difficult to keep it up when he went on a ‘by appointment’ garden visit like this. Owners of large gardens, usually people of wealth, social status, or success, rather intimidated him. Especially, when like today, he had not actually made the first move. It had been Petunia who had rung him, catching him unawares and feeling tired at the end of a long day at his nursery business, Treasby’s Plants of Distinction. “Petunia Martin” the voice had announced at the other end of the line, “you know me, I’ve bought plants off you, quite a few times”, she had waited long enough for James to grunt some sort of assent and recognition, “you know I’m making a garden, quite a big garden, I’d like you to see it, you haven’t seen it, have you?” James admitted he had not, and felt immediately embarrassed, as he knew that his failure to visit one of his best customers who he knew to be quite ambitious in her garden making, was almost a failure of etiquette, to say nothing of failing to take full advantage of what might be a good business opportunity. “I, I, I’d love to see it” he stammered, “really would.” “Oh gooood” replied the rather squeaky voice at the other end of the line, “oh goodie”, and dropping to an almost seductive huskiness, “and I want to ask your advice about things.” A time was agreed and Petunia had rang off, leaving James clutching his cordless receiver in a cold sweaty grip. He wondered what sort of advice she might want. After all, she was a regular at Marguerite O’Halloran’s garden school ‘Ranunculus’, where the redoubtable Mrs. O. supplied the local gardening ladies with all the advice they could possibly want, whether this advice was requested or not.

Read on ......
UK readers can get it here

North American readers here

A jaunt to Guernsey

  A whistlestop trip to Guernsey to do an RHS regional lecture for Floral Guernsey. The island once had a thriving horticultural industry (cut flowers, tomatoes, veg) but now rather sadly reduced although the Raymond Evison Clematis empire is the bright spot. Lots of derelict glasshouses (reminded me of post-communist Bulgaria in the 1990s). Otherwise thriving. A very mild climate so enormous camellias everywhere and lots of exotica. Giant echiums have clearly naturalised. A lot of good gardening going on, but no 'great gardens' - this is not Cornwall, but fantastic scope for interesting planting on a small scale. I went to one private garden which I  loved, Jane and David Russell's Mille Fleurs. They live at the top of a slope with a borrowed landscape of woodland and a resevoir.

It felt very tropical, not in an overt self-conscious way, but in lots of little touches like having a Clematis armandii growing into a tree, which could have been a hoya in a tree in southern India.

    Shady, woodland, a lot of it, with a ground flora of primroses and lots of interesting self-seeding - all very un-English, even palm Trachycarpus fortunei self-seeding. A tree fern draped with epiphytic ferns (they arrived with it form Aus) - again, I felt i could have been in India.

   The lovely Luma apiculata thrives and self-sows too. If humans suddenly disappeared from here, the island would rapidly cover in exotic woodland I am sure - like Tresco in that way.

Loved this treatment of the patch you don't want to mow or to have grass around a tree.

And with minimal frost (if lots of wind) you can grow giant aeoniums on the dustbin box, and hardly ever need water them. Some Narcissus 'Hawera' in here too.

Dialectic of the polyanthus

So much of human life is a forwards and backwards process. Hemlines famously go up and down. Politicians react against policy A by adopting its opposite, position B, the next lot then compromise on position C, and so on. The German philosopher Georg  Hegel called this the 'dialectic' arguing that this is how the human spirit drives history forward. Karl Marx adopted it as the driving force of history, but in a materialist, as opposed to spiritual way. (That's enough philosophy for today - Ed.)

I am glad to see that the humble polyanthus obeys the dialectic. Indeed it illustrates it perfectly.

I've always loathed the lurid colours of the little pot plants that every filling station in the land seems to sell, never mind the garden centres. Jo always sneakily buys some. Every year I am sure the flowers get bigger - to the extent that I wonder when the physiological limit of flower size will be reached. For years now the colours are not only bright but very flat. This year however, they are getting a wee bit more subtle - see picture above.

 In the past, lovers of cottage garden plants grew named polyanthus varieties, but they have to be propagated from division and many are slow to bulk up and over several centuries of cultivation, most have been lost. I remember when i first came across Carol Klein (she of UK garden TV fame) it was as someone who grew old double polyanthus. Then along came microprop and they were everywhere, but now they seemed to have disappeared again.

What is interesting now is that the big breeders are producing seed strain for mass production in the 'older' colours and so much more subtle. An example above - which is just a big-flowered primrose really (more yellow than in the pic).

This is the old variety 'Garryade Guinevere' (not sure of spelling) which has clearly been genetically souped up for seed production and sold as 'Woodland Walk'. I must say i really like them, the dark leaves and flower colours of the old variety, but probably more vigorous.

The reaction against bold brassy polyanthus (thinking of Hegelian dialectic now) often involved growing the Barnhaven strains, bred on Vancouver Island in the 1950s, and now grown by a British couple in Brittany. I've grown them for years as they were so much nicer than the mass-produced ones, and some of the colours and combinations have incredible depth, One strain they did was a sort of denim look with a stripey look. Now it appears as if one of the big commercial breeders has got hold of it and enlarged the flowers to produce varieties like this above.

And of course the ultimate example is of the gold-laced polys, which have now been mass-produced too, for several years, when once they were really special - the only way you could get them was growing your own from Barnhaven seed. In Victorian times, these were the most widely grown of all flowers, there were thousands of named varieties, all now lost, but still represented in the wide range of flower colours.

So, the to and fro of fashion in commercial production of polyanthus illustrates well this basic see-sawing in human affairs.

Finally, if you are a glutton for intellectual punishment, you can read up on Hegel here. If you have ever had to struggle with academic German, or its equivalents as produced by east Europeans during the communist era, you have Hegel to thank.


Check out the world's first gardening soap opera - Dig, Plant, Bitch.

A museum in one's life

January was stocktaking the collections time.

I’ve known the Garden Museum since, I suppose …. 1988 or thereabouts. It opened in 1977, partly to rescue from demolition a church, which ironically sat just outside the gates of Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury (generally known in UK as the Archbish). A rather ruinous church with an interesting and horticulturally significant graveyard (the tomb of John Tradescant (c1570 – 1638), the first great plant-hunter in British history), made a useful receptacle for a collection of old tools, gnomes, seed packets and other garden-related bits and bobs. It immediately fulfilled a need, that of a gardening nation with no museum for a favourite hobby in the capital. Besides, London has always been a bit short on odd little museums, unlike Paris, which has loads, and Mexico City, which has more museums than anywhere else - all of them shut on Mondays (guess what day of the week I was last there?).

The Garden Museum used to do a very good plant sale. It still does have a spring plant fair (this year - Sunday 29th April  10.30 to 4pm) but I find it hard to believe it is quite as good as it used to be. In the days when I had my nursery (1986-1992) I used to be one of the sellers. The doors would open and it was like well-heeled locusts descending. You would sell everything, in what felt like a matter of minutes. The van went back empty, your pockets bulging with big rolls of notes. I remember Carol Klein always came as well, usually late and all-over-the-place but with fantastic plants that everyone loved. I remember it was the only time I met Graham Stuart Thomas, an old man with the famous buttonhole (although I can’t remember what the flower was).

The museum bumbled on in the way that things do, and then they got a whizzy new director, who shook things up a bit, and the place has never looked back. Once run by the sort of well-meaning, well-off, but basically rather ineffectual people who run so many things in Britain (including usually, and most unfortunately, the country itself), times changed. It stopped being the Museum of Garden History and became the Garden Museum, which signaled that it was not just about the past but the present, a place to discuss the contemporary significance of the garden. New exhibitions sprouted, an elegant piece of Swiss-designed blonde woodwork cleverly made a bit more space without as much as a bolt into the listed building walls. Lots of dynamic young staff appeared. Things happened. And continue to happen.

One ‘thing that happened’ was Tim Richardson and myself being asked to put on some evening events - the ‘Vista Evenings’ were born.  The event has a sort of literary festival feel, with Tim and myself questioning our guest/s in front of an audience. We’ve had some great evenings discussing all sorts of garden and landscape related issues. A bit like running a private dining club, as we all sit down afterwards at a big long table like monks (we are in the nave of a church by the way). We've had many memorable speakers and evenings, but the image that stays in my mind is that of Isabel and Julian Bannerman sprawled over a gravestone in the churchyard after one evening, the stone glistening with spilt wine, puffing away away on their Gauloises. Or the evening I was driven back through deep snow with Penelope Hobhouse and a neighbour of hers after a fascinating but freezing evening when she had been our guest.

Being in a church involves various compromises which give the place that atmosphere of genteel discomfort and inconvenience which adds idiosyncratic colour to so many British enterprises. The dynamic young staff are all squashed into a windowless cryptlike room, like so many sweatshop workers, there is a tea/coffee machine on top of an ?eighteenth century tomb, the director’s office is reached by entering a door worthy of Professor Dumbedore at Hogwarts. It can be cold, which puts us off having Vista during the winter months. But I don’t think anyone would want to trade the church in for a ‘proper’ musuem building. And there is more to come, with a building for an archive to be built in the yard outside.

Oh, there is a nice little garden round the back. And intriguing planting out front. Drop in the next time you are ‘in town’.

Garden on a windowsill

The January to March period in Britain is pretty dreary, its the dark getting you down as much as anything. Flowers growing on windowsills can make such a difference, and given my growing interest in bulbs, there is huge scope for making the most of light windowsills. We’ve got a nice long south-facing one in the kitchen which is ideal. The classic one is the hyacinth which we always get started in September to try to get them to flower for Christmas. Well, not managed that yet, but some started performing in January. The scent is fantastic and they last for weeks; and there are some good new colors too, like dark purples.
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