Sunday 28 June 2009

Dahlias!

I am a little bit torn. It is clear that we are about to have a heat wave, and one's chief concern is how best to survive it.  We have installed at some expense, and a good deal of trouble since the first tank imploded, a vast underground reservoir. It takes all the rain water off our extensive roof, and by means of a pump and two taps, it should in theory provide us with enough water for the garden purposes throughout the year. On verra!

But my reason for writing about dahlias, plants that have great need of water, is that there is a connection with my previous blog. I think that I have bred the perfect dahlia. In writing thus I exaggerate my role in the process. Like many people I have long been an admirer of the 'Bishop of Landaff, a plant much loved and popularized by Vita Sackville-West. Two Springs ago I discovered at the foot of my existing plant - I had put some terreau round its base to give it some winter protection, which had I suppose helped germination - a number of seedlings. One of them in my view at any rate, has turned out to be a winner.  Its leaves are not so dark or indeed so finely cut as the parent plant, but the flower is a marvellous clear red, semi-double with a bright yellow centre, but what really makes it a winner is the way in which the flower displays itself, the secret being its reflexed petals. I failed to make cuttings this spring, or indeed to break up the corms, so at the moment it is unique. But next year I will try harder, and if I could only find a nurseryman who shared my enthusiasm for the plant, that would be even better.

That said I should emphasize that the Bishop of Landaff, which a number of nurserymen supply, including Bernard Lacrouts (http://vivacemonde.free.fr), remains an outstanding plant. Moreover, you could buy from, for instance Chilterns Seeds, seeds called the 'Bishop's Children'. These will flower the same year as sown, and share many of the characteristics of the parent plant, that is to say they have more less darkish leaves, some very finely cut, are usually semi-double and vary between very dark purple and bright red. One advantage of all these dahlias is that the plant is not too high - I would guess around 60-80 cms, so that usually they do not need staking, nor are their flowers too large.

I do grow other dahlias. I was taken by Tartarus,which I saw at La Cousiana. It is a large, single flowered  dahlia of a very dark red with a yellow centre, and so acquired along with it four other similar dahlias, though of different colours, from Ernest Turc, who appears to be the French dahlia specialist. I fear that they may be a bit unwieldy, but will report back.

Dahlias appear to do well here, liking our heavy soil, on condition that is that you can provide them with sufficient water. They provide flower power over a long period; mine have started already and will go on until the frosts in late October, though they can get a bit tatty.  Other flowers that share many of the dahlias characteristics - long flowering season, very bright colours - some would say too bright - are the zinnias. Since my beds are not sufficiently well-tended I cannot sow them direct which is the recommended procedure, but I have found that sowing them in seed trays, pricking them out, etc, works well enough, though water in the early stages is vital - afterwards they resist drought well enough, and certainly better than the dahlias. I would not be without them, and amongst other things they are good for picking, since the flowers last a long time in water.

Meanwhile the great excitement here has nothing to do with the garden, but with the discovery in our valley of Purple Emperors, providing me with my first sighting of these wonderful butterflies. Perhaps I should also mention the arrival of two kittens - Barrack and Obama - who have managed to dominate our three dogs, and myself in a very short space of time.


Thursday 18 June 2009

What makes a good plant?

It s a question I suppose that every gardener asks from time to time. My return to it was prompted by two things. The first a rather despairing look at my very sparse 'shrub border', and my wondering why it did not contain any Abelia grandifloras. No shrub could be easier in our climate. It is more or less evergreen, is almost constantly in flower, and is even said to have smell. What I do have is Abelia chinensis with whitish flowers and very definitely smell, and Abelia Edward Goucher, but no 'grandoflora'. Why?  It could be because I am a plant snob. A. Grandifloras are very common, indeed there are often whole hedges of it. Put more kindly it may be because I am a bit of a collector, attracted to the more out of the way, not so that I can show off, but just because I find them more interesting. I certainly used to be rather obsessional in this respect: once I had got one origanum I needed to search out the remaining fifty five - these figures incidentally just plucked out of the air.  I hope that having reached the trosième age I have become a little less obsessed, but I notice that particularly with roses I search for those that I have never grown before. This last fact reminds me to draw people's attention to a newish French gardening magazine, L'Art des Jardins, one of the best gardening mags that I have ever come across, with in the current edition some very good articles on unknown Normandy roses.

But to return to the original question, might my rejection of abelia grandiflora be because it is in fact an inferior plant to say abelia Edward Goucher, and if so why? This leads me on to the second event to occasion  the question, the appearance in flower of Buddleya Lochinch.  It is the first time that I have grown this plant in France, and I can't actually remember seeing a plant here, while my recollection is that it was common enough in England.  Anyway it looks absolutely stunning, and the reason I think is that all its aspects -  the colour of its flower, the colour of its foliage and indeed stalks, covered as they are with a greyish white pubescence, and the way in which the plants holds itself - combine to make it a perfect whole.  There are many plants that can do some of these things well. This is especially true of roses, where you often get a very beautiful flower but a lousy form. I now steer clear of those that in French are called 'érigé', that is to say those with ramrod like stems with one or two flowers at the end of them. Baroness Rothschild is a very good example, a marvellous rosy pink cabbagy flower on what Peter Beale calls 'an upright, tidy plant', but what I would call rather tired looking sticks, with the 'ample foliage' decimated by blackspot.

On my walk today I admired what I will call the herbaceous elder. It is a stauesque looking thing especially when its large 'umbels' (?) make their first appearance, and later with its fruits.  A good garden plant?  I in fact immediately go on the attack with the strongest poison that I can find if it appears in my garden, the reason being that it is an utter thug. So it may be beautiful but . . .  And what may be rare and exotic with us can be a weed elsewhere.  The agapanthus over which we spend so much time and trouble is I gather considered a weed in Australia and South Africa (from whence I believe it comes); similarly the oleander.

So one way and another it is very difficult deciding what is a good garden plant. Is there in fact an ideal that we should all be looking out for? It is not exactly a new question, but with Buddleya Lochinch I think that I have found the answer.

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Garden Visits

Recently I have paid two garden visits, both in fact to gardens already mentioned, but both deserving fuller treatment.  It was my first visit to La Roseraie du Désert (www.frenchtearose.com), though I had already met John and Betty Hook at Gaujacq, where I purchased amongst other things one of my now favourite roses, the 'found Bermuda', Emmie Grey. Stupidly I left it too late for the tea roses, one of their specialities, but there was still plenty to admire. It is probably best to go to their site to understand better what they are about, but essentially their aim is to grow roses that can take the heat, thus the name of their rose nursery. These include certainly the tea, but also the China roses; not very well known perhaps because they  dislike a cold winter. They are often single and semi-double, often also an apricoty, pinky colour, which may not be everybody's favourite. On the other hand single they are usually very floriferous, and often with good perfume.  Whether they are ideal for the Gers is perhaps not certain. Certainly we can be hot and dry, which is the conditions they like. But we can also be wet, particularly in May, which is on average our wettest month. Moreover the owners admitted that many of their sales were too Italy and the South of France. But they are certainly worth a try here. I fell for Vicomtesse Pierrre de Fou, perhaps largely because of the name, though it was also strongly recommended; also Rosa moschata, one of its great features being its very green and healthy foilage. I have also got my eye on Darlow's Enigma and Sinowilsonii. Incidently a tea rose, which has been a favourite of mine for a long time, and which I grow here, is Lady Hillingdon (clg.), a marvellous yolk of egg colour, almost continuously in flower, and with smell.. I take my hat off to John and Betty Hook, especially now that I know that John has a day job. And what I find most exciting about their project is that I who consider myself a bit of an expert on Old Roses have never come across at least half of the roses to be found in their catalogue, nor are they to be found in the RHS rose encyclopedia (eds: Charles and Bridget Quest-Ritson).

Also strongly recommended is a visit to La Coursiana, where roses are also a great feature, though in this case one of many. The choice of roses is I suppose in one sense more ordinary including many recent hybrids from French rose breeders, but also a good many from David Austin. But what is exceptional about the roses is their placing whether in the borders, or on the many pergolas; not many, now I come to think of it, climbing up trees, but is that a particularly English habit? The more likely explanation is that a good many of the trees are rare, and a climbing rose up them could only be a distraction. For any gardener a visit here is a must, and that at different times of the year, as there is so much to enjoy and learn. The Tea room is excellent and offers amongst other things marvellous sorbets, and the accueil
is très chaleureuse.

Meanwhile with the help of better weather and some hard work things are looking a little better chez moi.  To continue the rose theme, I have been reminded, since I have one in full bloom, how beautiful R. Queen of Denmark (Königin von Dänemark) is. Its great feature is the suffused pin at the centre of the flower as the bud opens. It is magical and I do not think that even David Austin has been able to reproduce the effect. Its Alba origins means that it does not repeat, but also that it is an attractive enough bush when not in flower, and I forgot to mention; it does have smell!

My other excitement has been the flowering of Romneya coulteri, and not only is it flowering, but it is looking happy, and thus spreading. It is a first for me in France. Good drainage is the key, but as I have often remarked in our neck of the woods that is not always easy to provide.