Secheresse

As I write this we are enjoying the first serious rain since July  - already 30mm has fallen and more is promised - so at last the secheresse is over. But one way and another it has been a testing year with a very dry late Spring and early summer, this the time when usually the Gers enjoys its most amount of rain. July was significantly wetter than usual but the last three months have not only been very dry but also for the most part very hot. How has the garden coped, or perhaps more important how have I coped, the answer being with difficulty. What has helped is that our large 'resevoir', which collects all the water off our roofs, has not, rather to my surprise, actually run out. They are expensive to install but if you are a keen gardener, probably in the end worth it; You will need a pump to bring the water up to a tap. We put in two but we could do with more; as it is, for the more distant parts of the garden we have to make do with 'eau de ville'.  It is probably too early to count up the actual 'deaths' but clearly a lot of plants have been under great stress.

To avoid the stress the secret of course is to chose the plants that most suit your conditions, but since we tend to have dry, hot summers, but wet and sometimes cold winters and and springs that is not altogether easy, and I have to say when looking at pictures of English gardens with their great variety of plants I can become rather depressed.  Of course we can do exotic things. I have written often in praise of the dahlia. I also have cannas and one the most attractive of foliage plants, Melianthus major, but only because I am prepared to water them on a regular basis. On the other hand I have a number of the so-called Ginger Lilies (hedychiums) and though they get quite a bit of water they struggle and I am beginning to think that they are not worth the space they occupy The rather striking red Hibiscus, H. coccineus, just about does, but this year Hiiscus dasycalyx, with attractive white flowers looked miserable all summer. All these 'exotics' not only like water but also need serious feeding to do of their best. This is not true for something as ordinary of as the Loosestrifes. The Purple Loosetrife is one of our most common wildflowers, and if you like purple it makes a wonderful sight. I have tried  various cultivated versions, being particiularly attracted by L. salicaria Blush, which looks splendid at La Coursiana, but with virtually zero results: the plants have not died but they have hardly flowered, and mostly look miserable. But the wild loostrife is to be found in ditches and boggy ground and those conditions I singularly lack. The same conditions please the Ligularia family, imposing plants with attractive foliage, sometimes of a purple hue, and in some cases rather brassy orange flowers. Perhaps more elegant but again with foliage being a principal attraction, are the Rodgersias, but unless you have got a reliable source of water they are hopeless.

But in getting rather depressed by the large number of plants that I cannot grow I have not left much space for the many that I can.  It has taken me rather too long to appreciate how well the lavenders do here. Of course I have always liked them, and the smell of lavender is for many of us a Proustian moment: for instance one of my grandmothers usually smelt of lavender and the sachets used to be put into many a draw. But I also have memories of it looking rather miserable in England during the winter months, as indeed it can here if the ground gets too waterlogged. But much of our garden is on a slope which despite the clay means that the drainage is reasonably good, so that is not a problem. It is also probably true that the variety of lavenders has greatly increased in recent years, it now being well into the hundreds. Pepinière Filippi is a major source, and moreover his catalogue is one of the most informative that I have ever come across. Alas, he has given up coming to the Gaujacq fairs so unless you are willing to travel to near Sète on the Mediterranean coast you will have to pay extra for mail order. But Les Senteurs du Quercy, who do come to Gaujacq, have 18 lavenders listed in their catalogue, and there are other suppliers.   I am not keen on the whites or indeed the pinks, and for me the deeper the blue/purple the better which puts the well-known L.Hidcote Blue high on my list as also the less well-known L. Twickle Purple which has the added advantage of flowering a little later than Hidcote.  But I increasingly like the various varieties of L.x chaytorae - I have Joan Head and Richard Grey - this because of their very white and felted foliage which seems to stand up well to winter wet. On the other hand winter cold may be more of a worry, as it certainly is for the various L.x allardii. But the latter are certainly worth a try: their foliage is striking and they flower over a long period; in fact you could almost call them repeat flowering, this from April until October, and this year certainly November.

Equally resistant to secheresse are two families that I had intended to write something about, that is the Phlomis, both herbaceous and woody, and the Rosemary families, but having got too depressed about the things I cannot grow I have run out of time and space, so that a consideration of them will have to wait for another time. Meanwhile the stars of my autumn colour, as indeed they were last year, are Acer oliverianum and Quercus schumardii, both of which incidentally have come through the secheresse without turning a leaf. If you have not got them go out immediately and buy them.

Failures

I have been planning to write about my failures for quite a long time, especially about the roses that have not lived up to expectations, but curiously, and this despite the severe secheresse I am unusually optimistic about the garden progress.  There are some quite nice things happening on the bank under the 'South Terrace'. It is a difficult area because so dry but at last things are beginning to clump up. These include various small artemisias, teucriums such as my favourite Teucrium fruticans Ouarzazate, and perhaps above all Ceratostigma plumbaginoides - the blue is brilliant, the leaves colour well in autumn, and above all it is seemingly not troubled by lack of water.It is also the case that the Prairie Garden, at least from the house and swimming pool has been looking reasonable, and this despite the many weeds. Earlier on it was the gauras that saved the day, followed by michaelmas daisies and the various grasses which come into their own as the summer progresses. I recently acquired a few more grasses including four miscanthus, one with the marvellous name Dronning Ingrid, these incidentally from my favourite 'vivace' nurseyman, Bernard Lacouts, whose online catalogue is a 'must'.  Encouraged by the partial success I am hoping to make a major assault on this area in the weeks ahead in an effort to get the weeds under control, but also to try and fill the many gaps. Increasingly I believe that this process of close planting is the key to Gersois gardening, the problem being that unless you are very rich it takes a great deal of time.

But what of the failures? The so-called Gravel Garden in front of the house, and thus in a very prominent position, still worries me greatly. I have made lots of mistakes. In the beginning I cheated by just placing gravel and peat over rather compacted clay. This of course has been disastrous: too wet in winter and too dry in summer.  Moreover the peat came with an invasive weed, this not really my fault, since the peat was quite upmarket, but it did not help matters. Entirely my fault was the planting of oenothera speciosa with the disastrous results that I have described in a previous blog; and I note the doyens of dry gardening in France, Clara and Olivier Filippi, no longer cultivate it.  There is also a thyme, which one I am not sure, that has proved to be too invasive, while other varieties have not flourished.  I still think that the idea of a gravel garden was a good one, and again I am hoping to improve the situation before next year, partly by acquiring plants that are more solidly clump forming, because at the moment it lacks any kind of form.

Another failure remains the so-called shady, west facing border, for the obvious reason that it is not shady enough, since in summer the sun gets to it by about 2pm.  It is not all bad. I am surprised and delighted how successfully the alstroemerias cope, though they appreciate a little bit of watering. Amongst the hydrangeas the most successful is H. quercifolia though I am not quite sure which variety mine is. The anemones I will persevere with though they do wilt, but I am giving up on the phloxes, and even more reluctantly on the cimicifugas, a plant I love in almost all its varities, but have never really grown well.

But what of the roses?  Well, as I mentioned when chosing my desert island favourites most of the dark red ones have been a failure. Perhaps top of the list, and one that will be removed this winter is R. Eric Tabarly. The flowers come in clusters, which since they are big and inclined to 'ball' just creates an unsatisfactory blob. It seems to have very little smell unlike R. Mamita, R. Alan Souchon which score heavily in this department. . They can also produce quite attractive blooms, obviously good for picking, but the bushes themselves are a mess, by the end of the year almost without leaves, and one way or another rather depressing. This may be partly my fault since they probably require a more cosseted treatment than I give them, but I think that they will probably have to go, which in the case of Alan Souchon is a great sadness, as he is my favourite French singer.  There are other roses that have yet to prove their worth, so that for the moment there is a stay of execution, but as I remarked at the start, the mood is optimistic, the autumn plant fairs are about to start, so for the moment that is enough about failures. The future looks bright !

And then there were Three . . .

Choosing the the final three roses to give me pleasure on my desert island has, not surprisingly given the huge choice, been very difficult, and I am not at all sure that I have come up with the right answers. None of them would win a prize at the local flower show, their individual flowers not being very distinguished. Neither are they especially famous, in the way that for instance Fantin Latour is. Perhaps nearest to being in that category is Stanwell Perpetual. As with many other roses its colour changes with the weather but it is essentially white with sometimes a quite pronounced pinkish tinge. Quest-Ritson on the other hand says that it is shell pink fading to white with age, but I think that he is wrong, or at any rate from a distance it more often appears white than pink. . The flower is old-fashioned in style with a good perfume, and as the name suggests they appear if not quite continuously at least very frequently and certainly late into the season. It has pretty fern like leaves, and if occasionally these suffer from a bit of rust, it is never enough to be disfiguring. Finally it is a tough as old boots, and needs pruning only really if it threatens to become too big.


Stanwell Perpetual is a rose for everybody's garden, though curiously I first saw it in the Paradise Garden at Sutton Place, a garden designed by the great Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe for an American millionaire, so that in singling it out for praise I feel that I am in good company. My next rose, Morletti, I first saw in an even more famous garden, none other than Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst. In fact my rose bible, already referred to - the Quest-Ritsons RHS Rose encyclopedia - is a little bit sniffy about it, remarking that the flowers 'are seldom attractively shaped and are almost scentless', to which I could add that it is only really once flowering, though the occasional flower may appear later in the year. But it is as a garden bush that it wins out; red almost thornless stems and red early foliage followed by marvellous autumn colour, and if the individual flowers may not be up to much - they are of a purply pink which goes very well with the foliage - en masse they make a big impact. At Sissinghurst it was in the orchard, not in the main rose garden, and it is that sort of rose, to be planted in your wilder 'massifs' where it will give enormous pleasure.

Finally another rose for the wilder parts of your garden, Rosa Virginiana. It is not as tall as Morletti, but is very much a spreader, and the flowers are single rather than double, but there are similarities, especially in the fact that the autumn colour of the leaves is an outstanding feature, enhanced by generous hips. It is by no means a classic rose but one that will very much earn its keep on my desert island, along that is with Fantin Latour, Queen of Denmark, Mme Isaac Pereire, Penelope, Trier, Molineux, Crown Princess Margareta, Stanwell Perpetual, and Morletti. Looking at the list I am aware that sentiment has played a large part in my choice, and for instance I am aware that many of the roses that I have bought recently, and that are for the most part completely new to me, many from La Roseraie du Desert, do not appear. This is partly because they still need a bit more time to settle in, and I will then be in a better position to evaluate them. But in the end I do not apologize for my choice, since I am a strong believer that sentiment plays a vital part in one's love of gardening.

My Desert Island Roses

It will already be clear that the stars of this garden are the roses, and I guess that is probably true of most gardens in this neck of the woods, for by and large both the climate and soil suits them very well. It is also true that I first fell in love with the rose over fifty years ago - early visits to Sissinghurst playing a major part in this - and in my time I have grown a great many different varieties. But for my desert island selection I am confining myself to roses that I am actually growing now, which straight away excludes quite a number that might have figured in my top ten. The absence of one in particular - Souvenir du Docteur Jamain -I much regret. It has a beautiful, dark red, velvety flower with a very good scent. It can be grown as a climber, but I have always had it as a bush. However the truth is that it has never done very well for me in France, the reason being that it is very difficult to place. Like so many of the deep red/purple roses it detests strong sunlight, but like almost all roses does not thrive in deep shade. Finding the halfway house is very difficult, and in this garden, which for the most part faces south, and has few mature trees to provide the right degree of protection from strong sun I have reluctantly decided not even to try.

It is probably for the same reason that no deep red/purple roses figure in my top ten. Since I am thinking of eventually producing a list of my ten least successful roses, which includes a number of this colour - I will not dwell on this subject here. One that I no longer grow, but in my experience resists well the sun is Charles de Mills. It is a beautiful rose, only once flowering, but covered in flowers when it does do so, and this over quite a long period. It is also healthy, this being in my view one of the most important criteria when chosing a rose. Some, perhaps many, varieties are a prey to blackspot, mildew and rust, and no amount of spraying will overcome the problem. Perhaps I should add the qualification that in different climates roses will react differently, but since I have mainly gardened in very similar climatic conditions I cannot speak from personal experience about this.

My top three go back a very long way with me. Fantin Latour is perhaps the first rose that I fell in love with, and in many ways it epitomizes for me the Rose, or perhaps one should say the Old-fashioned Rose; very full petalled, good scent, and a delicate pink that even David Austin has had difficulty in matching. It does not repeat which some people may find a disadvantage, but when one thinks that most shrubs and indeed trees only flower once this should not be held too much against it. The Queen of Denmark, sometime found under its german nomenclature, Königin von Dänemark, is another rose that does not repeat, but makes up for this by having the most exquisite flower of all, especially when the bud is half open and you can see the deeper pink of the centre. Its origins are disputed, but it certainly goes back to the 18th century and has some Alba blood in it. I was going to write that this explains why even when not in flower it makes an attractive bush, this being a feature of this group, but Quest-Ritson in the RHS rose encylopedia calls the leaves rather coarse, and it is true that their colour is not so glaucous as some others in the group.

My third choice, Mme Isaac Pereire, is a slight worry, this because of its colour being neither purple nor red but somewhere in between. Moreover it is not always the most healthy of roses. But the flowers themeselves are classic old-fashioned rose style fully petalled, while its outstanding feature is its perfume, perhaps the strongest of all roses, though some of the new David Austin's run it close. So not the perfect rose, but I have had it in every garden I have ever known, and would not be without it.


Hybrid Musks, almost all dating from between the two Great Wars, and many produced by one of those marvellous Vicars who found the time to interest themselves with matters flora and fauna, in this case by name, the Rev. Joseph Pemberton, are one of the great glories of any garden. The fact that currently I am growing ten different varieties will give you some idea of how much I admire them, and my ten do not include perhaps the most famous of the Hybrid Musks, Felicia, though I think that I must remedy this omission. But of the ten I do grow, which one to choose? Moonlight at dusk is very difficult to beat, while Buff Beauty is for me a much better bet than the more frequently planted in our region, Ghislaine de Feligonde, partly because I think that it holds its colour better in strong sun, though perhaps also because I have known it a very long time. So where do we go from here? In the end it has probably got to be Penelope, one of the most generous of all roses, here in Gascony with at least four serious flowerings. I would call it a biscuity white, though Beale says it has a bit of pink in it, as also does Quest-Ritson, so I guess that I am wrong, perhaps confused by the prominent lemon-yellow stamens. But anyway for a mass effect it is very hard to beat, and on a summer's evening there will be plenty of perfume.

My next choice, Trier, has a connection with the Hybrid Musks, being one of the parents of Moonlight, and indeed of others. The colour is not as brilliant as Moonlight's, but it compensates by being even more floriferous. But what puts it into my top ten is its vigour and general healthiness. I am aware that recently many rather similar roses have been produced, but if you want a very large - two metres by two metres? - shrub almost constantly in flower, you could hardly do better than this one.

One could say much the same of my next choice, Molineux. It is not a name to win everybody's hearts, indeed unless you are a Wolverhampton Wanderer's football fan, it could well put you off. And the colour, a rather brassy, almost florescent, yellow, will not be to everybody's liking, though as with a good many other roses the colour is variable, depending on the weather conditions. But it gets into my top ten because of the generousity of it flower and perfume, lighting up the South Terrace throughout the summer. A much better known rose of a rather similar colour is Graham Thomas, not a bad rose, though in my experience it becomes rather gaunt and leggy rather too quickly, and I have never known how to prune it. There is no such problem with Molineux. Just cut off what you do do not want and it will be perfectly happy.

We are of course in David Austin territory. His so-called English Roses have become so popular that anybody inclined to garden snobbery, which might I fear include myself, is inclined to be a bit sniffy about them. Too many, too many too alike, and perhaps lacking in form, this a criticism that can be made of so many roses especially in winter months when the rather rigid, and prickly sticks can be very disfiguring. But in the end you have got to give it to him. So many of his roses are out and out winners, and there is a view that they have indeed got better. And it cannot be said that they lack perfume, since strong perfume is one of their main features. For reasons too complicated to explain here we do not grow the pinks, and the only deep red we have, William Shakespeare 2000, has not as yet been a great success. But of the peachy, apricot shades we have a good number, and to choose one of them is difficult. Pat Austin has a most unusual and striking coppery colour, while Jude the Obscure is sometimes considered the best smeller of them all, though its paler colour does fade away almost to nothing in hot sunshine. In the end the winner has to be Crown Princess Margarita; a large spreading bush that can be grown as a small climber, strong colour and good scent, and repeating well just gives it the edge over its rivals.

By my counting that gets us to seven with three still to go, and perhaps a moment to have a pause, thus giving me more time to make a final selection. By my last count we grow 72 different variety of roses, though this does include climbers, which I am not including in this desert island choice. But the choices are difficult and many that I very much like will have to be excluded.

Melilotus officinalis

Rather a long gap between blogs, but the Silly Season is upon us, and I have been doing rather more cooking than gardening. Meanwhile the rain has continued to my great relief but to the despair of those who are staying here. Still currently I am quite pleased with the garden, which makes a change. All the dahlias and cannas are doing their stuff à la Christopher Lloyd's exotic garden. There are also gauras and grasses, the latter just beginning to make an impression. Readers of this blog will know that I am a late convert to the grass, and still do not think that they are the answer to everything, one of the problems being that for the first half of the year they do not contribute very much.

But what about Melilotus officinalis, otherwise called the Ribbed Melilot, and any help on the pronounciation of Melilot gratefully received. Slightly to my surprise it does appear in my plantfinder, now it has to be said seven years out of date, to my surprise because for most people it will be considered a weed. Here it has appeared spontaneously, which I hope is the correct term, but if not what I am saying is that it has appeared without any aid for me. On the other hand increasingly I have not been pulling it out, and I am now quite clear that it is a very useful garden plant. It is classified 'leguminosae' which means that it is related in some degree to the sweet pea family. I would not want to put it in the same class, and it is not a climber. Instead what you get is an annual with pea/clover/vetch like leaves with long,arching, stems covered in early summer in yellow flowers. It reminds me a little of Linaria dalmatica, a toadflax that I have grown in most of the gardens I have been associated with. The latter is more upright in growth, which is not necessarily in it favour, nor does it in my experience resist the secheresse as well, but both in my mind are useful plants. As regards the Melilot the difficulty is in recognizing it at an early stage, and I fear I have no easy answer. It is just a question of experience. This year for the first time a white flowering Melilot (M.albus) has appeared, in my view not as effective, but certainly I have not pulled it out.

Finally do not forget, in my mind the most attractive garden in the Gers, La Coursiana at La Romieu. I last visted it a fortnight ago, and even in what one might call 'between seasons', with the first flush of roses well over and the autumn flowers not yet in evidence, it was looking splendid, one feature being the marvellous display of hollyhocks, which made me think that I must plant many more here.

The late lamented Bishop of Auch

As I have mentioned before I am very fond of dahlias, partly because they are fond of me, or rather my garden's soil, which is in most areas heavyish clay.Amongst my favourites are the so-called Bishop's children, that is offspring of the Bishop of Llandaff, much loved by and popularized by Vita Sackville West at Sissinghurst. The flowers are a bright red held above finely cut, dark red/ maroon leaves. This latter feature is a characteristic of most of the 'children', while the flowers are usually a shade of red. Not all however. I have just acquired the Bishop of Dover which has single, clear yellow flowers, and very smart it is to. The flowers of the Bishop of Auch, so-named by me, since selected by me, was much more apricot/orange than red. It was also fully double, though not in a overblown way. Alas the one plant, that flowered so well last year, has not seemingly survived the winter, and so a most attractive garden plant is no more. No doubt this is my fault for leaving it in the ground, but since I have been in France almost all my dahlias have flourished with this treatment, while the few that I have lifted in the autumn have died. What annoys me is that I tried quite hard to interest nurserymen, and women in this plant without the slightest success, none of them, including Sarah Raven, who in my view should know better, bothering even to reply, and these days a reply is just a question of pressing one or two keys on your computer.

What I have retained is some very good photographs taken by a friend who happens to be a professional photograper, but I would have preferred the plant itself. Saved, however, is the Bishop of Lombez, rather closer in looks to the parent plant, and I now have two or three of these, and hope to have more, so that I can distribute them to friends. Any of you out there who are interested in having one do let me know. I do not think that you would be disappointed.

Meanwhile at last some rain; here about 40mm in four days, and more is promised. It came in the nick of time, with our very large water storage almost empty. The garden as usual is mostly out of control, but there is enough that is pleasing to keep me optimistic. In the least satisfactory area, the so-called Prairie Garden, the gauras are coming to the rescue, the sunny, open conditions obviously suiting them well. Also present in some numbers is the lovely silver thistle , Onopordum acanthium. It is a biannual, so you have to be quite clever to get flowering plants every year. it also have vicious spines, so vicious that Christopher Lloyd would never have them in his garden. But they have a huge 'Gosh' factor, , and for the moment they are enabling a rather weedy area of the garden look rather exciting, at least that is from a distance. I am still hoping to win in this area. I need more large grasses, that is to say, Miscanthus and Panicums, also more Macleayas, the so-called Plume Poppies, but it all takes time and money. The first flush of roses is behind us, but they are at last beginning to make the impression that I hoped they would, especially on the 'Wild Rose' bank, one of the first things that you see when you get to the house. So all in all the garden could be a lot worse, and with the return of the rain I am feeling much more cheerful, this despite the death of the late lamented Bishop of Auch.

Astuces

Having just looked up 'astuce' in my French dictionary the translation is not quite what I thought it would be. There it suggests that it is very similar to the English 'astute', which is to say cleverness, shrewedness, even perhaps perjoratively trickiness. What I thought it meant was 'tips', and I am sure that it is with that sense in mind that it is used in my favourite French TV programme, 'C à vous' on France 5. It is a sort of a chat show that combines the serious and the lightheartedness in for me a completely unique way; utterly relaxed, almost amateurish, but that is its charm. Moreover it is hosted by the beautiful Alessandra Sublet. What it also includes is a meal, and invited guest cooks, all of them charming, and always ready to provide the aforesaid 'astuces'.

Those of you, if any, who read this blog may have noticed that very little practical gardening advice is given. I take the view that most of you will know as much, if not more about, the basics, and anyway there are excellent books that can provide the answers if required. But a tip is something a little more personal and inevitably I have over many years accumulated one or two. One of them would be do not buy expensive secateurs. Bits fall off, or break often making it impossible to close them, or they do not fall off, and they get in the way of cutting. Above all they do not cut well, which rather defeats the object. Instead go for the cheap ones, that appear mysteriously at certain times of the year in French chain stores, often red, under ten euros, with a deceptively fragile if not tinny appearance, but they work, and if they do become a little blunt, they sharpen up extremely well. Sometimes they break, and sometimes they get lost, but their bright colour is a help in finding them. Moreover all secteurs get lost, and with the cheap ones this hardly matters. In fact the best thing to do is to buy two or three of them at a time, so that you will never be without.

Recently I have come across a very cheap version of what I will call a 'long-handled' garden scissor, this something between a secateur and garden shears. Annoyingly I had just previously bought a rather upmarket version, which promptly broke. My new cheap ones, after rather serious use, have resisted well, and in some magic way have remained sharp.

On the other hand cheap trowels, and garden forks are almost certainly a mistake since they bend under the slightest pressure. This is why for many years a heavy screwdriver has been my favourite weeding implement. Not only are they difficult to bend but they enter our usually heavy clay soil, being thin and pointed, much more easily than the more normal weeding implements. However, recently I have moved on to the heavy chisel. This has the advantages of the scewdriver but its wider blade can help in getting out some of the tougher weeds, while it can also be used as a chisel, that is to say one can cut off the weeds with it, in the same way as a hoe, which with the ground as baked as it is now, is almost the best one can do.

I am not really going to enter too closely into the often literally thorny question of pruning, but I am surprised how few people know, or remember, one or two of the 'golden' or at any rate traditional rules. I am on the whole a heavy prunner,following the rule that I was taught all too long ago that the more you prune the more the plant grows. Of course this policy can sometimes result in death - to every rule there are exceptions - but usually it works, and this should help those of you who are too timid with your pruning to be a little braver. Also very much worth remembering is that plants that flower in the first half of the year should for the most part be pruned immediately after flowering to give time for the flower buds to be formed during the second half of the year. If you then cut these off during the winter and early Spring you will not get any flowers during the coming year. Shrubs that flower late in the year create their flower buds during the first half of the year, so cutting them back in February/ March only encourages the flowering stems to grow.

The same rule can be applied to clematis. The later flowerers, such as the viticelli group, my favourites with the smaller flowers but lots of them, should be pruned hard early in the year, similarly repeat flowering roses. Those that only flower once I at any rate treat these like any other such shrub, that is to say I cut them back after flowering, and then leave them alone. But no doubt everybody will have their own approach to the pruning of roses. It is not always easy to know what is for the best, but I am always comforted by the fact that one of great collectors of rose, the late Humphrey Brooke, solved the problem by never pruning at all.

Vibrating to Viburnums

What a very user-friendly genus they are, and what variety, with for instance over a hundred and thirty entries in Hilliers. I have mentioned often enough the excellent winter flowering ones such as V. x bodnantense and V. farreri. These have goodish parfume, but the really divine smellers come in early spring: V. x burkwoodii and V. carlesi, both come with various offspring. Following quickly after come perhaps the most striking group:V. opulus and V.plicatum. The former, commonly called the Guelder Rose, includes the Snowball Tree, one of the most popular of all viburnums, though not in fact one of my favourites, I am not quite sure why, but perhaps because when in full flower it is too showy, or too artificial. I much prefer what one might call the horizontals, that is to say rather like the Cornus controversa, they grow in layers, a bit like a wedding cake, so perhaps a bit artificial as well, but then I am keen on cake. There are a number of V.plicatums, of which perhaps the best known is V.p.Mariesii, but they are all good. Perhaps I should mention V.p.Watanabe, since especially in a small space its columnar growth is useful. It also, unlike the others, can repeat flower. Rather similar to the V.opulus are the North American V.dentatums. I have got V.dent. White and Blue - in theory white flowers, blue berries and autumn leaf colour, but I have to admit that on a pretty steep and dry bank they are struggling, but I guess that they deserve better.

In my time I have grown a good number of other varieties. V.macrocephalum is very showy with large bunches of white flowers in early summer, similar in appearance to Hydrangea arborescens. V. nudum has never done anything for me which is odd since it is not supposed to be difficult. Blue/black berries and good autumn colour is its thing. In previous blogs I have mentioned the evergreen, winterflowering V.tinus, a plant that I am slowly coming round to. I am not sure that I will ever come round to another evergreen variety, V. odoratissimum. In the catalogues it sounds good: glossy evergreen leaves and with white flowers appearing late on in the summer, which are supposedly odorous. Stuart Thomas calls it 'magnificent'.But for me it just makes a rather unattractive green bush, and I have never really smelt anything, but I have never taken to the rather similar Pittosporum tobira, which I see he calls 'handsome'. Oh dear, perhaps I have got it wrong.

Before I finish just a bit of praise for the Wayfaring tree, or V.lantana. Most of us will possess at least one specimen in our gardens. I have got about a fifty, and I admit to getting rid of quite a few since their wayfaring can be a bit too much. But they have reasonably showy white flowers, very good berries, which turn from red to black in a most attractive way, and then they produce good autumn colour. What the flowers lack is any perfume, or if there is one it is rather disagreeable. And the truth is that though almost all viburnums have something to recommend them, the real vibrations come with the wonderfully smelly ones. So I award the first prize to the appropriately named V. carlesii Diana since her perfume is indeed divine.

On seeing my first Dandelion

They have in fact been up and about for more than a month but right now they are at their best, or, according to taste, their worst. Objectively there could hardly be a more attractive plant: a vibrant yellow flower, an interesting leaf form, having the additional virtue of being very good in a salad, and seed heads which have given countless pleasure to children as they try to tell the time by them. Why then do we spend so much of our time in the garden trying to eradicate them? And is it possible to have a more beautiful yellow than that of the buttercup, and yet again we spend an aweful lot of time and energy pulling them out. Recently I have been thinking rather a lot about weeds, and how we define them, this because I have declarded war on Oenothera speciosa. This form of evening primrose, readily available in most garden centres, usually pink - Pink Petticoats and Siskiyou are some of the named varieties - though there are white forms, is in flower, like the dandelion, a very attractive plant, so attractive indeed that when it first appeared on the English garden scene - it seemingly hails from California - it was almost a 'must have plant'. Like many others I too succumbed to its charms, and in previous gardens I have been pleased enough with it, though fairly early on I became aware that it was a death trap to our delightful Hummingbird moths who have great difficulty in extracting their long tongues or proboscis from the neck of the flower. Here, to my despair, it has completely taken over, and thus virtually destroyed my so-called gravel garden, and I seriously doubt if I will ever be able completely to eradicate it. Does this make it a weed?

Recently I have been planting Erigeron karvinskianus, while at the same time eradicating Bellis perennis. The latter is the common daisy, the former is a look-alike. So why favour one over the other, especially when in my eyes at any rate the flower of the common daisy, a bright white with in bud red tips to the petals is more attractive than dingier white of the erigeron? I suppose that the erigeron's flowering period is longer, indeed once it gets underway sometime in April it is virtually continuous, while the daisy, I think though having never thought about it before I will need to verify this, is Spring flowering. What I am more certain about is that that the erigeron will put up with much meaner conditions including secheresse, so if you want groundcover in dry places, it is the ideal plant. That said between the two it is a very near thing and an objective comparison does not very satisfactorily explain why one is 'out' and the other 'in'. Maybe it is just habit. The Englishman's liking for the perfect lawn ment that the daisy was virtually the enemy number one, and though now perfect lawns are 'out', the daisy really has not become 'in'.

Both incidentally are invasive, this supposedly a virtue in the erigeron, but if one definition of a weed is that the plant is invasive, like for instance the buttercup, then we should be eradicating the erigeron. Both however are invasive by reseeding, which makes them much easier to remove than those plants that invasive by questing roots, such as for instance my hated oenothera. A better known example would be couch grass, and not even the most enthusiatic fan of 'grasses' has ever made a case for the retention of this plant, so I think that we can call it a weed. One of my most difficult weeds here is the what I call the wild potentilla, potentilla hirta. Again a case could be made for it; interesting leaf and pretty yellow flowers, and of course there are plenty of potentillas, whether herbaceous or shrubby, that are much desired garden plants. But its capacity to creep all over the place is unrivalled, and though,rather as with the strawberry runner, the babies are quite easy to remove, the so-called parent plant has a woody tap root that often defies eradication. And do not be fooled by the wild nepeta, whose botanical names escapes me. A long time ago in Hampshire, I was so taken by its blue flowers, which I discovered in many different shades, that I decided to introduce it into the garden. It was so delighted to be given slightly better growing conditions that it proceeded to smother everything in sight. So, no delight for me.

And what about Hypericum calycinum, or more commonly the Rose of Sharon, this one of my most hated plants? The Hillier's entry is as follows:

"A dwarf evergreen shrub with large leaves and large, golden flowers. Excellent as ground cover in dry and shaded places, but if left unchecked can become a weed."

Indeed, and one of the most difficult weeds to eradicate that I have ever come across. Still, I know of one person who has planted a hillside with what one could call clouds of Rose of Sharon interspersed with mown grass to make admittedly attractive patterns, which only goes to show that one man's weed can be another's favourite plant. Meanwhile the dandelions on the roadsides are looking particularly beautiful this year, so that perhaps in future I should not be pulling them out.

How is your Wintergarten?

In a previous garden this question, with a lot of gutteral empasis on the last word became a running gag, I am not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was because that the person who first posed the question, a certain Austrian gentleman, was not one of our favourite visitors, and certainly was someone who knew very little about gardening. But he did possess a "wintergarten", in his case a heated conservatory, no doubt full of the latest 'exotica'. Our conservatory on the other hand was unheated and was used chiefly to overwinter plants that could put up with perhaps minus one or two, but not anything more. Things that did flourish in it it were various salvias such as S. elegans and S. guaranitica, and Geranium maderense, plants which if grown outside often struggle, if they do not die. Moreover our outside wintergarten, which is to say those plants that come into their own during the winter months, because there was not a specific winter area, was nothing to write home about.

Here it is even less so. In my last blog I wrote about the mahonias, plants that I strongly recommended since they provide both flowers and an evergreen structure. Also recommended, though with slightly less enthusiasm Viburnum tinus for roughly the same reasons, though its structure is not all that exciting - just a bush. But of course anything evergreen is more noticeable in winter, so all conifers are obvious winter candidates. However, since I have never really taken to them I cannot give much advice about them, except perhaps to warn that so-called dwarfs have an alarming habit to turn into giants.

If you have ever visited Jean Thoby's Plantarium at Gaujacq (40330) you will have no doubt admired his many autumn/winter flowering camellias, mainly C. sasanquas. I am very taken by them, especially those that have good scent. They seem to take the heat a little better than the spring flowering C. japonicas, but if you consult Thoby's catalogue or website (www.thoby.com) , the words 'sol frais' will appear very frequently. They are surely worth a try - they do not seem to object to our soil, which though rarely acid is more neutral than calcareous - but bear in mind that they will not accept periods of secheresse.

I need to acquire a winter flowering clematis, C. cirrhosa for the most part, with names like Freckles or Wisley Cream. They are not as spectacular as their later flowering cousins - if you were feeling unkind you might call their flowers a rather dinghy white, but as I have undoubtedly remarked before a plant does not have to be spectacular to catch the eye in Winter since there is so little competition. C. armandii, of which there are many varieties, all in the white to pink range, are more truthfully early spring than winter flowering but their leaves are evergreen, and in their way quite decorative, and thus show well in Winter. They also have good scent and appear to put up with our hot and usually dry summers pretty well. Incidentally both it and C. cirrhosa need quite a lot of space, the former reaching 5 metres or so, but it takes quite happily to heavy pruning.

Many of our bulbs are beginning to appear. There are one or two snowdrops in flower, though as I have mentioned before, one or two is all we have managed to grow, and each passing year results in fewer rather than more, always a distressing state of affairs.. On the other hand the small iris such I reticulata, with names such as George and Harmony, flourish without any help on my part, and are now in full flower. Sadly, like most irises, the flowers do not last long, but they are very showy, and their colour, usually in the blue/purple range, go well with the winter flowering Cyclamen coums. The individual flowers of the perhaps most famous Winter flowering iris, which goes under the impossible name of of I. unguicularis, also have a brief life, but appear over a longish period. Last year promised to increase my stock, have failed to do so, but I will try to do better this year.

Meanwhile the undoubted stars of our wintergarten, that is until the recent very cold spell, are Viburnum farreri, this similar to much pinker V. bodnantense) and Prunus subhirtella Autumnalis Rosea. I have recommended them before, but have no hesitation in recommending them again, especially as the latter is surprisingly little seen in our neck of the woods. But then all flowering cherries, apart from the perhaps all too common Prunus cerasifera Pissardii, though I increasingly find the pink haze its early flowering produces a delight, seem to be rejected by the French, for reasons that I still have not discovered.