Sorbus torminalis

Yet again a blog with one plant as its title, and in this case not even the excuse that it has not appeared before. My reason for doing so is that each autumn I fall in love with it again and vow to plant more of them which is as good an excuse as any, but moreover I have the impression that people do not really know about it perhaps because being common to most Gersois woods it is not considered sufficiently smart.. This year I have gone out into the woods and acquired a goodly number. This is not an altogether easy exercise. First of all one needs to identify it, the problem being that it is easily confused with the Field Maple, Acer campestre, in itself a very beautiful tree especially in autumn when the leaves turn a very intense yellow.  It is too complicated for me  here to explain the differences but the most obvious is that the acer's leaves are more deeply lobed.  Having found the right plant the next problem is that the roots are often layered but very sparsely rooted. The result is that you often end up with a lot of stem and very few roots. I have nevertheless planted these up, and only the Spring will tell whether they have rooted or not. Perhaps you are  better off buying them at a nursery - look out for Alisier - where at this time of year you will find them bare-rooted at a very reasonable price, for instance at Mirande's Jardinerie d'Embaloge.

But why bother?  First of all it has the features common to the family Sorbus, attractive leaves, bunches of white flowers followed by berries and good autumn colour. In fact neither the flowers - a rather dingy white, nor the berries, more brown than red - is its best feature, but rather the autumn colour, though even this is not as spectacular as some, that is to say it is neither bright red nor bright yellow. Probably it is old age but I increasingly like the more subtle colouration which often takes place over a period of time with on the same tree leaves of a different colour.  The Parrotia is one of the best in this respect, but alas I do not seem to be able to grow it well; mine shows little sign of growing and this year hardly bothered to change colour, I assume because it did not like our dry, hot summer. It is also a bit exposed to wind; one of the best examples that I can remember was tucked away in the cottage garden at Sissinghurst. Another tree that comes into this category and which I cannot grow for lack of enough water is the Cercidiphyllum, though I know of a marvellous specimen of C.japonicum Pendulum, but this growing much closer in to the Pyrenees with just that more amount of rain.

Of course we can do autumn colour here. I have mentioned the various red oaks before, my favourite being Quercus schumardii as also Pistacia sinensis. Liquidambers do reasonably well and for a very fine collection pay a visit to my 'favourite' garden, La Cousiana at Le Romieu. I have only got two: L. straciflua Worplesdon, this partly because I used to visit a lovely garden at Worplesdon, and L.formosana. The latter I am rather keen on without quite knowing why, though perhaps because its autumn colouration is not quite in your face as some - but I have just noticed that it may not be quite so frost resistant, coming from southern China, as the North American varieties.

Still, alas, autumn is over, though there are still leaves on our oak trees. The winter flowering cherry with its rather contradictory Latin name of Prunus subhirtella autumnalis - in fact it can start quite early in the winter, which I suppose one might consider to be almost autumn - is just coming into bloom. It will now flower intermittently through the winter in any mild spell, which is one of its charms: one thinks that you have had the flowers, and then up they pop again, almost stronger than ever. Also out are one or two mahaonias, and viburnum bodnantense. As yet no cyclamen coum in flower, but if this mild spell continues it will not be long before they appear. On the other hand the Iris unguicularis - why didn't we stick to the much more pronounceable I.stylosa! - are in full bloom and what a joy they are. So with plenty to look out for in the garden all that remains is to wish anyone who reads this a Very Happy Christmas and lots of good gardening in 2013

Cosmic Whisper

I am not really sure that Cosmic Whisper deserves  a blog all to itself it being nothing more than a tall yellow daisy, but it has given me such pleasure over the last two or three weeks that I could not resist writing about it.  Yellow daisies are in fact rather common at this time of year. Essentially there are two families - the rudbeckias and the helianthus. I guess that the rudbeckias, or coneflowers, are the slightly more elegant, their flowers rather less orange, which for some people will be a plus. They are also tall , perhaps reaching two meters where the soil suits, with not unattractive foliage, at which point I perhaps should stress that I am writing about R. laciniata and R. nitida, there being many other species, including those we treat as annuals, flowering for the most part earlier in the season. I grow R.Herbstsonne and R.Juligold, both bought along with Cosmic Whispers from the indispensable Bernard Lacrouts who says that they are varieties of R.laciniata but there seems to be some disagreement about this. It is too early for me to give a proper assessment. This was their first summer with me and both found the secheresse difficult. There is mention of them needing moist soil to do  well so this is a worry, but in my view this summer was slightly exceptional so I am still hopeful that they will thrive.

As for the helianthus I should perhaps begin by quoting Graham Stuart Thomas who stated that he could not 'write about them with any enthusiasm. Their large daisy flowers are of a brilliant yellow, their leaves coarse and rough, the taller varieties have running roots and need staking'. Donc . . !  In fact perhaps the most commonly planted H.Lemon Queen, which I see has got an RHS Award of Merit, has, as the name suggests, rather pale yellow flowers.  I am not in fact a great fan finding the flowers just a bit too dull - if you are going to go yellow why not go the whole hog, especially where there is bright sunshine - but clearly it pleases a lot of people. Its roots are quite invasive, but because they spread just under the surface of the soil they are quite easy to pull up.  Perhaps slightly less easy are the roots of H.tuberosus, none other than the Jerusalem artichoke, or in French topinambour. Its flowers are pretty ordinary but they make a nice splash of yellow, and after they are over you can make soup with the roots !

I am not sure how invasive the roots of H.Cosmic Whispers are, though for the moment it looks as if they are not going to be a problem. Even without flowers the plant is quite impressive, so much so, and having lost its label, I wondered what on earth it was, but of course the flowers are the chief feature.  They appear in great quantity, of a bright, clear yellow,and seemingly over a longish period, but where they differ is in the formation of their petals. These are slightly elongated giving them touch of elegance lacking in their 'cousins'.

So if you cope with yellow daisies go for Cosmic Whispers, which along with most of the above, seems to me to go very well with the tall Michaelmas daisies mostly in blues and reds with a touch of purple which are one of the great glories of the autumn scene, and incidentally all much loved by the late butterflies. Meanwhile the autumn pyrotechnics are under way, though this year rather diminished by the lack of rain. As a vital part of this scene can I yet again strongly recommend two trees, Pistacia chinensis and Pyrus Chanticleer.neither are in my view sufficiently well known in this area which is why I go on about them. The pear has the advantage of abundant spring flowers, both have amazing autumn colour, the pear's leaves turning particularly late which helps to prolong the autumn show. But perhaps most important of all both seem unaffected by our dry hot summers. One could hardly ask for more.

P.S. I should have mentioned that Lacrouts sells nine diffierent varieties of helianthus including H. Guillick's Variety which he refers to as the 'le soleil classique'

Survivors !

I had thought of entitling this blog 'Successes', but in the end it seemed a bit too triumphal in a summer which has really tested us all. From May to September here we have had  124 ml of rain when the average for these months is around 300 ml to which one should add the fact that it has been exceptionally hot as well with temperatures often over 30 C. So one might well argue that anything that has survived can be counted a success, and of course there have been one or two survivors.

To start with something really quite ordinary, the Perovskia. There are various ones on the market, but I suspect that mine are the most common, P.atriplicifolia Blue Spire, and anyway I for one have not taken in the differences, though I do not see much point in acquiring a P.Little Spire. Many of you will know it, perhaps under the name Russian Sage with quite fine grey foliage and fronds of blue flowers over a long period - mine are still showing colour having started somewhere near the end of June. Treat it like a buddlejia and cut it right down early in the year it seems to resist anything that the weather might throw at it.. My guess is that it is better in an open bed, or even in the dreaded Prairie Garden where mine are, than in a traditional border, where it tends to flop seeking no doubt the sun, but of course it can always be staked.  I am adding to my collection since I have come, perhaps rather late, to the decision that I need more of the common, or perhaps along with our new President I should say 'normal' plants. I am thinking here of Hibiscus, lagerstroemias, lavenders, rosemarys, plants that do not turn a hair as the temperatures mount into the thirties.

Many of the grasses seem to pass this test, and I do mean grasses rather than sedges which do demand more water.  The great advantages of grasses is that they do not have flowers, or not at least in the ordinary sense of the word, for it is often the flowers that suffer most in the heat. Either they do not appear at all, or they are over far too soon.  Grasses in the same heat may look a little browned off but after all it is their browning in late autumn that we anyway look forward to, and though most of them would welcome a bit water, they do not seem to need it. Can I in particular praise the Panicums. They are not as big as the Miscanthus or at least they are not in my garden, though having just glanced at Neil Lucas's 'Designing with Grasses', a book I can strongly recommend, I see that many of them can get to 3 meters or more. I have grown with pleasure for some time P. virgatum Heavy Metal, but am new to P.v.Dallas Blue which as the name suggests has bluish leaves and very showy flower panicles which makes it for me a bit of a star.

Most roses have suffered a bit, which is to say that their second and third flowering, that is if they do repeat, has been less good than usual. Among the exceptions to this I would definitely include David Austin's Crown Princess Margereta, which increasingly think is one of the best that he has produced, and in flower now on our walls and pergolas Ena Harkness, Lady Hillingdon and Sombreuil. I have actually lost one or two roses that I planted in the Spring, partly as a result of carelessness, but it has been very difficult to keep an eye on everything, but by and large roses do survive the secheresse and most will make a strong comeback next year. And while I think about I want to put in a good word for Mrs B.R.Cant, a rather pedestrian name for what I first took to be a rather pedestrian rose. However it was recommended to me by Becky and John Hook of La Roseraie du Desert, so perhaps it is not so surprising that I have changed my mind.  It is certainly a survivor having come through this summer without needing a drop of water and I am now enjoying its third significant flush of flowers.  The colour has been one of my worries. It is a strong pink which I suppose is not my favourite but better perhaps than a pink that gets washed out by strong sunlight. The flower itself is rather beautifully formed, and perhaps above all it appears at the end of a long stem, which makes it ideal for cutting. So all in all a rose well worth looking out for, especially as it does not seem to suffer from any of the prevalent rose diseases.

Other survivors would include the achilleas. I am not talking here of the very many varieties of Achillea millefolium in all shades of of colour and with names like Cassis  and Paprika. They are often recommnded for the dry garden, but they do not do at all with me, seemingly needing more water than I am prepared to give them; No, I am talking of the tall plants in various shades of yellow with names such as Cloth of Cold or Gold Plate. Mine are mainly Ach. filipendulina Parker's Variety which I grew from seed. They are imposing plants which seem to resist the secheresse and have quite a long flowering period. So another 'normal' plant that I am increasingly concentrating on.

But having been a plant snob all my life I find it difficult to shake of my old love of the unusual.  I am not sure just how unusual Mandevilla laxa is but I do not think that it is often seen. It is much like a white Morning Glory but with the advantage of a good scent, though sadly not one that appears to carry any distance, so you have to stick your nose in the flower. It has pretty enough leaf, and this year mine has covered a wide area of the front fascade of the house and has been in flower for a long period. It hails from South America so one worries about its survival in the winter, but all I can say is that it came through the last one without any problems which means that we can call it a survivor.

Nature !

Readers of this blog will know that I am against, or at least against certain aspects of Nature as they effect a garden. Rabbits and slugs are my chief enemies, as are certain weeds, my No.1 enemy in this department being what I call the creeping potentilla - I assume potentilla reptans - which not only creeps but comes with a very long tap root, which is almost impossible to get out without breaking. The same is of course true of the better known bindweeds, though in their case it is not a tap root but very fine thread, at least in the case of the smaller variety - convolvulus arvensis - which breaks even more easily. Still I remain fascinated by the problem of how to define a weed, the convolvulus family being a case in point. Some we accept happily, including C.althaeoides with the pretty pink flower, which if it likes you is extremely rampant, and others we hate, as they are indeed a major bind.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was admiring a meadow verge consisting almost entirely of the wild carrot - Daucus carota.  In fact at this moment it is difficult to miss, in my book a slightly smaller cow parsley, and I see that in America it is called Queen Anne's Lace, the name we give to cow parsley. One of its features is its seed heads, difficult to describe - in some ways like a minature version of the recent olympic flame! - but very attractive. Some people may grow it deliberately but I have never seen this myself, and I wonder why. After all, Ammi majus, another cow parsley look alike practically became a 'celebrity' plant a few years ago, pushed by such as Christoper Lloyd.  I have nothing against Ammi majus, except that my rabbits seem to like it, but I am not sure that it is any more attractive than the Wild carrot, though the latter clearly does not have the same sex appeal.

But all this has been something of diversion from worries about Nature, and the fact that any p.c. gardener is supposed to welcome it in all its forms.  Some years ago now I resigned my membership of the RHS on the grounds that it was turning itself into an environmental pressure group rather than a society to promote a love of gardening. Looking through some recent editions of its magazine, 'The Garden', I see that nothing much has changed. It now appears to have regular section on Wild Life; in March this year, the subject was the common earwig, and in June the Green tiger beetle, which at least sounds a bit exotic. In April there was Nigel Colborn telling us not to mow our lawns, a kind of mantra for the back-to-nature gardeners. However by June he seems to have changed his mind. Commenting on a photo of a garden in Twickenham he remarked that 'a carefully maintained lawn makes cool clean contrast with cottage style planting', and of course it does. Most hands-on gardeners are aware that the quickest way to give a lift to a garden is to mow the grass, and this applies even out here where very few of can aspire to anything so smart as a lawn. But the fact is that grass even as brown as ours is at this moment looks better than a brown hay field. Some of you may know of the famous Long Border at Great Dixter, one of the glories of the English garden, but for me ruined by the end of June by the adjoining hay field or 'meadow', as we should now call it. These can look good in the early part of the year, but even then they are a distraction rather than an aid to flower beds or topiary, and by high summer they are just a mess.

I must not get too excited about these 'green' trends, though I notice that we should now talk about 'green' rather than gardening skills. I personally am very fond of birds and butterflies, and seem to have plenty in my garden, despite the occasional use of weedkillers, etc.  In fact I do not use pesticides in any great quantity, not because I am against their use en principe, but because on the whole I have never found them very effective. So as in most things in life there are compromises to be made, and a bit of common sense goes a long way. But by definition gardening implies some control of nature. Otherwise one would just do nothing and let nature take over. Any control  suggests conflict. It need not be out and out war, but gardening is different from 'Wild Life', which is why I find it rather tedious of the RHS spending so much time on the latter. Meanwhile I had better go out and check whether there are any Green tiger beetles lurking in the undergrowth !

Le Dieu de Vivaces

It was not I who honoured Bernard Lacrouts with this title, but another client, and he is certainly far too modest to accept it. Still as long as we can think pagan, since there are other 'Gods' to be found, I am in agreement. We are very lucky to have someone as good as he who is  reasonably easily available. His nursery is situated just outside of Vic en Bigorre - roughly speaking  just above Tarbes - very close to the road from Vic to Pau. One of his many advantages is that he has very good website - www.unjardindevivaces.fr - where you will find a better idea of how to get to him than I have provided.  There is also on the site a most excellent catalogue, which you can download and print out, most of the plants having photos available.  His descriptions and advice may not be quite up to the standard of Thierry Denis - another 'Dieu de Vivaces' but two or three hundred miles away, and with a much more limited selection - but they are good enough.

What is so good about him ? Well, first of all there is the accueil. He and his rather remarkable lady 'colleague' - a champion archer, surfer and snowboarder - could not be more welcoming, without being too much in your face:  you are allowed to get on with your visit, but if you need advice they are there to help.  There probably is a plan, though I have yet to work it out, but the large area is sufficiently well organized to make finding things fairly easy, and when I was there earlier this week all the plants were looking well despite the intense heat of recent days. In these hard times price is an important consideration and his seem to me to be very reasonable.  But what makes his nursery a bit different from many others in our region is the choice.

Compared with England I would say that the average nursery and garden centre in France is rather conservative in their choice, though perhaps that is changing a little. But Lacrouts has always travelled widely in search of new plants, so he knows what is happening in England or elsewhere in Europe.  For example his current catalogue lists over fifty hardy geraniums, including all the important new varieties such as  G. Orian and G.Rozanne.  All the different varieties of vivace are well-represented - achilleas, asters, phloxes, thalictrums, etc., etc. as well as what in the old days one would have called rockery plants, including the increasingly fashionable Delospermas, for me a sort of mesembryanthemum, with names such as Nelson Mandela, and Graaff-Reinet, the latter in fact a rather disappointing white, but since I was at Graaff-Reinet last January I felt that I had to have it. If you like day lilies you will not be disappointed, or for instance salvias of which there is a huge choice.

But what gives me particular pleasure is finding plants that I have never heard of, yet alone come across, this after a life timing of gardening a not very frequent event. On my last visit I suddenly came across a very fine specimen of what turned out to be Patrinia scabiosifolia. It is difficult to describe. Christopher Lloyd who came to admire it in late life likened it to the tall Valerian which you can see growing on roadside verges at this moment if not cut down by the over eager 'équipement', but with flowers 'of a cool yellow with just a hint of green in them'. There is a worry about just how much heat and dryness it can take. Lacrouts thought that it probably would need rather more moisture than I can provide here, especially at this moment with temperatures well over 30.C, but Lloyd thought that it went well with Verbena bonariensis which suggests that it could manage some 'secheresse'.  If anybody knows anything about the weather in Eastern Siberia they would be able to provide the answer because apparently that is where it hails from. But in all events it has that unmistakable look of a quality plant, and is just one example of the kind of vivace you will find chez Lacrouts.

Six Years On

We arrived here on the 13 July 2006 so we have just celebrated our Sixth anniversary, though since there was no garden here at all when we arrived it makes more sense to talk about our fifth summer. It is far too early to talk about maturity, but at least not everything is at the pygmy stage, and it is perhaps a good moment to sit back and try to assess how we are doing. I am not a great believer in a detailed Five Year Plan, but one or two major decisions had to be made from almost day one. Amongst these was the position of the pool. By and large they are not things of great beauty especially when decorated by swimming pool furniture and toys, so if possible I would always be in favour of hiding them. Here that was difficult since the property is tucked away on the side of a hill, and in the end we decided to go full frontal, which is to say that the pool is in full view of the main facade of the house. Here we have created a large flat area. This consists of, immediately outside the front door, the so-called Gravel Garden, then grass, then the pool, then grass again, and then the so-called Prairie Garden. After that the the natural contours of the slope, fortunately not too steep, take over, leading to an orchard, and to a particularly fine oak tree. Making this oak the central focus of the garden was I suppose the main design decision, slightly complicated by the fact that close to it is an electric pylon, which at great expense we are about to remove, two similar ones nearer to the house having already been done away with.

By and large it works, the pool when not in use standing in for an ornamental pond, this necessitating an alarm system, no visible pool house, no cover, and no emptying in winter.. Of the other features the least satisfactory to date is the Gravel Garden, about which I have written about in previous blogs. The ground should have been better prepared, the use of peat to mix with the gravel was a mistake, and the planting of oenothera speciosa was a catastrophe. But I still think that the idea was a good one, and with better drainage - the gravel was placed over fairly heavy clay - and a better choice of plants I am hopeful that it will improve.  To my surprise the various thymes have been rather disappointing, one in particular whose name I have forgotten but whose flowers are pretty nondescript pale pink and whose foliage is far too lax, has threatened to take over. Also disappointing have been teucrium ackermanii and t. cossonii. In the photos these appear to provide a marvellous carpet of a strong purple colour, but mine have struggled to produce any flowers, the reason I suppose being the lack of really good drainage. T.marum has taken its time, but is at last beging to make an impact - good greyish foliage and purple flowers. As for successes I would single out tanacetum densum subsp.amanii with its almost white persistent foliage, a small red leaved berberis whose name I have also forgotten, various dianthus(pinks) though sadly these need frequent renewing, and various geraniums, chiefly g. sanguineum but also g.Rambling Robin, these providing colour, but not shape, and it is shape that this area of the garden desperately needs.

I am a late convert to Prairie gardens. As I wrote over ten years ago now, one of the problems with them is that we do not all possess a prairie. Here we have one, though  rather small by North American standards, and no bison.It is one of the many parts of the garden that looks reasonably good from a distance which is appropriate enough as regards prairies. The great saviour here has been the gauras, which are in full fig as I write this. They in fact do much better in a prairie, or indeed in an Island bed than for instance in a mixed border where they tend to flop about in an unsatisfactory way. Very successful too are the macleayas, in particular m.microcarpa Kelway's Coral Plume, and m.micro; Spetchly Ruby, the latter with a more glaucous leaf and with flowers rather less coral, though I would not call them ruby. They are tall - over 2 meters - do not need staking, and die attractively, so are a feature for a long period, but definitely not for a small area. Also vital are tall achilleas, mainly a.filipendulina Parker's Variety which I grew from seed. They more or less support themsleves, their bright yellows make an impact, and their flowering season is quite long. They will be followed by asters, and of course the grasses. We have now got quite a lot of them, mainly misacnthus and panicums, and in a later blog I will try and assess them, but it is just worth noting that for the first half of the year they do not contribute very much, and indeed one might think of them at this stage as not very desirable 'weeds', which enables me to stress that though a convert, I have not become, like many converts do, a fundamentalist. Grasses can be good in certain situations, but can easily be overdone, and indeed many are thugs.

The Prairie Garden is certainly getting better, and with luck will continue to improve in time as the various clumps get bigger. The same can be said of various massifs situated on banks. They consist chiefly of shrubs and trees, all still quite small but at last beginning to make an impact. Amongst the trees are those that I have mentioned quite frequently including ornamental pears, red oaks and perhaps almost my favourite tree of Pistacia chinensis. I suppose autumn colour is its main feature but the ash like leaf is always attractive, and it seems to grow fast. Amongst the shrubs I would include the various buddleias with the I suppose fairly bogstandard, b.Lochinch very hard to beat, clerodendrum trichotomum, about to burst into flower - white with a good smell that carries followed by turquoise berries - and the elaegnus  angustifolia and e.commutata Quicksilver. The roses, which must be if not the best at least the most noticeable feature of the garden I have written about too many times to need to say more here, but one advantage of them is that they grow fast, though a little patience is needed during the first year.

I have never considered myself a garden designer, which may be why my gardens are never quite as satisfactory as I think they ought to be. But a garden design tends to require more money than I have ever had available: walls and hedges,lakes and follys are wonderful but expensive and then there is often the designer to be paid as well.  But I do not feel to hard done by since what I like about gardens are the plants and by and large they are much cheaper than hard surfaces. But the great danger of my approach is that it all gets to look a bit the same. Because in my case gauras and roses do remarkably well there is a great temptation to have them all over the place, and I may not have completely avoided this danger here. Fortunately I do also like growing new plants, and we are also lucky to have in the grounds about half a dozen really fine oaks, which if all else fails us give us something rather beautiful to look at while the things that we have planted continue to grow. Let us hope that we are still around in six years time to make a further assessment.

Miscellany

Here the first, and always the most dramatic flush of roses is over, and what a glorious sight it has been. The front fascade of the house was dripping with flowers - Maréchal Niel, a rather biscuity yellow, Duchesse d'Auerstadt, a much clearer yellow which retains its colour even on a south-facing wall, and Westerland. The latter's colour is still a bit of a worry for me and indeed for Quest-Ritson who in the RHS rose encyclopedia remarks that its "glowing mixture of vermilion,crimson,orange,pink,yellow, and amber" is 'difficult to handle in a small garden". Happily our garden is not too small, and I justify its presence not only on account of it 'wow factor', but because given that it is in full sun for most of the day, a strong colour is needed to make any impact at all. Moreover I am not sure that with our crépi anything pink, or indeed white goes very well. On what we call the 'Great Wall, also much of the time in full sun, Ena Harkness, Lady Hillingdon and the wonderfully named Vicomtesse Pierre de Fou, this in fact a pink, but a strong one, did the business. The latter was obtained from La Roseraie du Desert, but in my excitement at the discovery of all their China and Tea roses I had perhaps rather forgotten how wonderful my old favourites, the Hybrid Musks are. Moonlight has never looked better, as indeed its parent, Trier, now at least two metres in circumference. But there is hardly a dud Hybrid Musk. Along with Moonlight, we grow in alphabetical order Buff Beauty, Cornelia, Kathleen, Nur Mahal, Penelope, and Vanity. Perhaps the only slight disappointment so far is Nur Mahal, a semi-double purplish-crimson. Quest-Ritson writes that it is easy to grow,but that is not the case with ours, perhaps only because it has been planted in a most unfriendly spot on top of a south-facing bank.

I have also been reminded how striking the best of the antirrhinums are. By the best I mean the 'Giants', quite a different animal from the miserable antirrhinums that one buys in godets in the markets chain stores such as Gamm Vert.  These are real snapdragons, three feet tall. I buy ours from Chiltern seeds, particularly liking the fiery crimson red of Defiance, but I am told that the white Snowflake is very good as well. I plant mine in the Spring and get quite a good flowering by the end of the summer. But the real glory comes now from those that have survived the winter, which seems to be the majority. But some will struggle on for a third season, but it is hardly worth it, but I find that they are well worth the trouble.

Meanwhile I have been much annoyed by an article by Anne Wareham in an April edition of the The Spectator attacking the National Gardens Scheme with its famous Yellow Book in which gardens opened to the public under this scheme are listed.  Having once been involved in such a garden I can only report what fun it gave me and its owners, even when someone was heard to remark when leaving: that he very much regretted having travelled all this way just to see "bloody Cow parsley", the cow parsley in our eyes being one of the great glories of the garden at that season, but everybody is entitled to their point of view.  Wareham seems to be especially annoyed not by the cow parsley but by "the fashionable lemon drizzle cake', which according to her is too often served on these open days, but I suppose her more serious point is that the scheme is a terrible force for conservatism in gardening and of a lack of quality control.

I rather doubt that she is right about this.  In fact there is a very strict control of these gardens by the organisers, perhaps too strict, and perhaps this control can be seen as force for conservatism. But the fact is that during the eighty-five years of the scheme fashions in gardening have changed quite happily, the changes perhaps being speeded up by the visits, so one can just as well argue that the Scheme has been a force for change. Moreover within the fashion there is almost unlimited opportunity for variations. We none of us garden in the exactly the same way, and of course one of the great opportunities provided by the Scheme is a chance to see these variations, which we can adapt to our own tastes. Furthermore just to see other plants in situ is a great eye-opener, much more informative than any illustration can be.

Of course the article does raise the question of why most of us garden at all.  In my last blog I suggested that 'ocupational therapy' was a prime ingredient, but there are all sorts of other reasons, including in the past an excuse for getting out of the clutches of the wife.  What I guess most of us will not be concerned about is whether we are making garden history. As in other walks of life there will always be the very rare innovators and thank the Lord for them.  But most of us are very happy to go along with the crowd, and we do not need Anne Wareham to spoil our pleasure. Moreover if she lived France where no National Garden Scheme exists she might begin to realise what a not only pleasurable but instructive activity garden visiting can be.

Where there is Hope there is Life

Alas this is not always the case but it is not a bad maxim for gardeners when contemplating their rather dead looking plants, the result of our recent very cold winter. Here our many ceanothus including the bog standard C.repens looked particularly dead, as did rather less surprisingly various eucalyptus. My Luma apiculata, already struggling on account of secheresse, lost all its leaves, as did my Melianthus major. As for the cannas, dahlias and Hedychiums, which only partly out of laziness, I leave in the ground, I was not too hopeful that I would be seeing them again, but in fact hope is what is needed.

I hardly dare to recollect how many plants I have killed over the years by pulling them out because I had given up hope of them being alive. One of the problems is of course that a dead looking plant is not an attractive sight, especially if it is a large subject such as a mimosa or bay tree. Recently I was at Blagnac airport where at about two years ago it was decided to plant the surrounding 'park' with a wide selection of eucalyptus At the time it seemed to me a slightly risky choice not only because of the possibility of death from cold, but also wind: they have tendency to grow too fast for their own good so that there is not sufficient root system to cope with the top heavy growth.  Still it was bad luck that they had to put up with our very rare dangerously cold winter so soon after after having been planted., The result  is not  a very pretty sight leaving the airport authorities with a difficult decision of whether to remove now, or cut back with the hope that that they may sprout from the base. Last autumn I acquired Eucalyptus mannifera maculosa recommended for its attractive bark, this of course a feature of many of the species. It is looking very dead at the moment, but I am hanging on in the hope that something might happen.  And I guess it is true that the more tree like the subject the greater the need for patience: I can remember mimosas having looked as dead as the proverbial Dodo waiting until the autumn before showing signs of life.  Meanwhile most of the things I feared for have resurrected themselves including the dahlias and cannas, but not so far the hedychiums.

In old age I suppose I have learnt to be a little more patient, but while reflecting on this it occurred to me to ask a more general question: has gardening made me a better person?  Readers of this blog will know that I am not a great believer in the fashionable belief that all things in nature are beautiful while only man is horrid. Here alas the rabbits are winning the the struggle for life, and I could contemplate happily a world without slugs and snails. To my great regret modern garden is rapidly turning itself into a nature reserve in which we humans have only a very modest role to play: all killing is is out, and indeed any attempt to control nature is frowned upon. Empathy with all living things is the order of the day, and close contact with the soil can only have beneficial effects. In other words the Good Life.

Over the years I have observed a rather different side to gardening.  As with most human activities the spirit of competition seems very present ranging from who can produce the best five decorative dahlias at the local flower show to whose magnolia grandiflora produced the most blooms. Funnily enough I do not think that in the most obvious sense I am competitive being very happy to enjoy other people's gardens, but I am a bit of a garden snob with a preference for the rare whether beautiful or not. As for naked greed, the stampede of 'Hardy Planters' to grab the best or rarest specimens at the opening of a plant fair is something to behold. Despite our attempts at a new brand image I fear we gardeners are not a particularly meritorious lot. What gardening has provided for me is a wonderful way of passing the time. Essentially a selfish occupation but in so far as it makes me happy maybe it makes me a nicer person to know.

La Roseraie du Désert

I make no apology for returning to the subject of the La Roseraie du Désert, so full of admiration am I of the work that Becky and John Hook have embarked on. As with everything else fashions in roses come and go with the result that the out of fashion ones are always in danger of disappearing. I suppose back in the 1950s the new Hybrid Teas with their bright colours and long stems, ideal for for putting in vases, were in danger of taking over. Then along came people such as Vita Sackville-West and Graham Stuart Thomas to remind us that the 19th century had seen an explosion of different types of roses, many of them with subtler colours and more scent than the prevailing hybrids - Albas and Bourbons, and Galliacas, etc., etc; -  and thus began the craze for what came to be called 'Old- fashioned Roses', This craze is perhaps still with us, helped by the work of people such as David Austin, but increasingly French nurserymen such as André Eve and the Guillot, who by marrying the old with the new have produced a healthier, repeat flowering old-fashioned type rose, not that many of the real Old-fashioned did not repeat, or were not perfectly healthy.

But in this rush for the Old-fashioned certain categories were overlooked, in particular the China and the Tea Roses, perhaps because they were considered to be tender, and in need of a greenhouse under English conditions. Those in my garden in the Gers, and apparently the very many in La Roseraie du Desert appear to have survived the recent exceptionally cold spell reasonably well.  More importantly from our point of view, they are very well adapted to hot dry summers, a very good reason to have some in your garden.

A history of these two categories of roses I will leave to the specialists. Suffice it to say that amongst them you will find some of the oldest known roses; for instance Old Blush seems to have been first recoded in Europe c.1750, but can be traced back much earlier in China. There then seems to have been two main periods for the creation of new hybrids, early in the 19th century, and then again towards the end, and beginning of the 20th.centuries. Many of them have single or semi-double flowers, and quite a few are a mélange of colours, often containing a touch of yellow not to say orange, this especially true of the many varieties produced by the Nabonnands, father and sons. This may not be to every body's taste, and I am not entirely sure that it is to mine, in fact one can find every colour with the exception perhaps of a pure white, and every form. Many of them also appear to have smell, though I have to confess that I am not quite sure that I want my roses smelling of tea.

But I suppose what does get me about these roses is their history and the research that is going on to recover the hundreds of varieties. When I read in the La Roseraie du Désert catalogue that Emmie Grey - a very good single red similar to Sanguinea, though more upright in habit - was 'found in Bermuda', this for some reason excites me, as do the many which have just been found. At this moment I am apparently the only person in S-W France, apart from the Hooks, who is growing  Bardou Job, though I hope that this will not be the case for long. It looks to be a good fully petalled red, but what is exciting about it is that it hails for some unknown reason from Wales, but then transferred itself across to America and Alcatraz Island, famous for its prison, but now also for Bardou Job. Even more exciting are the number of roses that John Hook has discovered on his bicycle rides. Belle Bassous looks to me to a complete winner, a sort of more double Lady Hillingdon, or a stronger coloured Gloire de Dijon.  I am not quite so sure about Labatut Tea, but since my sister had a house there I probably ought to have it - and there a good many others. Sadly when I came here there were no 'unknown' roses for the Hooks to discover, but I am doing my best to make up for this.

Out of Africa

It has been a long time that I have posted anything. This is partly because I have not had anything to say, and partly because for a month I had the good fortune to visit South Africa. I suppose most people associate Africa with herds of zebra and wildebeests, not to mention the odd lion and elephant, or perhaps even Meryl Streep falling in love with Robert Redford under an African sky.  I did not see Meryl Streep but I did see wild animals - not all the big five, but to be 5 metres away from three rhino with no sign at least from the rhinos that they were in any way worried was exciting enough. But for a gardener, Africa, but especially South Africa, and within South Africa, an area in and around the Cape, is the home of the greatest diversity of plant life to be found anywhere in the world. It also has a great gardening tradition, helped no doubt by the fact that labour has been very cheap, and in Kirstenbosch it posses one of the world's most famous botanical gardens.

If I say that I was nevertheless a little bit disappointed with the gardening aspects of my visit I would need to emphasize the 'little'. I did see some lovely things. The five 300 year old Camphor trees at Vergelegen estate near Stellenbosch are quite remarkbale, as are more generally the many outstanding trees to be found in the Cape area, amongst  which Pin Oaks (quercus palustre/chêne des marais) and various eucalyptus species feature greatly. Of course none of these are natives of South Africa, and in fact I am not sure that I could name an indigenous South African tree in anyway equalling their stature.Possibly the stink and yellow woods (celtis africana; podocarpus falcatus), though most of the yellowwoods I saw were small, this no doubt because the species has been too much used for floors and furniture.  It is not altogether surprising that we in Europe are better off for trees. Much of South Africa is semi-arid country if not actually desert, and the lack of regular rainfall is not conducive to the growing of large trees, and where you do find them is in the wetter coastal regions.

What much of the landscape I saw - essentially an area called the Karoo, a large area of central South Africa - reminded me very much of our garrigue; that is to say it is very scrubby, evergreen, often aromatic, quite a few succulents, and indeed anything that can cope with harsh conditions  including snow.  In fact the more famous fynbos , a comparitively small area surrounding the Cape is not dissimilar, except that in certain seasons it bursts into floral life in a most remarkable way. One of the reasons no doubt for my slight disappointment, is that I was both a little too late, and not really in the right place to witness this flowering. This would apply to my visit to Kirstenbosch, essentially an indigenous/fynbos garden, where the main flowering period was over, and anyway I am not sure that I am into proteas, in my view rather bling-bling cacti.

I am being a little harsh. One reason for being so it that as in England and France there is a growing back to nature/lets be indigenous movement, which as readers of this blog will know already, just fills me with rage.  If you want to go back to nature, whatever that might entail, by all means do it, but don't call it gardening. It is true that given South Africa's great a variety of plants, an indigenous garden there would be a good deal more interesting than one in SW France, but it would entail the removal of all those camphor and eucalyptus trees that I found so impressive in the Cape, not to mention most of the trees that line the streets of Johannesburg, including the lovely jacaranda trees, making that city one of the largest man-made forests in the world. Moreover the prettiest garden that I visited, admittedly situated some 1500 metres high, was essentially English in feel, a wonderful mixture of blues, yellows and whites.  Much of the blue was indeed provided by the very South African agapanthus, but the yellow was verbascum olympicum, apparently from Turkey, and the white, the rose Iceberg, originally bred in Germany. Mention of this rose reminds me to note that it is very much alive and well in South Africa, to be found in practically every garden  One often remarks that it has no smell, which is true, but especially en masse it looks very good, and clearly does not mind the heat..

I suspect that given time I could easily fall in love with the fynbos, and indeed the Karoo, and as regards the latter I would strongly recommend two books by Eve Palmer, The Plains of Camdeboo, and Return to Cambedoo; both are a paean for the contryside that she was born into, and where some of her relatives still live, though not without a very strong factual base. But the problem I suppose is that I find it difficult to see how I could integrate the South African flora into my Gersois garden. Of course a lot of South African plants have already arrived here in force: the agapanthus is an obvious example. I have made a list of less well-known plants which I thought I might try, though having returned to find the Gers in the grip of its coldest winter for twenty five years - obviously entirely due to global warming! - I am a little bit discouraged. For the moment I will leave you with the name of one plant, seeds of which it so happens are now available at Chiltern Seeds. It is not the most distinguished of plants, but at Kirstenbosch it provided a spectacular burst of blue, amongst the rather drab fynbos. It is in fact a lobelia (l.valida), I suppose in our neck of the woods a half-hardy perennial of about 50 cms.  Just a little bit different and definitely worth a try.