Seeds et al.

In recent years I have tried to cut down on the number of seeds I order, this in order to save time and worry. Moreover if it is bedding plants one is looking, there is so much on offer in way of plugs or whatever the small plants sent by post are called, that I am happy to go that route. I would also recommend them in preference to the more fully developed plants that you will find in the shops and markets. These may look wonderful but can reach their peak too soon, since they are for obvious reasons programmed to catch your eye - or perhaps I am still a believer in the rather old-fashioned notion that deferred rather than instant gratification is best. Still as I was saying I have been trying to cut down but have to admit with very little success.

I have always found Thompson & Morgan a bit bling bling, but if it is novelties you are after they are the firm to go for.For a very long time I have been a fan of Chiltern Seeds: they offer a huge choice in a catalogue written in a very distinctive style, which may or may not give pleasure. More recently I have come across Jelitto, a German firm but with offices in England. It is very much in the same style as Chiltern Seeds, but perhaps with a slightly more interesting choice of perennials; for instance if it is Aciphyllas you are after, these incidentally looking somewhat between a phormium and a yucca, Chiltern Seeds list three varieties, Jelitto eight. But what has got me going again this year has been Derry Watkins's Special Plant Seeds. This is a much smaller list than those already mentioned but this is in many ways an advantage, especially as one gets the feeling that Derry Watkins is very knowledgeable and with a good eye for a winning plant. Moreover, perhaps because she hails originally from the States, she is the only seed supplier that I have come across that lists seeds of my currently favourite plant that I have already much bored you with, Erigeron annuus. She also sells plants but I am not sure that she will send them abroad. And finally she is also very pleasant to deal with which is always good news.

Meanwhile my impression is that this year the 'Spring offensive', by which I mean the rapid growth of grass and weeds, is even more aggressive than usual, or is this just that as one becomes older it presents more of a challenge? May be, but the consistantly wet and reasonably warm weather since the beginning of the year has probably had a great deal to do with it, or that is what I am hoping.  Of course good things grow as well as bad and there has been plenty of things to admire. I may have said before that we grow our fruit trees chiefly for their blossom since Nature in one form or another conspires to destroy most of our crops, perhaps especially the apples. But for flower power I can strongly recommend the Flat Peaches - a very strong pink semi-double blossom - while this year both cherry and plum blossom has been particularly good.  One of my favourite trees is the decorative pear; we grow Pyrus calleryana Chanticleer, perhaps the best known one, and P.c. Red Spire, which seems to flower a little earlier than the former. I have mentioned them often before, but just a reminder of their qualities: flower power early in the Spring, upright growth which has advantages where space is a problem, and very good late autumn colouring.

This year, despite the mild winter, our Autumn Flowering Cherry - Prunus x subhirtella Autumnalis Rosea saved its main flush of flower for the second week in April - incidentally it hardly ever flowers in the Autumn, or at least not with us - so it coincided with a decorative apple tree next door to it - Malus Prairie Flower - with deep red flowers, and the effect was rather good. And I guess most members of the Malus family are good for us, despite the threat of  Fire blight. I still have failed to obtain M. Evereste with lots of white flowers and good decorative  orange/red fruit is the autumn, but having got over my resistance to plants that are too popular, I now cannot make up my mind where to put it.

Finally the Ceanothus. I increasingly feel that are a 'must' for Gascony gardens, since they seem to like both our soil and our weather. It is however a plant that I seem to pick up rather casually - they are readily available at very reasonable prices - and then I tend to forget their names, so that I am not sure that I could name all the ones in our garden. Most have blue flowers and darkish evergreen foliage. C.thyrsiflorus repens is almost omnipresent, but then it is a very useful shrub providing all the year ground cover as well as a good blue flower. What I am certain of is that C. Puget Blue, despite the popularity in recent years of C. Concha, is the king of them all, the flowers being a brilliant almost florescent deep purplish blue, which last for a considerable amount of time. I suppose all ceanothus are vulnerable to a really cold winter - they mostly hail from California - and they are not the longest living of shrubs but they are easily replaced, look good all the year round, and in the Spring are complete stars.