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.

'You say Mimosa; I say Mahonia'

Picking up on the theme of recent blogs I suppose the Mimosa might for some come into the star category. Its fern like foliage is attractive, its yellow flowers are harbingers of Spring, and moreover it has a lovely, if delicate, fragrance. What more could one want? Well, like everything else it is not perfect. It looks rather a mess after flowering, and this at a time of the year when messes rather stand out since everything else is looking so fresh. Moreover in many parts of the world it is almost a weed, so freely does it sucker and self seed. This is true of the Riviera, where it has found conditions entirely to its liking and now threatens to take over the countryside. In SW France it is less happy, though certainly growable: if cut down by very cold weather a well-established plant usually grows again from the base. But in a way this makes it here more desirable than say at Menton, where I believe there is a Mimosa festival each year. Incidentally for mimosa read Acacia dealbata, the most common, probably because one of the most hardy of the family. It is in fact a huge family, mainly I think with yellow flowers, but with very different and mostly very attractive foliage. I grew for a number of years quite successfully A. pravissima with triangular almost spiky foliage, less successfully A.baileyana Purpurea with, as the name suggests, very deep purple foliage, but there are many others, sadly all a bit frost tender but well worth a try, and perhaps I should add that they come quite easily from seed, and grow very fast, which for us 'Wrinklies' is an advantage. But that said, as Christopher Lloyd used to write of certain plants, on the whole I prefer to see mimosas in other people's gardens, especially if those people are willing from time to time to give me a bouquet.

Mahonias are another matter. Apart from a certain alliteration, they share with mimosas evergreen foliage, though holly-like rather than fern-like, and yellow flowers, often fragrant. What I suppose I like about them, and perhaps increasingly so, is their architectural quality - this a description often used, so that it has become a cliche, but it is difficult to think of an alternative. Mine are just coming into flower, this of course at a time when there are not too many flowers about, so that is another plus. Sadly I do not know what varieties they are. One is almost certainly M. Winter Sun. The others were bought as Gamm Vert rejects, these well worth looking out for, especially at the L'Isle Jourdain outlet, which in my experiance has the best selection of plants, though in recent years Gamm Vert has made a big effort to improve the quality and choice of their plants. I guess more often seen are M. Charity and M. Lionel Fortescue, but I am not sure that I can tell the difference between them. They lack the strong fragrance of M. Winter Sun, but the most fragrant is M.japonica, a plant that one used to see a lot of in England, but I am not sure that I have ever seen it here, which is a pity. It is perhaps less architectural than the others mentioned, perhaps too bushy to be so described. The most architectural - Hilliers calls it "very imposing" - is M.lomariifolia, but it is slightly more tender than the others, and I think the flowers lack fragrance. I have grown two from seed, but maybe I will never see them in flower. Meanwhile there are many other mahonias, M. bealei perhaps being the most common, but not one of my favourites. There are also a number of definitely tender varieties, such as M.freemonti, which I have tried without much success; they have not exactly died, but they have struggled to such an extent that in the end I have pulled them out.

Meanwhile I feel that our autumn has been disappointing; rather long drawn-out - there are still plenty of leaves on the trees, especially oaks but then they are always late to fall - and thus not so intense. But so far we have escaped the cold and snow of Northern France, and indeed of much of Northern Europe including England. Long may this last.

Celebrities

Before attacking the subject of the title I want to return to my previous blog, since amongst the plants that I use rather a lot of are two non-stars that I failed to mention. The first is Viburnum tinus, a plant that I at one time I positively disliked. Evergreen yes, but a leaf that in my view is not nearly as attractive as cotoneaster lacteus which I wrote about last time; flowers that one might call winter flowering, or at least late autumn and early Spring - but do these come into the dingy white category? - and apparently in certain weather conditions it may give off an unpleasant smell, though I am not sure that I have ever noticed this. Why have I changed my mind, sufficiently so to plant not exactly a hedge, but rather a line of them ? One reason is the need to find something evergreen, if for different reasons, camellias, conifers and rhododendrons are not an option, this the same reason why I have become keener on the cotoneaster. One can also do more or less what you like with them, which is to say that they will take really quite hard pruning, and this has practical advantages. But the chief reason is that they by and large make more impact here than they did in the areas of England where I gardened. Curiously given its non-starring qualities Viburnhum tinus does not like cold weather, and indeed can be killed by heavy frosts. This meant that very often in Kent when the plant should be looking at its best, it could look rather ill. Here this is less likely, and perhaps even more importantly our hot summers significantly increase its flower power, as it does for quite a number of shrubs - for instance the chaenomeles, or as we used to call them the Japonicas. I first noticed this when in a garden near to the Prado in Madrid in March I saw these marvellous evergreen shrubs covered in dazzlingly white flowers, and wondered what the hell they were; none other than the humble Viburnham tinus. There are a number of hybrids, which I used to try in the hope that I would grow to like the family more - Eve Price and Gwenllian come to mind, but I am not now convinced that they are a great improvement on the bog-standard.

In between I have planted Teucrium fruticans, another non-star, but in our neck of the woods a very useful one. Silvery leaves and pale blue flowers that appear rather at the same time as the Viburnum tinus, which is to say late autumn and early Spring with usually a lull in mid-winter, though much depends on the weather, it can grow really quite large, which is to say a good one and a half metres high, and the same as regards width, or perhaps even wider, as it has tendency to flop. But also like the viburnum it can be heavily pruned and indeed I have seen it quite seriously clipped to make slivery balls to go with box or yew topiary. Incidentally its close cousin, T. fruticans Azureum, in my view comes in the star category, being a much daintier plant, with much stronger blue flowers, but like all stars it needs more cosseting. Even better, but harder to find - Pep: Filippi is one source - is T. fruticans Ouarzazate (Moroccan town), which has even stronger blue, almost purple flowers. At this very moment it is in full bloom, as yet not affected by the current cold spell.

This diversion has not left much space for Celebrities, but at least I can provide a definition. They are plants, whether woody or herbaceous, that out of the blue hit the headlines, or at any rate are to be found on almost every stand at a Plant Fair. Some times they just last a year, perhaps two, and then they disappear, or at any rate just become part of the crowd. Some times they are revivals - about twenty five five years ago the penstemons were rediscovered - sometimes they are new discoveries - Corydalis flexuosa with the lovely blue flowers and fernlike leaves, that, alas, dislike our hot, dry summers, I think comes into this category. More frequently they are new hybrids such as Albizia Summer Chocolate. The latter I fell for about two years ago but then decided that I positively disliked it and gave my plant away. But that is the problem with celebrities. At the time they are 'must have' plants, but to become stars they have got to pass the test of time. Many don't.

We can't all be Stars !

This reflection was prompted by the 'rediscovery' of my Cotoneaster lacteus. Of course they have been there all the time, but for most of the summer one hardly notices them. They do have flowers in the Spring, in some quantity indeed, but they are a rather dingy white, so nothing to write home about. But as the autumn progresses the plants become more and more noticeable. Mostly this is because of the berries which are a very good red, in large clusters, and appear to last a long time. But what sets the berries off is the colour of the leaves which become an increasingly deep, almost glossy green - very eye-catching. I suppose at this time of year they become stars, but unlike stars they are not expensive. They self seed easily - if anybody wants them I have plenty to give away - and they require absolutely no cosseting. In a previous blog I lamented the fact that I find hollies too difficult to grow, but Cotoneaster lacteus are a good substitute.

I am rather confidentally calling mine C.lacteus, but if somebody said that they were C. salicifolius I would not argue with them. C.salicifolius to my way of thinking has, as the name suggests, more willow-like leaves, which is to say longer and thinner, and Hilliers suggests that it has rather fewer berries, but it is clearly a good plant. I have two other cotoneasters - C. franchetii and C.simonsii. The former is much praised for its gracefulness, and it is true that it has a good form which I wrongly no doubt rather hide by growing through it a clematis. It also lacks the berry-power of C.lacteus. So does C.simonsii, though there are berries enough, and it can hardly be called elegant, with its rather rigid and upright growth, but it is that quality that makes it a useful shrub in a confined space. I have got my eye on C. bullatus. It is more of a tree than C.lacteus, but its leaf colouring is rather similar. The berries are a very good red, but bigger - cherries rather than red currants?

Meanwhile there are plenty of other cotoneasters, C. Exburiensis for example, but this shrub comes into the my 'out of kilter' category. Its berries are yellow, when I want my cotoneastar berries to be red, in the same way that I want my Rowan berries to be red, not pink (Sorbus vimorinii), or white (S.cashmirana). But I wish that I could grow rowans here- attractive leaves, flowers and berries, and often very good autumn colour; one could hardly ask for more, except a greater resistance to heat and drought. Some people manage to grow them, and I have even seen some municipal planting, but in the autumn when they should come into their own they appear to be under great stress, losing both leaves and berries. Moreover their berries appear rather too early for my liking - berries are for autumn, not summer.

But I seem to have strayed from my original purpose, a discussion of stars, or rather non-stars. Amongst the shrubs non-stars might include Forsythias, Philadelphus and Weigelas, while Magnolias and Rhododendrons for the most part have star quality. Amongst the herbaceous plants delphineums are obvious stars, nepetas (catmints) more humble folk, ditto many hardy gernaniums, though amongst these are to be found stars, even, like Geranium Rozanne, what I would call celebrities, but more of those another time.

Out of Kilter

Earlier in the year I recommended a tall bearded Iris called English Cottage; in fact I called it English Cottage Garden which was wrong. What especially attracted me to it was its floriferousness; there are so many buds on one stem that it appears to be in flower for a long time even if an individual flower hardly lasts more than a day. Its colour is attractive enough, being white with a lilac flush. It does have a sweet smell and, what I did not mention, it is remontant, with the result that at the beginning of November it is back in flower again. This is supposedly an advantage - most of us like a rose that repeats - but the more I look at it, the more it worries me, which is to say I find it out of kilter. I suppose that this is largely because I do not expect to have irises flowering at this time, but there is also the fact that the colour does not go with the autumn reds and yellows. Perhaps if it was red or yellow it would worry me less, but in fact I find something worrying about a yellow or red iris at whatever time it flowers. I prefer mine to be in the blue to purple range; ditto for my delphiniums though decidedly not so for my roses, or rather decidely not blue. Incidentally anything white I find acceptable, though do not ask me why. Does all this make me an old fogey. Probably, but I fear that at my advanced age there is little to be done about it. What I am not sure about is what to do about English Cottage. I suspect that I will leave it, but it is now not quite the favourite I thought that it was going to be.

Meanwhile autumn colour is very much the theme. As I have already made clear, it is something that I am especially fond of, so much so that any tree or shrub that does not perform in the autumn, has got to do something spectacularly good at other times to be acceptable. At the moment my two stars are Pyrus calleryana Red Spire and Pistacia chinensis, both I think musts for Gersois gardens.The former's better known relation, Pyrus call:Chanticleer, has only just begun to turn. It also appears to do so in a more uneven fashion, something I actually prefer - parrotias are good at doing this, though my specimen is looking so miserable that I do not think that it is going to have any autumn colour - I happened to see yesterday one I had planted some fifteen years ago in another garden and it was looking stunning. Of course acers are probably the best providers of autumn colour, but since most of them do not like our summer heat, and some do not like our non-acid soil, the decorative pears are a useful substitute, mine growing on a very dry bank without the slightest sign of stress. I have recently added Pyrus ussuriensis, a wild chinese pear, which I suspect will eventually be rather too big for the position that I have given it, but since mine is one of the Florama 'babies', that is to say essentially a seedling, it is a problem that I will not have to grapple with. But like all pears it flowers very early in the year, and has good autumn colour. Incidentally neither Chanticleer nor Red Spire is small - c.12m - but their shape is what I think is called fastigiate, which is to say that they are much taller than they are broad, with their branches being upright rather than horizontal, so do do not take up so much space.

Meanwhile there is nothing quite as red at this time of year as a Sumach tree (Rhus). I prefer to see the most commonly grown sumach, Rhus typhinia, in other people's garden as I do not like the red candelabra flowers, and it does spread itself around rather too vigourously. Instead the other day I acquired at La Coursiana, as always looking very beautiful, Rhus chinensis. It is going to have white candelabras, which I hope will be less of a worry, and it does not seem to spread. On verra!

A touch of Optimism

I am not quite sure why this should be so as it is not clear that the garden deserves very many marks. One reason may be just relief that it has survived another summer without too much damage having been caused by secheresse. Probably a more important one, and this supported by the fact that in my garden diary for this time last year, there was also a note of optimism, is that by the end of a summer I have been able to claw back what I lose rather too spectacularly to the weed offensive in the Spring . The problem then is that because of our heavy soil it is very difficult to get on the ground quickly enough to check the offensive. As the ground dries out one can begin the counter-attack, primarily in my case with the mattock, with the result that by the end of the year one is under the illusion that order has been restored. However what may justify my present mood is the fact that slowly and in some case surely, the good things are getting bigger, so that there is less room for the bad things to prosper. In other words my policy of colonization seems to be bearing fruit.

Where this is most obvious is on my 'wild rose' bank, and since this is the first thing that you see when you get to the top of our drive, this is a considerable advance. 'Wild rose' is not in fact a very accurate description for amongst the roses to be found there are two famous classics, Fantin Latour and Madame Isaac Peirere. Both are in fact toughies, especially the former, which they have to be since the bank is exposed to every kind of weather and the soil is a mixture of clay and brick. But I call it wild because for the most part the roses there are single in flower, often white, have significant hips, and sometimes with the hips, good autumn colour. More importantly their foliage is good from the moment it appears in the Spring. Perhaps the best example is Rosa soulieana. This has very attractive glaucous foliage,though perhaps not quite as glaucous as R. glauca/rubrifolia, single white flowers in great profusuion, and then lots of orange hips. It can grow tall, up to at least 3 metres, puts up with all kinds of weather, and is never ill.

Also to be found there is Rosa carolina., apparently called in America the 'pasture rose', since it is to be found growing in pastures, presumably mainly in Carolina! But it grows equally well in the Gers. The flowers are single but of a good strong pink. Quest-Ritson says that it has a perfume that travels, but I have to admit that so far I have not had a whiff of it. What pleases me most is its attractive foliage and reddish stems, at least when young, and the fact that along with hips it turns a good autumn colour. No autumn colour but very good foliage are the feature of my last two recommendations, Rosa moschata and, apparently a hybrid of it, R. Darlow's Engima. The name of the latter intrigues. Apparently it is a quite recent chance discovery, but why Darlow? There was an Albert Darlow who bred cattle, but there is no mention of his liking of roses. Anyway both are not surprisingly very similar; simple white flowers that repeat well and are fragrant, they will grow to at least 3 metres high, and could be used as a smallish climber, though mine are kept as bushes. But as suggested already what first attracted me to them when first seen at La Roseriaie du Desert was the very fresh green of their leaves when many roses around them were suffering from excessive heat and drought.

Still roses are not the only thing that are beginning to make an impact. Suddenly for instance the cistus bought for the most part in very small godets are becoming quite large shrubs, shrubs that cope well with our hot summers, and being evergreen look good all the year round. They are the sort of plant that I buy in a rather promiscous way, without ever really mastering their differences, yet alone their names. If you want to know more about them consult the Filippi catalogue (www.jardin-sec.com); there is also a book,'Pour un Jardin sans arrosage', which is available in English. Also to be found in the catalogue are the three ceratostigmas - C.griffithii, C.plumbaginoides, and C. wilmottianum - but also in that of Les Senteurs du Quercy (www.senteursduquercy.com), which like Filippi's is full of useful information. In an earlier blog I confused the first two. C.griffithii was actually the one I was most anxious to have, it being a more imposing, not to say invasive shrub. Thinking it was C. plumbagnoides I was delighted to find a lot being sold cheaply in Gamm Vert only to be disappointed when they did not grow in the expected way, performing much more as a vivace than a shrub. Still both are extremely useful. They can virtually disappear during the winter, make a late start in the Spring but by this time of year are covered with strikingly blue flowers and increasingly with extremely vivid autumn colour, a feature which for me gives C.griffithii the edge just because it is a bigger subject. But what I appreciate about both is that they resist the secheresse, something that I more and more look out for. Happily, with over 60mm of rain in the last forty eight hours the secheresse is over, and we can sit back and enjoy the autumn 'fireworks', which are just getting underway.