Hardy Geraniums

I never thought that there would come a time when I complained about the rain, but with 133mm since the beginning of the month we really have had enough. With our  heavy soil it has made any gardening virtually impossible, so that one gets that sinking feeling that already things are out of control.  Still it is not only the weeds that are growing. I have already roses in flower - Marechal Niel, in fact one of my great disappointments, since I find its colour rather 'fade', and one of my favourites, Stanwell Perpetual. Also showing well are the hardy geraniums.

Most of us use them a lot. They are entirely benign, many of them flowering for long periods, and happy to put up with almost anything that the weather might throw at them.  What some of you may not have picked up on is the arrival in recent years of a great number of hybrids, and while new is not necessarily better, in the case of hardy geraniums it often is.  I am mainly concerned with those that can put up with our heat. What I would call the meadow and woodland varieties have not done so well for me, and that includes, alas, G. Spinners, which is a most marvellous blue. Moreover I am not so keen on the pink flowering varieties, that is to say the G. endressi types, though they are very easy to grow. But that still leaves the blues and the purples of which there are legion.

The most ground hugging of these are the G. sanguineums, though some of these can be pink. Indeed just to be contrary I am particularly fond of G.sang; lancastriense, which is  a lovely light pink with crimson veins, but there is nothing very new about it. Of the many new ones I can personally recommend 'Cedric Morris', Elspeth' and 'Glenluce', not that I find a huge difference between them. Related to sanguineum is G. Dilys, which is given very good marks by Thierry Denis, one of the many good suppliers of hardy geraniums in France (info@jardindumorvan.com) but also by Cristopher Lloyd. One of its alleged attractions is its 'résistance gaullienne à la secheresse'. I grow it but I cannot say that it really makes a great impression. It is supposed to like every sort of soil, but I sometimes wonder whether it really finds our heavy clay to its liking.

I have no reservations on the other hand about G. Nimbus, Jolly Bee, Orion, Rozanne, and Tiny Monster. Jolly Bee and Rozanne are very similar. Both are reminiscent of G.wallichianumBuxton's Blue that some of you may have grown in England, with their lovely clear blue flowers that starting a little later in the year than some varieties go on flowering until November, and unlike Buxton's Blue they can both take our full sun. Nimbus and Orion are bigger animals, or certainly taller, and are what I would call genuine border plants. They do not flower for quite so long as the two just mentioned, but long enough to earn their place in any garden. I have found that cutting them back does not produce a second flush of flowers, but the new growth is more attractive than the old. Similar, and often strongly recommended is G. Brookside, but in my experience it does not do so well, perhaps because of not liking our heat. Still it is fair to say that all three should be preferred to the old favourite, G.Johnson's Blue, on account of their longer flowering period.

G.Tiny Monster is a cross between sanguineum and psilostemon. Its colour,purple, it derives from both its parents, though lacking the dark centre of psilostemon. Its sanguineum genes mean that it does not grow too tall, and therefore does not need staking, which is a great advantages But it has the vigour of a psilostemon,  also a great advantage, and makes in every way a marvellous groundcover plant.

There are of course plenty of other hardy geraniums. I have not mentioned the many new varietes with purple leaves - G. Midnight Reiter strains - since dappled shade and a bit more humidty than I normally possess is their thing. An old favourite would be G. Bressingham Flair derived from psilostemon, but a much shorter plant, and therefore easier to deal with. Also in the purple flowered range is G.Sandrine. It is rather similar to two other geraniums that I should perhaps have mentioned, G.Ann Folkard, and Anne Thompson. Both these are purple, and both trail from a central base rather than clumping up; indeed you could almost call the former a climbing plant since if happy it will take over a small shrub, in the same way as a clematis. But they are both outshone in flower colour by Sandrine, though perhaps she is less vigourous than they are. Incidentally I came across G.Sandrine at Bernard Lacrouts, an excellent supplier of vivace near to Vic en Bigorre (http://vivacemonde.free.fr), and the same could equally be said of Jane Phillips at her Le Jardin Anglais (www.lejardinanglais.com) at Montgaillard, who I see also stocks G.Sandrine.

Smells!

I was recently taken to task for not emphasizing enough the importance of smell when writing about the rose. Fair enough, for the perfume of a rose is clearly a delight, and moreover there is a perfume for every nose, which is in fact one of the problems in writing about smells in a garden. How often have you been asked to put your nose in a rose,or indeed other flowers, with the expectation that you will comment favourably when the truth is that you cannot smell a thing? And not only is everybody's ability to smell different, but weather conditions and time of day play a very big role.  Scent as Peter Beales, one of England's leading rose experts, states in his catalogue is a very subjective matter, and it is for this reason  he provides no code on the subject.

But there are some scents that are almost impossible to miss. You are walking round a garden and suddenly on the air a lovely perfume arrives, and you wonder where it is coming from - and not only in a garden. Many of you will have driven into Toulouse in early summer, and suddenly a lovely scent - I am not good at describing scents, but a sweetish vanilla comes to mind - will enter the car. It derives from the much planted Eleagnus angustifolia. The flower producing this scent is an insignificant yellow, as with others in the family, but the plant has nice enough silvery leaves, and is well worth a place in any garden. Some prefer E. Quicksilver, which is definitely more impressive, that is to say more silvery, in the Spring, but increasingly I find that E. angustifolia wears better as the summer progresses, though neither is good in the autumn. A variety I do not care for much is E.x  ebbingei, often sold as part of a mixed hedge. Its dull silvery green  does not do anything for me, but it does have the lovely smell, this time in the autumn.

 What other plants are generous with their scent? Daphnes come to mind, though I find them difficult plants to grow well in our region; indeed in my opinion they are always a bit difficult, having a tendency to die for no good reason, though in our neck of the woods mostly through lack of water. Still D. x burkwoodii and its variegated clones, and D odora with its variegated clones are all worth a try, and I know of one garden that for many years had a marvellous D. bhola Jacqueline Postill whose scent very early in the year was almost overpowering, but then this garden was much closer into the Pyrenees than most of ours are, which since the plant comes originally from the Himalayas, may be the reason for its success.

Honeysuckles are not altogether easy with us, not wanting to be too dry, and on a hot wall they can be savagely attacked by greenfly.  The most smelly, with a scent that does carry, is probably the Lonicera japonica group, especially L. jap. Halliana, but beware: they are very thuggish and can very quickly look a complete mess, so certainly not for small garden. Also bear in mind that not all honeysuckles do have smell, though in the case of L. x tellmanniana and L. tragophylla this is compensated by the fact that the flower power is excellent. Both of these require some shade, as indeed do most honeysuckles.

However the best climbing plants for scent for us are probably the trachelospermums, usually T. jasminoides: smartish evergreen leaves, though a cold winter can make them look a little bit dingy, and as the name suggests white jasmine like flowers in great profusion over quite a long period in early summer. In my view they are a must, smarter and easier than many actual jasmines, though obviously jasmines are worth considering. One of the most smelly jasmines is Jasminum sambac, but it is definitely tender, though I am hoping that mine may survive outside in a very protected spot. It did last year.  Other very smelly ones include J. officinale var. grandiflorum, the so-called Jasmine de Grasse, and J. polyanthum, often sold as an indoor plant, but both these two are fairly tender, and can be severely hit by a cold winter.

A lot of the viburnums have excellent scent, and scent that carries, but since they are such a useful shrub for us in so many ways they deserve a blog to themselves. Already mentioned in an earlier blog, as a wonderful winter shrub on account of its smell, is Lonicera fragrantissima, and the very similar L. x purpusii,and L. standishii. All these will scent a winter garden - slightly lemony - if there is the slightest hint of sun, and this for more than a month. So do plant one or two, even if for the rest of year they do not do very much.

Finally a return to the rose, and where we started. For me the most reliably smelly remains Mme Isaac Perere, and though I do not really like its rather dull deep red colour, and it is slightly inclined to blackspot, it is rose that I have always had in any garden that I have been associated with. My most favourite rose, Fantin Latour, has very good smell - Yan Surguet, newly set up as rose grower in the Ariege, calls the smell 'ennivrant' which I cannot find in any of my dictionaries, but it sounds exciting.  Most of the hybrid musks, that include Felicia and Penelope, still some of the most useful roses, especially for mixed planting, have goodish scent, while David Austin, with some justification, takes great pride in the fact that many of his roses are highly scented, and those that he particularly signals out for this  are Jude the Obscure, Gertrude Jekyll, Claire Austin, Strawberry Hill and Tea Clipper.

Gardeners Friends

When in doubt plant Cosmos.  It is particularly good advice for someone like myself still at the pygmy stage: seemingly acres of bare ground all set for the weeds to colonize, so get in first with the Cosmos. I do not know why it is so acceptable. One could call it a weed, and it can certainly be invasive. Moreover now that Gersois farmers are planting fields of it, it may become rather too much of a good thing. But for me it is saved from almost all criticism by its delicacy of leaf and indeed of flower. It is an annual, but normally it reseeds freely, though our heavy ground is not ideal for any reseeding, and a late frost might do for it.

Another very generous reseeder is Verbena bonariensis. It was Christopher Lloyd who first sang its praises for me, I think in what for many years was my gardening bible, his 'The Well-tempered Garden'. Maddeningly I cannot put my hands on my copy to confirm that, and this may be indicative of the fact that I now have a new bible which many of you may not have come across: Pamela J. Harper's, 'Time-tested Plants', tested over thirty years in her garden in Virginia. Her soil is acid, which most of ours is not, but curiously the weather she describes seems very similar - hot summers with possibilities of drought, winter frosts but not enough to do great damage. Most of the plants she writes about grow very happily here, and how well she writes about them. I do not know of any other gardening book which has provided me with so much useful information, let alone inspiration. If Pamela J. Harper approves of a plant I am sure that I will!

But back to Verbena bonariensis. Its great virtue, as Christopher Lloyd pointed out, is that it is a see-through plant, that is to say that it does not block out from sight what is behind it, so that though tallish it can be planted anywhere in a border, and provide colur and interest over a very long period. Like Cosmos it is easy from seed, and a generous, sometimes too generous reseeder, but easy enough to pull out if not wanted. In fact in theory it is a short-lived perennial, but an old plant soon gets rather tatty, and one might as well consider it as an annual.

The same might be said of Salvia turkestanica. The purplish blue haze that it creates in early summer always gives me a thrill, and even though the bluish petals fall quite quickly the bracts continue to provide colour for a long time, provided that the heat is not too intense. Some people do not like the smell. This only emerges if you make contact with the plant, but if you do it is strong, and for me rather Proustian, evocative of happy hours weeding in a Guildford garden of close friends, now some thirty years ago.

Another bible for me is Graham Stuart Thomas'   'Perennial Garden Plants', the most satisfactory descriptive list of plants with advice on cultivation that I have ever come across. He gives Gaura lindheimeri  only medium marks - 'not in the first flight' - and I have just seen that Christopher Lloyd in his 'Garden Flowers' is a bit sniffy as well. But it does exceptionally well in our climate providing in this case a whitish haze of flower which like the grasses moves in the wind, over a long period.  Some time ago a pink version was produced, and like so many novelties, rather took over from its predecessor.  But as time passes my choice turns back to the white, though in fact I have both in the garden. The more dumpy varieties which you can also find, especially in pink seem to me to be an 'erreur' since the great attraction of the plant rests in its gracefulness.  Again I would call it a short-lived perennial, but again also it reseeds itself freely, so once you have got it you should never be without, and apart from pulling out the unwanted ones, it should never cause you problems.

There are other 'gardeners friends' that I shall return to no doubt - the common Fennel, Foeniculum vulgare, especially for me the purple leaved variety, comes to mind, though its propensity to reseed can be a bit more of a nuisance than with the above. But for the moment I want to mention what might be called my 'new best friend', Viola bertolonii.  I have always been an admirer of the violas, and in England at one moment considered myself almost a collector. Since living in France I have not had nearly so much success despite the fact that Viola cornuta is a Pyrenean plant, I assume because the conditions have been too hot and dry.  Looking through the Chilterns seed catalogue - another 'bible', though some may find its descriptions a bit OTT - I came across the aforesaid V. bertolonni. What caught my attention was the fact that it welcomed ' a sunny position', and came from Italy, so I felt that it ought to be able to put up with our summers, and somewhat to my surprise it has. It is a good blue with a well-whiskered face, and a reasonably long stem. It seems to be in flower from February to October, and it reseeds. What more could you wants? Perhaps smell, but then you can't have everything!

Roses

Today it is snowing and they are promising us at least more rain, if not more snow.  I should not complain since I have spent so much of my time in France praying for rain, but the wet weather is beginning to be a bit of a bore. It also tempts me to make some sarcastic remarks about global warming, only I know that the 'fundamentalists' amongst you will riposte that bad weather is also evidence of this phenomenon. Donc, we agnostics cannot win.  Meanwhile it may be a good moment before one is overwhelmed by the onrush of Spring, to think about roses.  Fortunately I am extremely fond of them, I say fortunately because if there is one plant that does like our often heavy clay it is the rose. Not all of them in fact. For what it is worth I have found that the rugosas do not do well here, in particular they are prone to constant die back. This has always worried me since they are supposed to cope with anything, and moreover they contain one of my favourite roses, the wonderfully scented Roserie de l'Hay. The conclusion that I have arrived at is that while they cope happily with poor soil, what they do not like is too rich, or in winter too damp a soil. And while on the subject of disappointments, two roses that grew very well for me in England, Nevada, covered early in the year in large single white, sometimes touched with pink,flowers, and its sister, Marguerite Hilling, have not performed down here, I guess for the same reasons that the rugosas have not. If one can produce good drainage perhaps the problem would disappear. Still for the most part the problem is not under-performance, but an embarras de richesses. I am of the generation that has grown up with the revival of what I will call the old-fashioned rose, or in French Les roses anciennes, which somehow sounds better.  It was a reaction against the perhaps over-colourful and over-artificial hybrid tea rose - how many of you remember Super Star? - a reaction led by people like Graham Stuart Thomas and Vita Sackville West. One of the most important moments in my life was my first visit to Sissinghurrst, just a year or two before Vita Sackville West died. I was overcome by many aspects of that marvellous garden, and on subsequent visits have never been disappointed, but of course one of its great features are the old-fashioned roses. Two roses that I first saw then, Complicata, in fact a once flowering single deep pink, and Fantin Latour, for me the quintessential old-fashioned rose, have been in every garden that I have ever been associated with.

But that visit to Sissinghurst was over forty years ago, and old-fashioned roses are not only old-fashioned but old hat. They also have obvious disadvantages. Many are prone to disease, especially blackspot. Many of them are only once-flowering, a criticism which is a little bit hard, since most shrubs are only once-flowering, but since many roses can be almost continuously in flower outside the winter months,one may field with those that do not that one is being sold a bit short. One of the developments in say the last twenty years has been precisely to overcome this criticism by producing roses that are in the style of the old-fashioned, but which repeat flower, and are also by and large healthy. The man who has been responsible for all this is of course David Austin, and his English Roses are now to be discovered wherever roses are to be found, and very much in France. Moreover the French breeders, of which there are many distinguished ones, have followed his example; I am thinking of Guillot's Generosa and Meilland's Romantica series.  I for instance have fallen for Meilland's Alain Suchon, largely because I am a great fan of the French singer, but in theory it is lovely deep red, very smelly rose rather in the style of Austin's William Shakespeare, which incidentally is one of roses that is not free of blackspot.

David Austin roses are almost certainly deserve a blog to themselves, so popular are they, and for the most part rightly so.  In fact so many new ones appear each year that it is very difficult to keep up with them, so that my favourites such as Heritage and Mary Rose date from twenty years ago. Slightly more recent, and one that I had doubts about because I was not quite sure of the colour. It name, Molineux, after a football ground, is a bit of a worry to start with, and colour, which changes from yellow through to apricot according to the weather, is almost fluorescent. But so healthy is it, and so continuously in flower, with good scent, and finally so cheerful is the colour, that it has won me over. A very new one that I have got my eye on is Munstead Wood. In this case with its reference to the great Gertrude Jekyll, the names pleases as does the colour, a deep velvety crimson according to the catalogue, the rose colour I particularly like. I just hope that it has got enough red in it to avoid the burning that roses with a lot of purple in them tend to suffer from in our climate. One of my absolute favourites, Souvenir du Dr Jamain, suffers from this problem, and finding the right balance of sunshine and shade to overcome it is very difficult.

There have been plenty of other developments in the last forty years, including patio roses, and groundcover roses, these always a worry for me, since prickly groundcover does not seem a good idea, but my own development has been towards the so-called wild, or species roses. They are usually only once flowering, and the flowers are single, that is to say normally just five petals. Of course the best known of these is the Dog rose, but in fact there are many others from all parts of the world. What I like about them, apart from their simplicity is their all the year round intere"st, which includes hips, and less often, but not uncommonly, very good autumn colour - Rosa virgiiana would be a very good example. Still a fuller discussion of these, and many other roses no doubt, will have to wait for another occasion

Trees encore!

Given that the rain continues to fall, and no gardening is possible it seems a good moment to return to the subject of trees, especially as someone has written to me giving the thumbs down to oaks - too big and too slow - and suggesting instead Liquidambers, Planes and Tulip trees. All three  are lovely, but all  are pretty big, especially the last two.Plane trees (usually Platanus orientalis) often to be seen lining are roads, are not only majestic, have reasonably good autumn colour, attractive bark, and as far as I know are trouble free, putting up with most conditions including drought. What they need is space. This is less true of the tulip tree (Liriodendron); L. tulipifera is large but tall rather than broad, so to that extent it takes up less space, but it is not for a small garden.  The flowers that give it its common name I find curious rather than atttractive, and you have to wait for them, but the autumn colour - butter yellow - is much to desired. The reason that it does not so-to-speak get into my top ten is that it likes both humidity and shelter from winds which makes it a difficult tree for me and no doubt many others. I have planted one, since I could not resist a Gamm Vert promo - these very much to be looked out for. It was immediately attacked by rabbits, so for the moment it is multi-stemmed, and I have given it as protected and as damp a site as I can find, but I am not too hopeful.  Meanwhile there is everything to be said for Liquidambers. With its smart maple like leaves and at least when young, regular almost triangular growth, its moment of gory is the autumn when its leaves turn a dazzlingly mix of reds and yellows, depending on your variety and cultivar. There is now a good deal of choice. I suspect all are good. Many of them can be seen at La Cousiana,  an absolutely must of a garden, roughly between Lectoure and Condom. It started life as private arboretum in which the collecting bug overrode more aesthetic considerations, but in recent years it has been turned by the Delannoys into an outstanding garden, with particularly around the house a very English feel. Meanwhile,Adeline,mentioned in my last blog, have a national collection, and if you want special Liquidambers consult their catalogue.

My daily walk usually takes me alongside our local 'rivière', stream would be the English term for it. It is attractive at all times, but especially so at this time of year when the catkins of the alders begin to colour. Alders are big and they lack autumn colour, which for me is a big minus. They also like damp, less so Alnus cordata, the so-called Italian alder, which is a tree well worth knowing about. It seems to put up with most conditions, grows quickly, and is always smart, but particularly so in Winter and early Spring. I have planted A.rubra, which gets a good right up in Hilliers. Unfortunately it was strimmed, so it is now smaller than when I bought it. It is also multi-stemmed, but that with an alder can be an advantage. On verra.

For something much more showy what about a magnolia?  I have a bee in my bonnet about them though I am not referring here to the evergreen Magnolia grandifloras, which are not amongst my favourites - overpowering in their evergreenness, and though having lots of flowers, somehow lacking in flower power, since often too high to be seen, and flowering in dribs and drabs. They are also fragrant, but you tend to have to put your nose quite near to the flower to appreciate this, and since they are often rather high, this is usually impossible.  But I love the deciduous variety, of which there are many hundreds, and increasingly so, as new cultivars appear every year. I also think that they do well in this region, but are underused. People seem frightened by them, perhaps because they look so exotic, and at the same time fragile. Also do they demand acid soil which most of us have not got, though the nearer you are to the Atlantic the more likely you are to have it? My answer to the last question is on the whole not, though some species - M.salicifolia for example, probably do. I also think that they withstand drought much more readily than most people think. I first noticed this in England in the very hot summer of I think 1979. when all around azaleas, hydrangeas, magnolias, etc were clearly under great stress, the magnolias looked as fresh as ever, but I have noticed the same phenomenon here.  I have planted rather a mixed bunch here, including M. soulangeana Brozzoni, M.Peppermint Stick, M.Star Wars, a very good strong pink, which seems to grow fast, and M. soul. San Jose. I hope to plant more. Most of them are on a south facing bank, so my belief that they withstand drought will be truly tested, but so far so good.  In other gardens in the region I have planted M. Manchu Fan, with very large creammy white flowers which last a little longer than most, and M. Wada's Memory, whose flowers do not last any length of time, but a tree in full flower is a breath-taking sight. In fact magnolia flowers are often short lived, but then most intense experiences are brief.  Partial shade might help to prolong them, though I notice that Adeline do not recommend this.  There is also the threat of frosts which will not hurt the plant, but will spoil the look of the flowers, but this seems to be less of a problem here than in England, though of course we can have late frosts.

I shall now doubt return to magnolias, but meanwhile we have had the 'tempête', my second since I have been in France. Here not too much damage: a few tiles off the roof, and a great oak, which unfortunately has fallen into others, and how we disentangle them is going to be a problem.  But there are advantages in not having park land and cedars. Where I was in 1999 the devastation was enormous. More exciting for me was the discovery by chance in our local nursery at Lombez - for the moment his details escape me, but he is on the main Toulouse road, on the left going to Toulouse, just before you hit the long straight stretch - of Cornus officinalis. It appears to be an upmarket Cornus mas, with the very early yellow flowers, and not much else, though there are some pretty variegated ones. Indeed I think of Cornus mas as a being a poorman's witch hazel, above all lacking the smell, though in my view only Hamamelis Pallida has fragrance that really travels. Cornus officinalis is a rather bigger animal growing up 10 metres. The flowers may be bigger as well. They are certainly earlier, that is to say they are out now. It has attractive bark, good autumn colour, and is not fussy about where it lives. What more could you ask for.

Trees for a Gersois Garden

The good news is that I have never had such a good opportunity to plant trees. The bad is that I am of an age when it is impossible for me to live long enough fully to enjoy the choices that I have made, and continue to do so. What this also means is that I am not in a good position to say whether my choices have been successful, especially as I am a great believer in planting small. All I can do is to share some of my choices, and particularly for those who are new to the area indicate where these trees can be found.

For most of this area the oak is the dominant tree, and we are lucky to have half a dozen very fine examples, one of which has become the central focus of the garden. The only reservation I would make of this tree is that it lacks the spectacular autumn colour, which some oaks possess, especially those from North America. They also grow into very large trees, which can be a disadvantage, but then most oaks trees are large! One that apparently is not is Quercus schumardii, though having written that I see that one of my reference books mentions 35 m. - though only 20m. in France. I like it because it grows quickly, this true of many North American oaks, but especially the most common Q.rubra. Its young foliage is pink, its old foliage is red, and its middle aged foliage is a very healthy dark green.

Oaks are a subject I shall undoubtedly return to. The choice is vast and there are a number of very good suppliers of them in France. One of them is Les Pepinières Botaniques de La Preille, and I mention them in particular because the owners have produced one of the essential reference books for a Gersois gardener - Arbres et Arbustes by Myriam & Vincent Grellier (www.lapreille.fr). They specialize in oaks and acers, but their book in fact is a descriptive list of every tree and shrub that they think will grow well in West and South West France - their nursery is near Potiers, but they are faithful exhibitors at the Gaujacq twice yearly plant fairs. What I like about the book is that it gives very specific information about cultivation, especially concerning what I think is the most vital consideration for Gersois gardening, resistance to lack of water. Q.schumardii, for instance, according to them, does not require too much water. A lot of Red Oaks do, including Q.alba and Q.bicolor, both of which I have tried to grow without much success.

A problem arises when reference books give contrary advice. The Pepinières Adeline is I would guess the best nursery for trees and shrubs in France, and certainly it is as good as anything to be found in Great Britain, at least as regards it catalogue. This is probably not as complete as Hilliers, if for instance you compare their lists of magnolias, though Adeline mentions over fifty, but in other areas it is very strong. Moreover it attempts to give considerable detail concerning cultivation, something that Hillier's catalogue hardly does. But if you turn to Q.schumardii Adeline's suggests that it needs a lot of water. Whom to believe? In this case I believe La Preille, only because I know that Q. schumardii has come through some very dry summers with flying colours. Can I trust them as regards Ptelia trifoliata ? For a long time I have been tempted to try this, a smallish tree with not very conspicuous greenish yellow flowers, which are however are extremely fragrant, moreover with a fragrance that travels.  I have been put off doing so because most books suggest that it prefers a certain dampness, which I would find difficult to provide. No however La Preille who state that it resists the secheresse. I hope they are right,because I am going to give it a go.

I cannot say that Adeline is the easiest nursery to deal with; their pricing is complicated,and you can easily end up spending in my view rather too much, though to be fair to them they provide a devis before you have to make up your mind. Still probably the most important decision that I have made here concerns the choice of four trees that line the South South East facade of the house, one of their functions being to provide some much needed shade without growing too tall.  In the end I went for Malus coronaria Charlotte, smallish trees that in theory do everything - scented flowers, fruits and autumn colour. So far reasonably good, though one has decided to grow a little less well than the others, always a problem when you want regularity.  These in fact came from Adeline, as did Crataegus viridis Winter King,another tree that scores points in those three important areas.

The Crab Apple (Malus) and Hawthorn (Crataegus) families contain many species and cultivars that should do well in the Gers, and they are families that I will return to from time to time. My last suggestion on this occasion is Pistacia chinensis, a smallish tree or small bush with rather delicate ash-like (pinnate) leaves that go a marvellous colour and with luck have red, turning to blue berries in autumn. This I acquired from Florama, another very good source for trees, in this case not at all expensive, though rather small and no cultivars since the owner works entirely from seeds- but more about Florama and other trees on another occasion.

Winter thoughts

It snowed all morning, though as so often no sooner than it has fallen it begins to disappear. Still it is fair to say that we are having what one might call a proper winter: it is only the 6th of January and we have already had two falls of snow. Now they are promising us temperatures of -5 C., and it is at that temperatue that I begin to worry. I do not take up either cannas or dahlias, since in the past I have lost more from rotting off in the garage, than leaving them in the ground, but of course there comes a moment when one could lose them from freezing ground. Most sages are potentially under threat, pentstemons also, and no doubt other things that I have forgotten, so it is worrying times.Last year I succeeded in getting through the winter a plant that I have set my heart on growing for many years, without knowing quite why, and so far without great success.  It is an Isoplexis, in my case I. isabelliana, which one might describe as a shrubby foxglove, or even shrubby pentstemon, but  with orange/rusty flowers. According to Philips & Rix it can take down to -3 C., so -5 C. is serious worry. I do protect it, as I do the various hedychiums, about which more in a later blog. But there is a worry about protection, especially perhaps of a vegetable variety - this year I have used shredded bark. Slugs and snails find it an ideal wintering up place, and they are often up and about in the Spring before you. It can also enourage moulds of various kinds, so that the protected plant is killed by rot rather than frost. All the books stress that winter damp can be as dangerous as winter cold, and talk alot about good drainage, but in our heavy soil good drainage is difficult to provide. Moreover the plants I have mentioned including the dahlias and the cannas rather like our heavy soil, so as always in gardening you are confronted with a choice of evils, and can only hope for the best.

As regards winter colour there is little of it to be found for the moment in my garden. We are still so very much in what some one once said of a previous garden, the 'pygmy stage'; with nothing very much making an impact,so one has to use one's imagination.  Winter, or more accurately early spring flowering trees and shrubs already in include Hamamelis x intermedia Diane; Lonicera fragrantissima; Mahonia x media Lionel Fortescue; ditto Winter Sun; Prunus Hally Jolivette; P. Okame, and P. x subhirtella Autumnalis Rosea. I am not convinced that the Hamamelis will turn out to be a good choice. It is not so much the lack of acid soil, though the more westerly you are the more likely you are to have such  soil, but the dry summers.  They are essentially woodland shrubs, but dampish woodland, not our dry oak woods. Moreover my plant was a Gamm Vert 'promo', i.e. well past its sell by date,and therefore half the price - and very pricey they more usually are, but it has just about survived its first summer, and it is in a spot where I can easily get water to it, so on verra.  The 'Cherries' are getting away well, as they normally do in our area - my feeling s that local nurserymen do not think enough about them. Mahonia Winter Sun nearly died its first summer; it is no doubt wrongly placed on a south facing bank - but I failed to get round to moving it, and as a result at this very moment it is probably the star of the garden.  The Winter honeysuckle is a must in this region because though it is a rather dowdy shrub for most of the year, its flower power and therefore scent in the winter months is outstanding, and moreover it is trouble free. This reminds me to say that I find quite a lot of shrubs which in England I found a little boring, out here flower and/or fruit so intensely, that they go up in my estimation. Amongst these I would include Chaenomeles, or Ornamental quinces, which here flower very early, and Pyracanthas. 

Bulbs do their thing more or less immediately, or at any rate they flower immediately, so they in this sense avoid the pygmy stage. Of course, as with all things, they come with problems. The number of my snowdrops is  rapidly decreasing, even though planted on a north woodland slope. Crocus would flourish but for the mice and voles, tulips ditto, and this to my surprise since I thought they would not take to the heavy clay. Unfortunately for me the rabbits appear to like them, it seems to me more out of curiousity than any gastronomic pleasure. The good news is that they do not seem to like daffodils. I some times think that we are a bit dry for them, and they appear to hold their own rather than flourish, but I have planted a lot of them, mainly of the smaller varieties such N. February Gold, but more of this another time.  Of the even smaller bulbs, cyclamen are a must, including the winter flowering 'Coums'; also the small iris such as I. histriodes and reticulata.Unlike in England where they tended to die out, here they seem to multiply, though again alas for me the rabbits are quite interested in them. This is also true of my final recommendations, the Ipheions. My impression is that they are underrated, and admittedly the most common example, I. uniflorum, is a rather washy blue. But Wisley Blue is stronger, and Alberto Castillo a very good white. I. Rolf Fielder is a slightly different animal, with a smaller, ground hugging leaves, but with a flower of an almost flourescent blue. They disappear from view after early flowering, but do not seem to mind being accidently disturbed; in fact it is probably good for them, as they soon become very congested. But that is the good news. They appear to like us, and over quite a long period provide carefree colour.