Life must be filled up

Yesterday, for the third day running and again contrary to all forecasts, it was a glorious sunny afternoon here. This preserved the tradition that whenever the local NCCPG (Plant Heritage) group holds its meetings, keen gardeners are stuck in the community centre hall with the curtains drawn when they could be in their gardens. So many people turned up for yesterday’s meeting that extra chairs had to be put out, a tribute to the subject of the lecture: Barnsdale after Geoff.

For those not in the know, Geoff Hamilton was the very popular presenter of BBC2’s Gardeners’ World programme, which was broadcast from his garden at Barnsdale. In 1996 he died, unexpectedly and too young, leaving many people, including me, surprised to find how much they missed him. The question then was: what to do with the garden? Part of the garden and the nursery were Geoff’s, already open to the public. Other areas, the television gardens, couldn’t be visited. Geoff’s middle son, Nick, is the horticultural one and responsibility for the garden fell to him. When a famous gardener dies, the question is always whether to preserve the garden as it was or move on. I’m all for moving on and so is Nick Hamilton, although he felt, rightly I’m sure, that people would want to see the gardens they’d seen on television. Barnsdale covers eight acres of Rutland, is run on organic lines (without preaching, thank goodness) and is full of interest.

Nick Hamilton is as down to earth as Geoff was and a lively and amusing speaker, so a good time was had by all. He had anecdotes about his father, frank remarks about the BBC which I won’t repeat and plenty to say on the difficulties of running such a garden, welcoming the public and making ends meet. Here he is, looking remarkably cheerful for a man who’s driven for four and a half hours through dreadful traffic to reach us, talked for an hour and a half and then has to drive home again. Does he look like his Dad, or what?



Barnsdale Gardens
are open all year except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
( gratuitous flower pic )

Photo Ashwood catalogue

If you visit a garden centre and see Hellebores labelled ‘Ashwood Hybrids’, they’ve been bred at Ashwood Nurseries. Most of the best ones never get as far as the garden centres as they are snapped up as fast as they can be produced at the nursery itself. Yesterday I went to hear the owner, John Massey, give a talk to our local NCCPG/Plant Heritage group (aka The Plant Snobs). As happens every month, it was a beautiful afternoon and there were all we gardeners stuck indoors. Luckily, it was well worth the effort. Not only does John Massey know everything about Hellebores (and lots of other plants), he has met almost everyone in the horticultural world (Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd, for example) and has plenty of anecdotes about them.

While slides were shown of the beautiful plants he’s grown or photographed in the wild, there were ‘oohs’ and groans from the audience which were later described by our chairman in her vote of thanks as ‘orgasmic’. I think she was getting her own back for being referred to so frequently as ‘a dominant lady’ but I did mutter to my neighbour quite early on, ‘This is pornography!’ Beautiful and funny: what more could you ask of a lecture? And I want lots more Hellebores in my garden. I'm not keen on all the new doubles but those picotees...



John Massey manages a cheerful grin for my camera.

It’s sod’s law that the beautiful weather we had recently made it far too cold for any outside activity except brisk walking. Yesterday was mild and I felt I ought to do something in the garden (note lack of enthusiasm). Then I remembered I needed to sow Sweet Pea seeds and that forced me into the shed. I usually sow them in the autumn, so we shall see how they do. Once I was outside, of course I saw jobs everywhere and did a little more border tidying. Trouble is, I now have a tottering bonfire heap I’m frightened to light. I took some photos while I was out but they were all complete rubbish apart from the little violet and the last crocus in the garden. I must have planted hundreds over the years but they’ve all disappeared: mice and squirrels have had the lot. Still, my garden is full of primroses and some people can’t grow those because of sparrows, so win some, lose some. Today I started clearing the vegetable patch so that I at least have room to sow the broad beans. I transplanted some huge foxgloves and composted masses of forget-me-nots. The soil they were in is not bad; their roots have done it good and the green cover has kept off weeds. Win!

Last week I went to our NCCPG meeting for a brilliant talk about the plant life of the Pacific North West. I learned a lot. While I was there a kind soul gave me a pot of a special snowdrop, Galanthus ’Augustus’ . I’m always saying I could never be a galanthophile because I don’t fancy crawling around in the mud in February in order to marvel at the rather minor differences between snowdrops which so excite some people. I’m pleased to have this one, though, and am assured it will clump up quickly, so lucky me.

Phwoar! This is Lachenalia aloides var. vanzyliae, grown from seed by one of our NCCPG members. The subtlety of the colouring is amazing. This has nothing at all to do with the subject of today's talk, which was 'Who's in Your Garden?'; the people behind the plant names. As usual with our meetings a hundred or so people spent a beautiful afternoon indoors out of duty to the group. They also bought some plants, books and raffle tickets to make money and brought some lovely things like this species amaryllis



for the display table. Gardeners are rather nice people.

Once a month, from September to April, our local NCCPG group meets on a Saturday afternoon. You can bet your boots that if the previous three Saturdays have been miserably cold and wet, this one will be glorious. So it proved today, when a hundred keen gardeners spent the best Saturday afternoon of the year so far inside a community hall, with the curtains drawn, listening to a talk. Luckily, it was a very good talk. So I was unable to spend the afternoon putting in the bargain plants I'd bought earlier at the market.

A chap there had a notice saying, 'nursery sale' and he was selling perennials in two litre pots for a pound each. I bought a new variety of geum, an eryngium and a phormium. He'd unfortunately lost the label from the phormium pot and the name he told me I know to be impossible. It has very narrow, purple leaves and I shall wait to see what it will do. I also bought, from another seller, that super plant Erysimum 'Apricot Twist'. A strange name, as it is more orange than apricot but it's a real doer, flowering for months. Sadly, like most perennial wallflowers it is short-lived and soon looks gawky, so you really need to take cuttings every year to keep it going. I'd failed to do this and the plant didn't enjoy the bitter winter, so I lost it. I wanted to reproduce the effect I'd got last year by planting it in front of Spiraea 'Goldflame',which is such a bright little bush at this time of year. I managed to stick it in before lunch and it looks something like this:



but brighter. In other news, here are the epimediums which were slashed to the ground about three weeks ago.



Worth doing that little job, eh? One of my favourite plants at this time of year is Lathyrus vernus. This is a bone-hardy perennial which makes a neat little bush smothered in purplish-blue pea flowers.



Even prettier is the form 'Alboroseus'.



These plants are very easy, if slow, to raise from your own seed, collected in June. I never pass on any plants without letting them flower first, as you can get all sorts of variations. I now have a white form and a pale mauve one.

I was in the middle of photographing my lovely erythroniums when the batteries gave out on the camera, so a chat on those will follow.