How to plant a pot for colour through till June

In September, Steve, Tim and I went to Whichford Pottery on a daytrip, following an irrestible invitation from Harriet Rycroft, the (as in, the only) Whichford gardener. She manages to transform 450 pots a year. Here’s one I particularly liked.
 
Whichford is a serious artisan pottery that is keeping old skills alive and developing new ones to adapt to new clays and customer requests. If this was a restaurant it would be world famous. As it is, the Japanese value the care and effort taken with each pot and they have kept the business as robust as it is through a difficult economic climate.
Harriet showed us how to plant a pot for colour from now until June. Our pots are not..ahem.. the stuff of Chelsea Gold so I was keen to see how she could get that much value out of one planting. Sure enough, with evergreens and a tonne of bulbs she made the whole thing look elegant and easy.
 The conifer is set just below the pot edge. Harriet is planting tulip bulbs good and deep and then adding a layer of compost,some slow release fertiliser, another layer of bulbs and so on until the bedding and evergreen plants are added to sit level with the conifer. Lastly, the smallest bulbs are just pushed into the pot.
Inspired by her scheme, this is our recipe mix for Winter and Spring pots.
 
You will need:
1.Pots, compost and slow release fertiliser. If using a large pot, place it in position first as it will get heavier as you plant.
2. A selection of small evergreen shrubs and groundcover. This image shows (clockwise from top) Escallonia, Variegated golden Euonymus and Ajuga ‘Golden Beauty’ alongside the black grass Ophiopogon nigrescens.
3. Lots of bulbs for flowering from end of January to the end of May. For some pots I have gone for a strong statement of Tulipa ‘Blueberry Ripple’ and ‘Couleur Cardinale.’  As I built up the layers Fritillary meleagris, Iris Harmony, small Narcissi and Crocuses were added to the mix. Alliums can also be added for a last burst of colour.When we plant up the shrubs shown above, there will definitely be snowdrops involved.
4. Violas or Polyanthus to provide winter and spring colour. We have chosen Viola ‘Outback Fire’
 Lurking in this pot until spring, with other bulbs, is Iris bucharica which will add fullness to the planting.
Finally I put a wire mesh over the top of the most precious pots, just in case the squirrels find the bulbs.
If you want to do something similar the collections in our online shop offer a beautiful mix of named bulbs for planting into pots now. Click here for details.

Rosa ‘Harlow Carr’ on a September morning for Wordless Wednesday

The Giants of the Gardens

 

In our Cedar meadow, where the giraffes are now, we have four fine specimen conifers. Despite their size I think they were only planted in the nineteenth century.

Sequoiadendron giganteum, better known as The Giant Sequoia or Wellingtonia arrived in Britain no earlier than 1847 and the Cedars possibly replaced some much larger specimens. In the 1880's the winters here were so severe that the ancient trees were killed outright. I think the plants we see today are the successors.



only visible with a magnifying glass the
tips on these needles are translucent.



It has taken me sometime to identify the Cedars correctly as they are closely related to the better known Cedar of Lebanon. Thanks to Hugh Johnson's book 'Trees' I finally got out there with a magnifying glass to spot the only sure difference: A tiny translucent tip on the end of the needles which requires very close inspection. Ours have this and therefore are definitely Atlas Cedars (C.atlantica).

We have two fine specimens of Sequoiadendron giganteum, Wellingtonia or Giant Sequoia but, up until now, no specimens of the even taller Sequoia sempervirens or Dawn Redwood. So I started at the bottom and grew this baby (below) from seed. We have two and they are now around 7' tall. Draped in ghostly fleece all last winter they should now be strong enough to go it alone. You can see them near the carpark.

Sequoia sempervirens

I'm not alone in wanting to grow these magnificent trees from seed and this site http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/talltales.htm provides some lovely anecdotal stories from around the world.



The Giraffes arrive...oh, and a couple of gratuitous zinnia pics.

In May I bumped into these two at the Chelsea flower show. For some time I had been looking for a sculpture that would fill the space at the end of the long terrace without costing a five figure sum. Being on the plebeian side of art appreciation, cones and helixes didn't speak to me but these guys did. They arrived today and look perfectly at home looking dreamily over the park. I fear that, like the teas, they may become a bigger draw to the gardens than our carefully crafted planting schemes. Since I am mad about them already that suits me fine .

At 13' tall this fellow could do with a name, any suggestions?



Zinnia prob. 'Aztec Sunset'
(it's a long time since the spring sowing)



Zinnia profusion 'Coral Pink '