Horticultural

Gardeners' World gets a new home

Berryfields is no more.

No, I don't mean it's been smashed to smithereens by a meteorite, just that Gardeners' World won't be filmed there any more. This comes as no surprise, really - each new lead presenter likes to make their mark on the show, and so it is with Toby Buckland. The new territory will be a chance for him to stamp his identity on a new arena. The BBC press release says:

In the new series, starting in April, new presenter Toby Buckland and his team will face the challenge of transforming a muddy grassy playing field into the nation's new back garden, and viewers will be able to follow its progress across the coming year. Toby's ambitious plans for the site include creating a huge and colourful "urban meadow" sown from hardy garden annuals and featuring a stunning range of sunflowers and dahlias. This will be a haven for city insects and especially for the declining bee population. His new city vegetable garden will give inspiration to the many trying to grow their own in their own back yards. The garden location will also feature a row of front and back gardens, reflecting the very small urban and suburban spaces that many of us have to garden in.

Sounds as if this new garden "in the heart of Birmingham" won't have the feel of "country estate garden" that Berryfields has always carried. And that's got to be a good thing, right? I mean, who on earth has room for a pond that size? I likek the sound of the city veg garden, being that way inclined, but wonder what the front and back gardens will be like. It's really hard for these kind of supposedly "real" TV gardens to feel genuine because, well, unlike most of our gardens they'll be preened for TV. No cat poo on the lawn, no faded plastic children's wheelbarrow half-slung into the flower bed, no compost heap with the lid half off and and adorned with a fetching old pink sheet - or is that just my garden?

Interestingly, the presser also says that viewers will be invited into the "new GW potting shed at the end of the show, to discuss pictures and messages and decide "what's hot and what's not" in the gardening world each week". Can't figure out of this is going to be cool or deadly or just boring. Guess it depends on what viewers they pick.

 

The slow gardening movement

I can't remember who it was I spoke to (by which I probably mean "had an email exchange with") recently about "slow gardening"  - maybe it was fellow blogger Allan Shepherd - but it's something I am dwelling on at the moment.

Since moving into the new house in late August, I have managed to plant up a few containers, repot a Japanese maple, plant about half my spring bulbs, fill a compost bin and pick a lot of plums and pears. Oh, and apply grease bands. And keep my wormery happy. And sow some salads, foxgloves and herbs.

Wow, it sounds like a lot more than it looks when I write it all down, but when I look outside all I can see are the numerous tasks that I can't get around to yet - either lack of time to plan (replacing decking, getting garden office rebuilt) or time to get stuck into big jobs (ripping out garden path and increasing size of borders) or just a lack of five minutes to spae (removing mummified fruit from plum tree, collecting leaves for leaf mould) are to blame. (Not to mention the piffling matter of money for such serious hard landscaping ...)

So I have to remember that gardening is meant to be about enjoying the outdoors, not ticking a list of jobs to be completed and getting stressed when I don't meet my expectations. And that, like the bulk of people who read this blog and the gardens features in Weekend, which I edit, are in the same boat: not so much Ground Force as Ground to a Complete Stop at this time of year.

I am trying to stop mentally beating myslf up that my garden won't win a Chelsea medal for the forseeable future and start setting myself more realistic targets. This month's target is to get the rest of my bulbs planted,  and put a couple of thyme plants alongside the Erigeron karvinskianus in the front garden. December targets (yes, I do plan ahead!) are putting a new tap on the wormery and sorting out a leaking water butt. Yes, I do love to live the high life ...

Coke, flames and big fat toads

In her Thrifty Gardener book, Alys Fowler recommends using Coca-Cola for killing off weeds in pavement cracks. Now, I have a particularly evil dandelion nestled in a crack outside my front door, so I bought some cola and applied it liberally.

Nothing. Nada. Dandelion thriving, growing even.

Damn you, Fowler!

Now here's the question - is it something specifically in Coke that kills weeds as opposed to the cheapo 39p Tesco own brand bottle I bought? Or is it one of those old wives tales that persists despite being useless, like knotting daffodil leaves after flowering? What about Diet Coke? My colleague Lia Leendertz tells me Coke is also supposed to remove limescale from toilets too but that didn't work for her either - just made the bowl brown.

Maybe it's all part of some cunning marketing ploy by Coke PR people looking to expand their market into new terrain, ie people with weed and/or limescale issues.

Anyway, I now have half a bottle of flat cheap cola sitting in my porch and I am going to be getting out my weed wand for a bit of late night flame throwing. This method definitely does work, although with something as pernicious as dandelions you need to keep at it for several weeks in a row. At least it puts the fear of god into any local ne'er-do-wells who happen to wander past after dark and see me laughing maniacally while prancing around crispy dandelion leaves and cackling "die, you bastards, die!"

Speaking of pernicious weeds, there are plans afoot to release a new biological control to deal with Japanese knotweed. This stuff is evil incarnate so I can see the attraction, but I'd urge caution: remember Toadzilla, folks...

First view: my new garden

Ignore the washing line in the corner: this is the new garden.

Actually it looks a bit better here than in real life. That's the pear tree in the corner - a Williams I think. The path has got to go because it's horrible and rubbly, and the border on the left is way too narrow. The border where the pear is is covered in grazel and some rather nasty little azaleas. It's a big area but it needs a total overhaul. That area could end up as veg beds or as a chicken/quail area (not if my partner has anything to do with it).

The  grass is the best it'll ever look because I don't care much for lawn maintenance. And maybe it's not very trendy but I rather like the hardy fuschia in the foregruond.

Mexican daisies come my way

One of the few downers since moving house has been the inevitable loss of a few small but useful things in the post-move chaos. The cable for my digital camera and the tiny person's changing bag being the most annoying. After several days of fruitless searching I am giving up and buying new replacements, which will of course be the cue for both items to turn up.

This is my longwinded explanation for the fact that I haven't posted any pictures of the new garden yet. There are only certain things I can work on at the moment, as I have already explained, and one of these is the front garden. Well I can't really call it a garden - it's a gravel driveway really. While that's all useful parking space, it needs what you might call softening - all that gravel and brick is a bit harsh, only eased by a pyrancantha by the front door.

I'm starting out simple. I bought a couple of small box balls and put them in tapering pots either side of the porch. But I needed some plants that wouldn't mind a gravelly, sunny outlook - I've been reading Margery Fish who was something of an obsessive on this front, and I had my eye on some Mexican daisies, or Erigeron Karvinskianus.

I've also seen it used to great effect against stone steps, as per Point and Shoot Kinda Gal's picture above - for example on some steps at the lovely Kingston Maurward gardens in Dorset. In one of those rare instances of synchronicity, someone at the local cafe was replanting some containers when the tiny P and I stopped for tea and a scone today, and I noticed she was turfing out some Mexican daisies. RESULT!

For a small donation (it's run by volunteers from local churches so I felt obliged) a Tesco bagful of E. karvinskianus were mine. We'll see how they get on - there really is very little in the way of soil so they'll have to be tough. (Cunningly I've put some in a pot in case the rest fail). Any other tips for what'll go with the daisies and cope with south-facing gravel? I am thinking the white forms of Campanula carpatica and C. pyramidalis and lots of thymes.

Hitting the deck

My animosity toward decking is well-documented. So it's only right that the garden gods have bestowed upon me a large patch of the stuff in my new garden.

In fact I shouldn't grace the surface with the title of decking, as it's not easy as swish as that - just a lot of wooden planks really. As my daughter and I discovered the other day while walking about on it, it's devilishly slippery when wet. She could hardly keep her Peppa Pig wellies from shooting out beneath her, and I fared only a little better. We rapidly retreated inside before we were, quite literally, decked.

I shouldn't moan about my new garden, as it's got a lot going for it. It's about 70ft (so the estate agent's bumph claimed) and has the aforementioned lush plum and pear trees. There's a tumbledown garage alongside the decking that we're hoping to turn into a useful building, with a garden office at one end, with my potting shed domain at the other. The rest is mainly lawn and a weird gravel bed at the back with a few sad looking shrubs. But it's got oodles of potential and I am looking forward to licking it into shape. Very slowly, probably - but first things first, the decking has to go. I am thinking of slate paving, or maybe Yorkstone or brick, broken up with some railway-sleeper raised beds for some veg and so forth.

It'll take a while to get this organised, as I think the garage renovation will need to go hand-in-hand with the new patio. So, in the meantime, anyone got cunning tips for saving a little girl and her mum from slippery wood surfaces every time it rains?

New spade on the plot: Toby Buckland is passed the Gardeners' World laurel wreath

Typical. I go away on holiday for one poxy week and miss all the excitement.

I speak of course of the announcement that Toby Buckland is the new lead presenter on Gardeners' World (Britain's most popular gardening TV show, for anyone not from these shores). I hadn't heard his name in the mix in the various discussions on possible successors to Monty Don, so it came as a bit of a surprise - I don't know him but have met his wife Lisa, as she wrote a nice piece about small front gardens for me a while back. I do wish Toby well - I'll be watching GW with interest to see how his presence reshapes the show.

Not surprisingly, the green web has been alive with discussion over whether Toby is the right choice, and why others - primarily Carol Klein, an existing GW presenter - was overlooked. I work with Carol - she writes a weekly column for Guardian Weekend - but I haven't spoken to her about the news yet as I've been away. But a piece in the Telegraph yesterday quotes Carol as saying that she wasn't asked to take over from Monty: "Had I been asked, I would have loved to have done it and I think I could have done it very well, but I was never in a position to say yes or no. It looks like I've hit what you might call the 'grass ceiling'."

I agree with Allan Shepherd that Toby is a good choice, but I wonder when (if?) we are ever going to see a woman gardener head up the show. I think Carol would have done a brilliant job, too.

There's a provocative piece by John Walker in Organic Gardening magazine that's worth a read, (although you can't read online I am afraid) dismissing the "celebrity" slant of GW, but it's pretty hard to make a TV show about gardening without a focus on people- and hence personalities - as well as plants. Having said that, parts of the GW team do seem to have been rubbing a section of the gardening fraternity up the wrong way of late.

Once the peat-free dust has settled, let's hope that the show's presenters - newcomers and old hands alike - can usher in a new golden age to match the heady heights of the Geoff Hamilton days. The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that they were GW's finest moments.

But the final word on the GW brouhaha and its outcome has to go to EmmaT's pitch-perfect Private Eye-style Parish Newsletter. Fnar.

Toddler proofing your plants, part two: ponds

As some commenters have indicated in my previous post on toddler-proofing the garden, ponds are widely considered a no-no with small kids. There's a really good RoSPA factsheet that explains why and lays out the precautions you need to take if you decide to have a pond when there are under-fives around. There have been many tragic cases of toddlers drowning in just a few inches of water, so you really can't be too careful.

Having said that, I do know a couple of people who have largeish ponds and small children and have never had a problem - they just keep a very close eye on them when they're outside. Personally, I wouldn't be happy with that approach, and I think a covering grille of the necessary strength and size to make a pond safe would make any pond a bit of an eyesore.

But I have been wondering about a container pond - a small watertight pot of some sort, with just two or three water plants in it as a little feature on the patio. There are some examples on the Gardeners World site and at Haute Nature. The only downside for me is that it probably won't be big enough to support any fish, which I'd love to have, although this blogger in Karachi seems to think it's possible with a big enough container. The benefit from a safety point of view is that the child can't fall into the pond as it's not at ground level, and if the child does develop a big fascination it's easy(ish) to move the container to a spot where they can't get at it.

Toddler-proofing your plants, part one

It was the sight of my daughter with half the leaf from my variegated umbrella plant (Schefflera arbicola) that reminded me that I've been meaning to blog for some time about poisonous plants and the potential hazards to children.

I don't think the schefflera leaf did her any harm - I managed to fish it out before she swallowed - although this plant is supposed to contain a skin irritant. it's definitely time to move that Schefflera from its current position at perfect toddler-baiting height. Indeed there are quite a few plants - both indoor and out - that you should think carefully before introducing if you have small children who aren't quite old enough to heed your entreaties to not put everything and anything in their mouths.

The dumb cane (Dieffenbachia) is a popular houseplant, but not everyone is aware (particularly if you don't read the labels on plants you buy) that the plant's sap is poisonous, causing a range of symptoms including inflammation of the mouth and a tingling sensation on the tongue if chewed.

Cacti can be a peril too. I had a range of shallow dishes on my lounge windowsill that have had to be moved to a less desirable location until my little girl realises that they're not to be used as cute little hairbrushes: likewise other spiky plants like Euphorbia Crown of Thorns, which also happens to be poisonous, too - a double whammy.

There are many garden plants parents of toddlers should be wary of - the RHS has an excellent list here of potentially harmful indoor and outdoor plants. It also offers this sage advice to drum into your offspring: if it isn't recognised food, don't eat it. My parents must have done well at teaching me this one as I clearly remember refusing to eat the elderberries that grew abundantly in an alleyway near our house until I'd taken a bunch home and checked with my mum.

Are there any plants you'd avoid? All advice welcome in the comments below.

Coming up in part two: are ponds a no-no around young children?

Acer palmatum, RIP

So far this year I've managed to kill two Japanese maples, a cyclamen and quite possibly some Japanese painted ferns. Not deliberately you understand, just unhappy accidents, forgetfulness and downright plant abuse.

Oh, and some lamb's ears, which are virtually indestructible, so I must get extra points for them.

Come on guys, make me feel better and tell me what specimens you've had to resign to the compost heap so far in 2008.