Garden News - July Digital Sampler

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CAROL KLEIN This week AT GLEBE COTTAGE ‘Their ability to thrive in awkward conditions makes them enormously useful in our gardens’ I’m in love with foxgloves! Along with verbascums and penstemons, they look wonderful – and slugs hate them! A couple of years ago, we conducted an experiment in a small bed, close to my shed, to test several plants for their reputation as being slug resistant. Several of them belong to a family with an unattractive name – Scrophulariaceae! Sure enough, they remained untouched by gastropods. It was interesting without being conclusive but what was particularly striking was how attractive most of the plants were. At first sight you were struck by their beauty, regardless of their slug resistance. Native foxgloves, forms of Digitalis purpurea, are part of this family and are probably our most iconic wildflower. They stand head and shoulders above the stitchworts and knapweeds that so often accompany them in the hedgerows and road verges where they make their home. Their ability to thrive in awkward conditions makes them enormously useful in our gardens, especially alongside hedges, walls and fences. Next year the garden here at Glebe Cottage will be awash with their tall spires. We’re in the process of potting on a mass of seedlings from module trays and later on they’ll be planted out in the shadier parts of the garden. Perhaps it’s the toxins in their leaves and flowers that deter slugs, along with the furry texture of the leaves. Having said that, there are several perennial foxgloves whose leaves are much smoother and they’re just as toxic. Digitalis ferruginea, the rusty foxglove, has tall stems of small, D. purpurea is an evocative early summer wildflower brown flowers and smooth leaves. Both it and D. parviflora are perennial, as is D. lutea. With their rosettes of basal leaves, and straight, ramrod stems, they make excellent plants at the corner of a bed. Not only are they great punctuation marks in the summer, but they’re equally effective in their winter guise. Other foxgloves have been in the news recently. On the Botanic Nursery stand at Chelsea, Terry and Mary Baker were showing a new pale yellow foxglove called ‘Lemoncello’. 30 Garden News / July 1 2017
Alamy Penstemons shine in pinks, mauves, blues and reds New varieties of foxgloves are often introduced at flower shows. The same is true of another member of the family, verbascums. The species themselves vary enormously, though the great majority have yellow flowers. The woolly mullein, Verbascum lanata, is a common wildflower especially prevalent on poor alkaline soil. In fact, Jonathan Buckley all verbascums enjoy such conditions and thrive best in full sun. Most are biennial, but over the past century a range of new varieties have increased the possibilities for us gardeners. The chaixii hybrids have introduced a broad range of new colours from ‘Pink Domino’ (self-explanatory) to ‘Cotswold Beauty’, whose flowers are a rich terracotta colour. Although they’re shortlived perennials, you can easily make more from root cuttings taken during the winter. There are lots of ways of using them, from growing them individually in large pots and placing them perhaps in a row along a path, to setting them among perennials and grasses in an informal planting. Biennial verbascums can be grown from seed. Sow sparingly on the surface of seed compost, cover with grit and water by standing the tray in shallow water. Last, but not least, in this delightful trio are penstemon. All the species are natives of North America, some are hardy while others are on the tender side. Nowadays numerous are available to the amateur gardener and they can be increased so easily. Simply peel off sideshoots with a short heel or take tip cuttings a few inches in length, cutting underneath a node with a sharp knife. Remove the lower leaves and nip out the tip of the cutting, then push them into gritty compost firmly as far as the first leaves. Water well and put in a bright position, though out of direct sunlight. There are surely penstemon to suit everyone’s taste from the red, flared bells of ’Firebird’ to the soft and mystical, blue P. heterophyllus ‘Blue Gem’. My gardening Diary MONDAY Plants are growing so rapidly they’re in need of regular feeding. For our mixed containers of ornamental plants, dahlias, tagetes, nasturtiums and agastache in our big pots it’s a balanced feed based on seaweed. Later on we’ll use a food higher in potash to help flower production. TUESDAY One of the most exotic scents in the whole garden is produced by elaeagnus ‘Quicksilver’. Despite the flowers being tiny, bees, honey bees and other pollinating insects home in on it, attracted by the fragrance. WEDNESDAY Out with the shears to cut back some of our most ebullient geraniums. Geranium oxonianum benefits from a summer haircut. Even when it’s cut down to the ground, it’ll spring back within weeks with healthy foliage and a new crop of flowers. THURSDAY Though it might seem late in the day, we’re sowing seeds of both sunflowers and sweet peas. They’re an insurance policy as we need them both for Alice’s wedding. FRIDAY We’ve already collected seed from hellebores, now it’s the turn of the aquilegias. They’re a promiscuous lot and you never know how they’ll turn out, though white and yellow varieties usually come true from seed. SATURDAY Everyone needs to muse from time to time, but sometimes the reverie is interrupted by the wiry sound of dragonflies’ wings as they circle to and fro, landing from time to time atop a bamboo cane or tall stem. SUNDAY It’s not just penstemons but several other perennials can be increased from cuttings now. Salvias add such flower power to the summer display and taking a few cuttings, far from stopping them flowering often increases flowering when tips are removed. Carol Klein Elaeagnus ‘Quicksilver’ Alamy What’s looking good now Honeysuckle’s sweet fragrance Midsummer’s day has just been and gone, the most magical time of the year. Shakespeare used this time in which to set his famous play where Titania, queen of the fairies, falls asleep in a shady arbour on a bank ‘quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine’. We would recognise this woodbine immediately as honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum, one of the best-scented of all evening flowers. Honeysuckle has no tendrils and, unlike ivy, no adventitious roots either. It relies on twining its stems through the twigs and branches of its host. Although it’s essentially a woodlander, given any structure, tree, bank, fence or wall, it just wants to grow. With its feet in the shade and its head in the sun, it’s in its element. What do you think it smells of ? Nutmeg perhaps or cloves and a sweetness that makes you want to bury your nose into it. The super scent of honeysuckle is ravishing in the evening Subscribe for just £1 an issue. Go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/gn July 1 2017 / Garden News 31 Alamy
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Garden News - July Digital Sampler

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