I’m back, and full of the joys of spring...

Greetings to all - Isn’t this spring wonderful. It is the best in years and we are at least 2 weeks ahead of the norm. Everything is happening a once here. Outside of my studio window I have a patch of Japanese knotweed (don’t worry – it is contained) that has grown from tiny shoots to seven feet tall in just two weeks! Although the weather has been mild I won’t be planting out the more tender exotics until about the third week of May as the nights are still relatively cool and I don’t want them to catch a dose of swine flu. In saying that though, I have been replacing some of the cacti and succulents that turned to mush during our rather horrid winter. It is certainly not the cold that saw their demise, but rather the moisture that killed them off. The year before a poly tunnel was loosely erected over the main bed. I say loosely as it blew off twice during the winter! This winter it will be erected again! Unfortunately I lost my whole Aonium collection, but luckily there is a wholesale nursery not far from here that has some wonderful specimens which have now been planted out in a south facing position in the xerophytic garden.





After the loss of my second cat, I treated myself to a rather large, pink, Cymbidium with 12 flower stalks, all for thirty quid from a local Dutch importer. I must admit I’m not overly fond of orchids, but this one was so big I just had to buy one.





I am so pleased that all the Musa basjoo (hardy banana) survived such a prolonged cold winter, where they took a sustained -5C (23F) for many days with permafrost setting in – something I haven’t seen in years. The picture was taken about a week ago and now many of the leaves are 6 feet long and growing. These stalwarts of the garden are now 23 years old. Unfortunately the nine year old (from seed) large group of Musa sikkimensis was cut to the ground, though they are now re-growing from the base which is a relief as I thought I had lost them.





My two poll tunnels are now bursting at the seams with plants for the garden which are all being fattened up for the grand planting out ceremony in a few weeks time.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that the great American plant hunter, Dan Hinkley, was coming to the UK. On Monday I had the privilege of meeting him again at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, where he gave a superb lecture on his amazing garden, Windcliff, in the Pacific North-West, which I had the privilege of seeing in April 2008. In September of this year, the venerable Roy Lancaster will be giving guided tours of Dan’s garden for those that are lucky enough to be there in early autumn.

The loss of yet another cat...

Spring might have sprung but I am feeling rather low after the loss of yet another cat – Lawrence – one of my two Devon Rex boys. It was only the week before when I found that Epen another of my six cats had died in the garden. I am finding it very difficult to do anything at the moment as he used to follow me wherever I went in the garden. For the first few days I tried not to think about him but yesterday the realisation set in. I have had many cats over the years, but he was rather special. I will post about the garden in a day or so when my brain has calmed down.

At last - the long evenings have returned...

A good friend of mine living in Menlo Park California is now an avid follower of my blog and made the comment - how will you ever keep up your blog when spring arrives let alone summer? On those cold days in winter when you have hours to write, with those long dark evenings it seems easy. Now that spring has arrived, all my time has now been taken up with events, friends, the garden, one of my cats dying, visiting my father in his home, selling half his garden to keep him in the home... the list goes on! My determination was to write at least once and hopefully twice a week – I see I haven’t added a new blog since March 20th, hmmmm!


I must mention my cat. I was walking around the garden yesterday enjoying the hot rays of the sun and noticed Epen, one of my six cats, lying across the path, looking as though he was enjoying the sun as well. My first stroke told me otherwise. I couldn’t find a mark on him. My suspicions are that he might have eaten something poisonous as he was about 10 years old and up until the day before was in rude health. I buried him along with about eight other deceased cats at the top of the garden. A sad event indeed...




Last week I was inaugurated as the 180th president of the Norfolk and Norwich Horticultural Society, the second oldest horticultural society after the RHS. I now have a nice shiny chain of office to wear at all events for the next year. Today - Sunday 5th was my first official engagement of my one year stint. The spring show was in the Presidents pavilion at the Royal Norfolk showground, where I was handing out certificates for an awful lot of daffodils! Some of the old boys take the whole thing very seriously indeed as they explained to me how much work goes into raising new hybrids from seed and fighting against the vagaries of a British spring. Of course one chap said that a week later would have been perfect for the best show!




I did manage to get a few hours in the garden this morning on this wonderful spring day. I seem to be permanently clearing the garden of – stuff. A few days ago some of my tallest hedges were lowered by about 8ft to a more comfortable 15ft. This was all cleared up by a friend of mine whilst I did some essential watering in the Polly tuneless. I also managed to pull out of hibernation about 30 Brugmansias for their summer sojourn in the garden.





The Podophyllum delavayi I showed on my last blog are growing fast, so I have included another picture of these marvellous plants for your delectation. Although my garden is geared up for a grand show later in the year, many things are now showing early signs of life. The Tetrapanax papyrifera, (Rice paper plant) is very handsome as its new growth starts to unfurl. In high season the leavers will be up to one meter wide – a stunning plant indeed.



Of course a spectacular show is given at this time of year by Clematis armandii, with its seductive, highly scented flowers. This rampant sprawler is growing over a 30 foot long Victorian iron pergola, and is a gorgeous sight to behold, and walking through is so intoxicating.



In the garden nursery there are many gems starting to appear and one that is just breaking the ground is the variegated knotweed Fallopia japonica Tri-color, a handsome plant that never seems to grow more than a couple of feet tall with me and is certainly not invasive like some of its bigger relatives. In saying that though, I do grow some very large leaved forms surrounded by very thick flint walls, where they have been happily not invading the garden for about 20 years, to about 12ft tall.



Finally I am going to leave you with picture of a rather attractive Heuchera hybrid. Unfortunately the writing on the label has completely faded; hence I have gone over to using a pencil instead!

Fun in the sun...

Gardens on the east coast of England are often dogged by sea mists, but, if the forecast can be believed - I should be able to have some fun in the sun over the next few days, although it is still rather chilly in the shade. Before fun commences though, I must let you know what I have been doing on those all too chilly days of late winter!







Anyone for pots – seed trays or used hosepipe? At last, after several years of only being able to gain access to part of my nursery, I have had a grand clean out. The nursery is attached to the garden, where I grow many of the more tender plants for the garden in two 8x20ft Polly-tunnels. Amazingly enough this is only one of two piles of non compostable detritus! The worst part of the grand tidy-up was removing all the pernicious brambles that had slowly covered everything in the last few years.



When the weather is chilly outside, it is usually deliciously warm in the heated tunnel, particularly when the sun shines. It is easy to forget how much strength the sun has at this time of year, especially if I forget to open the doors by 11am it can often be 30C plus, and even hotter in the propagating frames! Which reminds me - I must cover the roof in shade netting in a few weeks time, otherwise the temperatures become absolutely ridiculous!








Nestling up one corner is one of my resent acquisitions, a Bromeliad I recently obtained from Florida called Aechmea ‘Harvey’s Pride’, a beautiful plant nearly three feet across. You can’t really see many other Broms in the picture, but I now have over fifty different species and hybrid Bromeliads, which will all go out into the garden from early to mid May depending on the weather.







Here at the Exotic Garden, plants are on the move and one I particularly like is pushing its way out of the soil - Podophyllum delavayi - a stunning woodlander I obtained last spring from Linda Cochran's stunning garden on Bainbridge Island near Seattle in Washington. The amazing mottled leaves will get up to about six inches across on one foot stems. The flowers which appear in high summer are maroon and have a very odd metallic scent!







The garden isn’t open to the public until Sunday June 21st (summer solstice) so there are several months left to get the garden in order for its grand opening. It’s a bit like tidying up your house for guests – during the winter months things are left everywhere with plastic bags blowing around the garden and many other unsightly things that will be spirited away before June. Why wait until June you might be thinking? The thing about exotics is that many of the plants such as Cannas and Gingers will only be a foot or so high by then but very quickly grow to staggering heights, powering up to a crescendo in August through to October. Very exiting indeed
Thinking of summer, I will leave you with a picture looking through the garden, taken in August last year. Let’s hope this summer is a really hot one – I do hope so...

Schefflera macrophylla with chair

Last Tuesday I was giving a series of lectures for the ‘English Gardening School’ at the venerable Chelsea Physic Garden in London. Looking through their brochure of forthcoming events and courses, I noticed that - world renowned plantsman and explorer Dan Hinkley, is giving a lecture on Friday 27th from 2- 3.15pm about his fabulous garden ‘Windcliff’ on Bainbridge Island overlooking Puget Sound in Washington State USA. http://www.englishgardeningschool.co.uk A lecture not to miss.

There will also be a Dan Hinkley day at Crûg Farm plants in Wales from 10am to 3.30pm on Saturday 18th April. Tickets for this event can be purchased from the Crûg Farm website http://www.crug-farm.co.uk/events-5.aspx

I was lucky enough to see his remarkable garden on a lecture tour I was doing myself through the US Pacific coast States last year. This was at the invitation of The Pacific Northwest Branch of the Mediterranean Garden Society. One of the delights of such tours is meeting gardeners and their gardens and Dan’s was no exception.

For those who don’t know him, especially on this side of the Atlantic - Daniel Hinkley is an American plantsman, garden writer, horticulturalist, nurseryman, raconteur and general nice guy. He is best known for establishing Heronswood, in Kington Washington, and for collecting, propagating, and naming varieties of plants new to the North American nursery trade on his many plant hunting trips to the far flung regions of the world. He also likes playing the piano!

Over the last year I have looked, countless times at Crûg Farm plants website, lusting after a plant rare to cultivation - Schefflera macrophylla was one that particularly stood out. Originally identified as S. Petelotii, this is a spectacular species which Bleddyn and Sue Wynn-Jones discovered in the Fan Xi Pan area of northern Vietnam, where this most architectural of the species can reach 7 meters tall with large paddle-shaped leaflets combining to form one meter wide leaves on slender purple petioles (leaf stem). On emerging the entire new growth is smothered in a ginger indumentum. This stunning plant has taken -11C unprotected at Crûg Farm.

Well - with a description like that, I surcame to the power of the plant, and bought one from their website on Thursday afternoon. On Friday morning a huge box was knocking on my door, containing a beautiful Schefflera macrophylla (Picture above) - Warning -This is a plant that you will not, find at your local garden centre!

I wrote the above before, seeing Dan Hinkley, Bleddyn and Sue Wynn-Jones, on Carol Klein’s Friday night gardening program – I must have been having one of those Deja vous moments!

I love a windy day, but this is ridiculous...

I love a windy day, but this is ridiculous...

It always seems to be windy at the end of the gardening season, then again just before the new one begins. I have two standard bay trees in large terracotta pots and for the second time this winter they have been blown over, shattering the pots into many pieces – I am going to leave them broken until this rather breezy weather dies down. I will then re-plant them in new pots and look forward to them being smashed again this autumn.

I have three roof windows in my tree house which you cannot see in the picture – guess what! They all blew out yesterday. In the afternoon it started to rain and I didn’t want the inside getting soaking wet, so I went up there, wind lashing around me, trying to cover the gaping holes with plastic sheeting and drawing pins. Within minutes my fingers were so cold I could hardly push the pins in. Looking out of the window this morning, I see the damn sheets have blown off!
My back is a lot better, but still rather stiff. Thanks Victoria for suggesting your Harley Street cyropracter – I went to a local one last Thursday, who pummelled, twisted and cracked all my joints then jumped up and down on my back. Needles to say, I felt a lot worse for the next 24 hours, though it is easing now. It’s just the wrong time of year to take it easy in the garden as was suggested.

Unfortunately my xerophytic garden took a beating this winter with a few of my favourite Agaves turning to mush. I spent an afternoon with a very sharp knife cutting all the outer leaves off some of the larger ones to find that the central core of tightly packed leaves were still OK. At least this wind will dry out all the rotten bits. Last winter I covered the whole area with a loose poly-tunnel arrangement and lost nothing – not even my collection of Aoniums. Seeing as the Met Office hadn’t predicted a particularly cold winter I decided not to cover my spiky friends. Then we have the coldest winter for 18 years! The desert garden looks rather forlorn now, so I will have to replace some of the specimens with new ones from my local spiky thing dispenser - Amulree Exotics. Unfortunately I will also have to replace all my Aoniums as well! I think the make-shift Polly-tunnel will go back up again in the autumn, even if a winter heat wave is predicted!

I have just had my garden website updated. It now has a selection of the articles I wrote for my column in The Eastern Daily Press. I have also added a short video of the garden made last September – www.exoticgarden.com – enjoy.

As its back to chilly weather for the next few days here in good old Blighty (slang for Britain) and as most gardens including mine, look rather dishevelled at this time of year, I though you might like to see a picture of one of the borders at the Exotic Garden in high summer . Just imagine it’s a deliciously warm day with the intoxicating sent of Brugmansia pervading the air, while sipping a glass of wine. Mmmm! The purple bananas are Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelli’ and across the front is part of my ever expanding collection of Bromeliads.

I have to admit, when I look out of the widow, I wonder how I’m going to get it all together before the first garden open day in June. To non-gardeners that might seem a long way off, but with all of the other trials and tribulations of life to cope with and one acre of garden to maintain, it always seems like an uphill struggle. Never-the-less it always gets done in the end, as though it had always been that way.

I’m having a day or two away from the garden as my back has been excruciatingly painful, especially after clearing so much heavy, wet, garden detritus. In my head I am still in my twenties and find it so easy to overdo lifting heavy objects. Last April, about two days before leaving for a one month lecture tour of the West coast of the United States - I pulled my back while potting up some very lightweight plants. I remember almost crawling off the plane on arrival – sitting for long periods is not good for back pain! In fact sitting at the computer doesn’t help much either, but never mind, it will clear up in a few days – I hope!

For cat lovers, I have added a picture of one of my Devon Rex brothers (Lawrence) sitting on a log under an ’Indian Bean Tree’ Liriodendron tulipifera. For those who don’t know - this is a great tree for pollarding rather than letting it grow into a house sized specimen. Like the Foxglove or Empress Tree Paulownia tomentosa - if cut to the ground each year, the leaves will be much larger, anything up to 30cm 1ft wide.

Now I must prepare for a series of lectures I am doing next week for The English Gardening School at The Chelsea Physic Garden in London – I do hope this gnawing feeling like toothache in my lower back feels better by then.