Crossing Aquilegias

For no other reason than that they both came into flower at the same time and are of similar height, I have been transferring pollen from A.viridiflora to A.canadensis and the same in reverse. I'd like seed from both plants so I can compare how they cross.
The two are very similar in some respects and different in others. They are both northern natives with canadensis populating North America, from Canada down through the States, and viridiflora coming from the temperate region of Asia from Siberia to Mongolia and much of China. The flowers are of a similar size and there are some similarities in the foliage although for me canadensis wins in the latter category, viridiflora is more finely divided but canadensis has an interesting dark hue to the leaves and very dark stems. A.viridiflora has really very scented flowers, almost hyacinth-like to my mind. The 'wings' are green but the body a deep purple, the whole flower an elegantly balanced shape with a full skirt even in length, slender necks and proportionate wings. A.canadensis is quite a different flower. For one thing it is not scented, for another it has a much shorter skirt which is barely visible under the wings and is a washed out yellow. The body and neck are fat, almost bulbous in a glorious shade of red. In contrast to viridiflora it seems out of balance, fatter at the top like a crown.
I had them both on the windowsill together in isolation and took off all but one flower from each plant, as I write the seed pods are fattening and when they're dry I'll sow them.

Plant murderer

I'm wondering what the correct term for someone who kills his own seedlings is. There is a definite mix of emotions at play when you find yourself making the decision that you have enough of that, you don't need to prick out a dozen more of that one. Pulling the seedlings out it's not enough to simply discard them, I find myself crushing them to emphatically see them off, as if I don't quite trust myself not to have a change of heart half way through. So it is at the moment with aquilegia seedlings I am growing. Not quite believing that some of them would germinate at all, as usual I have sown far too many and I have way to many to deal with. When you consider the efforts put in to getting them going, sourcing the seed and waiting eagerly for it to arrive, scrubbing the pots clean, buying and mixing the medium, sprinkling on the vermiculite, putting them in plastic bags and labelling them and then waiting and waiting sometimes for up to eight weeks, it's perhaps not surprising that the decision to kill them is so agonising. So go emphatically they must. Once you've made the decision of course a kind of cruel enjoyment begins to creep in, the same feeling that can overtake you when pruning a shrub and you know you've already gone a bit too far. I can't get over the feeling that there is an element of infanticide about the whole thing, and promise myself I'll have more faith and sow less next time.

On competitive gardening

One of the gardens I look after has been entered again into the local In-bloom competition. It won the gold and best overall garden last year, but at that point I had only been working on it for a few months and I didn't feel I'd made my mark on it. This year I have much more invested, I've redesigned two thirds of the borders and created a whole new border from what was lawn, I've laid new paths, installed new seating areas and removed a rockery. So daunting as it was last year to have my work judged, it's much worse this year.
For me planting a new border is much like preparing a meal, it's all about the quality of the ingredients and making sure everything happens in the right order. In this case I marked out the line of the new border, removed the turf and dug over the whole plot adding plenty of soil improving compost and a generous helping of blood, fish and bone. The ground was heavily compacted as you would expect, with a fair bit of clay in the profile, but once dug quite workable. I used gravel board to edge both the front and back of the border, the back board serving hopefully to deter the roots of the lilac hedge that runs the entire length. I agonised over the planting probably more than I needed to and in the end filled the car at Spetchley Park and again at the Arbuthnott's Stone House Cottage Nursery. My client had already purchased several large Acer palmatum and a Cornus controversa 'Variegata' which I worked into the scheme.
Planted in March of this year everything got away well with pleasing results. I'm particularly fond of Astrantia major 'Ruby Star' against Aquilegia vulgaris var. stellata in a shade of deep wine red, and delighted with Salvia nemerosa 'Caradonna' poking through Euphorbia martinii and Euphorbia characias subsp. characias 'Humpty Dumpty'. This sits alongside Astrantia major 'Roma' and a pale pink Penstemon which make very comfortable bed fellows. The new framework planting is interspersed with Nicotianas for this year, and at the front purple allysum amongst the Heucheras and hardy geraniums to fill gaps.
I wouldn't describe myself as a particularly competitive person but it's hard not to care what the outcome of this process is, especially since the future of my relationship with my client is potentially at stake. I've done everything I can to manage her expectations, reminding her that the plants are all new, that next year the new border will be more established, that there is no way of knowing who else has entered this year. So now it's up to the judges, the objective view. I'll keep you posted on how we get on.

The Fourth Dimension

A client of mine has recently moved house and asked me to take a look at the garden for her. The house has been empty for a year, and she warned me that the garden was in a bit of a state. What I found when I arrived fascinated me. I was expecting nettles and brambles, bindweed maybe even some ground elder, definitely dandelions to have taken over, but that's not what I found at all.
The previous owners were obviously very keen gardeners. A densely planted, wide herbaceous border runs around three sides of the garden. The shrubs had all outgrown their allotted space from lack of pruning, and a lilac had been busily suckering up an entire corner, but there were practically no weeds at all. Once I started removing the black tangle of dead forgetmenots it became more and more obvious that the beds were rammed full of self sown plants; foxgloves, honesty, sky blue Nigella, feverfew, Nicotiana and hardy geraniums to name just the most prolific. So many of these seedlings had germinated that there can't have been room for the annual weeds to get a foothold. Left to its own devices the garden was gradually painting its own picture, arranging itself in some inspiring combinations.
Verbena bonariensis shouldn't of course be at the front of the border rising out of a clump of hardy geraniums or come to that any of the other twenty or so places it had made itself at home, nor should the honesty be filling a space occupied by Potentilla atrosanguinea and its neighbouring Geum 'Mrs. J. Bradshaw', but there was a definite charm there. Likewise the carpet of intermingled Cerinthe major var. purpurascens and Viola labradorica purpurea squeezed around and amongst lavender bushes. I couldn't help but reflect how these 'wildings' as Christopher Lloyd referred to them give the garden a real sense of abundance and freedom, the plants getting on and doing what they like rather than being dictated to. Twenty of this and a dozen of that gives so much more cohesion than single specimens, plants on top of each other, growing through each other look artless and carefree and real.
To my mind the garden was doing a pretty good job of developing itself, but there was no question of letting it get on with. Cleared and pruned it now has an element of order restored to it, but I hope I've left enough of the wildings alone for the potential to remain, should the garden ever get set loose again.

Enthusiasm

I can't get enough of Aquilegia vulgaris 'Vervaeneana Group'. While the rest of the aquilegias are fading into the background and getting attacked with powdery mildew this variety retains a tidy clump of fantastic foliage.

Latest work

Phormium 'Back in Black' sits above Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens'. Ornamental millet (Pennisetum glaucum) provides a good contrast for the striped leaves of Miscanthus sinensis 'Strictus' and complements the dark foliage in this grouping.

Latest work

Note the colour combination of the grasses and the new foliage on the Osmunda regalis. In the background is Hakonechloa macra 'Nicolas' which will add more red to the composition later in the year.