|
Whilst working at the nursery today I was struck by two things, firstly the cold silvery light and threat of darkening clouds rumbling overhead and the cheery almost diffident brazenness of a Coronilla in full flower.
Praised by Vita Sackville - West as ‘Flowering continuously between those two great feasts of the Church - a sort of hyphen between the Birth and the Resurrection," and "its persistence throughout the dreary months". This little shrub works wonders in the winter garden.
(Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca 'Citrina') Native to Portugal it was first introduced to Britain in 1569 and although never widely available has always been valued. Victorian’s would often grow it in cold greenhouses, giving us a clue that even although our climate is warmer today Coronilla still needs some protection if it is to be grown outside. A dry sunny spot is best.
Provided then that you have found it a lovely little niche of shelter and the winter sun comes out Coronilla will reward you with clusters of bright yellow pea - like flowers with a delicate faint scent of narcissus. The flowers are held in clusters of up to 15 and have something of a Galega about them.
(Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca 'Variegata') The plant itself is evergreen and a member of the leguminosae (or to please nomenclature standardisers, Fabaceae) family, it forms a matt of roots and is used in Portugal on banks to reduce soil erosion. Its growth tends to be a little be way-ward and just like the officinalis galega’s tends to make its own loose shaggy mound. The leaves are very attractive having a grey shade which harmonises with our English light.
(Coronilla valentina) Looking at my plant today at the nursery I was struck by its incredible vigour this year. Last winter was colder and dryer, to this point, in the Cotswolds but as it has been relatively warm and wet so the Coronilla has put on a fine burst of growth. This although welcome means we will be taking extra cuttings next year, not only for sale but also because like many transported Mediterranean plants it will lose vigour and become somewhat woody.
If I have sold the idea of this little treasure to you, don’t rush out and buy straight forward Coronilla valentina. It tends to be a bit brassy and brash, theres nothing refined or subtle about this form. The best is Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca 'Citrina' with its soft grey - green leaves and bright clear yellow flowers its an eye catcher but one which you will want to look at again.
Since the Autumn of 2008 we have been managing and developing our own website, www.boxcourt.co.uk. With each new development we struggled to add more content and over time a little like an Apple Mac computer we have had to update and re - jig almost on the same 6 monthly basis!
Over the past year and a half we have given our site a few face lifts but the last, and ironically worse, seemed to make it even less clear to use and not terribly attractive.
Over coffee with friends in Minchinhampton a couple of months ago we realised there was nothing for it and prepared for a new website. We have patiently stood back and allowed the process to slowly evolve.
So our new website has been totally updated. I am please that all of the plants we sell at the nursery are now listed. This includes some really exciting new introductions we have been able to grow on from fragile seed sent from all over the world. We have grown them on and propagated over the Autumn ready for next year. It was much easier to grow them than think about the process of putting them onto the website, thankfully for me however that is all done now.
Another development is the number of courses we have added for next year from the few we offered with the Painswick Rococo Garden this year.
Now with some really talented people leading very informative and enjoyable courses along with a weekend break, learning the basics of growing your own, in association with Cotswolds88 Hotel I think next years courses look promising.
I am really pleased for everyone involved as 2 of our courses are now Royal Horticultural Society Recommended.
Lastly on this starting over blog, the nursery itself is getting a new broom. We are closed until the 9th January but in that time we are busy resurfacing the entire nursery site and adding additional tables for an increase in plant range. We have also created to new 11m long show border with some of our favourite plants in them. I hope visitors to the Garden next year will like the improvements, the resurfacing has made it much easier to walk on and the cows in the neighbouring field seem to like watching us move 50 tonnes of hoggin by hand & barrow!
To all members of Box Gardening Club who I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking to last night. Thank you for inviting me and for a really enjoyable evening with you all - It was a great deal of fun!
One of my favorite books about gardening and it is so much more than just about gardens, is Italian Villa’s & Their Gardens. Not a novel, or travel writing or purely garden writing this book still stands as a bible for those seeking the essence of an Italian Garden.
I read an original edition of this book whilst at University along with many precious original texts all stored for future generations at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's Library. It was here that I first read Hortus No. 1 and many old RHS publications with articles by the likes of Vita Sackville - West.
Italian Villa’s does not bother with the tedious detail of how to get somewhere but rather assumes you to are intimate with the owner of each villa and knowledge of location and entry is rather a foregone conclusion. Edith brings to life the essence and it is her narrative which is the books biggest strength. She stresses that ‘ One must always bear in mind that it (Italian Garden Craft) is independent of floriculture’. Her persistent attention to the describing the layout of the gardens she visits and the visitor routes give the book its constant fresh appeal. After all gardens may fade, planting disappear but the spaces and voids remain and the book describes this effortlessly.
When I first read Italian Villas I was also reading Geoffrey Jellicoe’s Italian Gardens, between them they became my guides on my first trip to Italy and I went for 4 months in the summer of 1999.
One villa which has always remained in my mind which I visited more than once is the Villa Barbarigo. Jellicoe called it Villa Donna Della Rose and wrote ‘Consider an amphitheater of hills, the ends linked by a great avenue flung across the valley, and this valley an arrangement of lesser avenues furnished with all the delights of an Italian garden, box hedges, lemon trees, sculpture, pools and fountains, and you have an impression of the gardens at Valsanzibio'. The building was designed by Bernine for Zuane Francesco Barbarigo. The baroque gardens have seventy statues, cascades, fountains and water features’.
 Edith Wharton called it Villa Valsanzibio and simply described it as one of the most beautiful pleasure grounds in Italy.
The villa itself dates from the 17th Century and the garden is divided by colossal 20ft High Buxus hedges each room as we would now call them divided between green structures, statuary and water. I don’t remember seeing a single flower here, but this garden stood out for me as a singular joy and lesson in proportion and taste.
 The village of Valsanzibio is very near to the City of Padua, not only famous for the Pedrocchi Cafe, a favorite haunt of Byron, Dario Fo and Stendhal but also for having one of the oldest botanic gardens in the world with its original 1545 layout intact. Arranged over a circular format Padua Botanic Garden sets out each plant in its own bed so that the specimens could be observed and catalogued at ease.
When talking about Italian gardens I think I will leave the last words to Edith Wharton
“The traveller returning from Italy, with his eyes and imagination full of the ineffable Italian garden-magic, knows vaguely that enchantment exists: that he has been under its spell, and that it is more potent, more enduring, more intoxicating to every sense than the most elaborate and glowing effects of the modern horticulture.........”
With autumn we often think of trees and colour. Sometimes if you look closely at a tree you will begin to notice the way it grows, or the way its branches hang. Often during autumn when our eye is concentrated we also notice the bark of a tree. Some trees have slightly grotesque bark which comes off in ragged edged plates whilst other have long scar like fishers of tissue which builds up into a micro-landscape. Other trees have smooth almost silky bark, which has a soft sheen and appears almost stroke-able. (Picture View from Painswick Beacon)
I wonder that it these similarities we attribute to trees must have been how one of my favourite non-native groups of trees was recognised. Explorers in Chile discovered Nothofagus oblique and named it ‘roble’ after the Spanish word for oak with which they thought it shared a resemblance. First introduced in 1902 Nothofagus, meaning false beech is related to Fagus and currently in the family Fagaceae, although it does have marked differences with some taxonomic experts suggesting it should move into its own family Nothofagacea. Bear with me, plant taxonomic identification is a pet subject for me, and one of my favourite plant family, although an artificial one was always Amentiferae, or as those who prefer all floral families to end with the same ‘acea’ (such as Umbelliferea, now slowly becoming Apiaceae) the group Amentaceae. Amentiferae is the family of plants, which bear their flowers in catkins, amenta. This includes Salicaceae, Corylaceae, Betulaceae, Platanaceae, Juglandaceae and Myriceae. This group was still widely used when I studied 10 years ago but most modern classification systems have not retained the group.
(Picture Nothofagus Obliqua) Nothofagus are a close relative of beech and look strikingly similar. N. Obliqua is a narrow crowned tree fairly fast growing reaching heights of around 100ft. At the top of the tree the branches grow upwards whilst in the middle they arch with smaller lower branches spreading out and down, resembling a young fagus. The leaves are small bearing pairs of veins reaching the edge if the leaf in-between the serrations of the edge as opposed to the tip of the serration which is more common in this type of leaf formation. The distinctive herringbone pattern the leaves of N. oblique make is shared by only one other member of the family, Nothofagus antartica.
Now the amusing thing with Latin is that the species name we are often taught tells us something indicative about the plant, such as Convolvulsu chilensis, or Aster novi-belgii, both referring to the place of origin or Viburnum sargentii and Crinodendron hookeri both referring to the person who discovered them. Therefore Nothofagus antarctica should be straightforward however it is in fact native to Chile and Argentina. It is also the most southerly growing tree occurring on Hoste Island, which is 2200 miles north of Antarctica.
The Antarctica in its names refers to its extreme hardiness, not surprisingly it does rather well in the United Kingdom. N. antarctica can reach heights of up to 80ft. It has a slender trunk with scaly bark and alternative small mid green leaves, which are covered in a sweetly scented wax. Unlike N. obliqua with its serrated leaves N. antarctica has broadly ovate leaves with crinkly rounded edges, which are almost wavy. (Picture Nothofagus antarctica)
N. obliqua and N. antarctica are both deciduous and turn rich shades of crimson and gold in the Autumn. Nothofagus betuloides is again native to Chile but is however evergreen. It can withstand cold temperatures down to -20C and is therefore a very hardy and valuable landscape tree. It has a columnar habit, up to 80ft and with maturity develops a large almost flat topped head .
(Picture Nothofagus betuloides) The leaves are very small, ovate, serrated and a rich glossy green. New growth appears on stunning bronze red shoots. It has been widely grown in Scotland and has lovely pinkish timber, which being a hard wood makes lovely furniture.
Although Hornbeam, Beech and Lime are my favourite landscape trees, Nothofagus comes very close to them for its merits of inclusion in broader and large scale planting.
|
|
|
