Plantpassion

Behind the scenes at the Wisley Butterflies

One of the talks that I give to gardening and WI groups is about gardening for wildlife, and butterflies feature in that talk, but today I got to see some rather different and exotic butterflies and learn a bit about what goes on behind the scenes at Wisley to get these wonderful creatures into their glasshouse to amaze the public in the depths of winter.

The butterflies are sent in Chrysalis form, from Belize to Wisley via the experts at Stratford Butterfly farm. When they arrive, they are hung upside down (stuck on with non toxic copydex) in an emergence cage which is kept warm and humid. These green chrysalis will be Blue Morpho Butterflies in a couple of weeks.

When they do emerge, they need to hang for a few hours for their wings to dry out, before they fly.

(Owl and Malay Lacewing newly hung from the emergence cage)

When they've warmed up (and the glass house at Wisley is lovely and warm for them at the moment) then they'll fly off to find out what tropical delights the glasshouse staff have laid on for them.

Each year the Wisley team find more varieties of plants that are able to flower in an English January, and to provide nectar for tropical butterflies.

Orchids, Calliandra, the Jade vine Strongylobum and Lantana were all being well visited today by butterflies.

But for those that don't like the Wisley specimens, there is a buffet table

Where the guests actually prefer the fruit at the rotting, past it's best stage, and the centre of the flowers are sugar water (10% solution) for feeding and drinking.

I really enjoyed my butterfly trip today. And they are very popular as the queues on Sunday when I went with my family, and the full glasshouse today prove. So I hope they are here to stay as a winter attraction at Wisley. - They are in the Glasshouse until Mid February, so don't worry if you can't get there in the next few days.

Now i'm off to plan more attractive plants for our native butterflies this summer. - Anyone know if they like sugar water too?

 

 

 

 

 

Wisley - Sunday morning inspiration

Summer Sunday morning - time to meet with family and friends outside in the sun. I feel fantistically lucky to have The RHS garden at Wisley just 10 minutes down the road. So my Sunday mornings often include a wander and coffee at this world famous garden.

This was the view along the glasshouse borders.

In case you didn't know, - RHS Wisley opens at 9.00am at the weekend. So you get to have fantastic views of stunning borders including the new Rose garden (so good all the Roses have to be smelt)

With the garden almost to yourself.

Then there's the Wild at Wisley playground, where an hour of Den building was the perfect way to let 7 year olds enjoy themselves outside.

Community gardening at its best

I've had the most fantastic day full of gardening, and I only got 1/2 an hour of weeding done in my own garden. I've spent the rest of the day at Grace and Flavour.

Do you remember how empty the garden looked back in April?

Well now after 6 months of hard teamwork, the garden looks completely different, and full of crops

Watering in Elephants

i've just come in from the garden, and it's after 10pm. It's been hot the last couple of weeks, - Hot & Dry.

Now hot sunlight is good for plant growth and floriferousness, as long as there is enough water at the plant's roots, BUT here in Surrey, - we havn't had any decent rain for months (I think i've only gardened in waterproofs for 2 whole days this year!)

I am on a water meter, so I use my waterbutts whenever I can, but they've been empty for weeks. So I have had to hand water, and use a sprinkler in the evening.  This evening I wanted to plant out some of the seedlings i've been growing. - I wouldn't plant any client borders at the moment, but I want to get all my seedlings in the soil before the summer holidays, - they have a slightly better chance of survival in the ground than in small pots on shelving on my patio, but to give them the best chance in the ground I set the sprinkler running on the patch I was going to plant. - Unfortunately in the 35 minutes it was running, the water only soaked down 1 cm. Not nearly enough for even a seedling's rootball (about 4-5cm deep).

So if you want plants to get the most moisture to their roots to help them survive, an overhead sprinkler isn't the most efficient way, - a watering can with a rose, or a hose with a lance spray are the best.

I teach the children in gardening club that we are watering roots, not leaves, and that they need to count their watering in Elephants. Using this method, the children can't count too quickly (one elephant, two elephants etc) and the plants get a decent amount of moisture where they need it - a tomato plant needs at least 5 elephants, the corn needs 3 elephants each. A row of seedlings needs 8 elephants. The beans 5 elephants each cane of the wigwam.

Are you using enough elephants in your watering?

A Hydrangea needs a can of water a week in this weather. Chucking it all on at once will mean most of it drains elsewhere, so a quarter of a can, then going back in 5 minutes for another quarter etc. My watering can takes over a minute to fill up from the hose (60 elephants) which means that most plants in the garden will need a minimum of 10 second/elephants spraying with a hose.

It is a lot better for the plants to drink deeply on every 2nd or 3rd day, than to have a little sprinkling every day. - Something to think about if we do start getting rain again, - has it been as heavy as 10 elephants?

West Horsley Horticultural Society Spring Show - or, I nearly won the cup!

After all my panicking yesterday about whether i'd have anything to show, I managed to get together a fairly decent set of entries for last night.

My daffodils weren't abundant in the garden, but I managed a group 2 (sepals bigger than trumpet), a group 4 (Double), a triandrus (2 headed tete a tete), and a potted arrangement.

I also had the only tulips to be seen, - wish i'd written down which variety they were when i'd planted them.

I took some leucojum stems, to enter for the 3 stems of other bulbs, but although they looked great in the garden, when I got to the village hall, the competition was fierce and the other leucojums looked bigger and better than mine.

There were several vases of hyacinths added to this class after I took this photo, but I only had 2 of each colour flowering in the garden (blue and white) so didn't have enough for the 3 stems.

When I went to set up, William was with me, - he was impressed by the flowers and loved the pretty vases (someone suggested we should have a prettiest vase category as well!), I asked him if he thought my blooms were good enough to win, - his reply, - of course mummy, but it's not the winning it's the taking part that counts! 

With the hall set up, we retreated to let the judge make his decisions.

We returned at 7.30 for Sherry and supper (yes the choice of aperitif does indicate the average age of the society members!)

The members of WHHS may be mature bunch, but they all have fantastic gardening enthusiasm and knowledge, and are very friendly, so conversation flowed about how awful the weather is, what plants have been affected, tips for slug removal and many other local garden related hints.

By the time several bottles of sherry had been consumed, the noise level had risen and we were allowed into the hall to see who had been judged as winners in each class.

My class 2 daffodil got a first, My double wasn't placed (not far enough out of bud) My Tete a tete triandrus got a third, my tulips were 1st (they were the only tulips!) the leucojums which I almost took home with me, the judge obviously liked my blue vase, and I got third, and my pot of tete a tete got a first.

6 entries, 5 placings and 3 firsts.

The evening supper was excellent, - A fantastic salad buffet with Ham, Turkey, Quiche and Coronation chicken was polished off.The homemade puddings were amazing, and no chocolate in sight, which meant I could choose from all of them - Kiwi Trifle won. Conversation at dinner covered a huge number of subjects, Gardening of course, Morgan cars, children and grandchildren, and even a bit of politics, thank you to Angela, Bob and Heather for welcoming me and being so sharing of their wine.

When everyone was replete, Mr Peach our judge, gave some excellent hints and tips about why the winners had got their prizes, and then the cups and best in show were awarded. - I was runner up in the bulb classes along with the chairman, so i've got my sights on the cup!. The best in show was awarded to Anne Tutt for some fantastic floating double hellebores (snuck in after i'd taken my pictures) 

So now i'm planning my entries for the other 2 shows of the year, and William will be entering the childrens classes. If you havn't thought of entering a horticultural show before, i'd highly recommend it, - i've had great fun planning and preparing the plants, and gardening people are always a friendly welcoming bunch, - Any tips for me as to how I get my hands on that cup next year? (I know it's the taking part that counts!)

Notes for myself for next year. -

Stock up on the bottles for vases in January, and don't recycle them the week before!

Get feeding those Hellebores, i've got lots of work to do to compete with the best in show winner

Grow daffodils for the other 3 classes, and put in clumps of them so I have a choice of which to pick

Bring the doubles in the day before to have them open enough for the show

Don't bring the tulips in until the afternoon, to make sure they haven't blown for next year.

Grow a pot plant

Gardens at night, - Lumiere

I love the Christmas lights at this time of year, especially when they are used to highlight trees.  So when I found out to be that the RHS gardens at Wisley, were going to be putting on a celebration of light, I put it on my list of pre-Christmas event to visit.

The blurb for lumière reads

This Christmas leave a busy world behind, and allow us to tell you what we have in mind.Let us take you by the icy hand,and lead you to a garden winter wonderland; where spectacular lights cast a magic glow, and trees above are lit up from below. Follow the trail where lights lead the way, and enjoy a radiant end to your day.

Children and water in the garden

Children, - particularly little ones, are drawn to water in a garden, For anyone that's been on a day out to any parks or gardens, you know that feeding the fish or watching a waterfall are a little ones favorite activities.

 

(William watching the waterfall in the RHS Wisley Glasshouse)

But as children are drawn to water, - that also means that there is danger that they will fall in, and not be able to get out. - I've unfortunately heard enough horror stories in my time about toddlers walking into swimming pools or ponds, (The horrifing stats are that about 200 under 5's have been drowned since 2002) that I wouldn't recommend to any family that they have an open pond in their garden, but there are other options that make a garden water feature safe for children and you to enjoy.

If you have a small pond, and want to have fish, then my recommendation is to use a pond cover. - This can be a cage above the water, but in my experience, this spoils the view, and makes tending to any pond plants or marginals very difficult. - This photo shows the recommendation I came up with for one of my clients gardens

This grid is installed just below or above the water surface and is designed to take the weight of a child

it's by a uk company called safapond

If you don't already have a water feature in your garden, - my suggestion would be to add the sound of running water without having the standing water, by using an underground water sump and a pump to create a fountain. - We used to have one of these in our last garden, with a large stone for the water to trickle out of, and pebbles surrounding it, - I couldn't find a photo of this (typically), but there are now lots of different types of kits sold that you can easily create this effect from.

This photo is taken from a website called waterfeatures2go.co.uk  which has a huge range, for all budgets.

My favourite of this type was one I saw at the Malvern show recently, - these are made to order, and the copper will weather to a lovely green grey.

This one is by Robert Peters and his company is copperwaterballs.co.uk

The other thing that you can do is to have a fountain coming out of a wall, or a stream/watercourse that disappears into an underwater sump, so that you can get the sound without the pool, and without the danger.

Successful gardening day out with Children

Being fortunate enough to live just down the road from RHS Garden Wisley, my son has been trailed around the garden there, on average about once a week since birth. As he's now a big school boy, we havn't been so much recently, but last summer's visit to their new attraction obviously had a lasting memory, as all this week, he's been asking to visit the Maize maze. - Here's the story of our morning out in pictures (mostly taken by him)

10000 bedding plants were used to create this carpet bedding picture of a peacock.

We collected our map and garden explorers trail sheet from the entrance and followed the pirate Maize maze this way signs through the garden.

The Maize maze is planted on the site of the old Wisley Greenhouses, - a nice big flat area, which lends itself wonderfully to this. - The Pirate theme, was added to by various dead end (me hearties) signs, - Parrots, and Pirate Scarecrows on the way, before we finally (after a good trek) found our way to the centre, - a very good design of maze, and very tall thick maize plants which meant that every now and again, you couldn't even see the pirate ship we were heading to.

But we reached the centre

As William is now reading, he had spotted on the map that there was a new play area, - so we headed in that direction through the fruit
His favourite fruit - pears - here trained on cordons

We were both impressed with the amount of fruit on the standard redcurrants

We watched the gardeners picking the blueberries, and found purple peppers, cucumbers ("they havn't got prickles on like our ones!") and aubergines("yuk") in the polytunnel. We then went through the fruit trail fields and found the yellow raspberry mentioned on the trail, and I felt very proud that my figs were looking bigger and riper than theirs.

I managed to stop William scrumping any blackberries, and then he raced me down the Piet Oudolf borders (no contest, he won by a mile) to the play area. Wild at Wisley- This is an area out in the Arboetum past the new glasshouse, which hardly anyone gets out to, - so it's a perfect area to put over to kids, and they have created some great features with carved logs, and dips in the ground.

There was also a grass spiral, and this balance trunk amused William, as he pretended there were crocodiles underneath

 

  We then did some more of the trail, finding the largest and smallest possible leaf, looking for fish  and finding water lilies.

 

We ended off our visit by with a visit to the garden centre,- William had told me that as it was his day, I couldn't go there, but an apple from the cart changed his mind, so I got a chance to browse the new season bulbs.

My tips for a sucessful gardening day out with Children

1) don't forget a drink and a snack, - Garden cafe's are available, but are often expensive with a queue

2) take as much literature from the garden entrance as possible, maps are always popular even with very little ones, any trails are good value as well

3) ask questions all the way round, - a lot of garden features will be missed by children unless they are looking for them - e.g what is the statue of, how many pink flowers can you see

4) don't stay to long, if you overstay a visit, as well as having a miserable child on the day, they won't want to go back again in the future.

Sowing Runner bean seeds on a wigwam

This post is especially for Jasmin, and all other budding gardeners that are willing to help their parents in the Vegetable garden.  Now is the time to be planting out your Runner beans.

 If you planted seeds in modules on a window sill or in the greenhouse, or if you've bought plants from a garden centre, and you have small plants that have several true leaves, you should acclimatise them for a day or 2 before planting by leaving them in a shady place outdoors,

Or you can sow seeds from now until July.

First prepare your wigwam, - get 6 to 8 bamboo canes or hazel poles and stick them into the ground in a circle about 80cm in diameter to about 30cm depth.  Then gather the canes together at the top and tie together with string or raffia by weaving it in and out of the poles to fix them tightly together. (you may need a tall helper for this)

Now you have a stable wigwam, plant your bean either side of your poles so that they have support - Dig a hole, tip your bean plant out of its pot by holding your fingers either side of the seedling, turning on its side and tapping the bottom of the pot, - it should slide out easily but the roots should hold the soil in place. Place it in the hole backfilling the soil and pushing it down around the roots with your finger.

If you are planting seeds, - I hedge my bets with 3 seeds per bean pole, one either side of the pole and one inside it, - about 5 cm from base.  The seeds need to go in on their sides (so they look like a capital O,) and they need to be pushed down into the soil up to your knuckle (or slightly past, if you have little hands), - then cover them with soil and firm it down.

Next Water, with a watering can with a rose, soaking each plant/seed without washing away the soil.

Watch them grow, - by August, you'll be harvesting great beans.

School Garden planting

i'm feeling tired but satisfied this morning (and my face is red from too much sun) as i've just been given lots of compliments at drop off about the planting that we did yesterday at William's School.
I was asked by the Parents Association to organise a groundforce day to create borders in some of the bare corners around the school grounds.  For the last few weeks i've been busy planning plantings that are

Low maintenance
Of interest for as long a period as possible during school terms
Need minimal watering and feeding even during establishments
Give a range of plantings for the children to learn from

We had almost 20 families turn up to help yesterday, and after 3 hours of hard work we'd managed to create and plant 3 big borders, 2 raised beds, 6 barrel planters and clear an area for some games tables, plus weed and tidy at the front of the school, and we were rewarded with a BBQ (thanks Emma)

The children will now be able to learn from a shady area, a herb bed, a dry border, and the front of the school will be colourful from Feb to November (that's the plan!)

if you're looking for plants that tick all the boxes for school grounds, my favourite are
Geranium Rozanne
Erigeron Karvinskianus
Bronze Fennel
Nerine bulbs
and Trailing Rosemary