After 3 weeks of part self, part snow-induced exile, I returned to the seaside last night during an icy gale that would’ve had an Inuit running for his furs.  I expected to be welcomed by a few mushy looking plants, but immediately I stepped through the gate there was a disgusting squelch, followed quickly by another.  In the pitch dark I wondered if I’d trodden in a lump of displaced moss, remnants of the snow, or worse still a dead animal.   I was wrong on all counts.  The morning light revealed several fallen fruit from one of our climbers, the rampant Holboellia latifolia, a native of the Himalayas.

It was early January before I even noticed these bloated, sausage-like fruits, the colour of uncomfortably inflamed skin.  Beautiful they are not, but quite a surprise when you’ve not seen them before.  Apparently they are edible, but ignorant of their harvesting time they are now good for nothing other than composting.  I read also that it takes a very warm summer to encourage fruiting, so clearly our specimen is deluded or popped over to the Canaries for a break whilst I wasn’t looking.

Holboellia latifolia is a fantastic evergreen climber if you want to cover a wall or pergola quickly.  It’s reasonably hardy and can be trimmed liberally throughout the growing season to keep it in check, though this is a task which needs doing regularly unless you have a very large space to cover.  The leaves of young plants start with three leaflets, but mature ones will mostly be made up of five.  What makes Holboellia especially desirable is the insignificant but deliciously scented flowers which appear in early spring and last for many weeks.  The greenish male flowers and the pink female flowers appear in clusters along the twining stems.  They fill the garden with a scent of gardenias, especially strong during warmer spells.  All it requires in return is a bit of shelter from the worst gales, a moist soil and a feed with blood, fish and bone every spring.

In truth we should have gone for something a little less ambitious in this spot, but doing battle with the flailing tendrils every so often is quite satisfying.   Plus last year the blackbirds made their nest in the shelter of its branches, so I guess it’s here to stay.  Any one have a recipe for Holboellia jam?

Below, small pink female flowers and slightly larger male flowers, set against a bright spring sky.

It’s in the depths of winter, when the wind roars in from the east, that I’m reminded of the value of good evergreen trees and shrubs. They provide shelter from the gales (and for the birds) as well as providing precious structure and attractive glossy foliage throughout the year. Yet many gardeners don’t venture far beyond the traditional choices of box, holly, yew, laurel, Eleagnus and holm oak.  I’d have fallen into the same category a few years ago, before I was introduced to a quartet of really exceptional evergreens.  These would more than earn their keep in any garden, but are especially robust for coastal sites.

First on my list of recommendations is Laurus nobilis ‘Angustifolia’, the narrow-leaved bay, pictured above.  This is the Darcey Bussell of the group, an elegant tree with a fine, willow-like appearance.  Compared to normal bay, the leaves are narrower, longer and a fresher green.  The leaves can be used in cooking although the berries, which look remarkably like black olives, cannot be eaten.  Unfortunately the tree does not grow true from seed; I’ve tried it and ended up with lots of bog-standard bays, so it needs to be purchased from a specialist nursery.  Narrow-leaved bay will grow to about 4m.  Ours, after 6 years, must be about 2.5m tall and forms a neat, tidy cone without any trimming.  If it is clipped or trained into a standard it can form a really attractive, tight shape.

The only problems we’ve had are with scale insects, which look like small bran-flakes with cotton wool around the edge.  These unpleasant bugs can cause the foliage to distort, so need to be removed with warm soapy water as soon as possible.

Next up is Phillyrea latifolia, the green olive. This is a superb little tree, compact and naturally voluptuous – the Nigella Lawson of the group.  It’s no wonder it’s popular in Japanese style gardens, where it can be clipped to exaggerate the cloud-like outline of the tree.  Like the narrow-leaved bay, Phillyrea is very drought tolerant once established and tolerant of salty gales, so ideal for seaside gardens like ours.  It was at its most popular back in the 1900’s, when it was often planted as a specimen in churchyards.  Ours is starting to get a little larger than I’d like, blocking out the early morning sun across the English Channel, but I don’t have the heart to give it the chop.  The leaves are so dark they can almost appear black against a dazzling blue summer sky.

In a different league altogether is the preposterously named Lyonothamnus floribundus asplenifolius.  A botanist somewhere was having a laugh, or a drink, when he came up with that one.  The Santa Cruz ironwood, as it’s more commonly known, is a reasonably fast growing, slender tree, from the coastal areas of California.  After six years it’s approaching 15ft tall, but the canopy is no more than 6ft across.  The pretty, fern-like foliage is only surpassed by the beautiful cinnamon-coloured bark, which peels off  in perforated strips throughout the year.   If left on the trunk it can start to resemble a very shaggy Red Setter.  If we ever had a hot summer, we could expect the leaves to exude a pleasant marshmallow fragrance and even look forward to some flowers.

The flowers have the looks of an Achillea or Spirea and are apparently produced in copious amounts.  Perhaps one day our tree will surprise us like our Holboellia, but for now I’ve cadged this image from a blog called Trees of Santa Cruz County, which looks like a terrific resource for anyone wanting to know more about the trees of California.  The only downside to this is tree is that it sheds its old, yellowing leaves in the height of the summer, which can look unsightly for a week or two.

Last but not least we go from tall and skinny Lyonothamnus to short and squat Pittosporum tobira ‘Nanum’.  This versatile, salt-resistant shrub is tolerant of shade and our chalky soil.  Situated in a sunny position it will produce clusters of fragrant white flowers, but in shade the foliage becomes larger and glossier, so it’s a winner either way.  Once established Pittosporum tobira becomes very drought tolerant so perfect for drier sites and containers.   Despite being a dwarf form, in our garden it grows pretty fast, tumbling attractively over the slate walls of our raised borders.  It doesn’t mind a trim, but I do find the branches rather brittle, so tread carefully around your plants if you want to avoid snapping pieces off.  The only other annoyance is black aphids, which can deform newly emerging foliage.

What these trees and shrubs lack in flowers and flamboyance they make up for in style and shape, providing the perfect backdrop for more vulnerable and showy plants.  Go green and give them a go!

Venturing out of the terrace doors this morning I am hit, full frontal, by the scent of Christmas Box, Sarcococca ruscifolia. The fragrance coming from the feathery white flowers is sweet, honeyed, almost sickly. Just one tiny sprig in the kitchen is filling the house with its delicious scent as I write this post. Unassuming and tolerant of difficult conditions, Sarcococca ruscifolia is a superb winter-flowering shrub for gardens large or small.

One might consider it wise to steer well clear of any plant with a latin name ending foetidus or foetidissima. After all the epithet means bad-smelling, or having a fetid odour; something most of us could live without in our gardens. Anyone with dry shade should think again, as this would exclude two terrific plants which offer year-round interest, if not excitement, Helleborus foetidus and Iris foetidissima. Helleborus foetidus, pictured above, is otherwise known as the stinking hellebore; a tough, architectural plant that produces flowers from the depths of winter until early spring. Iris foetidissima, better known as stinking gladwin, has a peculiar scent when crushed, described as ‘beefy’. Track down the unusual pale-gold form, Iris foetidissima var. citrina. In winter you’ll also be rewarded with bright capsules of plump, scarlet seeds. Left undisturbed neither plant will offend your nostrils, but will repay with evergreen foliage and plentiful seedlings for sharing with friends ….. and enemies!

I had ideas about going to the Great Dixter Spring Plant Fair this weekend, but it dawned on me that I should spend more time worrying about the plants I already have rather than acquiring new ones. This was something of an revelation for a confirmed plantaholic like myself, and one which I hope doesn’t occur too often.

Our raised beds, the main growing space in our coastal garden, were planted up almost nine years ago and are starting to look overgrown and tired. Many of the plants that we selected were never intended to achieve the proportions they have. A warm microclimate and slightly more sunshine that the rest of the UK has meant that in many years the garden has grown for a full 12 months. I saw the writing on the wall two or three seasons ago, but lacked the guts to take action. Enjoying the leafy exuberance, I let nature take its course. In that time Pittosporum tobira ‘Nanum’ (Japanese mock orange) has become rather less ‘Namum’ and a little more ‘Giganteum’ thanks to its sheltered spot in a warm corner. A wiser gardener would have pinched out the new shoots to encourage bushiness, but The Frustrated Gardener favoured ‘jungly’ over ‘groomed’ and has ended up with what an old university lecturer of mine would have described as ‘green custard’.

On arrival my pittosporums (second plants from the bottom) were neat, well-groomed little bushes

It’s not often acknowledged, but one of the essential qualities of a good gardener is bravery. It’s all well and good letting plants do their thing – that’s the relaxed impression many of us want to portray in our gardens – but the reality is that gardening is about control and discipline. No gardener worth his or her salt will just let a garden ‘go’. Inevitably plants will outstay their welcome, become too large or simply die after a period of time. Unless one is happy to preside over inevitable decline, then intervention cannot be avoided. Bravery, however, should not be confused with brutality. One is about doing the right thing, being courageous; the other about cruelty and savagery. Our local parks department, who seem to think indiscriminately hacking swathes of venerable shrubs down to tabletop level, would do well to heed the distinction.

The task of hard-pruning my pittosporums begins

Having noted in the past that P. tobira ‘Nanum’ will shoot generously from old wood when a branch is cut, I took the plunge and pruned both bushes back to about 10 inches high. Despite having formed a dense mound of evergreen foliage I discovered numerous straggly green shoots close to ground level and am hoping they will thicken up before garden opening weekend in August. It’s a risk, but one worth taking when the alternative is ripping both plants out and starting again. The space that’s opened up will be planted with echiums, just as it was in the early days. These will not cast too much shade over the recovering pittosporums, allowing them to form back into the neat, glossy bushes they started out as.

The thing about being brave in the garden is that the outcome is rarely as terrible as you might imagine. Should the pittosporums not recover, what I have gained is a light, bright corner, room to circulate around the garden table and space to indulge in something new. Before taking decisive action with any plant or shrub it’s worth seeking advice in a good gardening book or on the Internet. The RHS website is about as comprehensive as it gets (although in this instance hard pruning was not recommended). A little bit of research can make the difference between bravery and brutality, success and failure.

If you have a story about being brave (or brutal) in your garden, please share!

Down, but hopefully not out, Pittosporum tobira ‘Nanum’ after the chop

Euonymus japonicus: evergreen spindle, Japanese spindle

On days like these, when we’d all rather be indoors, wrapped in a blanket with a glass of something red, those of us with seaside gardens are grateful for a small but indispensable cohort of tough shrubs capable of creating shelter quickly and reliably. They include tamarisk (Tamarix tetranda AGM, less good on the shallow chalk we have in Broadstairs), broadleaf (irrepressible Griselinia littoralis AGM), oleaster (elegant Elaeagnus ‘Quicksilver’ or bullet-proof Elaeagnus × ebbingei) and today’s subject, Euonymus japonicus.

Planted correctly, protected by a temporary wind-filtering screen of fine polypropylene mesh and a good thick mulch to ward off dehydration, these salt tolerant shrubs will take the brunt of winter gales, eventually helping more tender treasures to weather the storm. In common with other front-line shrubs, Euonymus japonicus has a thick, glossy, protective surface on its evergreen leaves which keeps the shrub looking fresh and healthy all year round. In hot dry summers powdery mildew can temporarily blight the foliage, but this soon disappears in cooler conditions. Avoid pruning in high summer to minimise the cosmetic damage to soft new growth. Scale insects and vine weevils can also be troublesome.

The deep green leaves of Euonymus japonicus are an excellent foil for more exciting shrubs and perennials, but if colour is what you are after E. japonicus ‘Ovatus Aureus’ AGM is a popular green and gold form which makes a rounded shrub up to 1.5 metres in height. Like the species it’s easily trimmed to make a hedge. Watch out for plain green suckers which will quickly take over if not pruned out promptly. Euonymus japonicus ‘Chollipo’ AGM, ‘Bravo’ and ‘Duc D’Anjou’ are good alternative forms if you are seeking gold highlights, whilst E. japonicus ‘Albomarginatus’ and ‘President Gaulthier’ have green leaves margined and marbled with white.

The spring flowers of Euonymus japonicus are easily overlooked but the orange fruits emerging from their rosy pink casings are a wintertime treat. Best pruned in April, you should avoid removing stems with fading flowers if you’d like a good display later on. 2015 was a vintage year for spindle berries: I photographed those below today on the cliff top at Louisa Bay, Broadstairs.

Even if you consider Euonymus japonicus a necessary evil or coastal cliché, you can’t deny its usefulness in harsh conditions. Few other shrubs will take a battering so nonchalantly. A plant for all seasons Euonymus japonicus will flourish on chalk, excel in exposed gardens and reward with dense, lustrous foliage 365 days a year.

Vinca: periwinkle

First, a health warning: periwinkles, especially the kind that appreciate the British climate, can be complete thugs. Just this weekend I spotted a quarter-acre monoculture of Vinca major ‘Alba’ (below) covering a stretch of chalk cliff beneath Charles Dickens’ Bleak House in Broadstairs. The wandering stems formed an undulating green custard, studded with thousands of pure white flowers, smothering even the most rampant of competitors. (The latin word ‘vincire’, from which the name vinca is derived, means ‘bind’.)

Vinca major, which generally produces five-petalled, lilac-blue flowers, has its place …. somewhere around the far fringes of the garden where it can revel in dry shade or rampage down a steep bank. Here the plant’s Southern European heritage comes to the fore, rendering it tolerant of drought and summer heat, as well as deep shade. Vinca major is such a voracious visitor that in some countries it’s become a serious problem plant.

Providing you’re happy to tolerate a little bad behaviour, Vinca major will work hard for you. Named, variegated forms such as ‘Maculata’ (green leaves with gold centres), ‘Variegata’ (green edged with white) and ‘Wojo’s Gem’ (cream with green edges and pink stems, below) will spread light across a dark corner faster than you can say “Stop right there!”. Vincas root where the trailing stems touch the ground, rapidly creating enormous clumps of evergreen vegetation.

Don’t be fooled into thinking Vinca minor (lesser periwinkle) is any more polite than her big sister. Yes, she’s a lower growing plant with more delicate leaves, but her ideas about world domination are equal. There are some lovely cultivars, many with RHS Awards of Garden Merit, including ‘Azurea Flore Pleno’ AGM (sky-blue flowers), ‘Atropurpurea’ AGM (deep reddish-purple), ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ (pure white), ‘Ralph Shugert’ AGM (vivid, deep violet) and ‘Variegata’ AGM (green leaves margined cream with violet-blue flowers, below).

Somewhere in between major and minor comes Vinca difformis (imaginatively dubbed intermediate periwinkle), which is an altogether better behaved plant. It spreads slowly to about 120cm and revels in dry shade where little else will grow. Flowering begins in late summer, when the simple blooms appear white, tinged with blue. This bluishness fades to pure white through the winter, whilst the flowers keep on coming. Vinca difformis is a diamond in the rough and well worth tracking down if you are craving a little winter colour in your garden.

Major, minor or somewhere in between, there’s a vinca out there with designs on your garden. Choose the right location and vincas will do your dirty work; make one false move and your precious plants will be engulfed by a rising tide of glossy green foliage. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

After 3 weeks of part self, part snow-induced exile, I returned to the seaside last night during an icy gale that would’ve had an Inuit running for his furs.  I expected to be welcomed by a few mushy looking plants, but immediately I stepped through the gate there was a disgusting squelch, followed quickly by another.  In the pitch dark I wondered if I’d trodden in a lump of displaced moss, remnants of the snow, or worse still a dead animal.   I was wrong on all counts.  The morning light revealed several fallen fruit from one of our climbers, the rampant Holboellia latifolia, a native of the Himalayas.

It was early January before I even noticed these bloated, sausage-like fruits, the colour of uncomfortably inflamed skin.  Beautiful they are not, but quite a surprise when you’ve not seen them before.  Apparently they are edible, but ignorant of their harvesting time they are now good for nothing other than composting.  I read also that it takes a very warm summer to encourage fruiting, so clearly our specimen is deluded or popped over to the Canaries for a break whilst I wasn’t looking.

Holboellia latifolia is a fantastic evergreen climber if you want to cover a wall or pergola quickly.  It’s reasonably hardy and can be trimmed liberally throughout the growing season to keep it in check, though this is a task which needs doing regularly unless you have a very large space to cover.  The leaves of young plants start with three leaflets, but mature ones will mostly be made up of five.  What makes Holboellia especially desirable is the insignificant but deliciously scented flowers which appear in early spring and last for many weeks.  The greenish male flowers and the pink female flowers appear in clusters along the twining stems.  They fill the garden with a scent of gardenias, especially strong during warmer spells.  All it requires in return is a bit of shelter from the worst gales, a moist soil and a feed with blood, fish and bone every spring.

In truth we should have gone for something a little less ambitious in this spot, but doing battle with the flailing tendrils every so often is quite satisfying.   Plus last year the blackbirds made their nest in the shelter of its branches, so I guess it’s here to stay.  Any one have a recipe for Holboellia jam?

Below, small pink female flowers and slightly larger male flowers, set against a bright spring sky.

One might consider it wise to steer well clear of any plant with a latin name ending foetidus or foetidissima. After all the epithet means bad-smelling, or having a fetid odour; something most of us could live without in our gardens. Anyone with dry shade should think again, as this would exclude two terrific plants which offer year-round interest, if not excitement, Helleborus foetidus and Iris foetidissima. Helleborus foetidus, pictured above, is otherwise known as the stinking hellebore; a tough, architectural plant that produces flowers from the depths of winter until early spring. Iris foetidissima, better known as stinking gladwin, has a peculiar scent when crushed, described as ‘beefy’. Track down the unusual pale-gold form, Iris foetidissima var. citrina. In winter you’ll also be rewarded with bright capsules of plump, scarlet seeds. Left undisturbed neither plant will offend your nostrils, but will repay with evergreen foliage and plentiful seedlings for sharing with friends ….. and enemies!

I don’t have many dislikes. Of those I do, chief among them is waste. Rather ambitiously, one might say naively, I spent £300 on spring-flowering bulbs in September. A lucky few were planted in early October or early November between business trips, whilst the rest were stored safely; cool and dry under dust sheets in the dining room. I wrote a post concerning how late one could plant bulbs in mid November, fully expecting that I would get my own in the ground imminently. Events conspired against me. They were eventually salvaged from the builders’ debris just before Christmas, by which time I had neither the time or the inclination to do anything with them.

With the festivities over, I must procrastinate no further or risk wasting an awful lot of expensive bulbs. They are mostly tulips, but there are some narcissi, hyacinths and irises too. Many are new varieties that I am excited to try for the first time. Thanks to careful storage, most bulbs are still in good condition; a few are starting to feel a bit dehydrated and some others are producing anaemic shoots. The only precaution one needs to take when planting this late is to avoid breaking any of the tender shoots when firming the bulbs in.

I was determined to plant as many as I could this weekend and will report back on how they fare.

In avoiding waste, I often end up spending more: well, that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it. Off I went to the garden centre, planning to buy some ericaceous compost, and back I came with a boot full of rescue plants from the clearance section: a large, vigorous skimmia, two junipers, a tray of Christmas roses (Helleborus niger), three rosemarys (2 x R. ‘Roman Beauty’ and 1 x R. ‘Majorca Pink’), a bergenia, sweet box (Sarcococca confusa) and Loropetalum chinense ‘Ming Dynasty’, a shrub I always admire when I am in China. I will use these to start the process of disguising the rather ugly edifice the builders have left behind, unrendered and unpainted, before I decide on which climbers I will plant in spring to hide the patchy brickwork.

My first task, completed in cold, penetrating drizzle, was to plant up a couple of window boxes with evergreens and Christmas roses, underplanted with Narcissus ‘Winter Waltz’ (below) and Bellevalia paradoxa. Chilled to the bone, I retired inside to sit by a roaring fire, venturing out again on Sunday morning to be greeted by spring-like temperatures, birdsong, and the hum of an enormous bumble bee – the first of 2017. Mr Bumble was painfully camera-shy, but he wasn’t going to miss out on a hearty brunch of hellebore pollen.

Today I have ploughed my way through approximately 20 bags of bulbs, including Narcissus ‘Geranium’, N. ‘Avalanche’, N. ‘Merlin’ and N. ‘Tresamble’; Tulipa ‘Slawa’, T. ‘Maliaka’, T. ‘Lasting Love’ and T. ‘David Teniers’. I was surprised and encouraged by how few bulbs showed any sign of mould or shrivelling, although all looked much happier snuggled into a pot of John Innes no. 2 than they did in a brown paper bag.

However cold or warm the winter, however early or late they are planted, spring bulbs possess an amazing capacity to catch up and flower when nature intended. It could be a few weeks before Mr Bumble can return and enjoy plundering my daffodils for nectar, but in the meantime there will be a smattering of sweet box, Salvia ‘Hot Lips’, hellebore and Correa ‘Marian’s Marvel’ to snack on. At this time of year, one can’t afford to waste a thing.

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I’ve reached that point in the year when the number of posts I have time to write is overtaken by the number of subjects there is to write about. It happens every spring and causes me a rising sense of panic and frustration. There’s only one thing to do: take a deep breath and just get on with it. So, coming up in the next couple of weeks will be reviews of the RHS London Orchid Show, the Great Dixter Spring Plant Fair and a clutch of book reviews.

First though, a happy story. As regular readers know, I am an inveterate plantaholic, often purchasing plants I have no place for, but have fallen in love with. In the plant passion stakes, I am just a tad promiscuous. One such plant, acquired a year ago, is Epimedium zhushanense ‘Zhushan Fairy Wings’. Chinese epimediums appreciate summer moisture and cool shade to give of their best, so putting one in a small pot on a sunny terrace probably isn’t the best idea. However, that’s what I did, topped with subjecting my plant to a year of brick dust and infrequent watering. Spring has sprung and my mistreated plant has produced seven wiry stems bearing huge, spidery, bi-coloured flowers, each like a four-cornered jester’s hat. Every stem is poised elegantly above the emerging foliage, boldly mottled apple green and russet red, elongated and serrated at the edges.

 
Grown correctly Epimedium zhushanense ‘Zhushan Fairy Wings’ makes a stunning groundcover plant for a shady spot, producing evergreen leaves and light, airy flowers in early spring. Grown incorrectly in a pot, I can also vouch for its exceptional charm and resilience. I can only assume the feelings of love are mutual.

Epimedium zhushanense ‘Zhushan Fairy Wings’ is available from Decoy Nursery, East Sussex.

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There is something especially delightful about going on a holiday that one hasn’t organised. Perhaps it’s the element of surprise, or the ability to shirk responsibility for anything that goes awry. Either way one can sit back and – quite literally in the case of my recent holiday – enjoy the ride.

I am a bit of a control freak and tend to take charge of arrangements rather than endure that queasy feeling I get when someone else is holding the reins. So usually I’m chief organiser. However when it came to planning a trip to Disneyland Paris I had to concede that my lack of expertise in anything child / Disney / princess related made me a very poor choice of tour leader. My sister took up the challenge uncontested and did an excellent job. Everything went perfectly smoothly; even the weather was kind to us. There were moments when I struggled not to wrestle back control, but on the whole I was happy to go with ‘le flux’.

I had no preconceptions about what I might discover in terms of plants and landscaping at Disneyland. In fact I hadn’t given this aspect of my holiday a second thought. If I had, I might have expected some fairly decent, park-style planting – mature trees, manicured shrubs and lashings of cheerful carpet bedding – and I would have been right on all counts. What I would not have predicted is how plentiful and pleasant the landscaping would be, nor how carefully it would be tailored to each of the park’s themed ‘lands’. The longer I spent at Disneyland Paris the more details I noticed and the more impressed I was.

By the end of the first day I realised that everything I knew about Disney films could be written on the back of my entrance ticket. Somehow I never have the time or inclination to watch films, probably because I am always in the garden. Hence every time I asked a question about this character or that, a look of utter horror would pass across my four year old niece’s face, followed by the familiar exclamation ‘Silly Uncle Dan!’ There are things an uncle should just know – latin plant names are not among them. It quickly dawned on me that I was probably the only person vaguely interested in the park’s plants, save for a Japanese family I spotted scrutinising an especially fine rhododendron near our hotel one morning.

Disneyland Paris is twenty-five years old this year and much of the landscaping is reaching maturity. I read somewhere that thirty years is all it takes for a garden or park to appear fully fledged and I’d say Disneyland has a few more years left to go. Nevertheless the park’s original designers must feel extremely proud to see their vision realised, especially in spring when everything is bursting with vitality.

The first thing one deduces is that the soil must be acidic, permitting lavish use of rhododendrons, azaleas, pieris and skimmia. I love to see these under-appreciated shrubs used for landscaping as they suit being planted en-masse. Why plant a laurel or a viburnum when you can choose one of these flamboyant beauties? Underplanting graceful acers and hornbeams, they exude the class one associates with the US Masters course at Augusta and the style of a Japanese inspired garden.

The second nuance one notices is that flowers are limited to the colour palette of plastic childrens’ toys – all shades of pink, white, lilac, violet-blue and occasionally red, orange or yellow. There appears to be a big focus on spring-flowering shrubs, perhaps because summer colour is provided by bedding. In autumn the park’s acers must be an absolute picture.

Within the park, plants are used primarily for storytelling, whether it be vines espalier-trained against Cinderella’s house, lofty bamboos sprouting from behind Jack Sparrow’s galleon (The Black Pearl, that much I did know) or bright pink Judas trees flanking a Wild West saloon. Most visitors will not consciously notice these touches, but subconsciously they greatly enhance the sense of place that the park’s designers were trying to achieve. On top of that, appropriate choices of flowering and foliage plants introduce seasonal colour as well as disguising the park’s inner workings. No detail, hard or soft, is left unconsidered. From the style of paving to the finish of the timber, everything is thought through.

What is interesting from a gardener’s point of view is how frost-hardy plants are deftly employed to create or amplify a specific mood. In Frontierland around a dozen tree and shrub species are all that’s needed to artfully emulate the Wild West. These included Mahonia aquifolium (Oregon grape), Hippophae rhamnoides (sea buckthorn), Cercis canadensis (eastern redbud), Amelanchier lamarkii (snowy mespilus), Eleagnus ‘Quicksilver’, tamarisk, Populus tremula (quaking aspen), Cedrus deodara (deodar cedar), Pinus montezumae (Montezuma pine), Yucca gloriosa (Spanish dagger), Rosa glauca, Sequoia giganteum (giant redwood) and Pinus nigra (Austrian pine). Although many are not American natives, the effect is highly convincing.

A tighter palette still furnishes Adventureland, which spans Africa and The Caribbean. Here one finds bamboos, Prunus laurocerasus (cherry laurel), Fatsia japonica (Japanese aralia), Eriobotrya japonica (loquat), Campsis radicans (trumpet vine), Aucuba japonica, (Japanese laurel), Hedera colchica (Persian ivy), Catalpa bignonioides (Indian bean tree), Callistemon citrinus (crimson bottlebrush) and Trachycarpus fortunei (Chusan palm), mimicking both rainforest and desert conditions. Without hard landscaping and heavy propping the impact of plants alone would not be so great, but in combination they create a convincing scene for derring do.

Achieving the desired look is as much about the maintenance regime as it is about the choice of plant. In places shrubs are tightly clipped to accentuate a curve or lead the eye towards a focal point. In other areas they are permitted to drape, cascade and move freely in order to give an impression of wild abandonment. The whole landscape is carefully calculated and calibrated to heighten the visitor experience.

At the end of my five-day experience I find that most of my preconceptions about Disneyland were affirmed: it’s a little bit tacky, although done so well one has to let it go (you see what I did there?) and inexcusably expensive. Overall, it would not be my bag were it not for the pleasure I derived from spending time with Martha and my sister. But I did heartily appreciate all the effort that had gone into the landscaping, maintaining it well and making the park as attractive to wildlife as it was to humans. Because of that, I can now furnish the other side of my entrance ticket with the list of plants I spotted, which technically doubles what I know about Disney. TFG.

After 3 weeks of part self, part snow-induced exile, I returned to the seaside last night during an icy gale that would’ve had an Inuit running for his furs.  I expected to be welcomed by a few mushy looking plants, but immediately I stepped through the gate there was a disgusting squelch, followed quickly by another.  In the pitch dark I wondered if I’d trodden in a lump of displaced moss, remnants of the snow, or worse still a dead animal.   I was wrong on all counts.  The morning light revealed several fallen fruit from one of our climbers, the rampant Holboellia latifolia, a native of the Himalayas.

It was early January before I even noticed these bloated, sausage-like fruits, the colour of uncomfortably inflamed skin.  Beautiful they are not, but quite a surprise when you’ve not seen them before.  Apparently they are edible, but ignorant of their harvesting time they are now good for nothing other than composting.  I read also that it takes a very warm summer to encourage fruiting, so clearly our specimen is deluded or popped over to the Canaries for a break whilst I wasn’t looking.

Holboellia latifolia is a fantastic evergreen climber if you want to cover a wall or pergola quickly.  It’s reasonably hardy and can be trimmed liberally throughout the growing season to keep it in check, though this is a task which needs doing regularly unless you have a very large space to cover.  The leaves of young plants start with three leaflets, but mature ones will mostly be made up of five.  What makes Holboellia especially desirable is the insignificant but deliciously scented flowers which appear in early spring and last for many weeks.  The greenish male flowers and the pink female flowers appear in clusters along the twining stems.  They fill the garden with a scent of gardenias, especially strong during warmer spells.  All it requires in return is a bit of shelter from the worst gales, a moist soil and a feed with blood, fish and bone every spring.

In truth we should have gone for something a little less ambitious in this spot, but doing battle with the flailing tendrils every so often is quite satisfying.   Plus last year the blackbirds made their nest in the shelter of its branches, so I guess it’s here to stay.  Any one have a recipe for Holboellia jam?

Below, small pink female flowers and slightly larger male flowers, set against a bright spring sky.

After 3 weeks of part self, part snow-induced exile, I returned to the seaside last night during an icy gale that would’ve had an Inuit running for his furs.  I expected to be welcomed by a few mushy looking plants, but immediately I stepped through the gate there was a disgusting squelch, followed quickly by another.  In the pitch dark I wondered if I’d trodden in a lump of displaced moss, remnants of the snow, or worse still a dead animal.   I was wrong on all counts.  The morning light revealed several fallen fruit from one of our climbers, the rampant Holboellia latifolia, a native of the Himalayas.

It was early January before I even noticed these bloated, sausage-like fruits, the colour of uncomfortably inflamed skin.  Beautiful they are not, but quite a surprise when you’ve not seen them before.  Apparently they are edible, but ignorant of their harvesting time they are now good for nothing other than composting.  I read also that it takes a very warm summer to encourage fruiting, so clearly our specimen is deluded or popped over to the Canaries for a break whilst I wasn’t looking.

Holboellia latifolia is a fantastic evergreen climber if you want to cover a wall or pergola quickly.  It’s reasonably hardy and can be trimmed liberally throughout the growing season to keep it in check, though this is a task which needs doing regularly unless you have a very large space to cover.  The leaves of young plants start with three leaflets, but mature ones will mostly be made up of five.  What makes Holboellia especially desirable is the insignificant but deliciously scented flowers which appear in early spring and last for many weeks.  The greenish male flowers and the pink female flowers appear in clusters along the twining stems.  They fill the garden with a scent of gardenias, especially strong during warmer spells.  All it requires in return is a bit of shelter from the worst gales, a moist soil and a feed with blood, fish and bone every spring.

In truth we should have gone for something a little less ambitious in this spot, but doing battle with the flailing tendrils every so often is quite satisfying.   Plus last year the blackbirds made their nest in the shelter of its branches, so I guess it’s here to stay.  Any one have a recipe for Holboellia jam?

Below, small pink female flowers and slightly larger male flowers, set against a bright spring sky.

One might consider it wise to steer well clear of any plant with a latin name ending foetidus or foetidissima. After all the epithet means bad-smelling, or having a fetid odour; something most of us could live without in our gardens. Anyone with dry shade should think again, as this would exclude two terrific plants which offer year-round interest, if not excitement, Helleborus foetidus and Iris foetidissima. Helleborus foetidus, pictured above, is otherwise known as the stinking hellebore; a tough, architectural plant that produces flowers from the depths of winter until early spring. Iris foetidissima, better known as stinking gladwin, has a peculiar scent when crushed, described as ‘beefy’. Track down the unusual pale-gold form, Iris foetidissima var. citrina. In winter you’ll also be rewarded with bright capsules of plump, scarlet seeds. Left undisturbed neither plant will offend your nostrils, but will repay with evergreen foliage and plentiful seedlings for sharing with friends ….. and enemies!