Kate's Cuttings

Alliums have been lovely this year. Such easy and generous plants, their only vice here is to multiply too much! This is the most vivid of all, aptly named 'Purple Sensation'. Read more…

I’ve been honing my pruning skills. As with many things in life, I’ve learned that if you read up on it, get the right tools and have a go, it’s not hard. I’m especially proud of my winter flowering Viburnum, the one with the beautifully scented pink flowers: they smell of sweet almond to me. I cut the really old wood down to the ground and removed unhealthy or crossing branches. Then it had a gentle prune to get it into a decent shape and a feed and mulch. Please don’t just get the hedge trimmers to lob off the top of your early spring flowering shrubs, you will end up with a dumpy, con... Read more…

It’s 16 February and most of our front garden is under water. Some people will be undergoing the misery and destruction of their houses being flooding yet again. I can’t imagine how devastating it must be. On a much, much  less serious note, our gardens are suffering too. Bulbs hate being waterlogged and can rot, trees in boggy areas have their roots in water and end up not being able to breathe and thrive, grey leaved plants hailing from hotter countries sulk and die. It is easy to get despondent. But plants are amazingly resilient. When we had our pond refurbished, a large skip sat rig... Read more…

It’s that time of year when the catalogues and emails come to us gardeners thick and fast. All of them are trying to seduce us with their gorgeous photos of healthy, productive and/or floriferous goodies to plant and sow in time for the summer. Here’s my run down of the crop: De Jager are my go-to bulb specialists and have been for several years. They have a good range, the quality is excellent and their prices reasonable if you buy in quantity. The Spring 2020 wholesale catalogue has a lovely range of lilies. To give you an idea of cost you can get 25 Regale lilies for £26.35 plus VAT. ... Read more…

All the best for 2020 from Kate, Peter and Gibbs at Charnwood Read more…

I’m sure we are all heartily sick of the rain. I can’t imagine the misery of being flooded, but it’s an experience all too real for some people this year. Farmers too must be counting the costs of such wet weather on their crops. On a much less serious note it’s not brilliant in the garden either, but at least we can wait until it dries out and rainwater does have its uses. Ericaceous plants such as Camellias, Blueberries and Azaleas all prefer rainwater to the stuff that comes out of the tap. Orchids love it too. If you rake up damp leaves and put them into a bin bag they will turn int... Read more…

If you were watching Gardeners’ World mid-October (and if not, why not I ask?) you will have seen Monty Don planting up some spring bulbs in rather posh looking terracotta pots. A close inspection I’m pretty sure, would have revealed that they are from Whichford Pottery at Shipston –on-Stour in the Cotswolds. They have a very distinctive stamp all around the neck of the pot. We paid them a visit a few weeks ago and, wow, what a find. The pots are expensive but really good and guaranteed frost proof: not ‘frost resistant’ the rather non-committal way less expensive pots are described. Do... Read more…

Gardening is an organic process in many ways. We can plan a grand, new planting scheme, try sowing a different kind of tomato, prune our trees and shrubs more drastically, dig a pond, establish a little wildflower meadow or perhaps plant up some new pots. Whatever we have the time, energy, money and imagination to do. So every now and again it’s a good idea to take stock: what has worked this year and what really hasn’t. This is my stock take for 2019 so far: • Roses do well in our heavy clay. Buying bare root in winter or early spring from David Austin is quite expensive, but the rose... Read more…

I am in awe of all you clever and resilient growers of vegetables. So much of my efforts to grow something good to eat turns into rabbit food, or just doesn’t thrive. So a recent go at growing new potatoes in a different way has cheered me up no end. In spring I bought 3 tubers of a seed potato ‘Orla’. A large tub was selected, cleaned up and Orla x 3 duly planted. I watered regularly and ‘earthed them up’, meaning topping up with soil as the green leaves emerged. And yesterday – hooray – we upturned the tub and were delighted to find a gorgeous pile of blemish free baby Orlas weighing ... Read more…

It wasn’t until recently I realised that I have a lot of Salvias in the garden here at Charnwood. I’d been unable to resist a gorgeous and rather fetchingly named (more on that later) S. ‘Lavender Dilly Dilly’ at a local nursery. When I tried to find just the right spot for it I noticed that there were already two salvias in the bed I was eyeing up for a gap and I have more in sunny beds throughout the garden. Salvias are members of the sage family with over 1,000 different kinds. You can usually identify them by the rather pungent smell of their leaves: the sage we use in cooking is u... Read more…