My Chelsea Flower Show Experience by Wellywoman

Copyright of Louise CurleyWe are so pleased to have caught up with Louise from http://wellywoman.wordpress.com after she ventured down to Chelsea to discover the new gardening trends. Seeing the show gardens and the pavilion for the first time, Louise has kindly written a piece for us to share with you. This is Louise’s experience of the Chelsea Flower Show.

A visit to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is a must for any plant lover and this year’s event was no exception. The horticultural equivalent of London Fashion Week, I arrived early on Monday morning with my camera and notepad ready to be inspired.

The main theme seen across the show, artisan and fresh gardens was the use of naturalistic planting. Light, airy and reminiscent of hedgerows in May, cow parsley and Chaerophyllum hirsutum ‘Roseum’ combined with low-growing grasses such as Deschampsia cespitosa and Briza media. Native trees and hedging, including field maple, rowan, hawthorn and hazel, provided the perfect backdrop. The use of multi-stemmed trees gave these familiar species a designer touch.

Strong colours were in evidence with the use of deep crimson and red wine flowers one of the major trends. The thistle-like flowers of Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’, the bottle brush heads of Sanguisorba offficinalis ‘Red Thunder’ and the starry flowers of Astrantia ‘Sheila’s Red’ all provided shots of rich colour. Dark blues and purples combined to give a dramatic feeling to planting schemes. My personal favourites were the Iris sibricas on Adam Frost’s ‘Sowing the Seeds of Change’ garden. Rusty orange was also used to great effect adding vibrancy and warmth. I loved Lily ‘Orange Marmalade’, Euphorbia griffithii ‘Fireglow, Californian poppies and the variety of geums on show.

Copyright of Louise CurleyOne of the star plants of the show gardens has to be the tall spires of Echium pininana on Chris Beardshaw’s Arthritis UK garden, which were proving popular not only with visitors but also the local bees. The plants that caught my attention - that I’m hoping to find a space for in my own garden - were the unusual green flowered Mathiasella, the chunky architectural flower heads of Angelicas and the stunning Verbascum ‘Violetta’ from Nigel Dunnett’s ‘Blue Water Roof Garden’.

The artisan gardens are a great place to spot emerging design talent. Only in their twenties, the brothers Harry and David Rich are ones to watch. Their beautiful ‘Un Garreg’ garden - Welsh for one stone - was inspired by the countryside around their home in the Brecon Beacons and was awarded a gold medal on their inaugural visit to Chelsea.

After last year’s awful summer and a long, cold winter and spring, Chelsea is the perfect place to remind us all why we love gardening so much.

The delights of home-grown compost!

Minnie, our Marketing Director, is a gardening zealot. Nothing enthuses her more than her own home grown asparagus and lettuce (which she munches at Notcutts HQ for her lunch).  Last year, Minnie set up bins to create her very own compost. We got the lowdown on the results...

I never thought I could be so excited about compost.

My very own 'black gold!'Two weeks ago I celebrated my first proper, home grown compost.  Dark, rich and crumbly like chocolate cake. Damn fine compost if I say so myself. I now understand why it’s called Black Gold. I feel very proud of what I have created!

I used two bins and it took about 9 months for the bottom half of each bin to mature into a perfect mixture. One of my bins has just a small ‘door’ at the bottom which was much harder to get the compost out – we had to tip it over to dig it out from the bottom.

The other one, as you can see in the photo, has a nice big door at the bottom and it’s much easier to get the compost out. I have got quite a large garden so a bigger bin also means more compost. I'd definitely recommend using the largest bin you can fit in your garden. 

The only things that had not crumbled down totally were tea bags and some egg shells that I had lazily not broken up. When I used the compost on my flower beds these two things looked a bit ugly, so I will probably put less into the mix in future.

MY SECRET TO SUCCESS TOP TIPS (I think!)

• Regular layers of the newspaper and chicken poo from the floor of my chicken shed
• Keeping some balance of what went in – a bit of everything but not masses of one thing like grass cuttings, that could make it go really slimy
• A couple of handfuls of ‘Compost Accelerator’ when I remembered.  You can buy it at the garden centre.

DO ADD

All uncooked veg and fruit peelings from the kitchen
Grass cuttings
Cut flowers
Some newspaper – but not the glossy mags

DON’T ADD

Cooked food of any sort
Weeds that may spread seeds throughout your compost
Plants that have gone to seed unless you are happy to have loads of new plants pop up everywhere
Perennial weed roots
Anything diseased like rose leaves with black spot
Egg shells – unless you smash them up nice and small

I would whole heartedly recommend making your own compost. It’s satisfying, easy, yields great results and saves money. Homemade compost is a true star of my garden.

You might also like...

Check out our range of compost products at notcutts.co.uk.

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Busy, busy, busy!

Part of the allotment 'nursery'!My allotment has been a busy place for the last three weeks and I have been seed sowing and potato planting!

The potatoes are all out of the egg boxes in the utility room where they were chitting and into the ground at last. I dug out trenches to a spade’s depth and added plenty of rotted compost to the base, with a dressing of fish blood and bone over the top of this. I have left the earth in low mounds on top of the rows and will ‘earth up’ later on. For now, I am checking for potato shoots and covering them with soil if the forecast looks like frost. The first shoots on my early variety appeared yesterday – three weeks after planting.

Broad beans, early peas and Mange Tout have all been sown in long rows and have come up after two weeks in the ground. The soil surface is now quite dry, so I have watered well after sowing the rows and a couple of times since. Now that the seedlings are growing away, they should manage by themselves as the soil further down is still nice and moist.

The Radish germinated a week after sowing and are always one of the first to emerge. They are a good indicator, along with weed seedlings, that the soil is warm enough to start sowing more crops. Beetroot and spring onions were sown last week and have yet to surface but my carrots are also germinating, two weeks after sowing. This is good news as carrots do not like wet, cold conditions and I worried that I had put them in too soon! I have sown the carrots between two rows of peas in the hope that the dreaded Carrot Fly (that makes the roots maggoty) will fly over the peas and not be able to get down to the carrots. I do not thin my rows either, preferring to use the roots as tasty baby carrots. The smell of the thinnings can also attract the fly. I will keep you posted on the progress of the crop!

The onion sets were planted three weeks ago and are beginning to shoot and grow away. I have made the rows further apart this year to make hoeing easier – weeding onions is not my favourite job but it is important not to strike the bulbs with the hoe as this can damage them and stop them growing.

My salad leaves in containers by the house are in use and very tasty they are too! I am going to sow another follow on box today.  My experimental containers of Broad beans, peas and Mange Tout are also growing and will need staking soon.

Mrs McGregor thought that the utility room would be free of plants by now, but with the cold nights, I am still bringing in my young lettuce plants. Sprouting broccoli and Brussels Sprouts have been sown into modules and are beginning to germinate after a week. They too are in the utility room at night and outside during the day and will shortly be joined by pots of Coriander and Chervil – tasty additions for many dishes!

Next week I will need to sow my Parsnips and more peas and broad beans......

Malvern Spring Show

Many thanks to Helen Johnstone of The Patient Gardener who has kindly reported on the Malvern Spring Show on behalf on Notcutts. Helen’s blog The Patient Gardner is a place where she is able to record and share her endeavours and inspirations that have shaped her life in and outside the house.

Malvern Spring Show is all about the plants and the nurserymen that grow them.  It’s a mecca for the compulsive plantaholic.  It goes without saying that this season the growers have had a tough time.  Endless rain and low temperatures last summer, a long and cold winter and a late spring has taken its toll.  There were few irises, peonies and meconopsis poppies on display; plants that have dominated the floral marquee in previous years.

This did not stop the displays being eye-catching and I think that some plants that often get overlooked came into their own.  The cacti and succulents were certainly eye catching; in fact one of the displays won best in show.  Pelargonium were also much in evidence with displays of massed plants which are always stunning but even more so given the difficult growing conditions the nurseries have had.  Also eye catching were the jewel like auriculas, with two nurseries showing their plants in the traditional way on auricula theatres and black backgrounds.

But it wasn’t all tender plants.  The displays at the Malvern Spring Show always feature a number of woodland displays.  Many woodland plants are at their best in the spring and Anemone nemorsa was joined by displays of Solomon’s Seal,  Lamprocapnos spectablis (formerly Dicentra), Disporopsis, Epimedium and Erythroniums.  Hostas and ferns were very prevalent with a number of nurseries having these plant groups as their only displays.

As ever the nursery men put on a fabulous display at Malvern Spring Show providing inspiration, advice and the promise of fabulous displays in our borders in the season ahead.

If you’d like to read more about Helen’s gardening stories, why not read The Hardest Working Greenhouse?

Planting up a summer container

Your local garden centre will have a huge range of bedding plants available through the spring and early summer so now is the time to round up your empty containers - or purchase new ones - and get planting to brighten your patios, doorsteps and sitting areas this summer!

What do I need?

• A container. A larger pot will be easier to manage because it will not dry out as fast as a small one once the plants get established. Minimum 30cm wide and 20cm deep is good and make sure that it has drainage holes in the base
• Broken terracotta pots or flat stones to use as ‘crocks’ to aid drainage
• Compost
• Slow release fertilizer. One that will release nutrients over three to six months is ideal
• Plants
• Slug Pellets or your preferred method of control!
• Liquid feed – Notcutt’s Pour and Feed or an equivalent 
• Gloves
• Watering can

Choosing your plants

Crocks placed in the base of the containerThere are hundreds of bedding plants available from brightly coloured Pelargoniums (Bedding Geraniums) to new varieties of trailing Petunias in a wide range of colours, and half hardy perennials such as Diascia and Verbena. Most prefer a sunny site but there are many that will grow well in shade; Lobelia and New Guinea Impatiens, along with trailing Begonias will light up a shady spot. Dream up your colour scheme and visit your local garden centre to bring it to life!

How do I plant?

• Use broken pieces of terracotta pots or stones at the base to help with drainage
• Mix the compost with the required amount of slow release fertilizer using gloves
• Make sure that your plants are well watered before you plant them
• Angle plants towards the edge of the containerAdd a layer of compost to the container – enough to bring the level up to the base of the plants
• Remove the pots from the plants and arrange them in the container, filling in with and gently firming the compost as you go. Angle trailing plants so that they hang over the edge of the container but don’t leave any roots exposed on the soil surface
• Finish with a layer of soil up to the necks of the plants but avoid mounding the compost up above the top of the container. This would make it difficult to water
• Water your plants in well to settle the compost and top up with more if necessary

Aftercare

• Check your containers for water each day and water if the compost is dry on the surface. Be especially vigilant in windy weather as your container may dry out fast!
• If the weather is wet, raise the container up on pot feet to help it drain properly
• Protect your plants from late frosts by covering with frost fleece or moving the container to a frost free greenhouse, garage or utility room overnight
• Use slug control around your plants regularly. Young bedding plants are very vulnerable to attacks from slugs and snails
• Finish the compost below the lip of the container to make watering easierOnce the plants have established and are growing away well, use a liquid feed once a week when you water to top up the plant’s nutrients
• Remove spent blooms regularly to encourage new flowers. Letting your plants produce seed heads will mean less flower power!

Regular feeding and deadheading means that your summer containers will flower well into autumn!

Happy Gardening,

Mr McGregor