Showing posts with label Sarah Raven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah Raven. Show all posts

Sunday 17 April 2016

Prunus 'Taihaku' by Sarah Raven.

In focus: Prunus 'Taihaku' - Telegraph
These were thought thought to have become extinct until one was discovered growing in a Sussex garden in 1923 by Collingwood Ingram, a plant collector and gardener, who had it propogated and saved it for the world.

A great white cherry tree from Japan (Prunus Tai Haku).
'Taihaku' blossoms are twice the size of the average cherry.
'Tai-Haku' means big, white flowers.
It sets these flowers against a perfect background: they emerge at exactly the same time as the bronze, ragged-edged leaves.
Later in the year, the leaves will turn green, but this first flush of purity against metallic leaves is the tree's glory moment.
It bears no fruit.

You can grow the prunus on any soil and it will flower in a few years.
So where to put one? It sits perfectly surrounded by grass. It is fine in a lawn but even better in long grass. Or clothe the roots with snowdrops to flower as the buds fatten in the early spring.
Plant it at a shady end of the garden which needs some drama.
That is where I've planted mine, filling in a bare and boring place near the north and eastern corner of a native hedge.
Underneath, I've planted the purest-white orientalis hybrid hellebores.
There are clumps of pure white bleeding heart, Dicentra spectabilis 'Alba' and arching wands of Solomon's seal.


- MONTY DON: Spring blooms are just a starter for the season's main course - a riot of flowering cherry trees | Daily Mail Online
"I have Prunus serrulata 'Tai Haku', which has spindly branches dropping an extraordinary bundle of huge white blossoms, hanging like delicate explosions of petal freeze-framed in mid-air.
It is a cherry with an astonishing story, too: a legendary tree in Japan until it disappeared at the end of the 18th century, it was apparently unknown anywhere else in the world.
Then, in 1923, the owner of a Sussex garden showed Captain Collingwood Ingram – an expert on Japanese cherries – an unidentified cherry with gorgeous white flowers. Captain Ingram was unable to recognise it but took grafts and passed the resulting saplings around.
The next time he went to Japan he was shown an 18th-century book of flower paintings and recognised the hitherto unidentified white cherry from the Sussex garden.
As far as the Japanese were concerned, however, 'Tai Haku' had disappeared and could not possibly have popped up a hundred years later in England. It really does appear, though, that every Tai Haku in cultivation – which vanished from Japan 200 years ago – inexplicably comes from that Sussex tree found 87 years ago."

- Prunus Tai Haku - Hill Cherry Tree | Mail Order Trees

Thursday 20 March 2014

Sarah Raven's 10 Tips for Growing a Kitchen Garden.

Ask The Expert: Sarah Raven's 10 Tips for Growing a Kitchen Garden: Gardenista:
Following are Sarah's top ten tips for bounty, ease, and good looks in your kitchen garden:
1. Grow as much of what you like as possible. Clear as big a space as you can and think about maximum productivity per square inch.

2. Skip the fancy frills. A vegetable patch divided by mini hedges, potager-style, means more work and less food. Rows of boxwood will encourage slugs and snails, and perennial weeds tangle themselves around the roots. Instead, try edible edging: rows of hardy alpine strawberries and nasturtiums will do the trick.

3. Combine ornamentals and edibles. In an unexpected partnership, Mustard 'Red Giant' mixes with Tulipa 'Compassion'. Bonus tip: green-flowered tulips are more perennial than the standard colored ones.

4. Layer. Sarah planted this area near the drive more than a decade ago, greatly reducing labor while keeping the bed full over a long period.
Perennial artichokes mix with bulbs and tubers in three layers: dahlias in trenches at the lowest level; Allium hollandicum 'Purple Sensation' (£8.50 for three plants) plus earlier and later allium varieties in the middle level; artichokes at the top level. The artichokes shown here are a mixture of 'Green Globe', Artichoke 'Violet de Provence' (£1.95 for 30 seeds), and Artichoke 'Gros Vert de Laon' (£1.95 for 30 seeds).

5. Grow edible flowers all year. The following can all be harvested in the UK in winter and early spring: Pot marigold (Calendula officinalis 'Indian Prince', Above, £1.95 for 125 seeds), viola, polyanthus and primula. Conversely, vegetables such as kale are not just for eating. Green and purple kale look great in flower arrangements and are a good foil for flowers in an ornamental border.
N.B.: For further tips on kale in flower arrangements, see Required Reading: The Surprising Life of Constance Spry.

6. Plant the unusual. Planting heirloom or heritage varieties in unusual colors—including the purpleFrench Bean 'Blauhilde' (£1.95 for 25 seeds) and the yellow 'Rocquencourt'—is proof to the world that you've grown them yourself. As is the size: greengrocers and supermarkets providing mainstream produce often sell vegetables harvested after they have grown too big. Beans taste better when they are younger and smaller and, it goes without saying, fresher.

7. Sow heavy croppers. Tomatoes, zucchini, and beans all produce abundantly. Salad leaves also crop more heavily if you cut and come again. Start cutting non-hearting lettuce such as Mizuna or Oak Leaf lettuce at one end of a row and by the time you get to the other end, you can start again. Harvest by twisting off leaves around the edges: don't bulldoze the whole plant.

8.
Avoid gluts. Too much, then too little, leaves bald patches in the garden. Successional sowing of salad leaves every few weeks, for instance, will ease this pattern of feast or famine. Succession planting can also be applied to beans and peas.

9. Build good bones. Raise your vegetable patch to another level in the middle as well as around the edges. Teepees, arches, and walkways in Sarah's small (and private) kitchen garden at Sissinghurst greatly increase the growing space in a smallish area. They can be covered in sweetpeas followed by the cup and saucer vine (Cobaea scandens) or morning glory. A sturdy arch will support squashes and zucchini.

10. Don't grow everything. Tricky plants such as celery are best bought, as are mainstream vegetables including cabbage, parsnips, and main crop potatoes. This still leaves plenty to choose from as Sarah Raven demonstrates.

'via Blog this'

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Peonies -the eight best varieties.

The best peonies to grow for delicious scent, long flowering and fabulous display:
...a good balance of flowering times, with some early (in May), some mid season (May into June) and some late (for June into July).
...the eight I'll be ordering for my October planting
Whites
1 'Duchesse de Nemours' fully double, early flowerer
Truly marvellous, and one of the oldest and most famous double white peonies. It has pure, spotless ivory flowers, lemony green at the base, with the scent of lily of the valley. It's easy to grow and a plentiful flower producer which makes it an excellent cut flower. It's also slightly shorter than others, growing to approx 85cm, making it a great choice for a windy garden.
2 'Charlie's White' fully double, early flowering
Deliciously scented, large rounded white flower with a cream glow on very long, straight stems which rarely need staking. 'Charlie's White' is America's number one cutting variety. It makes a vigorous and healthy plant, which is quite light cropping, but easy to grow.
3 'Krinkled White' single, early to mid season flowering
A very beautiful, simple white peony, considered by some to be even better than the similar, shade-tolerant and iconic 'White Wings'. It's one of the shorter peonies (80cm) so won't need staking, its petals have a lovely crinkle and it flowers for slightly longer than 'White Wings' so I'm trying it.
Very pale pinks
4 'Sarah Bernhardt' – fully double, late flowering
Sweetly scented, with pale pink flowers, this is favoured by commercial cut-flower producers and is one of the best known. It's very productive and reliable and has good disease resistance. Only down side is that it's tall (1m), so will need staking.
Mid pinks
5 'Bowl Of Beauty' Japanese type, mid to late flowering
One of the most famous of herbaceous peonies and deservedly so as it flowers for almost twice as long as others, with many budded stems and flowers opening one after another for more than a month. It also has delicious scent. A height of 90cm so may need staking.
6 'Monsieur Jules Elie' fully double, late flowering
The centre of each flower mounds up and the petals elegantly pale to silver at their edge. The blooms are borne on long, arching stems (but at 80cm should not need staking) and are deliciously rose scented. Claire Austin particularly loves this one and it's late, so excellent for extending your peony season.
Deep pinks into reds
7 'Karl Rosenfeld' semi-double, mid to late season flowering
This flowers like blazes, with tall, dark-coloured strong stems which should be self supporting. The down side of reds is that they do not make such good cut flowers. Their vase life is shorter than the pinks and whites, particularly the fully doubles, and if picked in bud they won't fully develop. However, 'Inspecteur Lavergne' is reckoned to be an improved variety.
8 'Buckeye Belle' semi-double, very early flowering
This is the deep blood-red peony that filled the one section of planting in Luciano Giubbilei's show garden for Laurent-Perrier at this year's Chelsea Flower Show. It is an excellent garden variety which grows to nearly a metre, but should not need staking.
Where to buy
Claire Austin Hardy Plants, Edgebolton, Shawbury, Shropshire SY4 4EL (01939 251173)
Kelways Plants Ltd, Picts Hill, Langport, Somerset TA10 9EZ (mail order 01458 250521)
Sarah Raven.