We 3Growbags have all been busily involved in Open
- Crab apple espaliers. We had a terrace outside the house. And we had a pergola running up the
garden away from the house. What we didn’t have was something to link the two, so about 14 years ago, we studied the manuals, bought the posts and wire and 8 Malus ‘Red Sentinel’ crab apple saplings and made double espaliers leading visitors up from the terrace towards the pergola and the rest of thegarden . What a success it’s been! Four rows of wires laden with blossom then foliage, then bright red fruits for the birds to gorge on in winter (Me making crab apple jelly? As if). People love its purposeful structure, and so do I. They make quite interesting badminton nets when the grandchildren come to stay too.
2. Rose ‘Sally Holmes’. What a girl she is! Big and strong without being too pushy, she offers you generous bouquets of single peach-flushed white flowers throughout the summer. She doesn’t wear much perfume, but she is so bountiful that you forgive her this small fault. Do those of you of a certain age remember a large lady (Janet Webb) who used to come on at the end of a Morecombe and Wise show and push them off the stage gleefully shouting ‘I LOVE YOU ALL!’ That’s what R. Sally Holmes reminds me of. Fab!
3. Clematis ‘Etoile Violette’. No one walks past this without remarking on its zillions of dazzling violet velvety stars. It’s a doddle to prune (chop every stem to 30cm off the ground in March, and utterly reliable and frost-hardy. It wasn’t given an RHS Award of
4. Abutilon vitifolium ‘Tennants White’. If I had a pound for every time that visitors or friends have asked me for the name of this small tree, I’d be able to shop in Waitrose a lot more often. My specimen from a friend’s cutting way over 25 years ago revels in the mild climate and chalky soil of my sheltered Eastbourne
To the outside world Elaine has presented an innocent list of well-performing plants, but there is subtle point scoring going on here. She knows that monster abutilons are a rarefied treat and that her clematis grow much better than those in mine and Caroline’s lower pH gardens.
5. So let’s get even. The most talked about plants on my recent Open
6. Clematis in pots. Another winner was my solution to getting clematis to flower well here – namely in pots to which I have added lime and then raised to let the flowers cascade down rather than growing upwards. The smashing recent Raymond Evison introduction named after the Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords looked particularly fine when grown like this.
7. And I’ll see Elaine’s espalier project and raise it with my Pictorial Meadow endeavour, now in its fourth year and relying on the seedbank of annuals to create a wonderfully dynamic
Shameful I know, but I’m seething that my sisters’ projects (Elaine’s espalier and Laura’s pictorial meadow) have all their visitors open-mouthed with wonder.
What about the hours I spend strimming or heaving pots around the
Thankfully while Cinderella toils away on these apparently inglorious tasks, certain of my plants are in fact capable of causing a stir on their own.
8. Let’s start with the ones my sisters can’t grow. My Meconopsis – Himalayan blue poppies. They’ll only grow in acid soil; like it to be very cold in winter and only slightly less so in summer – perfect for me. I must stick to my meconopsis-growing hacks (video link at the end) but when in flower, they deserve an open day of their own.
9. Later in the summer the limelight is on Rose ‘Meteor’ (just look at our feature pic this week!) that Laura rather disdainfully gifted me (probably because she thought it was a bit low-brow). Well, I bet now she wishes she’d kept it for her open day.
It’s super healthy, perky, floriferous and VERY orange. I have many roses but this is definitely Britney Spears among my Meryl Streeps and Helen Mirrens – a proper crowd pleaser.
10. Finally it’s got to be my wall of sweet peas. Being cooler here, our sweet peas flower for much longer. I think the secret is to grow a whole mass of them in one spot. Last year the sensual onslaught from my battery of Marshalls’ ‘Wings of Blue’ almost had
And now it’s over to you! Which plants in your
A giant daisy which started as a dubious gift has now won Louise over to the point that it is now her Great Plant this Month:
Here is the video of Caroline’s hacks for growing magnificent Meconopsis
A show
These small pruners have been invaluable for us this summer. Sharp as they come, these powerful little blighters fit into your back trouser-pocket and once absent-mindedly left in the border, are very easily spotted on the very first search! Great value.
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