Factsheet_4

lavender hedge with clematis obelisks replaced it. Sadly two very bad winters trounced the lavender and they had to be taken out at the end of the 2012 series. This area was re-soiled with compost, extra grit was added and the height raised with more compost. The hopefully third time lucky Silver is now planted with Ilex ‘Silver Queen’ (holly),

Factsheet #4

24/04/14

Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ and Lonicera ‘Silver Beauty’.

Feeding

woody

plants

and

herbaceous

perennials

Jim was in the Silver Garden, following on the theme of replenishing leached nutrients from soil, Jim was thinking about feeding the plants too. It’s a good time to fertilise woody plants and herbaceous perennials.

Jim showed how the holly had taken a bit of a battering over the winter and was now suffering with a bit of wind rock so he replaced the canes with stakes to make them more stable. This is the time of year to get to know your plants up close and Jim had spotted an albino shoot on the holly which could be a stunner as a cutting but unfortunately it will not root due to the lack of chlorophyl.

We have been trying to have a Silver Hedge to border the Silver Garden for years now with limited success. Back in 2004, we tried Euonymus ‘Emerald Gaiety’ as a hedge. That didn’t work, so a

First is a new plant for Carole - Quince ‘Siberian Gold’. It’s not on a dwarf rooting stock but we will be keeping it in a container and pruning it to keep it small. Cherry ‘Celeste’ will be a nice comparison with our ‘Sweetheart’ variety growing in the ground in this house but was not showing a good shape as it had a forked crown with two main stems. Chris and Carole advised pruning back the top by half to encourage side shoots, and encourage the tree to become a better shape.

Jim also found some green shoots on the Lonicera. This is an unstable plant which easily reverts to its true green form. He ripped out (as opposed to pruned) the green shoots and recommended keeping an eye on this.

He weeded the bed and sprinkled over a handful of slow release, organic fertiliser (blood, fish and bone) around each plant. Forked into the soil, this gives the plants a good start to the growing season.

Featured varieties

Ilex ‘Silver Queen’

Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ Lonicera ‘Silver Beauty’

New Pot Fruit

Chris used to grow Peach ‘Rochester’ in his cold greenhouse at home and found it to be a good performer, a good fruiter with orange flesh. They pruned the stems by half at an outward facing bud, to encourage side shoots to develop outwards.

Chris and Carole were back in the Fruit House. After the removal of the old peach revealed the drainage problem in there, we decided to plant fruit trees in containers.

We are at the end of the bare root season now. Carole and Chris planted bare rooted Apricot ‘Isabella’, a hardy variety which actually originated in Gloucestershire (like Chris). They advised nipping out the tips to encourage side shoots and

reduce the stress on the plant. Chris compared the length of the internodes of Apricot ‘Isabelle’ with Peach ‘Rochester’. On the Apricot they are much shorter meaning it’s more compact and each one of the buds will produce a side shoot and on that we get fruit – so this will potentially have lots and lots of fruit. We hope.

Carole and Chris planted up the fruit trees in terracotta pots:

Featured plants Quince ‘Siberian Gold’ Peach ‘Rochester’ Apricot ‘Isabelle’ Cherry ‘Celeste’

Scone Palace Kitchen Garden

They put broken crocks in the bottom of each pot to aid drainage.

Last year Carole visited Scone Palace to take part in the Chilli Festival. This year Carole met Brian Cunningham Scone’s Head Gardener who is developing a new kitchen garden for the Palace. It will produce fruit, vegetables and cut flowers that they’ll use in the Palace Kitchen and tearoom. Brian explained that Scone has a team of four gardeners, and four community volunteers who help out in the kitchen garden.

Children and staff of the Robert Douglas Memorial School are also helping Brian in the garden. Three weeks ago they sowed modules of lettuce, beetroot and spring onion and now they were back in the kitchen garden planting plugs of lettuce and potato planting. Brian showed one group how to plant the

 The compost was a mixture of what we

used for the other new potted fruit in this greenhouse - 2 parts John Innes No.2, 1 part well-rotted horse manure and 1 ample portion of sharp sand.

We should have a whole fruit bowl by the end of the next season.

lettuce in the polytunnel. Particularly important for handling little plantlets is to hold the plant by the leaves so that the rootball is not disturbed. He took the second group into the garden to plant up potatoes and showed them how to plant under black polythene (as Jim was trying last week). They planted each potato tuber about 10cm deep under the polythene. Carole will be going back to see how they are doing in May when they’ll be planting tomato plants in the polytunnel, and lettuce and beetroot in the garden.



For further information on the Kitchen Garden:-

http://scone-palace.co.uk/palace-grounds/gardens-and-grounds

For visitor information for Scone Palace:-

http://scone-palace.co.uk/visitor-info/admissions-tours Hot Bed Recipe:



Construct raised bed frame out of pressure treated timbers at 450 mm deep (as with normal raised bed) 

Line the frame with black polythene to retain moisture

New Hot Bed

Chris was near the polytunnels building a new hot bed - his take on an experiment Jim tried last year that was really successful. Chris explained that you can turn any area without soil into a planting opportunity by building raised beds, even on concrete. Those at Beechgrove are fairly typical – made out of 450mm pressure treated timber and backfilled with top soil and compost. In them you can grow a standard range of crops – like salad crops, vegetables and fruit but if you want to grow something more exotic, that needs protection and is a bit temperamental, then you can build a hot bed.

 

Soak broken up hay bales in water and place them in the bottom (for 2m x 1m raised bed you will need 3 hay bales) Then add a layer of fresh chicken manure at ratio of 5kgs per hay bale

The temperature in the normal raised bed was 8 °C yet in the hot bed it was 45 °C – hot stuff! This will be warming the soil and ultimately the roots of your plants.



Next a layer of sulphate of potash at ratio of 100g per hay bale)



Then a layer of straw soaked in animal urine (from a nearby stables)



The top layer is 20 cm layer of top soil with compost mixed in.

This mixture then needs to be left for 2-4 weeks to rot down under black polythene before it can be sown with heat loving crops such as courgettes and melons. The activity of microorganisms in the decomposition process will help to generate heat. The warmer the roots get, the faster they will grow.

Sweet Peas



On top of this add a layer of wet newspapers

Jim and Carole were planting out sweet peas. This year they are growing them in two different ways –



A layer of charcoal/soot is added to absorb the toxins from the mixture and help to ‘sweeten’ it; We used Grochar all purpose compost available from:

http://www.carbongold.com, but if you can get hold of wood soot, that will work equally well

Jim’s will be grown as cordons and Carole’s as scramblers.

will also be removed so that strong flowers are produced. It’s all about fragrance for Jim so he had opted to grow a fragrant collection.

Carole is choosing to use the best scrambling system that she tested last year. See Factsheet 15 from 2013, here.

Carole, on the other hand, was growing scramblers.

Jim is growing on a cordon system of a single cane per plant. Cordons are all about growing with long straight flowers for cutting and competition.

This meant that side shoots and tendrils will be kept on the plants making them low maintenance. She opted for a selection of bi-colours, tri-colours, flakes and striped varieties.

Featured varieties

Carole's scramblers Mr Fothergills

‘Erewhon’ - a stunning reverse bicolour ‘Flagship’ – a new variety with intricate veining ‘Geoff Hughes’ – new orange flake ‘Hi Scent’ - tinted edge ‘Pandemonium’ - pink flake

Jim explained that the plant had already been ‘stopped’ – the top had been taken out of it. This will encourage a strong side shoot which can be taken on and be tied into the cane. The tendrils

‘Sir Henry Cecil’ - new chocolate flake Suttons

‘Nimbus’ – new blue vein bicolour ‘Sir Jimmy Shand’ – new variety

‘Wiltshire Ripple’ - frilled white streaked variety with deep claret

Jim's cordons

Sweet Pea Extra Fragrant Collection (Unwin’s) ‘Cathy’

‘Percy Thrower’ ‘Romeo’ ‘April in Paris’ ‘Champagne Bubbles’ ‘Scarlett’ ‘Rosay’ ‘Memories’

Plants featured

Erythronium revolutum Chionodoxa

Magnolia campbelli

Goodbye

Erythroniums at Wemyss Castle

Carole visited Charlotte Wemyss of Wemyss Castle on the east coast of Fife, who showed her a magnificent collection of Erythroniums or dogs tooth violet in the woodland garden. When Charlotte moved to Wemyss in 1993 the woods were in a bad way. Charlotte and her husband removed many dead tree and this opened up the canopy to allow light in. It was then that the Erythroniums, sown in the 1970s, started to spread throughout the woodland garden, they now carpet the ground in pink. Charlotte explained that these are the species Erythronium revolutum - one of the most expensive varieties as they are so difficult to dig up (see Handy Hint later on in the factsheet). She also has some lovely Chionodoxa (Glory of the Snow) in the woodland garden, and she is planning to grow Hellebores in her ‘nursery area’ as they self-seed. Over the past three years she has also sown Erythronium seed and corms there and they are starting to establish. Carole admired Magnolia Jim, Carole and Chris were in the trials beds

looking at the spring bedding display and the plants here were doing especially well this year because of the mild winter. There was a lovely scent from the Hyacinths – some were the same varieties planted at Beechgrove in 2012. This display will go on for a couple of weeks with the tulips still to flower.

campbelli, which has been flowering for three

weeks, a bit unusual as normally a frost would get the flowers. Her primulas were also looking good and had never really gone dormant over the winter. Finally Carole and Charlotte visited the walled garden where Charlotte has introduced even more woodland plants. Including Hellebores, Trillium and Bergenias all planted in a shady spot.

For further information about Wemyss Castle gardens, please visit their website: -

http://www.wemysscastlegardens.com/index.html

Featured plants

Double Hyacinth ‘Chestnut Flower’ Hyacinth ‘Aiolos’

Hyacinth ‘Peter Styvesant’ Hyacinth ‘Baby Blue Eyes’ Hyacinth ‘Pink Pearl’ Hyacinth ‘Delft Blue’ Hyacinth ‘White Pearl’ Hyacinth ‘Midnight Magic’

Hyacinth ‘Berries and Cream Mixture’ Myosotis ‘Blue’

Pansy ‘White Clear’ Pansy ‘Rose’

Pansy ‘Blue with Blotch’ Pansy ‘True Blue’

Polyanthus ‘Crescendo Rose Shades’ Polyanthus ‘Crescendo Blue’ Polyanthus ‘Crescendo White’ Primrose ‘Husky Appleblossom’ Primrose ‘Husky Blue’ Primrose ‘Husky Rose’ Tulip ‘White Marvel’ Viola ‘Penny Mickey’ Viola ‘Penny Orchid’ Viola ‘Penny White Blotch’

Hyacinth ‘Baby Blue Eyes Viola ‘Penny Mickey’ Viola ‘Marlies’

Viola ‘Penny Peach Jump Up’ Viola ‘Penny Denim Jump Up’ Viola ‘Penny Rose Marlies’ Wallflower ‘Sugar Rush Purple’

Next week

Carole will be on the Decking Garden planting up vegetables in containers.

George is sowing a Flanders Poppy field to commemorate WW1.

Chris will be paying a second visit to the new build families and taking them both on to the next stage of growing fruit, vegetables and herbaceous borders.

Jim will be looking at houseplants in the conservatory.

They were spoilt for choice as to favourite plants. Chris’s favourite was Hyacinth ‘Baby Blue Eyes’, Carole’s was Viola ‘Penny Mickey’ and Jim’s was

Viola ‘Marlies’.

There was also a spring harvest of asparagus, forced rhubarb and parsley on display and purple sprouting brocoli.

Recipe

Banana Rhubarb and Ginger ice-cream

Serves 6

Events Diary:

Wigtownshire, DG8 8LX Claymoddie Garden, Whithorn Contact: 01988 500422 Open: April 11th-30th Sept Opening hours: by appointment

Brodie Castle, Brodie IV36 2TE Moray and Nairn Contact: 0844 4932156 Open: April 12th

Opening hours: 10:30-16:30

Winton House, Pencaitland East Lothian, EH34 5AT Contact: 01875 340222 Open: April 13th

Opening hours: 12:00-16:30

Cambo House, Kingsbarns Fife, KY16 8QD

Contact: 01333 450313 Open: April 13th

Opening hours: 10:00-17:00

Brodie Castle, Brodie Moray & Nairn IV36 2TE Contact: 01309 1371 Open: April 13th

Opening hours: 10:30-16:30

Megginch Castle, Errol Perth & Kinross PH2 7SW Contact: +44 (0)20 7259 5688 Open: April 13th

Opening hours: 14:00-17:00

3 bananas 300g pink rhubarb 2 tablespoons caster sugar (to taste) 1 tsp fresh ginger (peeled and chopped) 200g reduced fat crème fraîche Oven

350°C, 180°C, Gas4

1. Peel the bananas, cut them into slices (less

than one cm).

2. Lay the small banana slices on greaseproof

paper, on a freezer proof tray. Freeze for 1½ - 2 hours until the banana has frozen. 3. Wash the rhubarb and cut into even sized

(2.5 cm) pieces.

4. Place the rhubarb, sugar and ginger in a

shallow ovenproof dish and bake without covering in the oven for about 30minutes. The rhubarb should be soft but still shaped. 5. Use a slotted spoon to remove the cooked

rhubarb* onto a freezer proof tray and freeze for approx 45 minutes until the rhubarb is just slushy.

6. Put the frozen banana, rhubarb and ginger

and crème fraîche into a food processor and blend well.

7. Put the ice cream into bowls or cones and

EAT IMMEDIATELY!

* The juice is too good to waste use it on in a pudding, on porridge or in a smoothie.

©Stirrinstuff

Dundonnell House, Dundonnell Ross, Cromarty, Skye and Inverness Contact: 077 390028 Open: April 17th

Opening hours: 14:00-17:00

Holmwood, Cathcart Glasgow & District Contact: 0844 493 2204 Open: April 19th and 20th Opening hours: 12:00-16:00

Westhall Castle, Oyne Aberdeenshire, AB52 6RW Contact: 01224 214301 Open: 20th April

Opening hours: 13:00-16:00

Brackla Wood, Culbokie IV7 8GY Contact: 01349 877765

Ross, Cromarty, Skye and Inverness Open: 21st, 23rd and 25th April Opening hours: 14:00-16:00

Leith Hall Garden, Huntly Aberdeenshire, AB 4NQ Contact: 0844 493 2175 Open: 26th April

Opening hours: 7pm tour

Benmore Botanical Garden, Dunoon Argyll, PA23 8QU Contact: 01369 706261 Open: 27th April

Opening hours: 10:00-18:00

Kilarden, Rosneath Dumbartonshire, G84 0PU Open: 27th April

Opening hours: 14:00-17:00

101 Greenbank Crescent, Edinburgh, EH10 5TA Contact: 0131 447 92 Open: 27th April

Opening hours: 14:00-17:00

Dean Gardens, EH4 1QE Edinburgh & West Lothian Open: 27th April

Opening hours: 14:00-17:00

Rofsie Arts Garden, by Collessie Fife, KY15 7UZ Open: 27th April

Opening hours: 13:00-16:00

For more information about open gardens in Scotland go to:

http://www.scotlandsgardens.org

73 CROWN STREET

ABERDEEN AB11 6EX

www.terntv.com