Drosera plants, more commonly known as Sundews, often grow in soil that lacks nitrogen. Sundews get their nutrients from bugs lured in by the succulent droplets landing from the plant’s leaves.
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With the recent release of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, climate change has been a familiar topic in the news and media. More recently new publications have explicitly linked climate change to food security and they show that there is much to be done by governments, big business and the public sector, if our food and agricultural systems are to be resilient to predicted changes in the climate.
A new report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Advancing Global Food Security in the Face of Weather Volatility and Climate Change, which builds on the IPCC report, explains how climate change will undermine efforts to tackle hunger, limiting food production and putting food supplies at risk. Higher temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns and more frequent and severe natural disasters could reduce food production growth by 2% each decade for the rest of this century. But, the report…
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Surplus ammunition canisters used imaginatively as a vertical garden
Old School Gardener
- Picture from ‘Voice in the Garden Blogspot’
In researching this article I’ve solved a little mystery. A couple of years ago I ‘liberated’ some curious looking fruits from a tree in a grand garden in Cornwall I was visiting. It was autumn and the leaves were a beautiful muted rusty golden colour. I couldn’t identify it at the time and the three fruits have been sitting on my desk ever since both intruiging and annoying me!
Well it turns out that they are the fruits of Davidia involucrata, better known as the ‘Paper Handkerchief’ or ‘Dove Tree’ because of its large white bracts enclosing the flower (and followed by the fruit). It looks like it may be a long and fiddly business to grow from seed, but I think I’ll have a go!
Common name: ‘Paper Handkerchief’ or ‘Dove’ Tree
Native areas: originally from damp woods in south West China, it is extremely endangered in the wild and also rare in cultivation.
Historical notes: discovered by Pere David in 1869 and introduced in 1904. It first flowered in 1911 on Veitch’s Coombe Wood nursery.
Features: a broadly conical, very beautiful tree that is (eventually) fast growing and of medium to large height, growing to 10-15 metres at maturity. However, it is difficult to grow from a young age and seems to thrive once it gets beyond 2-3 metres tall. Foliage and habit are similar to the Lime.The sharply toothed leaves are heart shaped to around 15 cms long, are pinkish in spring turning bright green above, densely hairy beneath in summer, then turn to gold in the autumn. The flowers are tiny but it is the large white flower bracts up to about 15 cms long that put on a great show in late spring. The fruits are rounded and green, up to 1.5 inches across, later ripening to brown (like the 3 I have here!). The attractive bark is orange brown and peels vertically in flakes.
Uses: very good in parkland or as a specimen and does best in a sheltered position. Sometimes the cultivar ‘Vilmoriana’ is specified, but it appears to be very similar to the parent species.
Growing conditions: Davidia grows best in a sheltered spot in deep fertile soil. It responds to light summer pruning. Growing tips can frost off if it is subjected to icy winds and invariably the best specimens are seen nestled away in a comfy sheltered spot. They also respond well to fertilizers with lots of potassium. They are best trained to a central leader when young with lower branches gradually removed. Propagation is from seed sown immediately upon ripening, germination can take up to 1.5 years but seedlings grow fast. It can also be grown from semi-ripe cuttings taken during late summer. Insect pest and disease problems rarely occur and are not serious.
Davidia involucrata ‘Aya Nishiki’
Autumn foliage
Autumn colour
Further information:
Wikipedia
RHS- Davidia involucrata
Barcham trees directory
Old School Gardener
One of the lovely things about being a Heritage Gardening Trainee is the fact that we are able to garden in so many different heritage settings. Even within the walls of Gressenhall there are different focuses for each gardening area.
My focus has primarily been on the Dyer’s Garden and the Farmhouse garden. It has been a joy to get to know the volunteers who have spent many years in some cases caring for the different areas. Carol and Jenny who look after the Dyer’s Garden are extremely knowledgeable about the whole process of dying, from which plants to grow for which colour, through to the processes of dying fabric. Carol loaned me a fascinating book about the history of wool industry in Norfolk and how dying yarn and silk was a highly valued skill.
Dyer’s Garden at Gressenhall FW
Starting the traineeship in winter was a good time to…
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A ‘Land Print’ using robotics to create a planting pattern- amazing!
Old School Gardener
There are plenty of things that make the Churchill Gardens Estate in Westminster a bit special. In 2000 the Civic Trust voted it the outstanding building scheme of the last forty years. When it was built it was the largest urban area to be built to the plans of a single firm of architects. But let’s begin with its founding inspiration.
‘Luxury flats, Pimlico’. The caption and image are taken from a Picture Post article of 1955
Churchill Gardens – the Pimlico Housing Scheme as it was originally designated – was the only major project within the visionary Abercrombie Plan for the post-war reconstruction of London to be completed. Its scale – a 30 acre site, 1661 homes, 36 blocks, a population of some 5000 – and its design gives some indication of the ambition of post-war hopes.
Aerial view, 1960s
Charles Latham, then leader of the London County Council…
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The glorious Passion Flower
Today’s question concern climbers that won’t flower, specifically Passion flowers and Wisteria. Jimmy Jones of Brighton asks:
‘I’ve a problem with two of my climbers. I have a Passion Flower growing over my front door which grows very vigourously, but produces no flowers or fruit. Likewise I bought a Wisteria a good few years ago and it did not grow for a long time. I fed it and recently it has begun to grow, but still has not flowered. Can you help please?’
The Passion Flower (Passiflora) needs one thing above all else- sunshine. So a south facing wall is really the only place where it will succeed in most parts of the U.K.- it must be open to the sun all day. If your location is right the other issue might be an over rich soil- this can produce a mass of foliage and stems at the expense of flowers, so if you’ve been feeding it perhaps lay off for a while and then make sure you use a feed rich in potassium (e.g.dilute tomato feed), which will encourage flowering.
As for the Wisteria, this is one of those plants that takes a fair while to come into flower. to make the wait even more agonising, it often grows very little in its first year or two. Help to induce flowering by shortening any unwanted long stems in July or August, cutting them back to about 30 cms or to 5 or 6 buds, and prune again in January, shortening all side shoots back to two or three buds, so concentrating the plant’s energy into a limited number of flowering buds. Again, an occasional feed with diluted tomato feed (or another feed rich in potassium) can also coax flowers from reluctant plants.
My own experience from transplanting a Wisteria seedling to my arbour in my Kitchen Garden, is that it’s taken a good five years for it to flower in any profusion, but I think the mild winter and warmish spring have also played a part- below are some pictures of how it looks today. I’m gradually training it over the top and sides of the arbour. You might also find this article about using climbers in the garden useful.
Coincidentally my younger daughter (who lives in a basement apartment in the outskirts of Lisbon,Portugal), has just bought a Wisteria to go alongside a very successful Trachelospermum jasminoides she and her husband planted about 3 years ago (I’m told the fragrance just now is wonderful). I’ve suggested they train it along wires fixed to the walls of their patio garden and as it’s in a container to give it a fortnightly feed of tomato food to encourage flowering. Fingers crossed!
If you have any questions you’d liked answered then email me and I’ll do my best to feature your question and hopefully provide an answer!
My email address: nbold@btinternet.com, and put ‘GQT question’ in the subject line, please.
Old School Gardener
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