Disguise your ugly garden structures with vertical planting!
As we roll on towards Christmas, you might be lucky to receive a present of some bare rooted shrubs like George Wellbeloved from the Scottish highlands:‘I’ve been given a birthday present of some shrubs but the ground is frozen in the garden and I’m not sure what to do with them. Can you advise me?’
A Guide to planting bare root trees, shrubs and perennials- Toby Buckland
The blackbirds nesting among the vine in the Courtyard Garden at Old School Garden- picture by Gabbie Joyce and Paul Young
As you can imagine, the last few weeks have been very busy on several gardening fronts. I guess the most significant event was our first garden opening last week, which I’ve done a separate article about. This was great fun and I was very pleased with the way the garden looked and the many positive comments from the 70+ visitors. We raised over £300 too which will be going to three local ‘good causes’.
One of these is ‘Master Gardener’, where I continue to offer my voluntary advice and help to those starting to grow their own food. Gabbie, the local co-ordinator, has come up with the idea of using the money we raised as a special fund to be tapped into by Norfolk Master Gardeners to purchase small items to help their households, groups and other new growers- I’ll tell you more about this in due course. I’ve attended a few events recently and had fun talking with a range of people about their food growing experiences and maybe even helped to recruit a few new households. The latest event was the ‘Destination Aylsham’ Fun Day yesterday, which I helped out at with fellow Master Composter Sally Wilson- Town and co-ordinator David Hawkyard. Well over 70 people came over to discuss composting and ‘growing your own’, though my period at the stall seemed to coincide with the quieter, ‘wind down’ phase towards the end. Still, no matter, we seem to have promoted composting and food growing to a few more people – and I managed to sell some plants and produce too!
Some produce for sale at Aylsham ‘Fun Day’ 
The compost game 
Master Gardener and Composter stand at the ‘Fun Day’
I’ve done my last session this academic year at Cawston Primary School, where we had great fun harvesting potatoes, broad beans and a few onions. In truth, with the exception of the Broad Beans, these were harvested a little too soon, because this was the last opportunity for the children to garden before their holidays which begin on Thursday. Still, the potatoes were of a good size and a reasonable quantity and will be used in the school kitchen this week along with the beans and some of my donated home grown produce (we’ve had some enormous Calabrese and Cauliflowers lately). The children also continued to dig out the old compost bins so that we can make a new start there in the Autumn. However, it’s disappointing that we’ve not been able to keep on top of the weeding in the bog garden around the wildlife pond (which is also looking extremely dry), as many weeds have now set seed, so that will be an added problem for us in the Autumn, when hopefully the soil will be damper and weeding easier. However, the Outdoor Learning Co-ordinator , Sharon, tells me that the pond has been a real winner with the children and has yielded examples of a wide range of insect and other wildlife.
The gardens at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Museum are struggling in the sun and heat, but the planting and care taken earlier in the year by myself and other volunteer gardeners seem to be paying off. The rambling rose ‘Rambling Rector’ in the Wildife Garden looks particularly splendid as it covers the arbour and adjoining wall, where I and my friend Steve spent an hour or two pruning and tying in last autumn.
‘Rambling Rector’ over the arbour at Gressenhall 
..and over the adjacent wall
At home, Old School Garden is also struggling in the heat, and evening watering sessions of hand held spray and sprinkler have lasted a good few hours in recent weeks – and still many new plantings are wilting! Anyway, the long borders are looking great, though with a few gaps after shearing back the oriental poppies. I’m hoping that my strategically placed pots of tender perennials and plantings of annuals will soon plug these and the overall show will reach a crescendo in a few weeks time. The kitchen garden has proved to be very productive to date, though we continue to get problems with pests such as pigeons and to a lesser extent blackbirds and aphids. I’ve noticed a few Cabbage White butterflies recently, but hopefully with my planting of Nasturtiums and netting of my Brassicas, we’ll not be too badly affected by their hungry green caterpillars! So far we’ve had crops of :
Potatoes – though I had to lift many of these a bit early as blight had started to affect them
Calabrese -huge heads from the F1 variety ‘Beaumont’
Cauiliflowers- though a few heads were ‘blown’ as we couldn’t keep up with the supply!
Mange Tout – despite early pigeon attacks!
Celery – too much to cope with!
Carrots – a reasonable first crop though many were twisted and misshapen, possibly a combination of too rich and stony soil
Lettucs – a few varieties from the garden have tasted good along with some ‘cut and come again’ varieties in pots.
Tomatoes – just a few of the smaller, golden variety to date, but plenty on the plants in the greenhouse, ready for swelling and ripening.
Courgettes – the start of what promises to be a bumper year, especially as my friend Steve has given me four ‘Patty Pan’ plants to go with the two green varieties he’d already supplied!
Strawberries- you remember I’d started the process of relocating the strawberry bed? Well the new plants seem to have taken well, though, as youd’ expect I didn’t let them flower or fruit this first year, but the old plants I left hoping for ‘one more year’ of fruit were a disaster. Very few fruits and what there were the blackbirds, slugs and mould seem to have taken. So for the first time in many years I actually bought two punnets of strawberries!
Raspberries – these are coming on well and we’ve enjoyed a few days supply so far, though the pigeons, despite my various ‘bird scarers’, seem to be enjoying themselves and breaking off the fruiting stems as they use them like ladder to go up and down the canes!
Garlic – most now harvested but some along with the onions are just drying out before storing
Broad Beans – a good crop of a rosy pink variety, though when cooked their attractive colour seems to turn a rather dull grey, but they taste just fine!
Gooseberries- first bush harvested , two red varieties to come this weekend
Blackcurrants- two bushes harvested and a lot frozen, with one more to come shortly
Later today, I’ll be sowing some further crops of Lettuce, Mange Tout, Carrots and Cabbage as well as some Pansies I got from the Royal Norfolk Show and which should provide us with some autumn and winter colour. That’s if it is not too hot of course.
Other posts in this series:
Dear Walter…. letter from Old School Garden 21st June 2013
Dear Walter….letter from Old School Garden, 20th May 2013
Dear Walter….letter from Old School Garden, 18th April May 2013
Dear Walter….letter from Old School Garden, 11th March 2013
Dear Walter… letter from Old School Garden: 15th February 2013
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A successful formal garden is balanced, the design based on symmetry in its layout and a clearly recognisable ground plan or other pattern. Other features include:
Vistas – long channels in which the view is drawn towards a distant point or view
Statuary – often used as focal points within formal garden spaces or at the end of vistas
Topiary – ‘living statuary’ – small-leaved evergreen plants (Box and Yew, typically) are used to create all year round structure and focal points in the borders or spaces as well as hedges to create edges/ boundaries, parterres and knot gardens
Ornament – structures or materials are used which embellish otherwise plain surfaces or features
Natural stone – limestone, sandstone, granite, marble are all used to create a rich hard landscape which harmonises with the planting
Dramatic planting – specimen tress and shrubs are used as focal points and large expanses of single or limited numbers of species are used in mass effects
Want help to create your own Garden of Eden?
Let me know what you think makes a Formal style garden, and if you have some pictures I’d love to see them!
Other posts in the series:
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Both were completed about 6 years ago and largely on a voluntary basis. I remain involved at the local Primary School, helping them with their School Gardening activities, but my early involvement was in designing, sourcing planting and organising the creation of an ‘Eco Park’ – basically to try and diversify the habitats and play opportunities in a bland, mown grass playing field with a solitary multi function play unit. The design features a curved mixed native species hedge (which is now over 2 metres high) and a haven for wildlife, several groupings of native trees such as Silver Birch, Hazel, Douglas Fir, Beech, Oak, Feild Maple, Mountain Ash and Black Poplar, and some areas of shallow mounding.
The planting has been used to create several different spaces, and grass within these has been left to grow long both to provide varied habitats and interesting play areas. In addition a ‘Nectar Bar’ of insect – friendly herbaceous and other flowering plants has been created alongside the school, including a painted pergola which both helps to privide shade to the south – facing side of the school and added planting interest.
The second project involved working on commission for the Parish Council and a local charity to design, seek funding, consult local people and supervise the creation of a new play landscape at the ‘Oakes Family Field’ located to one side of the village. The design was constrained by the need to retain areas for cricket and football pitches and to avoid placing play areas close to housing on one side of the field. There is a mix of landscape features including a large mound (with a slide), timber play equipment for balancing and enclosed social areas, as well as a selection of traditional play equipment in two main areas, one for younger, one for older children. Over £100,000 was raised from various sources and so a wide range of play equipment and features has been possible.
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First Lady and ‘3 sisters’ – Michelle Obama showing American children how to plant
Here’s a link to a video report compiled by students of Reepham High School and College, Norfolk which includes a piece about the School Garden at Cawston Primary School, focussing on their ‘plastic bottle greenhouse’- a great idea to promote recycling as well as a relatively cheap greenhouse! I’ve been supporting both Schools in their School gardening activities.
Sowing seed – especially the smallest kinds – can seem a bit fiddly even for little fingers!
Harvesting what they’ve grown is a great thrill for children
Weighing in- check on crop yields and record these for the future
Other posts in the series:
Growing Children 6: Top tips for managing and maintaining your School Garden
Growing Children 5: Top tips for School Garden activities
Growing Children 4: AAA rated School Garden in Seven Steps
Growing Children 3: Seven tips for creating your dream School Garden
Growing Children 2: Seven Design tips for your School Garden
Growing Children 1: School Garden start up in Seven Steps
School Gardening – reconnecting children and Nature
Source & Further information:
‘How to grow a School Garden’ – Arden Bucklin-Spooner and Rachel Kathleen Pringle, Timber Press Books
Budding Gardeners- lots of advice and info
Food & Agriculture Organisation School Garden Planner
California School Garden Network Guide to School Gardening
Garden Organic support for schools
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‘The Tree Council is encouraging all UK schools and community groups to plant trees by offering funding through two grant programmes- the ‘Trees for Schools’ and ‘Community Trees’ funds.
They are also offering funds for fruit tree planting in schools through the ‘Orchard Windfalls’ fund. The Tree Council are able to fund projects between £100 and £700 and successful applicants will receive up to 75% towards planting costs.
Applications for 2013 are now open, for more information visit: http://www.treecouncil.org.uk/grants/trees-for-schools
With the generous support of an anonymous donor The Tree Council have produced a teaching and learning resource, which will be sent out free of charge to all successful grant applicants.’
In part one of this series of posts I outlined a few tips on getting your School Garden project up and running. If you’ve got the key people on board, identified what the overall aims and objectives of the project are and hopefully secured some start-up funding and promises of help, it’s time to get serious about the design of your Garden. Here are seven ideas to help you…1. Who will be using your space and what are their needs? It’s important to think about the range of users and why they’ll want to use your garden. Yes, children, but what numbers and ages? During the school day or afterwards? Will parents or the wider community want to get involved? And just what sorts of activities will your garden need to support: growing food, outdoor play, studying nature, formal lessons (in some sort of shelter?) etc.? It’s important to list these and start to see what they suggest in terms of the overall layout of different areas, spaces, structures etc
2. Survey and appraise your site– you may have your area already defined by walls, fences, hedges etc. or perhaps you’re confined to an area of the playgrround. In any event it’s important to accurately measure out the plot. From these measurements you can create a scale drawing (say 1cm = 1 metre) and any key features that are likely to remain – e.g water taps; significant slopes; trees; hedges; types of soil (you can see if it needs improving and what the pH is by using a simple test kit); the way the site lies (in relation to sun, wind, prevailing rainfall etc.) and how the site is accessed. It’s also worth checking on the current maintenance regime and who’s responsible for this (e.g. if you’re thinking of taking over an area of sports field that is regularly mown).
A gathering place like this shelter is probably important
3. Think about basic needs:
Get some child -sized tools
4. Get the children involved (and your wider support group) – you will by now have a good idea about what could be in the garden and you need to share these ideas and discuss others with the children who’ll be using the space and those key adults (teachers, parents etc.) who will also want to feel the project is theirs. You can devise some fun ways of engaging these people, perhaps involving n a loose outline drawing of the plot and your first ideas in pictorial form (e.g photos cut out from magazines), from where children can be asked to draw/write/otherwise think about and convey their ideas and wants for their garden (I can guarantee someone will want a swimming pool!). This will generate interest and ownership of the project.
Raised beds, narrow enough to allow access to the centre without walking on the soil
5. Options for planting – depending on what you want to grow and the space you have available I guess you’ll either be planting in containers (pots, planters and all sorts of quirky planters too), open beds (which have their edges cut into the surrounding ground, often grass) or raised beds– these are edged with boards or other timber and so help to define the growing areas (especially for food crops). If the sides are about 20cms high they can be used to contain additions of manure/compost from year to year as you build up the soil’s goodness and structure. Raised beds can be to varying heights to cater for different ages of children, but ideally they need to be narrow enough to be tilled from the surrounding pathways so that feet don’t trample and compress the growing areas. Rectangular beds are probably the most efficient shape. These beds can be constructed using pressure – treated timber or alternatively there are several places where ‘ready to assemble’ kits can be purchased. If you want to avoid too much digging of the soil (this can be detrimental to its structure) you can just lay a covering of organic material over the beds each year (taking note of the requirements of different groups of plant if growing food) and lightly fork this top-dressing in as you begin the growing season.
How about a plastic bottle greenhouse?
6. Go beyond basic needs– it’s important to focus on basic needs in developing your designs, but if we just stick to the functional requirements, we will miss an important opportunity to make the School Garden exciting, fun and an experience for all the senses! So, think about growing herbs and other plants which have differing fragrances, leaf textures, colours and are in other ways interesting – tall grasses that catch the sunlight and bend in the wind for example, or Stachys (‘Lambs’ Ears’), which has wonderful velvety leaves, Lavender for that midsummer heady smell! Likewise Sunflowers are a wonderful example of the power of nature as they shoot up to enormous heights and beauty starting from little seeds that the children can sow themselves. Similarly, children can get involved in producing signs for different parts of the garden, another way to make them feel that this is their garden and make it look funky too!
A simple scale model helps to convey your design
7. Consult on an outline plan – once you’ve taken all of the above into account you can firm up your plans on paper and maybe even produce a simple 3D cardboard/ scrap model of how your garden could look! Models are especially useful for getting children (and adults) to imagine just what features there are and what the layout will look like. This could go on display at the School for a week or two and you can invite people to put their views on sticky notes nearby so that everyone can see who’s saying what. Gather these up and then with your committee/support team work out those which should be incorporated into the scheme.
Sources & Further information:
‘How to grow a School Garden’ – Arden Bucklin-Spooner and Rachel Kathleen Pringle, Timber Press Books
Budding Gardeners- lots of advice and info
Food & Agriculture Organisation School Garden Planner
California School Garden Network Guide to School Gardening
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Nigel Boldero aka 'Old School Gardener'
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