• Gardening club takes road trip to Essex

    Saturday, June 22, 2019 - 18:13

    By Victoria Plum

    The big Reepham & District Gardening Club trip for the year necessitated getting our passports stamped as we travelled first to East Bergholt in Suffolk, where we made a welcome stop at The Place for Plants.

    There is a garden to visit here, but some of us were keener on looking at the many specialist plants in the sales area (conveniently near the café where, as specialists, we tried the cake). The quality, and varieties, of plants was impressive, and the care with which they were tended was impressive too. I even bought two.

    Above: Our favourite bit of The Place for Plants.

     

    We drove on to Hyde Hall in Essex, which is our nearest Royal Horticultural Society garden. As you might expect everything there is done to exemplary standards: plants well labelled, pruned and cared for, and few weeds in sight.

    The variety of planting and garden style was fascinating and effective. I was particularly intrigued by the Global Growth Vegetable Garden, which is what it says. There were plants growing there I had heard of but had no idea, until my visit, of what they actually looked like.

    Above: Reepham & District Gardening Club outings organiser Celia Else (centre) with keen garden visitors.

     

    As it was late when we returned to Reepham, we enjoyed a really good Chinese takeaway from the Happy House in Back Street.

    I noticed that the plastic containers they use are recyclable (although I will reuse them anyway) and made in the UK, so they don’t have to travel all the way from China in a shipping container. Hooray!

    The June meeting of Reepham & District Gardening Club featured Tony Goode, an alpine specialist, who shared his enthusiasm for these tiny plants that grow in microclimates. His message was that however short of time or space, alpines will reward us because they need little care and maintenance.

    Join us for our next meeting on Tuesday 6 July in Reepham Town Hall, Church Street, Reepham, when “Lady Molecatcher” Louise Chapman will tell us about catching moles.

    I will be listening carefully, as I too have expertise in this.

  • The truth about the yellow peril

    Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - 10:21

    By Victoria Plum

    Ragwort, that pretty yellow-flowered weed (we know a weed is just a wildflower in the wrong place), is hated and vilified for its poisonous nature.

    Horse people pull it up (I’ve done it and it’s horrid, hard work), but I have now learnt that this strategy is wrong.

    Harm to horses from ragwort is due to bad husbandry – overgrazing – rather than the nature of the plant.

    Seeds that germinate readily, and remain viable for 14 years, ensure a constant supply of lovely yellow flowers, valuable through a long, late summer season and sole host for the cinnabar moth, seven micro-moths, 12 fly species and seven beetles.

    It provides a major nectar source for at least 30 species of solitary bee, 18 species of solitary wasp and 50 insect parasites: in total 177 species of insects use common ragwort for pollen or nectar.

    It is indigenous to this country, and the impetus to eradicate it is irrational.

    Do we rid our gardens and landscape of daffodils, privet, yew, foxgloves, cuckoo-pint, bryony (both black and white), bracken, spindle and laburnum, and many more of course, all of which are poisonous? Let alone the foreign exotica we readily foster in our houses, gardens and conservatories.

    The fact is that nature is far more complex than our capacity to understand it; we ignore it at our peril.

    Most of the specific details given above were found in Isabella Tree’s fascinating book, Wilding. Fail to read it at your peril!

  • Don’t throw the plastic out with the bathwater

    Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 21:04

    By Victoria Plum

    Plastic bags are like gold dust. I recently took a plant in a pot to a friend and meanly kept the carrier bag, whereas in the past I would have left it with the recipient.

    Plastic bags are also useful. I can cart plants in the car in them and not have them leak water and soil everywhere.

    I can keep salad stuff fresh and moist in the fridge and I can climate control seedlings on my window sill.

    My collection of plastic trays is years old, and enables me to control, and be economical with, the amount of water I use for seedlings and plants, both indoors and out.

    I cut plastic milk bottles into strips for plant labels, writing on them with a fibre-tip pen. No fancy slate plant labels for me such as those sold for a substantial price in certain large stately-home shops locally.

    And where does the slate come from? Is it hewn by hippies in Cornwall or Wales, tied up with homespun string made from the hair of passing hares, packed by hand and transported by bicycle?

    Or is it sliced from the despoiled Chinese countryside by very poorly paid peasants, and then transported by a container ship from China (how many miles?) just to make our gardens look “designer planned”? (I do try not to be cynical.)

    So really what I mean to say is that plastic has its uses. I try to use as little as possible and not to waste it. But I would be stuck without it.

  • Plants grown locally really are the best plants for your garden

    Friday, March 22, 2019 - 10:17

    By Victoria Plum

    The speaker at the next meeting of the thriving Reepham & District Gardening Club at 7.30 pm on Tuesday 16 April in Reepham Town Hall will be Joe Whitehead, head gardener at Burghley House in Stamford, Lincolnshire, who used to work at the Salle Park Estate and is always full of useful good gardening information.

    This meeting is also the AGM – a necessary but painless evil, at least for us members who only have to sit, listen and second the motions.

    The March talk was from Lucy Skinner from Woottens of Wenhaston, Suffolk, who gave us detailed and specific information on the iris genus, one for every month.

    Seventy five per cent of her plants are grown on site, a fact which has made me look more closely at gardening centre stock at other venues while out garden shopping the other day.

    It is obvious that most garden centres buy in the majority of stock. In general terms don’t you think that plants grown locally should fare better in your own garden? She had interesting, healthy and unusual plants for sale, too.

    The raffle was full of excitement, as raffles always are, even though I didn’t win anything because someone gave me the “wrong” tickets.

    Members were also given “their” plant. This year it is Fuchsia Marbeller Flying Scotsman. The picture looks very pretty, with large pink and white blooms.

    The object of this exercise is to nurture your plant – only a tiny plug plant just now – and return with the enormous and flower-covered example to the Summer Show in August with the chance of winning a prize.

    The big garden club outing was announced and it will be to RHS Garden Hyde Hall in Chelmsford, Essex, on Thursday 20 June.

    As you tidy your garden please keep a lookout for extras, spares, seedlings and any plant you don’t need and bring it for sale to the plant sale, which will be held on Saturday 11 May in Market Place, Reepham, from 8.30 am.

    Gardeners of necessity look to the future, but I wonder if those sad souls amongst you who have dishwashers at home and unfortunately might have forgotten the ancient skill of “washing up” might enjoy the opportunity to reminisce about it, while relearning this almost lost art.

    Come to the kitchen after any meeting and clean tea towels and free tuition can be given.

  • The return of nature to a Sussex farm

    Monday, February 18, 2019 - 17:30

    By Victoria Plum

    I have been reading a truly fascinating book: Wilding by Isabella Tree. If you have any interest in the whole wheel of biodiversity you really need to read this: 300 pages of beautifully written information and research challenging much of our historic, and contemporary, thinking about all land management.

    It is the story of Knepp, 3,500-acre estate in Sussex. Standard farming methods meant that the farms and estate were making no money because of the type of land and the state of the soil.

    Drastic times called for drastic measures, and the estate has now been ring-fenced and turned over to nature, with free-ranging deer, ponies, cattle and boar.

    A situation has been set up to allow nature to flourish – and flourish is what it is doing with astonishing vigour.

    The concept of “wilding” or “rewilding” means you allow nature to do what it will, allowing the natural push and pull of all life forms.

    This is very different from the “reserves” with which we are familiar, which are usually set up with the aim of preserving something rare, like large blue butterflies or bitterns, often at the expense of something else.

    There is so much to say about the processes and intelligence in this book that I cannot hope to say more here in this tiny space. Please just read the book! It is not a scolding publication, but one full of positivity and hope.

    I mentioned my Echinacea-growing efforts last month. I bought compost and so I know the two specks of green I see today are Echinacea seedlings, with more to follow I hope, and not chickweed, which they would have been had the compost been my own.

    I have not been forced to delve into the pots to see if there is any sign of the seed, to check whether it has rotted, in a similar way to a school friend who thought her sailfin mollies (tropical fish) so pretty that she kept getting them out of the water to look at their pretty scales. They died.

  • Time to turn over a new leaf, but with a pinch of salt

    Friday, January 18, 2019 - 16:42

    By Victoria Plum

    I am turning over a new leaf: one of my New Year resolutions is to be a better gardener.

    In the past I have allowed my houseplants to be covered in dust, hoping that the instruction “thrives on neglect” is true, but they don’t seem to be self-dusting.

    Why is that? In recent years I have come to regard houseplants as a bit like animals in zoos: they are kept wrongly and therefore stunted and just about surviving, but not living well, as they would be in their proper place.

    Plants in the garden? Well, I reckon if they can’t look after themselves they are a dead loss, and if they die then so be it.

    Having said that, I did water newly planted items last summer (you might remember it was hot and dry over a long period) and my tree peony (12-years old and eight-feet tall) tore at my heartstrings when it wilted, so I relented and watered that too.

    The newly planted items I have just mentioned were Echinacea (pictured), bought as plug plants. This is a plant I particularly like (attractive, good for insects, long-lasting flowers), but have not had great success with, despite planting on piles of imported grit (my soil being good, but heavy-ish).

    I have bought at least five in the past 10 years and when I look for them, they are mysteriously absent.

    Researching online I find it isn’t just me; it happens to other people too. The answer is to take the category “perennial” with a pinch of salt: treat Echinacea as an annual, and if some survive and thrive another year then that is a bonus.

    So I have bought and planted seeds on my windowsill (turfing out the dusty, stalky poinsettia, rank hyacinths and dead amaryllis), since a good early start is necessary to get to flowering the same year.

    So I now resolve to water and feed all plants regularly (carefully looking after my Echinacea) and I might even try reading the instructions on the seed packets!

    I also have an empty – and carefully washed – Viakal spray bottle, filled with water, which emits a very fine spray to keep my indoor ferns moist and happy.

  • When people collected spinkies along the lanes

    Wednesday, December 19, 2018 - 12:24

    By Victoria Plum

    I expect you know that all gardening prior to the 17th century was practical, for food production or medicinal use.

    It was only when shipping and trade boomed in Britain that unusual plants started to be imported, to be acquired by plant collectors and used in floral displays by “florists”.

    The term for a florist is specifically for their skill with flowers and was first coined in 1623.

    Even though garden use was primarily practical, I can’t believe that people did not go and collect “spinkies” (wild primroses which might have grown in Spinks Lane, Heydon) or wild daffodils (from Daffy Green near Shipdham) for their own gardens.

    Before cattle were fed mainly on corn, farmers were hugely dependent on the hay crop for them, so beasts were removed from certain meadows to allow grass to grow for hay, thereby encouraging the wildflowers we now sorely miss.

    And did you know that Humphry Repton spent his last seven years in a Bath chair as a result of a carriage accident, and the inconvenience of this made him realise how important wide paths and accessible vistas in a garden were for the disabled?

    We enjoyed the Reepham & District Gardening Club Christmas social event this month, but the quiz was difficult. Sadly, it did not require the random information given above; our team did not win. Someone put in all the wrong questions!

    Join us next month for a talk on History Beneath Your Feet on Tuesday 15 January at 7.45 pm in the Town Hall, Church Street, Reepham.

  • Spanish slugs found in Cawston garden

    Monday, November 26, 2018 - 18:10

    By Victoria Plum

    A small veg bag pictured below from the Eves Hill Veg Co community market garden (see how fresh and luscious this is) is delivered to a secret location in Cawston, luckily just round the corner from my house, from where I fetch it every week.

    I have been using this excellent local service for at least a couple of months and have been impressed by the variety and quality of all the produce. No insect damage at all, and I know that no nasty chemicals have been used in production.

    I hope Spanish slugs don’t make it to Booton. I found two this year, juveniles at only three or four inches long (adults are six inches) and so sticky that you can’t just wipe the slime off.

    The only way to get rid of them is to hand pick and drown in a bucket of water with soap, detergent, bleach and then bury the contents 18 inches deep.

    They are thought to have come in on salad stuff from Spain; none of our usual strategies with slugs will work on these foreigners. All the more reason to buy locally!

    Look out for the eggs when clearing up the garden, as they are white rather than the translucent ones of our native slugs and snails.

    I wonder whether the Spanish slugs will all be repatriated at 11 pm on 29 March 2019?

    Do join us for the next Reepham & District Gardening Club meeting – the Christmas Party – earlier than usual, both date and time, on 11 December at 7 pm at Reepham Town Hall, Church Street, Reepham. We all bring a plate of something nice to eat, and I am already looking forward to the quiz.

  • Celebrating winter in the garden

    Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - 17:12

    By Victoria Plum

    Yet another diverting talk was enjoyed by a large group of members and visitors to Reepham & District Gardening Club for the October meeting last night.

    Jim Paine from Walnut Tree Garden Nursery spoke on “Celebrating Winter”, and his message was that we should enjoy the changes the season brings.

    He showed us dazzling photographs of plants that give good value in terms of stem colour, bark (he cleans his Himalayan birches with a pressure washer to show off the white to best advantage, who ever said gardeners were obsessive?), winter flowers, long-lasting fruit and interesting fragrances.

    However, he didn’t have a good word for conifers: What do they do? They just sit there staying the same the whole year through!

    Inspired by last month’s inspiring talk on saffron I bought some bulbs and planted them. They might even flower this year (they were already sprouting in the packet); if I had been quicker off the mark I would definitely get flowers this year, but I might have left it just a few crucial weeks too late.

    I have planted some in pots so that I can ensure the good drainage which I understand is crucial. However, our chairman told me last night that saffron doesn’t really like being in pots, so I just hope they do well.

    I have planted some in the open garden too, with added stones (off the drive) for drainage.

    Unfortunately, I found I was digging up the snake’s head fritillary bulbs to put in the saffron, as I had forgotten what I had done last year.

    It occurred to me that a with digital camera or phone you could take regular pictures of the garden, which would then not just be a record, but also an aide memoire to stop digging stuff up by mistake.

    Photo: Tina Sutton

  • Just mad about saffron

    Sunday, September 23, 2018 - 10:45

    By Victoria Plum

    A dynamic talk at Reepham & District Gardening Club by Dr Sally Francis, who runs Norfolk Saffron at Burnham Norton, gave us many fascinating facts (but no cultivation secrets) about saffron.

    Photo: © Norfolk Saffron

    Important historically, it was used medicinally (recorded at Norwich Cathedral priory infirmary in 1461), as a spice as we know it today, and as a dyestuff.

    Big business locally, it was grown at a number of sites in North Norfolk, and exported from local ports to London and the Netherlands.

    In 1614 a ship, the John of Wells-next-the-Sea, is recorded as carrying 60 lb of saffron. You know how tiny the threads (styles) are, and remember they have been dried, so just think how much work went into gathering that crop, and the monetary value of it.

    Many people grew saffron for their own use and some surplus to sell as well, and then it started to be produced on a slightly larger scale.

    The nature of the plant makes cultivation necessarily careful (it is a native of Crete) and harvesting hugely laborious. Every flower must be picked by hand as it becomes ready, and then taken indoors to have the valuable style removed by hand, truly a cottage industry.

    The blooms don’t close at night so any flower missed risks waste and spoil. As with all harvests, timing is crucial and the rows must be carefully checked every day until all are done.

    The tiny styles must be dried with care and then they can be handled, stored and sold as saffron hay (loose strands) or saffron cake.

    The economics of production and desirability of the product meant that, as with internet fraud today, there was and still is always someone trying to imitate or adulterate the product to make money. In 1358 in Nuremberg, Germany, those found guilty were either burned or buried alive.

    I have just thrown away the old Saffron Original on my shelf, bought in Greece in 2007 for a few cents, and now I’m checking my catalogue to buy my own Crocus sativus bulbs to ensure my personal supply.

    The next meeting of Reepham & District Gardening Club on 16 October will feature Jim Paine of Walnut Tree Garden Nursery, who will give a talk on “Celebrating Winter”. Meetings are held at 7.45 pm in Reepham Town Hall, Church Street, Reepham. Visitors welcome.

    Photo: Saffron in Savojbolagh County, Tehran, Iran © Serpico

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