Streetly gardener’s green-fingered social enterprise
Gardening was something entrenched into Streetly gardener and lecturer Jonathan Ensell from the very early days of his life. His great-grandad Oscar Britzius had a farm with pigs and chickens and sold land for a pound an acre. After a difficult time spent in Germany during the Second World War, which included some outspoken comments about the Nazi regime, Oscar decided to make a change in his life and branch out into opening a nursery. His son – Jonathan’s father, Paul Ensell – inherited the land and has had it ever since. Jonathan has even built his house on there….
A blooming good year for Binfield Heath Flower Show
More than 2,500 people soaked up the sun at Holmwood on Saturday — about 20 per cent up on last year and probably the highest total in the 66 years of the annual flower and dog show. The tea tent takings reached a new high while the sideshow takings were up by a fifth on last year. The dog show entries also broke the record while the class entries were up by about 10 per cent to more than 850. Show chairman Francis Williams said: “I was helping out on the barbecue when I stopped to turn round and I…
A garden of late blooms with Japanese Anemone
September is a time when some border plants come into their own, just as the rest of your summer flower plants are past their prime. A classic late flowerer is the pretty Japanese Anemone, a favourite with gardeners and the perfect choice for the Horticultural Trades Association’s (HTA) Plant of the Month for September. Japanese Anemone, also known as the Windflower, can be grown in sun or shade and are good for lighting up a dark corner of the garden. They like well drained soil and often spread by themselves, creating new clumps that can be lifted and planted elsewhere….
Glow Wild – Wakehurst’s festival of winter light
New this year to Kew’s country garden in West Sussex is the Glow Wild Festival as Wakehurst Place celebrates light in the winter landscape. From Thursday 4th to Sunday 7th December, the unique night-time experience allows you to see the award-winning gardens near Haywards Heath as never before, by lantern. With admission at either 4.30pm or 6.30pm, let your lantern lead the way through a mile of winding paths through the gardens, around the Elizabethan mansion and ponds to marvel at stunning displays of fire, light and incense. There will be festive fare to devour, late-night shopping and a seasonal…
Why young people find gardening cooler than the movies
The Chelsea Flower Show is hardly teeming with teenagers – at 27, Hugo Bugg was the youngest gold-medal winner there for two decades. Yet Bugg wasn’t surprised to hear that young people have sprouted such a love of gardening – with a survey of 25- to 35-year-olds revealing that it is more popular than the cinema. Indeed, for the champion, the news that twentysomethings are turning their fingers green makes a lot of sense. The lives of many young people, he says, are dominated by technology, and gardening provides a perfect way to “escape our digitally driven daily routines”. “Office…
Harrogate Autumn Flower Show set to have the apple at its very core
Plans are in hand to celebrate the humble apple at a flower show next month. Harrogate Autumn Flower Show, which runs from September 12 to 14, is planning a frenzy of fruit this year. Taking visitors on the journey from Pip to Press, the show’s new autumn festival will offer the opportunity to learn more about the Malus, the species including the orchard apple, including a long-forgotten Yorkshire link to what is arguably the world’s most famous variety of the fruit. One of the oldest surviving varieties of eating apple, the Ribston Pippin, was raised 300 years ago at Ribston Hall,…
Landscapers celebrating after scooping gold at flower show
Two landscapers from Leyland are celebrating success after scooping gold at the RHS Tatton Flower Show. Neil Staff and Adam Robinson of Concept Landscapes, located at Avant Garden Centre, Leyland Road, worked closely with Irish designer Ian Price to construct the 12m x 7m garden, which focused on the theme – ‘the elements’. It was the first time the team had worked with Ian, and involved Neil and Adam working 12 hours a day, seven days a week leading up to the show. The garden, which would have cost in excess of £30,000 if replicated, comprised 10 tons of soil,…
International Garden Festival at Grand-Metis, Canada 2014 – in pictures
The annual garden festival at les Jardins de Métis combines art and cutting-edge landscape architecture. With gardens created by designers from around the globe, it is the leading venue for contemporary gardens in North America. Here are some of the best that are on display until 28 September Pink Punch by Nicholas Croft and Michaela MacLeod of New York: brightly coloured latex rope is wrapped around trees. Rotunda by architects Citylaboratory from Spain: the pool is filled with water, reflecting the garden around it. Afterburn by Civilian Projects from New York: charred posts, ash-rich planting soil, river stone, coniferous saplings and herbaceous…
Diary of a garden rescue – an update
Three years ago we took on a garden that had a distinct character given it by its site, topography and the groundworks and planting by the former owner. Brambles in the ascendency, boundaries blurred by saplings and brick walls collapsing, we have taken the slow road to reclaiming and replanting. Last year I bought a greenhouse and it has swung into full use this hot summer. With mistakes here and there, we have raised plants and put them out into the garden. I’ve given up my allotment plot so that our own – I guess we have about quarter of an acre…
The dynamic designs of Piet Oudolf at Bury Court
Prairie-style planting was a gamble that has paid off handsomely for John Coke in Hampshire In the mid-1980s, when I was starting to get serious about gardening, John Coke’s Green Farm Plants in Hampshire was one of the hottest nurseries in the country. The garden world was small and intimate then, and unusual plants were hard to find. Green Farm Plants had a special line in well-grown tender perennials such as royal blue Salvia patens, ‘Jamaica Primrose’ marguerites, sticky-stemmed apricot mimulus, and damson ‘Lord Bute’ pelargoniums, whose use in explosive pot displays by artist-gardeners such as Jimmy Hancock at Powis Castle, and…
