Category: shrubs

The Stuttering Start to Spring

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 15, 2013
12 Comments on The Stuttering Start to Spring

We have been getting signs that Spring may be on its way. Buds of Hawthorn and Elder have started to split open to allow the brightest of green leaves to squeeze their way out. Yesterday frogs left us a gift in the wildlife pond – a big pile of spawn. Seeing the first spawn this late in the year is unusual as we normally find some in mid-February.

Last night the temperature dropped to minus 6! The spawn was frozen into the icy surface of the pond and fluffy snow flakes littered the surface.

The Hellebores that we have been enjoying so much over the last few weeks drooped losing all their structure. Stems bent over and lowered the flowers to the frozen ground. We know they will burst back when temperatures again rise above freezing and perhaps assisted by a little sunshine.

Happily a few plants in the garden have responded more positively to the fall in temperature. The foliage of Hebe “Red Edge” is always colourful but in this spell of renewed cold it has taken on richer tints.

Tags foliage, foliage plants, frog spawn, frogs, garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, hebes, hellebores, shrubs, wildlife

colours community gardening garden photography gardening ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs Winter Gardening winter gardens

Stems of dogwoods and willows at BAC

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 8, 2013
16 Comments on Stems of dogwoods and willows at BAC

Earlier in the winter I posted a blog about the value of coloured stems in our garden. We have lots more up in the community gardens on our allotment site, Bowbrook Allotment Community. Now we have a little sunshine brightening our days I thought it would be interesting to see the colours in Cornus (Dogwoods) and Salix (Willows) that we have accumulated in our 4 year development.

First though a look into my sketchpad.

We put together a collection of stems of all the different Cornus and Salix that we grow in the communal gardens and photographed them on a rare sunny day.

First the Dogwoods ….

….and then the Willows.

Tags coloured bark, coloured stems, community gardening, cornus, dogwoods, garden photography, gardening, salix, shrubs, trees, willow, willows, winter, winter gardens

colours garden design garden photography gardening grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs Winter Gardening winter gardens

A February Bouquet

Nothing seems to have changed much in the garden since my “Bouquet for January” post. The ever-changing weather, moving from cold to very cold and back again appears to have stagnated growth. The first daffies have just opened and crocus in various colours are appearing around the borders.

There is a much wider range of Hellebores to enjoy though. I love having to bend down and lift their heads to find the secrets of their hidden beauty. Enjoy my Hellebore gallery.

The Prunus subhirtela autumnalis flowers have been browned by the weather and we have cut down many of the grasses and perennial seed heads. Now the garden is looking empty but as a result of our tidying up we can appreciate the importance and impact that foliage plays in the February garden. Grasses and Phormium join with shrubs such as Pittosporum to give interesting colours and leaf patterns.

One of my favourite garden plants is the simple and much-maligned Bergenia. At this time of year the leaves take on deep shades of green, red and purple and the first of their flowers start showing colour before being lifted up on strong stems later on.

Let us finish February off by wishing for signs of spring. Some sunshine perhaps? Blue sky? Just a few degrees more?

Tags bergenias, foliage, foliage plants, garden photography, gardening, grasses, hellebore, shrubs, spring bulbs, winter, winter gardens

climbing plants colours garden design garden photography garden wildlife gardening hardy perennials Land Art natural pest control ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture shrubs village gardens wildlife

A Cottage in Leicestershire

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 16, 2013
15 Comments on A Cottage in Leicestershire

Our son, Jamie and his fiancee, Sam have just bought their first home together, an old cottage in a small Leicestershire village and so we were looking forward to visiting them and having a good nose around and of course to explore their garden to see what promises it had in store for the coming seasons.

The village seemed a perfect, idyllic place to live, with a pub, a village shop, a primary school and lots of friendly neighbours. Homes have been built here over the centuries giving a huge range of styles – a potted history of domestic architecture. Jamie and Sam’s cottage was built about 300 years ago, but I should really have said two cottages as originally these were two tiny workers cottages. From a quick look at old census returns for the village the cottages were likely to have been home to stocking knitters, lace workers or agricultural labourers. There could be many hours of internet searching of historical sources ahead to enjoy.

It is a very welcoming cottage with a beautiful porch with a feature stain glass window alongside it. The front garden consists of a triangle of land just big enough for a Lilac to grow with a few small shrubs at its feet. Sadly the day after I took this photo the lovely old Lilac blew down in strong winds.

J and S are excited by the thought of what treats might emerge from the cottage garden to the back of the cottage. A walk around revealed some lovely secrets awaiting their season. The garden is a long plot, well stocked with plants to attract wildlife.

From the plants we could identify it should reveal itself as a true cottage garden planned with wildlife in mind. A small pond, a wildlife friendly hedge and a couple of log piles have also been included. A beautiful dry-stone wall provides shelter for a variety of creatures. We took along a bird table and nestbox to add to these and these were soon in place.

The perennials present include Asters, Aquilegias, Foxgloves, Sedum, Iris, Crocosmias, Hemerocalis and Aconitum, so there is a promise of lots of colour and lots of butterflies, bees and beneficial insects.

Of particular interest were the many clumps of Arum Lilies, a family I know little about. We grow Arum italicum marmoratum which was present as several clumps, but I think there were others there with different foliage markings and colours. The main reason to grow these is for their marbled leaf markings.

One task J and S set us was to identify “the sticks”, their non-gardening word for shrubs and trees without leaves! The biggest and most impressive “stick” proved to be a very old apple tree over which scrambles an equally old rambling rose. These will both take a lot of remedial pruning but will prove to be wonderful features. A mature Buddleja, Spiraeas, Hydrangeas and a small cherry will provide colourful flowers in the future, and the Buddleja will bring in both scent and butterflies for their enjoyment.

The large terrace is separated from the garden itself by a low wall of mature bricks which proved to be a handy place to display interesting objects discovered as we cut down the old growth of perennials and tidied up the borders. The little sculpture of stacked sea-worm bricks is one I made years ago.

Three found items, a chair, a terra cotta bowl and a rusty pruning saw blade now adorn the shed.

Two days with J and S wandering around and discovering their new garden and hatching plans for the future, inspired ideas for a mini-meadow of wildflowers, a much bigger pond, a prairie garden and some trained fruit. They have years of fun to come!

Tags apples, buddleia, foliage, foliage plants, garden wildlife, gardening, Leicestershire, outdoor sculpture, shrubs, winter gardens

allotments birds community gardening garden photography garden wildlife gardening grow your own ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography shrubs trees wildlife winter gardens

Allotments under Snow

Today we braved the snow and floods up at our allotment site and went for a walk around to look at what turned out to be a very different world to the one we usually see. The pictures illustrate just how long it may be before we can get any gardening done up there. We still have root crops in the ground – in December it was too wet to get on the soil and now it is all under the white stuff.

Here is the actual green bench that inspires the name of my blog.

The scarecrows remain on duty whatever the weather and shrug off the snow and ice.

Wheelbarrows wait patiently.

The plots have a forlorn look but beneath the ice and snow the soil is waiting – waiting for a little more light, more heat from the sun and plenty of evaporation to lessen the moisture content.

The Winter Garden is full of interest.

The contractors preparing our site extension in the adjoining field were toiling away in the snow, ice and waterlogged soil. They are putting in drainage and clearing out an old pond to create a wildlife pond for us all to enjoy. The ground they overturn presented birds with a rich feeding ground. Blackbirds, Redwings, Fieldfares, Jays, and Thrushes both Song and Thrush revelled in a fresh supply of worms and ground creatures.

Tags allotments, birds, community gardening, dogwoods, fruit and vegetable growing, garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, grasses, grown your own, scarecrows, shrubs, snow, snowmen, trees, winter, winter gardens

colours garden design garden photography gardening grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography shrubs Winter Gardening winter gardens

A January Bouquet

Think of January in the garden. Could you put together a bouquet? This is my new monthly garden blogging challenge, and starting in January most certainly throws me in at the deep end. But here goes…………………

Here are the first couple of pages of my sketch pad for the new year.

In this cold month colourful flowers can be used to create a bouquet, but you can also experience and enjoy a bouquet of scents.

So firstly what is delighting us with colour?

The rather inappropriately named Prunus x subhirtella autumnalis, with blossom of the palest pink, stunning against a pure blue sky.

The perennial wallflower, Erysium Bowles Mauve flowers in almost every month of the year, but is very special in January.

The first flowering bulb of the year is the Winter Aconite, Hyemalis, with its buttercup flowers close to the ground. The Flowering Quince, Chaenomales greets visitors to “Avocet” with its bright sun-set red flowers giving a warm welcome alongside the gate post at the bottom of the drive. The Cornelian Cherry, properly called Cornus mas dominates the “Freda Border” at the top of the drive. It is covered from head to toe with bunches of acid yellow umbels. They are little nuggets of gold.

White is appreciated more in the dark days of winter. The pussy willow’s furry white blooms huddle along the black stems of our Violet Willow by the wildlife pond. As grasses reach their end, prior to me pruning them back to the ground, their flower heads are white and silver.

And who keeps us warm with their scent in the cold? Sarcoccoca, Witch Hazels, Viburnum and the first Daphne of the year Daphne bhuloa “Jacqueline Postil”. She glows pink, a unique pink with hints of blue and violet. Her scent is mesmerizing.

Jaqueline Postil – what a beauty and what expensive perfume she wears.

But think of January blooms and we must not forget the first Hellebores.

colours conservation garden design garden photography gardening ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs winter gardens

Colourful Stems

In the first few months of each new year the garden treats us to a colourful show of bright and varied coloured stems of shrubs. The most colourful are the dogwoods and willows of which we grow several specially chosen for their coloured stems. They glow in any bright days at this time of year.

This selection of stems cut from our garden include dogwood, Kerria, willow, bamboo and Winter Jasmine.

The first pair of photos shows Cornus, the first is “Midwinter Fire” which we grow alongside our summerhouse just where it gets backlit by the winter sun, the second is “Cardinal” of which we have several specimens around the garden as they look good in any light.

Below is neither a dogwood or willow but an extremely red stemmed Acer called “Sango Kaku”, which we have planted alongside Cornus “Midwinter Fire”. We look forward to seeing them grow together.

The Cardinals in our front garden grow in front of our White-stemmed Birch, Betula utilis “Silver Queen”.

We keep adding shrubs with coloured stems and yesterday I took these cuttings below off gardening friend Pete’s fiery willow.

Sometimes the coloured stems are made even more special with the addition of flowers. The willow below with its black stems glow with the emergence of its white flowers at this time of year.

I shall finish with the photo of a bunch of stems cut from our bamboos.

Tags coloured stems, cornus, dogwoods, garden photography, gardening, salix, shrubs, willows, winter, winter gardens

birds garden photography garden wildlife gardening grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs roses shrubs trees winter gardens

A Wander around our Garden in December

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 18, 2012
8 Comments on A Wander around our Garden in December

The last month of 2012 and therefore here is the last post in the “wander around our garden” series. December was a month that started wet and cold and quickly got wetter and colder. We have found ourselves carrying on regardless – we weren’t going to let the weather beat us. So we donned warm waterproofs and busied ourselves clearing soggy perennials and pruning shrubs.

The birds are suffering from lack of natural food in the surrounding countryside so are flocking to our feeders. They add so much colour and song. This year’s flocks of Long Tailed Tits and Goldfinches are much larger than in recent times. Mixed tit flocks have reached over 70 in number at times and finch flocks up to 25. So we are kept busy regularly topping up the seeds, nuts and fatballs. As a result of the poor harvests of berries and fruit in the woods and hedgerows we have had invasions of large flocks of Blackbirds into the garden and already our shrubs are stripped of their produce. The blackbirds are aided in their berry stripping by Thrushes, Redwings and Fieldfares. All the red berried shrubs were denuded first, leaving not a single berry on our Cotoneasters, Hollies and Mountain Ashes so they are looking a little less colourful. They have now started on their second choice berries – yellows and whites.

There is still an amazing amount of colour in the garden with some flowers still going strong. This Hebe just ignores whatever the weather throws at it and keeps on flowering. When a frost comes these delicate looking flowers prove they are not delicate at all. They stand to attention even when coated in frost.

These small Hypericum shrubs, similar in size to the Hebes, perform on several fronts with flowers still apparent, berries showing several colours on the same plant and leaf colour which gets richer as the weather gets colder.

Odd flowers of Rudbeckias appear throughout the winter way outside their peak flowering period. They are like little bursts of sunshine.

Other plants are meant to be winter flowering and we look forward to these each year. Mahonia japonica exhibits its long thin upright racemes of buttercup yellow flowers with the added luxury of a beautiful warm scent, somewhat reminiscent of pineapples.

The glossy, dark hand shaped leaves of Fatshedera are a perfect foil for bright summer flowers in our Shed Bed, but it produces its own much more subtle flowers throught the winter. They are the palest of cream with a dull orange centre. They look as if they should emit the mouth-watering aroma of vanilla but that is sadly only in my imagination.

After a deep frost these flowers loose substance and flop, hanging lifelessly until warmed by the sun.

The starkness of winter structure exposes simple shapes and patterns working together. This yellowed sword shaped leaf of a Crocosmia cuts dramatically across the curved metal seat back.

Sculptures take on a new life. Our ironwork ferns rimmed with frost particles curls through the whitened grasses in the Stump Garden.

Seating areas look less inviting!

Right down at the bottom of the garden the summerhouse looks sadly at the pool which sits frozen solid at its feet.

Similarly the water in the birdbaths is often frozen. Each morning as I wander down the garden to feed the chucks I take a detour to add warm water to the birdbaths to melt the ice.

Frost decorates ornamental features giving them a new winter look.

Frost highlights the overnight toils of spiders who weave webs around sheds, nest boxes and insect homes.

There is little to harvest in December but we harvest various prunings. Taller thicker branches will be used as bean poles, smaller branches as pea sticks and to support perennials next year, and these spiral willow stems will be part of some sculpture that I am planning. Bamboo prunings will give us our own bamboo canes. Our first real crop of canes! That should save a few air miles!

Whatever the winter has in store for us, we are well-prepared. This pile of hardwood logs, oak and birch, will keep us warm and cosy and its scent of woodlands give a good welcome. And outside the chimenia patiently waits with its own fuel supply for us to venture outside to garden and enjoy a coffee break in the winter sun. Alongside the sculptural fire bowl adds further interest.

And what is happening in our borrowed landscape in December? Sheep seek nourishment in the paddock and provide a little natural fertiliser for the grass, and the wheat fields sadly sits waterlogged, growth at a standstill.

Tags birds, garden photography, garden wildlife, grasses, ornamental trees, roses, winter

garden photography gardening ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs

Bungei and Trichotomum

With those fun words as part of their names these plants have to be special. But what are they? Clerodendrons. This is a species that is represented in our gardens by just a few varieties even though there are about 150 different ones known in the wild, mostly from China and Japan, and they have been in cultivation in Europe for over 250 years. Some can be grown in conservatories and under glass when heated, but Clerodendron bungei and C. trichotomum are the only two reliable for our gardens.

We grow both and enjoy them in several seasons as they have so much to offer. They have interesting foliage, the colours of which vary with the seasons, fine flowers of interesting structure and colours and startling coloured fruits, which all means they have a long season of interest.

The first three photos are of C. trichotomum.

Clerodendron bungei, below, is said by some to smell of peanut butter but by others as smelling of rancid peanut butter or even drains. Perhaps not its best feature!

And what about those two words, bungei and trichotomum? Where do they come from?

Bungei relates to a C19 Russian botanist, Dr Alexander von Bunge and trichotomum means “three branches” but I can’t work out exactly why it is called that.

Tags Clerodendron, garden photography, gardening, shrubs

autumn colours colours garden photography gardening gardens open to the public National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs Powis shrubs

Hydrangeas at The Dingle Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 17, 2012
4 Comments on Hydrangeas at The Dingle Garden

The Hydrangeas at the Dingle Nursery’s Garden shone out in the darker shadier woodland sections. I am a bit particular when it comes to Hydrangeas as I like the delicately shaped and coloured lacecaps but few of the mopheads which I find too blousey. I like individual paniculatas too but again not the blousey ones. In this series of photographs all the Hydrangeas are lacecaps with the exceptions of two which are of a Hydrangea paniculata and one mophead has sneaked in as I just couldn’t believe how bright the blue colour was.

The beauty of the lacecaps is the variety of different shaped and coloured flowers and bracts that appear together on the same shrub.