Breaks in the rain…

Anemone x fulgens Multipetala 1, Oloron Sainte Marie, March 2024

The rain has continued to pour down, bringing flooded fields and a good dollop of soft snow on the tops of the foothills of the Piedmont Pyrenees, which we can just see from the Barn Garden. But this week we have had a few breaks in the rain, and so those doughty plants that are bashing on with spring growth regardless have had a little cheer. Patience is the virtue most required for gardening, but it is essential in Spring. I don’t want to stamp around on soaked soil and compact the life out of it. But the patience part is hard to muster sometimes, I will be frank.

I first saw this Anemone x fulgens Multipetala growing in a big clump in front of a gate in Auriebat, a village a short way away from Tostat, where we used to live. It is a wonderful flaming red when in full flower and I had to dig deep to identify it, plainly an Anemone, but now quite a rare sight. This is one of those plants that was common in farmyards and vineyards in the Southern end of France, but has largely retreated as the countryside has been liberally dosed with pesticides in the last 50 years. So, eventually, I found some seriously pricey bulbs and planted them in a good place in the Tostat garden. They are not speedy growers, and once flowered, they go back underground in the summer, and remain invisible till the next spring. So, when we came to move in the Autumn of 2021 to Oloron Sainte Marie, I had to take a stab at trying to dig them up and bring them, whilst not slicing them in half. Net result, I dug up only about half of my clump. Never mind. I still have some.

The foliage has been emerging since Christmas, and a week ago, the shy flowerheads have started to lift themselves out of the soil. I have them in a pot in the courtyard, so I know where they are. There’s nothing much to see in the early stages, see photo 1, but all will be revealed…

The Barn Garden, Oloron Sainte Marie, March 2024

The Barn Garden is waking up. I love this mix of plants. From the left, you can only just see the bare, but budding branches of Amelanchier alnifolia ‘Obelisk’. I bought these as 6″ weaklings about 10 years ago, and had them in tall cream pots at the back door in Tostat. ‘Obelisk’ is such a great plant, svelte, upright, and doesn’t grow too big for the smallest garden, has lovely bright green foliage, late Spring cream flowers, small dark fruits and autumn colour. I don’t usually get the autumn colour because of summer dryness, but that’s fine. My two plants have greatly appreciated being back in the ground since we moved, and are really liking the Barn Garden.

Next left is a Mahonia eurybracteata ssp. ganpinensis ‘Soft Caress’ and muscling in from behind, a bright green leaved Fatsia polycarpa ‘Green Fingers’. The Mahonias, two of them, came from the Tostat garden and had become a bit tortured in shape from the big conifer that they grew under. I rather like the contorted shape, and they are straightening up a bit now. This is a more elegant, delicate shape than other varieties of Mahonia, and is also not prickly. I am convinced that it’s botanical name has been changed as I could swear it was only half the length the last time I talked about it.

The Fatsia was a bit touch and go for the first couple of years, as the conditions in the Barn garden were not brilliant, but this past year it has begun to motor. Which just goes to show that not disturbing the ground too much, leaving leaves to lie over the winter, basically giving the process time, and also leaving little weeds to grow and then letting them decompose, is what helps soil to recover. That is a very good use of patience. You can see I have not yet got to pulling the little weed population, but they will be left where they are.

The dry grass that has kept such a good shape through the winter is Pennisteum ‘Black Beauty’, another plant that took time to settle in. But it is now settled, as I potted up a couple of babies in the Autumn for the first time. Tostat was too dry for Pennisetum, but it’s just fine here. Those flowerheads get darker and more striking as the plant matures. The short spikey plants in the foreground are Dianella tasmanica ‘Little Rev’. These have never flowered for me, but this could be due to the tree cover that leans over, reducing the sun reaching the plants. But I like them for their stiff spikiness anyway.

The heucheras are the last thing to mention- survivors of a vine weevil attack when in pots, they are a really great plant, though I admit not being a fan of some of the more outrageously coloured varieties being developed now. These, I think, are Heuchera ‘Caramel’ and I love the apricot tones of the foliage. I split them every now and then, and just poke them in where I have a gap as they are tough and very obliging. A workhorse plant that I used to be sniffy about.

Aspidistra ‘Asahi’ and trimmed Muehlenbeckia grandiflora or complexa, Oloron Sainte Marie, March 2024

I bought a tiny, dried up pot of Muehlenbeckia grandiflora or complexa a few years back, and just stuck it in a better pot. Two years later, and it was in a tall pot, beautifully tumbling with it’s twiggy, tangled growth and it seemed to love wherever it was put. Some sites say it needs sun, mine, just after it’s pruning last week, will soon be doing the tumbling thing and it is pretty much in semi-shade. It does lose leaves in the winter, but they are already popping back as you can see. I like the airy look of it next to the Aspidistra ‘Asahi’.

Anemone 2, Oloron Sainte Marie, March 2024

Here is the Anemone four days later, just beginning to paint itself with colour.

Yellow cerinthe, self-seeded, Barn Garden, Oloron Sainte Marie, March 2024

I love Cerinthe. I do like the blue, but I adore the yellow. Yellow is such a good spring colour. These were grown from seed last year and have self-seeded this year. So, I will need to grow some more for next year as they probably won’t make it back for a third year.

Salix gracilistyla melanostachys ‘Kurome’, Oloron Sainte Marie, March 2024

Last year, I went a bit mad and ending up buying two Salix gracilistyla melanostachys or ‘Kurome’. It was knd of a mistake, but having got myself into that, I bit the bullet and they are both in the shady corner of the courtyard in big pots. These may get very big so I am going to be doing salix pruning to keep them manageable. This is the first catkin, and I am very excited. I tought it would be blacker but on close examination, it is more of a dark cranberry colour with almost chocolate coloured fringing. Imagine that on a sizable shrub. Great Spring drama.

Anemone 3, Oloron Sainte Marie, a week later than 1, March 2024

The cold has slowed the Anemone down, so it will be next week before we get full colour. Can you wait?

A mild mania…

Beatrix Farrand c. 1890s, photo credit: www.wikipedia.org

Beatrix Farrand, 1943, photo credit: www.beatrixfarrandsociety.org

Utterly biblical rain for nearly a week, the ground, even in the garrigue garden, is drenched and squelching- it is not to be touched or worked on and so indoors I have been. And so the mind turns to…’a mild form of mania’, as the ground-breaking American landscape gardener, Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959), said of herself in her young years. She was describing her young self as she battled to find a foothold in the entirely male echelons of landscape gardening and architecture. Of which more in a bit.

I have been reading Sandra Lawrence’s excellent book about Ellen Willmott (1858-1934), which is written with passion and verve underpinned by exhaustive reseach and scholarship- a great combination of skills. And I was struck by how many threads interconnected Ellen and Beatrix’s lives even though 14 years separated their births and they never met.

Ellen Wilmott c1900, photo credit: www.wikipedia.org

Ellen was born in 1858 and Beatrix Farrand in 1872, so that their lives really did straddle the two centuries when landscape design and gardening emerged into the limelight. Even though only 14 years separated their births, in some ways, Beatrix became what Ellen was unable to be- by her thirties, she was forging a fully independent professional life as a landscape gardener, having been a founder member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the first female admitted to membership.

Lime Walk, Biddulph Grange, UK, 2014

I had briefly touched on them both as significant women bridging the 19th and 20th centuries when I did the garden history section of my design diploma, but I have really enjoyed the last few days of research imposed by the weather, and so you are now getting the full effect of it, dear reader. I have ordered the revised edition of Judith Tankard’s biography of Beatrix, so my mild mania continues.

I was reminded of Beatrix way back in 2014-5, when I visited Biddulph Grange, you can follow the link for that connection in my head. Beatrix Farrand was very partial to English Ivy as groundcover, especially if gently sculpted as at Biddulph Grange in the UK. At Dumbarton Oaks, her huge Georgetown, Washington DC project, today the team are largely replacing the ivy as it has proved to be too invasive, as can be seen in the Prunus Walk, where the underplanting is now based on epimediums.

Prunus walk, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC, photo credit: The Gardener’s Eye blogspot

But let’s start with their early lives. Both were born into wealth. Ellen lived most of her life with an inconceivable extravagance backing her many talents and interests, from fashion to antiques, from woodworking tools to photography, from plants, funding important plant hunting expeditions and creating huge personal gardening projects across three countries. In a way, Ellen never grasped or accepted the limits of her wealth, and in the Victorian age, there was no professional exit for her which might have taught her that.

Beatrix also came from ‘Gilded Age’ wealth, and an incredibly useful network of wealthy connections, but she knew the social and financial price of failure as a young teenager when her parents scandalously divorced, and perhaps this fired the engine of her determination to make her professional life create independence.

Both women were very skilled at keeping contact, and deep friendships with other influential and significant plantspeople, botanists, scientists and others- importantly, they were able to inspire mentoring, encouragement, sometimes a little manipulation from powerful male colleagues and mentors. Both, for instance, were significantly prompted and supported by Charles Sprague Sargeant, the Director of Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum in Boston, a botanical titan of the late nineteenth century. Beatrix met him through family connections, and despite the fact that professional education and training in gardening and landscape was still closed to women, he invited Beatrix to study and train with him. He supported her in her first tentative steps in taking paid commissions and encouraged her to travel in Europe, to study great works of art and broaden her experience and contacts.

Charles Sprague Sargeant, photo credit: www.wikipedia.org

Around the same time, Ellen had started a regular and detailed correspondence with Sargeant in which she discussed her gardening projects, plant development work, her botanical successes and experience in plant propagation and her interest in plant-hunting in China in particular. Sargeant was quick to realise that Ellen could provide both money and professional partnership for plant and seed collecting expeditions, and together they were instrumental in making happen, amongst others, Ernest Wilson’s groundbreaking expeditions to China. Ellen became reknowned for her skill in germinating seed sent back by Wilson from these expeditions.

Ernest Wilson, his wife Nellie and their daughter, Muriel Primrose c1910, photo credit: www.plantexplorers.com

Whilst in England in 1895 on her travels, Beatrix was tremendously inspired by meeting the very old William Robinson and also Gertrude Jekyll. Robinson’s work in relaxing the rigid frame of acceptable Victorian gardening style and fostering native and perennial plants in more natural combinations in sympathy with the prevailing Arts and Crafts movement was a great inspiration. Similarly, visiting Jekyll at Munstead Wood introduced her to thinking of painting with plants in coloured drifts.

By the same year, 1895, Ellen’s photographs were regularly published in Robinson’s famed periodical ‘The Garden’. Despite his advancing years, William Robinson was the only horticultural publisher who saw the immense potential of photography as a selling point- and Ellen, by now an exceptionally skilled photographer, was a key contributor. She had already created her immense and extremely well received rock garden for her huge alpine collection at Warley Place, her childhood home, and was busy developing her garden at Tresserve near Aix-les-Bains in the Savoie region of France. She was two years away from being recognised by the Royal Horticultural Society, with Gertrude Jekyll, as the first two women to receive the society’s highest honour, the Victoria Medal of Honour

Two years after the RHS honoured Ellen in 1897, Beatrix set up her business in her mother’s house in New York on her return from the Europe trip, and over the next four years, she built her business as a landscape gardener, culminating in her work being honoured by the becoming the first founding woman member of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1899.

After 1899, their lives moved in different directions. Beatrix continued working with enormous professionalism and diligence, often criss-crossing the US by train to supervise work projects, working with her secretary alongside, during the journeys. She completed more than 200 garden projects, with, perhaps, her most enduring legacy being the gardens at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC.

Ellen, by now the developer of three exceptional gardens, Warley Place in the UK, Tresserve in France, and Boccanegra in Italy, had also never quite realised that her money, once a bottomless purse, would run out, and the last part of her life was spent frantically, and unsuccessfully, trying to manage the debt. The only garden that we can now see of hers, is Boccanegra in Italy, which has been painstakingly restored by the current owners, Guido Piacenza and Ursula Salghetti Drioli. She was born before her time in a way, and is only now being remembered as the supremely talented garden maker and plantsperson that she undoubtedly was.

Villa Boccanegra, Italy, May 2018, photo credit: http://www.iwcp.gardeninggroup.blogspot.com

Rosa ‘La Follette’, Villa Boccanegra, planted by Ellen, May 2018, photo credit: www.iwcp.gardeninggroup.blogspot.com

Beatrix Farrand is better remembered and her legacy can be seen in several gardens, including the iconic Dumbarton Oaks, and her papers and designs are largely intact and kept at the University of California in Berkeley.

Curiously enough, we owe it to Beatrix Farrand that Gertrude Jekyll’s collected papers were saved for posterity. Beatrix bought the collection in 1948 for her own enjoyment and then donated the Jekyll documents along with many records of her own work to Berkeley.

Two small memories of Beatrix: The Sunken Garden, below, was created from Beatrix’s design after her death, and the small but lovely Terrace at Garden Farm, has recently been restored. Garden Farm was Beatrix’s last home.

Hill-Stead Museum, the Sunken Garden, Farmington, Connecticut US, photo credit: Smithsonian

Original Farrand planting plan for the Sunken Garden, photo credit: www.hillstead.org

Garland Farm Terrace, Maine, US, photo credit: https://luannyetter.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/beatrixs-garden/

Detailed plan of Farrand Terrace Garden planting made in 1962 by Mary Alice Roche, photo credit: www.beatrixfarrandsociety.org

Just…and nearly…

Crocus ‘Orange Monarch’, Oloron Sainte Marie, February 2024

February is the month for ‘just’ and ‘nearly’. The days are lengthening, with light until about 1845 depending on the day, and this, plus some suspiciously warm days, after buckets of rain, is conning quite a few plants to give it a go. Not altogether wise, but they are wired to work to the conditions, so precocious Spring activity is starting early. Last April, we had a night of slushy snow and hail, so they had better watch out. But I love to see first shoots and the bulbs that can be early, like the Crocus. This is the only orange Crocus, aptly called ‘Orange Monarch’, it’s a newish variety whichI tried last year, but got nothing at all from a potful of bulbs. This year’s bulbs come from the brilliant Cathy Portier in Belgium, and have flowered, albeit they are tiny flowers. Also, they really are much more orange than the photograph suggests!

Unknown hellebore, very pretty with a ruffled centre in lime-green, Oloron Sainte Marie, February 2024

The thing about hellebores is that they mostly protect their flowers by holding them downwards. So you either cup them with your hand, or lie down full length and look up. I myself like my hellebores cream or white, and fairly simple in flowering terms, so this pretty lime-green ruff is about as fancy as I want my hellebores to be. There are breeders going nuts with very fancy flowers and also varieties that hold the flowers up. But I like them like this.

Helleborus x hybridus ‘Mrs Betty Rannicar’ photo credit: www.pepinieresdemoinet.com

But ‘Mrs Betty Rannicar’ is a new one for me, and is, shocking for me, a double! Or maybe triple or quadruple, but otherwise she is quite plain. Apparently a prodigious flowerer, she was discovered by an Australian breeder, John Dudley, who handpollinated Betty as a stock plant for developing his new double strains at his Tasmanian nursery. Betty never quite took off as a variety in the UK, but I think she’s a bit of a gem in her own right, and I will be watching her closely to see how she does.

Just flowering, Euphorbia myrsinites, Oloron Sainte Marie, February 2024

The first Euphorbia to burst out was this great, stringy, crawling plant, one of my favourites in the ‘garrigue’ garden at the front. Euphorbia myrsinites really is a sprawler, so rocks or border edges are best for it, but the zingy yellow is a knockout.

Salix gracilistyla ‘Mount Aso’, Oloron Sainte Marie, February 2024

I adore this Salix. But I nearly killed it off last year. The first year in Oloron suited it fine, and I was congratulating myself at growing a thirsty Salix in a garden that I don’t water at all. Fast forward a year and a bit, and I realised that I was indulging in plant torture. It was seriously not happy and produced no lovely pink catkins at all. So out it came, into a pot, and into a shady corner of the courtyard where I do water pots in the summer. By October, it had shot out several very happy looking stems which were reaching for the sky, and this February we have the return of these sumptuous raspberry coloured catkins. So it will stay in a pot, and I will just let it get to it’s approximate 2-3 metres tall at the max. It will give that shady corner a bit of a green-over in the summer months. People cut the catkins for Valentine bouquets, but leave them on, they will last longer and create more joy on the plant than off.

Colletia cruciata, Oloron Sainte Marie, February 2024

Colletia cruciata has to be the spikiest plant ever, and what’s more, it even carries two kinds of spike, the ones you can see in the photograph and then, as well, other more fern-like foliage which carries…well, smaller, thinner spikes. I have planted it in the front garden, in the corner produced by our surrounding drystone walls, and a good 2m away from the bench that we often sit on to have cups of tea in good weather. So we should be fine, and not be spiked. I shall simply hope that it likes it there, and that we get the tiny fragrant flowers in the summer. It will be my equivalent of the Victorian monkey puzzle tree.

Just flowering Cornus mas, Oloron Sainte Marie, February 2024

My Cornus mas is doing fine. It was a mere twig when I planted it 3 years ago and now, it’s just over a metre high and wide. Last year we had maybe 4 or 5 of these brilliantly yellow flowers, which smell gorgeous if you get right down onto them. This year, 2 big stems have the fat buds followed by the flower breaking through. No fruits yet, but you have to be patient.

Just appearing, new growth on Melianthus major, Oloron Sainte Marie, February 2024

Myriam, our lovely neighbour, gave me a big piece of what she called ‘the peanut butter bush’ or ‘Melianthus major’, and I was delighted, as this had been a plant I had had two shots at growing in Tostat, but both had failed. So, third time lucky, and last year it really did well and this year, joy of joys, there is already new growth on it- and this despite that fact that I moved it at the end of Autumn. I hadn’t picked the best spot the first time around, and it had been fairly sat upon when the Colquohounia coccinea got decked to 45° by the July storms. So, I have moved it so that it has the drystone wall behind it, which should help it hopefully this year.

A big clump of very frilly, double orange hemerocallis was inherited when we moved to Oloron. They flower just outside the front gate, and are much beloved by passers-by, so much so that the flowers are regularly picked! So, despite my great support for human enthusiasm expressed in almost any way, I dug them up and have moved them into the Barn Garden, and at the same time, I split the big clump into smaller chunks, and have popped them in around and about. So maybe this year, I’ll get to see some of them!

Just appearing, unknown but gorgeous double orange Hemerocallis in new spot, Oloron Sainte Marie, February 2024

Let’s hear it for the daughters…

Rosa ‘Ellen Willmott’ photo credit: www.trevorwhiteroses.co.uk

I am delighted to tell you that I have finally, after hours of internet searching, found a nursery, Pepiniere Roses Loubert here in France, which stocks, in bare-root, Rosa ‘Ellen Wilmott’. I spent hours looking but I could have found it straightaway on the helpful back tabs of the rose history website, www.helpmefind.com.

Silly me. So this is typical plant-nut behaviour. I get interested in something, a plant or a person, and then I go on the hunt- and invariably, this all ends with a plant purchase. So, here is a short synopsis of the story. I wrote a blog post about Ellen Wilmott (1858-1934) in 2017. I was really struck by her life and reputation, which at the time, seemed to me to be a case of the largely male horticultural world branding a clever woman as mad and reckless. Gertrude Jekyll, her contemporary, on the other hand, regarded Ellen as ‘the greatest of living women gardeners’. Enough said. I rest my case with Miss Jekyll. 

Last year’s new book on Ellen Willmott, has expanded the story. Finding Ellen’s letters and papers, Sandra Lawrence has been able to correct, very probably, much of the tone of the discussion about Ellen. Ellen suffered a terrible personal tragedy when the love of her life, Gian Tuffnell, walked away from her to marry an elderly Lord George Mount Stephen. This break-up coincided with the award ceremony for Ellen’s receipt of the prestigious RHS Victoria Medal in 1897- and in her distress, Ellen ran away to France, never attending the ceremony. This was a public shock that she would never recover from, though, of course, the real reason for her disappearance was never known. For more about the discovery of this story follow this link.

So back to the rose. Three roses were bred to celebrate Ellen. The first was bred by Bernaix in 1898, a Hybrid tea and the second, in 1917, was another tea rose, ‘Miss Wilmott’ by Sam McGredy. The third, ‘Ellen Willmott’ was bred by William Archer and Daughter in 1936, two years after Ellen’s death. 

Stop a moment. Yes, William Archer’s nursery business was called ‘William Archer and Daughter’. What a surprise. In the 1920s, Muriel Archer and her dad, William, were jointly in business together and they recognised this by trading as ‘William Archer and Daughter’. 

Both the connection to Ellen herself, and the redoubtable Muriel Archer and her Dad, were far too intriguing to me as a plant-nut….and then I saw the rose, see top picture. Open, generous, single therefore good for pollinators, shell pink tint to a creamy colouring, and then those dark pink eyelash stamens. Oh my. Bred by crossing Rosa ‘Dainty Bess’ and ‘Lady Hillingdon’, it has great parentage and such a good back story.

And oddly enough, only 6 months ago I had bought a Rosa ‘Dainty Bess’. Also bred by the Archer team, and named for Muriel’s mum, Elizabeth, it became a very hot seller and remain so to this day. You can see the parental influences if you compare both photographs. Thank you, to Trevor White, for the excellent photographs. I would have bought both roses from Trevor White were it not now impossible to export to France, thanks Brexit.

Rosa ‘Dainty Bess’ photo credit: www.trevorwhiteroses.co.uk

Rosa ‘La Belle Sultane’, Oloron Sainte Marie, May 2023

So both roses will be planted in the Barn Garden against the stone wall, and they will be accompanied by Rosa ‘La Belle Sultane’ a cutting from the parent plant across the way. ’La Belle Sultane’ is an earlier rose from the end of the eighteenth century, possibly bred in the Netherlands, but will create a darker pink mood alongside ‘Ellen’ and ‘Bess’. I’m going to underplant them with Indigofera kirolowii, some other as yet undecided bits and bobs, and weave in a bit of Pennisetum for a bit of waftiness. It’ll be my ‘Archer Daughter’ corner.

Many thanks to, and for further information on ‘William Archer and Daughter’ please see: 

‘Singularly Beautiful Single Roses’ in Fall 2010 Deep South District of the American Rose Society edited by Stephen Hoy

The power of four…or three…

Fresh from the fleece, Abutilon pictum, January 2024

Well, this is the power of ‘One’. From underneath the fleece protecting it from the last 10 days of colder nights, there emerged just one brave little flower on the Abutilon pictum. Strangely, the cold conditions seem to have affected the colouring, a much stronger paprika orange than usual and darker red veining. It was a lso a bit of a midget, but I’m not complaining, it remains something of a miracle. I have always known this plant as Abutilon pictum, ‘Thompsonii’ being the variegated version.

Libertia ixioides ‘Goldfinger’, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

Three years ago I bought three twiglet sized cuttings of this fabulous Libertia ixioides ‘Goldfinger’ to Oloron when we moved, and now, albeit slowly, they are gently beginning to run under the old cherry tree in the front garden. This is their season when the low sunlight brings the gold colouring to life. Such a good and obliging plant, it never disturbs another plant, it just sort of glides by, and the baby plants are easy to gently dig out and put them where you want them.

Well, this is the power of three or it will be, in the summer. Last year I potted up six small Kniphofia rooperi plants that I had grown from seed sown 3 years ago. I had hoped they might flower last summer, but no. Reading one or two blogs about Kniphofia, several writers suggested moving them, that the stimulus of being disturbed might egg them on to flower. So this morning, they were duly removed, split and replanted in the hummocky grass slope above the vines in the front garden. It’s stony, so I hoiked out (a good Scots word for ‘digging’) the big stones, leaving the little ones for drainage and planted them in threes, about 0.5 m apart from one another as I am going for a ‘clump’. We’ll see if this recipe will work…

Newly planted Kniphofia rooperi, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

Back in Tostat, I was a bit of a ‘one plant’ queen. Which is fine, but planting in threes or fours creates a companionable proximity for the plants and scientists now acknowledge that plants like to be together. Threes or fours means you’re heading towards a clump, which is exactly what my brain likes nowadays. Patterns, rhythms, connections and contrasts really work for me now, they didn’t so much when I was younger.

Euonymus japonicus ‘Benkomasaki’ and Agave americana, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

This is a contrast that I love, and whilst this photograph shows only one plant of my top favourite sculptural evergreens, Euonymus japonicus ‘Benkomasaki‘, this is one of a trio planted at the edge of the Agave americana zone. I have had this Euonymus for, mmm, maybe 7 years, and I absolutely love it. It is so tough and so verdant all year round, with tight, cuticled, glossy deep green leaves and it makes a great silhouette in the garden. I bought mine very small, maybe only 10cms high, and they are now maybe 75 cms, so they don’t grow fast, but because of that, to buy them at 75 cms is an expensive business. So I would recommend buying them small and being patient. 

In the intervening years I have taken several cuttings too, which means that very slowly and surely, you will have more. They take months to root, so best to put them outside in a semi shady spot, water now and then and look at them a year later. There are new varieties, variously called ‘Green Spire’, ‘Green Tower’ and others, but I am not sure if it is the same plant with the same growth habit. It is a wonderful contrast with the glaucous blue-green of the Agave.

Anisodontea ‘El Rayo’, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

Jimi Blake of the famous Hunting Brook Gardens in Ireland raved about ‘El Rayo’ and that was enough for me to buy two plants. Many UK sites talk about rich soil conditions for Anisodontea- don’t do that! They really love poor, stony soil in full sun and need no extra watering at all. The downside of this preference is that they are shallow-rooted and so get a good bashing in our summer storms. But with a bit of spring pruning, they bounce back and are not that big that a 45 degree tilt is a massive problem. They flower like trains, sometimes having a few weeks off from flowering in hot summers, but even in the winter, they are dotted with these deep pink flowers. 

Anisodontea capensis, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

This is the species plant, Anisodontea capensis, which is also really really good. It has smaller shell pink flowers but the same prodigious flowering almost all year round as ‘El Rayo’. I have two of each in the garrigue style garden in the front, and did I mention that cuttings take so quickly that you need never fear being without one.

Lomandra longifolia ‘Tanika’, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

I had tried another variety of Lomandra in Tostat, and really liked it for it’s spikey stubborness. But this plant has found the garrigue garden hard going, and so, even after nearly 3 years, it only looks good in the spring. So, it maybe I will give it another year, and if it hasn’t finally got going, it may be found a better home in the Barn Garden.

Ophiopogon japonicus, Barn Garden, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

However, this robust little Mondo grass, Ophiopogon japonicus, is going to be a real ‘do-er’, I can tell. I bought 4 plants, and when they arrived, they were busting out of their pots. Sometimes at this time of year, nurseries sell plants that are desperate to be re-potted but haven’t been- so lucky me, I got 12 good sized chunks out of the 4 rumbunctiuous plants I received, and they are in the ground and looking great. This is the green version of the black Japanese grass that is often seen on gardening programmes. I will eat my hat if these don’t come good.

Group of Ophiopogon japonicus newly planted, Barn Garden, January 2024

And here they are- in a group of four.

Beyond Gracie Fields…

Aspidistra and bottle on the table, painted by FCB Cadell mid 1920s- photo credit: National Galleries of Scotland http://www.nationalgalleries.org

By the time Francis Cadell, the Scottish colourist painter, painted this potted Aspidistra, framed against his famous red chair in the mid 20s, the poor old Aspidistra was pretty much regarded as ‘very old hat’ by anyone in the know. From being the houseplant of choice in any home that had a houseplant, the Aspidistra was firmly out of fashion, George Orwell mocked it, Gracie Fields laughed about it in a song, and it has never recovered it’s pole position since then. Staying at a friend’s house in Nottingham about 6 years ago, I saw a strong and healthy collection of interesting plants thriving in a dark and shady passageway to the back of the house, and wondered what they were. Aspidistras.

The Aspidistra was first recorded in the ‘Botanic Register’ in 1822 by John Bellenden Ker and is thought to have been found in China, but the plant that appeared a decade or so later was the Aspidistra elatior from Japan, and this became the dominant plant of the Victorian era, because of it’s tolerance of gas lighting fumes, cold and darkness. The Cadell painting captures the elegant fall of the big leaves and what I think is a very dramatic presence as a plant, whether in a pot indoors or planted in the garden. I was so struck by the Nottingham planting that I bought two which I initially grew in pots near our house in Tostat. When we moved to Oloron, I reckoned it was worth a shot to plant them straight into the Barn Garden, which is wet in the winter and dry in the summer, with semi-shade beneath the overhang of neighbouring trees. We don’t get really cold nights in winter, so far anyway, down to about -4C max, and they are planted in the lea of a 3m old wall on both sides.

I’m with James Wong on Aspidistra, they may be slow-growing but they are seriously tough, even in colder temperatures than we experience in Oloron, and in my view, really attractive. There are so many great new varieties, with spots, with variegation and slim, elegant leaves as well. Right now, there are good amateur growers on ebay too, I have just bought 2 bareroot plants of ‘Asahi’ to extend the planting in the Barn Garden.

Seeing them in the rain really brings out the glossiness and elegance of the leaves too. In the photographs taken this morning in a shower, I love the strong white streak on ‘Asahi’, and this years leaves on ‘Elatior’ also show a slight cream variegation, which is more subtle but attractive too. Both my plants are just shy of a metre tall and wide and will continue to broaden out. ’Asahi’ is also planted right next to the stump of the Paulonia tomentosa. This was not a good idea probably, but they seem to be fine together, and as the Paulonia is practically felled each early winter, this may be why. 

Aspidistra elatior, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

Aspidistra elatior Asahi, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

Another evergreen favourite is Aucuba japonica salicifolia longiflora, which has been slowly settling into the Barn Garden since Autumn 2022. Slim, elegant leaves are glossily green and it holds itself well even as a relatively young plant. It’s a far cry from my childhood memories of spotted laurel hedges surrounding big old houses in Bristol, which I always thought to be very sinister, the Sherlock Holmes fan that I was. Not that I am averse to a spotted laurel now, I had three vibrantly yellow/cream spotted laurels in the Stumpery in Tostat, which I grew very fond of.

Aucuba japonica longifolia salicifolia, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

Against the stone wall in the Barn Garden there were various established clumps of Calla Lilies, Zantedeschia aethiopia, which I initally left in on the ‘why not’ principle. But they really love it there, and whilst their big floppy leaves and white flowers are good value, they have become quite thuggish and were shoving other plants out of the way. So they are all out now, with some recycled to the front garden. 

And, in the quite a big space once occupied by the Callas, I have planted my two 2.5 year old Euphorbia mellifera babies and an unusual Berberis that I fell for, Berberis insolita, bought from a great shade nursery here in France, Pepiniere Aoba. But being small, there is quite a bit of open ground which I would like to cover in a shortish, interesting groundcover, whilst they get going. So I am trying out two plants, Ophiopogon japonicus and Chrysogonum virginianum.  Both should provide tufty groundcover and allow the main plants to have some neighbours without being overpowered. Not to mention a couple of ebay Aspidistra ‘Ashai’ to give a bit of presence…we will see!

Berberis insolita photo credit: http://www.pepiniere-aoba.com

It’s a New Year….

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Orange Beauty’, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

I love a New Year. January may not be the most appealing month weather-wise but the sense of a new start is irresistible to me, and there are just a few things happening in the garden which feed the energy even when the light is low. I had always wanted to grow a Hamamelis, and thought that the Barn Garden could work for it. I bought a baby one, ‘Orange Beauty’, and planted it in. 10 months later and I knew the experiment had hit the rocks- the Barn Garden is far drier than I had thought through too much of the summer and into the autumn, so ‘Orange Beauty’ came out and has been in a pot in the shadier part of the courtyard where human watering does take place. A fair bit of sulking went on, but 2 years later, it is motoring, throwing out long whippy branches (which means a bigger pot) which hold great promise for flowering next Spring. And meantime, on last year’s growth, the orange peel flowers look magnificent.

Below is a little oddity. I was given a tiny bit of this last summer by Bernard Lacrouts of the wonderful nursery at Sanous near old house in 65. He showed me his pretty sizeable plant in his dry border, and suggested I try it as a good bomb-proof plant for tough conditions. I agree with him. This level of glossy green, upright foliage in January is fairly wonderful, and so I recommend Teucrium chamaedrys to you for a sunny, poor soil spot. So far, it is not wandering unlike Teucrium fruticans, which I love but it loves me too much.

Teucrium chaemadrys, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

All 3 of my, believe it or not, nearly three year old seedlings of Senna artemisoides have come through a frosty period outside without a blemish. The biggest one, below, is now about 8 inches tall, and I live in hope.

Senna artemisoides, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

Rosa ‘Perle d’Or’ had a difficult start in the garden, having been heavily sat upon by other bigger plants brought down in our July storms. And I wasn’t paying attention. But, in the nick of time, I rescued it and it went into a convalescent pot, from where it has thrown out new shoots and flowers with abandon. It will go back into the garden. I am going to take out the Mirabilis jalapa tubers, and replant them in the front garden next month, and this will make space for ‘Perle d’Or’, Rosa ‘Dainty Bess’, new to me but looks good, and a cutting taken from Rosa ‘La Belle Sultane’. I am trying out a lowish creeping (slowly I hope) Indigofera kirilowii as well around the roses. Always work in progress…

Rosa ‘Perle d’Or’, Oloron Sainte Marie, January 2024

And rethinking and reimagining brings a lot of energy and focus to the garden without even being in it much. So that’s how the New Year is shaping up.

The magic of research… and chance…

Agave americana, Tostat, July 2018

I probably spend more time looking at and researching plants than I do buying them, planting, propagating them or gardening with them- if I am honest. I was reminded of this on reading the latest instalment of Dan Pearson’s blog about creating his new sand garden at his home. Some gardeners who write have a very florid style, maybe in my own small way I do! But Dan Pearson is a thoughtful, honest and very straightforward blog writer, whose intention, it seems to me, is to convey the whole truth about the way that he gardens and why. I love the calmness of it, and the acceptance that knowledge is no guarantee of perfection. Once a plant is taken into our world, we can’t know exactly how it will react or behave. We take knowlege on trust, but there is always chance- and risk, not neccessarily in balance either.

But it is still worth developing knowledge and learning from experience and the stories of other gardeners. Very much so. What helps me is watching what happens and deciding if intervention is needed – or not. Sometimes time is all that’s needed. Take my Agave americana in the front garden, on the stony, garrigue-inspired slope. It is a baby of my original Agave in Tostat, given by a friend in the Languedoc. So, I planted it only 3 years ago, and already it is more than 1.5m tall and wide, with several offspring plants nestling nearby. It clearly likes it. I have done nothing except watch and wait.

Daughter Agave and daughters, Oloron Sainte Marie, November 2023

It’s the same story with my groundcover planting of Achillea crithmifolia. Three years ago, planting out my still baby Koelreuteria paniculata ‘Coral Sun’ and not far away, a new baby Rosa x odorata ‘Mutabilis’, I wanted to protect them from the miles of marauding bramble and bindweed that we were attacking with vigour. Reading about the use of allelopathic plants, those that secrete substances that deter other competing plants, I picked Achillea crithmifolia as low growing, aromatic, feathery foliage plant that does brilliantly in tough conditions. I had tried it out in Tostat in a limited area,a nd had been impressed, as well as liking the Achillea as a plant in its own right. I think I started off with eight plants in a ring round the rose and the tree. Three years later, you can see how well it has gently carpetted the area, giving the tree and the rose room to grow.

Achillea crithmifolia, Oloron Sainte Marie, November 2023

It also has spread considerably, which I am really enjoying, though that might be a drawback to consider if you have limited space. The Achillea doesn’t seem to bother the lovely floppy velvety leaves of Stachys byzantina ‘Big Ears’ either. It is not widely available in the UK, but is really worth a try. Dan Pearson is doing the same with it in his new garden, see the blog article above.

Stachys byzantina ‘Big Ears’ and Achillea crithmifolia cohabiting nicely, Oloron Sainte Marie, November 2023

Some plants love where they have been planted so miuch that they really go mad. This would be true of what I bought as a charming, small leaved Phlomis, Phlomis lanata ‘Pygmy’. The clue was in the name, I thought, and so it was for the first 2 years, a very sweet little hummock of Phlomis. It is still very sweet, but is breaking the 1m barrier in every direction and shows no sign of slowing down.

Phlomis lanata ‘Pygmy’, not so much a pygmy, Oloron Sainte Marie, November 2023

Our conditions can be quite harsh, hot sun, little rain for long periods and damp, even wet winters into Spring. I had taken three small cuttings of Hydrangea quercifolia from the Tostat garden, and they have been slow to get going, with not much happening for the first two years. But they are clearly well rooted in now to our stony soil, and this year looks to be the making of them. I love them even more for the effort.

Hydrangea quercifolia, 3 yr old cutting from Tostat, Oloron Sainte Marie, November 2023

In the Barn Garden, another plant that I have watched and waited for is Fatsia polycarpa ‘Green Fingers’. It was a newish introduction so there wasn’t a lot of information about it three years ago. And it did struggle getting into the shady, poor soil spot that I had put it in. But, three years on, this has been the year when it has turbo charged itself, and is now taller than the companion Mahonia with very cumbersome name, Mahonia eurybracteata subsp. ganpinensis ‘Soft Caress’ next to it. It has a wonderful form, with tiers of arching, jazz hands leaves in a good green.

Fatsia polycarpa ‘Green Fingers’ and Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’, Oloron Sainte Marie, November 2023

I tried to buy another ‘Green Fingers’ last year but couldn’t find one, so went for the more usual variety, ‘Spider’s Web’. This is in a worse spot soil-wise, but a better spot light-wise, and seems to have gone for the big spread look in one year only. I quite like that it’s not too creamy at the edges.

Fatsia japonica ‘Spiders Web’, Oloron Sainte Marie, November 2023

Now this is a vital stone. Last winter I noticed that a low branch of Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’ was brushing the ground, so just thought I would have a go at getting that branch to root by weighing it down with a stone. Nine months later, the Assistant Gardener went home with a rooted cutting which should make a bonny plant in a few more months. So I am having another go with the vital stone.

Time, chance and a bit of knowledge combined.

The vital stone….

Juggling with the climate…

Colquhounia coccinea, Oloron Sainte Marie, September 2023

Every season or so, I run out of puff on the blog front. It’s a strange business blogging. You are, of course, largely talking to yourself, unless you have very vociferous readers, and you can end up boring yourself. So I am back after having well and truely bored myself for the last three months! It was only a few moments ago that I suddenly thought, ‘I could write something right now’ and thus the boredom was vanquished.

So, this article is about the turning of the season, and what’s popping into my head, and being delivered for next year now. The Colquhounia coccinea has been absolutely magnificent this year, now in it’s 4th year, but…incredibly strong summer winds forced it into an amost 45 degree position, and brought it very close to throttling the rest of the planting in front of it. It is such a good late summer into autumn flowerer, though honestly not an oil painting otherwise as it has such a straggly form. So what to do?

Eventually I took drastic action. I have reduced it in size to just over a metre all round from what was nearly a 3m shrub, and am hoping to persuade Andy to make a couple of super-sized rebar supports for it, with which I plan to pin it back closer to the wall next Spring. It’s a judgement call doing a prune like this in the Autumn, but I reckoned it was too susceptible to root rock with inevitable winter and spring winds, and also I needed to rethink what to plant in front of it. So time will tell.

So, among the plants it had brought down with it were Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Henrik Eilers’ and Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’. Both are yellow flowerers, and I have a very soft spot for yellow, and do interesting things when they flower. ‘Henrik Eilers’ is tall and wafty, with delicate quill shaped petals, and ‘Fireworks’ does what it says on the tin, flowering like a firework in delicate, arching sprays. Both, for my money, the best in class.

Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Henrik Eilers’ and Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’, Oloron Sainte Marie, September 2023

As you can see, both were working their way to the horizontal from the pressure of the Colquhounia. One of them had to go to give the other one more of a chance, assuming that the rebar manages to control the Colquhounia. So the Solidago, already reforming itself into a nice clump for next year, is to be replanted in the front garden, as it is a real favourite of mine.

I have taken another risk, and replanted a Daphne ‘Eternal Fragrance’ that was too far into the shade and was busily contorting itself. Daphnes don’t like being moved. I know that, but it makes such a good, dense, rounded shrub that I wanted to give it another try in a sunnier position at the very front of the Colquhounia area. I moved it a week ago, we have had mild temperatures and a lot of rain, and so far it is looking perfectly fine. Phew. It flowers almost all year round, and though a slow grower, the other one that I have, bought at the same time, is now a well rounded Im bush. The flowers are exquisite and beautifully scented, the photograph below is of my pink one in Tostat.

Daphne ‘Eternal Fragrance’, Tostat, January 2019

There are always one or two casualties, or near casualties, at the end of a hard summer season. The Skimmia japonica ‘Kew White’ that looked so good last Spring was yellowing and looking very fed up. Fearing the return of the dreaded vine weevil, I dug it up and checked the roots- all fine, fortunately. So the likeliest reason is lack of water, and as we are more neutral than acidic, maybe we are too neutral for it. Not sure which, but I have moved it back into the shadier section, under a Mahonia, and as a temporary first aid measure, bulked up the soil with ericaceous compost. Another time will tell situation.

Skimmia japonica ‘Kew White’, just planted, Oloron Sainte Marie, November 2022

Only partial sun and tree cover also tortured my Physocarpus ‘Diable d’Or’. Physocarpus is such a good shrub, good shape, great spring colour in the new leaves, pretty viburnum-like flowers and then, depending on conditions, great autumn colour, and generally as tough as old boots. So, they have also been trimmed back, lifted and will find a new home in the front garden.

And, nothing if not living dangerously, I am replacing them with two Euphorbia mellifera that I have tenderly grown from seed over the last 2 years. Am I mad? Maybe not. Books and sites indicate that free-draining poor soil is their main requirement and that they will accomodate some semi-shade. That’s the part I am banking on. Whatever happens, they probably won’t die, as Euphorbias are pretty indestructible. And so the big gamble starts.

Euphorbia mellifera as a sturdy baby, Oloron Sainte Marie, 2023

Berberis insolita photo credit: www.pepinieredesavettes.com

My last gamble, (well, probably not in reality if I am being truthful) is planting this lovely Berberis insolita in the damp and then dry semi-shade in the summer, part of the Barn Garden. This has glossy, elegant spined leaves, pinkish new growth and, as yet unseen, pale yellow flowers that look a little Japanese Quince-like. It should love these conditions, I hope. You have to try, don’t you?!

September…

Thalictrum delavayi seedheads, Oloron Sainte Marie, September 2023

Thalictrum delavayi is a lovely plant, giving 6 months worth of interest, from fluffy, feathery foliage in the Spring, to masses of bobbing pink flowers in constant movement in early Summer, and then these delightful hat-shaped seed hads, which do yet more bobbing in any breeze. Not fussy, needs regular moisture, it’s also an elegant tall plant, which adds movement to other plants in a very complementary fashion. I grow mine in a large container in a semi-shaded part of the courtyard, but they grow well in normal garden soil in the UK.

This is an inbetween time of year, in September. It still can feel like high summer in the afternoon, but mornings and evenings are cooler, though not yet mosquito-free. Some plants really relish the conditions. I am so fond of this Salvia, Salvia spathacea, the Humming Bird sage. Sadly, we don’t have humming birds, but this Salvia flowers whenever it fancies it. It flowered like mad last December, then again in April, and now again now. The flowerspikes appear above the fruity smelling foliage and seem to wait for ever till the right moment. It spreads slowly, gently insisting against other plants, and has colonised an area in the Barn Garden, where it seems happy even in the winter.

Salvia spathacea, The Barn Garden, Oloron Sainte Marie, September 2023

Rhamnus frangula ‘Fine Line’ is another slow and discreetly growing plant, that I often forget I have, but now in it’s third year in the garden it is beginning to grow with a bit more alacrity. And so it is starting to take it’s rightful place in the garden- even though what you see is all it does. But it does it beautifully. Gently spraying branches of delicate foliage, and a neat, columnar shape, it slots in really well as an accent anywhere. Books suggest it can grow to 2.5m in the end, but it would not disrupt even at that height in my view. It just gets better and better.

Rhamnus frangula ‘Fine Line’, The Barn Garden, Oloron Sainte Marie, September 2023

In a recent post, I looked forward to the fabulous, and common, but so worth it, Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’ flowering for the first time in the Barn Garden. It was first spotted by a Mr Jobert, a nurseryman, as a mutation in a planting of pink anemones in 1851 in Verdun in northern France. He named it for his daughter, and he brought it to market in 1858. There have been many newer varieties, but ‘Honorine’ stands the test of time. An established clump back in Tostat, the old garden, handled one of the hottest spots in the garden, contrary to advice in books. Give it time to develop the roots it needs and you have it for years. I particularly treasure the luminosity of the flowers in semi-shade, as I have tried to capture in this morning’s photograph.

Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’, The Barn Garden, Oloron Sainte Marie, September 2023

Another champion plant that has been flowering since February on the old wall in the Barn Garden, is Abutilon megapotamicum. It is a bit of a straggler, so best pinned into a structure or tied to wires on a wall, but the reward is this myriad of small chinese lanterns bobbing about in any breath of air. So jolly, and so like a child’s handmade decoration somehow. But do manage it, if left to romp on the ground it will become a thicket.

Abutilon megapotamicum, The Barn Garden, Oloron Sainte Marie, September 2023

Small and not magenta-black as usually described, I nevertheless love my Pelargonium sidoides. The dainty flowers are only slightly bigger than my little fingernail, and pop up at the end of long, twirling stems that I just let be, as they have an elegance of their own. You can just see them in the background of the photograph. It stays outside all winter, I just keep it out of the wet on a windowledge.

Pelargonium sidoides, Oloron Sainte Marie, September 2023

My last champion plant for September is Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’. The best Solidago ever. It drapes, it leans without bothering other plants, it can look fabulous isolated as a specimen making a vase shaped explosion, hence the name ‘Fireworks’. Unlike other Solidagos which can burst out all over the garden, this variety is discreet, clumps up, but doesn’t chase itself round the garden. Quite the best.

Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’, The Barn Garden, September 2023