Saturday May 19 2012
Gardening Archive
TheVillage Gardening
Challenges of a harsh winter
Posted on April 19 2011 at 12:39:26 0 comments
Village gardeners have faced a race against time to get ready for “open season”, writes David Morgan.
Over the past few years many gardeners have been perhaps lulled into a false sense of security, with milder winters and continual talk of global warming and the need to plant drought-resistant plants.
But the last two bad winters may have caused many people to rethink this strategy, as gardeners all over the country survey lost exotic and semi-hardy plants that would certainly have survived a milder winter. And those who open their gardens for the National Garden Scheme (NGS) perhaps feel it more than most as they need to replace lost plants to keep the garden in top condition for this season’s visitors.
In May there are four gardens open in our locality that have fared differently during this last cold spell. Opening for the first time is 74 Meadow Road in Wythall, the home of Joe Manchester and his partner Michelle.
This garden was originally designed by the last tree warden in Wythall, Roy Pearson, as a woodland garden with many varieties including a huge old Christmas tree as a centre piece, hostas and tree ferns. Joe and Michelle bought the property 10 years ago and have added their own twist to the garden, changing quite a few things and adding new features, but the main structure remains the same.
Joe’s introduction to gardening was by his father, a keen dahlia man, who would take his son out and teach him the names of plants from an early age. These days Joe tries to find more unusual plants and travels as far afield as Portsmouth to buy what he wants.
This winter Joe’s garden has not been too badly hit by the weather, perhaps because the main structure is built around more traditional and well established English stock – while his exotics, like the banana plant he bought at the Chelsea Flower Show, he over-wintered in his greenhouse.
The same could not be said of John and Janet Morgan’s Saranacris garden in Marlbrook, where they have lost all of their Phormiums and Cordylines, a tree fern, the large stems of a banana plant (although they think the root will survive), an acacia and a number of other semi-hardy plants. They also have concerns over whether their olive tree and even their semi-hardy ginger lillies will survive.
John says, “A lot of these are structural plants so their loss creates real ‘holes’ in the garden, which we will either fill with replacements or we may turn to hardier plants for structure such as acers.
“We were moving towards using more summer bedding schemes either by over-wintering plants in a dormant state or buying in large quantities of bedding plants each year. So although it’s a challenge to maintain the type of planting we would like to see in the garden, we are determined to keep it interesting for visitors even if it does look different this year.”
Thankfully John believes his very rare, and not reliably hardy, Chilean Fire Bush has survived.
Round the corner from Saranacris, at Oak Tree House, John’s brother and sister-in-law Dave and Di Morgan are also counting the cost of lost plants, although their more traditional cottage style garden has less exotics to worry about. Nevertheless the list of plants that have died includes euphorbias, hebes, lavatera, gladioli, dahlias, potentilla and broom.
Some of these were well established plants and others were planted as specific features, so each one is being replaced with a great deal of thought, not just for the position but also thinking of future winters and whether more hardy varieties may be more appropriate.
The third garden in the trio, Round Hill Garden, has also not escaped the ravages of the winter, with losses of phormium, brugmansia, cycads, cordylines, salvia, phygelius, euphorbia and their pistachio. Some of their succulents, despite being kept frost-free, did not fare any better.
Despite this, other plants hit hard are showing signs of recovery, and will be left for another month before deciding their fate. The majority of plants have come through unscathed, and along with a few new plants and some new planting schemes, garden owners Alan and Lynn Nokes are determined that these problems will not impact on their garden too much.
So the question on many gardeners’ minds is: if the winters continue along the same lines as the last two, do we need to rethink our planting schemes? Are our winters starting to re shape our gardening plans? It’s an exciting challenge!
Saranacris, Oak Tree House and Round Hill Garden open together as Marlbrook Gardens (situated close to the Marlbrook pub), and are open on May 29 from 1.30 to 5.30pm, with a combined admission of £5.74.
Meadow Road is open on both Saturday and Sunday May 28 and 29 from 2 until 5pm, admission £2.50. For more information visit http://www.ngs.org.uk
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