Umbellifers Abound

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Umbellifers

The hedgerows are full of them, swaying in the breeze, rocking with the passage of cars and bending at the knees of walkers, to dust their sturdy shoes with a froth of fallen petals. Cow parsley and wild parsnip are doing their bit for making the byways a pretty place. Many of the type have stinging hairs, toxic sap and a fearful stink, to ensure that you leave them there. If your fingers fall off after digging up wild plants, expect no sympathy from me. The news is currently full of horrible symptoms caused by giant hogweed. I’ve seen it in a garden, surrounded by posts, warning tape and traffic cones nicked from the nearest detour. This stuff is so potent, it can damage your DNA. Skin sloughs off in a revolting manner and sensitivity to sunlight may persist for years after exposure. Scratching where it itches in public is so unladylike, don’t you find? I already look like a troll, so I’m giving it a wide berth. Hemlock is also best avoided, unless you have a Greek philosopher who needs bumping off. Socrates stated plainly that a dose left him cold.

Umbellifers in the hedgerow

There are plenty of cloudy pillow bloomers safe for domestic use. Biennial Angelica may tower over six feet (2m) with greenish balls of bloom, festooned with bees. It has the added advantage that the stems can be stewed with rhubarb, for sweetness with less sugar. If it’s happy, it will spread by seed, in which case you should make enquiries as to opening an angelica farm, when you corner the market. A. gigas is the burgundy coloured variety that dampens gardeners’ underpants but I found it difficult to germinate. If you manage this and you have moist earth, I may go off you. Levisticum officinale (lovage) is a lovely perennial with unusual leaves and lofty puffs of lime flowers. Astrantia (masterwort) is being bred in ever more inventive colours but will only return reliably if you have decent soil. Anthriscus sylvestris (Queen Anne’s lace) “Ravenswing” is a cultivated variety with creamy pink bracts and plum filigree foliage but again, it won’t grow well in my sand.

Agapanthus (Nile lily)

Carrots do more than help you see in the dark. Ammi majus and A. visnaga (bishop’s weed) are fabulous annuals, easy to raise from seed. Daucus carota (wild carrot) is a show stopping biennial. Who could resist a name like “Purple Kisses”, which is a mixture of crimson and white. Another annual, Orlaya grandiflora (white lace flower) bears the flat topped umbels, surrounded by fluttering petals at about two feet (60 cm) high, thus making a splash of trembling movement towards the front of a border.

Levisticum officinale (lovage)

Achillea millefolium var. gigantea (giant yarrow) is a barnstormer, if given enough room to make a statement. Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’ (bronze fennel) has established well here and is spreading itself through the beds with dark, feathery, scented fronds topped with bright yellow bloom. I keep a clump by the front gate, to perfume the path for visitors to my home. Harden your heart and behead the stems before the seeds set, if you want to try to limit its range. Like many of the umbelliferae, this plant is used in cooking and/or herbal medicine. I wouldn’t collect toadstools for consumption without the personal approval of an expert mycologist and even then, I’d want it in writing. I’ll not be using an unknown to flavour a casserole or to promote a sense of wellbeing unless I truly trust the authority. In case of a mistake, my heirs have instructions to sue.

Message in a Bottle

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Bottle gardens

Occasionally the TV gardeners assure us that we can spare an acre or two to turn part of our estates into wildlife sanctuaries. We aren’t landed gentry, mate. If I set up a pond surrounded by wildflowers for frogs and dragonflies, that will fill my plot to the exclusion of all else. Others waffle about cutting beds to produce blossom for indoor vase arrangements, usually employing expensive accents that speak of vast private grounds at their disposal. They make me so cross I want to slap them hard enough, even Google won’t find them.

Albizia julibrissin (Persian silk tree)

I realize that I am just as guilty, when I burble about the conservatory and feel that I must address the issue. I want to grow Crotons but lack a heated greenhouse or since my daughter moved out, a permanently steamy bathroom. What I need is a bottle garden. I have an old acid storage carboy, which has been collecting dust for years. I put it outside, to avoid having to clean it, whence it promptly filled with rainwater and weeds. How the squatters crowded through the narrow neck is a mystery to me but as Jeff Goldblum observed when pondering a Jurassic problem, life will find a way. I scrubbed it inside and out, rinsed gravel for drainage and used new sterile potting compost all dribbled down a long cardboard tube, since anything dirty or otherwise undesirable is going to be a bastard to evict.

Finished bottle garden

Choose small specimens for planting, of a type that will not burst out of confinement within the month. Attila made me some tools attached to long bamboo sticks or bent metal poles. The crux is that the end of the handle protrudes above the opening of the container, should it be too limited to insert your hand, to retrieve anything dropped inside. Try to resist letting go of anything which will be difficult to recover, unless you are good at those fairground games with a grabbing claw for winning fluffy bunnies. An old spoon for digging and a cotton reel for firming in, are essential. A sponge for swiping around is a boon. Some tracts recommend a nail embedded in a cane, for stabbing stray leaves to remove them. I had one of these but my partner used it as his slug stick and now I don’t even want to look at it.

Lilium ‘Eyeliner’

When the plants are in place, trickle water down the inside, to wash stray soil off the glass. Don’t put in too much, since evaporation is unlikely to redress the trouble before everything dies in a soggy soup of decay. In order to keep moisture in and stop toddlers from adding toy dinosaurs, keys or credit cards, it’s wise to obtain a tightly fitting stopper, removable by a responsible adult in case of emergency. At my request, Attila lifted the entire edifice to move it to a place of perfect sunlight. Veins stood out on his forehead and a terrible twang came from the region of his trousers. There’s something fundamentally funny about the term groin strain, when applied to someone who’s playing it for laughs. Poor husband retired, clutching his person in a manner that would get him arrested if he did it in public. Please excuse me, I’m needed to apply first aid.

With my thanks to Sam, for the best insult I’ve seen this week.

Dry Gulched

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Irrigation issues

This may not seem like much of a drought to you but in the U.K. we always have an umbrella to hand. If there are no puddles underfoot, then rain is expected presently. This is why we are a nation of gardeners; the weather suits it and we’re making the best of what we’re given. Sunglasses do get sold but since we don’t have many gangsters or much sunshine, they are little used. This week has been a shock to my system. After seven days of unrelenting brightness, some bits of my patch are drooping and other parts are parched. Without precipitation for forty-eight hours the earth turns to dust, the bird bath evaporates and the water butts are empty. The sparrows sit in the trees panting and the cats sprawl in the shade looking irritable, too hot and tired to molest them.

Iris versicolour (blue flag)

Some plants need no additional irrigation; with Semper vivum (houseleek), the clue is in the name, the Latin translates as always living. Achillia, Anthemis and varieties with silver leaves are resistant to dehydration and need little attention. I have been larding the beds with home-made compost, in an effort to improve the structure of the soil and thus boosting its moisture retaining qualities. I try to stick to tougher specimens since climate change is a real thing. Sooner or later, we are going to see that rare phenomenon, an Englishman with a natural tan. I am unable to resist roses and lilies, which need a quick spritz before they start to wilt. High maintenance types require watering daily, including hanging baskets, vegetables such as courgettes or tomatoes and exotics; Brugmansia, I’m scowling at you. Tote that barge, lift that bale, Old Man River is not coming to the rescue. Form a chain gang if you have the manpower, ready, steady, watering cans standing by, go.

Crinum x powellii ‘Album’ (White Powell lily)

I’ve been using grey water from kitchen and bathroom, since a little diluted detergent does no harm and conditioner makes the leaves silky and manageable. Garden water storage is not yet used up but we’ve only just embarked upon July and there could be more desiccation to come. Despite the metered supply, I have unwound the hose and topped up the pond, splashing about like a cross between a water nymph and a hippopotamus.

The red garden

On the plus side, I thought that the expected conjunction of Jupiter and Venus was going to be visible. I’ve been getting royally pissed off with meteor showers, lunar and solar eclipses and other celestial events being held without me, behind a thick bank of British cloud. On Wednesday morning I unpacked my house, hunting for binoculars, thinking that I was on a promise. By lunchtime the heavens opened, which meant that I had to scuttle to retrieve all the contents of the attic, thrown on to the front lawn during the course of the search. Did I get an invitation to the planetary party? No, I didn’t get a look in. Instead I went down to the beach and witnessed the lightning tap dancing across the waves, while the air bursts from surrounding storms filled the sky with eldritch light. When we got home I opened the window and listened to the hammering of the rain. I’m not complaining, since apart from the gurgling of downpipes and the smashing of thunder, from the garden I could hear a prolonged and heartfelt sigh of relief.

Time to Take Stock

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Planning and design

Go upstairs and look out of a bedroom window. Which bits are bare? Go outside and inspect everything again. What’s not pulling its weight? Mine is a small garden and I haven’t got room for dead wood. I have a system which usually works. If a plant does not do that which was promised on the packet, I menace it with an appointment with the shredder and then cruel consignment to the compost heap. You flower next year, or you’re out.

Eryngium x zabelii (sea holly) ‘Big Blue’

I have a Pernettya (prickly heath) which occupies a prime position and has done little but sit for some years with a recalcitrant look on its leaves. Last year I delivered the ultimatum and it promptly burst into measly, spotty white specks, followed by unattractive zitty pink berries. I remain underwhelmed but feel guilty that I bullied something into giving its best but still it fails to cut the mustard. Having been out to an open garden at the weekend, I now have some Cirsium rivulare (crimson thistle) which would relish the sunny spot and reward my favouritism with explosive tufts of burgundy beauty. This is a short lived perennial, so it won’t last as long as the shrub it replaces but will be striking and reliably so, for the few years that it lasts. That settles it, I’ll go and get the spade.

Acanthus mollis (bear’s breeches)

I’ve cleared out the dead bits of spring blooming bulbs and I’ve cut down brown stems of Euphorbias (spurge) and hardy geraniums. The patches of naked earth give the borders a mangy appearance, which I’m covering with terracotta containers full of burgeoning lilies which I potted up in April. I labelled most of them at the time but if I got it wrong, it’s no hardship to move them around in the case of a violent colour clash.

The yellow garden

On a somewhat larger scale, our home is covered generously with a cloak of Parthenocissus tricuspidata (Boston ivy, mistakenly called Virginia creeper). Every autumn, Attila has to get out his big ladder and with a certain amount of cussing, gives the house a haircut. This was amusing to start with but I no longer enjoy the wobbling rickety scaffold, the rungs missed in descent and the secateurs dropped due to spider attack. My advancing maturity and the acquisition of some common sense is a bitch, which cuts down the opportunities for cheap laughs at someone else’s expense. I’m thinking seriously about calling a professional to strip the climber off the walls. I shall arrange a comfortable chair for my partner, so that he may enjoy the destruction of what could have been his nemesis. None of this would have been an issue but for the chance discovery of a strapping specimen of Schizophragma hydrangeoides “Moonlight” (Japanese climbing hydrangea), a charming plant that I have lusted after for decades. Of course I bought it; what do you expect from me, self control? Something will have to give and I’m looking at the over enthusiastic, roof tile lifting, window obscuring building mugger. I think that this is a promise; I’m not even going to make threats.