Mossing the wreaths

I have begun to moss up the wreath rings that I shall be using for dried flower wreaths and (as happens each year) I agonise over the ethics of the moss. We may have mossy lawns but we don't have enough to scarify out on a commercial scale - and anyway to moss a wreath quickly I need long strands, not short stumpy bits with soil attached. I could get Scottish sphagnum moss from the flower market but there are major concerns about how it is collected as, within Scotland, it is not a renewable resource. I have looked at a number of artificial alternatives - but they are either too strident a colour, or won't hold onto enough water or are too dense to attach wiring to.
I have decided therefore to use a New Zealand sphagnum moss. The moss grows in the swamps of the west coast of South Island - there the annual rainfall is about 180 inches and this is ideal for growing sphagnum moss. The swamps are government owned and they are managed by the Department of Conservation. The conditions are so ideal that each area of swamp can be harvested on a 3-4 year cycle. The downside is, of course, the transport involved. So it is not ideal, but then again the bales are shipped, rather than airfreighted and as such, better than kiwi-fruit and apples.

The photographs (sorry about the left hand one!) show a plain hop ring - 14" diameter - cost £14.00

Mouldyhyacinths

Just to prove that I don't just write about nice things - here is a photo of a box of mouldy hyacinths that I discovered yesterday. It was completely my own fault, the bulbs arrived on the day I was setting off on holiday and instead of checking through them all I just put the boxes into the garage. There must have been a mouldy bulb in the middle of the box and over the next two weeks it has spread and spread.
I spent a couple of hours yesterday peelng off the mildewy outer layers and rolling the bulbs in sulphur before packing them into crates with paper between each layer. I have lost about 1/3 of the bulbs where rot had set in - an expensive lesson. I had intended to plant the rest up as easter gift arrangements but that is no longer feasible so I shall have to hope that I can keep the remainder mould free until 12th December when I can start pot themup to use as decoration at the Country Living Fair from 23rd March 2006. Fortunately this was the only mouldy box, white hyacinths seem to be more prone to mildew than the darker colours.
The hyacinths destined for Christmas are much happier - they are in the cold and dark putting out roots. I shall bring them into the light in mid December. Potted hyacinths can be pre-ordered for Christmas and are available to take away from 2oth December.

Daucus dara

Last year I bought 5 seedling plants of a new annual, Daucus dara from Sara Raven's Cutting Garden http://www.thecuttinggarden.com. It is a relative of the carrot and has carrot-like leaves and then red tinged umbrels of flowers which look perfect either in a glass vase on their own or in a country style bouquet. The flower has been developed in The Netherlands for the cut flower industry. The seedlings were too expensive to grow for the business, but seed is not yet commercially available in smallish amounts so I thought that I would give it a whirl and see if they would self seed.

Well they have, rather spectacularly (what looks like a bed of weeds in the photo is a mix of daucus and shirley poppy seedlings). Some have flowered this autumn but most are saving themselves for next year, building up beautiful rosettes of ferny leaves. I am excited at the thought of having enough to sell next year. My next challenge is to thin them out, and hopefully move some of the seedlings to a new bed, as they are likely to have long roots they may not be keen. All this 'fuzzy' gardening may be fun and give a cottage garden effect but I am sure that planting everything in neat straight lines would make much more sense.

Pot Pourri

The weather over the past couple of days has put an end to bulb planting for this week - the ground it just far too soggy - so I have put the arum and erythronium bulbs into the salad drawer of the fridge and have ben doing things indoors.
The last ingredient, dried lemon verbena, was ready to go into this year's pot-pourri so I stripped off the leaves and mixed it in with the rest of the scented petals and leaves which have been collected over the year. I do not have enough roses going spare to make a traditional rose based pot pourri, so instead I make a virtue of the wide range of different plants I grow and gradually build up boxes of dried petals and leaves along with lemon peel, mixing them together in the autumn and letting them blend together until they are ready for sale at Christmas time. The result is quite lemony, the two most obvious fragrances are lemon verbena and lavender, but with a warm background scent from artemesias, calendula and roses.
It is a time consuming process but it appeals to the "waste-not" part of my character and I only make a very small amount. It will be on sale in ribbon wrapped cellophane bags for £4.50, as it is limited, e-mail me if you want to reserve some.

Sweet-peas

The sweetpea seedlings that I sowed in the polytunnel in September are now healthy seedlings, germination was 90% as opposed to the 50% germination of the seeds sown at the beginning of October. Just a couple of weeks difference, but the warmer weather must have meant faster germination and less time for the seeds to rot.
I sow two lots of seed - the first in September, the second in March. I soak the seeds in parafin overnight so that they will not be eaten by mice and then sow them, one to a cell, into root trainers. Root trainers are ideal for legumes which like a deep root run (though I now use them for most of my seed raising), they are long narrow cells with ribbed sides and an open base. The main root grows straight down until it reaches the open base, it then emerges into the air and the tip is killed off. This send a message for the root to branch at the top and send down more roots, which will again have their tips air prumed when they reach the bottom. The ribbed sides encourage the roots to grow straight down and you end up with a great strong, straight root system.
Today I raised the roottrainers up on plastic pot trays so that the air can get under them to begin the root pruning (otherwise they can end up rooting into any soil lying around the bench) and next week I shall tip prune them, nipping off the tops above 4 pairs of leaves. Eventually they will be potted up into 2 litre pots. The aim with overwintering sweetpea plants is to keep the leafy bit as compact as possible and let the roots grow strongly. Sweetpeas don't really mind the cold - I have had them survive -10 - but they hate sitting in wet soil, so they will survive happily in an unheated tunnel, greenhouse or coldframe. Overwintering makes a big difference to the end result, the seeds I sowed in September should be flowering from the end of May until the end of August and will grow to 10 feet tall if given their head.

Scampston Walled Garden

We have just returned from a family holiday in York. While there we took a trip out to see the walled garden at Scampston, near Malton. The garden was designed by Piet Outdolf for Sir Charles and Lady Legard between 1998 and 2003. It is one of the most inspirational gardens I have visited, particularly the perennial meadow areas (perennials and grasses planted in drifty blocks of similar height) where oak seats are put into the centre of each large square bed so that you are completely submerged in plants. Another highlight was a circular planting of Molinia 'transparent' glistening in the autumn sunshine.
I have come back with masses of ideas, both for the design of the cutting garden and for plant combinations for bouquets. I was particularly struck by a very fresh mix of white japanese anenomes 'Honorine jobert' with molinia grasses which would look wonderful for an autumn wedding as a change from dahlias, sunflowers and chrysanthemums.
Returning home it has obviously been wet and mild while we were away and the beds are full of weeds. In amongst the docks, nettles and chickweed are some welcome self seeders - cornflowers, poppies and daucus dara.

Dried wreaths for Christmas - or all year round

This year I am making up a selection of dried wreaths which can be used indoors at Christmas (and stored from year to year) - or left up all year round. They are on traditional wire mossed rings and use dried hops, teasels, hydrangeas, amaranthus and seedheads. Everything except the hops comes from our garden so the numbers that I can make are limited. The back of the rings are covered in a hessian type linen so they can be hung on glass doors without looking horrible from the back.

Prices - The large ring is approximately 65 cm diameter (25") and costs £35.00 - (this is probably suited more to a wall, than a door unless you have a wonderful entrance porch with a front dor sized door under cover)
The medium ring is approximately 50 cm diameter (19") and costs £22.00
The small ring is approximately 38 cm diameter (14") and costs £18.00

All sizes are approximate as each wreath is made up individually and each is unique. I can (within reason) tailor the wreaths to fit in with colourschemes. I shall also be making up a few willow based wreaths which are lit up from indide with fairy lights - these are large and cost £42 - photos to follow.

The photographs show a large ring - if anyone want more photographs contact me on snap.dragon@ukonline.co.uk.
We shall be closed for the next week - no more posts until 19th October

Do you want some sweet william seeds?

I have harvested many more sweet williams seeds than I can use - they are from deep red plants called sooty . If you can use some send a stamped addressed envelope to Sunnyside, Gartacharn Road, Balfron Station, G63 ONH.

Do you want some dahlia tubers?

I have decided to get rid of some of the dahlia varieties that I trialled this year. I could just chuck them out onto the compost heap but there might be someone who could use them. The varieties are Cafe au Lait - a large decorative type in a beigey cream, this was very popular with customers but it does not have a long enough vase life; Minley Linda - tiny tight pompoms in bright orange, this is lovely, and popular but too short to mix with my other dahlias and just didn't get used enough to justify the space it takes up; Kenora Macop - a wonderful deep red but just too big, the back petals begin to fade before the rest opens.
I have about 8 of each, and will dig them out into plastic bags to be collected. I won't be charging, but a donation to our Tullochan Trust tin would be welcome. They could be planted out into the garden and mulched heavily with straw, or leave them until the frosts kill the foliage, and keep tubers in a frost free place until spring.
e-mail or phone to reserve.

Dahlias

This year's warm dry summer has been fantastic for the dahlias - they are planted in mixed rows with lots of horse manure and no support. (Last year I carefully staked each plant as you are told to by the gardening books, but found that stems broke off in the wind anyway.)

That all changed last week with wet weather. I grow a lot of deep dark colours to mix with bright blue salvia and lime green fennel - Chat Noir, Sam Hopkins, Rip City and Tam Tam - which now have bleached pockmarks on them from the rain. Completely unsaleable, though they still look lovely in the garden. The Karma Dahlias which I trialled this year seem to have much better weather resistance, Karma Naomi in particular, though they don't have the same saturated colour.

I left some of my dahlias in the ground last year to see whether they would overwinter - about 70% were fine - but they were much slower to get going, than the ones potted up in the polytunnel. They were also the only dahlias to have earwig damage.

Though I closed the flower van this week I put out a couple of buckets of undamaged dahlias for anyone who happened to pass by - money going to a local charity,the Tullochan Trust http://www.tullochan.org . They all went and by mid afternoonthere was more money in the tin than I would have charged.