Category: Garden news & views

Snippets of news relating to gardens, the environment and the local area, CABAHS members’ posts about garden topics, gardening hints and tips, and short pieces about garden design and history

Pressed flower art

I was recently given a book on the “Art of Pressed Flowers and leaves” by Jennie Ashmore, which aims to re-energise and re-imagine this very traditional craft. It might be a very good time to have a go at this fascinating hobby!

Pressed Flowers BookPeople have collected and pressed plants from the earliest times, when explorers returned from faraway places laden with Botanical specimens. During the Victorian era, pressing became a genteel art and pressed plants were used to create pictures and decorate all manner of objects.

Jennie’s art uses every sort of leaf as a background, to set off the more delicate pressed flowers. This one uses Sycamore leaves (at last, a use for Sycamores!) and Fennel:

Pressed Sycamore and fennel

This hobby is refreshingly low cost – Jennie uses old telephone directories for her pressing, with a brick weight on top. Inexpensive photocopying paper can be used, or blotting paper if you can get hold of it. All material is pressed for a month or two, depending on how thick the leaves are. Check after a month to see.

Jennie suggests experimenting, but says she always cuts off the woody and the fleshy parts of plants for best results. Most shiny leaves (Laurel, rhododendron) are not suitable. You should cut the fleshy middle out of Hosta leaves, otherwise they go mouldy, but they make wonderful colours.

Jennie’s leafworks are mounted on paper or thin card, and she uses Copydex or a rubber-based adhesive that can be easily removed if there is excess. Don’t use much – a dot on a matchstick works – especially when sticking delicate petals. Make a template and use a cutting knife to make backgrounds:

Pressed cut outs

Here’s what you can end up with:

Pressed flowers

I love this idea too – this is a picture of a walk, and then the pressed picture that Jennie made using material collected on the walk. What a great idea for your daily exercise walk! Have fun.

Kathy A

Glass flowers

Have you ever heard of the Harvard Museum’s collection of glass flowers? This is a huge collection of over 4,300 flowers from some 780 species. The models were made because one of the professors wanted life-like models for teaching botany, and only paper mache or wax models were available at the time. Could you ever guess this picture shows a glass model of apple blossom?

apple_blossom_detail_exhibit_page_01

The website has a wonderful video about the collection, look for the Exhibit video ‘Harvard restores its famous glass flowers’.

The Nunhead Gardener

The Nunhead Gardener is is a little gem of a nursery / shop tucked in under the railway arches by Nunhead Station. Not a large space but they have really made the most of it. A wonderful range of indoor plants, and some well-chosen outdoor plants plus lots of pots and accessories and quirky garden art (I didn’t mean to, but I had to buy a Kiwi plant…).

Thank you to Joyce for the recommendation.

In praise of… earwigs!

I have not been an earwig lover for all of my life. As a child, I remember my father making a nightly check on his prize dahlias and coming back into the kitchen with earwigs crawling out of the turn ups of his trousers. My mother’s predictable reaction meant that I thought earwigs were definitely not insects one was meant to love. Now years later, in my own garden, I can see the results that a small earwig population have on my own favourite Dahlias, Verrone’s Obsidian, and it’s extremely annoying. But this Christmas my husband gave me a book – “The Garden Jungle” by Dave Goulson and it has rather opened my eyes to the trials and tribulations of this little insect.

Goulson points out that earwigs are easily eradicated by sprays, and because they don’t fly and only produce one generation a year, they don’t re-colonise very quickly once they have gone. I haven’t used pesticide sprays for some years, with the exception of a drench for vine weevil in my containers, so I know I do have earwigs in the garden, although not in the numbers I remember as a child.

earwig

Earwigs are overwhelmingly beneficial insects, they feed voraciously on aphids, as well as munching on the occasional petal. In orchards where earwigs have been sprayed out of existence, trees are infested with three times as many woolly aphids as those with a good earwig population. It is generally the case that beneficial predators of a crop pest breed more slowly than the pests they feed on.  Aphids, in particular, breed spectacularly fast, giving birth to live young which themselves have developing offspring inside them when they are born. In contrast, Mrs Earwig produces maybe 50 offspring a year, laying creamy eggs in a burrow in the ground towards the end of winter. She tenderly cares for the eggs, guarding, cleaning and turning them and looks after the young brood (nymphs) until they moult and gradually become independent. Then she turns them out of the burrow and they must look after themselves, foraging at night and hiding in the day in any crevice (or dahlia) they can find. They must do this all Summer and Autumn dodging predators while they grow, until winter comes and they find a mate and it all starts again.

The fierce looking pincers are actually quite feeble and incapable of doing harm to a human, they are used by the earwig in defence against predators such as ground beetles, and also in mating. The “wig” part of their name comes from an old word for “wiggle” and they definitely never burrow into ears!

We should certainly see earwigs as our friends in the garden, just as we now do ladybirds and lacewings. I have decided that a nibbled petal here and there is a small price to pay for all the good they do.

Kathy

Speaking of foxes: Tales of woe from a frustrated gardener

Foxes are the bane of my life. I first became a keen gardener twenty five years ago when I moved into my small three story terraced house close to Ministry of Defence land, a wooded conservation area, and was confronted with a back garden that was bare.  Keen on wildlife, I decided to try and create a wild life garden, including digging a pond to encourage the breeding of frogs  which over the years has matured successfully. However I had not bargained with the attraction this would have for the local foxes who much to my chagrin have come to see my garden as their play area and my pond a drinking place They have spent their time wrecking it, most days trampling down and pulling up the plants and bulbs, burrowing deep holes, messing up the paths and pooing everywhere. For example, enthused by the recent CABAHS talk on tulips, I bought a range of tulips which I planted in very large pots and colour schemed.  As suggested by the speaker I planted violas on the top of them. The next morning I discovered the foxes had ripped them all up, muddled up the bulbs, totally messed up the different colours and ruined my design irreparably.

Foxes have three times got through my cat flap into my basement kitchen area. The stench they left was awful and on one occasion took two days scrubbing to get rid of.  During the fox mange epidemic I even found a bald cub lying near death in my basement. As someone who would not harm an animal I contacted the South Essex Wild life and Fox Sanctuary who obligingly came and took it away.  I thought that was the last I had seen of it.  But later in the year this charity sent me its annual report. It referred to my fox and how they had nursed it back to health and, much to my horror, had returned it to the area from which it came!

My cats regularly got fleas from the foxes as they both liked to sleep in the same place under a very large sycamore tree. I thought I am going to stop this. The academic in me thought if Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese emperor of terracotta warrior fame, could have a terracotta army I would have an army of reconstituted stone gnomes to deal with this situation. I bought some fifteen garden gnomes which I placed closely packed together on the place shared by the foxes and my cats, thinking they would no longer be able to sleep there. Did that work? No. They just slept on top of the gnomes!  Incidentally when my elderly cats later died I took great pleasure in getting rid of them. Some of the gnomes saw their way to the plant stall at CABAHS!

I am an early riser and weather and work permitting, as part of my daily fitness regime, I do some gardening usually about 30-45 minutes. The time is often spent clearing up after and repairing the damage made during the night by the foxes.  Sometimes I take a quick rest and sit on my garden seat drinking one of my three morning wake-me-up cups of coffee. Often my ginger cat, Bonzo, would come and sit on my knee for a five minute cuddle. One morning a young cub having seen this came up to me, obviously thinking it was a cat it wanted to do the same. It wouldn’t take no for an answer and took some shooing away.

Angelas fox

Animals know instinctively if a human is an animal lover and none of the foxes are afraid of me. They come up to me and don’t take any notice of what I say or do.  I have tried everything to get rid of them over the years. Including fox repellents. The only thing I haven’t tried is lion poo which I gather they don’t like.  After the tulip fiasco I have decided to throw in the towel. I finally accept my back garden belongs to the foxes.  I will just have to live with them, garden around them and make good after them. The only outlet I now have left for expressing my fox frustrations is boring my friends and social network with my woes.

If any other CABAHS members have gardening frustrations, problems or tales they want to get off their chests and give an airing why not send them to CABAHS for this webpage? Perhaps other members have similar problems. It’s said a problem shared is a problem solved. Some might even have an answer to them. Perhaps we could start a CABAHS Moan Corner webpage.

Angela B

Hadlow College Shooters Hill

Hadlow College, which has a campus on Shooters Hill right opposite the start of Eaglesfield Road, has been placed into Educational Administration. The Greenwich Campus is a Horticultural Skills Centre and provides half day and day courses throughout the year. Last year I did 5 or 6 half day courses, known as Tasters, and learned so much in a relaxed, friendly environment amongst other avid growers.

At £10 for a half day and £30- for a full day course, they are incredible value for money.

I have come away from all the Taster Courses (except one) loaded down with planted up bulbs, cuttings and/or seeds. The one exception was a theory rather than practical session and I was loaded with leaflets and notes from that taster.

In short, if we are not to lose this brilliant resource (and how about getting a course for someone as a birthday or Christmas present) then we need to support the college by paying a tenner to learn – hands on – innovative ideas and techniques from highly qualified interesting Horticulturists.

They only need 6 people to make each course viable. Maybe I will see people I recognise on 12 December for the Winter Gardening Course!

Introduction to Horticulture Courses:

  • Winter Gardening, 12 December 2019, 1 day, 9:30 – 15:30, £30-

Taster Courses:

  • Planning Your Spring Beds, 11 December 2019, ½ day, 9:30 – 12:30, £10-
  • Grow Your Own Herbs for Health, 11 December 2019, ½ day, 13:00 – 16:00, £10-

For full details of courses available or to book one of the courses, please visit https://www.hadlow.ac.uk/courses/search?mode=PartTime&keywords=horticulture

The Winter gardening course link is here:https://www.hadlow.ac.uk/courses/course/QGPSCIHWG-Introduction-to-Horticulture-Winter-Gardening

or Email shortcourses@hadlow.ac.uk or call 01732 853 993.

Juli F

Treasure our Front Gardens!

There are some lovely front gardens in the Westcombe area and they give pleasure to passers-by, as well as to their owners.

There are many reasons why we should value them, the most obvious being that they greatly improve the appearance of the neighbourhood. And of course they increase the resale value of our homes through their kerb appeal.

But that’s by no means all! They help nature to do her work, and thrive; for example a front garden provides nectar for bees and butterflies thereby helping to reverse their decline. They also provide a habitat for birds, and the insects on which they feed.

Less obvious is the fact that they make the air we breathe safer because plants help capture pollutants. They also cool the air in hot weather – and help insulate homes in winter. And for householders who have experienced recent heavy downpours of rain, which seem to occur more frequently, a front garden can reduce the danger of flooding by soaking up rainwater. Unfortunately there is a continuous loss of front gardens as many are being paved over to provide hardstanding for cars.

No matter how small the front garden, with a little imagination it can be both practical and beautiful. Here are some tips to consider:

  • Hedges are better for wildlife than fences or brick walls. They also filter dust from the street. Mixed hedges with flowers and berries are the best.
  • Grow climbers up the front of the house and plant shrubs at the base.
  • Fill up corners where cars cannot park
  • Use all the spare space around the edges for planting shrubs and flowers.
  • Plant a tree. There are many that are suitable even for very small spaces and many have flowers for pollinators and berries for birds.
  • Keep hardstanding to a minimum – just two tracks can be sufficient.
  • Leave pockets in gravel for plants
  • Use containers and pots to beautify areas with no soil.
  • Aim to have plants in bloom from early Spring to late Autumn.

Front gardens can support wildlife, whatever their size!

Ann H

If you enjoyed Ann’s article and are thinking of  re-designing your front garden, the RHS website has some good ideas for planning front gardens:

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=738

Chihuly glass sculptures at Kew Gardens

Thoroughly recommend visiting this exhibition if you can. We combined it with a visit to the Marianne North gallery and took all day over it. The sculptures are all based on plants and have been beautifully set around the gardens.

The wonders of the pound shop

Pound shops have sprung up all over the place in the last ten years including a number in Greenwich borough. They may vary slightly in name, but they all sell most of their merchandise for a pound. I first became aware of them when on behalf of a local community group I organised a street party to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and was looking for large quantities of cheap party paraphernalia such as paper cups and plates.

I shop everywhere.  Having a large party to organise and with limited funds to pay for it, I was told by local officionados of the existence of the Pound Shop where all products cost a pound and to try a pound shop, which I did.

I walked along the aisles and in my travel spied a large gardening section and all its wonders. I headed straight for it. I was surprised at the broad range of gardening paraphernalia and equipment that it sold and all for a pound!  Gardening equipment too that was mostly of a similar quality to similar products sold elsewhere. Being a keen gardener who loves a bargain, I have been an avid user of the shop and a fan ever since.

Much of it comes from China. For example, you may find stacked on the pound shop’s  shelves, particularly the larger ones, a variety of types of plant labels, stakes including bamboo stakes, string, wire and netting, trowels, all sorts of pots,  planters with hooks to hang on trellis work or walls, seed propagation equipment and planters, hose equipment, fertilisers, fifteen litre bags of compost,  seeds, bulbs, bare root plants  and until recently perennial plants.  The only drawback is that like all gardening sections in shops, some of its products are plastic. But it does also have some wooden alternatives, for example, in the case of labels and string.

I’m not the only member of CABAHS to rave about the wonders of the pound shop. One member swears by the compost, which coming in 15 litre bags, she can easily manoeuvre into her car.  Anyway next time you pass a pound shop, if you haven’t already done so, pop in and have a look. You too may become a fan!

– Angela B