When the code words being used to identify D-Day landing operations began appearing in 1944 Daily Telegraph crosswords, the investigating authorities concluded that no espionage had been involved, and that the words had simply been “in the ether” (¹).

We used a word in a blog post a couple of weeks ago which seems to have found its way into the ether too.

When we used the word we weren’t actually sure we hadn’t simply dreamt it – we had to google it to make sure it really existed.   But it did, so in it went, and we thought no more about it.

Then, somewhat implausibly, we heard that same unlikely word used in conversation over the weekend, and we assumed that it had found its way into our own personal ether….

Then today, it appeared (even more implausibly) in a gardening blog that we follow.

So where did it come from, and where is it going?   Were we responsible for launching the word into the ether, or simply unwitting pawns in someone else’s word game?   Has it been out there all the time and we just haven’t noticed?   Or has it lurked in our subconcious for decades just waiting for its 15 minutes of fame?

It’s a very nice word anyway, and we’re happy to have been (re)acquanted with it.   And just to give it one more outing, we’re going to describe its appearance in our lives as serendipitous.

(¹)   It’s a famous story, but just in case you haven’t heard it, its re-told here.

Lovely isn't it?

Since we last blogged about our Delphinium (autumn 2009) we’ve been carefully studying its habits, and have been very carefully propagating – so now we have maybe a dozen plants, all showing the same characteristics – pretty much conventional Delphiniums in everything they do, except the flowers.

Our picture shows a flower spike from this summer – rather denser than the spike we showed in our last blog (their fist summer flush seems stronger than the second) – and even more impressive we think.

Quite by accident – we broke one of the stems – we’ve discovered they make pretty good cut flowers too, lasting ages in water.

We’re continuing to evaluate their garden worthiness (you can’t be too careful in a trade awash with perhaps-a-little-too-hasty new plant launches) and to investigate whether we can propagate them in sufficient numbers to make them available commercially.

Next update around 2013 then!

Mostly what seems to happen is that visitors say “ooh, I like your bamboo” or, “what sort of bamboo is that?” or, “you’ll have to be careful,that’ll take over the garden!”

Salix, or Bamboo?

We could try and pretend that this is all the result of a carefully thought out plan, but as so often happens, this particular planting scheme is entirely serendipitous.

We’ve always liked the coloured bark Salix (there are some wonderful plantings in the spring garden at RHS Rosemoor) but when we planted these a few years ago their strongest talent seemed to be for sulking on our sales tables, and failing to attract many customers (they do look a bit dull in a pot!).

We never like to see good plants go to waste of course, so a small corner of the Lych Gate Border was declared a rest home for unsold Salix, and three of them were liberated from their sales table torpor, and planted in the garden.

And boy have they settled in! Conventional gardening wisdom is that you prune these things down to the ground each spring, having enjoyed their coloured bark through the winter, and the new stems which then regrow (with alarming speed) are ready to wow you next winter with colours which only the extremely youthful (or recently pruned) would dare sport.

But we forgot the conventional wisdom, or never got round to it, or…well, for whatever reason, we didn’t prune, and what should have a been a modest stool yielding a few feet of demure new growth is in fact a gangly thicket of yellow stems and lime green foliage, doing what we have to admit is a more than passably good impersonation of a bamboo intent on world domination.

But more (OK, entirely) by luck rather than design, it works doesn’t it?

We will prune it next spring – but all of it down to the ground, or maybe just half the stems?…we’ll think on that – and for the moment we’ll enjoy our “bamboo”, with none of the worry that we’re nurturing the monster that that genus so often entails.

It's a cracker isn't it?

…and there are Woodfield hybrid Lupins.

Launched at the Chelsea flower show in 1985 by nurserymen brothers Maurice and Brian Woodfield, after many years breeding work, these are surely the very best strain of this cottage garden favourite, aren’t they?

Most of this years batch are sold now; the ones in the picture are still waiting to find a good home….

Looking good on the nursery right now – the picture is of one of our parent plants in a polytunnel – its offspring, growing outside, are just budding up nicely….

Monarda Cambridge Scarlet

Monarda (aka Bergamot) often get a bad press because many of them suffer dreadfully with mildew.   We stopped growing them completely a few years ago because (like roses, which have also been struck off our stock list) we just found the spray programs they demanded too onerous.

But having tipped our toes back in their very distinctly fragranced waters (think Earl Grey tea, and Bergasol suntan lotion) we’re happy to report that M. ‘Cambridge Scarlet’ AGM, and its cousin M. ‘Croftway Pink’ AGM (also in stock here, but not showing colour yet) both seem to have very good mildew resistance.

They’ll both grow to around 90 cms tall, and will form clumps maybe 50 cms across.   They’re fully hardy, are happy in full sun or part shade, and require a reasonably moist but well drained soil.  But they’re pretty adaptable – we have them growing in our front garden where the soil is absolutely not “reasonably moist” (well drained doesn’t even come close) and they’re happy enough, the drought only seeming to dwarf their height a little.

They’ll be in flower until well into the autumn, so are an excellent addition to the herbaceous border for summer – autumn colour.

Tomato Tumbling Tom (not quite yet) Yellow

Tomato Tumbling Tom Yellow sounds like a contrivance too far doesn’t it? Not simply a tomato with a trailing growth habit, bred for growing in a hanging basket, but one with yellow skin to boot.

But if you get around the veg growers “pah, silly novelty” scepticism, you’ll find an easy, tasty, prolific, and early cropping tomato, which really will thrive in as little as a 12″ hanging basket.

Those in our picture (taken today) are just a few weeks off picking, and are going to be easy winners in the first-tommies-on-the-plate race this year.

So if you have spare airspace in your greenhouse – why?

The weatherman told us there might be a frost last night (”might be cold enough for a touch of grass frost around dawn in prone areas”) but we didn’t believe him – this is nearly mid-June for goodness sake, and for as long as we’ve been gardening the sage advice has always been that we don’t get frosts beyond the end of May(*).

But he was right;  the thermometer is showing an overnight low of zero, and there was ice on the cars this morning – quite thick ice on the pickup tonneau cover, which suggests it must have been freezing for more than a few minutes.

Brrrr!

So the weather is upside down, again – summer temperatures in March and April, and now April showers, and spring-like frosts in June.   Barmy, when it should be Balmy.

* Not usually anyway – the last time we remember was aeons ago (more than 20 years) when we used to grow bedding plants, and had a frost (in Telford) on June 6th. By an extraordinary stroke of luck (or careful planning!?) we’d bought a heater for our polytunnel a couple of weeks earlier. Phew!

Pulsatilla Papageno

The manic seasonal nature of working in horticulture means that at this time of year it’s easy to forget WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT. We tend to spend all our time rushing about sorting stuff on the nursery, and none of it standing back and admiring the reason we chose to work in this industry in the first place.

And so last year, when Louise found a particularly attractive Pulsatilla amongst a batch in one of the polytunnels, we made a special effort to take time out…..and planted it just outside our back door.

So this spring, every time we set off for our 60 second commute to work, we have to pass this little reminder of what we’re doing here.

We sell loads of pulsatillas every year, and if our customers get as much joy from theirs as we do from this, we’ll have spread more than a little happiness won’t we?

Pulsatilla Papageno is a seed raised strain;  the flower colour and the frilliness of the petals is entirely unpredictable – so we can probably sell you a plant which is quite like this one, but it won’t be exactly the same!

Magnolia Elizabeth

Magnolias are always a bit of a gamble in our climate;  their flowers are fried by sub-zero temperatures, but emerge long before the danger of frost has passed.   So every year we find ourselves holding our breath while they flower, in the hope that the weather remains frost free long enough for us to enjoy their display.

It’s been a good season for them this year.  They’ve been flowering in gardens around here for several weeks, and the weather has been remarkably benign.    The earliest flowerers are getting towards the end of their display without a single frost-browned petal.

And the later flowerers are hoping they’ll enjoy the same balmy conditions.

Our picture shows a newly emerged flower on one of the Magnolia Elizabeth we have on our sales area, which we’re hoping will be flowering frost-free for the next several weeks.

M. Elizabeth was introduced in 1977, and was a chance seedling from a cross between M. denudata and M. acuminata at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, New York.   It’s primrose yellow flowers set it apart from the more typical white and pink colourways in the magnolia family, and its slightly later flowering season gives it a better chance of avoiding frost damage.   It will grow (eventually) to maybe 30 feet tall, so it needs a bit of space – but it will be quite a spectacle in flower won’t it!

World's largest oxslip?

Other than being careful not to decapitate it with the hoe, we’ve done nothing to this oxslip (Primula elatior). We didn’t even plant it – the seed must have arrived in some compost we used to mulch under our beech hedge a few years ago. And it’s sown itself in probably the least hospitable spot in the garden (if you’re an oxslip anyway) – south facing, baking hot sun in summer, and on very poor, free draining sandy soil.

Which just goes to show how fickle plants can be – give them what the encyclopedias tell you is ideal conditions, and they should thrive – but sometimes they’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head, and thrive anyway.