The vegetable garden is also beginning to demand its
space in the frost-free greenhouse. After visiting some
spectacular gardens last year for my book on ornamental
vegetable gardening, I have been fired with enthusiasm to
plant more companion flowers, dahlias and gladiolus for
cutting, and as ever, lots of delicious new vegetables.
Peter sows the first lettuces now ready to plant out
next month. French marigolds (Tagetes), dwarf pink
Cosmos and heartsease are followed by nasturtiums and
sunflowers. They deserve every inch of the valuable space
they occupy: they sing joyous colour.
The dahlia tubers that have spent the winter dormant
beneath the staging are pulled out and potted up to get
them started, as are a few of the gladiolus corms. Every
year I try to remember to start the glads at successive
intervals to avoid having armloads of their gloriously
Henley Mill on the River Axe ‘it’s at this exciting time of year, pregnant
brazen spikes all at once.
with plans and possibilities that the garden is at its most demanding’
Perhaps this year it will happen.
and draw them across the stigma on the mother plant.
Last summer I saw a vase of outrageously purple ones. I
I have in mind to breed green flowers with strong red
had to guess which variety it was, so I can’t wait to find
centres.
out if I’ve got it right.
I choose a green mum and a starry dad because green-
Space in the frost-free greenhouse is getting tighter
flowered plants are strong and fecund, while spots and stars
and tighter. So first I need to pot up and shunt out
are genetically dominant. I fold the petals back and tie a
the burgeoning hydrangea cuttings that were taken
woollen bow immediately behind the neck of each pollinated
last summer to the large cold greenhouse. But the cold
flower to identify it in summer when the seed ripens.
greenhouse is full. So its occupants need to be put out
into the much colder polytunnel, which is also full. Like
‘I have been fired with enthusiasm
the nursery rhyme says, “…and the little one said ‘roll
to plant more companion flowers’
over’. So they all rolled over and one fell out”. Added to
this is the potential problem of late spring frosts, so in the
final analysis my first job is to check that the horticultural
I know that it will take three years to flower the first
fleece is intact and hasn’t provided duvets for the mice.
generation, and then I can move to the next step and
choose from among the progeny to back-cross with a
It’s all a question of forward planning and patience.
parent. It’s not something to undertake in your dotage. Which I often think is what gardening is really all about.
Last autumn I cleared away the old herbaceous plants Sally Gregson runs Mill Cottage Plants at
from the sunny beds immediately behind the house and Wookey. www.millcottageplants.co.uk
planted black and white tulips, Allium cristophii and A.
‘Purple Sensation’. Here I plan to make a framework of
perennials inter-planted with annuals. Iris sibirica, Elymus
magellanicus, Salvia uliginosa, S. ‘Blue Enigma’, and
dwarf Perovskia will punctuate clouds of white cosmos
and cleome, apricot Oenothera stricta ‘Sulphurea’, and
the pretty pink-and-white Nicotiana mutabilis. All the
annuals need to be sown within the next few weeks in the
frost-free greenhouse if the weather is warm enough, or
on my kitchen windowsill if not.
Iris sibirica
Iris uliginosa
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