Gardening With Flowering Plants

Trees with attractive bark

In winter, when the leaves have fallen, trees with exceptional bark are the ones that stand out most in the garden. Even if you don't have acres to play with, it's worth trying to find room for a small one.

Acer capillipes is one of the snake-bark maples, so called because of the wavy, grey-green stripes running up and down the trunk. The leaves are three-pointed maple leaves that turn bright red in autumn and, in spring, the young shoots are bright red too, so there are plenty of seasonal attractions. It makes a dome-shaped tree that eventually gets to the larger side of medium, but it's slow growing, so anticipate 4.5 x 4.5m (15 x 15ft).

Eucalyptus species include many with very striking, flaking bark that leaves peculiar stripy, piebald and python-skin patterns, and the best of these is probably Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. niphophi/a, the snow gum. The older, thicker trees are the ones that have the most characteristic bark patterns, so leave them unpollarded. This means you'll have quite a large tree, as it grows fast and reaches maybe 6 x 4.5m (20 x 15ft) or more, but it doesn't cast much shade. Older trees often lean over and grow into angular architectural shapes, which makes them good as 'character' specimen trees.

Betula species make good, small to medium-sized garden trees, but if I was only allowed one it would have to be Betula

utilis var. jacquemontii, Jacquemont's birch. It has the typical open, spreading birch form and, like other birches, doesn't cast a lot of shade. What's special about it is the peeling bark that is dazzling white: I wash mine twice a year! In theory it can grow quite tall but, in gardens, it'll take a long time to grow to more than 10 x 4.5m (30 x 15ft).

Flowering trees

Everyone goes mad over lilac and cherry blossom in spring, but these are not always the best flowering trees to go for — in a windy situation, the flowers last no time at all and, if the weather is wet at flowering time the petals turn brown, so you might only see them at their best one year in three. Don't let me put you off if you like them, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Buddleja afterlife (1) is a relative of the butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii). Left to itself it makes a big, untidy shrub; it's much better trained on a single stem to make a tree. It then grows into a rounded mushroom sort of shape, and has clusters of scented lavender flowers arranged along semi-trailing stems in early summer. It'll make about 3.6 x 2.4m (12 x 8ft), which makes it suitable for most small gardens. Best at the back of a border.

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Growing Plants In A Container

Container plants for summer scent

Scented flowers are a definite plus for containers. Choose those with a long flowering season or that have aromatic leaves, so you really feel the benefit all summer.

Aloysia triphylla (1), lemon verbena, is the lemoniest scented plant I know, and great for containers. It's a tender bush with intensely scented leaves and insignificant white flowers. It reaches about
75 x 45cm (30 x 18in) in a container on its own over the summer — it'll be smaller in a container with other plants. Easy from cuttings; keep it in a frost-free greenhouse in winter, and enjoy brushing past it.

Salvia rutilans (2), pineapple sage, doesn't look a bit like herb sage. It has large, pointed-oval leaves and spikes of long, red, pipe- cleaner flowers. It enjoys the heat and, when bruised, the leaves have a strong and sweet pineapple scent. It needs a heated greenhouse in winter, and is easy to grow from cuttings.

Heliotropium arborescens (3), heliotrope, is a good plant for a sunny container, with large, wrinkled leaves, and big heads of tiny lavender- or violet-blue flowers that smell strongly of hot cherry pie. It'll reach 30cm (1ft) high by as much across during summer, but is happy crammed into a tub between other plants. Grow from cuttings or seed, or keep plants in a frost-free greenhouse in winter.

Scented-leaved pelargoniums (4) are old favorites. There are different cultivars that smell of anything from oranges and lemons to roses or spice if you bruise the leaves gently. Don't expect a fragrant version of the zonal pelargonium; they look nothing like them, though they grow to about the same size. A few have bright flowers, but most are unremarkable; small and off-white. Keep them in a frost-free greenhouse in winter; propagate from cuttings.

Matthiola bicornis subsp. bicomis (5), night-scented stock, is my first choice where there isn't much room, but — as you'd expect — it's only scented at night. The flowers aren't exciting — light mauve, pale pink and off-white 'stars' dotted on skinny plants, 15cm (6in) tall. Shoe-horn a clump in between more spectacular plants, or sow seeds straight into the container — they are only annuals.

Mentha x piperita f. citrata (6), Eau-de-Cologne mint, has attractive, round leaves that smell like scent out of a bottle, and lavender flowers. Mix it with herbs or cottage-style flowers — it grows about 45cm (18in) high. Mentha spicata, spearmint, is twice as tall but very minty and a pot will stop it spreading. They are hardy, so leave them in the garden over the winter.

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Home Gardening Guide - Garden plants

If you want a soil bed, you may have to remove some earth if it's poor quality and replace it with good topsoil from elsewhere in the garden. Alternatively, you could use John Innes potting compost.

When you've marked out the area with pegs and string and checked that it is the right shape (both visually and from a practical point of view) excavate the area to a depth of 15cm (6in) using a spade. Avoid loosening the soil beneath that depth. If you are laying paving stones up to your house, the ground will need to be excavated to a depth of 15an (6in) plus the depth of two bricks below the damp pouf course of the building.

2 Spread a layer of `scalpings' over the area and firm it with a powered compactor. Aim for a finished depth of 10cm (4in). Hammering wooden pegs into the ground so that they indicate the finished depth of the scalpings will make sure you maintain an even covering. Aim for a slight fall away from the house so that water runs off the finished patio and away from the building. Use a spirit level and a long board to achieve this.

Lay out the slabs in their final positions. This is important if you are using random sizes of paving. Fitting the jigsaw together before you lay the slabs on mortar will avoid mistakes later. Aim for a pleasing pattern, with different-sized slabs next to one another. Start laying against the house wall (or from a fence or wall if the patio is elsewhere in the garden) and work outwards. Leave 1cm (in) gaps between the slabs to allow for grouting.

4 Lift a few slabs to one side, remembering where they were positioned. Mix a barrow- load of bedding mortar at a time. Make it reasonably sloppy so that it can be easily worked with a builder's trowel. You are aiming for a bed between 5 and 8cm (2 and 3M) deep which will be fine for domestic traffic. Use the point of the trowel to texture the surface of the mortar into 'waves'.

5 Lower each paving slab in to place and tap it firmly with the handle of a lump hammer. The waves in the mortar allow for the height and level of the slab to be adjusted. Use a spirit level to make sure that the slight fall away from the house is maintained, and that the slabs are positioned evenly within this fall. Keep off the newly laid paving for at least 24 hours to allow the mortar to harden.

6 Once the slabs are set, fill in the gaps between them with the moist grouting mixture. Firm it into place with your fingers (gloves prevent cement from dessicating your hands!) and then rub it smooth with a grouting 'iron'. The mixture will take up water from the soil and scalpings below by capillary action, and eventually set hard. Sweep away any excess with a hand brush and then over the entire area with a soft broom.

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Climbers for a north- or east-facing wall

Summer-houses
A summer-house is simply a solid gazebo — a good-looking garden building with a proper roof, walls, doors and glass windows. It will form part of the view when you are looking at it from a distance, and gives you somewhere to sit and enjoy the garden when the weather is a touch iffy for taking tea on the lawn. It's also a safe, dry place to store your garden seats and croquet set.

When it comes to growing climbers over it, the effect needs to be slightly restrained, so you need to choose non-rampant types or your glamorous building will be swamped in foliage. And if you grow the self-clinging climbers, the woodwork may be wrecked, so I'd go for a discreet clematis or some annual morning glories growing on some netting or trellis on one side. If you want an economy summer-house, you can always decorate the shed with window-boxes and trellis, and glamorize the inside. If you do prefer a more natural look and want to grow plants over it, choose small, slow climbers so that your summe-house won't be swamped. The 'climbing blueberry' (Billardiera longiflora) is an evergreen with light airy foliage reaching 2-3m (6-10ft), with green bell- shaped summer flowers followed by purple grape-sized fruit. Team it with Ampelopsis glandulosa var. brevipedunculata Tlegans', which has mini grape leaves in pink, cream and white with pink tendrils. Neither needs any proper pruning; just cut out any bits that die back at the end of winter.

Tamp the concrete into place with a wooden rammer. Make the finished level a few inches below the soil surface so that it can be dressed with soil or gravel once construction is complete. Allow a day or two before the rafters are fixed in position so that the concrete has time to harden.

Bolt the two lung timbers down the sides of the pergola at the top of the posts, and then position the rafters_ Exclude dine an a small pergola, as here, as the rafters can be placed directly on the posts in a aiss-a-oss fashion. Cut a square notch into the top and bottom timbers so that the two marry together as a simple joint. Secure with screws and apply timber preservative.

Get a helper to hold the post and maintain its level while stiff concrete is shovelled around the base. Pressure- treated timber will last much longer than untreated timber, even if it is treated with preservative after construction.

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Growing Organic Plants

Grass in gardens
To most people, grass is 'outdoor carpet', as indispensable in the garden as wall-to-wall Wilton in the living room. Yes, fashions change and hard surfaces — paving, gravel and decking — are on the increase outdoors, in much the same way as seagrass matting, or polished wood floors, are indoors. But there are very few gardens that don't have at least a small patch of lawn.

Grass is still the cheapest and most traditional outdoor floor covering, particularly for large areas, so it's easy to take it for granted. But don't think of it as a self-renewing carpet; see it instead as thousands of tiny individual plants growing tightly packed together in each square metre of soil. It is not maintenance- free. Although grass doesn't take quite so much time and effort as a border, it still needs looking after.

Which grass?
When I was a lad, you had two sorts of grass. In the back garden, you had your everyday stuff dotted with springy heads of ryegrass that popped up from under the mower instead of being chopped off — just like that lump of hair on the back of your head that wouldn't lie down. Out front was the posh lawn that you kept
it was there to impress the neighbors. Both had the perfect stripes that were created by using a cylinder mower, and woe betide you if your lines were wavy.

Turf
Turf is pre-grown grass, which is cut from the ground ready for you to unroll as an instant lawn. Cultivated turf gives a good quality lawn, but meadow turf (possibly with weeds or bare patches) is cheaper. Once turf has rooted into your soil, you can treat it as a normal lawn. But, be prepared to water it, if the weather is dry. If you lay turf in early autumn, there should be plenty of rainfall to do the job for you.

You order turf by the square metre. It is delivered in strips measuring about 100 x 30cm (3 x 1ft), rolled up so that it's easier to handle. Arrange to have it delivered just before you want to lay it; if you can't get on with the job for two to three days, don't leave it rolled up. Unroll the turves and lay them flat, with the grass exposed to the light, and water them, if necessary. If you leave your turf rolled up, it will turn custard-yellow in a matter of days. It will look vile, be weakened as a result, and may die out in places.

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Organic Gardening And Watering Plants

Organic products

Organic gardening hasn't changed much from the way our grandfathers gardened years ago, in some respects. They relied on manure or garden compost to improve the soil, and on fertilizers, such as hoof and horn, or bonemeal, based on animal remains. Strong plants growing in healthy soil have a natural ability to withstand minor problems, but, if needed, our forbears used natural products, like soft soap, pyrethrum, or derris, to tackle most common pests, and sulphur and copper compounds, such as Bordeaux mixture, to treat fungal diseases.

These products and their modern alternatives (which are often specific in their action and less persistent in the environment) are now widely available in garden centres, although since the BSE crisis, many people prefer not to use animal-based fertilizers. Poultry-manure pellets are a good alternative, but 'vegetarian' general-purpose feeds are available from specialist suppliers. Nowadays, a huge selection of organic supplies is available through mail order catalogues, even if your local garden centre doesn't stock them.

Me? I've settled on a system that allows a steady build-up of natural predators and which makes sure that there is no concentration of any one plant in any one place, so epidemics are less likely. I never spray with pesticides — organic or inorganic — and I have learned to live with the odd nibbled leaf and blemished apple. A garden that teems with all forms of wildlife seems to me preferable to one that is perfect but sterile.

Making your own plant food
If you like to do-it-yourself, you can make your own liquid feed by dunking a sack of manure into a water tank for a few weeks. Draw off the 'manure tea' and dilute to about 1:5 with water; use it on your vegetable patch, or for anything around the garden in need of a quick boost. There's an even 'greener' alternative. Fill a tub with nettles or comfrey leaves, top it up with water and cover it with a lid, and a few weeks later you have a (rather smelly) brew ready to use. Dilute it in the same way as manure tea. The nettle version makes a high-nitrogen liquid feed that is good for vegetables and salads, while the comfrey 'flavor' is a high-potash feed that's especially good for tomatoes.

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How To Maintain A Designer Garden

Few of the great gardens of the century belonged simply to one phase or the other. In many cases an estate was worked on by a succession of "improvers", each leaving his distinctive mark. At Claremont, Bridgeman was succeeded by Kent and then by Brown, and the same trio worked consecutively at Stowe, while Repton was frequently called in to advise and suggest alterations to Brown's parks.

ENTER THE IMPROVERS
Charles Bridgeman and William Kent, working for wealthy patrons, were the earliest protagonists of the more informal approach — the first to consult Pope's "Genius of the place". Bridgeman, a practitioner rather than a writer, played a crucial role in the transitional period between the geometric layouts and great radial avenues portrayed by Knyff and Kip at the turn of the century and Kent's freer landscapes.

Bridgeman first came to prominence in 1709 while working for George London and Henry Wise. By 1714 he was already involved with Lord Cobham in Cobham's changes to Stowe, where he installed a ha-ha, and by 1720 was also working at Wimpole Hall, in Cambridgeshire, for the Earl of Oxford. After Wise retired in 1728, Bridgeman became royal gardener to George II and Queen Caroline until his death in 1738.
It is to William Kent, however, that Horace Walpole (vocal gardening and architectural commentator and son of the prime minister Robert Walpole) gives the credit for founding the English landscape tradition. In his essay On Modern Gardening, written between 1750 and 1770,Walpole says of Kent:"He leaped the fence and saw all nature was a garden." During the 1720s and 1730s the designs for the main part of a garden retained their structured formality, with curving lines and meandering paths taking the place of the symmetrical "wilderness" that had often been introduced into the outer areas in preceding years. By 1738 at Rousham, Oxfordshire, however, Kent was interpreting Addison's idea of "a whole estate thrown into a kind of garden" and exploited Pope's invitation to call in the surrounding countryside.

By encircling an estate with perimeter woods, he was able to turn a park into a private sanctum with undulating green pastures, contoured land masses, curving lakes or rivers winding through the valleys, and clumps of majestic trees silhouetted against the sky. On an old estate Brown would destroy the traditional gardens around the house and break up the lines of French-style avenues to form groves of trees. Flowers and utilitarian kitchen gardens were banished from sight across the park. In Brown's hands these Arcadian landscapes became such perfect replicas of an ideal that it was almost impossible to distinguish the separate roles of nature and art. Today a surviving 18th-century park fits so easily into the English countryside that the designer's role in "perfecting" nature has almost been extinguished. These pastoral idylls, planned to stress man's relationship and interdependence with nature and to stimulate moods and emotion, are often regarded as the epitome of 18th-century rationalism.