The Garden Press Event 2023

Swapping my secateurs for a notebook and pencil two days ago, I headed east to the Business Design Centre in Islington to attend the Garden Press Event where companies showcase innovations in garden tools, machinery, accessories and materials to the garden media. This was my third GPE if I don’t count the two virtual events held during the pandemic. As well as tracking trends it’s a great opportunity to meet up with fellow members of the Garden Media Guild be they bloggers like myself, journalists, podcasters or social media influencers.

It was refreshing to see the huge emphasis on sustainability throughout the show and I’m highlighting some of the initiatives in this direction in this blog post as well as a nifty way to stop garden hose connectors from leaking and a collaboration between the National Trust and a garden centre chain.

I chatted to as many of the stands as I could identify promoting growing media free of peat. By 2024 no compost can be sold containing peat. This is not a moment too soon to protect unique habitats such as the Somerset Levels, which we’ve plundered for decades to produce potting compost for amateur and professional gardeners alike.

I buy masses of peat-free compost throughout the year for myself and for clients, for use in containers as well as for propagating plants so it was interesting to see the well-established brands and some newcomers. The RHS endorsed Sylvagrow peat free range is made by Melcourt who this year celebrate 40 years in the industry. Cumbria based Dalefoot is gaining a reputation for high quality (and expensive) peat free products based on bracken and the wool of Herdwick sheep. Two exhibitors use compressed coir (coconut husk) in compost blocks: Eazy Grow Compost from Eazy Gardening Ltd and Coco & Coir from Southern Trident. Once soaked in water these relatively light blocks transform into all purpose potting composts. It would certainly save lugging 40 and 50 litre bags of compost around. Southern Trident has also blended different nutrients into 9 litre blocks specifically for orchids and houseplants respectively. New Leaf peat free compost made in Northern Ireland is endorsed by garden designer and TV personality Diarmuid Gavin.

I was very taken by the attractive designs of the 100% recycled plastic bird feeders from Dutch company Singing Friend. They have developed a way to recycle the plastic lining of Tetrapak-type drinks cartons, making it into lightweight bird feeders in a neutral khaki shade retailing for less than £10. I love the story of this family company, now run by its third generation, being founded in 1951 by a man with a passion for birds. Their mission statement sums up the company philosophy well: We build a bridge between design and nature, and stimulate the creation of new living environments for birds, by people.

Continuing the sustainability theme, it was good to meet Chris Wiley of the Sustainable Plant Store, a new company selling eco-friendly alternatives to popular plants and garden products. I particularly liked the 8cm coir pots bound with natural latex as an alternative to the ubiquitous plastic flower pot. Another exhibitor proposing a substitute for plastic pots was Wool-Pots whose minimalist ecru coloured knitted ‘socks’ approx. 12 cm long can be filled with compost and stood on a terracotta saucer or stood en masse in a seed tray and used for potting on seedlings or growing cuttings and can then be planted straight into the ground. The wool will biodegrade in time and leaving the ‘lip’ proud of the soil is said to deter slugs and snails. At the moment the product is manufactured in Egypt in a factory which is SEDEX* certified and plants two trees for every order under their ‘plant one get one tree’ initiative. Wool-Pots ambition is to start its own factory in the UK.

I can’t be the only gardener to waste frustrating time each summer trying to fix a connector back on the end of a hose after it’s shot off under pressure. Qwickhose from Rivendale products have created a universal hose connector using a wing-lock system instead of the plastic teeth used in conventional connectors. Their starter set consists of two connectors, a tap connector and a nozzle spray to be stored in a neat wall mount which I shall fix to the shed wall this week. Unlike their competitors’ trademark yellow plastic, this product is a distinctive shade of blue. I got a pleasant surprise when I opened the carton to find it included a strip of recycled cotton embedded with tomato seeds!

One of the largest stands at the show was occupied by Blue Diamond Garden Centres which in 2022 began a five year collaboration with the National Trust. Naturally, as a garden volunteer with the Trust I was keen to find out more about this project. So it was fun to chat to Andy Jasper, National Head of Gardens and Parklands for the Trust. A fellow South Cornishman, he of course knows NT Osterley’s head gardener, Andy Eddy. The Blue Diamond/National Trust collaboration has resulted in several new lines including a collection of more than 60 flower seed varieties inspired by the Trust’s gardens, at least 10% of the retail selling price of which will be given to the Trust. The beauty of the Trust’s gardens is reflected in several ranges of bulbs, the collection of naturalising bulbs such as crocus and species tulips to be launched later in the year.

My favourite product on this beautifully designed stand was the box containing 14 herbaceous perennials in various sized pots inspired by the herbaceous border at NT Nymans in West Sussex. The cover of the container includes a plan of the planting scheme and a description of each plant. This bespoke collection includes Heuchera Lime Marmalade (which I love despite a client having told me after I planted it in his garden that it reminded him of lettuce!) and Rudbeckia Goldsturm. Close inspection of the plant descriptions revealed that they were all describing a Crocosmia, possibly Lucifer, but I think the exhibitors can be cut some slack for displaying a prototype containing placeholder text. The collections, which will also include the herbaceous border at Hill Top in Cumbria, the White Garden at Sissinghurst and the Red Borders at Hidcote will go on sale in April. These would be brilliant presents for someone moving into a brand new house with a blank page of a garden to plant up.

Another clever initiative arising out of this collaboration is the propagation of a limited number of specimens from two iconic trees at Trust properties: Isaac Newton’s Apple Tree from Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincs and the Ankerwyke Yew from the banks of the River Thames opposite Runnymede. The young trees are being raised in The National Trust Plant Conservation Centre based in a secret location in Devon and will be for sale in exclusive auctions in 2024. Blue Diamond is already selling a collection of the roses which can be seen in the rose garden at Powis Castle in Wales and is launching a new rose this summer: ‘Mottisfont’ is named for the home in Hampshire of the National Collection of old roses. From the photograph this new rose looks to be a beautiful multi-petalled rich deep pink.

My final shout out is to Niwaki who as always displayed their beautiful garden tools and accessories on a stylish stand. They displayed endless patience in answering my questions. The hori hori Japanese trowel remains my favourite garden tool and it was interesting to see a demonstration of its blade being sharpened with a diamond file. I also found out I’ve not been using the Crean Mate tool cleaning block properly: I should dip the tip of it in water before use. Thank you Niwaki for the selection of Japanese salad and vegetable seeds.

I’ve only scratched the surface here of what was on view at the GPE: makers of ladders, machine tools, plant foods were all there in force. It was a hugely enjoyable show and I’m only sorry there were a few Guild members I didn’t get to chat to on this occasion. Roll on next year’s show!

23 February 2023

Kew Gardens

*SEDEX stands for Supplier Ethical Data Exchange, an online system that allows suppliers to maintain data on ethical & responsible practices and allows them to share this information with their customers.

The First Cut is the Deepest

I spent last Saturday attending a ‘Pruning Fruit Trees’ course at Writtle University College just outside Chelmsford. I’ve always resisted pruning clients’ fruit trees as I feel it’s such a specialised art and I don’t want to get it wrong. The course was postponed from last January and I was keen on getting some practical tuition. Why did I have to travel so far? It was quite hard to find a course: they seem to get booked up incredibly quickly and they tend to be held for a limited period in midwinter when the trees are dormant.

The beauty of the course was that it was really hands-on. After a brief introduction, the tutor Steve Ashley took us into the grounds of the college to demonstrate the basics. Working on a mature apple tree, Steve explained that the main aim is to prevent the tree becoming so tall that the fruit is beyond reach when it’s time to harvest it. He took out several water shoots, that slim upright growth that rarely bears fruiting buds and merely congests the tree. When he removed a pretty substantial upright branch from the centre of the tree, the structure immediately looked more open. That classic goblet shape was beginning to emerge, which allows both optimum air circulation and access of light to all the branches.

In a nursery bed in another part of the grounds, we were taught the importance, when planting a new fruit tree, of not planting too deep and ensuring the graft union, where the scion meets the rootstock, is above ground. If buried, the likelihood is the more vigorous rootstock will send up suckers and, if left unchecked, overpower the cultivar. Spiral rabbit guards are placed around each trunk to prevent the cuddly but destructive rodents damaging the bark of the young trees. As for pruning a young tree, Steve removed the central upright stem, the leader, to encourage the side shoots to bulk up and create a tree with branches yielding fruit within picking reach.

*Keeping the union above ground, rabbit guard at the ready*

Across the road from the main campus and beyond some playing fields, stands a large orchard populated with dozens of mature apple trees, many of them needing renovation pruning. Here Steve demonstrated how to remove a limb without tearing the bark. Using a bow saw with a very sharp blade, he identified the branch that was for the chop, and first made a half cut into it a foot or so above the site of the final cut: this is the undercut. On the opposite side of the branch, and an inch or so beyond the first cut, he cut half way through the limb. Then, pulling the branch towards him, it came away cleanly leaving a stepped cut. The third and final cut is just above the collar, the line where the branch meets the trunk. The cut should be straight across leaving as little surface area as possible, rather than at an angle.

At this point we formed into pairs and were let loose on the trees. As instructed, we had all taken secateurs, pruning saw and loppers. I teamed up with Sara and we worked on two trees with Steve dropping by to inspect our handiwork. To start with it wasn’t as easy as he had made it look. But we practised the step cut and satisfyingly, found it made removal of a substantial branch much easier. The trees we chose were quite gnarly specimens and had several outer limbs which turned at 90 degrees and rose skywards. These we removed taking care not to remove more than a third of the branches. As Steve said, further renovation can always be done next year. As ever with pruning, we kept standing back to look at the tree as a whole to determine what else we might trim off. We followed the 3 Ds principle of taking out dead, diseased and dying branches as well as any crossing branches which might rub against each other, damaging the bark and allowing pathogens to penetrate. We learnt the importance in early summer, after the June drop, when the tree naturally sheds some fruit, of reducing the number of fruits to ensure that what remains matures to a decent size.

Before I left the college I took a walk through the campus and admired the generous planting throughout. In a bed clearly designed for winter interest, were red-stemmed Cornus, complemented by bergenias with deep maroon leaves. In contrast were hellebores with pale mottled leaves and clumps of snowdrops. Height was provided by pollarded willows and by silver birch. Elsewhere Cornus Midwinter Fire, the multitude of stems shading upwards from pale gold to deep orange, stood out vividly against the dark evergreen of the hedge behind.

The main driveway is flanked by superbly planted gravel gardens, appropriate given the relative proximity of Beth Chatto’s famous example of such a garden 15 or so miles up the A12. It is also sensible to garden in such a style in Essex, a county with a low average rainfall. Earlier in the day Steve had explained that the gravelled borders had been designed by a fellow horticulture lecturer. Even on the last weekend of January they were looking splendid, with plenty of height and texture and contrasting shapes and heights. Stands of spear-leaved Phormium and Astelia were woven through with several varieties of grasses, giving movement to the scheme. Scaly rounded cardoon heads (Cynara cardunculus: even the name is redolent of dinosaurs) added structure and drama.

Fortified by tea and cake at the Tiptree Tea Room opposite the college, I headed home to West London, after my second trip to Essex in six months. Being able to work on the trees myself was invaluable and gave me confidence to tackle the annual maintenance pruning of a modest sized apple or pear tree. However I would still leave a major renovation pruning job to an expert.

Of scythes and sails

The absence of posts to this blog for a month has been preying on my mind. Other tasks took precedence in the form of gardening work both on site and on the page. On site because it’s mulching season meaning that some gardens in TW9 have been generous covered with a 5cm layer of shredded horse manure from Woodland Horticulture delivered from Somerset. And when not mulching I’ve been pruning wisteria and roses and preparing two gardens for re-planting projects scheduled for completion in the next fortnight. On the page because I was fortunate to be asked to update some pages for a commercial gardening website, the subject matter being garden pests and diseases.

And as if those tasks weren’t enough to fill my time, I’m now at the halfway point in an online course on the history of the English landscape garden through Oxford Continuing Education. This week we’ve been looking at three of the key gardens of the earlier part of the C18, Stowe, Studley Royal and Stourhead. But in fact it was another garden of the period that no longer exists in its 1730s incarnation that I want to share with you, or more specifically three charming paintings of the garden. Hartwell House near Amersham is now a luxury hotel and the current layout of the grounds dates from a later period. The garden was made in the mid 1730s by Sir Thomas Lee. When the garden was complete he commissioned Balthasar Nebot, a little-known Spanish painter, based in Covent Garden, to record his estate and garden. This he did, portraying the estate workers and gardeners in great detail.

How little and yet how much has changed in the work of a gardener. We still collect weeds and grass clippings in a container, my turquoise plastic trug being the equivalent of the C18 gardener’s basket. In non-lockdown winters we still manoeuvre a roller over the vegetable garden beds at Osterley after mulching them with leaf mould. And we still clip yew hedges by hand using shears. 300 years may have passed but these simple tasks and tools connect us to the gardeners who have gone before us.

And during a passionate talk this week by head gardener Ben Preston of York Gate outside Leeds, I learnt that the use of scythes is not confined to 300 year old landscape paintings and Ross Poldark. The meadow at York Gate is cut by hand by Ben and his team. He explained that by cutting it by hand they can identify the areas where the grass grows thickest. The hay is cut into windrows and sent to a local community farm. Apparently Eastern European visitors to the garden comment that the sight of the hay meadow being cut by scythes reminds them of seeing their grandparents working on the land in a similar way.

Another element of the garden at York Gate chimed with the Hartwell paintings where clipped yew is used to such dramatic effect. At York Gate a line of yew ‘sails’ cuts through the garden forming both a focal point and a boundary with one of the many ‘garden rooms’. The garden is owned and run by the gardening charity Perennial and a friend who until a couple of years ago also volunteered at Osterley now volunteers in the York Gate shop. I’ve added this special garden to a growing list of gardens to visit.

I shall leave you here as I have some course reading to finish about the glorious landscape at Stourhead in Wiltshire, a garden I HAVE visited. I went on a beautiful autumn day in November 2019. Stourhead is only a short drive off the A303, my route to and from my niece and her family in Somerset. It was such a glorious day that I made a detour on the drive home and immersed myself in the tranquil atmosphere of Stourhead, where classical temples reflect into the lake and, on the day of my visit, the scene was all the more beautiful because of the leaves changing colour. A classic image of the garden follows.

Turfing it out

Extracting weeds from an artificial lawn requires a very different technique to that applied to a lawn of real grass. I soon found this out when I tidied a neighbour’s back garden last week. For a start, a hand fork or trowel is unnecessary since the weeds seem to embed themselves into the weave of the material to which the ‘grass’ is attached. No need here for a sharp implement to loosen the soil around the weed’s roots before yanking the weed from the ground. Instead, the weed needs to be grasped between thumb and forefinger and gradually pulled up with a final gentle twist to keep the roots intact. I have never seen roots so clean! I was surprised to see that even an artificial lawn can host weeds but the weeds I removed were ephemeral weeds like groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) and hairy bittercress (Cardamina hirsuta). No ‘lawn spoiler’* to worry about here like greater plantain (Plantago major) . And I suppose that is the merit of an artificial lawn: even if some enterprising little weeds manage to embed themselves into the surface of the material, the long-rooted perennial weeds cannot penetrate the thick polypropylene base.

This was my first experience of working with synthetic grass and although I’m by no means a convert, I can see that compared to a real lawn there is no need for cutting, edging and feeding. This lawn looked particularly authentic and included material which seemed to mimic the straw-coloured thatch that accumulates at the base of grass stems over time. In a real lawn this has to be raked out from time to time to make room for fresh blades of grass to grow.

As I carefully removed the weeds I began reflecting on the growing popularity of artificial grass and not only in domestic gardens. A mile and a half from here, were it not for the Coronavirus crisis, the newly built stadium to be shared between Brentford FC and London Irish RFC would soon have opened its doors for the first time. We hope it will still open in time for the new season in the summer. Having read somewhere that many modern football pitches are created using a hybrid of real and synthetic grass, I determined to find out more. I approached Nity Raj, a parkrun friend and director of Brentford FC, to ask him about the system used at the club’s current ground, the dearly loved Griffin Park, and at the new Brentford Stadium at Kew Bridge. Little did I know as we chatted on Saturday mornings over peppermint tea after the weekly 5k run at Richmond’s Old Deer Park, that Nity knew anything about this topic. Here he generously shares what he knows about football pitch technology:

‘The current pitch at Griffin Park is a stabilised natural grass pitch. The stabilised element comes from a plastic weave which was woven into the turf before the grass was grown and the turf was cut and relaid at Griffin Park. It looks a bit like a tennis net, but with smaller squares. The plastic matrix significantly reduces the amount that the surface is broken up during play making the regular pitch works much easier to manage and repair of damage more effective. We haven’t always had this kind of stabilised pitch. Until the summer of 2015 the pitch was a normal seeded grass pitch. We worked with specialists to re-lay new drainage and an entirely new pitch, incorporating the plastic matrix. Since then I am told we have had the best pitch we have ever had in our history, with significantly less damage visible, especially during bad weather periods, when previously the pitch was prone to getting very badly damaged especially in the high traffic areas of the pitch.

In the new stadium we are installing a Desso Grassmaster pitch. Desso are the leading pitch tech company and their pitches are used in many of the most prestigious football and rugby stadiums in the world.. Desso have a different system from the one used at Griffin Park in that it involves a machine injecting fibres into the ground. We believe this kind of system will best suit the pitch being used for football and rugby.

It’s worth saying that the pitch at Griffin Park and the pitch at the new stadium are both virtually indistinguishable from ordinary grass pitches. The pitches look, play and smell exactly like grass pitches except for their ability to rejuvenate and resist damage. Without careful management by our excellent groundsmen, they would also be susceptible to weeds, just like any wholly natural grass surface’

The list of venues in the Grassmaster Wikipedia entry reads like a roll-call of world-famous soccer and rugby grounds and includes Wembley, Twickenham, Old Trafford, Parc des Princes, the Emirates Stadium and Anfield. And it will soon be joined by Brentford Stadium.

The hybrid pitches installed for playing professional football and rugby are a far cry from the artificial lawns which are becoming increasingly popular in domestic gardens where the lawn is laid rather like a carpet. Indeed, I’m told that some householders have been known to vacuum their Astroturf! I’ve already mentioned that there is no use for trowels or forks when weeding artificial turf. Nor for a rake as I discovered last week when I initially tried to clear away an accumulation of dried bamboo cane sheaths and leaves. I soon found that a stiff bristled brush is the ideal tool for this purpose. I confess that seeing a green expanse entirely devoid of weeds after a few hours’ gardening was surprisingly satisfying.

Am I now a convert to the pseudo sward? The answer is no, because for all its benefits- neatness, hygiene, consistency- this inert material lacks two of the essential elements of real grass. The coolness under bare feet of grass on a hot day cannot be replicated, nor can the scent of newly mown grass. In the last day or so I have detected that distinctive smell drifting across from neighbouring gardens where the instruction to stay home has prompted many householders to cut their lawns for the first time this year. And to Dig for Victory and grow vegetables, but that’s another story and one I shall address in a future blog.

*William Edmonds ‘Weeds Weeding (&Darwin)’ ISBN-10: 0711233659

Clean, Calm and Camellia

Camellia oil? It sounds like a luxurious product I should be applying to my face after a hard day’s gardening. But it’s my precious hand tools which will benefit from a treatment with Niwaki’s Camellia Oil. Made with oil from the cold-pressed seeds of Camellia oleifera, it is a traditional Japanese method to protect tools from rust.

I first heard about Niwaki when Jake Hobson addressed the Kew Mutual Improvement Society in December 2017 on ‘The Art of Creative Pruning’. Jake’s artistic approach to shaping shrubs reflects his origins as a sculptor, and his work combines both Japanese influences and traditional topiary techniques. I recall inspiring images of the extraordinary topiary garden at Levens Hall in Cumbria and cloud-pruning both here and in Japan. In addition to his creative pruning activities, Jake Hobson co-founded Niwaki which supplies Japanese garden and kitchen equipment with an emphasis on cutting tools and accessories. When I started Weeds Roots & Leaves 18 months ago I invested in a pair of the company’s hedging shears which are light, very sharp and are supplied in a substantial leather holster. They have been invaluable when shaping and maintaining large yew and Cotoneaster dammeri specimens in two of my client’s gardens.

I chatted to a company representative on the Niwaki stand at last week’s Garden Press Event at the Business Design Centre in Islington. I asked if I could hold and weigh in my hand the Hori Hori, which translates from Japanese as ‘dig dig’. This narrow, asymmetrically bladed trowel is very versatile and I can see how useful it must be for tackling long rooted weeds (I’m thinking bindweed, both ‘hedge’ and ‘field’) as well as for planting bulbs.

The tool was on sale at the shop located next to the exit of the sculptor Antony Gormley’s exhibition at The Royal Academy last autumn. It somehow didn’t feel incongruous to see this elegantly designed garden tool displayed in such a venue, particularly in conjunction with a show where many of the exhibits were executed in steel. After all, designer William Morris famously wrote ‘If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’

At the event last week, as well as the Hori Hori, I admired some rather more expensive implements which were hand-forged, the blacksmith’s hammer marks being clearly visible on the intriguingly shaped Japanese trowel and axe. As I left the stand I was given a ‘Crean Mate eraser’ with which to clean rust and sap from my hand tools. I tried it the other day on my secateurs and as the images show it is very effective. The gently abrasive block can be dipped in water or Camellia oil before being rubbed across the area to be cleaned. I used water but have now bought a 100ml bottle of the oil with which to protect the secateurs (and the shears mentioned above) in between gardening sessions.

Before

After

In my recent blogs I’ve commented on how mild the weather has been this winter and I can see that the buds on the camellias currently in flower in local front gardens and along Camellia Walk in Kew Gardens are undamaged by frost. They have unfurled into perfect blooms, without the browned petal edges which can occur in severe winters when the buds are subjected to very cold conditions.

I included the word ‘calm’ in the heading to this blog not only for alliteration (and a rather laboured pun on the title of Culture Club’s hit single in 1983), but because the good old cuppa is made from the leaves of another species of camellia, C. sinensis. Amidst the current uncertainties, when a cup of ‘Rosie Lee’ helps us to keep calm and carry on, it’s comforting to know that the cup that cheers is another product of this useful and beautiful genus of plants.