Transatlantic Plantsman

Transatlantic Plantsman shortlisted for Garden Blog of the Year!

At the British Garden Media Guild awards gala in London today, this Transatlantic Plantsman blog was shortlisted for Blog of the Year!

The other shortlisted blogs were:
Matthew Appleby’s Gardening Blog
Richard Jones’ Wildlife Blog
Jane Perrone on The Guardian Gardening Blog
Veg Plotting by Michelle Chapman

And the winner is: Blogging from Blackpitts by James Alexander-Sinclair

Thank you, judges! And congratulations to the winner and to the other shortlisted blogs. Where's the bubbly?

Just look out of the window

Over on the Whole Life Gardening blog C. L. Fornari was been musing about the discipline of writing for  blog every single day, and finding things to write about.

People sometimes ask me if I run out of things to write about. The answer is never – I can always just look out of the window. Although, I have to say, everyone can look out of the window but not everyone sees what’s there. When I was commissioning editor of a monthly garden magazine one famous British TV gardener – who had a monthly slot – would call up and ask: “Got any ideas on what I should write about this month?” Which I always thought was a bit pathetic: what I wanted was three or four of her ideas for me to choose from.

So this morning I thought I’d write about the first things that caught my attention as I looked out of the window. In fact, the ideas started to come while I was still in my PJs.

1. Walking through the kitchen to put the coffee on – still pitch black outside – the eucomis stem in a vase on the kitchen table caught my eye. It snapped off when I moved its heavy pot into a sheltered place about three weeks ago but the seed head still looks great with its fat dark green pods. Lots to say about that. Not to mention the purple-leaved ones like ‘Oakhurst’ (above, click to enlarge).

2. My wife’s new orchid book, a box of which arrived yesterday, was on the counter. Gotta write a proper review.

3. As dawn broke through, I put out the new squirrel proof bird feeder I have on test. So far, the squirrels have eyed it cautiously but not yet even tried to get into to it. More on that will be coming after squirrels have made a few serious attempts.

4. Now it’s light – and it strikes me that while the wisteria leaves look ghastly after the 25F/-4C frost of last week – green and shrivelled and still unhelpfully clinging to the stems – while the leaves on the native elder bushes look amazingly fresh and green and are suddenly valuable when for the rest of the year I always think they’re rather dull.

5. Ah, Physocarpus again. The leaves on Summer Wine have all dropped but those on Coppertina are becoming less purple and more red and still look superb.

6.Still pink and white flowers on the lovely old ‘Country Girl’ hardy chrysanthemum - but ‘Will’s Wonderful’, which is the latest of all, seems to have been completely killed by last winter which was the coldest in ten years.

7. Just heard Douglas Tallamy interviewed on the Timber Press podcast about his book Bringing Nature Home. He mentions that Colorado blue spruce – which comes, of course, from Colorado where it fits well into the natural web of nature. He points out that here in the north east it only grows when planted by us, and none of the wildlife has a clue what to do with it. (Although I have to say the deer have eaten some those we inherited here).

8. What else? Just looking from the chair at my desk – the eupatoriums (Joe Pye weed) need cutting down now, they’re looking pretty ragged. Which perennials are best cut down in the fall, which are best left for their winter presence? Plenty to say about that.

9. Lia Leendertz of Britain’s Guardian newspaper tweets with a link to a folk song on YouTube. It’s Kate Rusby! Reminds me to mention that I’m hosting a folk music show on WJFF at 11am on Saturday. (That’s my other life – music DJ!) All Irish music. Gotta finish planning it today. Here's the Kate Rusby video.

10. I know – I could write a blog post about all the things I could blog about today!

8.37am – ten blog ideas. Now: I just need pictures… links… 45 minuts later - Sorry, got distracted by the coffee machine again...

Every blog should have a cat

Over on the excellent Victoria’s Backyard blog – I discovered an unarguable truth about blogging.  Every blog should have a cat, Victoria asserts, and she accompanies this inescapable truth with a delightful picture of Pushkin.

So… step forward, the first among equals of the Transatlantic Plantsman’s coterie of cats – Nicki. Here she is, hard at work amongst the violas. You’ll also find her hiding in the closet, monitoring the pine siskins on the thistle feeder, scampering at full pelt from one end of the house to the other, beating up her brother Duffy, squirming contentedly on the bed, snoring under the couch and all the while looking pretty and generally captivating.

You’ll also find her looking out of our front door at the bottom of the left hand sidebar.

My new blog on plant trials and awards

One of the most important activities of the Royal Horticultural Society is its plant trials. From hydrangeas to sweet peas, hardy geraniums to lettuces - plants of all kinds are compared side by side at its garden at Wisley in Surrey, just south of London, and at other gardens around the country. The best are awarded the Award of Garden Merit.

It’s a great spectacle, as well as an invaluable resource.

Now, after many years judging the flower trials, and writing about some of them in the RHS magazine The Garden, I’ve now started blogging about them regularly on the Royal Horticultural Society’s website. (My RHS New Plants blog continues.)

I’ll be covering the latest awards, which trials are at their best, the free-to-download reports published by the RHS, events at the trials and more. Be sure to take a look.

Now… readers outside Britain may think that there’s not much in it for them. How relevant can trials in England be to gardeners in Nebraska or New Zealand? Well, it’s true that some plants which thrive at Wisley may not even be hardy in Norway or Nova Scotia and plants grow differently in different conditions, of course.

But some factors are fairly universal: messy double flowered varieties are messy everywhere; varieties that flower for just two weeks when all the others flower for eight do not suddenly reform; if a plant rampages at Wisley, you can be sure there are many other places it will smother its neighbours; an annual mixture which turns out to be almost all one color won’t suddenly be harmoniously balanced when grown elsewhere. Some things about plants are just universal.

And all the work on correcting names, proving (or disproving) the point when two varieties seem identical, and describing plants so it’s easy to distinguish one from another – it’s all part of the RHS trials and will all be covered on my new Trials and Awards blog. Give it a try.

My new blog on new plants

I’ve started a new blog.

Going by the impressively catchy title of New Plants and Trials, it began last week on the Royal Horticultural Society’s website. You’ll find it here.

I’m sharing the space with the Trials Office at the RHS garden at Wisley: I’ll be posting about new plants and Ali Cundy, Trials Recorder for the RHS at Wisley, will be posting about the many and varied trials on flowers and food crops which the RHS runs every year.

Why not take a look? I've just started a series of three posts on new hardy geraniums. And while you’re there look over the other RHS blogs including one by the Curator of the garden at Wisley, Jim Gardiner. I’ll post an occasional catch-up list here – just so you know what you’re missing if you don’t pop over and check it out.

That’s my new blog - New Plants and Trials - over on the Royal Horticultural Society’s website.

White Bird of Paradise

Yes, yes… I worked in the Palm House at Kew so I should know this plant. Well, perhaps I did water it every day, but that was a long long time ago - perhaps I’ve just forgotten it. But coming across it in the new catalog from Stokes Tropicals that just arrived it really looked amazing. Strelitzia nicolai, it’s called and it’s a huge, 20ft, white-flowered version of the familiar orange Bird of Paradise. Likes the same conditions, too, so shouldn’t be too tricky to grow – if you have a conservatory big enough or if you garden in zone 10… Florida perhaps.

Then I found it on the University of British Columbia’s exceptional Botany Photo of the Day blog – with some startling pictures.

And all I can say is this:
1. Go check it out on Botany Photo of the Day blog here
2. If you’re in the US you can order a plant from Stokes Tropicals here
3. If you’re in the UK, the RHS PlantFinder lists a good number of mail order stockists here

Enough said.

Happy Birthday Transatlantic Plantsman!

It’s one year today since I started this blog… Almost 160 posts, countless pictures and plenty of interesting comments from you the readers. During this time I’ve featured some stunning new plants, like Impatiens ‘Fusion Peach Frost’ (pictured) from both sides of the Atlantic, some excellent books, and I’ve occasionally stretched the horticultural point a little to include fish and music. Sadly, I couldn’t find a way to include the startlingly inventive Imagined Village, a “folk” band featuring ex-punk Billy Bragg and veteran folkie Martin Carthy whom I saw recently in England,. On the other hand…

Thank you for your comments and suggestions, those posted publicly and those emailed privately, and here’s to another year of Transatlantic Plantsman.

I‘ll be recommending some recent books in the run up to the holidays… but, if I might be so bold, perhaps you’d be kind enough to take a look at my own books in the column to the left and see if any would make suitable gifts for your family or friends in the coming holiday season.

How to read blogs – by request

A number of readers, especially in England, are new to blogs and have asked about how to read blogs and how to find out when there’s a new post at Transatlantic Plantsman.

The Simplest Way

1. Bookmark/Favorite Transatlantic Plantsman - http://TransatlanticPlantsman.com – just like any other website.
2. Click on it whenever you remember.

Better still, and still very easy

1. Bookmark/Favorite the site, as above.
2. Enter your email address in the window above the Subscribe button, top right, click the button and follow the simple steps. Then, whenever there’s something new to read, you’ll receive an email to prompt you to take a look. You can either follow the link in the email, or click on your Bookmark/Favorite.

Simple way for people already reading blogs

1. Click the Subscribe to this blog's feed link, top right.
2. Some browsers will simply let you Bookmark/Favorite the page (e.g. the latest Firefox or latest Explorer) and will automatically bring up the most recent posts.
3. Otherwise, it will open up a window allowing you to click on buttons through which you can easily subscribe using one of the popular blog readers. If you’re already set up with a reader, it should be there.

If you don’t have a blog reader and think you might want to read lots of blogs

• Sign up with a free reader and I suggest Bloglines, a service which checks the blogs you want to read and highlights new posts. (There are other similar services.) It’s easy to set up, just follow it step-by-step.

If you use the Firefox browser…

• The Sage reader is excellent. It creates a sidebar which lists the blogs to which you subscribe, and highlights in bold those with new posts. One click, and all the posts appear in the browser window. This is what I use.

Searching for a blog?

1. Try Google Blog Search
2. Or try Technorai Blog Search

Ten recommended blogs
Finally, to get you started, here are ten recommended gardening and plant blogs from the UK and USA. There are more in the sidebar over on the right.

GardenWeb’s Garden Voices
Daily highlights from the gardening blogs

Garden Rant
Firm opinion, with an endearing touch of justified hysteria from Susan Harris, Elizabeth Licata, Michelle Owens and Amy Stewart. Superb. There are links to their own individual blogs too.

Horticultural
Jane Perrone's organic allotment and garden blog from England.

Invasive Plants in Arlington
Photo diary or working on non-native, invasive plants in Arlington, Virginia.

Mostlymacro
Sightings and photographs from the natural world in Yorkshire, England.
http://mostlymacro.blogspot.com/index.html

Irene's Garden and Beyond
New York Newsday’s gardening columnist Irene Virag on her garden and beyond

GardenDesignOnline
Gardening and landscape design with attitude from Jane Berger in Washington DC and Woods Hole, Massechussets.

Cold Climate Gardening
Hardy plants for hardy souls from Kathy Purdy in zone 4, New York state.

A Study in Contrasts
Mostly garden-related musings of a transplant living near the sandy shores of Lake Erie.

May Dreams Gardens
From Indiana, including the Garden Bloggers' Book Club