Transatlantic Plantsman

Transatlantic robins

Mentioning blackbirds yesterday reminded me of robins.

This is the European robin, a red-chested bird about the same size as a sparrow – male and female look the same. This is a favorite British bird, partly because it’s so bold… hopping around the flower beds picking up insects and worms turned up by the gardener’s spade, especially in winter. The males sing prettily in the breeding season, even at night. In Britain, many females migrate south for the winter, the males stay put. It’s related to flycatchers and loves mealworms so much it will take them from your hand.

When European settlers crossed the Atlantic they found a slightly larger red-breasted bird – which, of course, immediately became known as the robin. The two sexes are similar, both with rusty red breasts, but are not identical, and they all fly south from here in Pennsylvania for the winter. Belonging to the thrush family, the American robin seems to fill the niche that blackbirds fill in Britain – often nesting in gardens, feeding on the ground eating grubs and insects as well as taking fruit from bushes. Here too, the male has an attractive song. Their British relation the blackbird loves dried fruit so much that it too can be tamed; the American robin seems too wary.

Males in both species react strongly to anything red and will even attack a ball of red wool on a fence post.

We have robins nesting on some trellis in the garden here in PA, they’re proving more cautious than European robins and blackbirds, both of which tolerate gardeners well, but are getting more used to us as we work outside. They realise, rightly, that the local blue jays are a far more serious threat.

Trapped in the house!

Can't get out today. The driveway, the deck, all the snow in the woods, everything is coated in ice. I don't even dare walk down the driveway to get the mail. And the big maple just outside the back door is entirely encased in ice – from trunk to twig! I nearly fell over when stepping gingerly out on to the deck to fill the bird feeders.

Looking out of the kitchen window is like looking through that dimpled glass you find in old shower doors. The outside of the double-glazed windows is entirely iced and, as you can see, partially opaque. But beyond are our winter replacements for the garden’s flowers. It’s all very well for everyone in California, Florida, the Pacific North West and, of course, in Britain. But here in Pennsylvania we haven’t seen a flower for outside for months. Instead we have the birds – they’re our “flowers” for the winter.

And boy are they having a tough time. Apart from the fact that the deck rail and the perches on the feeders are all iced and their poor little feet keep slipping off – yesterday’s blizzard of ice granules forced them to retreat into the evergreens. And today, the crashing of ice as it slid on to the deck sounded, as my wife judy put it, “like someone throwing a body off the roof”. And of course if it hit you on its way down, a body is exactly what you’d be!

But the solitary cardinal was back this morning, stuffing himself with sunflower seed. And a few weeks ago a flock of redpolls arrived for the first time since we’ve been here. They visit every day now, crowded wing-to-wing on the thistle feeder – I’ve counted sixteen at once and three waiting their turn.

So our weekend away is cancelled as the car would only slide off into the woods if were mad enough to venture down the driveway coated with an inch of solid ice. But the temperature has risen just enough for the window ice to melt so at least we can watch the birds. And now that the most helpful tech support agent in the history of sorrowfully calling help-lines has helped me get our wireless internet connection up and running again (thank you Canadian guy from Apple), well…now I can upload this. But now the temperature is dropping again...

The Winter Garden - Book review

Of course, winter means different things to different people in different areas. Just look at the picture see what the winter garden is like here in Pennsylvania (I’ve just been out snow blowing this morning). But in milder areas of the US and in Britain, of course, there’s a wealth of often forgotten plants  to enliven the season.

In Val Bourne’s attractive and very readable book, two elements are emphasised: stepping back and taking in the broader picture and also looking in very close at the detail. So textured paths and surfaces, striking fences and simple sculptures along with evergreen hedges, high and low, and shapely evergreen perennials are always interesting, and especially when rimed with frost or dusted (or weighed down) with snow.

Then at the other extreme there’s the delightful detail in tree bark, coloured shrubs stems, snowdrops, garrya catkins, spidery and of course fragrant witch hazel flowers, arum foliage, seed heads and berries hanging on from autumn and so much more. At times, perhaps, she borrows from a little too far ahead into spring (pulmonarias? Anemone blanda?) but this is an inspiring book – and one which makes those of us who’ve been looking out at snow in November this year simply want to move! It's -10C/14F this morning, so not many plants in flower. Hence the need for structure, as Val points out.

The Winter Garden by Val Bourne is published by Cassell Illustrated.

Order The Winter Garden in Britain from here.

Order The Winter Garden in North America here.

Oddities of transatlantic air travel

I’ve just flown back to Pennsylvania from England and I must tell you about a couple of curious things about the trip.

First, there’s frankly bizarre regulations which allow anyone flying from the USA to the UK to take a laptop on the plane along with a carry-on bag – yet when you fly back home from the UK to the USA the same hand baggage will not be allowed on the plane! You’ll have to get the laptop inside the carrt-on bag – and throw something away to make it fit if necessary. In fact if you want to take a plastic bag with a book in it on to the plane they won’t let you take anything else. Just one bag of any kind. Stuff the book inside your shirt and nobody cares. [I should say that this rule is supposed to be changed from January 2008 - we shall see...]

Even more bizarre… Try to take a knife through the security check and on to the plane and the alarm bells ring. But along with my lunch I was handed a stainless steel knife, fork and spoon.

We all appreciate the need for security, but can’t it at least be consistent?

And... I almost forgot this one. I put three bars of the new British dark chocolate Kit-Kats (delicious!) in one of the suitcases for my wife and friend to try. When I unpacked, one of the cases had been very obviously gone through and two of the Kit-Kats had gone!

Tucked up cosy - Frost protection with bedsheets

We had our first proper frost this week, down to 30F (-1C) with a good solid crust on the birdbath. Fortunately, we were warned and were able to take precautions – so out came all the old bedsheets.

The cannas, bananas, coleus, plectranthus, impatiens, begonias and the rest – in containers as you can see on the deck and out in the garden –they all got the bedsheet treatment. And it worked just great.

OK... it looks a bit weird. But who cares? You can see in the second and third pictures the difference between the white impatiens which were covered and those that escaped. Those which were exposed to the frost are reduced to a soggy mess.

The bedsheets then went briefly into the drier and are now ready for the next frosty forecast on Sunday night. But it’s looking good, and that one night of cover should give us colour for the rest of the week.

Summer Garden Party in Northamptonshire

Next Saturday I’ll be at the Summer Garden Party at Foxtail Lilly, Tracey Mathieson’s delightful country garden and barn shop in Oundle, Northamptonshire.

Featured last year in The Garden, the Royal Horticultural Society’s monthly magazine, the relaxed but imaginative planting style has attracted great attention and the shop, set in a 19th century barn, combines an interesting selection of plants with bouquets of cut flowers, many of which are grown on site. Vintage gardenalia and small antiques are also on sale alongside crafts made by local craftspeople and a choice selection of Tracey’s favourite gardening books.

Come along on Saturday 28 July, from 2-5pm, to enjoy the garden, relax with drinks and light refreshments, look round the shop and perhaps win a free signed copy of my RHS Encyclopedia of Perennials.

I hope to see you there.

Read my previous post on this lovely garden here
Download the article on the garden at Foxtail Lilly here
See exactly where Foxtail Lilly is located here
Check out the Foxtail-Lilly website here

Animals and plants back at the lake

Back in Pennsylvania after a hectic trip – the last port of call was my mother’s where I planted a container with one of Raymond Evison’s new patio clematis, ‘Versailles’. She tells me it’s already been admired by her neighbours.

And what a treat, Continental have dramatically upgraded their in-flight entertainment. The screens in the back of each seat are larger, as well as TV shows and music there’s 250 movies from which to choose, from All About Eve to Batman Begins – though quite why each of the various language versions of Batman Begins is subtitled in Hebrew is something of a mystery. I was delighted to watch American Graffiti and Gangs of New York – but less pleased when the crew gave my vegetarian meal to someone else and left me with nothing.

Then, as we drove along the quiet road towards our driveway, a big black bear crossed over and as we slowed to watch lumbered along through the woods, keeping pace with us 20-30 yards away. And he was big.

English and Spanish bluebells

First, I apologise for the recent “break in transmission”. I’ve been away for a long weekend at a family wedding where I stayed in what must be the only decent hotel in England with absolutely no internet access of any kind (except for the front desk)! Then a day dashing about, flight back the US, my wife judy’s birthday… Anyway, normal service is now resumed.

Just before leaving our English home for the wedding I visited what may well be England’s finest bluebell wood, Short Wood in Northamptonshire. Voted England’s most popular wildflower in poll a couple of years ago, the bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, spreads to form wide rolling oceans of colour in many deciduous woods and even along hedges and roadsides. Over half world’s population grows in Britain, and I understand that nowhere else do they spread so prolifically. The bulbs were once used to make glue for book binding.

Gardening in America (and Britain)

People often ask me why fewer people garden in the States compared with Britain. There’s just one main factor: the climate.

This was brought home to me yesterday – here in PA we’ve had more than 3in/5cm of rain in the last twenty four hours, other parts of the country have had much more. Some have had snow. Aand we’re now in the second half of April. In one part of the garden the soil is still frozen down below so, because the water can’t drain away, puddles are forming in one border (those poor epimediums, cyclamen and daphne) and all along the side of a raised bed (see picture below).

Beautiful blackthorn and sloe gin

One of the most dramatic plants I’ve seen in England on this trip has not been a garden plant – it’s the blackthorn, Prunus spinosa, with great clouds of white flowers billowing out of the hedgerows. It’s the classic spring shrub of roadsides and hedges and like so many natives the plants vary: so today some are well past their best, some are just about to open while many are in full flower. Some are also a clean pure white, others are a dirtier shade.

This relative of the plum and cherry is a traditional, and vital, component of farm hedges – its sharp spines and branching habit help make the hedge a good barrier and it also has other uses.