Finding the perfect plant
Monday 27th July. Have you noticed the colours of the day have changed? Pickeridge hill takes on a glow in the thick light. A shift into later summer sunshine. As I watch the glow moving across the trees on the hillside, a sudden rain sweeps down the valley. It drenches the bees that feed all afternoon on the hedge germander. Sometimes there are so many that the whole garden seems to be vibrating slightly. I dash out when the rain eases to collect courgettes and fennel leaves for supper.
Tuesday 28 July. I often impulse buy plants for their names. Dusty Springfield sweet peas. Jude the Obscure roses. Agrostemma githago bianca. Any calamagrostis, because the name is so round it makes me smile.
This one, I bought because of the description on the label. I had stopped at a nursery on a work trip. One of those nurseries which sells plants I don’t really recognise. It was early in the year, and there were plants but few flowers so I felt at a bit of a loss and not a little out of my depth. I looked at labels and tried to feel inspired, or at least to appear to anyone watching that I belonged in such a place. I examined green stems in deep pots with apparent confidence, wondering how long before I could ignominiously slope back to my car. One label said:
This fairly vigorous Japanese climber bears from spring to early autumn intriguing urn-shaped flowers, the four fleshy petals staying almost closed, and covered on the outside with brown hairs, resembling a bunch of baby rabbits clustered together.
That thing where people say they just knew when they had found their wedding dress? I had found my plant. It was through the till and in my car before you could say ‘fluffy bunny’. It is named Clematis fusca and it the most wonderful, most cheerful and just downright bizarre flower I have ever seen. I want to drape it over everything in the house and put little jars of it in unexpected places. But I shan’t because I am going to save as much seed as I can for this autumn’s seeds shop. And yes, it absolutely looks like a bunch of baby rabbits.
Or a particularly chocolatey coloured mouse.
Wednesday 29th July. The days are shortening. I can tell because I am an early riser, and there are two magic tipping points in the year where my moment of waking matches the sunrise. Today marks the start of the turn towards dark mornings and even darker nights. As I get up, the cleft in the hills is filled with a soft coral pink. I think about taking my camera outside and making the most of the soft light, the golden hour. I don’t obviously. I make another cup of coffee and take it back to bed. You just can’t rush setters getting up in the morning, and Hugo is still snoring with his head on a pillow.
Thursday 30th July. The orchard and the flower field are separated by a row of espalier apple trees. A mix of cider apples, cookers and eaters; they are a wonderful sight. At this time of year they appear less as trees and more as a wall of green upright branches. The fruit is obscured by a season’s worth of growth. I start looking up when to do a summer prune in the middle of June and it invariably says to wait until August. I cannot wait a minute longer and I tackle the first tree, a prolific James Grieve. We bought a tree for each of our nephews: a James Grieve, a Thomas Putt and a William Crump. Our niece, Iona, came later and had us stumped on the fruit front, so she remains treeless. James Grieve is the heaviest cropper, but I defy you to find a better apple to eat stilton with than William Crump.
Summer pruning takes me forever. I start with enthusiasm and dash, and then rapidly lose confidence. I stop and google. If I never cut into the old wood, then surely the spurs get too long? Do I count three leaves above the main stem, or the last cut? I watch a video that makes it look easy, and start again. After half an hour I am convinced I have ruined next year’s crop and grind to a halt. Luckily Beauty of Bath is the first to be pruned and has some perfectly ripe apples that need eating immediately.
Beauty of Bath is an attractive early-season English apple, hailing from the Victorian era. It will ripen in mid-July in southern England. Beauty of Bath was grown commercially in Victorian times because it was one of the earliest-ripening varieties then available, and it is a heavy-cropper with good disease resistance. There is no commercial demand for this type of apple today because the market for apples in early summer in the northern hemisphere is dominated by high quality late-season varieties imported from the southern hemisphere. Late season apples store and handle much better than early season varieties. Indeed Beauty of Bath is best eaten straight from the tree, as it does not keep more than a day or so. Although the flavour does not compare with later season apples, Beauty of Bath would have been a welcome sight in early August for the Victorian apple enthusiast, as the first sign of the new apple season. Like most early varieties it is primarily quite a sharp flavour, but can be sweet if you catch it before it becomes over-ripe.
from Orange Pippen
Friday 31st July. The matrix planting is out of control. Bronze fennel towers, and every time I look the atriplex is taller and thicker. I am delighted to see the echinops smothered in bees, but less pleased to see that the dahlias have not been fast enough to compete with their neighbours. It is time to edit, and I cut back everything that has toppled, and as much as I can reach of the atriplex. I cannot be cross with it because I adore the colours in the seed heads. The range from a sharp green softly edged with muddy pink, through a deep bruised red, to a dark, black-purple, the shade of neat ribena. At the back of the planting, down by the meadow, there is a single spire that is shocking, neon pink.
Saturday 1 August. I may have taken my eye off the ball with the greenhouse. I am vigilant in my watering of the tomatoes but my late sowing of purple sprouting broccoli and my red cabbages destined for Christmas dinner have been reduced to stumps by tiny caterpillars. Even the cabbages that are planted outside are more hole than leaf. I treat myself to a trip to Combe Dingle and stock up on vegetable plugs. They come in half or full dozens, pulled out of their trays and tucked into paper bags with the name scribbled on the side. I needed more kohlrabi and replacement PSB, but I leave with celeriac, Brussels sprouts, a white sprouting broccoli and some cauliflowers and kalettes, just to try. Although the day is going to be hot, I plant them immediately. By the time I have finished watering them in and gone inside to put the kettle on, at least fifteen cabbage white butterflies have appeared and are hovering meaningfully over the kitchen garden. I fear covering the whole bed with netting is the only way to guarantee any form of crop over this winter. There is a reason most of us gave up trying to feed ourselves and supermarkets were invented.
(I am only maintaining any form of emotional equilibrium about this because my squash are thriving. I mean, kale is all very well and good, but it will be trays of roasted pumpkins that get me through to February.)
