TRIMMING BOX & general hedge /Topiary admin

Derby Day. The first Saturday in June. Traditionally the day for trimming box. Two things before we get into the hows and whats. 

Firstly, if you have any big hedges that might even possibly have birds nesting in them, then you must not do anything until September. I won’t be trimming my tall native hedge until then, even though I am pretty certain there aren’t any birds in the hedge because two setters do a patrol around them twice a day and they do hard stares at any pigeons who make any foray into the field. Even so, I won’t risk it. Plus I don’t want to lose all the fruit that it already setting on the longest branches.

Secondly, if you don’t have any box hedging and you would like some, don’t. I haven’t yet got box blight but I cannot believe that I am on anything other than borrowed time. The next topiary shapes I put in will be something else. Yew maybe, what with Malus Farm being next to our village church. Beech possibly, because I adore it. Neither look like box (choose a Lonicera or, even better, Ilex crenata, if you just can’t bear to be without it) but if you can’t change something, make a feature of it. 

Although it has since succumbed to box caterpillar, I am still obsessed by the shape of Nigel Slater’s kitchen garden edges. So big and square. Until my own hedges reach that size, I will be focusing on two things. Firstly, a light trim to make sure the growth stays neat and even. If you wait until the box has reached the desired size before you train it, you are likely to do a first trim and find all sorts of bare branches and patches. Little and often in the final desired shape will get you there eventually. Use a sheet or a tarpaulin to catch the bits, box clippings are notorious for evading even the most assiduous sweeping. 
Secondly, feeding. Box looks amazing mature, and often a bit disappointing in its adolescence. Patience is required, but you can keep this time to a minimum by diligent feeding in the growing season. Chicken manure pellets are fine. We’re after nitrogen here for green, leafy growth. 

Kristy Ramage suggested Topbuxus Health-Mix and I am looking into its organic status. It sounds like something a Victorian kitchen gardener might suggest, so I am positively inclined from that perspective, but it is always worth checking you haven’t been seduced into pouring pesticides onto innocent soil.

I do have a bay tree that is in need of a little training, and one that is in need of a little feeding. Secateurs for this one though - I don’t trust myself with topiary and a hedge-trimmer.

PLANTING OUT 

I sowed my beans in the middle of May and the first ones, Cosse Violettes, are ready for planting out. There is nothing more dispiriting than planting out beautiful, glossy, glorious plants and watching them be cut in half by slugs overnight so I do err on the side of caution with these. The four other varieties that I sowed at the same time are nowhere near ready yet, they are too small and too lush at the base. This season, I have feared the onslaught of slugs.

And it isn’t just beans. I am still planting out dahlias that were tubers I started in March (either bought or accidentally dug up when clearing beds). The cuttings that I got are still sitting in the greenhouse being mollycoddled, and they will stay there a little longer. 

Into the Dyeing Garden, weld, woad, dyer’s chamomile, disco marigolds. I will sow plenty more seed in this week; dyeing is remarkably demanding of plant material. I put some seedlings of Lady’s Bedstraw into a pot. It is the roots that give the colour and, like new potatoes, growing them on in the pot makes everything a little easier at harvest time. 

Cosmos. They have adored this heat. 

Irises. After my talking to from India about how pots really aren’t the thing for irises, I have bitten the bullet and dedicated a whole bed to them. When they are little, they need very little digging in, so that’s always a bonus for this lazy gardener. I know I keep going on about slugs, but they have nibbled all the way up the stems and my first ‘Downton Brown’ flower is looking very wonky indeed.

More sweet peas.  Always.

More about sweet peas

Plant out the little ones. Tie in the medium sized ones. Cut, cut and cut again the ones in flower. I do believe that, with a little succession sowing and some judicious pulling out and starting again (my early flowering sweet peas are well and truly over) you can have a full Sweet Pea Summer. I can’t pretend they love our climate changed hot summers, but deep, rich soil and thoughtful watering can help you at least get them half way to happiness.

If you don’t tie them in, you get great big kinks in them. Please see above.

SOWING

Yep, I am still sowing. None of that seed tray pricking out stuff now. Just make a line in the soil with a copper trowel, water it, sprinkle the seeds in. I have harvested much of the first round of vegetables and those that over-wintered are now in flower. Today is fruit, so peas and pumpkins here. Tuesday is my next root day and I am itching to get more beetroot in. 

If you are ahead of the curve, then the time is now for biennials. I am sowing them by the bucketful, because my love of foxgloves intensifies year on year. By this time next in 2024, I think we might probably consider it an infatuation.

Biennials are worth a bit of extra effort for lots of reasons, but first it might be helpful to think about why they are an effort. I don’t know about you but the rush that comes early in the season has slackened a bit. This is the time of year that I want to be sitting in the hammock, (or indoors watching the rain slide disconsolately down the windows) and drinking gin. 

Plus, I don’t have a square inch of a bed or a pot spare to put another seed into, and there is so much abundance that I cannot imagine that the earth will ever be bare and cold again. 

But, my lovely, overcome that inertia; biennials are worth it and your future self will thank you. 

My biennial tips are:

Shove them in a pot or a seed tray in the short term. Mine are probably going to be on the shadier staging bits of the greenhouse but that is only because that is the only place that I have any room. Do not feel that you have to direct sow them if you simply don’t have any gaps going spare. It really isn’t a good use of space when you could have dahlias just coming into flower. 

However, do not leave them in a greenhouse over the winter. They need cold to trigger spring flowering. One year I smugly left a whole bank of trays of honesty seedlings protected under cover and then planted them out in March. I may be the only person to have needed a three year flowering cycle for lunaria.

Generally the best guide to when seed needs to be sown is when the flower is dropping its seed naturally. I do find this is a bit tricky with biennials; all the advice is to sow before the end of July to give the plants a chance to bulk up before winter but my foxgloves aren’t anywhere near ready to harvest seed from yet. I also have quite a few self-seeded honesty that are looking pretty small and I know they were from a crop I harvested last year and they won’t flower until next. 

I tend to operate a bit of belt and braces approach to get round this. I have lots of seed from last year in glass jars (I find biennials generally and foxgloves specifically to be abundant in terms of the seed that they produce) and so I will sow that now. But when the foxglove seed it ready, I shall chuck it about a bit and hope for the best. Oh, and save it, obviously. 

OTHER THINGS

Sustain. If it is in a pot, feed weekly and water generously.

Hoeing. You will probably know my thoughts on gardening as therapy, but I do thing hoeing is deeply satisfying. Back and forth. Back and forth. On a dry day, it is like a knife through butter. Keeping beds clear is important at this time of year. Not only because they will out-grow the plants you want if you give them half a chance but also because slugs are rampant right now. Giving them shelter will mean that as soon as you plant out your squash, they will be ready to pounce. Take my word for it. 

Check your soil. If there is one thing that makes my growing life difficult, it isn’t, surprisingly, just slugs. It’s voles. I don’t see them very often and they cause me very little problems above ground. However, I regularly plant sturdy looking seedlings out, water then in and go merrily on my way. I come back to find that they look exactly the same or, worse, a little bit yellow. I have no idea why, but it takes me a few weeks to remember why every single year. It means that the voles have dug a tunnel underneath and the roots are touching air, not soil. If you water hard from above, you will be able to tell what has happened because the soil around the plant will collapse. Get your hand in and tamp it down. I quite like my voles though. Corfe is famous for its ancient oak tree and its resident owl, and I would be blessed if it hunted in my field. 

Cut your roses…