January blog about the Garden House

January 2019 working blog

Jennifer Wright – Student Gardener 

The Garden House

Galanthus plicatus 'Trimmer'

As it is sleeting heavily outside, this is definitely the perfect time to write my first entry for the Garden House website. First of all, I believe I should introduce myself. My name is Jennifer and I am the 2^nd year Professional Gardener’s Guild trainee here at the Garden House. I have been here 5 months already and I can honestly say that everyone here has been so welcoming. Before coming here, I spent my first-year placement at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, what a complete contrast to here. Waddesdon Manor is a beautiful Victorian French renaissance style chateau in the middle of the English countryside with huge amounts of garish annual bedding. The contrast is stark and actually completely wonderful. I am not the only trainee here. We are the Jen’s, myself (Scottish Jen) and Cornish Jen.

                                        

It has been all about the snowdrops here at The Garden House recently. I am totally flabbergasted, in a good way, just how many there are. It has been such great fun finding out their names as they have been coming into flower. Some of them are just fantastic, ‘Grumpy’, ‘Mister Stinker’ and ‘Ermine Lace’ to name a few. As one of my colleagues put it “Why would a snowdrop be called Lace? There is absolutely nothing Lacy about snowdrops!” However! As snowdrops have been the main focus of this month. I decided to let you know about another January blossomer.           

Clematis 'Winter Beauty'

     

Clematis ‘Winter beauty’ is a winter flowering climbing perennial. Now I wasn’t on board with this plant at the beginning. It looked a little boring in the autumn when it was first pointed out to me but then after New year it began flowering with a bang! Today, it has definitely wormed its way onto my favourite winter plant list. It has gorgeous white flowers which nod down to the ground like a bell. The flowers aren’t scented but the plant makes up for this by being so floriferous.

Botanical name: Clematis urophylla ‘Winter Beauty’

Family: Ranunculaceae

Common names: Funnily enough, Clematis.

Where is it at the Garden House: We grow ‘Winter Beauty’ here against the tower in the walled garden. The stone provides the perfect backdrop to the white flowers. Growing it against a wall offers protection from cold east winds and a sunny position keeps the plant warm during winter. It isn’t the hardiest of Clematis but definitely worth a shot if you have a sheltered position in your garden which needs filling. To be honest with you, this is a plant I would make space for even if I didn’t have any left. With the winter weather, plants that flower at this time of year are a welcome site for us gardeners. 

Mulching the terraces - before picture

As gardeners, we work outside most days of the year unless the weather is completely atrocious and it isn’t worth slowly freezing to death. Then we come inside to thaw out. This time of year is cold, wet and grey but we still go outside. I am often asked by my friends, who have completely different careers such as engineering or film, what we would do in the winter because what could we possibly do? The plants aren’t growing and the weather is so cold. I think I have to explain what I do most of the time to them anyway but regardless there is still so much to do. Weeds never stop growing, they just get smaller and more annoying in winter, one day of warm weather in January and they are germinating all over the place.  This brings me nicely to what we have been doing this month here in the garden. To gardeners, January is the month for tidying up, cutting back any leftover herbaceous, mulching, pruning and project work. Oh, and planning out for the rest of the year. 

January is perfect for tidying up borders by raking away leaves, weeding out any hard to reach plants in summer and reshaping any beds which have gone wonky over the summer. Our invaluable volunteers help us every day and we couldn’t do it without them.  Raking up leaves is a great way to do away with any slugs and snails which may be overwintering under the protection of fallen leaves. Plus, you can use leaves to make leaf mould which benefits your borders by adding essential nutrients such as phosphorous, potassium and nitrogen back into the soil. We don’t make leaf mould here at the moment but we do add them to our compost heap. The compost that we amass over the year is turned every few months to make sure everything is well rotted down and to contribute to aerobic composting. This basically just means adding oxygen into the heap. Oxygen contributes to aerobic composting by heating up the pile and speeding up the decay of plant material which means we can use our compost as a mulch on a yearly basis.

                                       

Just like leaf mould, using compost as a mulch on our borders gives back to the soil and creates a much better space for growing plants in. On top of this, thick layers of mulch help to suppress weeds, retain moisture during the hot summer months and protect the roots of plants during the cold winter months. I am personally a massive fan of mulching especially as gardeners we often cut back herbaceous growth and remove leaves. In nature, these would rot down where they are and feed the dormant plants for the following year. All plants, trees and food sources combined such as wheat, rely on this system to stay alive. This is the delicate balance of the eco-system that has been created over millennia, that as humans we begin to interfere with. Composting and mulching help to keep this balance on track. Constantly removing leaves from borders in our own gardens without replacing these nutrients somehow would eventually exhaust the soil and it would become so poor that nothing would grow. Thankfully, this takes a long time and can often be reversed with the right care.

                                      

 

Mulching the terraces - After picture

                                                                                      

One of the most asked questions here is “What type of mulch is it that you use in the Walled Garden?” Well… that is an easy one to answer. We use bracken mulch which is cut down locally. Bracken mulch - or Pteridium aquilinum - works in the same way as leaf mould and compost. The only difference is that is takes slightly longer to break down and when it does, the resulting compost is slightly more acidic. Bracken mulch is very good at suppressing weeds and it is good to look at, these two points definitely puts in my favour. 

In all of my textbooks and resource books, it states that Winter is the one of the best times to prune trees and shrubs. However, not all shrubs. As cutting back some early flowering plants would take all of their flowers off and you would be wondering in spring and summer why they aren’t flowering that year. It is always best, if you don’t know, to look up what you want to cut back before taking the proverbial plunge. I must admit, I don’t always do that but thankfully, I like to think I have amassed enough information over the last few years to make the decision quickly. Plants are pruned in the winter as the trees are sleeping. Being dormant, helps them to tolerate having limbs chopped off like having anaesthesia before going for an operation. In spring, summer and autumn, the life blood of trees flows through their vascular system so strongly that if cut at the wrong time will cause them to “bleed out” as the tree continues to try and feed that limb with energy. It isn’t as dramatic in most cases as it would be for humans but definitely best avoided. So far, I have spoken about tidying up, mulching and pruning. That just leaves project work. 

At the beginning of the Waterfall construction

                                      

This year’s “project” is our new waterfall! I have been tweeting about this on and off since the start of December. Since then we have made so much progress and it is looking fantastic. Our head gardener, Nick, and our gardens foreman, David, have been working their socks off to get this area ready for opening fully again in the spring. At the moment, this area is cordoned off as we are still moving stone around. The waterfall has been built at the bottom of the Acer glade with the hopes that it will be an unexpected and peaceful place to chance upon. I have to say, I am impressed how quickly it has all come together. It has been built with stone found around the site that has been dug up on previous occasions.  

Turning the waterfall on for the first time!

                                           

Although it feels long winter only lasts for a few months and spring is just about within our sights. Early flowering daffodils and crocus are popping up all over the place and the fuzzy Magnolia flower buds are fattening up, readying themselves for spring. It will be warm again soon. I hope. For a Scottish woman, I am not that hardy.

As I am coming to the end of this post, having just remarked how spring is around the corner. The sleet has turned into snow and is now beginning to cover the ground with a thin white later. Oh joy. Make sure you stay warm! Until next time! 

Daffodils flowering in the Long Walk

                             

Fudging it 'til it works!

Fudging it ‘til it works! – February 2019

Jennifer Wright 

Pruning Fuchsia magellanica 'Floriade' in the sunked garden @TGardenHouse

As always, research is key especially when it comes to pruning. I often spend some time in and out of work, after I have received my job list for that week, working out various pruning styles and techniques that would suit what has come up. It doesn’t always help though; misshapen shrubs and trees always have their own ideas. On top of that, research doesn’t help when the plant you want to prune is newly introduced or rare. This means that there is very little previous information to go on. The best way I have found is to fudge it and give it a go after having looked at a related plant with similar growth habits. Asking advice from my colleagues saves a lot of time and heartache, so if I am unsure that is a fantastic choice. Most of the people I have had the pleasure to work with have been totally happy to share any knowledge or insight they may have. It is sometimes the case though that they know as little about it as I do. Then, the best thing to do it fudge it ‘til it works.

Fudging it ‘til it works is probably my philosophy in life. Basically, it boils down to this: research as much as possible (anxiety does wonders for this), give it a go, if it fudges up then try again and you know better for next time. Then if you have to do it again, use that as an opportunity to improve. Practice is key. 

Fudging it ‘til it works also means fudging it up pretty badly from time to time. In my defence, I am still a student but really, common sense is a thing. Around halfway through my 2-year apprenticeship at RBG Edinburgh I asked very, very nicely to be given a shot on the ride-on mowers before my LANTRA course later on that month. This wasn’t the first time I had been on a ride-on but it certainly was the last, at least for a year or so. My team and I set ourselves time and space in the nursery at RBGE so that I could practice in peace and without the danger of passing members of the public. The team went through the controls and I understood everything. In theory, I was now pretty good at knowing what I should be doing. Practically speaking, I had no clue what I was doing. The ride-on we had chosen was a kind of mower with zero-turn steering. This just means that instead of having a steering wheel, the mower has handles which you move back and forth depending on whether you want to go forward or back. Pushing just one handle forward means you will turn on the spot in the direction that you chose. Seems pretty simple right? It is. Once I got used to this machine after spending a lot of time practicing, zero-turn machines are so much nicer to use and zippier that conventional steering wheels.  

Back to the story – after going through the controls we set up a course for me to mow. It was pretty simple, just a box and mowing the space in between. All set and ready to go, I was just about to put my ear defenders on when I heard over the engine noise “Remember to avoid the water tap and go around it!”. Right, acknowledged. Off I went, nervous but having good fun. I am one of those people that when I am doing something new music starts playing in my head. Off on an adventure to steal a jewel from a dragon, having a great time exploring strange new worlds, and gallivanting through time and space. La, la, laaaaaaaaa… Bang! Of course, it was bound to happen. I hit the gosh darn water tap with the mower blades.  10 ft of water spray, gushing through the air like Niagara Falls. I was mortified. How could I not be? I had done exactly what I had been told not to do. I guess as my 2^nd defence of this story, at this point I couldn’t drive a car yet. However, all ends well, we laughed it off and fixed the tap. On the plus side, I now know more about plumbing and I always check the ground first before I mow. 

Always check the ground, is probably some of the best advice I have been given when it comes to mowing. There is so much random junk. Humans are one of dirtiest species on the planet. I have come across nappies, cans and clothes. All of which would damage smaller mowers. I am just grateful though that I have never, yet, come across used needles which some of my friends have been unfortunate enough to chance upon. 

I don't even what happened...

The ground can damage all sorts of tools so I do exercise caution. This stonker in the picture above happened the other week at The Garden House. I had never seen a hand fork do this before. I will maintain that I am just incredibly strong until I die but I know deep, deep down that the bramble I was getting at was stronger than me and the fork combined. Hand forks have this ability to just disappear and vanish into the pit of lost things. You can put it down for 5 seconds and it gets up then walks away. In one place I worked there was a running tally of hand forks lost that year and when the compost heap was turned, the tally showed how many that have been found again. Some disappear forever, others turn up 6 months down the line exactly where you left it. Those sneaky wee *insert bad word here* are a source of endless amusement for me and my colleagues. 

So, if I had any advice for this week. It would be this: research is key, listen to your elders, don’t hit the thing and put a tracking device on your hand forks.

Poisonous plants - Aconitum carmichaelii

Aconitum talk – poisonous plants, January 2019

Jennifer Wright

In October last year I was asked to do a talk to a group of horticulturists about anything I wanted to, as long as it focused on a plant. It’s a golden opportunity to give a presentation about the topic of your choice. As it was the weekend before Halloween, naturally I chose the Aconitum or Monkshood. Below is a transcript of the notes I wrote for the talk. It should all be in the right order so hopefully you can follow: 

Chosen plant of choice: Aconitum carmichaelii ‘The Grim Reaper’ 

Where is it and how did I come across it: This monkshood is in the walled garden at The Garden House, Devon. I noticed it one day while I was dead heading Dahlias and decided to check it out properly. 

Parentage/Provenance: I couldn’t find the exact parentage of ‘The Grim Reaper’ but carmichaelii is native to central and west China. 

Common names: This plant has so many common names, it made me feel dizzy: Chinese monkshood, wolfsbane, Carmichael’s monkshood, old wife’s hood, tiger’s bane, dog’s bane, mouse bane (supposedly by its ability to kill a mouse from its smell) and devil’s helmet. 

Family: Ranunculaceae

 

Description: This is a highly toxic herbaceous perennial with dark green leathery leaves, panicles of violet blue flowers and an upright habit. It can grow up to 1.5 metres tall but the one at the Garden House was at around 50cm this year, possibly due to the Beast from the East. 

Cultivation: Likes full sun or partial shade in a sheltered position. Loam to clay soil and preferably acid to neutral. Always use gloves when handling this plant. 

Propagation: Divide in the autumn or spring. Plants can sometimes be slow to re-establish. 

General information:

Aconitum napellus is the European species and is the true Monkshood species.

Aconitum lycoctonum is actually wolsbane and is also native to Europe.

Incidently, this is the plant that Severus Snape uses to brew a potion for Remus Lupin to help him prevent his werewolf transformation in the Harry Potter series.

All Aconitum species are poisonous to humans. 

Poisons: The distinct taste of Aconitum means that accidental poisonings are rare. It is described as very bitter followed by a burning sensation then complete numbness of the mouth. Ingestion and skin absorption are the main concerns for Aconitum with gardeners. 

Symptoms: tingling sensation and then numbness of the mouth, stomach pain, muscular paralysis, heart arrhythmia and then eventual death. 

Chemical composition: Aconitum has 3 main organic alkaloid compounds and the combination results in death. Aconitine – This is responsible for heart arrhythmia. Atisine – numbness, tingling and muscular effects. Veatchine – acts as a starting compound for the others. 

Poisoning incidents: I am going to talk about 3 incidents of Aconite poisoning but there are a lot to sift through online and historical records. Both deliberate and accidental. The 1^st serves as a reminder that misidentification of plants can be fatal. 

1.      On July 30^th 2004, Canadian actor Andre Noble ate Aconitum, thinking it was wild parsnip, while hiking. He died hours later.

2.      Curry Killer! January 2009 was a jealousy driven murder. Lakhvir Singh poisoned her lover Lakhvinder Cheema and his fiance by adding an Aconite based herbal remedy to leftover curry in their fridge, made from Indian Monkshood. The man died hours later and his fiancé survived.

3.      Medical murders! Dr. George Henry Lamson poisoned his brother in law Percy Malcolm John in 1881. He had slowly been poisoning him for a while in the newly developed soluble capsules which he had access to as a doctor under the pretence for treating him for other ailments. This wasn’t fast enough, he brought his brother in law a cake laced with Aconite when he visited his home. He was convicted on murder and hanged.  

History, uses and mythology:

Aconitum has several possible name meanings or origins.

1.      Could come from the Akon which is an ancient Greek word for dart or arrow, referring to the plants use.

2.      According to Theophrastus (ancient Greek plant biologist, pupil of Plato and successor of Aristotle) the name comes from the village of Akonai which was land occupied by the Mariandynoi people. The village doesn’t exist today, area in Turkey. The modern nearby village has a cave which is said to house the entrance to the underworld which was guarded by Cerberus, the great 3-headed hound of Hades. His task was to prevent the dead from leaving and the living form sneaking in. Interestingly, in other Greek mythological stories Hekate, goddess of witchcraft, transformed the foam from Cerberus’s mouth into Aconitums when Hercules dragged Cerberus from the Underworld as his 12^th test. 

If there is one thing I have learnt while researching for this is that people really like to poison pointy things.

A lycoctonum: ancient Greeks used it to poison arrow heads to shoot wolves.

A napellus: used by the Aboriginal people of the Kamchatka peninsula in the North Pacific Ocean. Poison harpoons for whaling, each harpoon had a signature. More whales meant that they were more successful. The dead where rendered down and body fat was sued to apply the Aconite to harpoon heads as a symbolic skill passed on.

A carmichaelii: used by Ancient Chinese to poison arrows so that when injured soldiers pulled out an arrow they would die anyway from poisoning. 

Recent History: Nazi scientists began experimenting with poisoning bullets towards the end of World War 2.

In medieval times, there was a herbal potion called the Witches Flying ointment. It included henbane, monkshood, foxglove and deadly nightshade. Weirdly enough, atropine (nightshade) and digitoxin (foxgloves) act as antidotes for aconitum poisoning in the right doses.

 Some modern-day wiccans believe that Aconitum can be used to enhance spells for invisibility and protection from evil.

I hope you all enjoyed this post. I am sorry that there isn’t a picture to put up with this post but as it is January Aconitum is in short supply until the spring.