The Reviewer April’s literary round-up

The Reviewer

A selection of the best writing on the shelves this month

The Kew Gardener’s Guide To Growing Roses

by Tony Hall Frances Lincoln, £12.99

Like Astaire and Rogers, Simon and Garfunkel, and French and Saunders, roses and English gardens are a dream partnership and it is difficult to imagine one without the other. Yet even to the well initiated in these matters, it can at times be almost impossible to decide on the perfect rose to grow.

To assist, author Tony Hall has selected 78 good candidates, grouping them by wide-ranging functions or locations and noting their idiosyncrasies. There are roses for hips, shady spots, training as standards or growing in containers. He makes the case for ramblers and climbers and picks good roses for training against walls – ‘Reine des Violettes’ , ‘Roseraie de l’Hay’, ‘Rosy Cushion’ and Rosa roxburghii, although many will doubtless have an opinion on that.

Threaded through it all is the sort of sound advice to be expected from this established writer (his Gardening with Drought-Resistant Plants was published in 2020). He also offers definitive explanations as to the differences between roses types, clearing up any debate over floribundas, grandifloras, climbers and ramblers.

Can a garden have too many roses? Many would argue not. And although the bare-root season has passed, it’s not too late to put in a rose for later flowering. If that is on your mind, this book will help you choose just one more – and outline how and where to grow it.

Herb/A Cook’s Companion

by Mark Diacono Quadrille, £26

To the canon of works on herbs, Marc Diacono adds a fresh, contemporary take on the subject. His writing is engaging and draws deeply from personal experience of both growing and cooking these valuable plants.

While you’ll find the usual suspects such as parsley, rosemary and so forth, Marc has slipped in a few wildcards that will make you think again. Fig leaves, for instance, make a wonderful flavouring for ice cream and, when toasted, can bring a sweet, slightly nutty flavour to rice. Some additions are less practical – it’s difficult to imagine having many avocado leaves to use – but these are the exception, rather than the rule. There is plenty of growing advice and recipes are diverse and inspiring, among them, picada from Catalonia, adjika from Georgia and hearty French pistou. This wonderful book will enhance the shelves of gardeners and cooks alike. Plant, House Plants: Choosing, Styling, Caring

by Gynelle Leon Mitchell Beazley, £15

The quality of our interior spaces can have an immense effect on the way we experience and view the world. Houseplants have rightly enjoyed their place in the sun in recent years, with millennials in smaller homes of course, but also among those who have had to remain indoors for the past year.

Houseplants are all too easy to kill and many is the plant that found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gynelle Leon is the founder of Prick, the Hackney shop specialising in cacti and succulents. Her first book, also called Prick, dealt with that topic. In Plant, she shares knowledge on choosing, styling and caring for leafy houseplants. There are 100 plants noted here and what stands out is their diversity. From broad-leaved Ficus elastica, to filigree Tillandsia usneoides, a world of plants awaits the attentive grower.

Q&A

In her new book, A Year Full of Flowers, Sarah Raven offers seasonal planting ideas and advice to would-be cut-flower growers, inspired by her own garden at Perch Hill Farm

What is essential for a good cutting garden?

Boringly, site, sun and soil – all that. Even if you just have a window box, choose the right place. I wouldn’t bother with any plant that wasn’t cut-andcome-again, to the point that I would grow narcissus over tulips because the right varieties give you a repeat crop. Develop a passion for picking. Having a bit of an eye helps: the visual life must engage you.

Which flowers should we be sowing now for long cutting and distinctiveness?

If I were to choose one it would be dahlias, which are now perennial here because of climate change. They give you the most bountiful harvest and because they’re now so fashionable, the range is ever better. The whole cosmos clan is unbelievably giving and there’s nothing better or more reliable than cosmos ‘Purity’ or ‘Dazzler’. I adore ammi arranged on its own. Foxgloves and antirrhinums give a vertical spire and there is good breeding going on in both. On antirrhinums, look for the ‘Chantilly’ series, which have scent and flower from June to September.

Can you outline three good hacks for growing and arranging cut flowers?

Think of your seed as gold dust and be stingy with it. For this, gutters are good for concentrating the mind – sow 1.5 inches apart and you can’t go wrong. Galvanised water troughs make brilliant containers because they retain moisture down to the base and are excellent for an intensive cutting patch. For floristry, instead of using floral foam or chicken wire, crumple up pliable woody stems, put them in a vase and you’ve got a lovely, organic, natural equivalent.

Debunk a myth about growing cut flowers.

When I started teaching, there was a perception that our homegrown flowers wouldn’t last. This is not true. If you grow the right varieties, pick them at the right time of day and condition them correctly – that is, not pick-plonk, but pick, condition, rest and arrange – you’ll get more life from them. The things that have disappointed me over the years are things I’ve bought at vast expense but which have flopped because they’ve been grown in a polytunnel or glasshouse with massive irrigation and heat.

What else would you like to achieve?

I’d like more people to discover the simple pleasure of gardening. That’s why I still love teaching: it’s seeing that spark in someone’s eye when this sort of lightbulb goes on. It’s an easy switch to flip and gives a person joy for the rest of their life. I’d like to do that more and I don’t want it to be elitist or exclusive.

Which are your own favourite spring varieties to have in the house?

For me it’s blossom, from plants like amelanchier, Prunus ‘Tai-haku’ and Malus ‘Dartmouth’ and I always sear the stem end in boiling water for 30 seconds. A single bough is fantastic, or, if you’re having a party, a bucketful is wonderful. I use fritillaries, even the imperials, which smell of fox poo but have such an architectural shape. Snake’s heads are very short lived, but you can get two weeks out of an imperial. If you change the water the smell is minimised and adding vinegar helps because it stops the stem rotting. There are tulips of course. I grow ‘Flaming Parrot’ or ‘Estella Rijnveld’ to bring in. A Year Full of Flowers

by Sarah Raven with photography by Jonathan Buckley, Bloomsbury, £25.

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Next issue

ON SALE 21 APRIL

Spring perfection

• Homeware designer Sophie Conran’s beautiful Wiltshire garden • The waterside gardens at Dipley Mill in Hampshire • A florist’s garden in West Sussex, designed with wildlife in mind • Artist Judith Glover’s iris-packed garden in rural Suffolk • The dreamy garden at Mothecombe House and its owner’s devotion to bees

PLUS Behind the scenes at Special Plants Nursery; the finest alliums; a guide to garden entertaining; finding the perfect furniture; Troy Scott Smith shares his box-trimming tips

Don’t miss out. Buy single copies or subscribe now at theenglishgarden.co.uk 01858 438854

TREHANE NURSERY

A small, traditional grower based in Dorset, Trehane Nursery has specialised in Camellias and blueberries for more than 60 years, introducing many new Camellias to the British gardener. Today, we grow an unsurpassed range of more than 200 different varieties, from young plants to mature specimens, all of which can be dispatched by courier throughout the UK. For friendly advice, or to order, please contact us by phone, via the website, or call in and visit our peaceful, woodland nursery. OPEN: Monday to Friday (all year) 8.30am to 4.30pm; please check website for weekend opening hours.

Tel: 01202 873490 www.trehanenursery.co.uk Stapehill Road, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 7ND

WEASDALE NURSERIES

Weasdale Nurseries have been growing hardy trees and shrubs on our site at 850ft elevation in the Howgill Fells, at the heart of beautiful Cumbria, since 1950. Specialising in mail order from the outset, our careful packaging system has become legendary and guarantees safe arrival of the delicate contents anywhere in the UK. Contact us for your free copy of our highly readable, illustrated catalogue, listing over 900 different plants available from November to April. EGSPR/21.

Tel: 015396 23246 sales@weasdale.com | www.weasdale.com Newbiggin on Lune, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria CA17 4LX

ASHWOOD NURSERIES

A plantsman’s paradise and an independent nursery situated in the West Midlands. We specialise in Hellebores, Hardy Cyclamen, Salvias, Hepaticas, Lewisias, Hydrangeas, Dwarf Conifers, Snowdrops, Primula auriculas and many more beautiful plants. Our mail order service sends plants, garden essentials and gifts to mainland UK destinations. Please visit our website for up-to-date information regarding opening times and events. At Twelve Nunns we are well known for our Harvington Hellebores® and have many beautiful colours and forms to choose from. They are available to order from our website now, so why not brighten up your winter garden. We also specialise in Trilliums, Erythroniums and Roscoea – all plants that enjoy dappled shade in the garden. Our plants are bred and grown by us in rural Lincolnshire and come carefully packed in our ecofriendly packaging. Visit our website to find out more.

Tel: 01384 401996 mailorder@ashwoodnurseries.com | www.ashwoodnurseries.com Ashwood Lower Lane, Kingswinford, West Midlands DY6 0AE

TWELVE NUNNS

© Clive Nichols

Tel: 01778 590455 penny@twelvenunns.co.uk www.twelvenunns.co.uk

DAISY CLOUGH NURSERIES LTD

A busy nursery in rural Lancashire, Daisy Clough specialises in a carefully selected range of over 700 perennials and grasses. Open seven days a week, the nursery also offers a good selection of shrubs, trees, container plants and fruit. Plenty of homegrown vegetable plants are available through spring and summer. A full plant list is available to view on our website. Our garden shop sells seeds, tools and essential garden sundries. We have a beautiful homeware and clothing shop, a deli and a tearoom to round off your visit. Covid Tel: 01524 793104 restrictions apply. info@daisyclough.com | www.daisyclough.com Station Lane, Scorton, Preston, Lancs PR3 1AN

TENDERCARE NURSERIES

Specialising in more mature and specimen plants, from acers to agapanthus, pleached trees and evergreen screens, Tendercare’s 12 acres are a joy to visit. Our popular site visit and warrantied planting services can help rejuvenate a tired garden or change the focus of the garden after building works. While our award-winning design service will create a beautiful garden for you to enjoy all year through. Book a visit with assistance from one of our horticulturists, by golf buggy, or pop into our office and we can give you a map, a route to follow, and suggestions to get you started.

THE BISHOP’S PALACE & GARDENS, WELLS

Tel: 01749 988111 www.bishopspalace.org.uk Off Market Place, Wells, Somerset BA5 2PD More than 14 acres of spectacular, Covid-secure, RHS partner gardens, including picturesque, romantic, formal and Victorian styles, a wildflower arboretum, specimen trees, a contemporary Quiet Garden and Community Garden alongside waterfalls, well pools and a moat with resident swans around a stunning medieval palace. Don’t miss the outstanding Tulip displays this spring. OPEN: Daily 10am to 6pm.

CERNEY HOUSE GARDENS

Cerney House garden is a romantic English garden for all seasons. There is a beautiful secluded Victorian walled garden. In March and April we feature a wonderful display of tulips which heralds the arrival of spring with a riot of colour throughout the garden. Explore our new medicinal herb garden. Tea, coffee and homemade cake available. Dogs welcome. New for 2021 Potting Shed shop selling plants. OPEN: Daily from Sat 30 Jan 2021. 10am to 7pm (dusk).

Tel: 01285 831300 janet@cerneygardens.com | www.cerneygardens.com North Cerney, Cirencester GL7 7BX

HEDGING UK

Hedging UK are specialist growers of quality hedging plants. Plants are available to purchase at wholesale prices across the UK through our mail order service. Buy direct from the grower, delivered direct to your door. Readers of The English Garden get a 5% discount (quote TEG2021).

Tel: 01704 827224 or 07789 922457 sales@hedginguk.com | www.hedginguk.com Boundary House Farm, Holmeswood Road, Holmeswood, Lancashire L40 1UA

WAKEHURST

Wakehurst © Jim Holden, RBG Kew Have a day out like no other at Wakehurst, Kew’s wild botanic garden. See the landscape come alive after a long winter, as flowers turn from buds to blooms and trees transform with new life. Wakehurst is home to the UK’s largest conservation project, the Millennium Seed Bank and more than 500 acres of beautiful gardens and woodlands. Discover Kew’s world-leading plant science — and the extraordinary gardens at its heart. OPEN: Daily 10am to 6pm (from 1 March)

Tel: 01444 894066 wakehurst@kew.org | Pre-booking essential kew.org/wakehurst Selsfield Rd, Haywards Heath RH17 6TN

KELMARSH HALL

© Sarah Vivienne The glorious grade II* listed gardens at Kelmarsh Hall are influenced by the work of three 20th century tastemakers: Nancy Lancaster, Norah Lindsey and Geoffrey Jellicoe. The garden holds exuberant flower borders, romantic rose gardens, and a walled garden full of vibrant colours. Springtime offers swathes of daffodils and fritillaries along the driveway to the Hall, along with a colourful sea of tulips in the walled garden. OPEN: Sunday 4 April-Thurs 30 Sept 2021. Tues, Wed, Thurs, Sun and BH Mon.

Tel: 01604 686543 enquiries@kelmarsh.com | www.kelmarsh.com Northamptonshire NN6 9LY

SPRING REACH NURSERY

A plant fanatic’s paradise on the edge of the beautiful Surrey Hills, just 10 minutes from the A3/M25. Brilliant home-grown Shrubs, Climbers, Grasses, Perennials, Roses, Ferns, Trees, Hedging and Fruit, plus these spring wonders: pink Chaenomeles ‘Moerloosei’, Exochorda ‘The Bride’, Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’, Magnolia ‘Genie’ and Ribes ‘Elkington’s White’. New season roses and yew hedging now ready.