This year we have decided to construct a swimming pool for holiday guests and Garden Design Academy students. Its placement was the subject of much debate and we used it as a surveying and design exercise with a group of visiting garden designers and landscapers last year. The size and area having been agreed upon and a skilled constructor having been appointed, I have been left with the task of clearing the plants to allow work to start at the beginning of April.

Most of these plants are on the move

The site runs along one boundary, connecting the house with our log cabin lecture room. As none of the boundaries, buildings or features is parallel to each other, we have had to decide if we would install the pool perpendicular to the house, to the cabin or neither. With the advantage of CAD and a room full of design and construction specialists, it was soon clear that the way to proceed was at a right-angle to the cabin rather than the house. This leaves a border that narrows into the distance when viewed from the house, emphasising the length of the garden, an illusion popular with French garden designers at the time the house was constructed.

Asters looking for a new home

The bed has been planted for only two years or so but is already beginning to look established in places. It was also used as a nursery, a home for plants with no home and a place to root hardwood cutting. The design was beginning to show through the jumble however, before I started to rip it apart. I measured and pegged out the pool and its surrounding paving so that I could see what plants needed to be moved: quite a few. I started with the trees, of which there are far too many. The Clerodendrum trichotomum, acquired as a sucker from a local plant, took some lifting. Despite negative reviews from some American sources I think this is a beautiful tree, a native to Western China and named in honour of Paul Guillaume, a French missionary and naturalist in Central China. It has very fragrant, pretty white flowers in August. These are followed by outstanding and eye-catching, metallic-blue berries in autumn. The star of this bed in 2011, it has now been moved to the front garden.

A Liquidambar has been potted and may be given to gardening friends, but the Golden Catalpa is now in a pot on the patio, under-planted with yellow Crocus as it was when it was growing in the side bed. The trees out, I am now turning my attention to the herbaceous plants. Sedum spectabilis and Geums have now been lifted, divided and planted in another front garden bed, close to a relocated modern French shrub rose and established Delphiniums and Asters, the whole having a very English feel. Homes still need to be found for many more plants but I feel I have broken the back of the work now. In addition I have a collection of newly potted plants to give away to friends.

Chaumont 2010 - Garden Design Academy students hard at work

In the mean time I have had a number of invitations to gardening product launches and events. Unfortunately, everything seems to be arranged for 9am in central Paris and as no-one is paying my hotel bill and I am reluctant to get up for the 6am train, I am attending very few of them. I can tell you however, having turned down an invitation to the press launch, that the theme of the Chaumont Festival of Gardens for 2012 is “Jardins de délice, jardins de délire”. There is a note about this, and links to details of every festival since its beginnings in 1992, on the Loire Valley Gardens site: http://www.loirevalleygardens.com/chaumont_sur_loire.html

Our own Loire Valley Gardens study tour is beginning to attract bookings from as far away as Australia and details of the spring tour on 22^nd -29^th May can be found here: http://www.gardendesignacademy.com/Res_Loire_Gardens.html

A pity there are not many gardens centres like this in France

Back in the UK we used to take garden centres pretty much for granted. We had a dozen or more within a short drive of our home, ranging from small privately owned businesses to impersonal sheds like Wyevale. At the top end there were places you could get lost in for the day: destination centres, as they like to call themselves: Poplars Garden Centre of Toddington, Dobdies in Milton Keynes, Roger Harvey Garden World or Van Hage at Great Amwell. You could more or less buy whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted it, unless my absence has fogged my memory with a rosy, horticultural glow.

Last week I wanted to sow Geraniums Moulin Rouge from T&M. I like to top the compost with Vermiculite after sowing, to retain moisture while still providing plenty of air to the seed. We drove to the local garden centre, and then another, to try to buy some, but there was none to be found. Back at home I resorted to the internet and found that gardening forums serving the ex. pat British gardener were full of requests for vermiculite suppliers. In the end I found the product at a reasonable price on EBay and it arrived today from a company in N.E. France.

Cortaderia selloana Cool Ice on arrival showing variegated foliage.

The trouble with EBay is the delivery charges, which can add a considerable amount to your purchases (in fact, years ago I was buying things regularly from a supplier in China; the articles cost very little but the postage could be ten times as much!). This company wanted more than I thought reasonable for postage and packing but would discount if you bought more than one item. I happily selected Cortaderia selloana Cool Ice for a total bill little more than if I had bought the vermiculite alone. Cool Ice is one of a number of Pampas Grass varieties trialled by the RHS in 2007-2009, features white leaf margins and is said to be compact. It did not receive an award of merit but availability is one of the criteria. I have found very few references to this variety so I am excited to see how it performs in our garden.

The Pampas Grass arrived in good condition, a well grown plant in a 3L pot. Plants by post have a reputation to be on the small side but this was not the case with the supplier, http://www.boutique-plante-nature.fr/. This is not the first time I have bought plants via EBay, a practice which, I can see, might cause a horrified reaction from my gardening friends, but so far, so good. I have on the other hand, had plenty of issues after buying plants from nurseries at garden festivals and many more with the popular gardening catalogue companies in France.

My next chance to see some of the best nurseries in France gathered in one place will be the forthcoming Salon du Vegetal show in Angers in February. I am trying to organise my life so that I can visit, but life is so busy, it’s not easy these days.

In our many years as garden designers and landscapers we have had the public steal from us on occasions, but sadly, other landscapers and designers have done the same.

I don’t just mean plants, paving slabs and machinery, although this sort of theft was a continual problem; I am referring to our intellectual copyright on drawings, planting lists, brochures and other promotional material.

Drawings have been stolen from our display in the office, to reappear as completed local gardens; photographs disappeared every week, presumably for similar purposes. Landscapers have guided their clients around our demonstration gardens to finalise their sales.

With the growth of the internet it is even easier for your competitors to steal from you and much harder to protect your hard earned reputation. If you post photographs of your work on Flickr they may end up on the web site of another landscaper. Your Terms and Conditions, perhaps written by costly professional advisers, could well go the same way.

Here’s an amusing exercise I recently tried and if you run a company you might like to do the same: type into Google a part of the text from your web site or brochure, or the file name of a photograph you have posted somewhere and hit the “search” button. The cover of our brochure, written by me with a little assistance from a copy-writer and used in a couple of our web sites in two languages, says this:

“Just Imagine…

A garden bursting with life – a celebration of your home and a credit to your neighbourhood.

A place of glorious calm after a hard days’ work, secluded from the trials of everyday life.

A spacious, sunny enclosure for fun and recreation with family and friends.

An outdoor room affording space in the fresh air for when you’d rather be outside than in.

A garden can be all these things and more.

Simply point us in the right direction and we’ll make it happen.”

The oringinal text, as stolen by Gardening Express and others.

Type this into Google and amazingly it points, not to one of my sites, but to that of Gardening Express .co.uk, who have copied my text verbatim to sell garden design on their own site. Flattering, of course, and if you have little talent as a writer and can’t afford to employ someone who has, you may feel this is a good option. Unfortunately, there is the little matter of intellectual copyright to consider. This text is my property and cannot legally be used by others without my consent.

But now I’m really flattered and excited: Midas Touch Landscapes, a company based in Bushy, Hertfordshire, are also using our text on their web site!

Loire Valley Gardens La Chatonniere page

This web site started its life programmed in a heady mix of Flash, html and css and was so complex I had to give it up as beyond my capabilities. I eventually settled on a far more simple style and, just as importantly, a more straightforward coding method, but wasted so much time with the first version that I ran out of time to complete it.

At the moment I describe 15 gardens of the Loire valley on the site, with the gardens of the chateau La Chatonniere my latest. This is an amazing place with twelve themed gardens – the French do like a theme, the artier the better – surrounding a beautiful Renaissance castle. I won’t say more here: you can look at the details on the site if you are interested http://www.loirevalleygardens.com/chatonniere.html . I am looking forward to seeing how the gardens are progressing in 2012 and to learn if they have plans for more themes. The last major development was in in 2008 when The Garden of Luxuriance was built to feature 400 David Austin roses, adding to the collections of roses displayed in other areas.

Soon Loire Valley Gardens will list and describe thirty-four gardens. As I revisit these gardens and discover more the site will continue grow and I hope this will prove a useful resource for clients, students and others interested in this fascinating region.

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The first of my seeds are now sown and in the propagator: Begonias, Antirrhinums and Coleus, all absurdly small seeds which are applied as a ‘dust’ to the surface of moist compost. There are around 88,000 Begonia seeds per gram making them difficult to see and to sow, even with modern, sophisticated machinery. In my days as a grower we had a machine which would sow them from a series of units dropping four or five at a time and with the bounce as they hit the compost created a pretty good covering of a seed tray. Begonia seed is very expensive but we also sold plants in compost plugs and it was important to only have one or two seedlings in each if we were to make a profit. For these we resorted to pelleted seed, each grain being given a coating of clay which allowed our seed sowing equipment to place them one by one at the centre of each plug. All clever stuff. One of the Begonia varieties I sowed this week was pelleted seed: Torbay Mix, from Suttons.

Antirrhinums are large by comparison to Begonias – 7,500 to the gram and Coleus is around the same, but they are still hard to work with. When my order of Vermiculite finally arrives from EBay I shall get the Geranium seeds done – 200 seeds per gram – even I can see these!

An unusual task this week will be to dismantle the seasonal display of foliage and berries we constructed in the conservatory for Christmas; I have my eyes on the berries of the Butcher’s Broom and plan to sow them under the Sequoias. The branches of this plant were collected from plants found in local woods, so I have every hope they will do well.

Ruscus or Butcher's Broom

If the squirrel leaves them alone we can expect a patch of these adaptable plants for next year and by sowing a large number of seeds hope to have both male and female plants, giving berries for many a Christmas to come.

Cornish daffodils

The farm was run organically; this meant nothing to me, it was just the way we grew things. We lived in a house which appeared to have a spring underneath it: water flowed through the house on both floors for half the year and gave us colds. The beds were always damp and while Cornwall is relatively mild in winter, the continuous high humidity let the cold into your bones. The drinking water came from the well by the house, extracted to a tank by a hand pump, the handle of which mysteriously rose up and down, driven by a Heath-Robinson style system and an electric motor. People used to knock at the door to ask for a glass.

The main crops were daffodils, both for flowers and bulbs, strawberries and Pittosporum, which was cut for florists’ foliage in the winter and packed into huge sacking bundles to be sent by train to markets in London, Birmingham or Bristol. Other flower crops included Irises and Anemones, spreading the risk that one harvest may not achieve the prices hoped for from a system in which we had little or no control. Sometimes I helped pack daffodils until two in the morning and went to school a few hours later. Sometimes the flower boxes were crushed and ruined by careless railway staff. Some years the weather ruined the crop.

Wisley RHS gardens

While grim experiences were not rare, I somehow came through all of that with a love for plants. I was fascinated by them; by their Latin and common names, the way they grew, their beauty and their uses. We had a grass roadway called Wisley Lane, which gave access to many of the fields. The ladies would take a short holiday each year, visiting the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley and acquiring a few cuttings. The resulting plants, often unusual, grew all the way down Wisley Lane.

Compost for the fields was homemade, created by cutting down the grasses and wild flowers of Little Moor, Lost Moor and Big Moor, three marshy fields at the bottom of the property. I used to do this each year with an Allen Scythe and still have nightmares remembering my struggles with the machine and the Horse Flies on hot days at the end of summer. Big Moor was covered with wild orchids. Later we came to an arrangement with the council works department, who dumped all the autumn leaves they collected on a piece of ground by the front road. The resulting organic matter was spread over the fields to improve the structure of our heavy, clay soil. Granular fertiliser was also used, made in Cornwall from fish waste, while liquid feed came from seaweed. Cornwall has a huge coastline and its products are part of the fabric of the region.

The site of our old nursery, now a garden centre

Times move on and our old nursery is now a garden centre. The house has long since been demolished and I lack the courage to see if Wisley Lane is still there.

There are more tales to tell, of course, but I wanted to mention that the Garden Design Academy’s offer of the month is £80 off the home study course ORGANIC GARDENING & CROP PRODUCTION an excellent new course we are pleased to be associated with.

Begonia seedlings

These days my growing is a little less high tech but I will shortly be sowing Geraniums and Begonias in the propagator I have set up in the attic and I’m concerned that they may not receive the light they need to grow well. But why do we need light in plant cultivation? The major horticulture issues are:

• photosynthesis — converting light, air and water into carbohydrates and oxygen to support plant growth.
• chlorophyll synthesis —building the plant cells that perform photosynthesis.
• photoperiod — sensitivity to the length of day.
• phototropism — movement toward a light source.

Back in my days at Opax Farm we had a number of lighting systems for a range of plant growing tasks. Strings of ordinary tungsten bulbs had been used by the previous owners to control flowering in crops like Chrysanthemum. This plant requires a very specific day-length to flower and if you need to produce flowers throughout the year you will at times have to completely block out the light, while at other periods of the year create light. Plants that bloom in the winter, such as Christmas cactus, poinsettias, gardenias and chrysanthemums, don’t flower unless the nights are longer than the days. They are referred to as long-night plants and for the most sensitive long-night plants even one minute of bright light during the night is enough to prevent them from blooming. In general, long-night plants need a maximum of 10-13hours of light per day to flower.

Last year's Begonias

Plants that typically bloom during the summer don’t flower unless the nights are shorter than the days, so they are called short-night plants and include many bedding plants and vegetables. Short-night plants need 14-18 hours of light per day in order to flower. Other plants bloom regardless of the length of the photoperiod, so they are called night neutral plants. Many of these plants are sensitive to temperature variations however, and bloom when the nights are cooler than the days. For early growth and development, plants need the opposite photoperiod: young long-night plants should have long days for the first month or two to encourage full growth before blooming, while young short night plants should have short days. Day length can be manipulated for other reasons, such as the selection of male or female plants early in the cycle, by inducing flowering.

We had a number of growth rooms at Opax in which we germinated seed in optimum conditions. Some plants need light to germinate while others prefer the dark. Trays of recently sown seed went into different growth rooms depending on their requirement for light and heat. With sufficient light levels it is possible to grow plants without any natural light.

Greenhouse lighting

Several of the plants we grew were needed early in the season when light levels are low: we started sowing Begonia sempervirons for bedding plant growers before Christmas. These plants were placed in an area of the greenhouse where we had lighting to supplement that of the sun, ensuring good, strong, compact growth at the darkest time of the year. Attempting the same thing in our attic later this month, I have assembled a lighting rig to increase the light levels for the seedlings I will grow there. This structure incorporates a number of domestic halogen lamps which I trust will provide a useful boost in light levels but be inexpensive to run. I’ll let you know how we get on. I did have a quick look at the new LED Grow Light units currently being promoted for indoor growing but the cost was far too high for me to justify on my hobby, so my Heath-Robinson construction will have to do for now.

Several Garden Design Academy courses look at the complex subject of plants and light, also considering the types of light most suitable for horticulture by cost, light spectrum, heat emissions and other factors. Some of our RHS courses and the Certificates / Advanced Certificates in Horticulture, are particularly good on this.

This fine seasonal ritual has been practiced by British gardeners for generations, with the results being posted to the Letters to the Editor section of some of the more serious papers for the education and edification of interested readers. Now that there are no serious papers to speak of, I continue this traditional pastime here, in the Gardener in France blog.

“Dear Sir,

Please find herewith my Floral contribution to the Health and Happiness of the Nation, and may God bless all who sail in her.

Starting in the back garden and moving in a clockwise gyration, we find Jasminium nudiflorum, reliably dotted with bright yellow flowers. Moving on to the side bed, there are Begonias, Petunias and Violas still in flower and extending the summer bedding display to the end of this unusual year. At the far end of the same bed, against the cabin wall, our Daphne odora Aureomarginata is covered in buds and just starting to open. Close by, I found one sky-blue flower of Salvia uliginosa amongst a big, sprawling clump.

Across to the other side of the garden where Rhododendron yak. Sneezy is looking very pretty in pink, next to an Ilex x. meserveae Blue Angel with berries and Skimmia japonica Majic Marlot, permanently in bud. Further along, at the beginning of the white border, Viburnum burkwoodii has started into bloom, with Erica Springwood White covered with blossom and a single flower on Hebe Kirkii. In the herb garden, Rosemary still carries plenty of flowers.

We have a little collection of Semperviviums in hollowed out rocks against the south wall of the house and one variety has been in flower for some time. Moving on to the central bed our two species of Phlomis, P. purpurea and fruticosa are blooming, as is our single plant of Penstemon Melting Candy. I have seen several other Penstemons in flower around the village. A Calendula looks dazzling on this grey day and other bedding in flower including Nasturtium and Dianthus. Finally, Lavandula stoechas Victory has produced buds and flowers following a haircut after its more usual flowering period.

Few of the plants in the back garden have been with us more than three years so I am rather pleased with the progress, but the front is very newly planted. On a bank by the front gate Convolvulus cneorum is in full bloom and there is just one flower on the Campanula persiciflora Coerlea and a few on Agastache Fragrant Mix, grown from seed this year. In the bed against the front wall Abelia Kaleidoscope and the Mimosa are providing the display, while against the Apartment Garden fence, a single pink Rose flower braves this winter morning.

Camellia grijsii - scented white flowers by the front door in Chabris

Pride of place has to go to Camellia grijsii, in full bloom and covered in fragrant white flowers, placed in a large blue pot next to the front door where everyone can appreciate it. On the other side of the step, also in a large blue Chinese pot, Camellia reticultata Variegata sports its last flower of the year. Helleborus nigra, in the border nearby, is quite subdued in comparison.

So there you have it, 31 plants flowering for Christmas and I still haven’t bought a Mahonia media!

I remain Sir, Yours, etcetera,

Colin G. Elliott Esq., Chabris, central France”

Green roof with Sedum and Virginia Creeper

We like to think of ourselves as having a global reach, both as garden designers and as horticultural educators, with clients and students located throughout the world. I have long maintained that a well-trained gardener can practice his craft anywhere and is able adapt to local conditions.

I still believe this to be true, but have on occasions been stopped in my tracks by comments from home-grown amateurs or professionals.

I recently contributed to an internet landscape forum discussion about green-roof

Virginia creeper - invasive?

gardening, suggesting a reference book I thought might be useful to an American garden designer, while innocently mentioning our own green roof here in France. We have covered the top of a concrete tool shed with Sedum and it does very well, as does the Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, which offers a change of leaf scale and gorgeous autumn colour. Insects are pleased with both plants and the combined effect is both attractive and practical. “Virginia creeper”, I was told, “is invasive”.

Turkey Oak -Quercus cerris

I quite fancy myself as a plantsman but here is an aspect of plant selection it would be easy to get wrong; designing a border in a foreign country could get you into hot water, when your favourite flower turns out to be the bête noir of local environmentalists! In the USA the National Invasive Species Council keeps a watchful eye on these things and their web site links to pages dedicated to each State, detailing the noxious weeds which are a problem around the country. There is a Federal List noting those considered noxious throughout the country and in addition each state has its own list.

And what a range of plants! Across the country 106 plants are prescribed in this way, while California lists 242 on its own. The UK has problems with Rhododendron (Rhododendron ponticum), Indian (Himalayan) balsam, (Impatiens glandulifera) and Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) famously causing difficulties in the wild. The UK organisation Plantlife has a substantial list which, like those in the States, contains some surprising plants including Ailanthus altissima, Quercus cerris and several Cotoneasters.

Here in central France, the river Cher is slowly being clogged up with Water Primrose

Water Primrose on the banks of the Cher

while the Oak woods are taken over by Robinia pseudoacacia originally grown for vineyard support posts. The story does not end with plants. Hornets accidentally imported from China in garden pots are currently finishing off the honey bee population, already under pressure from disease and agricultural pesticides. In the Canal du Berry which follows the river, American signal crayfish are decimating young fish and imported Coypu undermine the banks.  Gardeners and landowners are largely to blame and it would seem we have to be much more circumspect in the choices we make. I have noticed a tendency of many of my American students to select native plants so perhaps the message has got through over there and it is we Europeans who need to learn the lessons.

One country’s weeds are another’s prized specimens. For the record, when I design a garden in another country I either use a local plant expert to assist with plant availability and desirability or research the issues myself using local gardening associations, university horticultural departments, growers and other sources. That way I am less likely to make a fool of myself by suggesting inappropriate plants. It’s not always straightforward, being a globe-trotting landscaper, but I am glad I am still asked to work around the gardening world.

We believe it helps us to look much more professional and hope everyone will “like” it enough to visit the Academy web site. Comments to help us improve it further will be appreciated; our son, a qualified web site wizard, has already made a few suggestions which we have incorporated in this version. My wife corrected my spelling!

Observant readers will note that to celebrate the new page we have launched a new feature: Offer of the Month, an opportunity to give lots of money away and promote some of our latest courses. I believe “Managing Notable Gardens” is going to be very popular with the parks and recreation industry so this offer should please a few people.

This plant is not especially uncommon in Europe but has protected status in several areas, including the Sologne, on the edge of which the hypermarket is located. The Adder’s-tongue Fern is an unusual fern that grows in old grasslands, on hillsides, along woodland rides and on sand dunes. It usually appears between June and August, spending the rest of the year underground as a rhizome. Looking more like an Arum than a fern, it is considered a good indicator species of ancient meadows and can be found alongside Common Spotted-orchids, Quaking Grass and Devil’s-bit Scabious. For centuries it has been used as a treatment for wounds, using a preparation of it known as the ‘Green Oil of Charity’.

Ferns (but not this one) are one of the solutions recommended in Graham Rice’s new book, “Planting the Dry Shade Garden”. Billed as the only book deal with this growing condition, I was interested to read what was advised, having several dry-shade areas in my own garden. The book starts by discussing the nature of the problem of planting against shady walls or under trees. It goes on to explain how to improve the situation by reducing shade and increasing the amount of available moisture around trees. Crown thinning, crown thinning and tree removal are suggested options to increase light levels while a range of techniques are available to improve fertility and soil moisture content.

Planting the dry-shade garden - Graham Rice

In dealing with the soil the suggested actions are to raise soil levels, improve soil quality, install irrigation and mulch regularly. Container planting is also proposed. Increasing soil depth is a common but controversial technique, and one which may have your local authority tree officer rushing ’round to intervene. Few trees can confidently be predicted to thrive or even survive if more than four inches of fill are placed directly over their roots, so great care must be taken when gardeners construct raised beds as suggested. The rule of thumb is to preserving the existing levels in a circular area around the tree, equal in diameter to at least one-foot for every inch of stem diameter. This means that I should protect an area of 100 feet (30m) around our 150 year old Sequoia which is 8ft 4″ (2.55m) in diameter!

The other issue not discussed here is the serious harm which may be done to trees by planting amongst their roots. Regular cultivation of the soil can also remove or damage delicate feeding roots and introduce soil-borne diseases, so a high degree of care must be taken when gardening under trees.

As Graham Rice points out, what can be grown in dry shade depends on how bad the problem is – after all, some on the world’s finest gardens are woodland gardens. The main part of the book describes a range of plants suitable for the toughest conditions, a source of inspiration to those gardeners who have about given up hope with their own shady areas. Around 130 plants are listed and illustrated, with descriptions written in a style that suggests he knows them personally. The well-illustrated sections are divided into Shrubs, Climbers, Perennials, Groundcovers, Bulbs and Annuals and Biennials. We already have a few of the plants suggested in our bed under the Sequoia and  in the shade of the neighbour’s Lawson Cypress, but I am happy to say that I learned a thing or two and plants I might have not considered were brought to my attention. It is the nature of such a book that a few of my favourites were left out, while some of the suggestions would need controlling if they were not to take over more favoured parts of the garden.

All in all I would recommend this book to gardeners of both the armchair and the hands-on kinds. It is written by a well-respected and knowledgeable plantsman and aimed at garden owners on both sides of the Atlantic. At just over £10 from the Garden Design Academy bookshop, it could make an ideal stocking filler this Christmas.