Rebuilding a nursery - Copton Ash

[Tim Ingram]

Cyclamen coum is the most colourful plant in the 'woodland' parts of the garden at the moment, and cyclamen in general do really well in our garden, including a fine self-seeding colony of C. pseudibericum. Finally this winter has been so mild relatively (if that is a  dubious compensation for the intense winds and rain) that some alpines like Campanula 'Birch Hybrid' have just carried on flowering continuously from last summer on.

[Tim Ingram]

It is a curious feature of gardens they they arise spontaneously in glossy gardening magazines. The first picture shows the ongoing clearing after the Christmas gales. But as they say 'a bad workman always blames his tools' - hence the need for a mattock in clearing this area of snowdrops and hellebores in our garden, which is overgrown with nettles. Part of the blame though lies with the field next door which has been left as a 'meadow' of nettles, thistles, docks and teasels (actually quite a valuable wildlife sanctuary!). In amongst the weeds the snowdrops are beginning to flower, and for the tolerant gardener (which I am becoming) they do associate well with nettles!

[Tim Ingram]

Once cleared though the garden comes back to life and, as the winter aconites are beginning to flower and peony buds swelling, it is high time to sort this area out. By contrast with the mattock, the well worn trowel (a legacy from my grandparent's nursery), is a beautiful and refined tool for weeding between choice plants. Fortunately gardening is not rocket science, except when discussing the minutae of plant names, and simple tools - plus some elbow grease - do the job! The woodland areas well deserve this attention as the snowdrops flower and before the wonderful mix of spring flowers really start to emerge, and ferns begin to expand new fronds. The snowdrop is the early cultivar (for us anyway) G. 'Mrs McNamara', and the evergreen fern, which is rapidly becoming one of my favourites, Asplenium scolopendrium 'Angustatum'.

[Tim Ingram]

I missed out the most vital photo of all! - help is important and the garden has always been a family enterprise, and the specialist nursery side of it even more: my wife Gillian and the dog Bobby (whose main job is watching out for rabbits and pheasants, plus the occasional squirrel...)

[Tim Ingram]

I remember putting a picture like this on the Forum last year; 'brown gold', the results of our compost bins being spread under the apple trees! This has an almost mythical status in the garden and it's a great way of making a conscious effort to get on weed between the emerging snowdrops. A few more early flowers are appearing: Narcissus 'Cedric Morris' - very slow but delightful - and the flowering shoots of Helleborus odorus - a good and well scented form from Blackthorn Nursery.

[Maggi Young]

Home made compost is a wonderful thing - and one of the most valuable resources one can harvest from the garden.  I'm always surprised when I hear someone say they " don't bother with it"   

I always think the garden looks so smart when the compost is newly spread - an almost blank canvas for the season to write upon.  Until the blackbirds start throwing it all over the paths, of course!

[Tim Ingram]

There are those occasions when you have to start a job and then keep going until you get to the end. Unfortunately weeding doesn't come into that category, but we have made a real concerted effort on getting this part of the garden cleared of nettles and other weeds - ready for them all to return! As well as snowdrops and hellebores there are quite a few species peonies and other plants in here which were swamped by the weeds. All is not rosy because a few yards away the jungle still needs taming. None the less having done this there is that exciting prospect of coming in and planting with a whole new range of woodlanders which will bring the incentive of ensuring this area is weeded more often in the future. At the base of the cobnut is a beautiful clump of the only named hellebore we grow, 'Pamina', which came from Elizabeth Strangman at Washfield, and a memory of one of the finest nurseries I have ever known. When it comes into flower I will picture it to see if readers agree. The final two pictures show a small early form of Galanthus elwesii before and after weeding. Ecologically the former is probably more desirable, but for our visitors to the garden in February the latter will hopefully show them that we have been showing willing in the garden, even though some of it is still very overgrown!

[Lesley Cox]

Lovely clumps of snowdrops Tim. I'm just repotting mine or planting them out. I hope to have clumps like yours in a year or two or three, under the trees. It will be the first garden in which I've been able to achieve this, if it comes to pass.

[Tim Ingram]

Lesley - I think my first love is woodland plants and the snowdrops have gradually built up over the years because we are so lucky to have a climate that allows so much interest over the winter months. I was first given a few varieties by the secretary of our alpine group and they have developed steadily over the years, stimulated by the great interest there is in them in the UK. They also introduce personality into the garden in the way that few other plants do because of who discovers them and shares them with friends, which is very appealing - perhaps reminiscent of the exchange that goes on, and has always gone on, between cottage gardeners. They are really beginning to grow away now so I will picture more on here in next month.

[Tim Ingram]

There are a great group of people we are involved with in Faversham running the 'Best of Faversham' markets. This is a co-operative enterprise and non-profit making, and our involvement is in taking plants down into the town (good for us because generally the town doesn't come up to us!). Because we also open our garden for charity we are preparing a special display of snowdrops for the market tomorrow, advertising our open day in the middle of February, on Sunday 16th. This is a rough layout, pots still dirty and most needing topdressing with moss - will show some pictures of the market tomorrow. Will the sun shine and the flowers open? At the moment they are inside and look glorious, and there are a few nice querky named forms like Alan Street's brilliant 'Ding Dong', for which we are giving short pithy descriptions to show the town folk that gardeners can have a sense of humour, and nurseries a little more about them than the typical Garden Centre (with apologies to all the atypical Garden Centres out there!).

Our trials after the winds over Christmas were even worse on the east Kent coast, and Steve Edney, the Head Gardener at the Salutation Garden at Sandwich, has had to contend with the garden being flooded by the tidal river running alongside. At a meeting of the Ash gardeners last night he asked for volunteers to help with the cleaning up of the garden. He is a superb gardener so it must have come as a particular annoyance to have lost so many young plants, and be unsure of others - but he has great plans for the garden, and it will be nice to see how these progress through the spring and summer.

[Maggi Young]

I do hope the weather will be kind tomorrow, Tim - it's blowing a gale and pouring with train up here right now. 

One can only sympathise with those victims of flooding - and what a large number they are this year. Very tough conditions for people and plants and not something that can be easily remedied.

[Tim Ingram]

Forecast looks reasonably OK Maggi - so hope people come out. It is quite good fun doing something in the middle of the town, and if you grow plants you get pretty used to the weather!

[Maggi Young]

Hard to get a wider audience of the public to evangelise  to,  though, if the rain starts. 

[Tim Ingram]

It turned out quite a good day after a wet night and so we were able to 'evangalise', though to be honest this was not our intent. The 'Best of Faversham' market is working hard to revitalise the sense of Faversham as a small and historic market town, and seems to be making a good job of it. There are some interesting people involved with it, and one of the organisers, who also came up with the original idea, has worked previously with Virgin and the BBC and business, and does have a strong resolve to create a market in proper keeping with the town. Not only this she makes the most wonderful flavoured liquors, quite as appealing as the most striking of snowdrops! Another marketeer bakes 'Wild Bread' using old strains of rye and wheat, and is very popular in the town. He also has an interesting background, having done biological research in Madagascer, and his partner (who studied anthropology at Oxford), spends time abroad amongst indigenous peoples, following the way 'modernity' clashes and integrates with their cultures. So this could be said to be more than the typical market in some ways, or actually truer to a typical market in others.

The stallholders include a range of products from locally brewed real ales (almost as good as the damson liquor!), to some rather wonderful handmade chocolates, that reminded me strongly of the film 'Chocolat' with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp.

[Tim Ingram]

I have to show some of the chocolates after this! So here they are. These are pretty special and worth every penny! (even if you are a Yorkshireman or Scot - please take that the right way!). Despite some opposition from some quarters, the Town Council and the Mayor and many of the shopkeepers support the new market, and see the real benefits it brings in attracting new people and enterprise into the town.