Interesting Plant Identification Session

A friend at work was telling me about the BBC 2 program Gardeners' World on Friday. He is a mad keen fan of the show and was telling me it was the only thing he watched religiously on TV. It's shown on Friday night and although I missed it on Friday the glorious product that is BBC iPlayer let me catch up with it yesterday. Although if your IP address is not from the UK I don't think you have access to watch, sorry :-(

I watched episode 16 from 3 weeks ago and was instantly hooked! I have probably stumbled across this show from time to time, and you always see the presenters on it during the televised coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show in May, but I have never really given it the full attention that it deserves. As you would expect it's a show about gardening. Possibly the title of the program gives that away but just in case you hadn't picked up on that, yep that's what the show's about ;-)

Its about the garden at the time of broadcast. So what you can expect to see, what you might be doing, what you can do to help your plants along, projects you might undertake and so on. So catching up on the program 3 weeks late is possibly not a great idea! After being told I should be getting rid of any rust that could be found on the leaves of Hollyhocks I instantly paused the show and ran around the garden checking the Hollyhock leaves for rust and then removing the ones that were suffering! Rust on Hollyhock leaves is pretty easy to identify. The leaves go a yellowy colour and there are very evident brown dots on the undersides of the leaves. This is not a good thing! ;-) Remove the leaves and do not dispose of them in the compost. This will simply spread the rust spores further throughout your garden. The suggestion is to burn the leaf waste or dispose of in the bin.

Having enjoyed the first show, and helped by the torrential rain that was threatening and then falling which prevented me from mowing the lawn, I proceeded on with the next two episodes. Really enjoyed them all and now have thoughts of building a herb spiral! Think that will have to wait though until we plan vegetable crops next year. BBC Gardeners' World now set up for series record. Not on next Friday, but will be back the week after.

What really impressed me about the show though was how the Gardeners, and sure they are professionals, walked around their gardens naming the plants that were in them and discussing them. Highlighting the best growing conditions and how you could expect to see the plant grow over time. Currently I see issues with plants and think 'Hmmm a good water will fix this', when in reality it might be just the opposite. Watching the professionals at work has really made me want to learn more about what is in my garden and the correct way to actually look after it. With that in mind I dragged out the one gardening book I own in order to see if I could identify a few of the plants in the garden and give them a slightly better description than the 'Bacon and Egg' flower. So named as it has the colours of Bacon and Egg!

Some of the results are as follows:

• Rock Rose or Cistus X Cyprius, or the afore mentioned bacon and egg flower.
• Foxglove, as picture above although not sure if biennial or perennial.
• Crambe Cordifolia, now unfortunately dead due to a moving incident! :-(
• Hortensia, still thankfully going strong after planting
• Buddleja Black Night. I need to get a picture of this in bloom. The flowers we have that are in bloom are not that nice as they are on their way out. I will update when this one blooms. Also known as Butterfly Brush. Very stunning when in bloom.
• Hollyhocks. Still my favourites I think and now without rust ;-). It's quite surreal to watch them grow to up to 3 metres in hight and bloom from something that looks like this.
• Clematis. These have overtaken a wall which explodes with colour when in bloom. They only last a few weeks but while there are a sight to behold.
• Irises
• Morning Glory, I think?
• Paeonie

These are among the few flowering plants that we have in the garden. So far not all identified, but will try to go through the process of attempting to do so later!

As I described in my first blog entry, what I want to be doing is highlighting these plants as they come into bloom. I missed the boat this year a little as the thought of doing so only came into my head after the event! I will try to be more on the ball next Spring! That is if they come back ;-) Fingers crossed they do!

Cheers

m