• Home
  • Features
  • Talks
  • Learn with me

Sally Nex

~ Sustainable food growing

Sally Nex

Monthly Archives: May 2008

Magnolias at Kew

16 Friday May 2008

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

frost, frost damage, Kew, magnolias, trees

Yes, I know it’s long past magnolia season but I thought I’d just recall for everyone just how lovely these trees are. My excuse is that I’ve been having a bit of a magnolia fest this year, as not only did I get to write a whole article about them which included talking to some of the country’s best growers and enthusiasts but also got to see the National Collection down in Caerhays which got me totally smitten – especially this fine specimen.

Well, just a few days after I got back from Cornwall I was over at Kew on another journalistic jaunt (I do love my job) and while wandering back from doing my interview, went to have a look at the magnolias. They’d been rather clobbered by frost, unfortunately – occupational hazard if you’re a magnolia – but there was still enough there to make me swoon.


This one was amazing (and this pic is now my desktop – VP take note, I’ve shown you mine now too!). This is M. ‘Phelan Bright’, and these flowers are 10″ across. Pretty amazing anyway, but even more so when you consider the tree is only 3 years old (some magnolias can take up to 20 years to flower).


Sadly this lovely thing was just about the only flower on the whole tree not reduced to brown and tattered ribbons by frost. Made it all the more special that this one survived. This is M. heptapita ‘Yulan’ – I’d never heard of the species, but the flower colour was the purest white of the lot.


Magnolias aren’t often praised for anything except their flowers, but the buds are just gorgeous (fuzzy brown nutkins you can’t help but stroke) and the leaves are often spectacular too. None more so than the leaves of M. grandiflora – it’s evergreen and as you can see has lush, almost tropical foliage.


I love magnolias for their branch structure and their habit of flowering before the leaves come out – yes, it exposes them to frost, but it also shows you how spectacular pure white flowers against the stark outline of a tree trunk can be. This one is M. x veitchii ‘Alba’.

Note to self: plant another magnolia. I only have M. stellata but every time it comes out in my front garden it looks more spectacular and I promise myself I’ll get another one soon.

Drawing conclusions

14 Wednesday May 2008

Posted by sallynex in design, garden design

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Capel Manor, design courses, drawing, graphics

I’ve spent a lot of time drawing lately.

Last night I was drawing an onion. The other day it was my hand, closely followed by a large director’s chair on a table.

What this has to do with gardening I’m not quite sure – but all I know is it’s great to be the one nicking the pencil sharpener out of the kids’ art box for a change.

It’s all to do with the Drawing and Graphics course I’ve now started at Capel Manor. Lovely teacher, great fellow students (all of whom are well into gardening so I now have lots of new friends to discuss the pros and cons of coppicing eucalyptus with), and I’m learning a great deal about negative space, tonal drawing and the value of a 4B pencil.

Can’t quite see the connection between director’s chairs and garden design yet – but am willing to suspend my disbelief for the luxury of being given permission to draw pretty pictures and call it work.

Beauty in unexpected places

07 Wednesday May 2008

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

daffodils, roads, spring bulbs, unexpected beauty

This was the scene a few weeks ago at a road junction where I live. It’s the most unpromising place – a corner between one main road and another pretty busy minor road – and it had roadworks opposite and traffic to right and left. But in the middle was this stunning display of spring sunshine. I wasn’t the only one taking photos – it would put a smile on your face in the worst traffic jam ever!

Scary gardening

05 Monday May 2008

Posted by sallynex in pruning

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

forsythia, shrubs

I got called a scary gardener the other day. That was by a client of mine when she saw what I’d done to her forsythia.

The trouble is, I keep getting asked to put right the effects of years of neglect. This inevitably means reducing large, overcongested shrubs to a fraction of their original size and density.

This is of course very good for the shrub: you cut out all the dead wood that’s been suffocating it for so long, you let air and light into the centre from where it’ll send up lots of lovely new young shoots (especially now it has room to do so), and particularly in the case of this forsythia, you restore some of the natural shape to the plant. The forsythia in question had been given a haircut once a year for several decades, which involved clipping the top to a blobby kind of dome shape and cutting off a large proportion of next year’s flowers in the process. The centre of the shrub was so congested you couldn’t see between the branches, and it had also more or less stopped flowering.

In my defence, I had intended to go quite easy on it – forsythia don’t normally enjoy being very hard pruned, so I usually only remove a couple of the thickest branches. But in this case the decision was made for me: once I got up close and personal with the centre of the shrub, I discovered that at least half of it was dead. Once I’d removed that, there was a bloomin’ great hole in the middle, so in the end the only live branches I had to remove were to re-balance the shrub again.

Result: a much healthier, but much reduced forsythia. The owner came out to see what I’d been up to, and gasped.

“Oh… my…. god…. ” she croaked, for some reason clutching her throat.

At this point I began stumbling over myself in my haste to reassure her that it would be much happier now, produce lots more flowers next year, would actually move in the wind rather than just sitting there in an approximation of rigor mortis… etc etc etc. Whereupon she called me a scary gardener.

Well… I shall be suitably smug next April and May when it’s smothered in tons of yellow flowers. Honestly, it’s a good thing I don’t require any thanks for this job….

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • February 2021
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • September 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006

Categories

  • book review
  • chicken garden
  • children gardening
  • climate change
  • container growing
  • cutting garden
  • design
  • education
  • end of month view
  • exotic edibles
  • France
  • Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day
  • garden design
  • garden history
  • garden words
  • gardening without plastic
  • Gardens of Somerset
  • giveaways
  • greenhouse
  • herbs
  • kitchen garden
  • landscaping
  • my garden
  • new plants
  • new veg garden
  • news
  • overseas gardens
  • Painting Paradise
  • permaculture
  • pick of the month
  • plant of the month
  • pond
  • poultry
  • pruning
  • recipes
  • seeds
  • self sufficiency
  • sheep
  • shows
  • sustainability
  • this month in the garden
  • Uncategorized
  • unusual plants
  • videos
  • walk on the wild side
  • wildlife gardening
  • wordless wednesday

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy