Jungle Drums

Somewhere out there, perhaps my parents still have it, is a photograph of yours truly in a Brownie uniform, planting a tree. At least I was assisting some local dignitary by handing them the shovel. I very vaguely remember the event itself. Anyway, stored in my memory bank, this event has always been filed under the ‘Queen’s Silver Jubilee’ but thinking about it now, it was more likely to have been connected with ‘Plant a Tree in Seventy Three’. Or maybe it was to celebrate the opening of a new toilet block. Whatever, it was definitely some very special event that prompted this planting.

Customers often buy trees from us to plant in memory of a loved one and sometimes we send them by mail order, so the customer is relying on us to select the best for them. Choosing a tree in this instance is always poignant. Occasionally we’re asked for advice on planting a tree to celebrate the birth of a child – a lovely idea I always think. There is something about planting a tree that shouts out to the world – ‘I am alive and I believe in a better future!’ But to so many people, the idea of planting a tree strikes a chord of terror in their hearts.
I live on a new estate. The house is clean, modern, energy efficient and a stone’s throw from the nursery. I’m lucky to live on the periphery of the estate, so one side of the house looks onto what’s left of the original woodland, before the developers bulldozed the rest. The other overlooks twelve or so of my neighbour’s gardens. And from this aspect I can’t see a single tree – not one tree in twenty gardens! It’s ironic that the road I live on is called ‘Magnolia Way’ because there isn’t a damn single Magnolia.

Imagine the perfume in summer of a street lined with Magnolias, instead of wheelie bins.

The name can surely only refer to the colour of the paint. The legacy of the minimal amount of obligatory planting undertaken by the developers 10 years ago is a few Euonymous and Cotoneasters – I can’t even remember the others even though I’ve passed them a thousand times. It’s an absolute triumph of the most unimaginative, ubiquitous, non-descript, bog-standard, industrial estate-style planting imaginable.
My neighbours’ approach to gardening seems rather similar, with neatness, ease of availability and moderation of growth being held in highest esteem. God forbid that any plant should dare to raise its head above the 6ft panel fencing parapet, or put on any show of vigour or exuberance. And the thought of a tree – those damn things that grow big and cast shade and drop leaves and make a mess and undermine foundations.

Even the tiniest of gardens would have room for a Pencil Cyprus. We've found birds nests in ours.

What a shame because our lives are surely impoverished by living in a treeless environment. So this year I am on a mission to persuade anybody who comes through the nursery gate to plant a tree (or at least a shrub that can be trained into a small tree). It could be a ‘Diamond Jubilee Tree’, An ‘Olympics Tree’, or a ‘2012 End of the World Tree’ (that last sales angle probably won’t work). But really, we shouldn’t need a special occasion to plant a tree.

Birch cast a light, dappled shade and in winter the white, peeling bark of Betula jaquemontii would liven up a small garden.

Our Clematis amandii is in flower and for me that’s the signal that spring has started. Time to get blogging

New Garden at Urban Jungle
The cold weather last month forced a retreat inside and though frustrating, being prevented from doing some of the jobs we’d intended to tick off the list, we were able to focus on a project much more enjoyable than cleaning greenhouses and pressure washing benches – the design for a new garden that we’ll be planting at Urban Jungle later in spring. The benches will have to wait until next year now,

The Edible Garden last year

The area previously known as The Edible Jungle is having a revamp. For the last 3 years, this has been our stock garden for tender and borderline hardy plants. We also combined unusual and ornamental fruit and vegetables among the exotics, such as the black Nymans lettuce, Rainbow chard and the stonking Tamarillo tree (Solanum betaceum), intermingled with some more run-of-the-mill edibles such as tomatoes and sweetcorn.


Actinidea sellowinana ‘Unique’, a self pollinating Kiwi with stunning flowers


We allowed the Nymans lettuce to go to seed and they made 1m tall towers


Tomatoes, Dahlias and Hedychium gardnerianum made a colourful combo


Solanum lacinatum (Kangaroo apple with edible(ish) fruits. A 3m tall plant from seed in 1 season


Rainbow Chard works brilliantly as bedding. Crazy colours

Like all gardens, it was hard work of course and exasperating when we were battling with the elements and wildlife - rabbits, deer, pigeons, and caterpillars all made a nuisance of them selves last year. And lack of rain meant we were planting in soil that was the texture of kitty litter. But it was also fun and rewarding, and gave us a great sense of achievement (not to mention an awful lot of stock to divide and repot). And what better way to help sell the non-descript looking plants in a 2 litre posts than a nursery garden full of ‘living labels’. We raised nearly £1000 for charity by charging a small admission fee, and even more amazingly no one asked for a refund! But time for a change.


Dismantling the garden in November

At the end of the season the garden was cleared as usual, and the Cannas, Colocasias, Gingers, Bananas, Dahlias etc. were tucked away in their winter quarters.
Very soon we’ll divide and pot to make sales stock. We hold back between 10 and 20 large plants of each species to plant out again in late May/early June for next year’s stock, and so the cycle continues. In case you’re wondering about a complete dereliction of duty, we’ll still be having an exotic garden this year (without edibles), but located another area of the nursery – the car park.


Original design for the Edible Jungle. The layout of beds and paths was accurate but we went completely off piste with the plantin

The key difference between the old and new layout is the creation of 1 large central border instead of 2 separate smaller borders. In fact the whole, carefully thought out geometry of the original layout has been abandoned. That’s not to say it didn’t work but it wouldn’t be suitable for the informal blending and intermingling of the wide range of species we want to use in this new garden.
In this new garden we’ll be using mainly grasses and perennials. Without a name we’re referring to it as the Prairiesque Garden for the moment, but of course that’s a pretty tenuous use of the term ‘prairie’. Prairie gardens are large and open and this garden is only 30mx30m and fairly enclosed by trees and bamboo. Rather, we’ll use plants that are normally associated with Prairie gardens, such as Miscanthus, Deschampsia, Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Eryngium, but also adding our own take in the way of spiky Yuccas, Phormiums, Pseudopanax. Some of the beds will have a fairly restrained prairie colour palette, with combinations of blues, pinks and purples, but in others we’ll totally let rip with vivid oranges, reds and yellows.


Jamie Spooner. We’re lucky to have Jamie working with us again. Jamie was head gardener at the Millennium Garden at Pensthorpe in Norfolk between 2005 and 2008. The Millennium Garden was designed by Piet Oudolf, the Daddy of Prairie Gardening no less. Jamie has also worked at Piet’s nursery in Holland. I’ve run the design by Jamie. He seems to approve. He’s a polite chap.


Part of the planting design for the 'Prairiesque 'Garden

This new garden will be a stock garden but again, we’ll do our best to use the plants in dynamic combinations, rather than in utilitarian/stock border style. Once the plants have established (about 3 years) we’ll be able to lift and divide regularly for sales stock. We’ve been staggered by the amount of plants this garden is going to swallow up. We’ll be using small plants in 9cm pots and in the design we’re drawing the plants to scale at maturity. The design is only half finished but it looks as though we’ll be using well over 1500 plants. For the first year or two the garden may look a little sparse until the plants mature but we can be patient, and it’ll be fascinating to watch the garden growing week by week, season by season. Work should start in March and we’re hoping to plant during spring and early summer. Some of the plants aren’t readily available to us so it will be a case of hunting them down from specialist nurseries. The only real potential spanner in the works is the drought. Bring on the rain.