Auriculas

“They are much more like pets than plants,”Patricia Cleveland-Peck, author of The Auriculas of Spitalfields

acknowledgement to www.albion-prints.com

I've always fancied the idea of an auricula theatre. I'm not, in general, one for formal displays, but somehow theses little primulas, with their wide-eyed, turned-up faces appeal, and the theatre has proved itself the ideal display venue over the years. Native to the alps of central Europe, auriculas have been known as cultivated plants in England since Elizabethan times. To begin with, they were confined to the gardens of the wealthy, but during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, gardeners (florists) of all kinds began to grow and to show them. These shows were known as feasts, and the flowers, (also tulips, polyanthus, carnation, pink, hyacinth, anemone and ranunculus) known as floristry flowers. The emphasis was on perfection at close quarters.

 The right opportunity arose when Piers discovered an old stone shelf as he formed the new garden shapes. It faces north-west and is about 8” deep – not exactly a theatre, but good for displaying auriculas, never the less.

I don't know anything about auriculas, so I sought out Pop's Plants, a specialist nursery on the edge of the New Forest. There we found Gill and Lesley. We made our way through their cottage and across the narrow, pretty garden to an enormous, hidden, open shed. There was a roof, but it was made of green netting to shade the plants, which were set out on extensive waist-high benches. Tiny plants as far as the eye could see – thousands of them. Gill and Lesley hold 4 national collections and raise their own plants for sale and to show.

The encounter was a delightful education! Gill told us how they raise the plants (no micro-propagation here) and breed them. The various types of plant (alpine, border, double, striped, show edged, show fancy and show selfs) and a few of the dos and don'ts. Bright but not too sunny. Moist but not too wet. We came away with 7 'easy-to-grow' 'alpines' and a 'border', two still in flower and the rest to surprise us with a range of colour next year. Another stipulation was to remove offsets in order to give a nobler, more showy plant.

I shall be experimenting with these offsets to see if I can populate the edges of the garden with these fussy little prima donnas and have them edging the paths as they would have done in the 19^th century back-to-backs of Lancashire.

Exciting times

Suddenly the garden in Dorset has come together. The builders have finished with this bit of the property and have taken away the last of the rubble, sand and tools that were stacked tidily (for builders) across one corner. Piers got to work, and in two days had finished the walling. I told him that the back-ache was worth it, but at the moment he doesn't believe me.

I started the remaining planting. I appreciate design in a garden, and I don't think that I have really achieved it here. To some extent that is deliberate. We have the structure provided by the surrounding walls, the courtyard paving and gravel, and now the new, low rock-walling.

Also, the existing climbers (not yet completely tamed), the Acer and Viburnum. Having decided on a cottage style, the emphasis is on many shapes and colours, so within the framework that we have in place, I can put in pretty much anything that isn't too highly bred.

I am aiming for a patchwork of dainty forms and colours that will give interest during the parts of the year when it is pleasant to be outside. I'm not quite sure what will work in the long run, so I have often bought only one of a particular type of plant, and will wait to see how it likes its new home and whether or not it bulks up and I can split it in the autumn.

There are plants that I simply cannot live without – London Pride, Aquelegia, anemone nemorosa, Japanese anemones, foxgloves, for example. Will they like it here? When the greenhouse is built I shall have scope for raising plants that take my fancy and fill a niche. I'm sure nature will help me to bring rhythm to this little space.

Forget me nots

'Just how many forget-me-nots do you need?' Dee

We travel to France in early May, after winds and rains. The horizon is pencil-defined and blue, the sky awash with clouds of every shape. As we near the village, the fields are a patchwork of greens, punctuated by the yellow of oilseed rape, the vineyards showing the green of leaves above the twigs of the vines. The copses (left for the chasseurs and their game) are full of texture, with laburnum and guelder rose adding colour.

We enter the gate of our house and the garden hits us. Burgeoning is not a word to be used lightly, and here it is an understatement. Everywhere there is growth. The growth I had hoped for and the growth that comes on its own. If one wants a free-flowing, abundant garden, one must pay for it with the plants that come unbidden - in other words, weeds.

After a long drive, Piers grabs some crémant and I grab some tools. It is a perfect evening for gardening. The air is balmy and the soil is moist. He sits on the edge of the well as I use the fork to remove dandelions and docks from the dinosaur garden. Underneath a tree is a classic place to not plant grass, but under our Norwegian maple there is plenty of it. A whole bed (left 'empty' for the roofers) is covered in forget-me-not. I don't think Dee was right in her assumption. They look wonderful!

When the weeding is done I can asses the success of the last gardening trip. Some transplanted peonies are showing red buds and all the other introductions from last time look healthy. The weeds I can cope with if the chosen plants thrive as well.

New friends in France

Whoever makes a garden
Has oh so many friends:
The glory of the morning,
The dew when daylight ends
Anon

When you have a baby, suddenly everyone wants to be your friend. It's a bit the same between gardeners, and we have new friends in France. Cinda (an existing gardening friend!) said: 'Why not come along to Les Parterres en Kit at Fontenille, where they're holding a plant sale on Easter Monday?'. Great idea. We all went along, and met Lucia and Jos, a Dutch couple who have been living in France for about 8 years.

Lucia has hit on a plan. She is a fan of the English gardener and writer Michael King, who now lives in Holland. He advocates a new and more natural way of creating herbaceous borders and flower meadows, and Lucia has followed some of his planting plans, which she supplies in the form of plants (kits) to her French customers. She has tailor-made her choice of the plants she supplies to suit the calciferous clay soils and the extremes of temperature and rainfall of Burgundy. She has done the experiments so, hopefully, I don't have to. We came back from the plant sale with epimedium, Tricyrtis formosana, and aster to put into the existing beds.

Looking out at the garden from the house, snowdrops and winter aconites that were so pleasing a month ago have now gone. Daffodils, mostly not in their final places, are blooming well, but the glory of the garden at this time are the primroses and the hundreds of violets. Violets are everywhere on the verges and in gardens – it's a very good violet year – and they punch well above their tiny weight in terms of charming impact.

As we leave France, tulips are ready to bloom, hydrangeas, philadelphus, rose and hazel leaves are bursting and the hypericum, Virginia creeper and cystus brought from England are finding their feet. I put rosemary and lavender temporarily between sturdy rose bushes in the hope that they will be safe from the tramping of the expected roofers. When we return in a month, the garden may be gently coming into its own, or it may be flattened and crying out for help, depending on whether or not the artisans have decided to turn up.

Garden-related injuries

"According to the pain is the gain." Rabbi Ben Hei

On Saturday, Piers worked all day to form another third of the garden wall in the garden in Dorset. When he came in, after bashing the rocks into place, his arms and back ached and he had pins-and needles in his right shoulder. He needed a shower and a refreshing drink.

Yesterday, I worked all day to dig and plant the ground made available by the creation of the wall. I worked with the sound of blackbirds, robin, collared doves, wood pigeons, wood-pecker and rooks in the background. We have had many bird visitors to the fat balls hanging under the viburnum tree. Blue- coal- long tailed- and great-tits, chaffinch, and both kinds of sparrow come and go. They are getting to know the territory, and  where the best worms are. 

Most of the plants I am using have been rescued from this garden or our previous garden and put into pots to wait their time. I can never be sure what I will find when I knock out a pot. Will the plant be pot-bound or have made hardly any roots? Will I be able to split the plant and hopefully get 3 for the price of one? Will the plant have turned up its toes altogether?

I haven't done this kind of gardening before. The site is very small and on several levels, so, rather than the traditional herbaceous border that I am more used to, I am placing individual plants into tiny spaces between rocks, with a background of planted beds either side of a stepping-stone path. Some alpines - saxifrage, sisyrinchium, alchemilla mollis, thymes and chamomile so far - are also going into the gravel between the stones that form the hard surface area. They don't seem to have much to keep them alive here. I shall have to be conscientious about watering, and perhaps give them some feed when they get going.

This last gardening spate involved a lot of scrambling over piles of stones to get to the higher parts of the garden. Today my knee has swollen and makes a painful click when I walk. The pain is worth it, and I shall reward myself with a refreshing drink!