Month: October 2023

Chris Beardshaw Lecture for Leicestershire and Rutland Gardens Trust.

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Here’s the link for tickets and information for the LRGT winter lecture. This event supports the trust’s ‘Schools into Gardening Scheme’ which I’ve written about on the blog before.

https://www.lrgt.org/events/chris-beardshaw-gives-our-annual-lecture-on-the-english-garden-at-leicester-university/

Information shared from the LRGT website:

“Chris Beardshaw was our Celebrity Lecturer back in 2011. Everyone who heard him on that occasion remembers an entertaining and informative speaker. So, we are anticipating a similar evening.

On this occasion, he will be talking about the English Garden.  He will look at some background history and the essential elements that make up the English Garden style.  He will then detail some of the designs which he has implemented.

About Chris:

Chris needs little introduction as a celebrated designer, plantsman, and broadcaster. He has clocked up over 35 years’ experience in the horticultural world.

Many will know Chris from his long broadcasting career, which began in 1997 and includes BBC2 television hit series such as Gardeners’ World, Hidden Gardens and the hugely popular The Flying Gardener, amongst many others. These days he is heard by millions as a panellist on BBC Radio 4 Gardeners’ Question Time where he regularly faces a live audience of gardening enthusiasts!

Chris trained in Landscape Architecture (post grad) and Horticulture which makes him a rare combination in the design world and this enables him to combine both disciplines to the benefit of
his clients. His enthusiasm for plants, good design and the desire to work in harmony with the natural landscape and wildlife is reflected throughout his work. His successful design business has
been established for over 20 years and allows Chris the creative freedom to work with private and commercial clients on a wide range of projects across the UK and internationally.

Some of his public schemes include: Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, Royal Parks (Greenwich Park), English Heritage (Mount Grace Priory and Carisbrooke Castle), National Trust for Scotland –
Pitmedden.

Chris has produced award-winning schemes at all RHS shows as well as many international flower and garden shows. Chris Beardshaw Design has achieved close to 40 industry awards, including 15 RHS Gold medals, 6 RHS ‘Best in Show’ and 6 RHS/BBC People’s Choice Awards and a growing number of prestigious international accolades.

Chris has taught students at degree level and was a full-time lecturer at Pershore College from 1997-2001. He has been external examiner at many teaching institutions including Falmouth University and Duchy College.

He has also written a number of books and his book ‘100 Plants that almost changed the World’ won an Independent Publishers award in the USA.
Chris is proud to be an RHS Ambassador.

Venue: Sir Bob Burgess Building Lecture Theatre, Leicester University,
LE2 7TF.

Note that this is a new lecture theatre and is in a different part of the University to last year’s event.The car park is located on Putney Road, Leicester LE2 7TG.  The carpark entrance is opposite Nixon Court accommodation.  See site map.

This is a ticketed event. Cost: £15 (includes a glass of wine or soft drink.).

For more information or to book contact Fliss on 07788 644887 or email flisshector@gmail.com

All profits from this event will go to support the Trust’s “Schools into Gardening” scheme.

Each year we raise money from our Annual Lecture which, together with donations from members, enables us to support a range of educational projects. Our aim is to help schools and parents encourage children to love gardens and landscapes, through visits and hands-on gardening activities.”

I wholeheartedly support the trust’s projects to encourage children to garden. One year, they funded a coach load of primary school children to visit Kelmarsh Hall to learn about growing food and cooking home-grown produce. Some of the children had never visited a walled kitchen garden before and it was a sight I’ll never forget as their eyes lit up discovering all the plants and cooking tasty treats! Not to mention discovering bugs, ladybirds and butterflies which delighted them too! Children are the future, and anything we do to encourage them into gardening can only be a really good thing to do!

Apple and Rosehip Jelly

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If you were listening in to BBC Radio Leicester this afternoon, here’s the recipe I mentioned for Apple and Rosehip Jelly. My mother-in-law Joan used to make a crab apple jelly similar to this one. Bags of fruit would be tied to the kitchen cupboard doors to drip overnight. Fruit jams and jellies would make a very tasty winter treat, spread on warm buttered toast, or on cakes and scones. This recipe is adapted from a Women’s Institute recipe dating back to 1943. The WI members became famous for making jams and jellies as part of their war effort. Rosehip syrup was a particularly valuable source of vitamin C for children. When my brothers and I were young in the 1960s and 70s, we had a spoon of syrup and a spoon of malt before setting off for school. We also had a spoon of caster oil, which wasn’t quite as welcome!

Ingredients:

makes about 6 jam jars

2kg eating apples

1 kg rosehips

Approx 2.3kg caster sugar -depending on amount of liquid produced.

1 sachet of pectin

Method:

Put a tea plate in the freezer for checking the setting point later.

Wash and core the apples. No need to peel them.

Place apples in a preserving pan and add enough cold water to just cover them.

Simmer until soft.

Roughly chop the rosehips. I used a food processor.

Add rosehips to the apples and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Spoon the pulp into a muslin or jelly bag suspended over a bowl. Don’t allow the bag to touch the bowl.

Start to spoon out the juice straight away so that the bowl doesn’t overspill. Leave the bag overnight to drip.

Measure out the liquid.

For every 600ml add 500g sugar. Return the liquid to the preserving pan.

Heat gently to dissolve the sugar.

Bring to the boil and boil rapidly until the setting point has been reached.

Check using the tea plate and a teaspoon of the jelly. A setting point is reached when the jelly wrinkles when pushed by your finger.

Ladle into clean sterilised jam jars and add labels.

Rosehips should be gathered at the end of October when ripe, but before being damaged by frosts. They are classed as a ‘superfood’ due to their antioxidant properties.

I whizzed the rosehips in a food processor, or you could roughly chop them by hand.

This is the jam and jelly straining kit I bought from Dunelm. The metal frame unscrews for winter storage. The bag is adequate for this amount of pulp. I set it up over a Pyrex pudding bowl, but I did start to scoop out the juice as soon as it started filtering through as I was worried the bowl might overflow overnight. The netting bag is washable and reusable, but you can also buy replacements.

And this is the finished apple and rosehip jelly. It doesn’t taste much of apples, but does taste of roses and summer! Absolutely delicious!

You can listen in to gardening on the radio at 3.10pm every Wednesday. Just ask your smart speaker to tune in to BBC radio Leicester. Or you can listen again on the i-player.

Today we also talked about starting paperwhite narcissi for Christmas.

Here’s some I grew for a January flower wreath using a jam jar covered in moss attached to a willow heart frame. We are having to find all sort of ways to get round not using plastic florists’ foam. My hidden jam jar works really well.

We also talked about growing amaryllis for Christmas presents.

Here’s some I grew last winter. I can highly recommend Taylors Bulbs as the size and quality is first class. Bulbs should flower within 6-8 weeks from planting and make a lovely home-grown present.

Ben Jackson and I talked about picking the last dahlias. This one is Eveline from Mr Fothergill’s.

This one is David Howard. I’ll be leaving mine in the ground again this year, covered in a foot of of dried leaves and a cloche to keep them as dry as possible and to protect them from the frost. If you have wet heavy clay soil, it’s best to dig them up and put them in a frost free place such as a garden shed or garage. Thanks for listening in and reading the blog. Have you decided what you are doing about your dahlias yet? We’ve had three night frosts this week, so I’m covering mine already.

Photos From My Garden- Remembering Summer….

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Sending out a warm welcome to old and new readers. Hello to new readers from the garden clubs where I’ve given talks recently. At both Nether Heyford and Spratton this week there were questions on what to grow for colour in the garden in June. When I got home I had a quick look through my photo album and found some of my favourite summer flowers. Above is my 1930s summerhouse which stands on a circular turntable and can be swung round to face the sun all day long. In the folding glass doors you can see a reflection of the trees, hedgerows and fields behind our garden. Above the doors, I often place a wreath of fresh flowers and in this photo it’s a selection of roses from the garden.

Constance Spry grows over the entrance to a 60ft pergola. It was one of the first David Austin roses, introduced in 1961. It only flowers once, but the display is so stunning it is worth growing. The myrrh-like scent is fabulous, and reminiscent of fruit salad, ripe melons and pears. It grows to 6m so needs a strong archway or trellis support.

I picked the flowers at dusk when the scent was particularly strong. In the basket there’s also Mme Isaac Pereire (1841) a fuchsia pink climber which grows alongside Constance Spry. And Rose de Rescht (1840) a compact floribunda shrub rose. Both repeat flower all summer.

The wreath is made from 4” lengths of ivy from the hedgerow and white elderflower heads. With the doors open, the breeze wafts the scent of roses and elderflower inside. A rather lovely place to sit and make plans for the garden. The black and white cat is called Grace who came to us from the RSPCA. She was handed in with a box full of kittens. The only kind thing the person did was take her somewhere where she would be cared for, and for the rest of her life she snoozed peacefully here. The summerhouse was a favourite place. Sadly she has now passed away and is still sleeping in the woodland behind the little house.

Growing into a mature beech tree is rampant rambling rose Cerise Bouquet. I never tied the plant in, it simply hooked itself up through the branches and produced huge sprays of cascading stems. Even the most severe storms can’t dislodge it. Sadly it has no scent, but it is a wonderful sight in June and then repeat flowers on a more modest level right through to November. Being a rambler, it is disease free and no trouble. I never prune it, or feed it. It just grows! The Cornus Controversa ‘wedding cake’ tree in front was very badly affected by the 30C temperatures last summer and has lost some of its tiers. I think this winter we will bite the bullet and cut it down by half to see if it regenerates from lower down. It was planted 25 years ago, and is quite slow growing. I was quite upset by the number of plants that succumbed to the heat, but now I’ve come to terms with it. Gardens aren’t static, they change and we have to sometimes let go of much-loved plants. It’s never easy, is it.

One rose that seems to shrug off everything the weather throws at it is this lovely white variety, Pearl Drift. I grew this from a cutting I took on holiday one year. I nearly always come back from holiday with a memento of where we’ve been -always asking permission before taking my cutting, of course! I have a lovely pink flowering American Pillar taken from a rose which grows along a fence in front of a pretty cottage in Sandsend near Whitby.

Growing under the roses are many different geraniums. This one is the wild cranesbill, Geranium pratense. It seeds about the garden, originally blowing in from the country lane outside our garden gate.

As you can see, there’s plenty of cow parsley on the lane too. And I must admit that 50 percent of the garden is covered in cow parsley in spring. I’m not complaining. It’s rather lovely to have the garden echoing what’s going on outside the garden gate.

There’s plenty of room for ornamentals too. In the front garden, lining the path to the front door, there’s gorgeously-scented Mrs Sinkins pinks.

I always pop a few stems in amongst my jam jar flower posies for my mum. As you can see, cow parsley gets picked too, with white love-in-a-mist, wallflowers and alliums.

Thank you for joining me for my reminisces of June flowers. And for a wander down our country lane. I hope the photos have given you some ideas what to grow for summer colour. Do please sign up for e mail updates and follow the blog. It’s been rather lovely looking through my photo album as the temperature suddenly dips to zero here! We’ve had three nights of frost now, and it’s all change in the garden as trees turn golden and tender plants are tucked up in the greenhouse. Are you all ready for the cold? Do please leave a comment in the box below. Let me know what your highlights were this summer and how your garden is looking right now on the cusp of winter weather.