This Month in the Garden (November 09) – Derek Cox

Shopping is one of my pet hates, so I often sit in my car waiting for my wife to do the shopping. Having parked my car, I often get out and look at the various landscape themes, mainly to see what has been planted in the borders. Much of the landscaping that I have come across in Syston seems to lack forethought. Who, but a landscape architect would think of planting trees such as Sycamore, Ash, or Limes in narrow borders? All three will grow over 70 feet (22m) tall and almost the same in width. If landscape architects are to use indigenous or native trees on housing estates or supermarket borders, why then do they not choose neat upright forms of native species such as Sorbus aucuparia ‘Fastigiata’? This tree has white flowers during May, red berries in late August and coppery orange or red autumn foliage. There are good specimens of this tree growing in the grass verges on the corner of East and Central Avenue in Syston. Top marks to the forward thinking architect who had the forethought to plant these. On my visit to Syston Health Centre to get my yearly flu jab, I was asked to name the trees with such brilliant red autumn foliage that were planted in the borders in the car park. These are Acer rubrum, ‘The Canadian Maple’, probably the variety ‘October Glory’. These will, eventually grow tall, but not as large as our native Sycamore and to its advantage, it does not germinate so easily as Sycamore. I have never considered the Ash (Fraxinus excelsa) to be a suitable tree even for a large garden. An 80 feet (26m) tall specimen in the garden of my neighbor produces thousands of seed, which not only produce young plants all over my garden, but also in the field at the rear of my house. However, when Josie Hutchinson and myself were driving on the Leicester ring road, on our way to do an outside ‘Down to Earth’ program at Wigston, we saw two marvelous 15 feet (4.5m) tall, rounded specimens of ‘The Golden Ash’ (Fraxinus excelsa ‘Jaspidea’) whose yellow branches and foliage were outstanding. Many of our autumn and winter flowering shrubs are now in flower, Eleagnus x ebbingei is now in full flower its tiny silvery flowers have a lovely fragrance. I grow Eleagnus x ebbingei ‘Gilt Edge’ whose leaves are richly enhanced with a gold edge. Viburnum tinus is also in bloom, its heads of small white flowers will remain in bloom until next March.
In September I wrote about Nemasys ‘No Ants’ whose living nematodes control ants by making areas uninhabitable to both black and red ants. I found this does work in my rockeries, but in my lawn, I found it moves them just from one area to another.
Now is the time to think about moving tender or half-hardy plants into a greenhouse, or conservatory. Correa ‘Dusky Maid’ is a tender shrub whose dusky-pink bell-shaped flowers appear during October and even in a cold greenhouse will continue to flower until the following June. Coprosma ‘Evening Glow’ with its shining gold variegated evergreen leaves and Coprosma ‘Pacific Night’ with shiny, almost black leaves are native to New Zealand and Tasmania and although standing on my terrace from June to late October, they over winter in a cold greenhouse. My hanging basket of Viola ‘Allspice Mixed’ look very attractive, many having multicoloured flowers, they do have a fragrance, but outdoors you do have to be close by to smell them.
Thompson and Morgan have given me a number of packets of vegetable seed to enable Terry Bailey, a Syston allotment holder, to use when teaching the children of Merton School how to grow vegetables in their allotment. How wonderful to know children are once more learning how to grow vegetables?