Plants for Free

As we’re heading into autumn, it’s still unseasonably warm at Betley Court Gardens, and the late summer flowers are thriving. The formal borders are especially bright, with Dahlia ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ putting on the best scarlet show. Shane harvested the field mushrooms that I mentioned had popped up in the lawn last week, and shared them out with house residents. I hear they were very tasty, and a meal in themselves coming in at almost 6” in diameter! Shane’s hoping to find some chanterelle mushrooms as he works around the gardens, and I think it’s lovely the art of foraging for food is coming back in popularity. We’ve lost that everyday knowledge of edible foods growing around us. 

Wildflowers around the Visitors' Hub

Down by the Visitors Hub, the wildflowers are still looking great and attracting insects. It’ll be time to scythe them to the ground in a few weeks, so we’ve a while to enjoy them yet. I’ve been getting into the beds at the front of the hub to do a little weeding. As this area is managed as a wilder area, my job is simply to referee between the plants. Nettles are a bit boisterous here, and hairy bitter crest too prolific, so they get the chop. Foxgloves have self-sown all around, so I’ve thinned them were they threaten to outgrow some of the more delicate plants, like ox-slips and windflowers that I want to promote. 

Ox-eye daisies (Leucanthenum vulgare)

One of the joys of hand weeding at this time of year is spotting all the plantlets that germinated unbidden and unnoticed till now. It suggests the plants are happy in their spot, if they are propagating freely like that. Right plant, right place. If they are weeds, they are easy to get rid of at this stage. Often though, I spot seedlings of things I’d like to use elsewhere. Ox-eye daisies (Leucanthenum vulgare), a gift from Alsager Wildlife Initiative, have made themselves very much at home. I can pot these up and move them around the garden – plants for free! A dog violet Viola riviniana), that piggy-backed its way into the garden in a pot of hostas I’d brought from home has wasted no time in settling into its new environs. Its offspring are springing up all along the border. 

The dog violet (Viola riviniana)

Similarly, the woodland plants I brought back from Bluebell Cottages Nursery have thrived over the summer. The low-growing dogwood (Cornus canadensis), bought as a spreading ground cover, is sending subterranean suckers that pop up a foot away from the mother plant, creating a new plant. The geraniums (G. pratense ‘Mrs Kendall Clark’) have grown into fine balls of leaves, and the odd seedling adds to the stock of plants without costing us a penny.

Geramium, self sown

The delicately painted leaves of the Brunnera (B. macrophylla ‘Jack Frost) have come into their own this summer, and striking plant even wihtout flowers.

The stunning foliage of Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost'

There are other plants that seem to have appeared out of nowhere too, a strawberry plant and several tiny barberry bushes (Berberis vulgaris) to name a few. Most likely, these arrived curtesy of our feathered friends, through their droppings. I’ll probably encourage the barberries.

Barberry, self sown

They used to be common in our countryside. The berries are small, and have a zingy, citreous flavour. Look in any Georgian cookbook (I recommend Elizabeth Raffald’s pioneering recipe book, available cheaply in facsimile form from that well-known internet bookshop). However, barberries harbour wheat rust fungus (Puccinia graminis) a disease of wheat crops. Georgian farmers saw to it that barberries were systematically removed from the countryside, to protect their crops. And as a result, a favoured garnish disappeared from the English kitchen. 

We’ve been thinking about what to do with the interior of the Visitors’ Hub, and inspiration came from a visit Nigel and I paid to the Garden Museum, in Lambeth, London last week. It was a strange trip, largely as it was the first work excursion, I’d made under the social distancing rules; facemasks compulsory on trains, and inside public buildings and no getting too close to people.

Modern travel - restrctions apply!

Actually, we were taken aback at how few people were on the streets of Westminster, as we walked down from Euston to Lambeth, ‘sarf of the river’ as they say on Eastenders. The Garden Museum is housed in the old church of St Mary’s that was saved by a community group in the 1970s. The graveyard contained the tomb of John Tradescant, the famous plant collector. 

Dibbers, trowels and poisons in the Garden Museum display

Now, the Garden Museum holds a unique collection dedicated to gardening in all its forms; as art, gardenalia and history. We found the collection of olden times tools fascinating. Some were recognisable, and still used today. Others, like devices for delivering poisons to plants, have been consigned to history.

A display of Derek Jarman's hand tools in an exhibtion about his garden at Prospect Cottage in Dungeness

It was lovely to see these humble, everyday tools displayed as objects of curiosity, and we both thought we could draw inspiration from the displays when we decorate the Visitors’ Hub. When we were clearing soil for the hub building, Shane uncovered an old ‘Whippet’ push mower, unusable, but perfect for a prop once we’ve applied a bit of enamel paint. Clearing behind the sheds yielded an old bentwood lawn sieve, some grass clippers and hand tools.

Some of our hand tool collection

We’ve also picked up some second hand tools from garage sales, including a hand plough. Taking some of the display ideas from the Garden Museum, it would be a fitting way to add to the story of Betley Court Gardens if we teamed the old tools with photographs and postcard. Just another job to add to the list! 

All best wishes 

Ladybird Su