Garden News December 13

2015's NEW SUCCESS CHRYSANTHS ON CHALK Discover the latest varieties to try

Advice and plants for alkaline soil

December 13, 2014

SPECIAL BUMPER ISSUE!

Christmas with Carol!

"Make wreaths with my favourite festive hollies"

PRUNE NOW! Your complete guide to winter cutting back

Get ready for

CHRISTMAS!

Choose the best tree and help it last longer Harvest your festive veg Create home-grown gifts from garden goodies

Plants of the season

GORGEOUS winter gardens How to grow MISTLETOE CHR ISTM AS BOX for knockout scent

Plant of the week FACTFILE

SARCOCOCCA Evergreen shrub Part or full shade Hardy Moist, but well-drained soil Height: Up to 2m (6ft 8in) December to March

Garden World Images

The sweetest

winter scent!

You’ll smell the fragrance of tiny sarcococca flowers in the garden long before you see them ONE OF THE sweetest scents in the winter garden comes from a tiny flower. Often Pam Richardson you’ll smell the dainty blooms of GARDEN sarcococca WRITER in the garden long before you see them. Their fragrant, tassel flowers emerge almost unnoticed from among glossy evergreen leaves in the depths of winter, and they pack a powerful perfume.

Commonly known as winter box, Christmas box or sweet box, sarcococca are a group of evergreen shrubs belonging to the buxus family. There are 11 species, all are evergreen and most smell delicious. Many have the RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM), reinforcing their reputation as easy to grow garden plants.

4 Garden News / December 13 2014

Sarcococca thrive in shade, and their glossy foliage helps to add texture and interest to shaded beds and borders. Slow-growing and hardy, they will tolerate less than perfect soils, and grow in dry shade, although humus-rich soil suits them best.

Find these plants a permanent spot where their winter perfume can be fully appreciated. Plant them near a path – or to border a well-trodden route – maybe on the way to a greenhouse or the washing line! Somewhere you can get the full benefit of that delicious scent, even on winter days, when visits outside might be fleeting and you’d rather be indoors!

Choose a compact, moundforming variety such as S. hookeriana humilis for a small garden, as an edging plant, or in a container. It only grows to

60cm (2ft) tall.

Look out too for new compact varieties such as ‘Dragon Gate’ (AGM), discovered

by Roy Lancaster, or ‘Ghorepani’ (AGM). Other Roy Lancaster discoveries are S. ruscifolia chinensis, a suckering sarcococca with red berries and narrowleaved S. orientalis which flowers slightly earlier, and it is sometimes in bloom in November. It’s not quite fully hardy, but will cope with temperatures to -10C (14F).

All grow slowly to around 6090cm (2-3ft).

Of the taller varieties, sweet box, S. confusa (AGM), is one of the most fragrant with its slender dark green leaves and whorls of pure white flowers followed by glossy black berries. It eventually makes a bushy shrub, growing slowly to around 2m (6ft 8in).

Sarcococca hookeriana digyna

Sarcococca ruscifolia chinensis berries

‘Purple Stem’ (AGM) has upright growth and its colourful young stems are flushed with purple. It flowers in winter and early spring, slowly reaching 1.5m (5ft). To extend the season of scent, ‘Schillingii’ flowers later than most, blooming between February and April.

Suppliers ● Bluebell Arboretum and Nursery, tel: 01530 413700; www.bluebellnursery.com ● Long Acre Plants, tel: 01963 32802; www.plantsforshade.co.uk

Far left: Sarcococca hookeriana humilis Left: Frosted leaves of S. ruscifolia chinensis Garden World Images

“Sarcococca are one of the easiest plants to maintain” Ian Turner Garden curator, Sheffield Botanical Gardens, National Collection holders

Perfect partners Garden World Images

Winter-flowering hellebores are perfect partners for sarcococca – their large cup-shaped flowers contrast well with the daintier sarcococca blooms.

Combine them with winter pansies, primroses, hardy cyclamen and early spring bulbs, such as snowdrops, winter aconites, crocuses and chionodoxa, for a colourful and scented winter to spring display.

Most sarcococca are easy to grow, although some such as Sarcococca balansae are tender. The easiest of all is Sarcococca confusa.

They can sulk a bit when they’re first planted, and they sometimes take a season or so to get going, but once they’ve got themselves established they are one of the easiest plants to maintain.

The best time to plant them is in spring as the soil is warming up but, as with most containergrown plants, you can plant at pre y much any time of the year. Planting in spring generally means roots will develop more before any dry spells, so they will need less watering to get them established.

The ideal location for them is a moist, but well-drained site in partial shade. However, they are

very tolerant plants and will grow quite happily in dry sites both in full sun and full shade.

The only location that we have struggled to get them going in is a very damp site.

They can be grown in containers using any standard po ing compost. How long you can keep them in a pot depends on which species you are growing.

Species such as S. confusa can quickly outgrow a pot, whereas S. ruscifolia, which has more fibrous roots, will be okay for longer.

Generally, no pruning is needed apart from the standard removal of any dead or damaged shoots. Once established, S.

hookeriana may need to be kept in check because it will want to spread out sideways and its suckering growth will mean the clump gradually gets larger and larger. Chopping back the suckers will keep it under control and provide ready rooted plants to give away.

Most can be clipped into a hedge. We have plants of S. ruscifolia growing next to a path, which have a haircut each year to keep them tidy and back from the path.

Prune after flowering in spring.

S. confusa is my favourite species. It’s the most readily available, the easiest to grow and probably the species with the strongest scent. It looks good all year round, thrives on neglect in just about any location, and then rewards you with that heady scent in the depths of winter, when just about everything else is dormant. ● Sheffield Botanical Gardens, Clarkehouse Road, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S10 2LN. Tel: 0114 268 6001

Sarcococca confusa is one of the strongest scented species

Sarcococca also make excellent slow-growing hedging plants.

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Garden World Images

Plant hellebores around the edges of sarcococca plants

December 13 2014 / Garden News 5

EN

IN THE FLOWER GARD

Raid the garden for

decorations!

There’s lots to turn into festive indoor displays, says Clare

ET INTO THE garden before you dash to the shops to buy Christmas decorations.

It can be an incredibly fruitful place for gathering good material to create some Christmas charm indoors.

Gather anything with berries first so you can get them away from the birds before they strip them off. Holly is the obvious choice, but don’t forget cotoneaster, Viburnum opulus, rose hips and hypericum.

Most gardeners need no excuse to hack into a leylandii and giving the sides a trim now will stop it encroaching into unwanted places. Conifer foliage is a superb backbone for creating a ‘classic’ wreath and young growth made this year is obligingly flexible for bending around a frame.

If you’re not ready to make your wreaths or arrangements yet, put your cut stems in a bucket of water in a cool place such as the garage, and they’ll last for a good couple of weeks.

Seedheads can provide both centrepiece material and more subtle, silky strands that give vase displays a final flourish. Bulky artichoke seedheads make a good backbone to a display while the wispy flowers of grasses such as pennisetum and miscanthus are much more refined! Get the secateurs out and see what you can find.

Long-lasting foliage for wreaths

G

Photos: Shu erstock

18 Garden News / December 13 2014

Leyland cypress

Eucalyptus

Lasts for ages, as do most conifers. Cut the youngest, most pliable growth.

Makes an unusual blue-green backbone, that’s stylish teamed with white berries.

Magnolia

Box

Fan these large glossy leaves around the wreath in one direction for a smart effect.

Box’s small leaves will result in a daintier, elegant wreath in classic green.

ories this week The big gardeningEditst ge ed by IAN HODGSON Editor-at-lar

Save charity garden a square at a time

A

Peterborough’s Green Backyard (abo ve and below) is a focus for sustainable practice and comm unity involvement

spirit of a government bill designed to protect groups like ours,” said GBY co-founder Sophie Antonelli. “The appeal is a huge challenge, but if all supporters donated £10 we can achieve it, building a future for local people rather than huge developers,” said Sophie. First in the queue was The Eden Project’s Sir Tim Smit, who said: “I am totally a supporter of The Green Backyard and applaud everything being done there.”

Volunteers spent months clearing the once-derelict plot to create a range of vegetable gardens, orchard and wildlife areas. Buildings and structures made from recycled materials utilise sustainable technologies and are used for educational and social events. GBY hope to build an education centre, café and an office to help others start sustainable enterprises.

“We feel we’ve come out fighting. If we don’t raise enough we’ll use the funds for charitable aims elsewhere,” said Sophie.

• For information to sponsor a plot visit: www.thegreenbackyard.com

Co-founder Sophie Antonelli (right) with designer Jeni Cairns at Hampton 2014 Early supporter – Eden’s Sir Tim Smit

Ma hew Roberts

34 Garden News / December 13 2014

Jay Gearing

CAMBRIDGESHIRE COMMUNITY GARDEN faces eviction unless it buys the allotment land the project sits on.

Peterborough-based growing charity The Green Backyard (GBY) have been developing the 0.9ha (2.3acre) site near the city centre since 2009, with local authority encouragement. Now the city council, which dubs itself ‘the environmental and sustainable capital of the UK’, wants to move the project by exploiting a loophole in legislation to force the sale.

The charity has subsequently launched an innovative appeal, selling their plot to the public at £10 per square foot. The Localism Bill gives communities greater powers to protect assets, recommending six months’ grace for bodies to raise funds. Despite being given until mid-March to formulate a bid, officials moved the deadline to mid-January.

Incredulously, GBY organisers don’t even know how much to raise due to the blind tendering system the council has imposed.

“The council have undermined the

Ed Brandon

Community garden sells patches to public after land tussle with council