The garden has been featured in a few magazines over the years ( Yorkshire Life - Profile Magazine) and I have also written a few articles which have been published in various journals. My articles provide an insight into my approach to gardening and I hope you find them to be interesting.

Susan Ferguson

Waterwise gardening

Sociable Plants

Winter Pots

Waterwise gardening

Yes I know that everyone has had their say on this subject over the years but we all have our bit to add and here is mine, written in the hottest week ever, (I hope!).

Hot Pots
I must be psychic because this year I have aimed to go for drought resistant pots, especially in the further reaches of the garden. The most drought proof plants are succulents, agave, sempervivums, sedums, echeveria, aeoniums etc which can be bought quite cheaply and are easily propagated. They only need a dry frost proof place to over-winter. For a bit more colour and texture mix geraniums (pelargoniums), with drought tolerant fluffy grasses, pennisetum, stipa tenuissima or hordeum jubatum, all easily raised from seed. Pots of less tolerant plants can be put in a shady spot during hot spells. Lilies are especially good in shade and flower for longer. I have a very large pot with a lovely white hydrangea as a long term feature on a shady patio, this looks good all year, especially from June into late winter.

Happy Plants
I have been round my garden looking for things other than the usual lavender which are happy in this weather without watering. Daylilies are doing very well; it is worthwhile visiting a nursery or garden to see them in flower as their colours and habits cover a wide spectrum and colours which sound mouthwatering on paper can be less exciting on the plant. I like the taller flowered ones with flowers held well above slim leaved foliage, some of the newer ones can look a bit chunky. Some are scented which is a bonus. It is worth trying things like phlox and astilbe which like moisture retentive soil in some shade. They will usually flower just as well and need much less water. Many things are fairly drought proof once established, i.e. after one or two years so always water new plantings if they are looking sad. Above all learn to read your garden and plants, water in the evening with can or hose, not with a sprinkler (unless for a new bed) which is too indiscriminate, and look at each plant to see which are doing well and which wilting, always water thoroughly but not frequently, once a week or fortnight for most plants. Remember that we have wet years as well as dry and don’t expect to garden in a desert every year. A wide range of plants means that every year suits some things.

Total Immersion
Any keen gardener has a group of pots containing plants waiting to go into the garden. Keep a large container nearby filled with water to immerse really dry plants. Occasionally it is worth filling this container with water and soluble plant food and immersing every pot, this is also a good time to check for slugs and snails and plants which need potting on.
You can plant even in hot, dry weather. Plunge the pot for 10 minutes, dig a big hole and mix in compost, take out the soil and fill the hole with water, let it drain down then plant. This means there is a reservoir of water and roots will go down to find it. Water in to settle the roots and then pull dry soil over to stop evaporation. This will keep new plantings happy for 2-3 weeks but keep an eye on them.

Vegetable success
The raised vegetable beds which were made last winter have been a great success, the 6 inches of compost which was put on in the late winter means that less water is required although it does not make a good bed for direct sowing, plants grown in pots and planted out have done well. This is an experiment and we are learning what needs protecting (something nibbled my young plants of kale and broccoli last night and pigeons had a go at my peas) and what needs staking, my tomatoes have grown huge overnight and my french beans are growing up them. My prettiest is the sweetcorn growing in a bed with ornamental grasses and the best so far are the broad beans, really easy and I shall grow lots next year. July, August and September are the months when I reap the rewards of all my hard work in the winter and spring months, I am enjoying the garden in the cool of the evening with the heady fragrance of Honey suckle and Jasmine.

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Sociable Plants

While adding new plants to my borders this spring and seeing how the existing plants had fared over the past year it seemed that plants can be divided into 3 groups. Some are loners, needing a space to themselves or they sulk and die out, prime examples in my garden are Echinacea and Eremurus. Others are thugs, and will elbow out other plants through running or self seeding. This trait is not always apparent in the first year when you are quite pleased with the expanding clump or crop of seedlings but watch anything which is doing really well. In my garden campanula, linaria and alliums are prime self seeders and I have a beautiful poppy and a desirable dark leaved lysimachia which run about and infiltrate other plants and need constant curbing.( Often generous chunks dug up from friend’s gardens come into this category.) Thugs have their place as 2 or more running together can colonise an out of the way corner but it is important to know they are thugs in advance so that you put them in a place where they can be contained and do not plant them with delicate plants.

The most useful group are the sociable plants which will intermingle without suffocating their neighbours. These plants can be grown together to provide a long season of interest. Classically they include bulbs which can be followed by hardy geraniums, hostas or asters. Primroses are good for early colour as they will happily sit in the shade of other plants through the summer after their spring flowering. Sturdy clematis can provide colour and interest over shrubs with the same or different flowering times. Some grasses can provide support for less sturdy neighbours. If your aim is a well filled border with a long season of colour and not too much hard work choose your plants from this range.

How do you know which are which? As always in gardening, by using observation, look at the way plants grow in other people’s gardens and keep a wary eye on new plants. An important consideration is the type of conditions you are offering your plants. Fertile soil can encourage exuberant growth but some plants will grow happily in poorer soil where there is less competition.
Clematis

In February I went to another clematis pruning talk (you can always pick up useful tips) at Taylor’s clematis nursery. I learned that you can ignore with impunity the advice to prune in early March, by which time my clematis have put on a lot of new growth. Taylor’s prune all theirs throughout the winter when it is much easier to cut down all those late flowering clematis. I also learned that, wherever you prune the clematis will sprout from 2 nodes below the cut so if you want flowers low down, cut low and if you want to have flowers higher up, in a small tree perhaps, cut higher up and leave a ‘trunk’. It seems to me that clematis are very amenable to being manipulated to suit your wishes so I bought seven more while I was there. The event was free and open to all and apple pie and coffee were provided so watch for it next year if you are interested.

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Winter Pots

Are your pots still filled with the remains of summer planting, like mine?

Why not cheer yourself up by a day spent clearing them out and planting for winter. I don't mean spring bedding which looks sad all winter, but bright foliage, shapely grasses, berries and real winter flowers, pots which will look so good you will be tempted to leave them for summer as well.

The brightest foliage shrubs have yellow variegation, buy small hollies from the market, or gold or silver eunymous; in a sheltered spot Pittosporum 'Irene Paterson', splashed white, 'Abbotsbury Gold', splashed yellow or 'Tom Thumb', shiny dark purple leaves, at their best in winter.

Use conifers; buy cheap ones for their shape or colour, if they are too big later you can discard them. Buy Choisya 'Aztec Pearl' or sarcococca for foliage and fragrance, use them in a porch or near the front door. Hardy hebes with good winter foliage include 'Mrs. Winder' and pinguifolia 'Pagei', these would look good with winter flowering heathers.

Use Helychrysum italicum or Convulvulus cneorum for silver foliage, or cut back and re- use Senecio maritima from your summer bedding. All the shrubs can stay in the pots for two or three years and will look good in the summer with a change of underplanting or they can be planted in the garden.

For contrast use evergreen grasses in all colours and sizes; carex 'Evergold', utterly weatherproof, Ophiopogan for drama (contrast with Lamium 'white Nancy' and a grey leafed hebe,) or for a taller shape use Carex pendula, if you grow this in the garden you will have spare young self seeded plants somewhere, or Stipa arundinacia, for its winter orange. In the same shape use Iris foetidissima 'Variegata', one of the best ever foliage plants, winter or summer, and unaffected by frost.

For flowers in a large pot use helleborus foetidissima or argutifolius, white helleborus niger will look better and stay cleaner in pots. Bergenia can provide interesting foliage and later flowers . Dig up some primula from your garden, if you have 'Garryarde Guinevere' it will already have purple foliage , or primula wanda may be showing it's first early flowers. Winter flowering heathers will provide a good long display.

Pop in some snowdrops or crocus and iris reticulata but keep daffodils, hyacinths or tulips in separate pots on their own to group with the permanent pots when they are in flower, as their dying foliage will spoil the other plants if you put them in with the main display . Skimmia 'Rubella' looks wonderful from now until the spring when the red buds open into scented white flowers. Fill in spaces with ivy to trail down the sides, either buy small plants or use rooted pieces from the garden. Other trailers include vincas and euphorbia myrsinites.

Last winter I grouped Lonicera 'Silver Beauty' with purple ajuga and lamium 'White Nancy' and the pot looked good all summer as well and is now set to provide me with another winter display. The best thing about winter pots is that you can cheat. Because it is cold, foliage cut from the garden and stuck in a pot will stay fresh for many weeks, a bonus is that some things will take root and provide you with new plants. Use a framework of growing plants and add branches of holly, much cheaper than buying a new plant, stems of coloured willows or dogwood may take root as may choisya.

When 'Viburnam bodnantense' is in flower add some branches of this and the scented 'Lonicera purpusii' and any of the mahonias or winter jasmine, all adding colour to your display. For a special occasion or in a porch you could use silk flowers, if surrounded by enough green foliage they will look good and confuse or amuse your friends. Look in your local market for small plants of skimmia and euonymous or viburnum tinus, which can be bought very cheaply, look round your garden with an open mind and see what looks good. Remember that the plants will not grow much through the winter so they can be packed close together.

Winter pots need very little looking after compared to summer pots so for a small outlay and some time spent planning and planting you can brighten up the winter, and that has to be worth doing.

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