A Pot of Cornfield Annuals

Jeremy Bartlett's LET IT GROW blog Posted on by

DSCN8350One of this year’s big successes in the garden has been our pots full of cornfield annuals (pictured above on 21st June).

I love to grow cornfield annuals on the allotment, such as Cornflowers, Corn Marigold, Corncockle, Corn Chamomile and Poppies (Long-headed and Common). Where space permits, I let them re-seed year after year. The poppies came along by themselves and I bought seed for the others, though only once.

In late winter I transplanted some of my self-sown cornflower and corn marigold  plants and put them in pots in a sunny part of the garden, in ordinary peat-free potting compost. (I usually use New Horizon multi-purpose compost.) I also added a few Corncockle seedlings. At the same time I sowed some Corn Chamomile in the pots. By late May the cornflowers, corncockle and corn marigolds were flowering and the corn chamomile began to flower in early June. The plants are still giving a good display of colour as I write.

As well as being attractive to humans, these flowers help to encourage wildlife into the garden. Corn Marigold flowers are popular with hoverflies and bees love the cornflowers. An added bonus is that Goldfinches have started to eat the seeds on the cornflowers, now that they are going over.

Cornfield annuals sown in autumn tend to be bigger and stronger than ones sown in spring but if you don’t have room to start off the plants in a bed in the garden, you can sow directly into the pots. Once the plants are fully grown and flowering they will need to be watered every day or two until they have finished flowering.

I bought most of my cornfield annual seeds from Emorsgate Seeds, who supply cornfield annuals as individual species or as seed mixes. Just a small quantity of seeds will be enough for a pot and will be cheaper and more interesting than the usual range of bedding plants. Why not give it a try?

Mexican Fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus

Jeremy Bartlett's LET IT GROW blog Posted on by

Erigeron karvinskianus

I love daisies, whether in the lawn (Daisy, Bellis perennis), wild flower meadow (Ox-eye Daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare), or in the garden border (Echinacea, Rudbeckia etc.). My favourite, at the moment anyway, is the Mexican Fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus.

Mexican Fleabane loves a dry, sunny spot such as a wall or paving or the edge of a path or raised bed. It grows as a low carpet and will rapidly soften up the edges of stonework. It flowers profusely throughout the summer, starting even earlier in milder springs. Well drained soil suits it best, as it doesn’t like damp winters.

I first saw this lovely plant at Hestercombe Gardens, near Taunton in Somerset, ten years ago, growing on the edges of stone steps and in cracks in paving. I planted it in Grapes Hill Community Garden, at the edges of paths, on my allotment where it copes well in the dry, sandy soil and in the big raised bed in our front garden. The plant is easily raised from seed and will self-sow readily, so you can give pieces to friends.

Mexican Fleabane is native to Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, but it now grows in parts of Africa, Europe, New Zealand, and on the west coast of the United States. It is a serious problem in Hawaii and Réunion as it form dense mats that smother native plants and it seeds profusely. It is illegal to introduce the plant into Portugal, New Zealand and New Caledonia.

In Britain, with our current climate, Mexican Fleabane is easy to control and you can pull it up if it grows in an unwanted spot. Carol Klein offers advice on how to use Erigeron karvinskianus to build your own daisy wall.

Erigeron karvinskianus

Mexican Fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus, softening up the edges of our raised bed.

Catmint, Nepeta x faassenii

Jeremy Bartlett's LET IT GROW blog Posted on by
Nepeta x faassenii 'walker's Low'

Nepeta x faassenii ‘Walker’s Low’ in our gravel garden

I love Catmint, especially the widely grown Nepeta x faassenii, a beautiful deciduous perennial with grey-green leaves and dense spikes of violet-blue flowers. I planted two varieties in our gravel garden last June and they flowered well in their first year. A year on, they are most impressive (as the above photo of our Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ shows). The flowers are covered with honeybees, bumblebees and at least two species of solitary bees, while butterflies also visit from time to time.

The plants are also scented, a rather pungent herby smell. You wouldn’t want to use it in cooking, but the scent is reminiscent of other members of its family, the Lamiaceae, such as thyme, lavender and marjoram.

The closely related Catnip, Nepeta cataria, grows more upright, with white flowers. Both it and Nepeta x faassenii contain a volatile oil, nepetalactone, which many domestic and wild cats find attractive. The attraction is controlled by a dominant gene and up to 30% of domestic cats in a population may not respond. Kittens under three months old tend to avoid the plants and then can develop an attraction when they are older. Affected cats may sniff, lick and chew the plant and rub their heads against it, for up to fifteen minutes when the effect wears off. In extreme cases, cats can cause severe damage to the plant, which can be very annoying, especially if it isn’t your cat that is doing the damage.

In humans the same chemical is alleged to cause aggressive behaviour and The Poison Garden website suggests that a hangman might consume some Catmint on a working day to get into the right mood to perform his duties. Personally, I would find that a cat rolling in my patch of Catmint would invoke a similar response. Smoking Catmint appears to have the opposite effect – the Plants for a Future website says that smoking Nepeta cataria can produce euphoria and visual hallucinations. The plant also has diuretic properties when eaten.

Cats apart, I can’t recommend Catmint highly enough. Nepeta x faassenii likes a sunny spot with well drained soil but I have grown it on a bank in heavy clay at The Belvedere Centre in Norwich and it copes with some light shade. In our back garden, it grows in well drained soil with a gravel covering, in a bed that is in shade throughout the winter months. There are several well-known cultivars: ‘Six Hills Giant‘ grows to three feet tall, ‘Walker’s Low’ is a bit shorter but still upright and there are dwarfer forms such as ‘Kit Cat’, and the white flowered ‘Alba’ is also available. My second variety is the ordinary Nepeta x faassenii and that is also very lovely and grows to about two feet tall.

Update, December 2016: Anthophora quadrimaculata, the Four-banded Flower-bee

We have recently submitted bee records from our garden from the past four years. In doing so we have discovered that our garden has one of the most northerly British records of the solitary bee Anthophora quadrimaculata, the Four-banded Flower-bee.

Our Catmint is one of its favourite plants and small numbers of A. quadrimaculata have visited the flowers each summer since 2013.

The only other Norfolk records have been from another Norwich garden in September 1982 and on a cliff at Gorleston in July 2015 (Nick Owens, “Bees of Norfolk” (2017)).