Rain!

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According to the Met Office forecast, we’ve had a dry but cloudy morning here in Norwich. When I venture outside, however, fine but steady rain is falling and has been since shortly after 9 o’clock this morning.

I mustn’t complain; Norwich normally has dry weather, often sunny but sometimes just dry and cloudy. When the weather is coming from the west, forecast rain frequently fizzles out before it reaches us. We frequently go for weeks with no significant rainfall. But sometimes, like today, rain comes in from the North Sea and catches us all out, including the weather forecasters.

The soil in our garden and on our allotment is dry and sandy and there is often a layer of dust on the surface. This means I have to water shallow-rooted seedlings, though the dust actually acts as a natural mulch and protects plants with deeper roots.

At the moment, however, the allotment soil looks lovely – dark, fertile and rich. The vegetables, fruit and flowers on the allotment are growing well in these conditions, as are poppies and oxeye daisies in the wildflower meadow in the back garden.

Poppies and oxeye daisies

Poppies and oxeye daisies

Aspire Centre Garden, Great Yarmouth

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Last Thursday I spent the morning leading a task to plant herbs, shrubs, climbers and hardy perennials in the courtyard garden at the Aspire Young Person’s Centre in Great Yarmouth, with the staff of Investing Ethically Ltd, a Norwich firm of financial advisers who specialise in socially responsible, environmental and ethical investment.

The Aspire Young Person’s Centre provides accomodation for single young homeless people aged 16-25. It is run by the Benjamin Foundation, a Norfolk charity that exists to help people across the county deal with many of the challenges that life throws at them.

The courtyard garden is a lovely space for the tenants of the Aspire Centre to enjoy. It consists of several raised beds, which already contain a small pond and flowers such as Buddleja, pink Cistus and lavender. But the Manager of the Aspire Centre, Chris Neil, wanted to make it even better, with more plants for bees and butterflies, climbers and less reliance on bedding plants.

In April Chris took me out to Yarmouth to see the garden and I suggested some changes. This was followed by a trip to a garden centre in mid May, then the planting day. Additions to the garden included a honeysuckle, Clematis montana ‘Mayleen’ and a Wisteria for the walls, a bed of herbs such as thyme, marjoram and garlic chives and hardy perennials such as Echinacea purpurea, Eupatorium ‘ Baby Joe’ and Scabiosa columbaria ‘Nana’.

We followed up the garden task with chips on Yarmouth Market and ice cream on Britannia Pier. It was a great day out!

Gardeners at the Aspire Centre

 

Erysimum ‘Bowle’s Mauve’

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Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve'

Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ (with white Sweet Rocket in the background)

If you want a plant that flowers for a long time and is good for insects, Erysimum ‘Bowles’ Mauve’ is hard to beat. It is a bushy evergreen perennial which grows to 75cm (two and a half feet) to 90cm (three feet) tall and reaches a similar width. It has narrow, dark grey-green leaves and erect racemes of rich mauve flowers, which have a slight scent. (Watch a You Tube video about the plant.)

Wallflowers used in bedding schemes (also Erysimum) are usually treated as biennials and planted out in their first autumn to flower the following spring. However, they are actually short-lived perennials and I have some on the allotment that have lasted four years so far. They are becoming increasingly untidy with age but the flowers are still as lovely.

Erysimum ‘Bowle’s Mauve’ is a bit longer lived, though it won’t last more than a few years. It is hardly surprising – it must put so much of its energy into flowering. I bought the plant shown in the photo above last June and it has flowered continuously since then, including in the depths of our (admittedly very mild) winter. The flowers have attracted early bees such as Anthophora plumipes and have been visited by Large and Green-veined White butterflies.

To give your Erysimum the best chance of a longer life, grow it in well drained, poor to moderately fertile soil. (Our soil is rather sandy, so it is ideal). It won’t like soil that is too acidic or damp in winter and it likes full sun, preferably in a site that is sheltered from strong winds.

It is a good idea to remove dead flowerheads by cutting down a few leaves into the stem. If the plant ever stops flowering you can give it a trim all over to tidy it up. You can raise new plants from cuttings in spring to early summer. Pull off side shoots with a small ‘heel’ and, ideally, choose non-flowering shoots, though this is rather difficult with Erysimum ‘Bowle’s Mauve’!

If you enjoy growing this plant, there are other varieties of Erysimum too, such as ‘Apricot Delight‘ and ‘Walberton’s Fragrant Star‘. Many are scented, flower for long periods and are a real asset in the garden.

According to the Plants For a Future website, wallflowers contain various medicinal compounds but are not edible.