Early Ambitions

I have memories, faint like the drawings themselves, of looking at plans, perhaps of Versailles, perhaps of palaces and places nearer home, with painstaking details marked in now fading ink, of long canals and formal planting stretching out into the countryside beyond. It is often the gardens, rather then the historical contents that have stayed in my mind from these visits, but nowadays I am happy to settle for wandering around gardens of any size without a sense of obligation to go indoors.

Many of my larger pots and containers have travelled from place to place as I have, and some of the smaller ones too, but this roof-top project is relatively new and I was joined by the plants as my move became more settled. I began with great ambitions, drawing up plans which included larger new containers drawn to scale. So far so good. But somehow in my early enthusiasm, and a wish born of desperation to mask the starkness of the parapet walls and much else besides, I overlooked the importance of paying attention to plant growth and ultimate size. Even in a container most things grow and for a while quite happily. Easily swayed I drew up elaborate plans for this elevated plot, as in need of some structure myself, and lacking modesty, I drew and sketched the structures and plant life I wanted around me. These included a pond, albeit a pond in a container.

The structures remain, some sturdy rectangular planters functioning as miniature raised beds, with an assortment of new and old tubs, containers, pebbles, garden furniture and other garden paraphernalia, but the planting plan has gradually been relinquished in favour of fewer favourites with less need of space and a bit more attention to wildlife.

Nevertheless, with the Autumn clear up more or less over, what seems to be emerging is something more like a set design than a garden in waiting. The exuberance of the earlier months has gone leaving behind a particularly tidy terrace – I’m not sure I like it but I’m not sure there’s an alternative. True there remains a selection of well placed pots with silvery evergreen foliage – including the aforementioned Eucalyptus nicholii doing well, olives hopefully undaunted by my pruning but which will never amount to the beauty and productivity of a Greek olive grove, lavenders, rosemary and yet more premature hellebores. But as skeletal shapes and pots of bare compost emerge, all I can do now is wait for the plants to take over next year and plan for more.

Learning from Experience

Meanwhile with the departure of the summer beauties my resolve to keep new plants to a minimum has gone too. I have succumbed, and with the help of tried and tested suggestions, I have bought a Prunus incisa ‘kojo-no-mai’ waiting for a new container (it grows very slowly, only reaching 1.2 metres in 10 years, so I would argue justifies a home to match it’s seasonal beauty), ordered Anemone ‘wild swan’ and some sweet box, as I couldn’t find either locally, and my spring bulbs are waiting to be planted. With bulbs as with everything there are choices to be made and I am biased towards showy, long lasting tulips for maximum impact where space is limited. They will have to wait a bit longer to be planted as it is sunny and warm at the moment and tulips I know do better after a snap of cold weather to kill off any virus.

I’m now toying with the idea of a crab apple. To think of it as a tilt in the direction of an orchard would be absurd but I can provide a sunny spot for a container-happy variety and it will give white flowers in the Spring. More immediately some pots have to be moved aside for the window cleaners, expected shortly. They are carelessly happy to walk along the waist high balustrade to reach the less accessible windows, but watching them makes me anxious, and angry, so I try to create a temporary path through the foliage and larger plants. This however, is ignored as they jump across the balustrade above a 100 foot drop with evident bravado as precarious as the route they have chosen. This is another reminder that I have come rather late to the idea that gardening involves planning and planning ahead, as window cleaners, as well as water, were far from my mind in my initial thoughts for this space, other than of course the over ambitious pond.

I do now have a watering system, thanks to a generous neighbour, but in the early days I relied on a watering can, hanging out of windows and walking along narrow door sills. One day I slewed a full can of (luckily) clean water over a new carpet, so my neighbour’s offer shortly afterwards could not have come at a better time. However, having attached a hose with a long lance to my new watering system, with an excess of enthusiasm one of my first attempts at long range watering went horribly wrong as I hadn’t closed the doors leading on to the walkway from another direction – luckily the books dried and the old wooden chest recovered too but I’m now more careful. I’ve also learned that narrow walkways need tall plants if they are to be easily visible through waist high windows. I now combine watering with wondering, in reality in all seasons, as the wind dries the pots and the rain seldom penetrates in all but the heaviest of downpours.

An early decision (and maybe poor planning) was to remove the sole piece of trellis purchased with the property. Prematurely maybe, as it never occurred to me I might need it since vines or even hops were not in the scheme. However, I now see, and thought then, that although it was providing an effective barrier between the terrace and the northerly wind, it obscured too much. The glimpse of the hills to the northwest has been well worth keeping even at the cost of a good vintage. I have however, conceded that bamboo has its uses and with mixed feelings recently filled a gap in the ‘wind-break’ with a pot of Nandina domestica. A rose by any other name……. whatever it is called, it is a bamboo. Also unplanned was an answer to the question of what to do with leaf litter and the other detritus from my container gardening. Luckily the terrace and walkways all have an array of gravel and pebbles of various sizes around the edges to aid drainage. The flow is generally towards the down-pipes, although not universally successfully, but the margin on the upslope provides the ideal destination for my sweepings and a good enough habitat, particularly for woodlice.

Perhaps I will discover more about insects and how to encourage them (fashionable bee hotels being constrained by my concern to avoid drilling into the ‘common parts’) at a forthcoming local event https://goo.gl/6riyfw when I will be accompanied by a particularly knowledgeable and enthusiastic seven year old.

Although writing reminds me of what I don’t know I am surprised and pleased that I do know something and am beginning to learn more. My roof top preoccupations can’t be compared with proper gardens and gardening but it is encouraging that some experiences are obviously transferable. Now knowing that standard lavenders have a mind of their own I am spurred on to find an answer to the problem of keeping them upright and wonder if a table leg might be the support I’m looking for. Perhaps not so easily available in open ground but solid, adjacent to the wall, just about visible from indoors looking out, and in a relatively sheltered situation I will try again, but not with a pair. Actually not with one of the original two either http://retiringgardener.uk/2017/10/08/trials-and-tribulations/as impatience took over and I wrenched out the lavenders on a particularly windy day, frustrated by the undoing of my plans. Instead I have two Cercidiphyllum japonicum ‘red fox’. These caught my eye on a visit to a local garden centre, when tasked to search out and shop on behalf of the allotment, I drifted towards some interesting foliage. Not surprising that they caught my eye as the vivid Autumn colour is spectacular and another claim to fame is their upright growth. They will never be a formal matched pair, but hopefully will be an interesting, new, rather expensive, discovery.

With the days getting noticeably shorter, returning to city life towards the end of summer, leaving behind golden fields and generous gardens, has always been hard. In Spring and Autumn the differences between the two worlds seem bridgeable as cities and the countryside come into leaf, with blossom and new growth having a visible impact, often in sequence, in these different settings. High summer is very different – urban spaces, however large, lose out. However, whether in suburban gardens or country meadows unseasonal colour is a welcome delight.

An anemone in September a few miles away, or a cowslip in October in Oxfordshire, are unexpected. Even more surprising, at least to me, is the extended flowering, disregarding the seasons, of this balcony favourite.  Still magnificent, and promising more, I think it must be an allium. I’ve thought of dividing it, promising half to a friend, but it’s name eludes me. Another friend can identity it but as he came at the height of my agitation about the leak, sadly I can’t now remember what he told me. I will ask again.

Thinking too now, I also wonder whether gardening at the level of individual plants is really gardening at all or is it toying, Marie Antoinette like, avoiding the harder tasks and the worst of the weather, planting pretty plants to be enjoyed by a few visiting pollinators and intimate friends. It doesn’t deter me but it makes me think. The feeding birds can usually be counted on the fingers of one hand and a pond in a pot would never have been colonised by frogs, so beyond buying bird food and retaining some leaf litter there must be more ingenious ways to attract other visitors. Hopefully I will pick up some ideas from the local Pollinators Paths Project.

Looking Ahead

More immediately, phase two of the leak/balcony repairs are planned for next week, with the erection of scaffolding towers, and the return of the workforce. I’m hoping to make the most of their presence as a third olive is growing fast and needs to be moved, actually to be almost directly above the soon to be permanently repaired leak, where it will have plenty of elbow room. Better planning would have been to have put it there in the first place but a swap with the more elegant eucalyptus should be fine, although I do need help to move it. I had thought the olive would take longer to get established but I was wrong. I thought the eucalyptus would need more space. Wrong again. It has an elegant neck, or trunk, and needs space higher up as it’s branches unfold.

Whatever, I am spurred on by much that is going on around me – plans to refresh the gardens below, the evident happiness of my clematises and roses, news that a simpler plan may mean phase three of the balcony repairs could be less disruptive and the determination of so many of my summer plants, including pelargoniums and clematises, to stay in flower. Although the former may have to be ousted when it comes to bulb planting, which is a pity, particularly as I lack a conservatory or cool kitchen to move them on to. I had also been hoping to find a Chinese Bee Tree, Tetradrium daniellii, recommended for its generous supplies for foraging bees, and another potential new arrival. But, I have now learned my lesson and so check the ultimate height and spread of anything unfamiliar and as it aims to reach a height of twelve metres or over I have reluctantly relinquished this idea.

A month or so on, the season has turned and the terrace is in a state of comfortable neglect as floods, holidays and idleness have all played their part. The railings have been interwoven with spider’s webs and the occasional queen wasp spotted making a dash indoors, but the olive trees are much less straggly. Thanks to all the advice I’ve been given I have taken my courage in both hands and cut them back. Already they are providing a better frame to the rest of the terrace, with the anticipated bonus of more wind protection for the rest of the terrace as the growth thickens out.

The Autumn tidy up has begun, and as the leaves of the surrounding trees first turn then drop, the views and vistas change, and a church spire appears on the brow of the hill with other buildings and permanent structures reemerging in the 270 degree view.

The necessary further works to ensure no more leaks to the flat below have at last been agreed, but not before some debate and deliberation. The surface of the terrace is part of the demised premises to the property, whilst the walls of the terrace are included in the common parts. However, the actual position of the ‘leak’ is slightly on the rise, precisely I noticed, where one meets the other, and only below the water line in a torrent, for example when a month’s rainfall comes in a day.  http://retiringgardener.uk/2017/08/03/out-of-season/ Whilst for me this legal nicety is intriguing, common sense has taken over from any wish to prolong things, and as the surveyor is also back from a summer away, things can move on. Who owns what, who has responsibility for what, who can do what are complexities which are probably best avoided by living in a house with a garden.

Moreover, news has now emerged of major planned works for next year to ensure the integrity of the roofs of the flats below for future years, and therefore the necessity, when the time comes, for all pots, containers, tables and other clutter to be removed to temporary lodgings so that access is fully available. And with this news the answer to a recurring dilemma – how much temporary and seasonal planting to include, and how much to plan for longer term structure and continuity?

For now any new ideas must be transient, as the intention must be, in the overall scheme of things, to reduce the number of permanent planters until the terrace has been renovated next year. The sweet scented box suggested, and which I had already imagined settled in between a beautiful long flowering rose  (Rosa Harlow Carr – Aushouse) and a cistus, (Cistus x purpureus) will have to wait. Both rose and cistus have coped happily with a somewhat random regime – the rose being underwatered too often and the cistus being rather brutally uprooted in late Spring from a container where it was competing with too many other plants, then re-potted into a container of its own and finally pruned hard – none of which is recommended. Surprisingly though, it has also flowered all summer long and even now, in this recent Indian summer, looks as though it could, yet again, have another surprise in store.

Meanwhile another impatient hellebore has come into bloom. This is apparently more common that I thought but isn’t of interest to the RHS as an example of a rare new species (or do I mean variety?).

I have also realised that the requirement to allow full access to the terrace next year is a temporary solution to another problem – when to replace compost, when to top up and how to dispose of it afterwards. Larger quantities of my spent compost usually end up in landfill along with much else, and the nearby recycling centre takes ‘green waste’, but a new project, also dependent on the absence of builders, is to be more effective in taking garden clippings and plants that have gone over, along with the right sort of food waste, to the allotment for composting. This will necessitate taking everything down in the lift, or the long flight of stairs, and across the soon to be laid new communal carpet.

The Naming of Plants

Planting in pots has its delights – moveability being one, so that at different times of the year Spring bulbs, herbaceous plants or one summer wonders like cosmos can look good from the indoors, looking out on wet days, or piled up and around each other to create an illusion of abundance.

But whatever the time of year and the urge to find new ideas, or repeat old delights, high rise gardening in a minute space has its limitations, although these are often worth challenging. With no room and no inclination to propagate, the majority of the plants I choose come from local garden centres, tried and trusted mail order companies, or are gifts from friends.  As I am lucky enough to benefit from a family allotment, without doing the digging myself, very occasional forays into planting fruit as well as plenty of herbs, are the closest I get to growing edible produce.

I was promised some wild strawberries plants last week. These have travelled far, having begun their journey in a Romanian forest, then settled well in another corner of the Metropolis where the fruit I’m told has been as tasty as in its original home, but fruit-bearing, surprisingly, for a much longer season. Now arrived and apparently eager to start out again on my windy outcrop, this particularly windy afternoon will be given over to planting and the hope of a crop next year. I consider myself very lucky.

I also tried a blueberry this year. Once upon a time, when living in the West Country, I was rather successful with blueberries in pots. The Spring blossom and striking Autumn tints were lovely and the blueberries were delicious. They never made it to the table as I ate as I gardened, but the milder, damper climate suited them and out in the open they would catch the rain. Now they are more reliant on watering with chalky tap-water and not as happy. More triumphantly, though, one of my olives too produces fruit.

So selecting what to grow is often an exercise in restraint and denial. Never easy. Many of the cottage garden plants I love are either unable to cope with the wind or the restrictions of a container (the clue is in the word)  so Japanese anemones which I keep hoping can be persuaded to join the late summer show always protest, and experience has taught me that salvias are happy and penstemon aren’t. Some plants take over and others wilt under the competition, but clematis for all seasons are in their element as I can provide cool roots and allow them to tumble and drift around the railings, whilst being careful to avoid attaching trellis to the walls, cautious as I am about my own injunction to respect the common parts.

At school I had Latin lessons, which isn’t quite the same as being taught Latin. Our mistress would arrive, glass of water in hand, cigarette ash on her jacket, and after carefully putting the glass on her desk begin with ‘question number 1’. We were smart enough to include some incorrect answers in the inevitable ten questions that began each lesson, and somehow got away with it at exam time until ‘O’ Levels (no GCSEs in those days) approached, when some observant parents noticed their daughter hadn’t learned anything. At which point the horticulturally named Miss Beechcroft arrived, and with energy and attention instilled enough Latin for us to pass the exam, but of course it was too late for any real learning to take place. The glass of water was gin and we never saw our first teacher again.

All rather sad and a pity, as Latin would now be useful as from time to time I feel interested in the proper names of my small range of plants, although as I am not particularly good at plant names in English this is likely to be an ambition too far. One exception is Sanguisorba officinalis ‘Tanna’ (well actually it is only the Sanguisorba bit of the name that I can remember) but this favourite, and rather unlikely container plant, has gone on for years wafting and waving for weeks on end. A chance example of what generally does best in my particular conditions – long lasting, forgiving plants without too many dietary or other requirements. Meanwhile an assortment of plant labels sit in an untidy drawer. https://www.claireaustin-hardyplants.co.uk/blog/sanguisorbas

Change of View

I notice that gardening experts often suggest occasional soaks rather than little and often when looking after container grown plants, but as my pots struggle with wind and are often overcrowded, I follow the advice of anyone who suggests that you don’t let the compost dry out – well I do let it dry out because life intervenes, but it is not my intention. However, because I am idle and undisciplined in some ways, as well as impulsive, the displays I want always fall short of the displays in my mind – or maybe being idle and impulsive just goes along with the tensions and uncertainties of gardening and gardens, since plants and habitats have habits of their own.

For several years I used to pause to enjoy taking in the delights of a delicate, pink flowered, well established fuschia in another part of London while waiting for the doorbell to be answered. An unexpected return visit this summer happened to be at a time when the fuchsia should have been in full flower, but it had gone, to be replaced by a very smart, formal front garden. I missed the lovely display but if you garden on a very small scale then other people’s gardens and roof-tops are something to seek out and enjoy, albeit with some wistful longings too. As I’ve travelled up and down the District Line this Summer, the emergence of more plants – on terraces, balconies and platforms too, has been very noticeable, but all I can offer the casual passer-by is a glimpse of green, more or less vibrant depending on the season. Modern apartment blocks with clear-sided balconies generously give onlookers an additional view – of pots and plants and new ideas too, as well as the more than occasional bicycle. The sophisticated, tasteful outside spaces often catch my eye, whereas the brightly/garishly coloured plastic balcony pots remind me I’m a snob. A retiring snob you might say, with a traditional roof terrace, brick sided and heavily railed so it is only seen, for the most part, by friendly visitors who can breach my privacy as I wander out at odd moments, in response to something that has caught my eye or would welcome some attention.

And then there are dilemmas I try and ignore.

Early in the summer, and struggling to manage my instincts for informal planting against the need for some structure, I carefully chose and bought two well matched standard lavender plants that once home looked good in my only pair of identical terracotta pots. I placed them against the terrace wall, framing the view up the hill beyond, and carefully ensured that the asymmetrically arranged pots and containers in between, including the much-loved Sanguisorba, looked good together. And they did but I did not stake the lavenders adequately. The winds arrived from all directions, so the tops appeared to spin round while the fragile roots failed to get a grip. In spite of the wind and my particularly inconsistent watering regime, as I became anxious and couldn’t think what was best for them, knowing that better care at the outset would have been best for them, they have struggled on.

One has maintained its upright stance and produced some flower spikes over the summer, flowering again recently, the other never really seemed happy, didn’t produce any flowers, and is trying to escape from it’s managed shape and now seems to be healthier for it. Once again what to do about pruning has bothered me; after flowering, to maintain the shape, to remove dead growth, what? With anxiety came inaction and a new question. Since they are now less of a pair should I relinquish my ambition for identical twins and split them up so they can offer height and interest separately elsewhere.

Or should I try and reproduce the nurseryman’s original intention and encourage them to match up – having first improved the unsatisfactory staking. This seems the bigger challenge and I might now have the time and inclination to go for it. A fleeting thought that standard bay might be the answer seems a step too far in the direction of formality for this gateway to the woody view, and otherwise suburban, world beyond.

Summer-time

With the summer, retirement arrived with all its associated anxieties and uncertainties, as well as a chance to muse and reflect on my garden and gardening. Keen to learn from others who are also gardening ambitiously in rather unlikely high rise situations, where ingenuity is often needed, and with the hope of doing a little bit more to green up the urban sky-line, there is an opportunity in this transitional year for working to give way to writing, and for gardening to have more space, at least in my mind, as this new season in my life begins.

*************************************************************************

August, the time of school holidays, late summer flowers, lingering evening light and early wasps should not be a time for hellebores, or Christmas roses, to be in flower. But next to the lemon verbena and other herbs and flowers much better suited to warm summery conditions, in this rather unsummery summer, they have come into life and flower in some of the containers, protected as it happens from the worst of the wind and wet.

Then, to compound the uncertainty of the seasons, a month’s rain fell in one day and a downstairs neighbour’s ceiling collapsed, so the year’s carefully planned planting with delicate flowers mixing with silver leaved Mediterranean foliage, had to be rapidly moved aside as surveyors and workmen arrived in force to search for the leak.

Once found and temporarily repaired, and with the dismal news that further works would be necessary, it soon became clear that there would be no question of putting things back as before. Some plants have been damaged in the frantic haste of the move, others cannot now be as carefully tended as they need to be, jumbled together and out of reach, and the whole of the walk-way leading to and from the main terrace needs to be more accessible. This translates into fewer plants and containers or differently arranged plants and containers, so after the initial disappointment and the loss of a much loved, favourite scheme things will have to change.

Autumn Planning

However, without the certainty yet of a date for the return visit of the workmen, planning ahead for any new scheme for the terrace has stalled and even the arrival of spring bulb catalogues and other temptations prompted by the gardens around have failed to prise me out of a malaise, maybe helpfully, while new ideas have a chance to germinate.

A cousin once pointed out that I don’t like mud – odd for a gardener, so perhaps not surprising that I now find myself gardening on a terrace where the ‘mud’ is contained in pots and which is more or less the same size as my formative gardening experience. Under the watchful eye of our wonderful gardener, who would have had the chance of further education if born later, and if born earlier would have avoided the horrors of four years in the trenches of the First World War, as a little girl I diligently and patiently sifted soil until fine enough to sow seeds for a summer display.

Less patient now, and with time more pressing I have always demanded a lot from the sunny, south facing, wind battered main terrace (2×10 metres), which has included old olives carried up 95 stairs by a removal team as if their weight was inconsequential, old roses, clematis, honeysuckle (a new arrival), surfaces with seasonal planting and containers full of sometimes ill assorted neighbours adjusting to less than ideal conditions, but providing a succession of assorted blooms year after year. Underwatered, overwatered, underfed, overfed they have nevertheless rewarded me, generally, with a constant source of pleasure and interest, including the unexpected – how to explain flowering hellebores in August? But now there is a chance for reflection and perhaps attempting a new approach to the challenge of the aggravating wind.

Harsh winds can approach from any quarter except the north-east, and sheltered spots are limited, so it is a challenging space for insects and other wild-life although bumble bees are reliable visitors from early in the year. Other pollinators arrive later and this year lady-birds in large numbers, hopefully not including the unwanted foreigners. Most intriguing were a pair of wood-peckers (greater spotted I am told) who regularly came to the bird-feeder one after the after, never together, for two or three weeks in early summer. It seemed that they were drawn by the sound of minor scales and arpeggios being played on the clarinet by the open window, but maybe this was a chance association. Tempting also to think they wanted to form the percussion section as their drumming could be heard after they returned to the woodland cover.

Spring Planting

Since the olives thrive and look good all year round (although I am too cowardly to prune them in case I get it wrong) perhaps the well established standard rosemary which had been obstructing the walkway, making watering difficult, could now be enlisted to add to the wind-break. Function nearly always gives way to form in my schemes so I am willing to forego some of the recommended planting ideas for wind breaks, such as bamboo, as it would seem out of place in my high rise cottage style garden, and I have never really taken to it anyway. In place of the rosemary on the walkway I am tempted to move centre stage a small eucalyptus (eucalyptus nicholii) which I first came across in the Chelsea Physic Garden and rather audaciously thought I might grow as well. Thanks to the internet it was quite easily found and is happy enough in a sheltered aspect benefiting from the warmth of the building, is unusual and if the winter is not too harsh will provide an island of continuous silvery green.

All this will, however, have to wait until the repairs are completed, access to all areas is feasible and the plants and pots that have not survived are taken away. But as August gives way to Autumn the intimations of another flowering season have already begun and I have found myself considering new additions to the green fringe surrounding the smaller containers and underplanting.