Hot Summer Planting

Put the life back into your garden this summer by adding colour, are you bored with your borders? Add splashes of vivid colours to spice things up a little

Colour Matching
Avoid placing colours right next to each other that clash. You could be co-ordinated and stick to shades of one or two colours, like mauves, pinks and purples; or go trendy and plant red, yellow and orange. But don´t mix these two colour ranges or the result will be like an explosion in a paint shop!

It's a good idea to look at a colour wheel, as you will immediately be able to see which colours go together. As they say, opposites attract, and this works for some colours that are opposite to each other on the wheel - like green and red.

A good strategy is to match three colours that are spaced at equal distances around the wheel - purple, green and orange work well together.

Clematis: Make a superb display and are vigorous once planted. A good choice is Clematis viticella ´Purpurea Plena Elegans´ which flowers from late summer to autumn.

Roses: For a pale and pretty display, choose the white "iceberg" variety.

Gardening in England & Fruit

Hi all its Gill,

Hope you are all well. I can't believe another week has gone by already!

At this time of the year there is so much to do, especially dead heading if you want a succession of flowers through to the autumn. Also (my favourite thing) gathering seeds ready to scatter next year. I always think I am getting something for nothing hehe.

We had our first pickings of runner beans tonight for dinner and they were succulent. I said before that I would tell you the outcome of my `trials` as to white or orange flowered runners. So far the orange ones have far more beans on them.

This year looks to be a bumper year for fruit (I bet that doesn't reflect on the shop prices though). My neighbour has several apple, and pear trees and one damson. They are heavily laden which is nice because they allow me to go in and pick what I like.

I pick up the windfalls and chop them up for my chickens, they love them. I have a tiny victoria plum whose boughs are almost touching the ground from the weight of the fruit. There are also loads and loads of hazelnuts this year - one of my favourites. If you buy from local farms the fruit seems to be a lot cheaper than Tescos, but then again that's not surprising!

Don't tell me that you don't have enough room to grow your own runners because unless you are in a flat, you do. Mine this year are in three tubs with canes making them into a wigwam shape on the patio. Actually my friend Irene has a small balcony with her flat and it is absolutely full. There are herbs, trailing tomatoes and strawberries in baskets, and loads of flowers too. She has feeders everywhere for the birds, and she seems to get more variety of them than I do.

Going back to fruit trees, yes they can be expensive but last year Wilkinsons was selling plum, peach, cherry, apple and pear for £5 each and they were about 6 foot tall. Whether they have them this year I don't know. Most garden centres sell them for around £25.00 each. Last year from one of the cheapy shops I bought a gooseberry plant for £1.25, that little plant had several gooseberries on it this year.

Seeds are expensive when you consider how many you get from one plant, so why not go along to Campo girls seed swap site, great idea and free. I always ask for seeds for Xmas but never specify which ones, that way you get lots of little surprises. I give lots at Xmas too especially for the men, because I find them hard to buy for.

One of my favourite stories I am going to share with you. My Dad bless him passed away at a youngish age 27 years ago. When he was 3 years old and lived in Notting Hill back in 1922 he had several brothers and sisters so they were not what you would call affluent hehe, the opposite actually. My Nan always put the rent money on the side every week waiting for the man to collect it. One day he came and it was gone! Everybody looked frantically for it but to no avail. I dont know if my Dad was looking guilty but they asked him if he had taken it for ages, then bribing him with a freshly ironed shirt. He took them to the front garden where he unburied it and placed it in Nans hand. Asked why he had done that he said that he was growing a money tree!!!!!! How lovely is that, awwww.

I will love you and leave you with that, happy gardening. Gill x

Growing from Seed

Hi all, its Gill,

Many many years ago I remember walking past a garden and being gob smacked by a plant that I saw. I hadn't a clue what it was and have never seen one since until I opened my Thompson and Morgan catalogue last year and saw the seeds for sale. It was a melianthus, a honey bush.

Has anyone out there got one? It grows to about 6foot I think, and has huge fronds of brown and gold. I eagerly planted all the seeds in one pot and covered them in vermiculite and placed them in my greenhouse earlier this year. Eventually one plant emerged, then two and now I have four. They are about 8 inches tall so I guess no more will come through. They were all planted in the same pot, in the same conditions etc so I am a little disappointed that only 4 have come through.I must admit that I have bought loads of seeds from Thompson and Morgan and I think I have yet to get a full packet of seeds to grow!!!

I nevertheless go back to them because of their enormous variety of seeds that I dont see anywhere else. Last year I bought two packets of banana seeds and unfortunately not one seed grew. I have grown bananas in the past with no effort, such a shame I was looking forward to seeing them.

A couple of years or three ago I bought loads of lilies from T&Morgan, and I can highly recommend you to do so too. I open my back door and there is a heady aroma coming from my lilies, a spectacle to behold, they are stunning plants and the flowers are all much larger than my hand. I have taken some piccies and when I work out how to get them on here I will show you. Dont forget that if you buy lily bulbs to always plant them on their side on sand, then cover over in soil.

I have to tell you a story about my grandson James who was 4 at the time, but is now 7. We had just put down an indian sand stone path up the back garden. The slabs had fossils of ferns and trees etc on them. James walked up the path and on seeing a fossil for the first time, said "Look you have tattoos on your path". Isnt that wonderful!

I quite like gardens that are regimental but that's not for me, my garden just happens!!! I have tall flowers at the front of a border whilst the little ones at the back are struggling to survive. If a plant self seeds, then that is where it stays. My path that I mentioned earlier is smothered in thousands of foxgloves, poppies etc etc, I can hardly walk up it haha. Next year we wont be able to at all and will have to walk on the grass, defeting the object of having a path really! I have nowhere to replant these seedlings and I wont pull them up. My neighbour has had as many as he can take too. Nevertheless I can guarantee that a few packet of seeds will take my eye next spring, I will plant them and if they grow I will have the same dilemma I have every year - where to put them haha!!!

Gardening in Spain: The Fruit and Vegetables

Well it has been a while since we managed to blog, sorry about that but life has been hectic with the web business and then we started another business selling portable power products including portable solar panels, our feet haven't touched the ground yet!

I decided I needed to take some time out of my busy schedule and tell you about the gardens of the campo girls just recently, I know I can speak on behalf of Gina also as she has been really busy planting and eating!


The last couple of weeks we have had a right good going over the garden, we have been organically weeding the vegetable area that we have allocated for growing fruits and vegetables, we have also learnt from our mistakes last year and have now organised it slightly better, a few things are still growing a little haphazardly but we are getting there.

Our vegetable patch now consists of:
Lettuce
Cabbage
Carrots
Broccoli
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Peppers
Leeks
Raspberries (red and yellow)
Blackberries
Melons
Kiwis
Onions
Nectarines
Garlic
Mint
Pears
Pomegranates

Organically weeding the vegetable patch is keeping the soil really nice, fortunately the area of garden we chose to grow the vegetables and fruit housed 2 horses for many years so the soil is basically all passed through horses - great for growing!

Due to the weeding by hand all the soil is being turned over regularly and also we have different plants that pop up and continue to grow, some we have never seen before so we always leave them to see what is going to happen.


We planted small mint plants near where the septic tank lives (next to the shed), the plan was to get this to cover a whole area so when you come up the drive you don't see the tank or smell the tank you see and smell mint instead, this plan has gone really well and the mint is having a great time, the plants have already grown really big and they are very healthy! Bring on the Mojitos this summer ;)


We also have lovely hanging baskets on the terrace by the front door, I love the whole feeling in Spain at this time of year, the smells from the garden are gorgeous and all the blooms are wonderful to look at, in my opinion, very calming!

Still raining!

Well what a storm we are having at the moment, one of my Palm Trees has snapped and I am a little upset about that - especially as they are brand new!

Some of my other plants down the bottom of the garden are not having a great time with this wind either and looking rather beaten!

It is most unusual to have rain in Spain at this time of year and it has been really treacherous, I had to drive to Casabermeja (well, their post code is Almogia) yesterday to visit an old friend who was having some family troubles - anyway I couldn't have picked a worse day to drive over 80 Kilometres, Casabermeja is really high and I was quite scared driving up the mountainside where the roads have no crash barriers - just sheer drops and lorries coming at me every few minutes, never mind the fact I could hardly see 2 foot in front me because of the mist/fog that was coming down the mountain. An achievement for me as that is the furthest I have driven in Spain ever on my own!

I made it home safe and sound though and I just love the scenery up there, we almost moved there 2 years ago and now I have just been back I am glad we didn't! As lovely gorgeous as the countryside is there, it is just that too much away from civilisation for my liking, we have a track but it is not 5 kilometres long!

So, due to the rain we have not been doing the gardening that we would have liked to be doing, Gina took some great pictures though of what she says is a "perfect rose" - what do you think, post in your comments on her Rose.

We are in the middle of upgrading our Flickr account that contains all of our Spanish Gardening Images - when that is complete we will let you know so you can see the new ones we have taken :)

Choosing your garden plants

Plants for dry sun
Many grasses like dry, sunny conditions. Big, clump forming Miscanthus sinesis 'Variegatus' is a handsome architectural plant for a dry border.

Any garden benefits from having a good mixture of plants, both in terms of height and shape, and in the variety of foliage and flower form and colour. However, it is surprising how much diversity and interest you can create without flower colour.

Plants for shady parts of the garden will inevitably major on leaf form and shape; plants for full sun will have more flower power. Make sure that you choose those that do well for these differing situations, and look, too, at the soil conditions. Some plants prefer acid soil, others alkaline.

Rhododendrons and azaleas, for example, refuse to grow on alkaline soil but will quickly provide useful ground cover for large gardens on peaty soil.

Hopefully, the differing habitats in your garden will allow you to choose a variety of plants from dry-loving to damp-loving, sun-loving to shade-loving.

Tulipa - Lifting the Spirit of the garden!

Jewel-coloured flowers burst into life in spring. Whether forming stately processions across a border or ornamenting a bed in vivid patches, the presence of tulips in the garden lifts the spirits!

Since their introduction from Turkey 400 years ago, tulips have been one of the most popular and rewarding bulbs for late Spring displays. They are grown for their elegant flowers which are available in nearly every conceivable colour except true blue.

The six-petalled flowers are generally cup or goblet shaped - although some may be rather starry - and mature blooms tend to open so wide in the sun that they are almost flat. Each erect stem normally carries a single flower but some varieties bear two or three flowers per stem. There are usually two or more lance-shaped basal leaves and smaller stem leaves which are often greyish green. The bulbs, which vary greatly in size, have a pointed tip and a brownish skin.

The genus as a whole is very varied, from the tiny mountain species suitable for the rock garden or greenhouse, through to the gaudy modern hybrids that are planted in huge beds in public parks and gardens. Around 100 species of tulip are known, mostly from west and central Asia, and there are thousands of garden hybrids that have been developed over the years.

The small species tulips are best planted in clumps towards the front of a border and they make colourful rock garden residents.

The tulip index is very large so we have decided to document this on a separate post.

The large flowered hybrids can be used for general garden display either in formal beds - planted with forget-me-nots (Myosotis) or wallflowers (Erysimum) - or in clumps planted among herbaceous plants. Tulips can also be grown in containers for display on a patio or terrace.

All require a heavy loam soil that is nevertheless free-draining and a warm, dry summer dormant period to ripen the bulb. It is normal practice to lift the bulbs of the modern hybrids as the leaves fade and store them until replanting in autumn.

If you want tulips left in the ground so that they form large patches the following tulips are the recommended species:
Tulip Saxatalis
Tulip Sprengeri
Tulip Sylvestris

We have just recently planted tulips in a border bed alongside a Camellia, when we have updated photos of this shooting we will post the images here.

A little Tulip Tip!
If you want to keep the bulb for planting next season, pull the Tulip bulb from the ground (after it has flowered, of course!), leaving the leaves on the bulb - place in a plastic container (doesn't need to have a lid), wait for the leaves to die before cutting them off - this will nourish the bulb, ready for next season ;)

Hyacinthus

The sweetly perfumed, colourful flowers of Hyacinths appear in mid Spring - it would appear that in our Andalucian gardens that we get them slightly earlier this year as they have started to grow already!

The plants, with their errect, cylindrical flowerheads and fleshy, strap-like leaves, retain their perfection for two to three weeks. The flower may seem densely packed - carrying up to 60 individual bell-shaped florets - or more loosely spaced as in the "fairy" types - you may also be wise to support the hyacinth with some wood up against the stem (like shown in the image).

Multiflora hyacinths are grown from bulbs that have been specially treated to produce several smaller flower spikes instead of one dense spike. They are sold by colour only.

There are also double-flowered varieties. Hyacinths are full hardy and ideal for planting in containers/pots (as we do), as well as informal borders and formal bedding schemes. For text book results, buy new bulbs every year, however, we are on the second year with the same bulb and all that was required was watering and then every Spring the bulb should grow again.

The once-used bulbs produce fewer flowers per stem and can be replanted in less formal areas of the garden. To flower indoors in mid winter, bulbs specially prepared for forcing can be bought in Autumn.

Recommended Species and Varieties
Hyacinth Orientalis - This parent of all the modern hyacinth cultivars produces sparsely flowered stems, up to 20cm (8in) tall, bearing blue, violet, pink or white flowers. Indoors, prepared bulbs will flower from Christmas to late winter; non-prepared bulbs bloom from late winter to early spring. There are earlier and later varieties - but all flower within a month of one another.

Early flowering varieties include:

• Anna Marie - Light rosy pink flowers


• Ben Nevis - Ivory-white double flowers


• Bismarck - Methyl-violet blooms


• Blue Magic - Purple-violet flowers


• Borah - Fairy type with porcelain-blue flowers


• Delft Blue - Blooms of soft-lilac blue


• Jan Bros - Red Blooms


• L'Innocence - Ivory-white flowers


• Lady Derby - Rose-pink flowers


• Ostara - Deep blue flowers


• Pink Pearl - Deep pink blooms


• Violet Pearl - Mallow-purple flowers

Mid-season flowering varieties include:

• Blue Jacket - Dark blue flowers with a purple stripe


• Gipsy Queen - Dark salmon and apricot flowers

Late flowering varieties include:

• Amethyst - Lilac-violet flowers


• Carnegie - Dense spike of white flowers


• City of Haarlem - Primrose-yellow blooms


• Distinction - Beetroot-purple flowers


• Hollyhock - Crimson flowers


• Peter Stuyvesant - Dark violet blooms

Cultivation
Plant bulbs outside from late summer to late autumn in a sunny position in fairly fertile, well-drained soil. Set 15-24cm (6-9 1/2in) apart and 10cm (4in) deep. Plant bulbs for forcing indoors before mid autumn in bulb-forcing compost. Then keep a cool, dark place for 8-10 weeks, ideally at 7-10ºC (45-50ºF): a shed or garage is ideal. Bring into a light, warm room, where they will flower 3 or 4 weeks later. Bulbs can also be grown in hyacinth vases. Keep the bulb in its vase in a cool, dark place until its roots have developed, making sure that the builb itself does not touch the water, or it may rot.

Propagation
Producing fresh hyacinth bulbs involves specialist techniques: buy new bulbs. Hyacinths take 6 years or more to flower if grown from seed!

Pests and Diseases
Hyacinths may be affected by grey bulb rot, grey mould, soft rot and yellow disease -which is similar to soft rot and should be treated similarly. They may also be attacked by aphids, bulb mites, narcissus flies, slugs and stem eelworms.

Our collection of plants/flowers

We thought we would start with some common ground and list some of the plants that we have documented as growing in our gardens so far - no doubt many of you reading this will have or are about to grow some of the plants/flowers that we are nurturing.

So far we have documented the following to be growing in our gardens:
Fruits/Veg:
Apple
Lemon
Orange
Pomegranate
Grapefruit
Fig
Avocado
Garlic
Asparragus
Olives
Plum
Pear
Raspberry
Strawberry

Herbs:
Thyme
Lemon Thyme
Parsley
Coriander
Marjoram
Oregano
Mint
Dill
Basil
Rosemary
Chives
Lavender

Plants/Flowers:
Camelia
Mimosa
Palm
Sunflowers
Furs
Lantana Camara
Cortaderia Selloana (Pampas Grass)
Daisies (Purple/Yellow/White)
Jasmine
Cestrum Nocturnum (Dama de Noche)
Roses
Daffodils
Callistemon Viminalis (The Bottle Brush)
Brugmansia Arbrorea (Angel's Trumpets)
Bouganvillea
Aloe Arborescens (Red Hot Poker Aloe)
Strelitzia Reginae (Bird of Paradise)
Zantedeschria Aethiopica (Calla Lilly)
Felicia Amelliodes (Swan River Daisy)
Hyacinths
Tulips
Plumbago Capensis (Cape Leadwort)
Euphorbia Pulcherrinia (Poinsettia)
Jacaranda Mimosifolia
Hebe Caledonia
Geraniums
Cyclamen
Callistemon Citrinus 'Splendens'

As we keep documenting more plants we will update our garden of goodies :)

Anyone else growing the above plants/herbs/flowers/fruits/veg and have any special tips for growing, let us know?