March 2013 Plants for all seasons- Ursula Buchan

It was obvious from the start of her lecture that words ran through the veins of our last speaker. Her rich and precise vocabulary enhanced her accompanying presentation of beautiful photographs of plants taken by Cambridge photographer Howard Rice (have a look at his excellent website). Yes, we were privileged to welcome Ursula Buchan to Fowlmere. Descended from John Buchan, the famous author of The Thirty Nine Steps Ursula trained as a gardener at Kew and has written many gardening books and is an award-winning journalist writing regularly for the RHS publication, The Garden and the Daily Telegraph for eighteen years.

In her talk about ‘Plants for all seasons’, Ursula wanted to remind us of the extraordinary capacity of plants to change over the months. This is a welcome feature for us, the owners of smaller gardens, as we need to choose reliable plants which offer structure and interest in more than one season of the year. A flower may be the most fleeting aspect of a plant which has much more to offer such as beautiful leaves or bracts, colour in the autumn and so on.

So take a second look at ferns in your garden as they unfurl their magnificent fronds. Grasses offer interest with foliage throughout most of the year but particularly in the winter with their frosted flowers. For a change try Zebra grass Miscanthus sinensin ‘Zebrinus’ with its leaves striped horizontally. Bring some blue to your borders with the flowers of the small globe thistle, echinops ritro (the seed heads are beloved by butterflies) or the sea holly (Eryngium bourgatii) – the blue bracts and stems will endure our winters so don’t chop them down in the autumn!

Ursula talked about the beauty of certain plants which we may overlook as being commonplace in our gardens. Space does not permit me to elaborate so take a look yourself at these plants every time you walk pass them in your garden:- Mahonia Japonica with its range of colours, Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, Rosa Rugosa – especially for the colourful hips in the autumn, Clematis Tangutica with its silky seedheads, the evergreen Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Ingwersen’s variety’ (beware as it can be invasive but worth planting for its lovely soft pink flowers in May) Allium – especially Christophii the romantically named ‘Star of Persia’.

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