News and Updates

Posted on 18 April, 2012 by Roger Hammond

A few years ago I was very pleased to obtain a very small plant of Phyllostachys kwangsiensis. It sounded as though it was a very exciting addition to my bamboo collection, as it is said to have many of the desirable features of Phyllostachys edulis, but doing them much quicker in the UK climate. Indeed it had heavily pubescent culms when they appeared and small leaves in profusion.

However when it had reached about eight feet high it started to flower. I had been examining the flower heads over two summer periods, but was doubtful that there was any good seed being set.
Last month I sowed some small seed like material, I had collected in the autumn, with no great optimism. However a week or so ago it started to germinate, much to my excitement, and now there are around a dozen seedlings.

I have potted off my pan of open pollinated Epimedium seedlings and currently have just

over forty. I say currently because two have already been eaten despite the trays sitting on a dry polystyrene board which I thought would deter slugs and snails and having a generous sprinkling of slug pelets over them. After staring at the seedlings for some time I spotted one tiny green caterpiler around a centimeter long and a milimetre in diameter. I am hoping he may be the culpret, but wonder if there’s one there may be more.

We have continued the good work of Karen, our volunteer gardener with our potted Hosta collection.

Hostas after topdressing with sheeps wool pellets

We have carried on weeding, potting on as necessary and putting on slow release fertilizer and wool, anti mollusc pellets, over the Hosta pots. We have now run out of the latter and are debating whether to buy more, or leave the rest of our Hostas as a control, to see how effective the deterrent effect of wool actually is.

The Old Magnolias Website (2001 – 2012)

Posted on 7 April, 2012 by Roger Hammond

New visitors to the site may not be aware that there was a previous incarnation of the site which ran for about 11 years. The posts and images were not added quite as regularly, due to the greater difficulty.

There are news posts covering such things as pond building, tree disasters and our Koi Carp.

You can find the old site by hovering over ‘About’ and then selecting ‘Old Site’ or for added convenience click on the image of the old site on this post.

Frost Destroys Display of Magnolias

Posted on 7 April, 2012 by Roger Hammond

Thursday night’s sudden sub-zero temperatures ruined the display of some Magnolia varieties, whilst others remain virtually unscathed. ‘Athene’ (see picture) has suffered severely along with ‘Todd Gresham’ and ‘Milky Way’. ‘Apollo’ has less damage. ‘Raspberry Ice’ and several others seem unaffected. I think it is down to the varieties rather than their position in the garden, as plants adjacent to each other have had greatly differing levels of destruction.

Friends of the Magnolias Garden

Posted on 3 April, 2012 by Roger Hammond

We are no Hyde Hall, but we can now boast a voluntary gardening team of two, who are willing to give occasional assistance in the garden. They require no more than a little bit of feeding and watering and small divisions of choice Hostas.

Both Denis and Karen are knowledgeable gardeners who have only small gardens of their own.

Today, Denis and I set up water pots with Waterlilies and Irises etc.

Meanwhile Karen was weeding Hosta pots and potting them on where necessary, and taking modest divisions from them for herself and Denis. She fed the refreshed and cleaned pots with a slow release fertiliser and then spread a thin layer of sheep’s’ wool pellets on top. She has found in her garden, this is effective at dissuading slugs and snails from going onto the compost and attacking the foliage. Time will tell how effective this will be here.

Rubber Tree Cast!

Posted on 30 March, 2012 by Roger Hammond

We had a strange request recently from a freelance lady artist. Could she make a silicon cast of the bark of our Swamp Cypress (Taxodium distichum).

Sarah arrived this morning with a large tub of the casting rubber and set about spreading the pink material over a substantial area of moistened trunk, of our approximately forty year old tree.

Later in the afternoon Sarah returned and gently peeled off the size-able sheet of bark textured, silicon rubber. I had been a little sceptical of the outcome, but was impressed with the result and could imagine it making an attractive and interesting wall hanging.

The mould will, after several further processes, produce a bark texture material which will be stuck to a carved polystyrene tree trunk. After painting this will be used in an exhibition about dinosaurs in Germany.

The Ducks are Back

Posted on 27 March, 2012 by Roger Hammond

The pair of Mallard Ducks are back for what is at least their third year. They are clearly park ducks as the don’t scare off easily. They have been observed dabbling up the hatching tadpoles,

reaching under the windows we put over the spawn, to protect it from frosts and predators.

However on the plus side, after we’d shooed them off the waterlily pond they did go on the ‘natural’ (clay) ponds and started to do a good job eating the duckweed and algae.. Unfortunately next door’s dog went mental, when he saw a cat in our garden rushing at the wire fence and barking loudly, which managed to scare them off before they completed the task..

New Half Price Features

Posted on 25 March, 2012 by Roger Hammond

We bought two fibreglass square tubs from Tomlyns Nursery in January at half price, and two Yucca recurvifolia ‘Banana Split’ at 50% off from the Roots and Shoots Garden Centre, spring sale. We have just set them up and are pleased with the result. The design of the tubs works quite well with the woodwork. It’s a shame the colour isn’t closer!

Welcome Wildlife

Posted on 24 March, 2012 by Roger Hammond

We don’t find slow worms as often as we used to, because a few years ago we had a cat

that would catch and kill them. However I found one in the compost bin this morning .It was a female who had lost her tail in the past and has started to grow a new one. Slow worms’ favourite food are the white slugs,which are so damaging to certain of our much loved plants.

Epimedium Seedlings

Posted on 23 March, 2012 by Roger Hammond

A few years ago I collected seed from a number of different Epimedium plants and sowed each variety in separate pots, so that I would at least know the female parent. Not a single seed came up in any of the pots.

Last year I collected seed from whatever plants set any, and put it all in the same paper bag. In August I sowed them into two pots. One I put in a plastic bag and put it in the fridge, and forgot about. The other pot was left on the greenhouse bench This started to germinate in February, so we looked at the one in the fridge. .

Unfortunately this had obviously started germinating much earlier as there were etiolated remains of seedlings. We had a similar experience years back where Tropaeolum speciosum seed germinated in the cold temperature and was not spotted in time, but we didn’t expect the Epimedium seed to germinate before the seed in the greenhouse.

The successful pot has about thirty seedlings in it. at the first true leaf stage. It seems they will all be hybrids, but it will be fun when they get to flower. There is already a variation in leaf with some showing red mottling. Thirty seedligs is a good number to trial, more might be a problem!

The only seedlings I have had previously are a very few found in the garden including the one we have named Epimedium ‘Pathfinder’.We thought this plant was worth naming as it produces a lot of lowers, and over a long period, May to September, in its second year of flowering.

Post Scripts

Posted on 22 March, 2012 by Roger Hammond

It would appear that low temperatures will kill off the fronds of Dicksonia antarctica.

My experiment of tying up the fronds to prevent snow from breaking them achieved nothing, except perhaps protecting the crown. All the fronds showed severe damage quickly after the cold snap, and are now all brown.

Having said earlier that we never had problems with Dymo Tape pealing off plastic labels I am now having to admit I have had a serious set back. I have spent a considerable amount of time (and money) producing 156 plant labels on the new black Tee shaped plastic labels to find a significant number of the names are coming away after a short time.

My theory is the Tee labels are of not polystyrene as were all our older plastic labels, where the Dymo stayed on for many years. The Tee ones are polypropylene, which must resist the adhesive. I have been using the same Dymo tapes on normal tie on labels at the same time as the Tee ones, so I don’t think there is a problem with the tapes as they seem to stick well to them.

The Magnolias Garden Website

A small private garden in Brentwood, Essex in South-East England.

Author Archives: Roger Hammond