Jack Gott, the Dahlia guru, who so generously named his stunning new “petite” Dahlia after his colleague’s baby daughter (see yesterday’s posting) has developed another stunner, pictured here. We have named it “Yewbarrow Black”. Black is the Holy Grail for plant breeders, because a true black is difficult to achieve. Most “blacks” are in fact deep purples or reds. This Dahlia is exceptionally dark. The most popular dark-leafed Dahlia is the Bishop of Llandaff, which we grow here, together with other dark-leafed varieties. These plants are hybrids, which don’t come true from seed, the corollary of which is that the seed will often produce a completely new plant. Here at Yewbarrow House we have dozens of different varieties of Dahlias growing side by side, which bees and insects spend the summer busily cross-pollinating. Jack Gott has patiently collected the seed, watched it germinate and brought on the new plants in the trial beds behind the potting shed. This has produced some stunners, including the darkly exotic “Yewbarrow Black”.
Sunday, August 29th, 2010
A New Dahlia- Lilianna W
This photo is of a new kind of Dahlia, one you don’t see very often, but one which is going to become very popular, I’d guess. There are several names for it – petite; dwarf; patio; container and I’m sure that in due course one of these will become the norm. The Dahlia in the photo is very rare indeed; it is a new variety, only just registered with the RHS at Wisley and has been given the name Lilianna W.
There is a story behind the name, which concerns Matt Wilczynski and his wife Magda. Matt and Magda came to this country from Poland 7 years ago, before Poland joined the EU, when it cost £700 to purchase a visa. They both worked for me at the Newby Bridge Hotel, saving every penny, and working every hour of available overtime, to earn enough money to fulfil their dream of building a house in Poland. In 2008 they had their first baby, a girl, and just before Christmas that year they returned to Poland and started work on building their dream house. During his time here Matt used to help out in the garden at Yewbarrow House. Matt is a natural in the garden and he earned the admiration and affection of Jack Gott, our gardener. So much so, that when Jack bred the new variety of Dahlia, he named it after Matt’s newly born daughter, Lilianna.
Now Matt is back in the garden, helping out for the summer, earning the money he needs to finish off the house. Regrettably, Jack, who is a genius with Dahlias, is so busy with his Dahlia business (JRG Dahlias) that he no longer has the time to work here- so Matt is looking after Lilianna, and all the other Dahlia progeny- on his own.
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Surprising Survivors- Part 8- Impatiens Tinctoria
This spectacular shrub, with its orchid-like flowers is rare, simply because people are wary of growing it because of its reputation for keeling over at the first sign of frost. In fact, its as tough as old boots. We planted one about five years ago in our “Shady border” and it has grown into a large and handsome plant, 7ft across and five ft high. It sailed through the harsh winters of the last two years, without any protection. It comes into flower in June and carries on flowering right through September. Its English name is Busy Lizzie, but it is nothing like its annoying little cousin of the same name.
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Box Blight- Is there a cure?
This shocking photo shows the awful state of the box hedging in our kitchen garden. We only put it in ten years ago and very handsome it looked too, but now it has succumbed to box blight and we are in the middle of the heart breaking and back breaking job of digging it all out. Of the several hundred plants only about three dozen are unaffected, and these we have potted up in the hope we can save them. Box blight is said to be incurable, but I was given a ray of hope today in a chance conversation with Margaret Robinson of The Mammoth Onion. She said that she had been faced with a similar problem with some box hedging which had been planted by her grandfather many years before- she took the very radical step of cutting the plants off at the base and the plants grew back healthily after a couple of years. She had been given the idea after seeing a lavender grower on Jersey cutting his plants to the base and when she queried whether he was being too brutal was told that that was the best way to encourage fresh growth. This advice has come too late for most of our hedging, but we are going to try it out on the rest.
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
Antonio Carluccio talking nonsense
The Italian Restaurateur Antonio Carluccio ia campaigning to have “mediterranean cuisine” given World Heritage status by UNESCO. Good luck to him. In doing so he argues that a love of food is part of the Italian soul whereas the English don’t care a fig about food and never have done. In throwing scorn on the English he trots out the old saw that when Elizabeth David published her book “Italian Food” in 1954 you could only get olive oil in England by going to the chemist, where it was sold as a treatment for ear-ache. This was a good joke when it was first made, but it has no basis in fact. A glance at cookery books from Victorian times onwards (and probably before) shows that olive oil was used extensively, and it was sold in every grocery shop. Of course, in 1954 rationing was only just coming to an end after a war which, I believe, involved Italy to some extent, and supplies of many basis products were still difficult to obtain. But the notion that Elizabeth David introduced olive oil to British cooks is complete nonsense.
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
Surprising Survivors Part 7 – The Indestructible Rice Paper Plant
The Rice Paper Plant (Tetrapanax Papyrifer Rex) is one of the best looking plants in my garden, with its massive pinnate leaves. I first saw it at Crug Farm, near Anglesea and bought one immediately. I was warned that it was tender, so I planted it in a sheltered corner below the house, where it has thrived ever since and has grown into a small tree. Encouraged by this success I planted several more, risking them in more exposed positions, but this was a mistake as the winters of the the last two years have seen them off. Well, almost seen them off, because what has happened is that I have lost the main plant, but lots of suckers have emerged in their place, creating a small forest where the original plant had been. Strangely, the suckers do not seem to appear until the main plant has perished. The new plants do not seem to be as vulnerable to cold as the parent, so the Rice Paper Plant is turning out to be pretty well indestructible.
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
Tree Spinach
I first grew Tree Spinach (Cenopodium Giganteum) because I was attracted by the description in the Chiltern Seeds catalogue- “a vigorous plant with smooth stems striped red and green producing leaves of a brilliant magenta colour- height 6-8ft”. Definitely a “must-have” plant and it didn’t disappoint. It is dead easy to grow from seed and you will only have to buy one packet in your lifetime as it is the most prolific self-seeder. The plant in the photo is growing in a border fully 50 yards from any of the others and has already reached 7 feet in height.
There is an entry on Tree Spinach in Wikipedia which warns that it contains cyanide and must not be eaten raw, but that it can be eaten without risk if boiled for 20 minutes. But a vegetarian website recommends adding it raw to a salad. I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to try eating it raw, but one thing is certain- nothing will persuade me to cook spinach for twenty minutes.
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
A “Special Delivery” Post Office Style
In 1840, when Grange was a mere village, the postal service was charmingly organised, as this description from The North Lonsdale Magazine shows:
“The postman was an old man who walked over from Lindale carrying the letters in the crown of his capacious hat. We frequently lay in wait for him but on asking him if there were any letters for us he always replied: Naay, naay, ladies oi can’t tell, yo mun e’en choose for yourselbes”, off came his hat and we searched for our letters in this unique mailbag, much to the relief of the poor postman, whose inability to read or write absolved him, he felt, from any responsibility as to the sorting and delivering of the letters to their proper recipients.”
This morning the postman left me a card at my office saying that he had tried unsuccessfully, at 7.50am, to deliver a letter which needed signing for as it was a “special delivery”. On ringing the number on the card my secretary was told that they were unwilling to deliver the letter with our normal mail (which arrives at about 11am, when the office is manned) and that the only way I could receive it would be by going in person to Lancaster Post Office with my passport, or some other photo ID. And, if I didn’t do so within 7 days the letter would be destroyed. I wonder if the person who took the trouble arrange for this “special” delivery had any idea that they were paying extra so that the Post Office could destroy it? And I wonder why it is that the postal service was so much better 170 years ago when it was handled by an illiterate postman?
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
The Abacus
Although I have no interest in maths I was enthralled by Alex Bellos’ book “Alex’s Adventures in Numberland”. In fact I couldn’t put it down and read all 410 pages in one weekend. I was telling Glen Isaac-Welcome how the abacus can be faster than a calculator and it turned out that this wasn’t news to him as he too has become fascinated by the abacus. Glen’s job is teaching children who have been excluded from school, many of whom don’t even have basic learning skills, and he had the idea of teaching them to do maths by using an abacus. He got the idea after reading that this is how Japanese schoolchildren are taught, to great effect. Glen had been trying for several weeks without success to buy an abacus in London. And then, while browsing the shops in Kendal today he found one in the Oxfam shop- which they told him was the first they had ever had in stock. This video shows how two nine year old Japanese girls can count a series of numbers displayed for a split second on a screen (which they do by using an imaginary abacus in their head), at the same time as playing the word game shiritori. Amazing stuff.
Saturday, August 21st, 2010
How The Other Half Live- An Update
As we were coming out of the Chinese restaurant in Grange a car pulled up, the driver put his head out of the window and spoke to Glen, very politely- “I hope you don’t mind me asking but didn’t I see you on Channel 4- “How The Other Half Live”?”. Glen and I, Sara and Dominique still find ourselves being stopped by strangers almost every day, even though it is three months since the programme went out. The question I’m most frequently asked is “How is Glen getting on with his Open University course?”. Glen brought me up to date on this during his visit this weekend- he has enrolled on a four year course to be a teacher with Birkbeck College (not, in the event, the O.U.) and will start in October. Kylan will start at the primary school next door to their new house when he is three next March. Nicole, who is taller than ever, is going to college next month to do a two year course on beauty and hairdressing and Dominique has started at her new school where one of her subjects will be Japanese. Most importantly of all they are loving their new house and are able to go out and about with complete freedom.