A trio of plants I purchased on the way back from the Blean on Friday. The one with reddening leaves is Mahonia japonica. The other two are Common Dog Rose (Rosa canina) and Rosa rugosa. Horticulturalists have long been preoccupied with breeding roses but these are wild species. Dog Rose is native to the UK but its range extends across Europe, North Africa and South West Asia. Rugosa hails from coastal areas of East Asia, North China, Korea and Japan and is widely grown as a garden plant. 

 I stopped off at Faversham to check out a nursery/garden centre called Edibleculture. Sure enough they have a very interesting selection of plants with an emphasis on edibles. One touch I particularly liked was the cardboard containers they use. They grow and display their plants in plastic pots and transfer them when sold- a brilliantly simple idea. The containers were more than adequate to get the plants home and indeed can be planted straight into the ground.

 Plastic has its uses- for things you want to last forever. A plastic pot can be used over and over again. Our problem with plastic is that we treat it as a disposable item.

 

 Today I walked through the Blean, a large area of woodland that lies between Whitstable and Canterbury. In some ways this is the most scenic time of year for a walk in the woods; the bare bones of the wood are apparent but saturated with autumn colour.   

 The Blean has been described as a semi-natural woodland of ancient origins which is true of much of the remaining tree cover of the British Isles. We live in a small country and there probably isn't any true wilderness i.e. completely untouched and unchanged by human activity. The Blean is a case in point. It has clearly been shaped by uses such as coppicing, habitation, leisure etc. 

 Oliver Rackham was one of the great authorities on the subject and in his opinion there is no extant "wildwood" and probably hasn't been since the Neolithic era. In this context "ancient" is a relative term. For example a wood that can be traced back to mediaeval records may nonetheless have grown on land that was previously cleared for agriculture. Rackham does note however that ancient woods may have originally contained surviving fragments of wildwood.

 One intriguing development in the Blean is the plan for "re-wilding" sections of it. The areas shown above and below are due to be fenced off to allow bison to roam!

  

 

 Pruning is generally best undertaken in autumn through winter into spring during the dormant phase of a plant's life cycle. I lopped this Hawthorne hedge which had become rather tall and leggy. A nice task for a damp, grey day. Hawthorne will become a tree left to its own devices but can stand a hard prune.

 Recommendations for exactly when to prune vary from plant to plant but dormancy is usually the key. As a rule its best to avoid serious pruning when a plant is in full growth. There are exceptions- for example Prunus species should be pruned between April and July when the sap is rising not falling.

 Hawthornes are so tough they'll cope with just about anything but the blossom in May is lovely with berries to follow so I make sure to prune well ahead of the buds forming. 

 

 

 Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) is a very vigorous climber. Creeper is not really the right word for it! My father planted this one years ago but the mass of greenery is one year's growth. I cut it down to the ground in winter every year and by mid-September (when this photo was taken) it's practically up to the roof again.

 

  P. quinquefolia is spectacularly deciduous: always one of the first plants to change colour in autumn and fiery red. The photo above was taken in mid-October.

 The leaves turn from green to red in the space of a week or two. They fall with equal rapidity as shown in this photo taken at the end of October.

 

 I noted a couple of weeks ago that the trees in Green Park were still pretty green. The fall is well underway now and the leaves are going out in a blaze of glory.

 Seek and ye shall find! This bag packed with Iris foetidissima came courtesy of my flatmate through a curious bit of serendipity. I was pottering around in the garden and noted a few bare spots which are very shady where not much will grow.

 I. foetidissima is tough as old boots and will grow anywhere including the deepest shade. I already have it in various places around the garden: the fronds are evergreen, the flowers in early summer are exquisite (though tiny) and the crimson berries add a splash of colour through autumn into winter. So I thought to myself: more of the same would be ideal to fill those gaps.

 Shortly afterwards I was chatting with my flatmate. He mentioned in passing that he had just dug up clumps of this very plant in a local garden that went into their green waste bin!       

 Here is an unusual combination of plants: Comfrey and Wild Banana! Today I paid another visit to Edible Landscapes [see last entry] and this time I stayed to do several hours volunteering. Very mild and sunny for November and blue sky overhead as I pottered around tending to some autumnal tasks.

 The garden has over two hundred species of plants with a purpose- mainly edibles but there are also medicinal plants, dye plants and "system plants" i.e. plants that contribute to a thriving ecosystem. Forest gardening seeks to layer plants in a way that corresponds to forest ecology but mixes and matches plants from all over the world to do so. 

 In that context the above pairing is not so surprising. Comfrey is frequently used by permaculturalists as a ground cover and the banana plant seems to be holding its own as a taller perennial. Having said that I assume it has been planted as an experiment. I doubt a banana plant would fruit outdoors in UK conditions?

 NB There are various entries in this diary concerning the work of Martin Crawford at the Agroforestry Research Trust in Devon. He has done a good deal of practical research to make use of species from warmer latitudes which are nonetheless hardy in our climate. Further to that he has built a remarkable forest garden greenhouse to grow sub-tropical species on a large scale. [see entry dated 7th. May 2019]