Role models

Gardening is generally a solitary time for me, I head off to work in the morning and other than the occasional cup of tea and chat with a client my only companions are the thoughts rattling around in my head whilst I potter away amongst the plants or a family pet coming to check me out. Thankfully this is not the case when working at home and many a happy weekend has been spent with the whole family out enjoying the space and bringing fresh energy to the day.

This got me thinking of the people who are in some way a constant part of my gardening practice and without whom I may never have become the gardener I am.
I’d like to think we’re all gardeners in some way or other, however the following five people I’d like to introduce you to are rather special gardeners to me and make the natural world a finer place for their pottering.
The first is one of two men who first introduced me to the wonders that can be found in the natural world, my father, Stan Vigurs. As a role model he’s been part of my life the longest, as a child he let me play in the garden eating soil, digging holes and generally making a mess but discovering the joys of good honest grime in the process. He’s the man who took the family for walks in countryside, along cliff tops and through forests showing us in the process how to climb trees, make a blade of grass whistle shrill in the quiet air and generally muck about. There’s still nothing like the happiness I have when my dad, brother (more about him later) and I book a weekend away to scramble away like big kids up the side of a mountain somewhere in north Wales. I forever owe my dad for the introduction of camping to my life and can still recall early memories of sticking my head out of a tent into the night air, another world I wouldn’t have seen as a child heavy with dew and starlight. I could go on with tales of Scouts, fun in the garden and family holidays in the Forest of Dean but I have others to introduce you to so instead I’ll finish with the lesson of how to experience the outdoors properly. You’ll see wildlife a plenty if you sit quietly and patiently allowing yourself to become part of the environment rather than a stranger in it. On the other hand it’s important to get the balance and sometimes the environment calls for running around, splashing through puddles and making grass scream its summertime song across the landscape.

The next person is the second of the afore mentioned men, my uncle, Mike Hodgetts. Mike always had a fantastic garden, still does in fact. His planting ideas, lay out and use of colour is admirable, many a time I have to take my hat off to him and his garden creations made all the more impressive by the fact he’s colour blind. The garden we had at home was a nice garden don’t get me wrong but there’s something different about a gardeners’ garden, you know as soon as you walk into it. This is the first lesson he taught me, that you can still have a lawn with flowerbeds, trees and ponds but by adding a slight twist somehow make them so much more. That twist is of course knowledge and experience. I doubt I’ll ever be as good a gardener as my uncle, he’s been doing it for so much longer than I and has learnt through trial, error and the love of being out working the soil. Whenever we went to visit Mike and Marg one of the first thing my parents would do would be to wander around the garden with them, tea in hand enjoying the season and though I would generally be running around in the background I was always aware of the fact that as an adult you could apparently enjoy the garden by simply being in it.
The second lesson and possibly one of the most important in my life was that if I wanted to be a gardener I could. A little back story is needed here. After the time of life known to teenagers as the GCSEs I found myself in business school and not really feeling comfortable with how things were going. For some reason we were often sent into the city centre to do research or something (you can see my heart really wasn’t in it can’t you?), often Mike would take me out for lunch and during one of the subsequent conversations he mentioned how he’d wanted to be a gardener but had gone into banking instead and that if I wanted to do it as a job I should go for it. Thanks to him I left business school after the obligatory two years and strolled happy hearted into horticultural college where I stayed for the next three years and during my apprenticeship met the next man...

Edward Skinner. Ed was the deputy head gardener at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens when I first arrived, becoming head gardener in my second year there. Here was where I learnt about the world outside school, the world of plants and work colleagues, the world of gardening. Through plant idents and immersion in all the areas of the gardens the experience I had so craved started to soak in. Admittedly I probably wasn’t the best apprentice seeing as I still insisted on climbing trees and hiding from all the other gardeners there often under shrubs deep in the borders but he thankfully saw the potential in me and persevered.
Sadly I was only there for two years before I went off and started working for myself but thankfully he taught me well. I learnt that a lot of good gardening is not necessarily about knowing vast reams of plant names and facts but in the desire to get down and dirty with the garden, it’s in the soil under fingertips, the correct lifting and moving of plants, how to use secateurs properly, pruning cleanly and respecting the plants and garden.

The last two are worthy of blogs in their own right and I will in fact do so at a later date so for now I’d just give you a quick glimpse or them and their roles. The first is my dear brother, Leaf Vigurs. Everyone has someone who has helped make them who they are and without which life would have been decidedly duller, for me this person is Leaf. To describe all he’s taught me about the natural world and how best to immerse myself in it will take too long here but if I simply say as an older brother he has always been the role model I aspired to be most like. My tree climbing partner, a fellow soul to crash through undergrowth with, explore the delights of the garden wildlife and know that when you’re stood on a mountain top lost for words he’s stood next to you equally speechless.

Which can leave only one person, my darling and ever patient wife, Anna Mourant. How lucky am I to find someone else who though she may not always love the soil I traipse through the house or the hoards of plants I bring home at least tolerates it with a smile. Very often I feel as though I can experience the garden a new through her eyes, when she asks a question or has ideas I’d never have thought of it’s as though a fresh breeze has been brought in. When you spend so much time in any environment it’s easy to become complacent and no longer see the beauty in the mundane, Anna teaches me otherwise. In all my fourteen years of gardening I’ve pottered alongside many people, no one have I ever felt as relaxed with as Anna, she turns my weeds into wildflowers whenever we spend time in the garden together.

April

April is on us before we realise, the garden is growing faster every day and the year is well and truly under way. That’s not to say there’s still not the risk of a late frost so if you can put off planting any tender bedding out for just a little longer you’ll should be able to avoid that danger, especially if you’re hardening the plants off outside during the day. Having said that we’ll also be getting the first real days of pure unadulterated sun, you know the kind, blue sky, occasional white cloud drifting by but never threatening rain, the birds will be singing loud and you’ll know it’s a day for being outside.
April for me is a month of balance, when summer is tangible whilst winters memory is still in the back of our minds, even with this year’s mild winter the dark mornings and evenings were a drag and haven’t been forgotten. Proper spring days are also the gardeners balance to all the time spent out in the rain and cold, it’s our chance to feel the sun on our backs and really immerse our senses in the smell of the warming soil with the sounds of the garden all around us. Often I’ll come away with grass or soil stuck to me after I’ve stuck my head in grass boxes or handfuls of compost just to really savour in that fresh smell.
There’s plenty to be doing in the garden this month and I’ve listed a few below but in truth the main thing is just to get out and enjoy being in the garden. It’s a fantastic time of year, there’s all of spring and summer ahead, if it’s a nice day have a potter and relish the feeling of the garden around you.

Jobs this month:

This is the month of the regular mow. Start the blades off high and lower to preferred height over time.
Many annual, vegetable, salad and herb seeds can be sown now.
Seedlings already up may benefit from pinching out to bush up growth.
If you want any houseplants out in the garden through summer, harden off through the month.
It’s also a good time to look at repotting any houseplants that are getting a little pot bound.
Look at tidying up hydrangeas. Remove faded flower heads and any dead stems.
Carefully turn compost heaps whilst watching out for wildlife (hedgehogs, bumblebees).
Keep an eye out in sheds and garages for the beginnings of wasp nests on ceiling or rafters.
Prune out old hellebore leaves and flower stalks.
Watch for new shoots breaking through when weeding and working on the beds.
Weed, weed, weed and weed. Nothing grows at the speed of weeds and the race has sadly begun.
Start setting up supports for tall herbaceous plants.

March

March always feels like the start of spring to me. No matter what the weather is doing bulbs are well and truly making their mark with many already opening into flower from the first snowdrops breaking the snowy confines of winter to the spring daffodils lighting up the garden on St.Davids day. This is most likely to be the month where we get our first real glimpse of the sunny days ahead, our first chance to be out in our t-shirts and feel the sun on our backs, the chance to spend a full day out and embrace the elements rather than wrapping up against them.
This is the month the garden starts its big push into the year. Ponds are bursting with frogspawn, the lawn is beginning to look like it needs a trim and if you’ve any ash trees near you there will be a million and one tiny sprouting ash seeds to find and weed out. Plus with the added daylight we’re now enjoying there’s even more chance to be out enjoying the garden even if it’s just having a quiet pootle round in the morning, tea in hand before heading off to work.

Jobs this month:
Finish planting of deciduous trees and shrubs.
Prune dogwoods and willows grown winter stem colour.
Look at rejuvenating herbaceous plants. Lifting and dividing any that have got too big.
Resist the temptation to rush out and buy tender bedding until the end of the month.
Check sheds and fences for repairs and consider any wood treatments on warmer days.
Give mower its maintenance checks and get ready for the first cut.
Raise blades on mower and cut at highest setting first.
Keep an eye out for emerging hedgehogs and if you’ve and strimming to do take extra care.
Any actively growing houseplants can start to be fed.
Now’s one of your last chances to prune the roses before the years growth takes over.
Check compost heaps. Now’s a good time to mulch beds and let the worms work it into the soil.

Guest blog from Leaf Vigurs

Becoming a gardener was an accident.

I have heard it said that there are no ‘It started here’ moments in life. I could grow nothing as a child and believed I could grow nothing. The few plants that came my way faded, and died. Always I mourned them and the belief became the truth. I stopped trying, forever devoted to my pencils, and thought no more about it.

I left home, life happened, I got lost. Home became a cold damp factory, where I lived with the pigeons, until even they disappeared. However I shared a small studio there with my friend, and his battered Monstera deliciosa, the humble cheese plant. I ignored it.

My friend was often unable to visit, lost in his own life. The cheese plant became more battered, leaves gradually died and fell. I barely noticed.

We faded together.

I do not remember the change. At some point, without even noticing it, I began to pour old drinks onto the shrunken root bowl. Cold tea, coffee dregs, ( so many coffee dregs), the occasional forgotten beer. The cheese plant could hardly be said to living, but it stopped dying too. We survived the longest coldest winter I had known and spring came. Irregular watering crept into our lives and one day a new leaf burst from a withered stem, bright green, smooth, full of promise.

My friend bought a house, and I rented a room off him. Our cheese plant went with us. I stopped giving it old tea and abandoned coffees and started watering it regularly. Other houseplants began to fill my room and I discovered that you could also feed them. Some I lost and again mourned but slowly the survivors began to thrive. They spilled from my room and collected on windowsills around the house, small eddies forming on tables and shelves. The cheese plant had to be moved to the living room as it grew, so I re-potted it with fresh compost and installed a florescent light on a timer. It thrived and touched the ceiling in delight.

My brother went to horticultural college and trained to become a gardener. We began to talk about gardening together, and from him my plant collection doubled. I realized that with a garden there was much more I could grow and planted my first apple tree.

When my brother moved to Wales I began mowing the lawn for an old client of his. Their garden was enormous…

I fell in love and moved to Essex. Looking for work more gardening jobs came my way. My clients were happy and I realized that I was happy. I learned a lot but not enough, so I went back to college and studied horticulture. My gardening business grew along with my enjoyment of my work.

Now there is not a day without some thought or action rooted in the garden. I watch the seasons turn and have learned patience. The gardens grow and breathe, and we feed each other.

I still visit my friend and Cheesy. He too is now a gardener and they are both well. If I visit in late summer I get free apples too.

Houseplants.

At this time of year it’s easy to find yourself looking out at the garden searching for that fresh verdant flush of new growth that tells you spring is coming, whilst at the same time forgetting that there is another source of plant life to keep our gardening side happy even closer to hand. Houseplants.

Houseplants seem to exist in a strange realm. Many avid gardeners I know are unfazed by plants as soon as they enter the home, suddenly they don’t really count in any true horticultural sense. Even those who quite like having them around rarely treat them with the same care and attention they give to plants in the garden. There’s a myth that runs among us, a myth that all houseplants are they same, that if they look poorly the best thing for them is more water, a myth that they are simply replaceable. It’s time to forget these myths and relearn about the joy of sharing our homes with a whole plethora of different plants.

As you may have no doubt guessed I’m a bit of a lover of my houseplants, as well as a bit of a collector (luckily I’ve an understanding family): at a rough estimate I’d say we had near a hundred plants in the house at the moment. Many of the larger specimens get to spend the summer outside where they get watered by the rain, warmed by the sun and add an element of the exotic to the garden, they also to put on a load of growth before I have to try and find a place inside for them in the winter.
It’s best remembered that the majority of houseplants are indoor for the simple reason that our climate is either too cold or too wet for them to be permanent features outside and therefore like it best in the light and erring on the dry side. It’s time for me to get on my soapbox again I’m afraid. Please stop overwatering your houseplants. I’m sure we can all think of a poor waiting room plant somewhere that has dust laden leaves and lives in shrunken crumbs of dry soil and this is what often springs to mind when one of our own seems to be suffering, plus we’ve the lessons learnt from the garden where watering can often help. However living in cold mud is even worse especially if it’s used to free draining soil and a tropical climate. So stop watering, if it starts to droop and the soil seems dry then give it a little to begin with rather than submerging in a bucket and forgetting about it until it’s time to dry it out again.

Houseplants are gloriously varied. They can live a long time with you as you move from house to house, I’ve a cheese plant that I took as a cutting from the parent that used to live in my folks back room when I was a child. The cutting itself is already fourteen years old and has been a fond companion to my live as a gardener. Another new addition to the household is an indoor lime which is a seventh cutting generation from one of Sigmund Freuds plants. I’ve a peyote grown from seed by a wonderful man now sadly passed away, that must be somewhere in its third decade already. An umbrella plant in the lounge I rescued from a skip thirteen years ago and it’s looking great. I could go on.

I heartily recommend discovering the world of indoor gardening. Get a spider plant baby from someone and get to know another life that will happily live alongside you for many years to come, it won’t judge you or badger you for food and when it finally gets tired and looks longingly at the compost heap you’ll have a whole heap of its plantlets to carry on the line and a house full of greenery all the year through.

So go on, give it a go and maybe next time I’ll tell you about all the good they do us physically and mentally. It’s a wonderful plant filled world out there, let’s bring some of it in.

Hedgehog

It was a crisp winters day when leaving the house I spied a fellow gardener tired, gaunt and cold tottering across the lawn amongst the snowdrops. From a distance easily confused with a piece of fallen bark, up close a friendly snout and spiky back greeted me, this was no random gardener but a seasonal friend up way too early and suffering because of it.
After a quick check for injuries he was bundled up into my coat, secreted away in garden box, cosy on top of a hot water bottle and soon snuggling down into the fleecy depths of comfort. Now the joys of technology came into their own for this was my first proper close up encounter with a hedgehog but thankfully I have fine friends who I know to have a more informative grasp of Britains wild side. After a quick phone call to my Little Sampford sister she’d given me the low down on what to feed them and what not to and more importantly the number for South Wales Hedgehog helpline (02920 623985), they were then able to pass me onto a lovely lady called Amy at Cardiff Hedgehog Rescue (07590 293194) who took in rescued hedgehogs.

What followed was a very hasty tidying of the days work up to that point, this pretty much meant 5 minutes of chucking heaps of prunings behind the garage, tools quickly wiped down and popped back in potting shed before dash to train station with hedgehog still snuggled down in fleece lined hot water bottle box. It’s a good job I like the spiney gardeners as I was starting to miss my jacket by this point and now had a public transport jaunt across 10 miles of Cardiff from one side to the other, many a puzzled glance did I receive on that journey. A hairy, muddy man with his jacket in a box desperate to traverse a cold windy city with a little slug muncher secreted away, not your normal Wednesday encounter on the number 58 bus.
Thankfully I managed to complete the journey with minimal delays and the hedgehog was in the capable hands of Amy and her house of sleeping garden urchins before he knew what was happening. Renamed Zebedee he was soon taking in fluids and hopefully on his way to a happier year.

Sadly this story doesn’t have a happy ending. Zebedee had only been born the previous Autumn and hadn’t had chance to put on sufficient fat stores to reach the 600g he needed to be to get through hibernation. It’s likely he was already too dehydrated when I found him and was already in the process of organ failure with only a few more hours ahead, at least I was able to give him the chance for a comfy final few days.

Hedgehogs are amazing creatures, an invaluable friend to the gardener and we should cater for them more. It’ll only be about another month until they start waking and making their ways out into our gardens, so it’s time to take a bit more care with tidying up, be wary when using strimmers and putting forks into the undergrowth. Leave a water source out a ground level the birds will thank you too and if you’re really lucky a hedgehog might think your garden is good enough to set up home in.

Special thanks to Amy for all the work she puts in with countless hedgehogs every year, the natural worlds a better place because of it.

February

February comes around before we know it. I find it a funny month in the sense it’s somehow caught between seasons not yet spring but at the same time not quite winter. Of course we’re still prone to snow and frosts but with the New Year retreating into a distant memory there’s already plenty of signs of the years growth ahead. Bulbs are often one of the first signals many of us will have seen of things to come, snowdrops and crocus being amongst the first to light our days with their flowers but with the milder winters we’ve been having these are often accompanied by daffodils which for me are a true spring flower.
A walk in our gardens this month is like tentative glimpses of a new sweet shop soon to open, ripening buds on trees, a freshening of green amongst the evergreens and lawn, flowering winter shrubs and longer days all add to the building excitement. Of course this is no reason to be blasé; February can easily be one of the coldest months and with the added element of a biting wind can make the outside seem quite hostile at times. However a well wrapped up gardener with hot tea to hand can always find things to do and with spring approaching there are certain jobs that’ll need completing before the month is out.

Jobs this month:
Final chance to prune apple trees and acers before the sap rises
Planting of roses
Mulching of beds though watch out for emerging bulbs
Keep an eye on camellias and be prepared to protect with fleece against sudden hard frosts
Prepare greenhouses for coming year, now’s a good time to clear out and fumigate
Watch out for newly planted plants being damaged by the wind
Sow your early peas, beans and carrots
Chit potatoes in well lit and frost proof room
Check lawns for winter compaction, avoid walking on if frost still present
Tender house plants should be examined to see how they’ve faired, watch for new growth appearing