Iris sibirica - autumn tidy up

 Does September count as autumn?  Yes, I think it does: of course, the actual weather makes a difference, and we've had quite a mixed batch of weather lately, to the point where sometimes it's hard to know how many layers of clothing to put on in the mornings: for the last week or so I've been going out in shorts, fleece and sleeveless jacket, wondering if I ought to go to "longs" - but by mid morning I have been sweating, and glad to peel off a couple of layers!

Some years, the Siberian Iris look spectacular well into winter, but this year, they are already starting to look very tatty.

"What do we do with them?" one of my Patrons pleaded:  "They look terrible!"

Firstly, let's look at what we are talking about. Iris sibirica is the fellow, and Siberian Iris, or Flag Iris, are two of the common names. And this is another moment to make that point about using "proper" names, because Flag Iris is usually taken to mean those very large yellow iris which you find growing in the water, along rivers, and sometimes in ponds: proper name Iris pseudocorus. It's a gorgeous thing, but, being a water-dwelling species,  it would not do well in your well-drained garden bed. ("Unless it was an island bed, ha ha") (sorry...)

Back to  Iris sibirica... They produce tall, stiff, slender stems bearing several flowers per stem, which appear in May and June, and they have very narrow, long, foliage. Which can get a bit floppy.

They are usually blue: and because they flower so early, we usually dead-head them, otherwise they spoil the look of the bed, quite apart from them spending a lot of energy making seed, which is quite unnecessary because they spread quite rapidly into good sturdy clumps.

However, in some years, the stems stay very straight, and the seed pods turn a smooth black, and they actually look quite attractive... typically, I can't find a photo to show that! In which case, you can put off cutting them back until such time as they no longer look attractive.

So there are two phases of maintenance for this plant: as soon as they have finished flowering, cut back each flowered stem right down to the ground (unless they are very straight and tidy). Leave the leaves (? always looks odd, writing that!) because they need to feed up the rhizomes for next year.

But by late summer/early autumn, those leaves are pretty much done, and are turning brown. Not so pretty! So now it is time to cut them back.

Here's a fairly typical example, left: not very appetising, is it?

The leaves are lank and flopped over, and you can see by the colour - pale green turning to brown - that they are no longer actively photosynthesising.

This year, the flowering stems have not turned a nice, glossy dark brown or black - instead they are  merely brown, which is a bit disappointing: but at least they are still standing  up straight.

My first pass, for plants like these, is to rake out the dead material by running my gloved hand through the clump. 

Often, that can freshen up the appearance quite considerably.

Next job is to cut back the foliage to just a few inches, for tidiness: as I said, it's not photosynthesising any more,  but I never like to cut this material right down to the ground, partly because then I might forget that the plant is there, and accidentally trample all over them while weeding.

Here we are - right: all the dead material has been raked out, and all of the foliage has been cut right back, to just a couple of inches, leaving the stiffly upright stems.

This allows me to do a further raking, to ensure all dead material is out:  then I can see if there are weeds infiltrating the clump and, if so, remove them.

I can also then assess the clump, to see if it is getting over-crowded, and in need of division: in this case, not so much, because as you can see, it's a healthy, vigorous clump. 

The flowering stems can be allowed to stand as a display until either they flop over, or until we get tired of looking at them.

So there you have it, easy peasy ways to tidy up your herbaceous perennial beds, in the middle of summer!

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Who said that nature does not produce right angles?

"Everyone always says" that nature cannot produce a right angle.

Gentle curves - all day long. Sharp bends? Well, yes, we've all seen a few of those, but never right angles. Not geometrically precise right angles.

Exhibit A, m'lud:

What's that, if not a right angle! 

(*laughs*)

This is a Hollyhock (Alcea) which had grown at least 7' tall, then flopped over on to the ground, and then carried on growing upwards.

Spiffing, eh? (*laughs again*)

I would call that a right angle, wouldn't you? 

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Growing Clematis up a Tree: why I don't approve...

One of my Clients had a pair of lovely old Cherry trees, each of which had been underplanted with a Clematis montana. 

Here's one of them, in its full glory:

Everyone who saw them said "Wow!"

And yes, they were very much "Wow!".

Right up to the day that this one just fell over... because the tree underneath it had died, without us knowing that it was in trouble.

The Client asked me if the Clematis had killed the tree, and I replied Yes, I think so. 

He looked at me. "You are going to say 'I warned you!', aren't you?" he said. 

"Well," I replied, "I hate to say it, but yes, I did warn you that this was a possibility."

I had actually warned him several times, every year, that I felt the Clematis was getting too big and should be cut back. Why? Because with such a dense covering, we couldn't see what was going on underneath it.

The Client then asked if the climber had "strangled" the tree: no, Clematis is not a strangler, but the thick canopy of leaves and flowers - beautiful though it is - would have prevented light from getting to the tree's leaves, which would have caused it to struggle.

Without sunlight on the leaves, little photosynthesis would occur. 

Then, such a thick covering of foliage kept the tree inside it very damp - I was shocked at the amount of soggy debris which was piled up in every fork and crotch of the dead, fallen, tree. This leads to rot, mould, fungus, you name it. All things which are not good for trees.

And -  my main objection to growing climbers like this up trees - we were unable to see what the tree was doing, because it was completely covered. So we didn't see early signs of distress, such as dead foliage, lack of foliage, partial death of branches, etc.

OK, it is possible that the Cherry was in decline anyway, and its demise was only hastened by the Clematis: but my thought is that the two trees (the other one is just out of sight) were probably planted at the same time - as this was a formal arrangement -  so if one was at the end of its life, the other one would also be in decline. But the other tree was perfectly healthy.

And, "just saying", as they say, the other tree's Clematis was no-where near as dense as this one. In fact, I used to check the other tree, and regularly remove dead branches, which were visible from the ground: whereas this one was so dense that I couldn't see inside it at all.

Now, I know that many of you really like the idea of a flowering climber scrambling up a tree - it has overtones of lovely old country gardens: but I'm not keen, and this is precisely why.

So my advice would be: if you really, really want to train a climber up a tree, then don't let the climber get too big: be prepared to cut it right down every few years - and when I say "right down" I mean right down to knee height. Then it can grow back,  and the tree gets a chance to have fresh air all over it, and to be inspected for any problems. 

Before it just falls over!

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Oregano - late summer trim time!

Yes, it's time to get that Oregano under control - it's great for the bees, but it will take over the border if you give it half a chance.

This - left - is an example: there was originally a line of Oregano along the middle of the border, but now it has merged into one enormous amorphous blob, which has consumed nearly all the other plants.

It is also heading out into the lawn!

Big clumps like this are prone to ant invasion, so in amongst the flowers are a mass of ant hills, making it almost impossible to cut it back: and as many of them (in this garden) were red ants, that made it quite unpleasant for the poor gardener (ie me) who does not enjoy the painful bite of a red ant!

To avoid this sort of mess, start early, start when the plants are young, and don't let them get too big for their boots.

Here's the sort of thing which you might find:

It's now early September, the flowers have mostly gone over, so instead of the usual purple (or sometimes, white) flowers, there is a haze of mostly grey, spent, flowers.

This clump is starting to get too big: it's swamping the Lamium to the right, and it is also starting to smother the patio rose behind it.

Now is the time to cut it back!

If you "part" the upper foliage, you will find a dense mass of small new leaves at the base of the plant - in this photo, left, you can see those wiry brown stems, which lead up to the now-going-grey spent flowers. I have pushed them to each side, so that you can see it more clearly.

Take your secateurs, and cut off all those wiry brown stems, as low down as you reasonably can.

Don't cut them off a couple of inches clear of the new foliage, leaving a strange hedgehog-like creation: clip them closely down to the new leaves.

This leaves you with something more like this, right: quite a difference!

Once you get rid of all the top foliage, you can also see how far your original plant is spreading out sideways, rooting as it goes, so now is a good time to go round the edges of the clump, pulling up and cutting off the excess growth.

If you want more Oregano, you can take the pieces which you have pulled up, pot them up and water them, and in no time at all you will have a batch of strong new plants.

And in the meantime you will have saved your border from being swamped!

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Crop circles - the mystery is solved!

Several of my Clients have robot mowers: automatic mowing machines that trundle around your lawn, on a pretty much continual basis, mincing up the grass into tiny little pieces.

They work fantastically if your lawn is large, and is a fairly simple shape, and although they are pretty expensive to buy and to have installed, they do mean that you will never again have to push the mower round, or have to dispose of piles of grass clippings. 

And your lawn is always, always, perfect.

If you've never encountered them, they are great fun to watch: the installers sink a control wire all round the perimeter of the lawn, which acts as an electric fence to keep them in, and to prevent them wandering off the lawn and eating your flowers. They are programmed to bumble around at random within that area, turning back whenever they encounter the wire:  or whenever they bump into anything, such as wheelbarrows, garden furniture, or my boots, while I am working.

When their battery starts to run low, they drive themselves back to their charging port, and plug themselves in - so you never have to rescue a forlorn, exhausted robo-mower from the far end of the garden.

The programming seems to be quite simple: there must be some sort of algorithm to prevent them doing the same patch over and over again, but otherwise they wander around like motorised sheep, randomly covering the area, and eating continuously.

One elderly gentleman calls his one Lorna (Lawn-er, get it?), and says that he enjoys sitting in his conservatory, watching her working out how to get out of the corners: he says it's just like when his grandchildren were very small.

Elsewhere, I have a Client whose robot mower seems to like me, because although it is a very large garden, within minutes of me starting to work, the mower bumps into my ankles. And quite often, it will change direction to intercept me, as I walk around the garden. The owner says I am imagining it. I am not so sure. 

Anyway, the other day, I was highly amused to see this:

It was going round in circles! Creating a lovely crop circle in the grass! 

I thought it had got stuck, so I put my foot in front of it, which forced it to stop, twiddle round, and head off in another direction. 

But seconds later, there he was (I'm pretty sure this one is a boy, as he seems to have a fatal attraction for me), going round in circles again!

Fascinated, I bumped him off course again, and watched: he ran off in a straight line, then stopped: hesitated: went backwards a short distance: then started to turn hard right, and after a couple of revolutions, started spiralling outwards.

Apparently they can sense the length of the grass, so if they encounter a patch which is longer than the surrounding grass, they give it special attention until it is evenly short again, at which point they return to their straight-line wanderings.

But it is kind of fun, watching them creating beautiful crop circles in the lawn!

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