URBAN FARMER:The clever use of low, evergreen hedging to define pathways and separate areas of the garden gives both winter structure and summer interest
THE MOST successful vegetable gardens have always been those that feed all the senses, and not just our stomachs.
Think of Chateau Villandry in the Loire valley, a visual feast of a garden, with its vast tapestry of low box-hedging and chequerboard-style planting of ruby lettuce, swiss chard and scarlet tomatoes. Closer to home, Ballymaloe’s formal potager-style garden is proof of just how beautiful a vegetable garden can be, with its tidy framework of clipped hedges and mellow brick paths punctuated by topiary bay trees and flame-coloured nasturtiums.
In the Phoenix Park, the OPW’s walled vegetable garden uses a similarly formal layout to give structure and a sense of permanence to the planting. What all three gardens also have in common is the clever use of low, evergreen hedging to define pathways and separate areas of the garden while giving both winter structure and summer interest.
“We’ve used something close to 6,000 box plants here in the walled garden at the Phoenix Park,” says OPW gardener Declan Donohoe. “That might seem like a huge number but, for good box hedging, you need to plant very closely – as little as 10cm apart for very dwarf varieties such as Buxus Suffruticosa. It takes about three years for a box hedge to really establish itself, after which we’ll clip it very low – once a year in early summer – to no more than about 15cm wide and tall.”
Lavender, with its deeply aromatic, silver foliage and delicate violet flowers, is also being used very successfully by the OPW gardeners as a compact hedging plant.
“We’ve chosen a popular variety of English lavender called Munstead, which flowers from mid-summer until September, after which we lightly trim it. We’ll do that again in April, taking care not to cut into the old wood,” says Declan.
As well as giving scent, structure and colour to the garden, lavender also attracts pollinating insects (very important in a vegetable garden) while the edible flowers can be crystallised in sugar or used (sparingly) to flavour summer drinks, jams and even ice creams.
Check out the website of Murphys Ice-Cream, based in Dingle, Co Kerry, which gives a sumptuous-sounding recipe for honey and lavender ice-cream. Visit www.icecreamireland.com and type “lavender” into the search option on the home page).
And, while the healing and soothing qualities of lavender are also well known, some urban farmers might, possibly, be interested in its long-standing reputation as an aphrodisiac.
There are, of course, many other plants that are suitable as hedging, depending on the kind of boundary required. Shelter isn’t as much of a priority in the walled garden at the Phoenix Park as it would be in more exposed gardens, where a good evergreen hedge can create a wonderfully protected environment for fruit and vegetable plants.
Yew, griselinia, holly, olearia, escallonia and Portuguese laurel will all make a fine tall, wide evergreen hedge, and some of these will even thrive in very exposed, coastal areas.
Deciduous hedges also offer shelter – consider beech, hornbeam or hawthorn – but remember that any large hedge needs space and will greedily consume light, water and nutrients.
Where space is an issue, keep to lower, more ornamental types such as box, lavender, santolina or artemisia. As a general rule, try to plant in autumn, so watering is not a problem (particularly so with bare-root specimens).
However, with silver-leaved, sun lovers like lavender, santolina and artemisia, it’s often better to plant in springtime. This gives the plants a chance to establish a good root system before our wet winters (which they loathe) set in.
And if you’re confined to container gardening, you’ll be delighted to know that both box and lavender will do well in pots, as long as you keep them watered. The well-intentioned but laid-back urban gardener might do best to stick with lavender, though, as it does particularly well in sharply-drained growing conditions.
Garden to Fork
Speaking of feeding the senses, some readers of Urban Farmer have been wondering what becomes of all the fruit, herbs and vegetables grown in the walled garden in the Phoenix Park.
They’ll be interested to know that, while some of the produce is used for educational and demonstration purposes, any surplus is then sold on to the award-winning Phoenix Café, which is next door to the garden.
The café, which makes all of its own food on the premises, is in the process of converting to using organic-only produce and its owner, Helen Cunningham, is now in the enviable position of being able to source a rich variety of fresh, tasty, organic produce right on doorstep. Last year, amounts were small, as the walled garden was only in the early stages of development. This year promises to be a very different story.
“There’s already plenty of rhubarb, lettuce and endives that are ready to harvest and, in just a few weeks, we’ll have spring onions, early cabbage, spinach, gooseberries, and strawberries,” says OPW gardener Brian Quinn. “Later, there’ll be plenty of freshly picked beans, peas, more cabbage, celery, celeriac, tomatoes, potatoes, raspberries and pumpkins. Lots and lots of stuff.”
There’s even freshly-cut flowers. “We’re growing wigwams of sweet-pea in the walled garden, which need to be picked regularly to encourage the production of new flowers. Unlike the lavender flowers, they definitely aren’t edible, but the café uses them in little vases on each table,” says colleague Meeda Downey. “And we’ve got loads of fresh herbs also, which are always in demand.”
Lucky, lucky Helen Cunningham – rarely has the owner of an organic café ever had to worry so very little about food miles.
Celery & Celeriac
While the harvesting of fresh produce has already begun (and it’s only May), the OPW gardeners are still planting away, filling all the beds with young vegetable plants so that every square inch is used, while busily tidying up what’s an already amazingly immaculate garden in preparation for Bloom 2009.
Now that the risk of frost has passed, more tender types – such as courgettes, pumpkins, sweet corn and peppers – will soon be going outdoors.
The OPW gardeners also sowed seed of celeriac and celery back in March, and the glasshouse-raised plants are now ready to be planted.
If you haven’t had a chance to raise plants from seed, however, don’t worry, as you can still buy young plants from good garden centres.
“Last year, we just grew the traditional trench celery, which we had to blanch ourselves using paper, and in the end, it was just too time-consuming,” says Meeda, blanching a little herself at the memory. “So this year, for the first time, we’re growing self-blanching celery. And it’s our first year to grow celeriac too, a variety called Prinz, so that should be interesting.”
Both celery and celeriac need a very rich, fertile and moisture-retentive soil if they are to do well. Be warned: in dry gardens they’ll need to be watered during any prolonged hot spells.
Brian also stresses the importance of feeding the plants with a liquid manure, weekly, from mid-summer on. “I discovered it last year, watching a DVD of the Victorian Kitchen Garden. The head gardener on the programme, the late Harry Dodson, was full of brilliant tips like that. When I tried liquid feed on the celery plants here in the Phoenix Park last year, it made an amazing difference. They had been a bit yellow, but then they suddenly greened up and began to thrive.”
Celeriac, a close relative of celery that is grown for its flavoursome bulbous roots, is a particularly greedy feeder and needs a very long growing season if it’s to crop to any usable size. Gradually removing the outer ring of leaves (not too many) throughout the season helps, but don’t expect to harvest until mid-autumn at the earliest.
The wait is well worth it, though, if only for the distinctively earthy flavour of celeriac soup, which is truly delicious. And, if you do have some time and about €20 to spare, I recommend buying a DVD of the Victorian Kitchen Garden (available on www.amazon.co.uk). Charming, fascinating and choc-a-bloc full of useful nuggets of advice and information, this 13-part TV series was made over 20 years ago but has long achieved a kind of cult-status amongst grow-your-own enthusiasts, as have its presenters, Peter Thoday and the late Harry Dodson. Brilliant stuff.
** http://www.irishtimes.com/indepth/slideshows/urbanfarmer2/
** Next week Urban Farmerin Propertywill cover how to grow globe artichokes and spinach
** Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer
