An October edition of the television programme that I mentioned a month ago has now gone up on the Cornwall Stress Free Television Vimeo channel, should you have seventeen minutes and 52 seconds to spare. Bobbie the cat is clearly the star.
Episode three.
garden ruminations 
Such a delight to see what’s happening in your garden Jim with such easy paced comment, very enjoyable, the inclusion of the spider was very professional.
At last things are recovering on my Sussex weald clay. Not a decent flower on my paniculatas, mophead ‘Hamburg’ browned off, lost the old aster ‘Winston Churchill’ (you might say no great loss), and barely any flower on crocosmia ‘Pauls Best Yellow’. Himalayan Aster asperulus tough, not troubled by drought, mine’s lavender, must propagate.
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So glad you’re liking the TV programs. The worst affected plant in my garden is Berberis ‘Golden Torch’, which dropped all its leaves and looks to have a lot of dead twigs. Pretty much everything else is looking lush now and my ‘Paul’s Best Yellow’ was very good, if over rather quickly.
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It’s fun to watch this video from your garden. You’re a star with these 3 videos! 😂 and your cat too…
Fortunately you added the names of the plants for someone like me because listening is not the same as reading… I still need to improve.
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I still need to improve my spoken delivery, talking to a camera is as hard as I thought it would be and I have no autocue.
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Bobbie is scary!
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Oh, the Begonia grandis with its bulbils! You know, I actually like the simple green color. There are so many cultivars with bronzed or slightly bronzed or otherwise ‘colorful’ foliage. Is simple green common? I found with the Canna that simple green was unpopular, which is fine with me, since I am stuck with many of the same cultivar with yellow bloom and light green foliage.
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I would say that a little purple or red foliage goes a long way, for me it works best in small amounts as a contrast to green. This is the first year I’ve had Hinkley’s all green Begonia grandis and I think the sales pitch was long weeping flower racemes, which it hasn’t developed yet but which would maybe make the leaf colour something of an irrelevance. My main concern at the moment is to keep them away from each other so that the bulbils don’t all get mixed up.
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That is how I got ‘Australia’ Canna. A neighbor of my downtown planter box wanted bronze foliage, and suggested that it would be particularly appealing with the blandly pale green houseleeks and nasturtiums. I was hesitant to comply, but am so glad that I did. I would not want too much of it, and I could do without any in my own garden, but it is very nicely striking in that particular application.
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There was a street in London I knew which had the dark purple Acer platanoides as street trees down both sides. The effect was unspeakably dismal. People see a small amount of something being effective and make the huge mistake of thinking more will be better.
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OH! If those were old trees, they were likely Acer platanoides ‘Schwedleri’! Those are one of my favorite maples, and my favorite maple that is not of North America! I spent much of my life on a suburban street in the western Santa Clara Valley that was flanked with them as street trees. The only tree that did not match was a camphor tree that replaced the maple immediately after it was installed in front of my mother’s home in about 1957. I enjoyed the camphor tree as well, but also wished that the original maple has stayed there. The suburban street was not too narrow for the trees, and was rather sunny, with plenty of space between the trees and in the front gardens. Some people disliked the dark color, but the shade was not overly oppressive there. Modern cultivars have been developed since then, and some are even darker, although they do not perform as well here. There are five at work, with reddish foliage that is no darker than the original ‘Schwedleri’. Their color is prettier, although they are dark nonetheless. However, I still prefer the old ‘Schwedleri’ because it is what I am familiar with. Otherwise, I am not so keen on bronzed foliage.
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‘Schwedleri’ was grown here but, again on the false basis that more is always better, was pushed aside by the much darker ‘Crimson King’ and/or ‘Goldsworth Purple’. They stay purple all summer. It seems there’s a lot of confusion around the purple leaved forms, which isn’t surprising if they produce viable seed.
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Oh my! As much as I do enjoy Norway maple (which is not an aggressively invasive exotic species like it is in other climates), I am none too keen on ‘Crimson King’. Not only is it weaker, but it is TOO dark. I suppose that I would be less keen on ‘Schwedleri’ as well if I had not grown up with it. We acquired five specimens of a bronzed Norway maple at work (it is a long story) but they do not seem so oppressive within large landscapes and space between the trees. They look rather sharp in front of hazy yellowish green California sycamores. Incidentally, I have NEVER encountered a single seedling from the many ‘Schwedleri’ Norway maples that I grew up with. They were more common in urban regions of the Pacific Northwest because they perform so well without seeding like the simple Norway maple does. (Norway maple is invasive there.) Conversely, I removed five Norway maple saplings that grew from seed from specimens that someone planted at a formerly private residence at work. I am fond of the trees, but do not want them to naturalize like they can in the Pacific Northwest.
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She’s sprawled on a chair right behind me, purring loudly. She wouldn’t hurt a fly, mainly because she’d never catch one.
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Guys like me are bigger targets.
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