Gardens: plants in their natural habitat

I remember the day I first I saw a dog’s tooth violet. It was April in the garden my parents moved to in the mid-70s and the find was just one of many treasures that emerged after we cleared 50 years’ of undergrowth. The plant was part of a tightly clustered colony in a little clearing under the shade of a liquidambar. The leaves emerged first, pushing up and then opening out in a splay of blue-green paddles that were curiously mottled. Pointed buds soon flung the petals back to reveal a push of green stamens. It was a mystery how something so exquisite had survived the neglect.
It was several more years before I came to meet Erythronium dens-canis in the wild. It was a June trip and my first plant-hunting venture in the Picos de Europa in northern Spain, aged 19. I had no idea that you could see summer astrantia in the morning and narcissus in the afternoon through making the ascent. We moved through nut woodland, where moody mourning widow combined with Lilium martagon, and through orchid-filled meadows mounded with wild peas. Gaining altitude, we saw the turf shorten and the season move backwards as we approached snowmelt. It was here that I found the very same erythronium. Once again they were alone and ahead of the summer competition.
Seeing plants growing in the wild takes some of the mystery away from how to grow them. The mountainside erythroniums had all the water and light they would need while they flowered, seeded and retreated below ground again before the slopes dried in their dormancy. Our domesticated dog’s tooth violets had survived there in the moss, with spring moisture and light while the liquidambar was dormant.
I’m guessing our hearty soil and lush grass will overwhelm them at the farm, but the dog’s tooths are not difficult bulbs as long as they do not have too much competition. Winkling them into the beds among later-emerging perennials, such as peony, is the best bet. I will also try some of the other species. Plants adapt in the wild by evolving their genus – and we can use this to our advantage.

Perfect partner: the violet head of mourning widow (Cranesbill). Photograph: Arco Images GmbH /Alamy

Erythronium also occur in North America and the American species offer up several good varieties. E tuolumnense stands about 18in high with apple-green foliage and starry yellow flowers. ‘Pagoda’ is a fine and vigorous selection for open woodland or a border that allows it time to settle in. Plant it among pulmonaria for a springtime combination and the cover of foliage once they become dormant.
Erythronium californicum ‘White Beauty’ s smaller in stature, with marbled foliage and ivory flowers. I like to mingle them through a low carpet of wild strawberries and for the carpet to sweep among epimedium, which enjoys the same conditions. If you find them a place that they like and where they can be left alone, you may well be planting them for future generations.

Get growing

Buy dog’s tooth violet plants now while in full growth or order for delivery in the autumn as dormant rhizomes. Keep rhizomes damp if you are waiting to plant them by storing in compost, as they will not recover from dehydration.

No room in the park? Why not use next door’s back garden?

Open gardens usually conjure up images of older, well-to-do people admiring each others’ chrysanthemums. But now, with a shortage of public space in cities, overcrowded parks and young people increasingly living in rented accommodation with little outdoor space, a new drive by the National Gardens Scheme is aiming to make private gardens more inclusive.
The scheme has already begun opening up gardens to allow users to enjoy early snowdrops and will continue until late October. It wants to encourage young people to use private outdoor space as they would a public park. Private garden owners can register their gardens with the NGS and open them up to the public, charging a fee of about £4, with all proceeds going to nursing and caring charities.
“Gardening is generally regarded as an occupation for old retirees but there has been a steady movement towards it among young people keen on environmental issues, or growing their own produce for cooking, or just looking for some quiet space,” said George Plumptre, chief executive of the NGS.
“In urban areas, we want to encourage more young people to turn up, sit on a bench with a book or have a cup of tea with friends and spend a couple of hours in a green space, particularly if they have not got that at home.” The NGS is increasing its use of social media and has created a free app that gives precise details about garden openings.
Experts welcomed the move. Les Back, 52, professor of sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, said: “People in their 20s and early 30s are increasingly living in rented accommodation with no garden and very little room. This is true of Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and particularly London. The amount of space people do have is increasingly pressured.”
Back said public parks, which were traditionally conceived as being the lungs of a city, were being besieged as the population of the UK increased and outdoor areas were shrinking or becoming overcrowded. “Schemes such as this are showing that, at last, those with more land – older, middle-class people – are thinking about sharing their space. It’s not before time,” he said.
Clare Elliott, 29, a film-maker who rents a shared house in Walthamstow in London, agreed. She said that for people living in a city where houses were being sliced up into flats and outdoor space is a luxury, it could be difficult to find a peaceful place out of doors.
“Right now, if you choose to live in London, you’re basically deciding that you won’t have any green space. None of my friends can afford their own gardens or outdoor areas,” she said.
“In the summer, many of the parks near me don’t even have green grass because it’s been trampled on. There’s certainly a demand for more access to nature in the capital – quiet places where young people can go to read, hang out, have a coffee or even go on a date.” She added: “Some cities are better than others but there’s a lack of designated green areas and these really great garden societies are making a difference.”
The NGA opens up more than 3,500 private gardens across the country each year, with the peak time being in the summer, when there are 250-400 gardens open every weekend from late May until early July. Founded in 1927 by the Queen’s Nursing Institute, the district nursing movement, the NGA raises more than £3.25m a year, with proceeds going to charities such as Macmillan, Marie Curie, Carers Trust, Hospice UK and Perennial.

Climate change is disrupting flower pollination, research shows

The early spider orchid and miner bee, that depend on each other for reproduction, have become increasingly out of sync as spring temperatures rise, research has shown.
Sexual deceit, pressed flowers and Victorian bee collectors are combined in new scientific research which demonstrates for the first time that climate change threatens flower pollination, which underpins much of the world’s food production.
The work used museum records stretching back to 1848 to show that the early spider orchid and the miner bee on which it depends for reproduction have become increasingly out of sync as spring temperatures rise due to global warming.
The orchid resembles a female miner bee and exudes the same sex pheromone to seduce the male bee into “pseudocopulation” with the flower, an act which also achieves pollination. The orchids have evolved to flower at the same time as the bee emerges.
But while rising temperatures cause both the orchid and the bee to flower or fly earlier in the spring, the bees are affected much more, which leads to a mismatch.
“We have shown that plants and their pollinators show different responses to climate change and that warming will widen the timeline between bees and flowers emerging,” said Dr Karen Robbirt, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the University of East Anglia (UEA). “If replicated in less specific systems, this could have severe implications for crop productivity.”
She said the research, published in Current Biology on Thursday, is “the first clear example, supported by long-term data, of the potential for climate change to disrupt critical [pollination] relationships between species.”
Three-quarters of all food crops rely on pollination, and bees and other pollinators have already suffered heavily in recent decades from disease, pesticide use and the widespread loss of the flowery habitats on which they feed. In the UK alone, the free fertilisation provided by pollinators is estimated to be worth £430m a year to farmers.
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Professor Anthony Davy, also at UEA and part of the research team, said: “There will be progressive disruption of pollination systems with climatic warming, which could lead to the breakdown of co-evolved interactions between species.”
Scientists have already identified a few timing mismatches caused by global warming between species and their prey. Oak tree buds are eaten by winter moths, whose caterpillars are in turn fed by great tits to their chicks, but the synchronicity of all these events has been disrupted.
Suspected mismatches have occurred between sea birds and fish, such as puffins and herring and guillemots and sand eels. The red admiral butterfly and the stinging nettle, one of its host plants, are also getting out of sync.
The new study focused on the early spider orchid Ophrys sphegodes, found in southern England, and the solitary miner bee species Andrena nigroaenea because they have a very close relationship. Other plants can be pollinated by many insects and other insects can pollinate many plants, making it very hard to determine the effect of changing temperatures.
Female solitary miner bee ( Andrena nigroaenea ) The solitary miner bee is affected more by rising temperatures than the early spider orchid that it pollinates. Photograph: Oxford University
Another challenge is that the temperature effects can be subtle, meaning data has to be collected over a long period. Robbirt and her colleagues realised that the natural history museums in London and Oxford and Kew Gardens had dated specimens of both the orchid and the bee stretching back to 1848.
Analysing all the data, and checking it against recent surveys, revealed that the orchid flowers six days earlier for every 1C increase in spring temperatures. But the effect on the male miner bee was greater, as it emerged nine days earlier.
The female miner bees, which usually emerge later than the male, emerged 15 days earlier. The latter effect meant the male bees were less likely to visit the orchid flowers for pseudocopulation. “The orchids are likely to be outcompeted by the real thing,” said Robbirt.
The UK government published its national pollinator strategy on Tuesday. It was welcomed by the pesticide trade body, the Crop Protection Association and the National Farmers Union. But Joan Walley MP, chair of parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee, said: “I am disappointed the government seems stubbornly determined to keep open the possibility of challenging the EU ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, which have been linked to pollinator declines.”

Ten of Britain's rarest wild flowers

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  Thyme broomrape Orobanche alba
  It is always rather thrilling to find a broomrape. Like oysters and toadstools, these plants are strange, ugly and alluring, like a species that you would find on the moon. This species is parasitic on wild thyme and you will always find it in close proximity to a good colony of wild thyme on dry cliffs and grasslands in plant-rich places, such as the Lizard in Cornwall. It opens purplish red, gradually browning to brick red as it ages.

  Jonathan Buckley

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  Spring gentian Gentiana verna
  Gentians have a colour named after them as their hue is so intense. Only green alkanet comes near it (and it is not native) and the fact that spring gentian lives in such high and austere places makes it even more miraculous. The plant itself has never seemed particularly beautiful to me – it is too much like a cigarette holder with a flower stuffed in the end – but its deep blue colour, which pales as the flower ages, is the reason why it is always such a thrill to find it.

  Jonathan Buckley

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  Mountain avens Dryas octopetala
  A deliciously pretty plant, made all the more so by the contrast with the rocky, brutal places where it tends to grow. The seed heads are almost as showy as the flowers, looking like the ragged flight feathers of a slightly bedraggled duck. These look best when backlit, giving the hillsides and promontories where they grow a soft, white halo. Its leaves resemble miniature oak leaves – hence its Latin genus name, Dryas, after dryad, the nymphs of the oak tree.

  Jonathan Buckley

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  Grass-of-Parnassus Parnassia palustris
  I am not the only one to count grass-of-Parnassus among my favourite plants. It is common in damp places with high rainfall and I used to find lots of it during childhood holidays on the west coast of Scotland. It was given the name grass-of-Parnassus after it was found on Mount Parnassus in Greece.

  Jonathan Buckley

 

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  Pasqueflower Pulsatilla vulgaris
  These are the Vogue models of the wild-flower kingdom. Have a really close look at them. The golden yellow anthers at the flower’s centre are a perfect contrast to the velvet-textured purple petals. A gentle fuzz of very fine hairs covers the calyx and leaves. The feathery, anemone-like seed pods are also exquisite. These are worth travelling miles to see.

  Jonathan Buckley

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  Early spider orchid Ophrys sphegodes
  The name of this exotic-looking orchid comes from the fat, velvety lip of its flower. Furry on the outside, with a smooth, hairless, reflective patch in the centre, the two parts together suggest a fat spider. But it is bees, not spiders, which flock to this plant. The male solitary bee Andrena nigroaenea attempts to mate with it, collecting pollen on its head, which it then deposits on other flowers. This is less successful than it sounds: self-pollination is thought to be the main process by which the flowers set seed.

  Jonathan Buckley

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  Green-winged orchid Anacamptis morio
  The best time to see green-winged orchids is at first light on a clear morning when every buttercup and every grass blade is glassy with dew, and spider’s webs are highlighted and haloed around the orchids. Marden Meadow in Kent is one of the best green-winged orchid sites in Britain. The field is turned magenta for most of May and into early June, so vivid that you might notice it as you whistle past on the London train. The stripes on its hood give it the alternative name of green-veined orchid.

  Jonathan Buckley

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  Fritillary Fritillaria meleagris
  This is our most exotic flower, its chequered bells look like stained glass when the light shines through them, each pale cell outlined by a darker frame. The reason fritillaries are now so rare is that, as bulbs, they can be destroyed by just one ploughing of a site where they may have been for centuries. You can spray a meadow with herbicides when the fritillary bulbs are not in active growth and you will hardly touch them, but ploughing breaks the bulbs.

  Jonathan Buckley

   

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  Lady orchid Orchis purpurea
  Its name makes it sound like a delicate beauty, but second to lizard orchid, lady orchid is the biggest orchid we have in Britain. A good specimen is hard to trump. You can spot the best spikes from 100 yards away, each one a lighthouse of colour amid the short, chalk grassland on the half-shady edge of a wood. The plant can stand a good 45cm high, the flower section a fifth or sixth of the total height, with up to 40 ladies, each just bigger than a thumbnail, partying at the top.

  Jonathan Buckley 

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  Fly orchid Ophrys insectifera
  This is an exciting orchid to find, each flower a black and conker-brown fly. It has, in fact, evolved to resemble a small female wasp and emits pheromones to attract male wasps. As the wasp attempts to mate with the flower, its head becomes coated with pollen, which it carries from plant to plant. This is not very successful: pollination rates are low, with less than 20% of flowers setting seed.

  Jonathan Buckley

A Valentine's flower guide for helpless enviromantics

How can you reduce the environmental impact of your Valentine's bouquet – and still pick the best of the bunch?

A rose on a black background
A classic Valentine's gift – but how green is the red rose? Photograph: Getty

Greening up the most traditional of Valentine's Day gifts is harder than you'd think, since most cut flowers are imported by plane at this time of year. Fortunately a number of specialist florists mean you can reduce the environmental impact of your blooms by buying locally-grown and Fairtrade options. I've rounded up five below.
Eco concerns
• The CO2 produced from transporting and growing flowers. British-grown flowers such as red tulips are theoretically the best way to reduce the CO2 emitted from growing your stems, but local doesn't always mean low carbon: one study suggested roses grown in Holland had a carbon footprint 15 times larger than those grown in Kenya. Waitrose has a handy calendar that shows which British flowers are in season now.
• Like food crops, flowers are often grown with pesticides. Several reports have raised concern over pesticides, from the World Health Organisation highlighting toxic chemicals used on Colombian flower farms to one study finding DDT in Mexican hothouses. Sadly, organic flowers are hard to come by in the UK – Waitrose is the only supermarket to sell them, but it doesn't stock any at this time of year.
• There's also the ethical issue of low pay for the workers who grow our imported flowers. For a guarantee that a fair wage is being paid, seek out the increasing number of Fairtrade bouquets.
Top 5 green choices
1. Wiggly Wigglers: British-grown seasonal bouquets from £25.
2. Arena Flowers – a selection of flowers, including these £33 gerberas, certified by the Fair Flowers Fair Plants scheme.
3. Scilly Flowers – seasonal bouquets from £25 and up, grown on the Isles of Scilly.
4. The Organic Flower Company – despite the name, TOFC doesn't stock organic blooms at this time of year, but it does have a ban on air-freighted flowers and is selling 50 red tulips for £40.
5. Waitrose – lots of Fairtrade flowers, including sunflowers for £20 and pricier mixed bouquets for £39 and up.
A Valentine Counterclockwise from top left: Waitrose has lots of Fairtrade flowers; tulips from The Organic Flower Company; seasonal flowers from Wiggly Wigglers; Scilly flowers. Photograph: PR

What sustainable stems do you recommend? Let's hear about your favourite ecoflorists and suppliers in the comments below.