The plants in our area are in need of stockchecking, so I volunteered to do it: I will learn more about the area, the plants and stockchecking – what’s not to like? Besides, a bit of light work will give some rest to my wrist, which need it.

When plants are accessioned – I talked about this in my very first post: Plants come with a label (unlike people) – a record is created in a database describing their characteristics, including name (family, genus, species, variety, etc), information about who and from where supplied them, whether the origin of the plant has been verified of not, the location of the plant in the garden, etc.

Stocktaking requires first thing to print out a list of the plants in the area: in our case the South Canal beds are numbered as areas 435 and 437.

With your list, then, you check that all the plants are there and where they are supposed to be and that the labels are correctly placed to identify them, taking notes of any plant that is not listed (it could have been missed in the database recording or it could be a self-seeded plant that was not weeded out) and any other issues that you may spot.

Every plant must have at least two identification labels: a display one, engraved on black plastic and a security label, embossed on metal (for identification in case the other one goes missing). Some may have a label on a stand, too, depending on their growth habit.

 
If any labels is missing or unreadable, it has to be reprinted and replaced.

So with my printed list of plants I have been and will be exploring the areas, in and around the beds, and checking our plants.

I am taking a very systematic approach, sequentially checking every plant, bed by bed,, row by row, and in a session I try and complete a whole block of plants. For each I check that both essential labels are present and readable, and that they have not been misplaced by mistake.

Some of the plants listed in my sheeds I could not initially find, then I realised they had been “swallowed” by their neighbours: there are quite a few invasive plants in the Rosaceae family, such as my favourite Rubus, and of course Sorbaria. Potentilla and Cotoneaster also do their best to keep up, seeding far and wide. So there is my work cut out for me in the next few weeks: weeding out and cutting back the more vigorous specimens and their unwanted progeny.

If any plant is not labelled and is not obviously the offspring of some neighbouring plant, it will need to be identified and dealt with accordingly.

Having to check plants so close is improving my observation skills, and I am noticing new details and learning a lot of new plants in the process. They are beautiful, plants, and amazing.
I found a crab apple tree with leaves like an hawthorn, a pear tree with leaves like a willow, and a stunningly red apple tree: leaves and trunk, with purple berries…

Malus florentina

Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula

Malus x purpurea ‘Eleyi’

In view of reporting back to my manager, on a rainy morning I have also prepared a spreadsheet where to collect all the information I gather in readable format.

Look forward to completing this task over the next few days…

Have been around the Japanese gateway a lot in the last couple of weeks, as we were taking care of it temporarily.

As I described in previous posts, we mowed the lawn, edged the beds and raked the gravel. Some weeding needed doing too.

We’ve been talking about weeds, me and my colleague. How “botanical racism” might be at play, horticulture demanding of us that we get rid of the most successful plants from an evolutionary perspectives… and I found this beautifully written article just now that talks extensively about when a weed’s a weed and why. It goes:

“Plants become weeds when they obstruct our plans, or our tidy maps of the world.” 

Definitions of weed vary: some of them refer to wild plants that grow out of place, others refer to any plant out of place, and weeds are called pernicious, invasive and noxious, these last two being official definitions of foreign plants, interfering with some human activity and environment or other (often a wrong of our own doing….).

At the Japanese gateway two plants seem to have taken up weedy behaviour and outgrown their allotted space in what is a definitely planned, tidy landscape: Japanese anemone (Anemone hupehensis var. japonica) and Japanese spurge (Pachysandra terminalis).

They had to go and I spent all day clearing them. Difficult to do in the case of the first, a plant I love, but less so in the case of the second, which I find rather indifferent if not unpleasant altogether. Anyway, I was really surprised how weedy the Anemone actually was, with rhizomes reaching everywhere, as at home I have tried to get them established for two years now (with their white flowers that last into autumn they are such a good addition to an informal garden), but they keep dying, probably because it can get quite wet and waterlogged in winter at my place.

Because of the rhizomes reaching far and wide, I had to use what my colleagues defined “the stabbing” technique of weeding: with the tip of my trowel I chopped the rhizomes around some areas, then I teased them out and cleared with the help of a hand fork. They say it must be a uniquely Italian technique and joked about our supposedly passionate and murderous character. I have seen it done by at least another Italian gardener… so that might actually be the case! ;p

The outcome was satisfactory, though, what do you think? Here’s the three cleared areas I worked on, taking the plants back to how they were meant to look:

Front of area 1

Back of area 1

Area 2 and 3

There is one thing that might be said in favour of the thick carpet of Pachysandra: it is seemed to provide cover for a range of wildlife.

Earthworm

Newt

Small mammal’s burrow?

The David Nash at Kew exhibition has just closed, so sculptures and installations throughout the gardens are being dismantled, leaving behind rather large pits in the ground that need filling. So I am learning the art of filling holes, as part of our team days 🙂

The main issue with filling holes is to make sure they do not sink, leaving unsightly and potentially unsafe dips and bumps where people walk. Therefore, one has to make sure the filling is quite compact. In order to achieve that, a process was developed:

• Soil is taken in with tractors and spread in layers;
• The layers are treaded on, with a typical heels-in walk to ensure that the most weight is applied (if you see us going round in circles and walking funnily, that’s why);
• The layers are raked with a landscape rake to ensure they are even;
• The pits are thus filled up to slightly above the surrounding ground level;
• The soil is levelled carefully;
• Grass seeds are sown and raked in gently;
• The area, in particular if large, is fenced off to allow grass to grow undisturbed.

Soil is taken to the pit

A layer of soil is treaded on

A layer ready for raking

Checking the filling is level

Grass sown , area fenced off

I did gardening at the weekend as well as during the week, and that meant I was so unbelievably tired, probably the most tired I’ve ever been, and therefore felt overwhelmed and started questioning my new career.

For someone that is used to work mainly in an office, for how much one can love it, physical work is demanding and takes some getting used to. I needed to pace myself throughout the task, as I felt that my muscles were not going to take much more, and because I was trying to conserve energy, it was even difficult to join in the team banter.

It is getting better now, my colleagues were very supportive, apparently everyone gets very tired if they do not get proper rest it’s not only me being a relative newbie – but that is definitely something to take into consideration: you can get quite disheartened from sheer fatigue.