Orto di Casa Cecconi

My first allotment, and then one thing leading to another…

L’orto di Casa Cecconi Plants Recipes Me & Kew One Year at Wisley

  • The vineyard

    I still remember how pruning the vineyard was such a relief at the end of the pruning training week, as it was so straightforward and one could whizz through it, feeling rewarded at the end!

    Principles are really clear and so is the putting them into practice.

    We use the “double Guyot” replacement system, which consists in a thorough pruning every year, leaving just 2 replacement arms of new wood, plus an extra 3 bud stub in case it’s needed.

    You choose branches that come from below the lower wire of your post and wire system, around 80 cm from the ground so that there is good airflow but also some warmth reflected from the soil underneath.

    If there is no suitable new wood coming from close to the trunk, you don’t leave an old rod: the hope is that new wood growth is stimulated, even if you are left temporarily with only one arm.

    Cuttign back the old wood

    First of all, from the tangle of tied in branches, you start cutting back the old wood to a suitable new branch…

    Removing the new wood that is not well placed or strong

    Then you remove the new growth that is not well placed, not long enough as an arm, that is weak or diseased. You review your pruning of old wood in the process.

    Choosing the stub

    You are eventually left with three suitable branches: one has to bend towards the left, one to bend towards the right and one of which you will treat as a 3 bud stub, your insurance for replacement purposes.When  you have made your choices, you have to prune the branches to a suitable length so they can be tucked in up the
    second wire and down the bottom one, on their respective sides, without encroaching on the surrounding plants.

    Job done

    We left it to that at the time, but then went back today to tie the branches in as a team hit.
    Carefully stretch and bend up the second wire at the back, then down the bottom one at the front, without breaking them; tie; cut.

    The ideal Guyot
    Crossing of branches not ideal but sometimes necessary
    When branches do not want to bend in the right direction…

    What will happen next, is that the branches will send up new shoots vertically. These will be trapped between wires tied with chains at the poles on either side of the rows. Any growth that will flop over, will be trimmed away.

    The tied in rows, with chains on the poles

  • Big buds and short stumps

    Cecidophyopsis ribis, also know as big bud mite, sapsucker. A tiny (at < 1 mm) but nasty one, as it helps transmit what is known as reversion disease, a viral infection.

    Fascinating life forms, viruses: DNA/RNA sequences coated in protein, that are dormant at maturity and so can survive for hundred of years only to be activated when they manage to get into a cell of a suitable host. You generally don’t want a virus on your plants, though, as there is no cure. I say generally as, even more fascinating, some plants are bred from infected material, as the symptoms of the infection may be aesthetically pleasing: like colour streaks, or fraying of leaves and petals. But you definitely do not want infections of fruit trees when the symptoms include reduced fruiting ability, which is what reversion disease eventually ends up in.

    But back to our Cecidophyopsis, in the summer it crawls out of its nest (in one of the previous year’s buds, that has by then died and dried up, failing to perform its function), together with hundreds of its siblings, and goes in search of new bud to inhabit. The new abode, where it settles and start feeding on the sap of embrionic leaves, becomes apparent in late winter as a round and swollen bud in the midst of long and tapered ones.

    A big bud among regular ones

    Big bud mites attack blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum) and redcurrant (Ribes rubrum) but not gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa). If they were not at risk of transmitting reversion disease, they would generally do minimal damage. The occasional big bud can in fact be picked off and disposed of. However, bigger infestations may weaken plants as well.

    As the collection here at Wisley (some 40 cultivars) is
    suffering from repeated attacks, and because the plants are many and in close quarters, we needed more drastic action than just the picking off of buds. So we spent today stooling (pruning right down to the ground) all the plants in order
    to try and get rid of this pest.

    Here’s a picture of one such plants, before and after stooling.

    Before After

    We found big buds right down to the bottom of branches, so it was worth cutting right down to the ground, the shortest stumps possible left. I myself think that new buds emerging from the ground will have a better chance to thrive if they can grow without having to twist around any obstacles, which stumps tend to be, especially if at an angle.

    Blackcurrants fruit on second year wood (and onwards, but less prolifically). Because of that, pruning usually entails cutting about 1/3 of the oldest wood back to the ground, but leaving stems up to 3 years old intact for framework and fruiting. That means that we won’t get any fruiting from the plants we stooled this year, but they will hopefully fruit well in the summer 2016.

    Fruits will be used to help check which cultivar is which, and, once tested for the absence of virus, the plants will provide the propagation material for the next generation of the RHS Garden Wisley blackberry collection.

  • Rose pruning

    After my rather demoralising experience with the rambling rose, I was looking forward our rose pruning masterclass today.

    Different types of roses need different pruning regimes to ensure good flowering, and we had a go with the four different types below. In general, when rose pruning, one aims at creating an open centred shrub to ensure air circulation, in particular as rose are prone to fungal diseases such as powdery mildew (Podosphaera pannosa), blackspot (Diplocarpon rosae) and rust (Phragmidium tuberculatum). Also, as always in pruning, one aims to remove all dead, diseased and damaged material, to operate with clean and sharp tools, and to clean up around the plants so that debris and leaf litter does not harbour pest and diseases.

    Hybrid teas

     


    The roses with one flower per stem, flowering best on new wood, these can be cut back the hardest to
    ensure new strong growth.  They may repeat flower in flushes, usually three per year.

    Stems are cut down to secateur’s length from soil level (which generally means 4 to 6 buds from the ground), at a suitable outward facing bud (although if no bud are visible sometimes a cut is made anyway at a suitable height in the hope of a bud emerging later on. This might lead to dieback).

    The frame of the plant is generally formed by 4-5 healthy stems, so older wood may be removed right to the ground. Any weaker shoots are pruned back to 2-4 buds, to try and strengthen them.

    Floribundas

     


    Like hybrid teas, floribundas arepeat-flower on new wood. They flower in clusters, and continuously throughout the summer.

    They are pruned back in a similar way to hybrid teas, but the framework of the plant is kept higher up from the ground, about 2 secateur’s length, or 6-8 buds from the ground. Also, more stems are retained: six to eight.

    Standard roses

     

    The aim was to keep a lollipop shape, round rather than flat at the top, to create which one starts working the stems on the sides, shortening them to two or three buds from last year’s growth, then gradually moving towards the top.

    The same rules apply as if the stems were growing in the ground, but they are not cut back as hard so more stems are left, as hard pruning may encourage suckers in the rootstock that provides the stem. Equally though one has to make sure they do not get too top heavy and snap or fall over.

    Before After

    Modern shrubs

     

    Old shrub roses, like species roses, are best left to themselves, as they flower on older wood, and they only need occasional renovating by cutting the oldest wood back to the ground.

    Modern shrubs or English roses, however, depending on their vigour, can be cut back about one third to half, in a domed shape to obtain a fullly-furnished flowering plant. As always, a portion of older wood needs to be removed from the ground, to keep the plant open centred and to generate a constant supply of new wood.

    Reading rose labels 

    If you come and visit RHS Garden Wisley and find yoursefl wondering how to identify the roses you are looking at: it’s all on the label!

    Rose label at RHS Garden Wisley

    The first line (top left) tells you the year of accessioning into the collection
    The second line (top left) and third line (centre) are the family and genus, which are the same for all roses of course
    The fourth line (centre) is the trading name of the rose
    The fifth line (centre, in inverted commas) is the breeder’s name of the rose, with the first 3 letters being the breeder’s code.
    The sixth line (bottom left) tells you what type of rose it is: HT stands for hybrid tea, F for floribunda, S for shrub and so on

  • More progress in the Cottage Garden

    The new path was edged!
    Woodchips ready for spreading

    Back from the weekend I found another surprise: my wonderful colleague on duty had edged the new path with wooden boards ready to take woodchips… which my fellow trainee in the arboretum got for me as quick as a flash.

    Another of my plants, Aronia ‘Viking’ was ready to come out of the reception area and there were plenty of leaves from the several Carpinus outside the area to clear up… so you can guess how I spent my last two days in the area…

    Leaf mould cage

    Actually, I started with the leaves, going back one step… In the Cottage Garden there is a lovely leafmould cage, in which leaves had been moulding away for a few years. As I had plenty of leaves to put in, I thought I would get some of the excellent crumbly conditioner at the bottom of the cage to topdress my plants.

    Crumbly leaf mould

    Leaf mould was described in a book I was
    reading recently as “the prince of soil improvers*” and hornbeam (together with oak and beech) makes top-quality** mould. Leaf mould is not rich in nutrients; however, it improves the organic matter content of soil (essential with our sandy soil) and helps retain moisture.

    So I emptied the cage from the bottom and filled it back at the top.

    Then it was the turn of planting the Aronia. Also known as chokeberry, the plant is great for winter colour and has edible berries that come in red, purple or black (depending on the species); the taste of said berries is more or less palatable (with some only suitable for cooking) and it apparently improves after frost. Chokeberries are allegedly rich in antioxidants and they are gaining popularity as a “super food” (although I never get too excited on a single fruit/veg as miraculous; I believe a balanced diet of fresh, local and non-chemically treated plants and some free-range meat and dairy, from animals fed as nature intended, is best).

    Starting on the path

    Finally, it was the turn of filling in the path with woodchips (and topping up the old path too), a task made lighter by the precious help of a colleague and a volunteer.

    The new path was inaugurated by our lovely regular visitors Brenda and Gordon, who have been taking an active interest on the progress of my area.

    The finished path

    I had never edged a path before, let alone a winding one, so I found it really interesting to discover how it is done: a series of parallel cuts into the boards makes them flexible to bending, a technique also used for training spindle trees. The boards are then fixed into place by nailing to posts driven into the ground. Et voila’.

    Parallel cuts make the wood bendy Fixing to posts

    References:
    * M. Wilson, RHS New Gardening, Mitchell Beazley, 2007
    ** RHS Wisley Experts, Gardeners’ Advice, Dorling Kindersley, 2004

  • The potager in the Cottage Garden

    Back from my extended Christmas leave I found a batch of plants waiting for me in the Garden’s reception area (that is where plants accepted into the garden are checked and monitored for pest and diseases).

    It was the Lonicera nitida for the hedging in my Cottage Garden, donated to the RHS by the lovely folks at nursery best4hedging in support to my potager project (that I mentioned before).

    I have chosen L. nitida for the Cottage Garden as an alternative to box, as the popularity of such plant and its extensive planting across the country has meant that it has become an easy target for pests and diseases, the two most recent and devastating ones being box blight (caused by fungi Cylindrocladium buxicola and Pseudonectria buxi) and the box tree caterpillar (Cydalima perspectalis). L. nitida is rather dainty with its small light green foliage, but it’s vigorous in growth so it is used for hedge and topiary, and it will likely do well in our poor sandy soil, even if it will require clipping back at least 3 times a year; it should feel proportionate for the area in which it is planted.

    Wilson’s honeysuckle, as it is commonly known, comes also in a cultivar called ‘Baggesen’s Gold’ with yellow leaves, that was awarded an AGM, but as green leaves would be more appropriate to the location, I have chosen to plant the species.

    Given that this plant is relatively free of pests and diseases, I was able to retrieve it from the reception area earlier than I would if it had been Buxus, as monitoring for plants with known problems needs to be carried out for longer*. So today I was able to carry out my planting.

    I was a bit nervous, as my design was a bit unusual for a potager. I was going to fill a square bed that is already delimited by clay rope edging and decided not to plant along the perimeter, but to create a circle in the middle (around an existing apple tree) and “spokes” from the circle to the square’s corners. As the paths into the Cottage Garden approach the square bed from the corners, I thought planting along the perimeter would look like a wall in the face of the visitors, while lines from the corners to the centre would lead the eye on.

    The Cottage Garden area before (looking North)

    The Cottage Garden consists of a more formal half (including the square
    bed) and a more informal area. By choosing to make a potager with a neat, geometrically shaped hedge, I have emphasized its formality.

    Draft of plan and elevation: geometric and soft “informal” design

    An alternative design I had discussed with a specialist colleague (who sketched it for me) would have been to soften the formal geometric hard landscaping of this half of the Cottage Garden, linking it to the informal area, by using a less structured type of hedging (i.e. Alchemilla mollis) planted in circles.

    Plants laid out

    Having made my choice on paper, I was still a bit uneasy about how it might look in practice, so I laid the plants down first thing to have a look at the design in situ. What I saw was encouraging.

    Design implemented with string and canes

    So, fresh from my training in implementing complex designs, I started measuring and delimiting the area with canes and string. As the apple tree was slightly off centre (it had to be planted with a sling from a truck, as it was full size), with my canes and string I found it easy to adjust the design, by making the circle a little bit smaller.

    Planting finished

    Then I proceeded with planting the Lonicera in two rows, either side of the string, spacing the plants about 20 cm.

    Lonicera leading the eye on from the path

    I was definitely pleased with the results, but wanted to remove all the props before starting to enthuse. A good rake to the soil… and yes, I am really pleased. Two colleagues, a volunteer and a couple of visitors have already fed back they liked it!

    The feeling is to have come a long way from the first time I worked in my area back in October, clearing the spent meadow from under the apple tree in the square bed! 

    The Cottage Garden area after (looking South)

    But of course this is just the start: we now have to grow the veg and fruit to fill the newly created divisions in the bed. They are four, by the way, to accomodate a four-year rotation: Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae, followed by Alliaceae and Papillionaceae, then Brassicaceae and Asteraceae and finishing with Apiaceae and Chenopodiaceae. The circle around the apple tree will be mulched and will give the tree roots some space to develop undisturbed.

    * a note on P&D: if checking on purchased plants, keep in mind that potted plants (as opposed to bare roots, could also harbour some in the soil!

  • Conifers

    Conifers. For most of my life I have not considered them much individually: I loved their scent in the air on bright chilly nights when I lived in the mountains in Italy. Then I spent some time among labelled specimens at Kew, and a few things caught my attention:

    • the fresh, aromatic scent they give out in hot weather too, 
    • the beauty of Larix laricina‘s cones (which could easily compete with the prettiest of roses), 
    • that if you look closely, and know what to look out for, they are different, and some are surprisingly beautiful.

    At the time, encouraged (not little) by a Plant ID deadline looming, and with the help of two lovely colleagues, I started looking more closely to conifers, and I was able to recognise Cedrus atlantica, I picked a favourite in Pseudotsuga menziesii, with its pinepple scented dark green, flat needles, started to be obsessed by the difference between Thuja and Chamaecyparis which I couldn’t quite pin down for a while, and almost wrote a whole blog entry on the intriguing seeds of Cephalotaxus. And I started taking pictures of conifers in woods, still with uncertain identification skills.

    Now I have another opportunity to have a go at identifying conifers, as we are having a dedicated Plant ID. Today we even enjoyed a walk in the pinetum with two conifer experts.

    Apart from having the opportunity to look at the various specimens and have their habits and garden merits explained, we got a very useful quick guide to tell apart the genus Abies and Picea (the “Christmas trees”). I also found instructions online to tell them apart from pines, genus Pinus.

    ABIES PICEA PINUS
    • single needles
    • softer, flat,
      do not roll between fingers 
    • needles attached on “suckers”, smooth branches 
    • cones crumble then fall
    • smooth bark, often grayish, then furrowed
    • have rather regimented tiers
    • single needles
    • sharply pointed,
      4-sided, roll between fingers
    • needles with woody stalks
      (remain when shedded, rough branches)
    • cones fall whole, thinner scales
    • bark rough, then furrowed and scaly
    • needles in clusters of 2, 3, 5 
    • thicker scales cones
    • young bark smooth, then flaky, reddish-brown

    We were told how to identify CEDRUS too (also in the family Pinaceae), which carry their leaves in whorls around the stems, looking like tufts, and similarly to Abies their cones never make it to the ground intact. Cedars come in three main species: C. libani, with level branches, C. deodara, with descending branches, and C. atlantica, with ascending branches.

    Besides family Pinaceae (to which the three genuses above belong, and which also covers Larix, Pseudolarix, Tsuga and Pseudotsuga) conifers also include family Cupressaceae (with Cupressus, Juniperus, Thuja, Metasequoia, Taxodium, Cryptomeria, Cunninghamia, Cephalotaxus etc), Taxaceae, Podocarpaceae, Araucariaceae and, interestingly, a family I had never heard of Sciadopityaceae, that only contains species Sciadopitys verticillata.

    Conifers belong to group of plants gymnosperms, meaning naked
    seed, as they do not develop inside an ovary, but are exposed (i.e. on
    the scales of pinecones).

    So, at the end of the walk, what were my favourite conifers?

    Thujopsis dolabrata, Cupressaceae, for its stunning underleaf, where the stomatal bands form a branching pattern.

    Abies koreana, Pinaceae, for its squat, square-tipped and stiff needles, without mentioning the blue cones, when they come out!

  • Spindles

    Mature spindles
    A row of young spindles
    A kinky leader;
    on the side, a vertical branch

    Spindlebushes. A kinky leader at the top, not a permanent one; a layer of branches, slightly above the
    horizontal at the bottom (not the very bottom, about 75 cm), with a gap in the middle.

    This shape is widely used in commercial growing of apples and pears, having been perfected by the Dutch in the 50s-70s. It is the shape a seedling starts off in life, and was originally conceived in the middle ages in France – that’s how we were introduced to it today, third day of training.

    I’m not a fan of restricted forms of tree (which became popular once we stopped having grazing animals in orchards), as I quite like to see trees in their full glorious shape. But there are sound horticultural and business reasons to choose this shape (although the latest shape is double leaders, to reduce pruning time/costs), which usually requires (semi-)dwarfing rootstock. For apples MM106 does not die easily and crops well in early yrs, but then becomes overvigorous, so M9 may be better.

    As the shape is light, fruit is easy to pick and you don’t need a ladder to prune it; the low-angled branches lead to earlier cropping (it has to do with the flow of sap, and with the sunshine reaching the fruits), and you can plant the trees closer so you get more cropping per area (rowscan be as close as 4 m even though we have trees planted at 4.5 m in the orchard, to allow for easier walking of the visitors and tractor space).

    Formative pruning

    A spindle starts off as a feathered maiden, whose framework of branches are aligned as a diagonal cross to the others down the row. Bending is done in the spring, as branches may break, stiffer as they are in the cold, and they do not set into position until they start growing anyway.

    To keep the branches down – for a maximum of 6 weeks – one can use hop screws, or W clips, or even cute little bright-coloured (for maximum visibility) weights on the branches (the drawback of these being that the branches wave about).

    A branch weight
    Hop screw and W clip demonstration

    The central leader, which is meant to be kinky to keep the vigour in check, is usually pruned to 10 cm above the uppermost feather, which is rather counterintuitive; sideshoots are tipped to 3 buds down if too vigorous or weak.

    Regulatory and renovation pruning

    Pruning of the spindles goes by the general principles, with these additions:

    • you need a bare area between the leader and the “skirt” (my term) of branches, to let air and light in; keepp only spurs and short branches on the main stem
    • the “skirt” needs to be rather flat: you don’t want a peak in it by cutting a branch going up so that then it goes down
    • spurs grow on 2nd year old wood and older; you need to keep some of the new wood otherwise you won’t have enough fruit in 2 years’ time; much of the new wood grows upright: pears will fruit on vertical shoots, but they are generally cut or bent anyway
    • if you don’t get enough new growth, or nothing is suitably placed, you still need to get some replacement wood. To do this, you use a special slanted cut, D shaped: a “Dutch cut”. Instead of cutting flush to the branch, you cut at a slant, leaving enough room on the side that you want a new branch for shoot hopefully to come out from the base. You never do Dutch cuts at the tip of a branch, or on the upperside of a branch; only in the middle and on the side
    A Dutch cut
    Shoot on a successful Dutch cut
      New growth tucked under a branch

     

    • if new growth is suitably placed to be trained as replacement, you may tuck it in under another branch to remember the branch needs tying down in the spring. 
    • in some places, they tie up as well as down, but not here

    • the leader needs replacing every so often (when too heavy and old) so keep in mind you need a replacement for it as well. But if it is too vigorous, it’s best left and cut back in June rather than in the winter; remember: summer pruning restrict grows, winter pruning stimulates growth
    • by the principle above, sometimes strong verticals are pruned out on vigorous spindles in late July/August 

    Another day of wondering and mild frustration from not being able to quite pin down the essence of all the principles… even more so because, as I have realised after being assigned to a row of spindles today, next to someone that had worked with them before, that you have to be able to predict the future shape of the tree, and plan ahead how to get it, while I have never seen a spindle grow before! I have to be patient.

    Bourses

    Bourses, a French term for bags. It refers to shoots that grow elongated and swell up at the base of a flower cluster. They occur, depending largely on cultivars, on both apples and pears and are no particular issue, except for the fact that they may be prone to canker, in which case they need to be cut out.

    Bourses affected by canker

About Me

M.Paola M.Paola, that’s me

I got my first allotment in the UK in 2007 and started growing my own food. Learning as I went along was not enough, so I studied horticulture. Faced with the horticultural warfare, I became a conscientious objector: I use no chemicals and support organic principles and regulations.

Brexit gave me a new life in the Netherlands, three new plots by a nature reserve and an MSc in sustainable food systems.

I write in my personal capacity and, as a language perfectionist and a non native speaker, I keep reviewing my entries’ text for clarity.

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