by Lorna Howarth
of Wildwood Nursery
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A walk in the countryside is fascinating and inspiring to the imaginative gardener tired of the mundane advice from television garden makeovers and who seeks to incorporate something of the lush intricacy of the 'wilderness' into their own garden. For example, the combination of self-heal and knapweed with their shades of vibrant purple, and yellow toadflax - with its spires of snapdragon-like flowers is a show-stopper and can be seen in many hedgerows in late summer - is a veritable magnet for bees and beneficial insects. But there is another dimension to these 'wild' and naturalistic plantings, and that is one of usefulness. Most native plants are edible or useful in some way and our ancestors knew how to use the properties of these plants for cooking, in medicines, and for an array of domestic purposes. Imagine a bed or border where every plant is useful: an abutilon surrounded by soapwort, garlic chives, salad burnet, and woodruff - every bit as colourful and beautiful as a traditional planting scheme, but useful and edible too! Or think of a bog garden planted with a swathe of exquisite geum rivale, that late spring favourite with nodding blooms of orange flowers, and roots that once dried and powdered make a chocolate-like drink. Even the ubiquitous bulrush that is often unceremoniously discarded from bog gardens as if it were a weed, has a myriad of uses. Its roots can be eaten raw, or cooked like potatoes. The young shoots can be eaten as an asparagus substitute in spring and the immature flowers can be cooked like sweetcorn. An edible oil can be obtained from the seed and the highly inflammable pollen can be used in making fireworks! What is more, the stems and leaves can be gathered in the late autumn for thatching, weaving mats and chair seats and they make an excellent biomass addition to the compost heap. It is time to see plants in a different light. We could design and plant our gardens with useful trees, shrubs, perennials, herbs, bulbs and climbers, to create a beneficial and harmonious eco-system. Every time we eat a home-grown meal, we are reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and our impact on climate change. Thankfully, we can still pick blackberries from the hedgerow, but many wild plants have delicious roots - and it is illegal to take a whole plant from the wild. Another good reason to grow wild and useful plants is that they are mostly perennial - unlike most vegetables, which are annual and have to be planted ever year. At Wildwood Nurseries, we have some favourite wild vegetables and flowers with which you can grace your garden. One such is wild garlic - allium ursinum. This superb plant produces wide, strap-like, bright green leaves that are delicious - a cross between the taste of leeks and the texture of spinach - perfect in salads, soups or as a steamed vegetable. The pretty white star-shaped flowers are also edible, as are the seeds. The whole plant dies-back to its underground bulb (which can also be harvested judiciously and used like garlic) by late May - leaving plenty of room for late summer performers such as soapwort - saponaria officinalis - to come through. Soapwort is such a must-have plant. Its growth habit is robust, a single plant forming a good clump in two years, and it carries the most beautiful pale pink flowers from mid-August until the first frosts. The flowers attract many beneficial insects and moths, so it is a great plant to use as a companion in the vegetable plot. Soapwort, as its name suggests, was traditionally used to clean delicate fabrics. The whole macerated plant can be infused in warm water to make a very effective detergent and the roots can be dried and flaked to make an effective, concentrated cleaning agent. It is still used to clean that most delicate of fabrics, the Bayeaux Tapestry. A favourite for the bog garden or stream-side is marsh mallow - althaea officinalis. This is our native mallow and is closely related to the garden hollyhock, with similar leaves and flowers which are pale pink with a darker centre, and much-loved by bumble-bees. Marsh mallow was once used extensively for culinary and medicinal purposes. Its leaves can be lightly steamed and used as a vegetable or in soups. Mallow leaf tea is recommended as a tonic and pick-me-up and it is an invaluable plant for attracting beneficial insects. When discussing useful plants, one should never overlook the humble gorse - ulex europaeus - which is one of those plants essential to the gardener seeking to establish a long season of interest. Its main flush of brilliant yellow flowers comes between February and April, but it continues to flower on and off for most of the year - and those flowers make the most tasty wine, with their subtle coconut aroma infusing the drink. A good hedging plant with sharp spines and dark evergreen foliage, it is even tolerant of being severely pruned, so it can also be used as a topiary or specimen shrub. It is also leguminous, so it fixes nitrogen in the soil, thereby improving fertility. One of its main uses is to establish itself over regenerating woodland, its dense prickly habit keeping the deer at bay, and allowing seedlings to flourish. After ten years or so, the canopy of the seedlings shades out the gorse and a woodland is re-established. And the wood of gorse burns very hot. Wildwood Nursery has an expanding range of rare, wild, interesting or useful plants. Our catalogue features over one hundred species and is packed with interesting and useful information about each plant. Our website will be up and running by the end of 2003.
Contact: Lorna Howarth |