Here’s a fantastic list of events that are happening every day this week as part of the Chelsea Fringe and one-off events happening over the next week too. There’ll be plenty more to see and visit over the next few weeks, from Saturday May 18th until Sunday June 9th, and here are just a few to tempt you. Above is Deborah Nagan’s garden, open as Brixton Nights as part of the Fringe.

You can visit 225a Brixton Road down in South London every Tuesday and Wednesday night 6.30-10.30pm for the next three weeks-and it’s a real treat.

It’s a beautifully designed contemporary garden,with fruit canes and fruit trees providing plenty of screening from the neighbours and a sunken garden (complete with pool and rill) for a quiet retreat.

Thoughtful strips of raised beds create many planting possibilities throughout the garden and are populated with a joyous mixture of ornamentals, fruit and veg. There’s hear tell of weird goings on in the shed and a nightime, fizzier, alternative to the usual NGS tea and cakes will be available.

Tickets are £3.50 each with proceeds going to the charities supported by the NGS and tickets can be bought in advance from studio@uncommonland.co.uk to avoid possible cues on the door.

Just north of the river, Andrea Brunnsendorf and her team at The Inner Temple Gardens will be organising a dog show and much more for It’s a dogs life in the garden from 2-5pm on June 9th. Have a look at their website for details of their dog competition, cake baking competition, a garden quiz and guessing games-all with prizes galore.

At the moment the Inner Temple Gardens are looking resplendent with sumptuous combinations of tulips, alliums and forget-me-nots,

(and also their vibrant woodland planting), but will be transformed again in time for the dog show with their new summer planting. Worth visiting now (weekdays 12.30-3pm) and again on June 9th I reckon!

And last of this first round-up is our own Chelsea Fringe Cake Sunday. Do come and join us in Finsbury Park on Sunday 2nd June, 2-4pm.

There’ll be oodles of tea and home-made cakes plus a number of small happenings and installations in the vicinity.

Marvel at our topiary herd of elephants and see Tim Bushe give a topiary demonstration at 2.30pm. Join in with seed bomb making, be dazzled by our disco ball glam-rockery and enjoy free vegetable seeds, a botanical art exhibition in our local green grocers,

and hear Jo Stephenson from ‘Can you dig it’ sing songs about slugs other horticultural themes in a front garden on our street. You’ll also be able to catch both Jo and Dan at Oxford House in Bethnal Green on Saturday, June 8th. Tickets bookable for the duo from here.

I  popped down to the Chelsea Physic Garden recently to hear the marvellous Joy Larkcom talk about unusual veg. The talk was wonderful and inspiring (more about that soon in another post), but I just had to share a few pics of the glorious Wisterias adorning various walls and railings en route in SW3. Take the purple panicles pushing through the railings above. Who wouldn’t want such a magnificent hedge?

And I take my hat off to the gardener who manages to keep the ivy at bay on the front of this house.

I’ve never been one for heights and this creeper must need regular pruning to give the Wisteria a fighting chance to flower each year.

Some of the plants growing up these houses seem to be springing out of the foundations from the lightwell in the basement, but I also love the way this trunk artfully swings its way towards the bricks and mortar from further afield.

And even though you can’t see the full glory of the Wisteria here, you still get the benefit of the delicious scent as you wander by. Marvellous.

P.s.

Here’s a few more Wisterias that I pass by regularly (not always with a camera) on my journeys closer to home in North London. I’ve admired of theses beautiful twisted trunks and flowers for the last few years.

Same street, different house (notice different coloured door) and slightly different training. Equally gorgeous.

And just around the corner from where I live.

And lastly on the same street, this very elegant display. Love ‘em all.

P.P.S Have a look a Veronica’s wisteria sighting in Lambeth!

]]> http://outofmyshed.co.uk/2013/05/13/wisteria-in-chelsea/feed/ 13 outofmyshed Wisteria in Swan Walk Wisteria with Ivy in Chelsea 2 Wisteria with Ivy in Chelsea Wisteria in Chelsea Wisteri ahanging over wall in Chelsea 2 Wisteria on Laurier Road Wisteria on Laurier Road 2 Wisteria on Aubert Park Wisteria on Aubert Park 2 http://outofmyshed.co.uk/2013/05/08/dividing-agapanthus-and-tulips-update/ http://outofmyshed.co.uk/2013/05/08/dividing-agapanthus-and-tulips-update/#comments Wed, 08 May 2013 05:32:35 +0000 outofmyshed http://outofmyshed.co.uk/?p=6145 ]]>

I have to admit that my dividing Agapanthus pics are none too visually thrilling, so I’m shamelessly throwing in an update of my gorgeous tulips at the same time.

A week later than my last tulip post and the very dark ‘Queen of the Night’ and the softer, more frilly ‘Curly Sue’ are adding a more sombre note to the bed. Very raspberry ripple, but the firey orange ‘Ballerina’ does add a zing and if I was planting this bed again, I’d probably add a few more of these. I’m pleased with the combination none-the-less though.

So here’s my large (16 inch) pot of Agapanthus.

To be honest, it does give me about 30 flowers every summer (with plenty of feeding), but it’s been in this pot for years and I thought it was time to divide it. I originally bought the plant as a large clump of an unnamed variety from Pine Cottage plants and it’s been delighting me for years. This is a glorious Agapanthus specialist nursery in Devon and well worth the visit should you be heading down that way. They also offer a fantastic mail order service with a wide and very tempting selection of cultivars and I’ve ordered many quality plants for clients that way too.

It wasn’t easy removing the plant from the pot, but once the first sliver was out, I was able to use a large sharp kitchen knife to slice through the roots and divide up the rest.

There was hardly any soil left in the pot, but now I’ve re-potted the large clump back into the pot with plenty of fresh rich compost, and the smaller pieces have been planted in a neighbour’s garden. I’m hoping that I should get some flowers from the larger clump this year and I’m curious to see if the smaller pieces will flower too in the soil this summer.

Meanwhile, back in the Tulip bed, I’m lapping up what these luscious spring bulbs have to offer.

I bought this lovely delicate star-shaped Vinca oxyloba at the Garden Museum‘s plant fair this weekend. It actually grows in their garden and this is from their own stall. It’s a new plant to me and one I’ll be using again and again.

I’ve grown to love vincas over the years for their ability to colonise the most difficult of shady areas and to surprise me with flowers when least expected.

Herbal Haven was the nursery that originally lured me to the plant fair, and I stocked up on African basil (and some other tasty plants) for the year ahead. Not only are the leaves absolutely delicious, but the gorgeous pink spires of flowers will attract bees all summer long. Herbal Haven offer a great online shopping service too with a fantastic selection of herbs, and The Garden Museum will be opening its doors again for the Heroic Herbs Fair on June 1st.

This year I planned to have a lovely contrast of pink and purple tulips in my front garden. Blousey pink Tulipa Rai proved to be a big success with clients, so it’s back again as the star of the show. I love it here alongside my Red Giant Mustard leaf. The purple tulips which I hoped would work well with the T.Rai look to be a week or so behind, but orange Ballerina is now returning for its third year since planting, and yellow and red Helmar has also popped up again in quite a number from last year’s planting.

I’ve always assumed that in my heavy clay soil that tulips will struggle to return, but these are raised beds that I’ve added plenty of compost to over the last few years, and some varieties are definitely more adept than others on making a comeback. As ever, my chosen combinations are not quite as planned (yet!), but looking forward to seeing how the bed progresses over the next week or so…

I love lettuces. Can never get enough of them. This year I was determined to get sowing nice and early and be eating my home-grown leaves by the end of May. Well, I found a mildish day at the beginning of March and optimistically sowed a number of small trays of lettuces. I popped them into my mini outdoor greenhouse (with no heat) and started to get excited. Six weeks on, and a lot later than I had planned, I’m pricking out these ‘All the year around’ lettuce seedlings above into modules. They’re rather on the leggy side due to the low light conditions and low temperatures that we’ve had in March.

However, these leggy stems can be twirled around into the soil when you’re pricking out your seedlings (I use a spindly crochet hook, although I can’t crochet) and hopefully, with much better light levels (hurrah!), should go on to be very healthy seedlings indeed. So far I’ve sown

• Ashbrook (a frilly loose leaved variety, but sadly they didn’t germinate-disappointing, but luckily a rare occurence these days!)
• Chatsworth (A chunky dark green Cos lettuce  from Sea Spring Seeds, claiming to be virtually bitter free)
• Red Salad Bowl (another red frilly type from Sea Spring Seeds)
• All the year around (a soft butterhead, hopefully slow to bolt from Seed Parade)

but Michelle at Veg Plotting has sown an impressive 22 different varieties this year and is hoping to add a few more as part of her 52 Week Salad Challenge. Really looking forward to seeing how they all grow. I wish I had a bit more growing space! I’m just off to sow a few more varieties:

• Cocarde (a very tasty pointy upright reddish tinged oak leaf lettuce that I loved last year, available from Chilterns Seeds)
• Freckles (a fab lightish green Cos, spotted with reddy/brown markings, that gave me delicious salads all  summer long last year. Originally from Sarah Raven, but grown this year from my own painstakingly collected seeds!)
• Navara (a deep red oak leaf from Sarah Raven, new to me this year)
• Forellenschluss (an heirloom Cos variety from Chilterns seeds, means ‘speckled like a trout’ and I wonder if this is very similar to/ the same as ‘Freckles’?)

Out of everything I grew last year, I think lettuces gave me the best return for the space and time they occupied. I loved experimenting with ‘no dig’ potatoes and rainbow carrots in pots-they were a true delight to unearth-but it was the lettuces that kept me in dinners all summer long, from June until August. I’m so looking forward to planting these seedlings out to create decorative displays (as well as supplying many meals) and I still have it firmly in my head to try and master successive planting of these leaves (sowing again in July and August), so that I can have salads all year round from my own garden.

p.s. I’ve also sown ‘Green in Snow’, ‘Red Knight Mizuna’ and ‘Broad leaved Mizuna’ to add a mustardy bite and extra texture to my salads.