Gardening Scotland Show Part 1

What everyone needs when visiting a garden show (apart from stamina) is a plan of action. In past years we have wandered aimlessly around like a couple of spare parts and missed some of the best bits. This time I was prepared with a map taken of the Gardening Scotland's website.

We were meeting a friend for lunch (picnic in the car park) and decided to look at the various show gardens and  other stands and leave the serious plant hunting until the afternoon.

We wandered round the part that is called the Big Back garden. Stuck our heads in the tepee and the yurt admired the Birds of Prey (I'll bet they were bored) heard a talk about bee keeping, ate ice-cream  and listened to the Pipe Band. We are in Scotland after all. We have to have some bagpipes.



The Show Gardens
These are much smaller then anything that you might see at Chelsea. They also cost less. On the plus side the ideas are probably more transferable than the more expensive show gardens. And There was one we didn't see!. Would you believe it? So apologies to Lesley and Dougal of Hopetoun Garden Centre.
To be honest the Show gardens at this year's show didn't set the heather on fire (not my patch anyway) but there were elements that I liked or were a bit different.

The Floral Hall
This is the place I most look forward to visiting. The best plant displays are here, often from nurseries that have been at Chelsea Flower show.  Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants with their gold medal and introduction of a new anemone were one of the new additions. Here are some of the displays:

Bright colours and delicate leaf patterns on the Heuchera and tiarella display.

Some stunning leaf patterns on the hostas. Someone in the Hosta world is also a Trekkie. The smaller one is the middle is called Captain Kirk.

It may not be to everyone's taste but there is a lot of work and expertise in these immaculately displayed vegetables.

An imaginatively put together display featuring air plants and bromeliads. They deserved their gold medal.

Some very beautiful Cornus Kousa especially the pink one in the middle.

Stunning purple/blue campanulaat the back of the stand.

Peonies, Salvias and alliums feature in this display.

So What did I buy? I'll share that in the next post Gardening Scotland Part 2.

Gardening Scotland 2011

Just time to post this. I'm off the Gardening Scotland in Edinburgh today. I have the obligatory camera, fold down boxes for plant purchases and picnic. And the tickets... where did I put the tickets?

Have a look at the Gardening Scotland site at : http://www.gardeningscotland.com/ or watch Beechgrove Garden's transmissions on http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/.

The Rusty Nail and the Greengage

I'm sure you'll agree our greengage fruit tree is a healthy looking speciman. Perhaps a bit too healthy. It has put on a lot of sappy green growth in the four years it's been planted against our fence.And for the first time this spring it had some blossom. Not much, just a small bunch of about five flowers. After the winds of a couple of weeks ago even that small group had disappeared.

I remembered an elderly lady that visited the garden last year giving us some advice. What to do if a fruit tree won't flower and fruit? Hammer a rusty nail into the trunk. There's your answer! It transpired that she had never done this but had heard on good authority that this worked.

I would never dream of doing that to our tree. But  I had the feeling that there was probably some truth behind this gardening tip. Maybe the theory is that it would stress the tree enough to make it think its end was nigh and it needed to reproduce.

I decided to "google" this interesting tip. I came up with some unexpected but interesting information.
Rusty nails seem to be a great topic for garden discussion forums.

• Put rusty nails in your watering can. On the forum there was a comment stating that there is no point as plants cannot absorb iron this way. Perhaps it depends on the acidity of the water...
• Bury some rusty nails under a tree when you plant it. According to some this doesn't work either for the same reason as above. Unless you know differently....
• Copper nails hammered into a trunk in a circle will kill the tree. Said to be true.....
• As for hammering the rusty nail into the tree to make it fruit there seemed to be a suggestion in some quarters that this works.....

So there you have it - good gardening tip or a bit of an Old Wives tale?

Has anyone else come across similar "tips"or found that any of the above work?

Purple Haze on Wordless Wednesday