Emma the Gardener

Variegated holly at Harcourt Arboretum last year.

Open the final door

• Pretty Christmas tree pictures


• And episode 96 of the Alternative Kitchen Garden Snow, on holiday plants.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Mistletoe on one of the old apple trees at Cotehele, Cornwall, this April.

Open door 24:

• Grow your own mistletoe


• And listen to the Alternative Kitchen Garden Christmas Eve story :)

Last door tomorrow!

I’ve recently submitted my second essay for my ethnobotany course, and I chose to write it on the way that the history of heritage vegetable varieties (their origin stories) influences the choice people make to grow them. Whether or not I share any more of it with you will depend, in part, on whether it turns out to be any good ;)

In the course of my research I came across an interesting article by Derrick Purdue who did some research into people who save seeds in the west of England. He divides them into four ‘tribes’:

• ‘Botanic’ – people inspired by our botanic garden heritage, interested in plant families and endangered species


• ‘Biodynamic’ – people inspired by Steiner and New Age spirituality, who are motivated by improving the fertility of seed


• ‘Organic’ – people inspired by the organic gardening movement, and motivated by the current biodiversity crisis to preserve heritage vegetables


• ‘Permaculture’ – people inspired by the work of Mollison and committed to forest gardens and sustainability by design to save seed from perennial vegetables

My essay concentrated on the heritage varieties available from the Heritage Seed Library and similar organisations overseas. (A sponsored vegetable, or membership to the HSL, makes a good Christmas gift for a gardener, by the way ;) I have been a member for years, and love reading the stories printed in the catalogue each year and wondering about the paths seeds have taken to get to me.

Daubenton kale plants in Patrick Whitefield’s garden, photo copyright Patrick Whitefield

One of the varieties I chose last year was the perennial Daubenton’s Kale. I have grown it myself, from a cutting (if you’re looking for your own then have a word with Alison from Backyard Larder and she may be able to hook you up), and was under the impression that it didn’t set seed. And yet there it was, in the HSL catalogue. And I had been trying to root some cuttings to pass on to a friend, but I failed miserably (Alison can’t understand why, as it should be easy ;) and so I ordered the seeds not for myself, but for him.

And I’m thrilled to say that he has had success growing the seeds, and has some young plants flourishing in his garden:

“I sowed them early in the spring and planted out two strong plants. Then I had to go off and teach a course in May and, despite leaving them surrounded by a generous cordon of bran, the slugs duly defoliated them. So I resowed, many more plants this time.

To my surprise the first lot recovered and started growing again, so I had both lots in the ground. Then I went away on another course and the cabbage whites defoliated the spring sowing again and did a fair bit of damage to the second sowing. But both lots have regrown! What an amazing plant.”

Daubenton kale in Patrick Whitefield’s garden, photo copyright Patrick Whitefield

What living history are you growing in your garden?

Gaultheria shallon is a hardy shrub in the Ericaceae family – it’s related to blueberries, which is very obvious from the flowers (although not, perhaps, in this picture).

Also known as Shallon, or Salal, it’s native to western North America and was introduced into the UK as an ornamental shrub. In suitably acidic environments it can become invasive, although it’s easily kept under control by grazing animals.

It’s a good choice for a forest garden as it tolerates both sunny and shady conditions, growing to around 2 metres. According to Wikipedia, the fruits produced are actually swollen sepals; they are produced in abundance through the summer, dark purple and the size of blackcurrants and a bit like their blueberry relatives.

They have been used as appetite suppressants, but also make good eating – dried or fresh, baked or made into jam. The leaves are edible and can be used for herbal tea or as a potherb. Apparently the foliage is also popular with florists.

If you want to add this pretty shrub to your garden then you’ll either need acid soil or to keep it in a container in a suitable ericaceous growing medium.

Have you grown shallon?

Martin Crawford has quite a large stand of Berberis lycium, the Indian Barberry, on one side of his forest garden, planted as part of the wind break. It’s mainly in the background in this photograph, but you can see the yellow flowers.

Native to East Asia and the Himalayas, Berberis lycium is self-fertile and hardy, and grows to a final height of around 3 metres. Those yellow flowers are good for bees, and the small fruits that follow are popular with birds. They’re also edible, even after they have dried on the plant (if the birds leave you any!).

Berberis lycium is happy in semi-shade and its prickles make it a decent barrier if you need some security. It doesn’t mind being pruned hard if you need to keep it under control.

According to PFAF, the leaves and shoots are also edible, and you can make a tea from the leaves.

(On the ART website, Martin says that Berberis koreana is the “best edible barberry”.)

Have you added a Berberis to your garden?

Martin Crawford has several lime trees scattered throughout his forest garden. Coppiced or pollarded, they provide one of his main salad crops from May through to October – they’re his perennial ‘lettuce’.

The lime (or linden) tree in the photo above is the large-leaved lime, Tilia platyphyllos, which is cut every year and so never gets to flower. Leaves are harvested nice and young.

Martin also has T. cordata, the small-leaved lime, and says that its leaves have a nicer texture.

Elsewhere you may see the common lime, T. x europea, which is believed to be a hybrid of the small-leaved and large-leaved lime.

Lime flowers are used medicinally, and for herbal teas. They’re also a good flower for bees. You can even use them to make your own chocolate substitute.

And lime sap can be tapped for a sweet drink, or to be reduced to a syrup.

Coppicing, or pollarding, rejuvenates trees and lengthens their life span. A lime tree would normally live around 300 years, but there’s a coppice at Westonbirt arboretum that’s around 2,000 years old and still going strong.

The False strawberry (also known as the Mock or Indian strawberry) is one of Martin Crawford’s ground cover plants. It’s currently identified as Potentilla indica, although better known as Duchesnea indica.

It’s usually shade tolerant, and evergreen. Its leaves are edible – Martin uses lighter green leaves in salad. PFAF recommends cooking leaves; I have seen references to them being used for herbal tea.

The plant produces yellow flowers through the season, which are followed by red fruits that – at first glance – look very much like strawberries. And this gives the plant a bit of a problem with humans, because we put the fruits in our mouths and expect them to taste like strawberries, but they don’t. They’re quite insipid.

Martin adds the fruits to salads, for their watery crunch. They could also be used to bulk out other, tastier, fruits in jams and pies and things like that.

Native to Asia, the false strawberry has now made its way to quite a lot of the world (and in some places it may become weedy). But it doesn’t mind being trodden on occasionally, so it’s a great ground cover choice for a forest garden.

This beautiful tree is the Chinese dogwood, Cornus sinensis, flowering at the end of June. Fruits ripen in October, and apparently taste quite like an apricot.

In his forest garden, Martin Crawford also has Cornus capitata – with fruit that ripen in November and taste like banana.

A slightly more familiar species is the Cornelian Cherry, Cornus mas. When properly ripe, its fruits taste like plums. According to Martin, its flowers can be used as a flavouring, and the seeds have in the past been roasted for a coffee substitute.

All of these trees are fully hardy, can tolerate some shade (although it will affect the amount of fruit) and have fruits that are edible raw or cooked.

Over the last couple of years, growing Szechuan pepper has been increasingly popular here in the UK, although as the bushes take a few years to mature it’s unlikely many people have had much of a harvest.

Martin Crawford has a couple of mature specimens in his forest garden, and harvests up to 2 kg of seeds from each one – without attempting to harvest from the upper branches of these thorny shrubs.

There are several Zanthoxylum species that are suitable, and (according to Martin), they all have slightly different flavours. As with many edible plants from Asia, common names can be a minefield, with several species being referred to as Szechuan (or Sichuan) pepper, and more than one being commercially cultivated.

Martin refers to Z. alatum as the Nepal pepper; it’s also known as the winged prickly-ash. It grows to around 4 metres tall, appreciates a sunny spot, and is hardy down to -20°C.

Z. piperitum is the pepper tree or Japanese prickly ash. It grows 3-6 metres high. Young flowers, leaves and bark are all edible, although the seeds are the main harvest. It likes the same growing conditions.

Z. schinifolium is Szechuan pepper, and grows to around 2 metres. The leaves can be used as well as the seeds, and it can cope with light shade.

James Wong (and Wikipedia) refer to Z. simulans as Szechuan pepper, and Martin mentioned Z. sancho as being a smaller shrub with the same uses.

This beauty as the RISC roof garden is labelled as Zanthoxylum alatum planispinum, and is also known as the Toothache tree, as nibbling on leaves causes a numbing sensation.

Although referred to as ‘pepper’, and used as a spice, these species are in no way related to black pepper or chillies. They’re in the citrus family (the Rutaceae). The seeds themselves are tasteless; the spice is the papery red seed covering. You can dry the seeds and remove them to leave just the spice; or you can leave the seeds in, which is helpful if you want to use your pepper in a grinder. Commercial products often leaves the seeds in to make up the bulk.

It’s been over a month since I attended one of Martin Crawford’s forest gardening courses at his garden in Devon. Rather than focus on the course itself (which is great, I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in forest gardening) I thought I would revive my Forest Garden Plants series and focus on some of the species that caught my eye while I was there.

Martin divides the course into several sections, and the first is mainly concerned with shelter. Wind reduces temperatures, which makes photosynthesis proceed more slowly. The upshot of this is that a suitable wind break can double the growth of young trees, and Martin recommends thinking about shelter belts early on in the planning process.

Martin has several species serving in this capacity (but it’s not their only use, since a defining feature of forest gardens is that most of the plants have more than one function). One of the first we came across on our tours of the garden was this Autumn olive, Elaeagnus umbellata, on the eastern side of the garden.

Although the autumn olive is deciduous, it has a dense branch structure that means this hedge acts as a wind break even in the winter. It’s one of Martin’s favourite fruit crops, a nitrogen-fixing plant, and happy with maritime exposure. It grows to 4 metres high, but there are smaller Elaeagnus species.

This Elaeagnus x ebbingei isn’t one of them – it also forms a sizeable shrub. It’s evergreen, and another good windbreak plant. It flowers in October, and the fruits have to overwinter, so it’s not a heavy cropper in the UK climate.