Garden Centre

Thursday, July 16, 2009

What is this grass?

Next weekend is my local Garden Gadabout for charity – around a dozen local gardeners will open their otherwise secret spaces to the general public, charging a small fee to raise funds.

I always come away not only awash with tea (usually a little too weak for me) and cake, but carrying plants and seeds and filled with brilliant ideas – most of which don’t get put into effect because they are overly ambitious and/or impractical in our circumstances.

In advance of this jamboree, OH and I headed out to a local municipal garden yesterday, to see their plantings. Usually there are two areas of interest in this particular garden at Tilgate: the intensively managed borders in the show gardens, and the allotment garden that is planted and maintained by the local allotment association. The former are usually fairly packed, fairly formal, fairly traditional English borders, the latter can be fascinating – a mixture of flowers and plants, shrubs, fruit trees and other bits and bobs, always a lot better looking than our own allotment!

This time I was surprised, in the formal garden, to discover a black grass, or possibly a member of the teasel family, that was planted in some urns. I managed to obtain some seed, as it was obviously ripe and blowing away from the flower-heads, but I’m wondering when and how to plant, as my chance-grabbed seed is very limited in amount. And can any reader identify this plant for me, as I have never seen it before? It was planted with begonias and geraniums so I’m assuming it likes warm relatively dry conditions with well-draining soil and shelter from wind, but apart from that I’m really guessing and would love any help you can give.

And next week I hope to have photos of the best kept secrets of Sussex gardens to share with you ….

Labels: formal borders, formal garden, garden shows, garden visits, growing from seed, plant identification, saving seed, Tilgate Park

The All Seasons Gardener at 7:05 AM

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