Author: Ned McDowell

Photo of David Austin

In the early 1960s, David Austin revolutionized the rose world with a completely new group of roses, his ‘English Roses’. His roses are a triumph of hybridisation. They possess the great flower shape, form and rich fragrance qualities of old-fashioned roses while incorporating the long flowering characteristics of modern hybrid teas and floribundas, with none of the drawbacks associated with either class. These superb roses have duly become internationally famous for their beauty of flowers, their magic colours and their rich intoxicating scents.
Sadly, he died in 2018, aged 92, but his great legacy remains in all our gardens for us to continually admire, appreciate and enjoy forever more.
All my rose choices were all introduced over 30 or more years ago. Their selection is based on my experience in my own garden and countless other gardens where I have been privileged to work in. Thus, they have stood the test of time and have remained just as universally popular since their first introduction.
So these are my top five picks. All importantly, they are all renowned for their repeat flowering throughout the entire seasons of spring, summer and autumn.

HERITAGE

Introduced: 1984.
Parentage: Iceberg x Wife of Bath.
Growth: Height 1.5m – 2.25m x width 1m x 1.5m.
Flowers: Plump pink buds open to cupped blooms of shell-like delicacy in the most perfect of soft pinks, the outer petals pass almost to white as the flowers mature.
Fragrance: They have a lovely bitter-sweet scent, a rich honey with overtones of carnations and fruit on a wonderful myrrh background. The scent of myrrh is found in many David Austin roses.
Disease Resistance: The strong sturdy plant has clean stems with only a few thorns and the dark green foliage has great disease resistance.
Cut Flowers: Very good.

I have a dear friend in Moree who in her back garden has planted Heritage en masse, five deep and nine wide, a glorious sight and a combined fragrance that could only be found in heaven. This magic then extends into the house as big vases of the fabulous fragrant cut flowers are festooned in every room. In design matters, it is brave in execution and brilliant in realisation. Truly memorable.

JUDE THE OBSCURE

Name: Named after the title of a novel by Thomas Hardy.
Introduction: 1995.
Parentage: Abraham Darby x Windrush.
Growth: Height 1.6m – 2.5m x width 1.4m – 2m.
Flowers: Apricot buds open to large fully double cupped blooms, the palest of apricots with a cream centre and pale almost white outer petals. Its subtleness in colouring is a pure delight.
Fragrance: An intense fruity scent, with a mix of lychee, magnolia, guava and sweet white wine. The scent is truly divine and for me, one of the best fragrances of any rose, just dynamite in its perfume.
Disease Resistance: The foliage is semi-glossy dark green and very disease resistant.
Cut Flowers: Good.

I have a long, mixed hedge of Jude intermingled with the coppery orange of Pat Austins with another hedge of the crisp white flowering of icebergs in front. I simply love it

ABRAHAM DARBY

Name: It was named after one of the great founders of the Industrial Revolution.
Introduction: 1985.
Parentage: Floribunda Yellow Cushion x modern climber Aloha.
Growth: Height 1.25m – 1.75m x width 1.25m – 1.75m.
Flowers: The beautifully large cupped flowers are filled with lightly ruffled petals of a coppery apricot and mid pink in colour, with the outer petals turning more towards a blend of soft pink and apricot and fading to a coral pink as they mature.
Fragrance: A very strong perfume with fruity tones, its marvellous scent even greater than the blooms, and that is saying something. Just exquisite.
Disease Resistance: Foliage plentiful and shiny. The olive green leaves are rated above average for disease resistance.
Cut Flowers: The blooms are borne singly in small clusters on long stems perfect for cutting.
I have about three specimens in my garden, but boy I wish I had room for a good long hedge. A great and unforgettable rose

GERTRUDE JEKYLL

Name: Named after the famous groundbreaking garden designer and author, (1843-1932).
Introduced: 1986.
Parentage: Wife of Bath x Portland rose Comte de Chambord

Growth: Height 2.25m – 2.75m x Width 2.25m – 2.75m.
Flowers: Flowers begins as dainty small buds then open to large perfect scrolled shaped flowers of a bright and most glorious rich hot pinks.
Fragrance: A true powerhouse of perfume and for me right up there as the best, probably none better. In recent experiments carried out for the extraction of essential oils for perfume, this rose was found to be the best and superior to any other rose. Its scent is intoxicating. and its perfume may well carry you away to a state of utter bliss. Love it too bits.
Disease Resistance: Very good.
Cut Flowers: Excellent.

I have seven specimens scattered throughout my garden, all positioned next to paths or staircases so I can always enjoy their magnificent perfume. I love it because it just does not shut up flowering. In addition, it was the first David Austin I ever planted which began my true love affair and succeeding collection of his roses.

PAT AUSTIN

Name: It was named after David Austin’s wife, so it must be great.
Introduced: 1995.
Parentage: Graham Thomas x Abraham Darby.
Growth: Height 1.2m – 2m x Width 1m – 1.2m.
Flowers: Once you have seen this flower there is no going back. You will be totally addicted. The blooms are deeply cupped and seem to possess every shade of orange imaginable, from bright coppery orange, through to apricot, peach and tangerine, with the back of the petals a rich yellow, then the overall flower maturing into salmon with lovely tints of soft pink. Glorious in appearance, yet so perfectly subtle in its colouring. Just superb. Pure dynamite in any garden.
Fragrance: It is said it has a good tea fragrance but sadly for me, absolutely nothing, a total zilch. This is the only DA rose I recommend without a great fragrance, but the true magnificence of the blooms for me, overrides this deficiency.
Disease Resistance: The foliage is a star in itself with rich coppery plum purple, a stunning complement to the orange tones of the flowers. It is highly disease resistant.
Cut Flowers: Good

A great example of Pat Austin plantings can be found at the Bird Walker’s Garden at Black Mountain. A large circular garden bed is home to about a dozen of the rose, with the blue flowering and grey foliage of massed planted catmint billowing around their feet. A perfect complement to the purple foliage and orange toned flowers. Just stunning.

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It would be great, if you have your own Top Five David Austin Roses to continue the conversation and provide your own Top Five David Austin picks on my Facebook page, ‘Ned McDowell Gardens’.

My ‘Coming Very Soon’ rose blogs will include posts on

‘Understanding and Identifying Rose Fragrances,’

‘Easy Steps of Rose Pruning,’

‘How to Grow Great Roses’

‘My Top five Climbers,’

‘My Top five Floribundas,’ 

‘My Top Five Hybrid Teas,’

And individual posts on particular roses which are so great they deserve their own blog, for example, Madame Alfred Carriere.

Happy gardening and have fun in your own search for the perfect David Austin rose or ten.
Regards Ned McDowell.

‘Lollipop’

Today, early August 2023, I have just purchased and planted my first ever bare rooted Itoh peony. Two in fact, Caroline Constable and Canary Brilliants. They were prohibitively expensive, between $55 to $79 for a single dormant specimen in plastic bulb bags. With a little research of online quality bulb companies, I discovered they were asking nearly double the price, and Etsy well half the price.

Due to their colossal price, I waited a week, nearly two. They were way above my pay scale. I pondered and procrastinated, wracked with indecision. In the nursery I secretly squirrelled away in a dark corner a few varieties for myself to purchase when my long hesitation was hopefully resolved. The rest, for they were so rare, exclusive and of the highest quality, with multiple thick roots as wide and longer than fingers, and half a dozen eyes of buds apiece, I kept partially hidden in a cardboard box, only revealing their presence to devoted avid gardeners and known peony enthusiasts. I didn’t need to. They sold out immediately.

‘Caroline Constable’

For me personally the Itoh peony is big time. The number one plant on my wish/bucket list. The Itoh peony was the very first cross pollination between a herbaceous peony and a tree peony. I had only seen photos of their exquisite blooms online or in English garden magazines along with the fantastic story of their creation.

For long decades, endless previous attempts by hundreds of people, had repeatedly and dismally failed to cross pollinate the two peonies. It seemed to be a hybridizing fantasy. The great obstacle was that the bloom times of the two peonies are many weeks apart, making cross fertilisation mighty difficult. Compounding the issue, though they both are members of the genus Paeonia, genetically they are not so closely related.

‘Canary Brilliants’

The story of the creation of the iconic Itoh peony is a great and fabulous one. In 1948, in the aftermath of World War 2, a Japanese horticulturist, Dr. Toichi Itoh, as in a miracle, was the first to ever successfully cross hybridize the two peonies. He was able to combine the pollen from a tree peony to the ovary of a herbaceous peony. The elusive dream had been finally realized.

Then the great wait began, and a very long wait it was. The only way to fulfill this cross fertilisation dream was by cultivating them from the resulting germinated seeds. For Itoh, it was nearly a decade of unrivalled patient toil and dedicated perseverance before the seedlings grew to near maturity. So very tragically, in 1956 Itoh sadly died, without ever seeing for himself a single bloom produced from his great achievement.

His widow and son continued in the care of the further maturing peonies, and two years later in 1958 they were able to produce the first ever blooms. And what magnificent blooms they were, a combination of the best attributes of both peonies. The blooms stood at 1 metre high, thus needing no staking. The flowers were 20cm or larger in diameter, with the great bonus of a second set of blooms, and upon maturity could produce 50 blooms or more per plant in a single season. It was a Bingo.

‘Impossible Dream’

Itoh’s family in due course sold the majority of the plants to an American horticulturist, Louis Mirnow. He further continued Itoh’s work and with the true acknowledgement of Itoh’s groundbreaking accomplishments, coupled with the greatest honour and respect, patented them with the name of ‘Itoh’ peonies. Thankfully his fame and legacy would forever live on. In the following years, other Americans began to hybridize new varieties.  At this time each specimen was to cost between $700 to $1,500.

The successful cultivation of all peonies, whether they are herbaceous, tree or Itoh, is the ultimate test of soil preparation. This is to ensure their future health and growth and in turn the optimum opportunity for their future prolific flowering. Interestingly, on the back of my newly purchased Itoh peony packet, the label states ‘add a couple of kilograms of lime to the hole, no, not kidding, with the addition of Dynamic Lifter’. It also recommends future applications of lime and fertilizer to be applied at both ANZAC and Melbourne Cup Day, both iconic days in the year’s calendar and thus easy as chips to remember. A monthly soluble solution of trace elements is also mightily beneficial, and an additional dressing of phosphorous when the peonies are in bud will encourage better blooms.

Contrary to the planting of herbaceous peonies, when planting Itohs the eyes of the buds should be left exposed a good 5cm above ground level.

This is my own recipe for soil preparation.

• A large plastic basket with handles
• A half bag of the best quality compost
• 2 kilos of lime
• 1 handful of Dynamic Lifter
• A dusting of blood and bone
• 3 handfuls of Seamungus, and another 3 to complete the planting

Combine all well together in the basket.

The base of the dug hole should be at least 20 in depth and 30 to 40cm in width. Mix another handful of Seamungus in the hole and lightly dig it in. The Seamungus will generate 50% greater root development and growth than normal, which is all so paramount when attempting to get them to mature and flower for the first time.

Water the dug hole very well and let it drain. Then plant the peony, backfilling the hole with the prepared compost, and another handful or two of Seamungus on top, similar to icing a cake. Then create a moat of normal compost to surround the roots circumference, to maximise good, deep and generous watering when needed in the future.

‘Bartzella’

It is mandatory to never mulch the plant in winter. Peonies need a long cold winter, with a month or two of settled frosts on their bare soil for the flower buds to develop fully. It is also in winter, when the plant is naked of any foliage, is primarily the only time when the roots are active in growth. The absorbed and stored nutrients from these new root systems is thus what is available and used for the forthcoming new spring leaf growth and subsequent blooming.

I have heard, if you are so determined, that a nightly spreading of party ice round the plants in winter will induce flowering in warmer climates.

If planted out in spring from potted specimens, the natural instinct of the peony is to put all its resources into producing leaves and flowers instead of establishing root growth. This in effect puts the plants re-establishment back by a good 18 months. So don’t go there.

‘

‘Oochigeas’

Of peonies, it has been said ‘the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap.’ Well, I am an eternal optimist as I believe almost all gardeners are, and I cannot endure the long wait of three years, for I am not getting any younger. and of late, patience is an evaporated reality.

So, I love a good contest, the opportunity to cheat nature, just that little bit, and speed up the normal rules of the peonies first blooming time. Thus let my own little competition begin. I am fully determined to win the game and produce the Itoh’s exquisite blooms asap. Wish me luck for I may well very much need it.

In addition, there is one more essential ingredient in the successful production of peony flowering, and that is a bottle of chilled Moet champagne. You may think I am joking, or a little bit crazy, even somewhat touched, but through long years of peony cultivation experience, I can genuinely guarantee with all my heart, it’s overwhelming contribution to the certainty of their prolific blooming. But that whole story is for another blog.

This blog was originally written ten months ago when i first planted my first two Itohs. Last spring i did indeed have a great success with multiple flowers on both plants, just three months after their plantings. So, I did win the game and must have done something right. I have duly repeated the fertilising recipe and this spring I expect a lot more blooms and hopefully over a longer season of flowering. Hopefully so can you.

Happy gardening, good luck and most importantly have fun.

Regards Ned McDowell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Artichoke well deserves its own blog and a whole lot more. Why? It is the ultimate accent plant, and it screams majesty and a stunning sculptural showstopper. The artichoke is easily up there in my top ten favourite plants.

Firstly, it possesses huge, truly unique and dramatic, highly serrated grey foliage. Secondly, in mid-spring the edible vegetables rise atop magnificent thick 2-meter-tall statuesque stems. Thirdly if the actual vegetable is not harvested, the following flower is a true bingo. They easily rival any other garden plant for both its decorative appeal and edible produce.

Regrettably the artichoke is often trapped and imprisoned inside the confines of the backyard vegie patch, if planted at all. It needs to be released from this limited space and cultivated all throughout the entire ornamental garden. The artichoke plant is indispensable in my own garden and a mandatory inclusion in most of my garden designs.

If you are not cultivating the artichoke for food production, the flowers are truly unforgettable. I just can’t bring myself to harvest the proffered ripening vegetable, for do it, I would sacrifice and forgo the quintessential glory of the coming flower.

The flower’s width is easily between 20 to 30cm each. Their colour is an exquisite, iridescent peacock purple blue and is reminiscent of a large flat pincushion. More than often, the flowers may become so large and heavy, they require tying and support with a tomato stake or three. If you want to use them as a decorative cut flower for the house, you will need a large heavy vase to support its width and weight. At times I have had to resort to displaying them in a metal bucket with a few bricks inside its base, to prevent the floral display from toppling over.

Though if indeed your prize is to eat your own home grown artichokes, harvest begins when the outside scales of the artichoke are tightly closed. The edible areas are the fleshy parts at the base of the outer scales and the central heart and the bottom of the artichoke itself. If the scales have begun to open, it’s too late, they become inedible,

History

Globe artichokes, ‘Cynara scolymus’, are large thistle like perennials usually grown for their edible immature flower heads. They originated in the Mediterranean and were grown by both the Greeks and Romans. Their common name comes from the Italian ‘articoclus’, deriving from ‘cocali’, meaning a pinecone which the vegetable strongly resemble.

Cultivation

Artichokes are both fully frost and drought tolerant and appreciate at least five hours of full sun each day especially in winter.

The width and height of the plant can reach a good two metres so please factor in its dimensions when planting.

In early summer, after the artichoke’s final flowering, the stems and foliage slowly die down. I suppose they have just completely exhausted themselves from such a spectacular productive season. They truly deserve a well-earned rest and go into hibernation throughout the hot months. But just when you think they have finally given up the ghost, in early autumn, they spring to life again with the resurgence of their unfurling great grey foliage to commence another new season.

They are not that fussy with soil requirements, growing easily in the poorest of soils.

However for myself, because they are so prized, each year, in late summer and again in early spring, I provide them with a rich thick dressing of Seamungus and Rooster Booster, followed by  a 10cm layer of sugar cane. There is another variety, where the outer casing of the globe vegetable is purple and is even more decorative when seen against the grey foliage.

The best time to plant?  Easy, any time you see them for sale, except in the height of summer when they are dormant. They are very affordable to buy generally under $5 in small pots.

Landscaping

The key to its landscaping success is to team it with other plants with contrasting foliage, that is, colour, size, shape and texture. For an example, in my own back garden, one single mature artichoke plant stands in prime position in full view, at the end of my first introductory path, a length of 10 metres.  On the right of it is a hedge of glossy leaved miniature holly, green strappy leaves of liripoes at the front, a few clipped balls of the berberis Rosie Glow and some purple leaved orange flowered cannas. Yep, it’s all about foliage rules.

Happy gardening and have fun

Regards Ned McDowell

This is a long blog, but there is a lot to tell. Hellebores are one of the finest, sweetest, most heavenly of the flowering winter plants. En masse, they are truly magical. When naturalised, throwing their seeds across ever expanding areas, they create a rich intricate tapestry, an exquisitely studded, sparkling and bejewelled woven oriental carpet. And yet again I can guarantee, you can never have enough of them in any garden, both big and small.

I write this in mid-February. The reason is, I am cleaning out an old established garden, overpopulated with hellebores and relocating them to another large rural garden I am designing. This new location is perfect for creating, in time, another sweeping naturalising hellebore flowering extravaganza.

It is in the dead of winter when Hellebores create their magical flowers. Accordingly, it is when they are commercially available in nurseries or online. Due to the ease of modern hybridisation, today the choice is freakishly expansive. This is the optimum time to begin or tbo continue your Hellebore collection. The season of their availability is brief and short, especially when in flower, so don’t delay, get them while you can.

The Hellebore’s flowers are shaped like bowl, with a palette of flower colours ranging from pure white, ivory, cream and pale yellow and lime green, through to shades of the softest pastel pink, rich crimson and royal purple, true chocolate and even slate/black. The flower petals can be displayed in singles, doubles, even multi-petals. Just to ramp up their real beauty, the petals are often exquisitely detailed with delicately spotted or freckled marks. Their tough, leathery, glossy green leaves are endearing in their own right, a great bonus in any garden.

History

Hellebores belong to the Ranunculaceae family which include delphiniums, anenomes and aquilegias.

In the northern hemisphere, having opposing seasons to us, they are known as the Xmas or Lenten rose, its flower the symbol for Christmas Day. Here they are aptly called the winter rose.

In my research, one source says the name Hellebore seems to derive from the Greek ‘helloboros’ which means eaten by fawns. This is all very questionable and all a whole lot of silly because all parts of the plant are highly poisonous. The roots especially are so poisonous that in past times, when powdered and mixed with other feed, it was used to kill rats and mice.

A second source, again from Greek language states, a ‘hellion’, means to kill, and ‘bora’, food. That is, food that kills. Bye bye vermin.

If Hellebores have a drawback, if only slight, is that the flowers tend to nod and hang down on very short stems. So, if you are not an ant or millipede, or not too inclined or eager to lay prostrate on your belly or back, the ground and attempt to look skywards, you miss the full beauty of their inner petals. For me the best way to showcase and appreciate them is to float them in a bowl of water, broad and relatively shallow, glass is best if you have one. They will decorate a table and survive splendidly for a good week or more

Cultivation

Hellebores possess the magical habit of prolifically self-seeding. In time they can create great, long, deep sweeps. The best examples of successful hellebore planting are when they are nestled and naturalised under the broad protective canopies of large deciduous trees. When the overhead trees are bare of foliage, the position perfectly provides the ideal site of full warming winter sun, and in turn when the trees are in full leaf provides the relief from harsh summer sun. When established hellebores are very drought tolerant. If the heat is extreme, their foliage may well disappear in summer, but will magically re-emerge in the coming autumn with the advent of cooler conditions.

Hellebores are very low maintenance. Once a year In late autumn/early winter, or that is, when I get around to it, I cut back to ground level the one year old, tattered, dry leaves. This then better reveals their emerging floral display. The only soil prep I undertake is a generous annual dressing of Seamungus for the improvement, followed by a loose scattering of chicken fertiliser. Nature has already provided a rich, thick decomposing fallen leaf litter mulch supplied from the autumn deciduous trees above.

Landscaping

However if you are restricted in space, like my own garden, don’t despair, a simple planting of three or more plants together or even scattered individually, are enough to reward you with their beauty.

Myself my areas  are not sufficient in size to execute a large broad carpet of them, soI have about two dozen or so scattered strategically around my own garden. The plantings are all neatly nestled on the east and north at the feet of shrubs and trees, in order to provide the essential protection from hot summer sun.

Propagation

As the Hellebore flowers fade, at their centre seed pods will emerge. Collect the seed when it is ripe and rattling merrily inside the pod. Hellebore seeds must not be stored, the seeds lose their viability if it is not sown fresh. Fill a seed tray with a cutting and seedling potting mix and sow straight away and leave the tray in a sheltered shady spot. As they grow prick out and pot on individually. The great joy of sowing hellebores is anticipating what flowers your seedlings will produce when they flower for the first time. They will have hybridised so the seedlings could well be completely different to the parent and you may even discover your own gems among the new plants.

If you are a bit of an adventurist, want to have some real good fun, and learn new gardening skills, you can try yourself to create hybrid crosses when the Hellebores begin to flower. Choose a ‘mother’ for its flower shape and healthy growth and a ‘father’ with flower colour or patterns you particularly like. Use a small paint brush to move pollen from the father to the centre of a young ‘virgin’ mother flower just as it opens.  Remember to tie something behind the flower so you know which seed pod to collect seed from. Who knows you may successfully discover a brand-new hybrid. Then you can patent it, name it after yourself or your one true love, become immortalised, sell it worldwide, showered with zillions of dollars and retire early.

Good luck, happy gardening and most importantly have a lot of fun.

Regards Ned McDowell

 

 

 

 

A few months ago, I had a customer who showed me a long line of photos on her mobile phone. The photos subject was exclusively of an extended massed planting of Flanders red poppies. She was so impressed by the show she wished to replicate it. Upon asking her where this garden is, she gave the approximate address. Instantly I knew where it was. It was in fact my very own garden. Filled with pride I explained to the lady that I was the actual owner. The following day I offered the lady an envelope of a thousand or so seeds. Happy as can be, she merrily skipped off with total glee to spread the success of poppies further afield.

In spring my grand red poppy spectacle runs the entire length of my front garden which borders a major road. When in full bloom the hundreds of poppies create a long, crazy, riotous streak of a flaming rich blood red, a blaze of fire and a vampire’s idea of pure heaven. The flower’s petals, though tissue thin, possess a luxuriant glossy sheen and there are very few other red flowers as sincere and true in their red colouring to match them. Then just to create that little bit of more beauty are the contrasting ink black centre of the flower. Personally, as a garden design it is an unforgettable statement.

History:
We all recognise the flower emblem and the significance of the red poppy. It began with the unforgettable hellish and horrific trench warfare in Flanders, France in the First World War. These trenches were surrounded with the naturalised flaming red poppies. The well-known poem begins “In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow,” and ends with the lines “if ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / in Flanders’ fields”. Today the red poppy has become a universal symbol for the remembrance of the fallen soldiers who sadly lost their lives in the service of their country.

Cultivation
The wonderful thing about this annual planting of poppies is that is completely free and achieved with the minimum of effort. Every late spring, when the petals have fallen and the pods have ripened to just dry, I collect their seeds.

Half of the crop are picked to be stored in airtight jars as gifts for friends and the other half are whimsically strewn across the long bed by shaking and rattling the seed pods in preparation for the following year of the self-seeding poppies. I also cover the soil with generous carpets of Seamungus and Rooster Booster to continually replenish and improve the quality of the soil.

Landscaping:
This year I have a new design plan. I believe it will be just as easy and carefree, just as reliable in their massed appeal and still as cheap as chips. As the poppies are finished for the season, I will immediately be planting the seeds of nasturtiums, to create another long blaze of fiery colours to shine right throughout the long hot summer months. Every year in late autumn, these seeds in turn will become dormant, the frosted back foliage will provide a mulch to further enrich the soil, and then, in turn, they will be replaced by another bountiful cycle of the red Flanders poppies. I hope it all works out.

As an aside, the height of the poppies are a good one metre high and thankfully disguise what has been lazily ignored behind them, such as my sculptured santolina hedge and the bank of the my double hedge of roses.

Happy gardening, good luck and have fun,
Ned McDowell