Landscape Juice

Five ways to cook asparagus

No, not another asparagus post!

Sorry, but it is apparently now officially in season and as we only have six to eight weeks to enjoy this nutrient rich superfood, we ought to make the most of it.

The Times Online has produced an excellent three page piece on asparagus today - What makes British asparagus so good? - with a video on how to prepare English asparagus with olive oil and Parmesan cheese.

A pictorial view while walking the dogs

I wish I could produce a scratch and sniff, feel and sense post for you so that you can get some of the atmosphere of my little walk with the dogs in the mornings.

Here are just a few of my views today.

This first picture is of a bumble bee that had taken refuge in a cranny of our outside wall. Looks like it is waiting to warm its wings ready for a foray into the wild.

 

Planting asparagus in full sun

Asparagus is a great plant for water retention and anyone who is a fan, cooked or snapped straight from the plot, will know how succulent it is.

New asparagus crowns need to be planted in soil that has been plied extensively with well rotted manure and a healthy dose of other organic material because afterwards, disturbing of the crowns can damage the plants and diminish the chances of a healthy crop.

New interactive website for APL members

The news out of the Association of Professional Landscapers just seems to get more bizarre.

Yesterday the APL announced through Hort Week (it's not on the APL website so perhaps in a hurried response to me asking why we have not heard anything) that they about to announce the appointment of a web design company to carry out the revamp of their website.

Lady Orchid - Orchis pourpre - Orchis purpurea

I walk out of my front door into open countryside; there is not a fence in sight so no feeling of boundaries.

Both access doors to the house step out onto a Chemin Rurale which is a public right of way but to us it is a farm track and the access to our property with only the occasional car (usually lost) coming through.

Three hundred metres one way and a kilometre the other before we touch the quietest of tarmac lanes and a further five kilometres from anything that resembles a busy road.

The first steps to designing a garden

Landscape Juice has gained a reputation for becoming 'the' community site for horticulture and landscaping in the United Kingdom and has followers throughout the world looking for information on anything to do with gardening or landscaping.

My aim is to facilitate as many contributions from professionals and amateur gardeners as I can so that great stories, tips and advice can be shared to help others.

I am delighted to welcome Claudia de Yong. Claudia, is multi award winning and a rising star of the garden design world and she is going to share her garden design tips with us.

Over the coming weeks we hope to bring some 'where to source' information for those of you who are planning to landscape your space as well as timely tips and advice.

Sparrowhawk gets trapped in a chicken house

In this weeks post, Jill seems thrilled at the distraction of finding a Sparrowhawk (see note at foot of page) trapped in her chicken house.

After the predator flies away, preparations for Hampton Court continue.

Over to Jill...

Nine weeks to go and counting down until 'build-up' starts.

I did have to stand back and wonder at the sight that met me as I went to let our hen out the other morning. Bless her! She is the only survivor of four fox attacks that have seen off three batches of hens and now has not only decided to stop laying, but to start crowing like a cockerel too.

Planting Rhubarb as an ornamental

I think I might have let my old garden down, leaving before it matured enough to really reap its architectural benefits.

The spring time was the best period and the first flush of herbaceous growth really lifted at changed the perspective before drier weather caused the industrial free draining sand to suck the life from the plants.

Tree Peony reasearch gets Hort Week a telling off

A recent article by Horticulture Week which focusses on the tree paeonia (tree peony) has got them a a bit of a telling off for overlooking one of the oldest growers of peonies in the UK when sounding out the latest market figures.

The HW article by Bethan Norris suggests that the tree peony has been in somewhat of a decline but the recent introduction of P. suffruticosa 'Jade' is likely to rekindle UK gardeners love affair.

Former director of Kelways Chris Johnson seemed somewhat miffed that Kelways were not consulted and left a comment at the foot of the piece saying:

Open debate at Talking Landscape

Thank heavens for Ning and their great set of tools, transforming how established groups communicate amongst themselves, and directly to a wider audience all over the world.

Ning has just recently passed its millionth social network milestone. In just six months it has doubled the amount of networks on its platform.