Getting Good Results from Japanese Maples

I haven’t been well this summer. An unbearable situation at work went on for far too long, and pretty much brought me to my knees. I can’t remember ever having felt so exhausted, literally dragging myself out of bed every morning. Ryan was a big help in the garden, and is the only reason we have made as much progress as we have. We’re stalled at the moment, waiting for the sheds to be delivered, but the plants in the finished half are all doing very well.

We finally have a date for the paving – 22nd June, weather permitting. It has taken a long time to get one, and I have been going a bit crazy without a proper garden. In the meantime, we have been doing a lot of work in preparation for the paving, including taking out the shrubs along the fence. Getting their roots out was fun, they’d lived here longer than we have! And that has given us the opportunity to start painting the fence. The lefthand side of the garden now looks quite different.

Lauren Samuelsson, University of Wollongong

Hedera, which we commonly refer to as English Ivy (pl. Ivies), is a family of around 20 species of evergreen perennial plants. Depending on their surroundings, these woody plants can be both ground creeping or climbing nearby trees, rocks, buildings, and pretty much anything they can lay their stems on.

Features to Expect in a Japanese Garden

The Japanese poetic work, ‘Manyoshu’ published in 759 AD but written 300-400 years prior  selected 7 flowers for Autumn. This corresponds to the 7 Herbs of spring reported on an earlier post.

Ornamental Japanese Maples are widely available for planting in your garden. The autumn colouring makes these trees spectacular when planted en mass in a woodland or Japanese garden setting.

Despite my garden being full to overflowing after the spring rain I have decided to create a new area for a Japanese Garden. When starting a new project I was advised to have a name that may colour the end result. I opted for the grand title of ‘Japan Land’  This will be a long term project and I won’t rush it as I have on other projects in the past.

Mesclun is a name for a traditional melange of salad leaves. The name mesclun doesn’t feature in any of my gardening reference books before 1980 so old gardeners may not recognise the term.

London Holland Park’s water feature in Kyoto Garden.

The Japanese have a long and detailed affair with fruit tree blossom. Apricots, Prunus armenaica and Plums, Prunus salicina are well known to western gardeners but what of Mumes.

The ancient Chinese have cultivated Tree Peonies for over 1500 years. Prized specimens are and were grown for medicinal purposes as they contain glucocides and alkolides. The  imperial palace gardens had many specimens that became quite valuable.