Utility Plants in Cottage Garden
While the subject of this article is the decorative cottage garden, it is important not to overlook utility plants. Many utility plants can fulfil all our decorative requirements, and yield a useful harvest as well. For example, take some of the odd nuts and fruits which make an unexpected, but welcome addition to the garden. It is only in the cottage garden that the cultivation of some of these can be really justified.
Medlar
I am thinking now of the medlar, Mespilus germanica, an easily grown fruit of unusual taste and appearance borne on a tree with a quaint gnarled ‘old man’ look about it. With bright green foliage and white or pinkish tinged flowers, it is a considerable asset to the olde worlde garden. If one is a purist about these things, it can be treated as an apple in all respects, although I prefer to leave it alone except for the removal of untidy branches. The fruits form during summer and should be allowed to hang on the tree until late autumn, after which they can be spread out in a cool airy place until bletted. This really means that the fruits are starting to decay, and it is at this time that they are ready for eating or converting into wine or jelly. The taste for medlars is an acquired one, but if you are really interested in producing fruit rather than considering the tree purely as decorative, then get the cultivar ‘The Nottingham’. This is often available as a standard or half standard grafted on to a pear, hawthorn or quince rootstock.
Quince
The quince, Cydonia oblonga, and the medlar are closely related and desire similar garden conditions, except that the fruits of the quince are used when ripe and should not be picked until they are fully mature. A number of kinds are in cultivation, all excellent decorative trees, but not always easy to come by. The Portugal quince is the most likely to be encountered and is the best sort for cooking and preserving. The apple and pear-shaped cultivars differ only in shape and keeping quality, while ‘Bereczki’ is well thought of by those with a delicate palate. The quince is a handsome spreading tree with broad green leaves, white spring blossom, and lovely grey bark. An easy going character for which I have a strong affection.
Peaches, apricots and nectarines
I also like to see a peach or apricot in the cottage garden. Usually a hit and miss affair outdoors when it comes to fruit, they are very much a part of old cottage gardens where they can still be seen clothing southerly or westerly walls. Fruit is anyway a secondary consideration when they are grown outside, it is for the sparkling pink blossoms that bedeck their naked branches in early spring that most cottagers grow them. If a peach or two can be secured this is an added bonus, but not a major consideration.
The number of cultivars available that have any prospect of flourishing outside are somewhat limited, especially amongst the apricots. ‘Moorpark’ is the easiest to get hold of, a large rounded, yellowish fruit with one side a reddish-brown colour. It is seldom ripe before early autumn, so if you hope for something earlier then try ‘Early Moorpark’. Peach cultivars are more abundant, the American ‘Amsden June’ being the earliest while the handsome large fruited ‘Duke of York’ runs it a close second. The best known of all though, is ‘Peregrine’, a late summer kind with medium-sized fruit of excellent quality. We must not forget nectarines, a sort of smooth skinned peach amongst which ‘Early Rivers’ and ‘Lord Napier’ are the most common.
The cultivation of peaches, nectarines and apricots in the cottage garden is very similar. Remember that if you seek fruit, and indeed flower, that apricots bear fruit on spurs as well as on young wood. This means that when pruning apricots, unwanted laterals should be cut back to two buds instead of being removed altogether. All three kinds enjoy life on a sunny wall in an alkaline soil.
Of course it would be easy to justify the inclusion of apples, pears, cherries, plums and other top fruits here because they often form an integral part of the cottage garden and have been traditionally planted in the ornamental part. However, I think that I have probably gone down the road as far as I can with fruits of culinary value, that is unless you include the nuts. There are innumerable nuts that can be grown in the garden, but the most appropriate are the cobs and filberts.
Cob nuts and hazel nuts
The cob nut is the type in which the outer husk is very short, while the filbert has a longer outer husk which totally enfolds it. Several cultivars are available, amongst them ‘Cannon Ball’, ‘Cosford’ and ‘Kentish Cob’. Nuts will grow in almost any soil, but a free-draining loam is ideal. They grow well in the shade and can be interplanted with other shrubs in a border, but at least two different varieties should be grown to ensure adequate pollination. Nuts are rather different from other fruiting plants in that they produce both male and female catkins which are pollinated by the wind. These appear before the foliage, and onee their work is done, the bushes can be pruned so that just enough nut-bearing wood remains to give an acceptable crop.
The bushes should be encouraged to develop an urn-shaped framework, the leading growths being shortened and thinned. Wood that carried a crop the previous year must be spurred back. Occasionally wands or suckers spring up from the roots and these should be torn away. Nuts are ready to harvest during early autumn, just as the foliage is turning a lovely butter-yellow. After picking, spread them out in trays in a cool, well-ventilated building. They will be ready for use during the winter.
The nuts also have amongst their number several varieties that are grown exclusively for foliage colour. The golden-leafed hazel nut, Corylus avellana ‘Aurea’ has golden leaves throughout the year, but I am afraid that I cannot get too excited about this as it needs very careful placing in partial shade if leaf scorch is to be avoided. This does not happen with C. maxima ‘Purpurea’ which sports handsome purplish leaves on an upright shrub of stately aspect. This is lovely next to the pendulous willow-leafed pear, Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’ which forms a round topped small tree clothed in a tumbling cascade of silver-grey foliage. One of the best of the silver or grey-leaved subjects for the cottage garden and one of the few that is reliably hardy.
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