Fruit and perennial herbs have everything going for them. Just nip into the patio with a muesli bowl for some tasty rasps or blueberries, or pick a sprig of rosemary and a couple of bay leaves for the kitchen.
These plants need little attention, never leave a bare patch and serve you for years. The trick is to choose the right plant for the right place, container, bed or wall, and provide good compost and growing conditions.
Container growing is a little more challenging than the open ground. You’ll have very little home-made compost, so must resort to commercial growing media, compost. Sadly, no reliably consistent, organic, peat-free, material, has been developed yet.
Annual trials by Which? Gardening give the best indicators of current best buys. New Horizons usually features highly on their list. Whatever you choose, check it’s a fresh 2019 bag as the material continues ageing, losing invaluable nutrients. And reject any over-heavy ones that haven’t been sheltered from the rain.
Fertility is essential for most perennials, but some, like strawberries are a little less demanding. Simply put these shallow-rooted delights in containers or even hanging baskets close to the back door. Just keep ‘em watered, especially when fruits are forming.
And some herbs are undemanding. Rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis, needs fairly poor, well-drained, gritty soil, and upright forms sit well in pots. You could let prostrate varieties spread over the edge of a raised bed or wall to soften it.
Creeping Thyme does the same job for edgings; I planted some in pockets of soil in my potager’s slabbed pathing and they’re now almost smothering the stone sides of the beds. Flavoursome ‘Silver Queen’ and ‘Foxley’ are variegated and also do well potted in gritty compost.
As a general rule, though, larger herbs such as Sage, Salvia officinalis, and Bay, Laurus nobilis, need richer soil and more space so use bigger pots than is often recommended. Sage ultimately needs a 15-20 litre container and my Bay is so large that a 43 litre is essential.
This also applies to most soft fruit. I found low-growing, self-supporting raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’ just survived in a tiny 10 litre container while thriving in one twice the size. To succeed with tiny pots, you’d have to douse them with obscene amounts of fertiliser.
Blueberries cope with 15 litre pots for a couple of years. My old-fashioned variety, ‘Rubel’, is crammed with anti-oxidants in smaller than usual fruits. But even it has needed potting on every few years. Ultimately, fully-grown specimens, like my ‘Herbert’ require 43 litres or the open ground.
Some modern top fruit varieties also work in pots, but select with care. With limited space, only choose the hardiest species. Southern catalogues hailed Mulberry ‘Charlotte Russe’, recipient of an RHS AGM, as ideal for pots a few years ago. But mulberries generally do poorly in Scotland and the plant’s recent reviews are uncomplimentary, claiming the fruit has rubbery texture and is pretty tasteless.
Apricots are also on the tender side, so avoid patio specimens ‘Petit Muscat’ and ‘Après Gold’. Choose a peach such as ‘Garden Lady’ for a large container.
Make good use of walls. My peach, ‘Peregrine’, restricted to 2 metres, is trained against a south-facing workshop wall. I shelter it in a small cold greenhouse to keep leaves dry and prevent the fungal disease, leaf curl. A simpler cover to keep off rain is easily arranged.
Apples, pears and plums grafted on dwarfing rootstocks are great against a wall. Trained espaliers are pricey, so buy at a garden centre to see what you’re getting. And don’t forget brambles, loganberries and desert gooseberries.
Plant of the week
Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Aurora’. This Witch Hazel can reach 4m and, in January and February, bushes are covered in spicily scented, large, bronzy-yellow flowers.
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