If you have a garden which is rather on the small side, as mine most certainly was when my wife and I first bought our home in New Providence, then you may have learned a long time ago to tailor the stature of your plants to fit comfortably into it, especially your trees. In situations like this I am always reminded of EF Schumacher’s philosophy that ‘small is beautiful,’ at least when applied to plants in small gardens.
When my wife and I first bought our own home in New Providence we inherited many trees which had by then outgrown the space which had been allocated to them. Half a dozen fruit trees had to be replaced which were at that time producing poor quality fruit. Several flowering trees were taken out also. Well you might have already guessed what happened after that. Having created space we then set about trying to fill it up again! Having spent my life being involved with botanical gardens naturally many plants which had interest only to me were included, and of course over time the needs of my wife and two permanently ravenous children played an important part in the garden’s development. Assorted animals and my own incompetence also played a part in the growth of the collection of plants we developed. And just as an owner of a boat always seems to discover, the garden eventually proved to be just that little bit too small. But always at the back of my mind is Schumacher’s attempt to leave mankind with his philosophy.
I have mentioned John Gerrard’s Herbal, written some four hundred years ago in which he wrote that our common garden mint “rejoyceth the heart of man and is good against the biting of ‘madde dogges.’” Nowadays we always use spearmint as a dressing and it does on occasion tend to be invasive. Fortunately in the case of my garden, it is unable to escape from its surrounding concrete jacket. Gerrard never said anything about the value of mint on lamb chops!
When I was a lad there was no such thing as soil-less compost. My uncle John, who started off my interest in growing plants and was an extremely tolerant and kind man, took endless trouble to protect his plants whilst at the same time appearing to tolerate my growing enthusiasm for putting them at great risk. It was he who introduced me to John Innes potting compost. Or at least to the mixing of it from basic ingredients. Tons of it. I became much less wasteful and a great deal more cautious. Then came to the advent of soil-less compost and the world wide enthusiasm for it, and although it had many advantages it also had a great many disadvantages. I became even more cautious in the use of it and I am bound to say still used the John Innes Institute formula when it comes to mixing up potting and seed-sowing composts.
Nowadays in England I can tell you that John Innes mixtures are readily available in most nurseries, as the pendulum begins to swing away from soil-less composts because of an increasing world-wide shortage of peat, and as before they contain 7 parts of loam, 3 parts of peat, 2 parts of sharp sand and the appropriate fertilizer. John Innes seed compost has 2 parts of loam, 2 parts of peat and 1 part of sharp sand. In all JIP composts the loam has to be sterilized. John Innes potting composts when mixed have to pass through a three quarter inch sieve and the seed compost has to pass through a 1/4 inch sieve. This switch back to the John Innes formulas is due to the many problems associated with soil-less compost, not least of which are problems concerned with watering. Of this later. Meantime may your God go with you and take care.
