Green-fingered Carol Klein loved by avid gardeners
Four years ago, on a ‘significant’ birthday, Carol Klein’s husband Neil bought her a lovely, authentic gypsy caravan. It was, of course, for the garden — quirky, colourful, a bit different, useful, aesthetically pleasing and in keeping with the Devon garden she has spent a lifetime creating.
Carol has been a huge presence in the media since first presenting on Gardener’s World in 1989. Trained originally as a fine artist, shel spent many years teaching art until she started gardening, opened her own nursery in Devon and her hobby, like for so many of us , eventually became her career.
She began exhibiting at RHS shows in 1990 and went on to win gold medals at Chelsea, Hampton Court, Westminster and Malvern. It was around this time too that the late Geoff Hamilton did a piece on Carol and her nursery for Gardeners’ World.
Since then she has become one of the most familiar gardening experts working in media today. She is best known for her role as presenter of Gardener’s World and she has also presented several other series including Grow Your Own Veg and Life in a Cottage Garden.
She has such an exuberant personality and effusive style of presenting you can’t fail but to share her enthusiasm for whatever it is she is discussing and demonstrating, be it a show garden at one of the RHS shows, or simply lifting and dividing some herbaceous perennials during the winter. She is excited about her work, but also down-to-earth and her presenting style is reminiscent of older gardeners, not trying to do anything wacky, rather letting the plants and gardens steal the limelight.
Carol has written many books and is also a columnist for several British newspapers and contributes to top gardening magazines. Her recent series ‘Life in a Cottage Garden’, which was filmed at her own gardens at Glebe Cottage, has also generated a book of the same title.
Carlow Garden Festival which is now in full swing and runs until Monday was opened by Carol last week.
Her characteristic warmth and entertaining personality is contagious and I’m sure there will be more than a few people catching the ‘bug’ after her presentation.
Unfortunately, in 2011, she had to close her cottage garden plant nursery which she had built up over 30 years as her new neighbour, who was also the nursery’s new landlord, refused to renew her lease because she kept her compost heaps and bins too close to his front door.
*www.carlowgardentrail.com
Two hot summers in a row – who would have believed it? Any new plants in the garden, and by ‘new’ I mean anything planted within the last 12 months, will still need your help to get established.
Their roots systems will not yet be able to source water for themselves and so you will need to be watering regularly and in some cases every day. More than a few days of high temperatures without water will be enough to put paid to many of the garden’s new arrivals.
Lawns are showing signs of drought damage again this year. Water won’t really be necessary here unless the lawn is only a few months old as grass is very resilient and forgiving.
Don’t be tempted to fertilise the lawn at the moment as it will inevitably lead to burning the grass. Wait until the temperatures drop and the moisture levels increase and treat during September with an autumn lawn feed.
Avoid using lawn weed killers and moss killers during this period of drought as they can do some damage.
Finally, we will be paying for water from next year so make use of rainwater for the garden and if you haven’t yet, then do fit one or more water butts to ensure a plentiful supply for your horticultural needs.
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