IT’S A WRAP!
FUCHSIAS!
Not only does encasing li le parcels of food in leaves make perfect finger eating sense, but it can impart fragrance and flavour, too.
Le uce leaves make unbeatable parcels when wrapped around slivers of grilled chicken or steak along with your freshest vegetables and herbs.
Put out pla ers and let people make their own. Look out too for enormous
‘Le uce Leaf’ basil to wrap around a classic mozzarella and tomato pairing.
On the barbecue, leaves can stop delicate flesh from sticking to the grill or seal in moisture, allowing food to steam in its own juices. Think Greek cuisine with its vine leaf-wrapped sardines, halloumi or figs, or Thai recipes such as banana leaf fish parcels with lemon grass, chilli and kaffir lime.
Use wooden toothpicks to secure leafy parcels, they also help when turning fiddly food on the grill. and need no special pruning or training. Just keep them watered daily and feed with liquid fertiliser every two weeks. Bush tomatoes will give a plentiful supply of small, ripe fruits, so there'll always be some ready for picking. ‘Losetto’, ‘Sweet Million’, ‘Red Currant’ and ‘Gardener’s Delight’ are all worthwhile varieties.
For plants that look as good they taste, grow chillies, like Fire’ laden with orange, and red fruits. Only the occasional green ‘Padrón’ pepper
hot, but which one you never know. Blister them on the barbecue and play edible roulette! Bushy are ideal for part of a
lankier peppers
■ Banana Leaf Parcel. Banana leaves make perfect cooking vessels, keeping moisture in and imparting a special scent. Wash, cut to size, wrap and skewer shut.
■ Vine Leaf Roll. Blanch fresh vine leaves and refresh in cold water. Brush with olive oil and they’ll blacken and crisp on the grill.
■ Le uce Leaf Wrap. Soft, pliable le uces such as the bu erhead types make be er wraps, while stiffer crunchier cos make natural ‘boats’. shake, which helps scatter the pollen and improve fruiting.
Finally, squeeze in as many herbs as you can. As well as adding them to dishes you can layer in extra smoky fragrance by adding sprigs of rosemary, fennel, sage or lemon thyme to the coals. Even when you’ve finished cooking, a branch of lavender thrown onto the dying embers gives any evening a fitting finale, releasing sweet-scented smoke into the air. Rosemary smoke is also said to deter mosquitoes.
Raised beds or terracotta bowls, which both have good drainage, are perfect for growing herbs. Plant them up with gritty compost and trim back after flowering to encourage more leafy growth.
Some plants such as roses and clematis are stalwarts of our gardens regardless of fashionable trends, whereas others come and go in popularity. Fuchsias have found it hard to shake off their 1970s kitschness; the blowsy, double flowers and clashing colours of the hanging basket varieties aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. But fuchsias tick many boxes: they’re long-flowering, most can cope with some shade, they’ll tolerate the extremes of coastal gardens, many are great for pollinators and there’s also a diverse range of flower shapes and colours, making fuchsias definitely worth another look. Fuchsias are native to the southern hemisphere, where they can be found
growing in the dappled shade and damp conditions of forests and mountainous areas from New Zealand and Chile to Mexico and the
West Indies. As a result hardiness varies; some will happily grow in a border and are able to withstand most winters, especially the mild ones we’ve experienced recently, whereas half-hardy and tender fuchsias make great container plants as they can spend the summer outside but will need to be overwintered, like pelargoniums, somewhere cool but frost-free. Water these sparingly over winter, but don’t let them dry out completely, and as an insurance policy you can also take cuttings in late summer.
To give the hardier types the best chance of survival plant them deeply, like you would with a clematis, as this will protect the roots from a severe frost – if the top growth is damaged the plant will be able to regrow from the base. It’s also a good idea to mulch around the plant with chipped bark, leaf mould or garden compost in autumn to give the roots extra protection.
The taller magellanica fuchsias can be used as an informal, pollinator-friendly hedge in sheltered, mild gardens. Upright, bushy fuchsias like ‘Whiteknights Pearl’, which is hardy to between -5 to -10C (23-14F), are a good choice for the middle to back of a border. For something a bit more unusual look for the half-hardy and tender fuchsias such as the triphylla group, with their elongated trumpets, and encliandra types, which have miniature blooms and small leaves.
Plant fuchsias in fertile, moist but well-drained soil; use a John Innes No 3 loam-based compost for container-grown fuchsias. They’ll be happiest if sheltered from cold winds and prefer shade from the hottest part of the day, although some sun helps to ripen the wood, which improves hardiness, so their ideal spot is a west-facing border where they’ll get several hours of late afternoon sunshine. Fuchsias flower on the new
season’s growth, so they need to be pruned hard every spring, but wait until the danger of frost has passed, then cut back to a pair of leaf buds about 10cm (4in) above the base.