Bunny’s Diary
Bunny Guinness cares for cuttings and celeriac and sows the seed for a new perennial meadow
Iused to think the soil in my area was too dry for growing big celeriac – until I met a man who grows 400 acres of it! Apparently, the key is to leave them in late: they can double in size between mid-September and mid-November. Now, with only a little extra watering, I grow whoppers. I start them off from seed sown in plugs in my cold greenhouse in March, plant them out in mid-May, then leave them in situ in a mild winter or lift them before the hard frosts
– I find they keep well in a frost-free shed in a bucket. They are fab grated in winter salads, roasted or mashed.
My ever-essential ‘hoarding borders’ are now filling up with a wide range of rooted cuttings. They will grow here until they achieve a respectable size and are big enough to withstand the rigours of the garden proper. My blight-resistant box varieties from Didier Herman’s Better Buxus ( betterbuxus.com) have rooted and a few hundred will be lined out in these useful beds for a year or so. You can of course, pot them up instead, but plants grow far better in the ground and need far less TLC. Even supposedly diffcult ‘movers’ such as daphne and members of the pea family are easy to replant provided you move the entire rootball – easy when they’re small – and they are not out of the ground for long.
I am now sowing a perennial meadow mix down our long drive into clean soil. Hopefully watering won’t be necessary, but I will jump on the cans if it’s dry. I’m sowing the ‘Pictorial Skyline’ mix from Pictorial Meadows ( pictorialmeadows. co.uk) at 2g/m2 and will lightly rake in. These perennial mixes look good for three to five years, but eventually one plant may take over – and not necessarily the one you want. A client turfed a patch with Pictorial Turf (more expensive but instant) last autumn and it looked amazing from the get-go, but they maintain it immaculately by pulling out unwanted interlopers.
Visit Bunny’s YouTube channel to watch videos such as ‘Beauty and the Beast – Growing Celeriac and Kale Sunbor’ and ‘Save Money – Make a Hoarding Border’. youtube.com/bunnyguinness