If you could only have 3 plants in your garden, what would they be and why would you choose them?
That’s the tricky question we pose to each of the guests on the Scotland Grows Show. It is so hard for any gardener to narrow their favourite plants to just three! We may have different favourite plants in differnt seasons, but when put on the spot and asked to narrow it down, it is very interesting to see which three plants our guests choose.
In this episode, we put the tricky question to Simon Jones, Gardens & Designed Landscapes Manager at the National Trust for Scotland.
“The first thing I’ll go for is an apple tree, and I would probably choose the variety ‘Discovery’, mainly because it’s absolutely delicious. It’s such a sweet, beautiful apple, it almost has hints of pear in there as well, and has a little bit of pink flesh. I love showing that to the kids because it looks a bit odd, but it is beautiful.
“You get apple blossom, it’s a flowering tree, and you get autumn colour. In terms of horticulture, there’s nothing more controlling than what you need to do to an apple tree to get it to flower and to produce good fruit for you. So it’s good seasonal interest, it’s lovely to look at, it’s good to care for and cultivate, and it gives you something to eat.
“It also symbolises, from a horticultural point of view, 100 of years worth of craft, there’s a lot of knowledge that goes into that. There’s 100 of years of craft handed down through generations to be able to get it to grow properly. We may manipulate it to get it to do what we want, but it’s the perfect symbol of horticulture I think.
“I’m a big lover of bamboo. I have 3 nice big bamboos in my back garden and this goes back to my time at the zoo where I was the chap that helped bring in the pandas, sourced all their food for them, and designed their enclosure. I think one of the main reasons for including that is not just because of that, it’s because it’s such a versatile plant. It’s brilliant for your garden, you’ve always got a source of canes, you’ve got a source of staking material all the time, you can cut as much as you want off from it and it just keeps growing back.
“You’ve got to be careful how the roots spread clearly so choose your species wisely so that you don’t have a spreading root system, more of a clumping one. My cats love it, they love nestling in it and sleeping in it. And the good thing about bamboos is they feed themselves so the leaves that get blown off in the wind, that’s all they need. You never need to feed them.
“They tend to be quite drought tolerant, as well as good in waterlogged conditions. They nod in the wind and birds like using them for nesting material and all sorts of bits and bobs. I’m a big fan of bamboo.
“I suppose the third one would be potatoes. They’re a lovely plant to look at and it’s so simple to produce a crop of potatoes. If you get a few things right, more often than not, you’ll get a good crop, and you’ll get cropping all through the season. So you’ll have your first earlies, your second earlies, and then your main crop kicks in. You can have potatoes from May all the way through to December and January if you can store them properly.
“King Edwards are quite a favourite of mine as a main crop. It’s quite a traditional one, but the reason I like it is because my youngest daughter loves roast tatties and it’s a really fluffy potato.”