Monty revisits one of his classic books, Gardening at Longmeadow, in an occasional series.
One of my favourite joys of this midsummer season is the range of scents, and my favourite of all is honeysuckle.
Its fragrance saturates these sunken Herefordshire lanes, the warm pools of air soaking up the scent like blotting paper till you can almost see it.
Yet it never becomes overpowering or crude in the way jasmine or even lilies can.Honeysuckle is fruity, warm and gently erotic.
Monty Don shared his advice for attracting wildlife to British gardens, with fragrant flowers. Pictured: Early Dutch honeysuckle
The botanical reason for this strength of smell is to attract the moths that pollinate it – hence its increased power at night. They can apparently detect it up to a quarter of a mile away.
Our noses may not be that acute but the lovely scent of honeysuckle is enough to draw anyone into their garden on a summer’s evening, and the lovely flowers earn their keep well enough in the brightness of the midday sun. A perfect plant – right around the clock.
The wild honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum, or woodbine, works best if it is in some shade – needing warmth rather than direct sunlight to bring out the best of its scent – and a west-facing urban wall is ideal. The main thing to avoid is letting it dry out too much.
Honeysuckle is wonderfully good for wildlife. Bees take over pollinating duties from moths during the day, and then later the flowers bear round, red fruits that are important food for songbirds, while the tangle of stems makes excellent cover for nests. The leaves, meanwhile, are eaten by butterfly larvae.
Most honeysuckles flower on the previous year’s wood so should be pruned – if necessary – immediately after flowering. Japanese honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica, however, flowers on the same year’s growth, so should be pruned each spring.
Mine is in almost permanent rather dry shade so the chances of it flowering are slim, as the combination of too much shade with too little water will always inhibit flowering, but the plant survives this mistreatment with a degree of robustness.
Nearly all honeysuckles will grow in shade, but if the flowers can have sunshine for half the day they’ll be more floriferous and the fragrance will be noticeably stronger.
To keep a honeysuckle in tiptop condition you must provide the roots with rich soil and plenty of shade and the flowers with some sunshine, preferably in the evening.
We have Lonicera periclymenum ‘Belgica’, or early Dutch honeysuckle, with its raspberry ripple flowers and good fragrance, by the main door leading to the garden.
The late Dutch honeysuckle, L. periclymenum ‘Serotina’, flowers with a deeper purple splash to replace the early version’s pink, and smells fine too, but later.
I am planning to plant L. caprifolium, sometimes sold as Italian honeysuckle. It is deciduous, copes well with shade and has fabulous scent.
L. japonica ‘Halliana’ is another I want to add to this garden; it is deciduous but hangs onto its leaves through all but the coldest winters and flowers right through midsummer.
It needs sun to perform best, though, and we’re limited in wall space. However, I rather fancy twining it up an apple tree in the orchard.
Your kitchen garden: Courgettes
Monty explained that the soil should be warm enough in June to sow courgettes directly where they are to grow (file image)
More robust than pumpkins and squashes – which in a cold summer will refuse to grow – courgettes will reliably produce delicious fruits within the full range of our unpredictable British summers.
They also have flowers that are delicious dipped in a light batter and deep-fried, either as they are or filled with cream cheese.
By June the soil should be warm enough to sow directly where they are to grow, especially if you put a cut-off plastic bottle over them to make a micro greenhouse for the emerging seedling.
This year I have planted my courgettes at the centre of my climbing bean wigwams.
This should not interfere with the beans as long as I keep each wigwam well watered. I also often grow some courgettes in with sweetcorn.
Harvest the fruit as soon as they are big enough to handle.
It is better to have half a dozen small ones than one or two big ones – small courgettes taste better and stimulate the plant to produce more.
Once growing strongly they are pretty hardy and healthy with only grey, powdery mildew likely to be a problem – this is always a result of the roots becoming too dry.
Extracted from Gardening At Longmeadow by Monty Don, BBC Books, £26. © Monty Don 2012.