Episode 71 of Sarah Raven’s ‘grow, cook, eat, arrange’ podcast is our chat with Arthur Parkinson. The title is 'The Regal Beauty of Waterlilies' and the release date is 9th June 2022.
This is our first ever podcast chat and is available either through Sarah Raven’s website (sarahraven.com) or via google/apple podcasts.
We chat happily for half an hour about the development of our nursery and about his love for waterlilies. We often find Waterlilies remind people of happy memories of childhood and this is true for Arthur too.
Arthur mentions at the start of the podcast that 90% of wetland areas have been lost in the countryside. It is important that as gardeners we include water in our gardens somehow. This way we can help make up for the loss of water areas elsewhere.
Use Miniature waterlilies for container ponds, Dwarf waterlilies for small garden ponds through to Pond waterlilies for bigger garden ponds or for even larger areas of water.
My favourite waterlilies mentioned:
- Miniature waterlily Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola'
- Dwarf waterlily Nymphaea 'Xiafei'
- Pond waterlily Nymphaea 'Darwin' or 'Mrs Richmond'
- Large Pond waterlily Nymphaea 'Attraction', 'Gladstoniana' or 'Marliacaea Carnea'.
We hope you hear in the podcast about details of growing waterlilies we find it hard to describe well in a few words on a small ticket. We can explain these ideas better here in conversation with Arthur.
Arthur asks about the other areas of planting a pond too. The quantities of oxygenating plants needed and some shelf pond plants - Iris Louisiana Black Gamecock and Iris versicolor.
Aponogeton distachyos Water Hawthorn is also mentioned. This helps cover the pond surface with leaf and flower from March till May. All these different plant types help to make up the balance of a good planted pond.
Hope you enjoy listening to this episode of Sarah Raven's podcast. Once I (Linda) got over my nerves about using all the microphone and headphone equipment it was easy to chat to Arthur about our common love for growing Waterlilies.