Frost

Pin It

The last winter was particularly harsh and also remarkably early. We had our first proper frost around the 25th November and from then on we enjoyed (??) below zero centigrade degrees until well into the new year.

As a result many gardens suffered. In my own garden the damage was limited to

Cloches

Pin It

I have been hankering after some fine kitchen garden cloches and I firmly blame the recent drop in temperatures for my actions. Kitchen garden cloches are not just a "chic garden accessory" (advertising blurb not mine) but a necessity where I live.

photo credit: Crocus website

Spax not Spanx

Pin It

This small town garden was an early commission for a design and implementation. It is a fairly typical garden size for a newly built house and for a client downsizing it comes as a shock. My client however was determined to have a plant lover's paradise...

The initial brief was for the main garden at the back but subsequently the front has been revamped as well. That's for another day though.

For the backgarden project I was starting with a rather blank canvas and a few keepers:  a garden that was enclosed by fencing on three sides, a lawn in ok condition, a reasonably new deck and a garden shed in a corner. No planting to be kept as there was none apart from Rose 'Alnwick' in a pot which really needed more space.

There were three main challenges: access to the garden via a very narrow side path (too narrow for a standard wheelbarrow), heavy clay soil and an unexpectedly windy situation.

Weekend Eye Candy

Pin It



Aster × frikartii 'Mönch'

 Currently stunningly in bloom in Mrs U-turn's garden.

Feathers

Pin It

After the relentless rain yesterday - having checked the forecast again - I was ready to slot in a bit of work this morning.

Which was lucky because just at 8am sharp, the doorbell rang and the postman made an appearance, asking for my signature.

If you read the fine print in yesterday's musing you might have figured out the whole story already. Yes, my time spent on Ebay was fruitful and I managed to snap up a little something literally at the last minute. The seller was based in the UK and managed to post it the same day, advising me to expect a delivery on Tuesday. Royal Mail came up trumps though and there at 8:03am I was sitting down to breakfast with my family and this:

Weather

Pin It

I have never paid as much attention to the weather and in particular the forecast as in the last few years. It is determining the course of my day.

Pieris 'Forest Flame'

A few years ago, it would have influenced and sometimes determined what I would wear the next day and maybe whether I needed to get up half an hour earlier to get to work on time.

Labour of love part 3

Pin It

A day filled with errands (GCSE results for the handsome d*vil = thumbs up, MOT for the van = thumbs up, finalise autumn plant order with nursery = thumbs up), left me with some time to do another round of weeding and deadheading at the tin tabernacle.

Dahlia 'Eternal Snow'

The free lunch

Pin It

They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. Well, after today I beg to differ.

At last ....

Pin It

Despite the rain and gloom, a kitchen floor covered in flour and fingers sticky from icing about a hundred little biscuits, my day ended on a particularly happy note. I discovered a bud on a plant that has not flowered for three years.

If you are not a fellow gardener, don't care for ornamentals and are not bothered about scent, then do not trouble yourself with reading any further.

Taking steps

Pin It

For the longest time I have been eyeing the wide stone steps at the rectory.

I love the large rectangular paving stones which are no longer being made, they are totally right for this kind of garden. However, they were never laid properly, holly tree roots are close by and are causing movement to the ground and ivy has crept into the remains of the grouting. The steps have become uneven, impossible to weed or keep clean and they pose a trip hazard.

Butterflies

Pin It

The little gardener had been given a butterfly kit for her birthday but being a winter child it had been packed away until the weather was more condusive to watching butterflies grow up.

Labour of love part 2

Pin It

I have been holding back on this one for two reasons: first the pictures I took a few days ago did not turn out great at all and planting is not complete.

However since this is a kind of journal, I can share where we are at now with the big sunny border at St Michaels.

At home

Pin It

"I bet your own garden looks stunning" ... Yeah, right. It does, sometimes.

Weekend Eye Candy

Pin It

The first of the autumn raspberries. Hopefully cropping now to first frosts.

Raspberry 'Joan J'

Apfelstrudel

Pin It

A combination of heavy rain, lack of childcare and the possibility of meeting a friend all meant that this was to be a non-gardening day.

As I am being offered apples from several gardens, I am never short of a basketful or two. The current crop is 'Discovery', in essence a dessert apple but never mind that.

Tomorrow's dinner

Pin It

It's been a productive day at the rectory today and I have finally trimmed all the lawn edges, dug in the green manure (mustard seed) and weeded the lower veg plot.

Labour of love part 1

Pin It

For many years I have been attending a small church not far from where I live. It is a tiny tin tabernacle set on a large plot. And for a long time I have been quite good about ignoring what goes on on the outside.

Here's a taste

U-turns

Pin It

This post is about about a garden which I did not love at first (but I do now, U-turn #1).

It's owner has lived there for a long time. Many years ago she decided that she did not want to spend much time on her garden and had all the lawns taken up and gravelled over. More recently, as she is spending more time at home, she has become rather fed up with all that gravel and is craving colour (U-turn #2).

Tours de Cles

Pin It

This week's scarf theme is "Mixing prints and patterns", a real design challenge.

One that lets me combine two passions, flowers and silk. The theme also provides a much needed push to get out of work garb and into something more sartorial for Sunday.

Kelmarsh Hall with Mrs Privet

Pin It

Thursday evening was lovely: the weather was warm despite being overcast. It was my "date" with Mrs Privet and after a day's work in showery weather and some more moth exorcism I was very much looking forward to strolling through the gardens of a country house and we set off to Kelmarsh Hall




The silk road ... less travelled

Pin It

Rather than posting some pretty eye candy or waxing lyrical about the taste of the first french beans, I have been too busy on the domestic side to blog.

I got home and found another clothes moth on a roman blind. Last night I was convinced that this was no longer a coincidence and husband and I got down to business: dealing with clothes moths.

Back to the grindstone (nerd alert)

Pin It

.... or the sharpest tool in the shed?

If you are not into garden graft, then you may as well skip to the last paragraph.

Over the last few weeks I have spent many hours cutting new lawn edges and digging borders for autumn planting. The work has been progressively been getting harder. Blame it on the heat or my age? Boredom? Fatigue? Possibly but mainly it is a case of blunt tools.

Concerto

Pin It

A discussion about bargain scarves made me think about my Concerto gavroche today.

It is a lovely neutral, a buttermilk coloured background with accents of mint green and bright blue.

Concerto - worn cowboy style

The 'Nearly did not Happen' Garden Part 2

Pin It

Design time. Let's talk about colours.

Since this was a small garden, I suggested a two colour scheme. I drew inspiration from the few shrubs that were already in situ: a Leycesteria (very dark red) and Forsythia (bright yellow). One of the roses to be moved luckily had a label, so I could identify and look up the colour, badly needed since it was April, far too early for roses to flower. It proved to be Whisky Mac, a fairly bright yellow.

With my client being advanced in years but very young at heart, I suggested purple with yellow. I set to draw up a shortlist of suitable plants and armed with good quality photographs we met up.

For me this is an essential step and a bit of a shortcut. If I find the client does not approve, not much time is wasted at this stage as no plans have been drawn, plant numbers worked out and costed up.

I was lucky and my client loved the shortlist.

I shall spare you the finer details of how hard it was to prepare the site for planting, the planting and autumn bulb planting. Let's leave it with some pictures taken at planting stage, a few months after and finally after one year.

June 2010 - newly planted, new turf!

May 2011 Gorgeous Alliums with Iris 'St Crispin'

May 2010: Turf has held up very well despite hot and dry Spring

July 2011: Penstemon 'Raven' and Achillea 'Coronation Gold'

July 2011: Lavendula angustifolia and Achillea

July 2011: Dahlia 'Arabian Night'

The gaps between plants are gradually disappearing as plants are filling out to their eventual size. Work is now concentrating on cutting the lawn, trimming lawn edges, deadheading and feeding, all fun stuff in my book. Oh, and enjoying the view.

Hope you enjoy it as much as my client.

Weekend Eye Candy

Pin It

No long post today, just some summery eye candy from this week.



Dahlia 'Bora Bora (semi cactus)



Dahlia 'Red Velvet' ? (waterlily)

Rosa 'Cambridgeshire' (groundcover)

Sweet Peas

Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'

My favourite helper



Broad Bean 'Claudia'

Have a great weekend!

The "Nearly Did Not Happen" Garden Part 1

Pin It

The full-on rain yesterday made it completely impossible to do any outside work. I finally got round to transferring a big batch of photos from camera to computer. I stumbled upon some more transformation shots and thought they would be good to share.

In Spring last year I was contacted by a friend of an existing client. She was in the process of moving house locally and the garden at her new house needed some work. She had seen the creation of her friend's garden and how it matured over time and was adamant that I should remodel her new garden, too.

I remember, I was nursing a cold and was so poorly with it that I decided not to work for a few days to get some proper rest. Only her persistent pleading made me pay her a visit at her old property (she wanted to move some plants) and also the new property.

April is always a busy time for me and I needed another renovation project like a hole in the head. The other issue to consider was that by the time the garden was ready for planting we would be into Summer and a new planting scheme would require regular watering. Would the garden owner be around and vigilant enough to care for the new plants? If the plants don't settle in, would I get the blame? No wonder that this garden nearly did not happen.

However, this lady clearly loved her old garden and was keen to enjoy her new garden this Summer.

The new garden was mainly a garden at the back of the house, quite small, a lot laid to lawn which was in a terrible state and an L-shaped border which was narrow and weedy. The garden had been used to house chickens before and no maintenance whatsoever had been carried out for a long time.

Ivy coming over from the neighbour

Bare, barer, barest

A tiny bit of Forsythia to brighten up the corner

Flowering currant - this one stays!

After inspecting both gardens I realised that the job was not huge. Due to the size of the shrubs in the old garden and the size of the new garden, only a few plants of sentimental value would be moved, two roses and an acer.

My new client agreed to get the lawn taken up and new turf laid by a contractor. We discussed what she wanted from her garden ("no bedding - can't stand it", "lots of colour", "I really want to see a lot of bees and butterflies") and I agreed to come up with a design that would fit the bill.

My week of misery turned into a few days of joy. The design work could be done despite my cold. And for once I did not have to slot the designing into the evening after a hard day's work and family commitments, I had the luxury to do this during the day. An empty house, no interruption, no pouring over planting plans with the light fading. Best of all: not feeling guilty for not working because I was working. Bliss!

Lavender

Pin It

I use lavender a lot in gardens. It is deservedly a popular plant. For a start you get that gorgeous structural foliage in varying shades of grey/green, depending on the variety. You get flowers, mostly purple but also shades of mauve, pink and white. Personally, I prefer the purple and mauve colours. You get incredible scent. You get bees and with the recent decline in the number of bees supporting these pollinators is a very good thing to do. You get a long flowering season, from as early as May until you cut them. You can use the flowers either fresh or dried for a multitude of things. Lots of reasons to grow lavender.

There is this little area at the rectory formed like a thin wedge of cheese. It is where the gravel steps meet the gravel path to the greenhouse. Nothing was growing there. Actually, the gravel steps did not exist either, just a muddy garden path. I was planning to plant up a dozen lavenders along the edge of the wedge and came along a good offer of half a dozen lavender plants with pale green foliage.  Well they came home with me and have done a good job for the last two years at the rectory.

The grow to about 3 or 4 foot and make a serious statement. But they are getting a bit too big and are starting to obstruct access to the greenhouse.

August is the time when I trim lavenders. Yes, the flowers are still in bloom but if I cut them now, there is plenty of time before winter arrives for new foliage to appear and they will look great over the winter. I rather than a soggy tangled mess of stems.

So yesterday was time for drastic action. Out came hedge trimmer and secateurs and I cut them back a little harder than recommended. They will either come back and be a bit neater or they will be replaced with a named variety, probably 'Imperial Gem'. Please do not try this at home because lavenders will not readily reshoot from old wood.

The end result was this:

and several of this:

The lavender clippings were fed through the shredder and I have to say that was the most incredible experience. Much reduced in size, the lavender has been added to the compost heap where the woody material is expected to balance the grass clippings.

After the rain

Pin It

After a (for Central England) long dry spell, we finally had some rain last night. It was much needed, as fields and gardens alike are coping with a very dry year.

When gathering my tools to head out this morning, I walked past this little beauty. The raindrops nestling on the leaves caught my eye. Consider it as a friendly gesture after yesterday's pictured.



Euphorbia amygdaloides 'Purpurea' (spurge)

Euphorbia amygdaloides 'Purpurea' (spurge)

 One problem with spurges is that they can really spread themselves around and quickly take over a border. Euphorbia amygdaloides 'Purpurea' is much better behaved and I find the odd seedling but there is none of that "constantly pulling out bits of plant" business.

The foliage is bluegreen tinged with a deep red. It is evergreen and thrives in dappled shade. In Spring it has gorgeous limegreen flowerheads that seem to be suspended above the leafy canopy. Once faded I simply cut off the flowered stems. That's it until next year.

I did not get a chance to inspect the rest of my garden but had a quick peek in the coldframe. The peas sown about 10 days ago have all germinated. Yes, satisfied grin on face, 100% germination rate.

In case you do not get what the fuss is about, let me explain. I trialled a short variety called 'Douce Provence'. This is sown in Spring for Summer harvesting. I needed two attempts to get about five pea plants. I binned the seeds. And started again, this time using 'Kelvedon Wonder'. They did better. By July it is too late in the season and peas for an Autumn harvest have to be sown. 'Ambassador' is the variety I chose.

Pea 'Ambassador' ten days after sowing

This is what I did this time:

• root trainers
• slug pellets
• cover
• placed in open cold frame

I think the only difference (apart from the different variety) was that the cover was popped on the root trainers. But really this should make no difference at all because you can sow peas straight in the ground and this is how most people would sow them. I would love to hear your theory. 

Don't look if you are squeamish

Pin It

A reader suspects that my own garden looks beautiful. If only.

I will share my musings with you on this one another time but for today let me share some "finds" from earlier today. Some finds that one rather not finds. Some may find this a bit off-putting, so skip the pictures.

I am talking about garden pests and like most gardens I do get them in my patch. Let's have a look at the damage caused by number one:

Leaf cutter bee damage on rose

Two years ago I planted a climbing rose to cover an obelisk at the front of the house. It is "Tess of the d'Urbervilles", a crimson red beauty. This year it flowers for the first time with some enthusiasm but the foliage looks awful. On first glance you could be forgiven to suspect vine weevil. Vine weevil damage on foliage however is more characterised by smaller roundish notches as the weevils actually munch the leaves. In my case the damage is neat semi-circles with very clean edges as if cut by scissors. I suspect it is damage by leaf cutter bees; these bees cut out sections of leaf (they adore roses). The cut out leaf is taken away and not consumed but rolled up and used for nest building.
Since the rose is healthy otherwise with plenty of new growth and bees are essential for pollination, I have to live with the damage. It is not a great advertisement outside my front door ....


After the bees I quickly inspected another rose at the front. No leaf damage (yet) but this critter caught my eye:

sawfly

Right in the centre on the stem was a winged insect which I suspect to be a sawfly. The flies themselves are not the problem, it is their offspring. From the eggs this fly lays which grow onto the larvae stage. In this case this will be tiny caterpillars which will happily munch away the whole leaf leaving behind (no pun intended) just the rib system. These critters truly have a voracious appetite and since there's never just a single caterpillar, they can reduce a fine plant to a skeleton in very short time.
I squished the fly and need to patrol over the next few weeks to pick off and dispose any caterpillars that I can find.

Last but not least, my dahlias. Both "Arabian Night" and "Bora Bora" have been plagued by black aphids this year. As I try to garden to organic principles (note the careful wording here), I have tried to limit damage by giving the stems a good dowse with the hose pipe. It works to a degree but tonight I saw the most phantastic sight:


ladybirds on dahlia stem


Dozens of ladybirds (or ladybugs, depending on where you live) have moved in and are all over the dahlias. I wish them 'bon appetit'.

Budget Garden

Pin It

I love a good challenge. So when I was approached by friends (R&T) of a friend whose garden I look after, I promised I would have a look at their plot.

I think they are a typical family: both parents work, Mum does a 3/4 job in education, so has more time off than most of us Dad commutes to London and works long hours. Two children at school. No home help. They want to enjoy the garden but it sort of got neglected. R loves gardening but is not very knowledgeable, T sees it as a chore. They don't know where to start. Also, they don't want to spend a fortune.

Bienchen, you have your work cut out here.

This is what works for us:

• Limit time spent gardening: I come twice a month for half a day; we have all learned that Rome wasn't built in one day and as long as my clients see a difference, they are happy.
• I get help: if there is a lot of clearing to be done, I bag up the rubbish but R&T take it to the tip. If school holidays are looming, I try to arrange a slot when someone is around and will man the shredder, help with weeding, or whatever can easily be delegated. It means more work gets done in the 4 hours and money is spent on skill rather than unskilled labour. R&T also cut their grass although I maintain the edges.
• We prioritise jobs: it is vital to balance essential seasonal jobs against jobs the client would like to have done immediately. Start close to the house where effort will be noticed and gradually move along to the far end of the garden. We agreed that a bit of plot just outside their dining area was completely neglected and a complete eye sore. Tidying this and planting it up to give year round interest was a top priority much more than dealing with neglect at the bottom of the garden. Pruning those lovely big apple and pear trees which had not been touched for a few years in the first winter; this became the first job in February 2010.
• Keep what is worth keeping: we have been hanging on to most shrubs that could be renovated. Buddleia, hydrangea, fuchsia, lilac, rhododendron are all mingling in the sunny border. The sunny border will never look as good as a border designed from scratch but it is tidy and weed free, gaps have been filled and spring bulbs have been planted. By hanging on to established shrubs R&T have saved money on plants and retained a sense of maturity.
• Don't skimp on Spring bulbs: soon after I took on the budget garden, I noticed that Spring bulbs were virtually absent. The foliage for Spring bulbs arrives long before blooms make an appearance; it primes my client that "something will be happening" and the bulbs will the gap when the snow has melted and the shrubs are still bare.
• Plants need to give value for money. On the whole I chose plants with a long flowering season, plants that are reliably hardy and generally troublefree. This principle is followed losely, for example Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve' is not terribly long lived nor particularly hardy. It is cheap to replace though and gives colour for at least six months, so it got voted in.
• Because I buy wholesale, the budget garden could be stocked more cheaply.

March 2010

February 2011



April 2011





When I look at this patch now, the grasses are about 6 foot tall. Whichever month I visit, at least one plant is in flower, often more. Currently Thalyctrum and Erysimum are competing for attention.

The rest of the garden is still a work in progress. More than half of the existing borders have been renovated following the above process. The current project is to finish clearing the ground under the apple trees and to plant it up as a shady border.