Ravendale House » the flower garden

2010 My Worst Year

Cloudybutnice — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 08:00:19 +0000

So there we are, I’ve said it. 2010 is officially my worst gardening year ever.

It started quite badly with a harsh winter, late Spring and family bereavement. Then when the weather did finally get going I didn’t, but when I did, things just didn’t work out.

First there was a late frost. Initially I thought my strawberry plants had survived, until my neighbour pointed out the black centre to all my flowers. I did try pulling the flowers off so new ones could be produced, but it didn’t work. Result, no strawberries.

The wood pigeons attacked my peas without mercy. What they didn’t destroy from the top, the mole did from below. Result, hardly any peas.

Then there was the sweetcorn, or perhaps I should say, then there wasn’t the sweetcorn. The plants grew OK, but some had tassels and no beards some had beards and no tassels. What’s that about? Result hardly any sweetcorn.

Whilst some of the veg have been a disaster, the flowers haven’t been brilliant either. It’s been so dry. One particular disappointment was my ‘Morning Glory’ (Skylark Mixed).

I’ve always wanted one, and so this year I sowed some seeds. I got 3 plants, which, according to the packet should have grown to 10 feet high and 2 feet across. Bearing their potential size in mind I was careful where I planted them, sat back and waited to be stunned with their blue and white flowers

What a disappointment. Each one turned into a spindly plant hardly 3 feet high. The flowers were lovely but too few and far between.

Then there was the lawn mower, the big ride-on one. It hasn’t worked properly since 13th June. In the beginning this didn’t matter much as it was so dry the grass wasn’t growing. Needless to say that can’t go on indefinitely in England, and it didn’t.

Consequently the grass in the field is a patchwork of lengths as I’ve had to resort to the electric Flymo to stop it getting completely out of hand, but I’m not fit enough to do it all in one go by that method. The ride-on mower is in the process of being mended as we speak. New drive belt, new belt for the cutting deck.

Having said that, what does cutting the grass matter when the mole is covering the entire area in mole hills. They are bad enough but it’s the hidden depressions that nearly break your ankle that are the real pain.

He’s everywhere this year. He’s even sent a mole hill up between the stone slabs on the patio. How does he do that?

Finally there is the pub hedge which runs along one side of the garden. It is leylandii and hasn’t been cut for several years, needless to say it is very tall. So tall in fact that I have completely ignored that part of the garden this year.

The pub has been empty for months, in fact it hasn’t really been running properly for years. To cut a long story short we contacted the brewery, Scottish and Newcastle, to get it sorted.

After some time a very nice chap called to say his team would be coming to do the job in 3-4 weeks time. That was on 22nd June, no sign of anyone since.

As it happens the pub was let later that week and we think the brewery have passed the job, not to say the expense, on to the new tennant, who has probably been horrified at the potential cost and put it on the bottom of their ‘to do’ list. Result, hedge still out of control.

We did manage to cut our hedges for another year. The garden always looks so much better when they’ve been done. Now the whole world can see my mole hills!

I know all of this isn’t the end of the world, and that there are a lot of people in much worse circumstances, but nevertheless, gardening for me this year has been a pain, not a pleasure.

‘They’ said – - – -

Cloudybutnice — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:12:53 +0000

‘They’ said there is going to be a frost tonight. According to my last years gardening diary our first frost in Autumn 2008 was 27th October, so do I believe ‘them’?

Should I take precautions or risk it?

The geraniums that gave me such cause for concern earlier in the year are still in full flower with their majestic scarlet blooms. I want to save as many of them as I can for next year.

Then come the Spring, depending what state they’re in, I’ll either pot them up into tubs again, use them for cuttings or just plant them in a flower bed.

Therefore I don’t want the frost to get them, but potting them into smaller, manageable pots that I can lift into the conservatory will mean I lose their flowers and all that lovely colour.

In the end I’ve decided to cover them with an old curtain and hope for the best. Fingers crossed.

A Catch Up

Cloudybutnice — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:03:14 +0000

It’s now almost a week since the plug plants arrived, and to be honest the jury’s still out. The begonias certainly look better than they did, but neither they nor the geraniums have done much in the way of growing. Perhaps I should just be glad they’re still alive.

The original fuchsia cuttings are proper little plants now (7) and the second lot are still only about a two weeks old so are still in their plastic bag, but look OK as far as I can tell, though I nearly lost them today when they were in the sun for too long.Déjà vu.

The 126 hardy perennials are doing OK too, though there have been a couple of casualties, and the lobelia seedlings will soon be ready for pricking out.

The first lot of potatoes are mostly up, but sadly got caught by a bit of frost the other night. Not too bad though, so I’m sure they’ll recover. The other two lots are just beginning to show so hopefully will be less affected.

The broad beans are great, but then they always are. The peas look a bit eaten, despite their protection, as do the cauliflowers. Onions, shallots, leeks and garlic are doing fine, and the asparagus is starting to show.

The plants in the new strawberry bed are now beginning to look interested and the rhubarb is majestic. So far so good. The next thing to do is sow some sweetcorn and get some grow bags for the tomatoes.

Two Crocosmias And A Goldfinch

Cloudybutnice — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 14:46:08 +0000

Another sunny, if cool day and I did one of my most favourite gardening jobs. Planting things that I’ve grown from cuttings or seed out of their pots and into the ground.

Today it was the turn of my ‘Lucifers’ and ‘Solfatare’. Both are crocosmias and both are stunning in their own way. Lucifer is tall red and fiery, while Solfatare is smaller with grey/green leaves and apricot flowers.

The Lucifers I grew from my own seeds which I collected and sowed a couple of years ago. I had 6 pots of these.

The Solfatares are all descended from one shop bought plant that I have split over the years. I had 9 pots to find homes for, which is a pretty good result.

One of the Solfatare pots I’ve split into 3 and re-potted. This way I always have some stock plants that I can bring inside in winter, as I don’t think they’re too robust if left unprotected outside in harsh weather.

An unexpected job was to rescue a Goldfinch from the conservatory. It’s a constant problem I’m afraid because I have the door open, and inevitably birds and insects get in sometimes. Some react better than others.

The wrens and robins just seem to hop around on the floor until eventually they just hop out of the door. Blackbirds get all panicy and flutter everywhere, I’m always worried they will injure themselves or have a heart attack.

This little chap just sat on the arm of the bench and looked so sorry for himself. After an initial flutter against the glass I was able to pick him up an set him free. He flew off into a clear blue sky. I do hope he will be OK.

Butterflies and moths usually get out by themselves, but I can help if necessary. I keep a ‘bee saving kit’ in there permanently all Spring and Summer. Nothing complicated just a half pint beer glass (with handle) and a stiff piece of paper. This is similar to my ‘mouse saving kit’ that I have indoors, (for when Dulcie brings me a present) except for mice I use a wooden spoon in place of the stiff paper. Yes I know I’m sad.

Weeding

Cloudybutnice — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:01:53 +0000

Here’s a question. Is it better to weed one bed thoroughly or two beds less thoroughly? I’ve been gardening for years now and I still don’t know the answer.

I think the so-called experts would say it is better to do one bed properly, and in a smallish garden I would be inclined to agree. But in a large garden, with limited time and energy, I’m not so sure.

I’ve tried both ways. Thorough, methodical weeding and quick, instant gratification. Frankly neither seem to work that well as the weeds always return.

This year I’m trying a new strategy. At the end of the day weeds are just plants. They need a reliable source of nutrients, water and sunshine just like anything else. If these are removed or disrupted, dead plant. Easy.

Well it sounds easy anyway, so here’s my plan. I’ll weed a bed moderately well, but instead of leaving it weeks before I weed it again, I will go back to it in just a few days and repeat the process, and again in another few days and so on.

Each time I’ll wait just long enough for the weeds I’ve left behind to think they’ve won, long enough for them to get their feet down again, and then I’ll be back. If I do this on a regular basis, surely they’re going to become weakened, not to mention fed up, and hopefully they’ll die.

The principal sounds very simple, but it will take a certain amount of determination on my part when I have lots of other things to do, so it remains to be seen whether I can see it through.

Anyway in the spirit of this idea, I re-weeded flower bed 2 today. If I can trial this method just on flower beds 1 and 2 this year, and it proves to be successful, I might feel inspired to extend the method to the rest of the garden, who knows.

Ligularias, Hostas And Hawthorn

Cloudybutnice — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:37:56 +0000

Today started grey and damp, but ended up quite bright and breezy, so I spent the afternoon weeding the flower bed that runs along the back of the house.

This flower bed is made up primarily of ligularias and hostas. In summer, when they’re at their peak, it is absolutely majestic, but at this time of years it’s a bit quiet, with just a few narcissus and grapehyacinth.

At one end there is our cats’ graveyard, with three little graves marked by three garden ornaments. There is Creamer’s ball (affectionately known as ‘Punchy’s Pill’), Linus’s pineapple, and Grover’s pumpkin. Planted around them are ‘Black-eyed Susan’ a lovely bright, long flowering Rudbeckia, giving a blue and yellow theme. This is continued into Spring by the grape hyacinth and narcissus, plus a regular hyacinth that I bought in a pot for Xmas a few years ago, and then planted outside. It appears without fail around this time.

This bed is a nightmare to weed. Being right next to a long, tall, hawthorn hedge it is always, and I mean always, full of twigs. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many times I pick them up, there are always more along to replace them.The air is often blue as the fierce thorns stick through mygloves into my fingers or through my shoes into my feet.

At the opposite end to the graveyard the bed deteriorates into chaos. I’ve tried to tame it, but it’s a bit of an ‘out of sight and out of mind’ area, that I’ve never quite got on top of. In early Spring it is covered in snowdrops, shortly followed by a few daffodils, but after that it rather disappears into oblivion.

A couple of years ago I sowed some foxglove seeds there, the idea being foxgloves can look after themselves and reproduce very easily if the rest of the garden is anything to go by, but for some reason it didn’t seem to work. A few plants did appear, but nothing like the block of colour and cover I was hoping for. Hey-ho.

Weed Or No Weed

Cloudybutnice — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:37:35 +0000

Today it didn’t warm up until about 3pm, so I was a bit late getting going, but when I did get going I made a start on weeding flower bed 4. Now flower bed 4 is the worst of the flower beds (apart from flower bed 5 which I’ve already abandoned). I’ve never really ‘bottomed’ it, if you know what I mean, though it does have plenty of potential.

About 3 or 4 years ago a pale yellow verbascum appeared of it’s own accord in number 4, it was a lovely plant, and I saved it’s seeds to try to grow some more, but with no success.

The hardy perennial seeds that I sowed last year included some verbascums (pink, white and purple) which I planted in flower bed 1, and I noticed when I weeded it the other day they are beginning to show little rosettes of green leaves, so that’s good news.

Anyway, today as I was weeding flower bed 4 I noticed some little rosettes of green leaves in the same area as the yellow verbascum had been some years ago. I went to compare these rosettes to those in flower bed 1, and decided that they could well be baby yellowverbascums. As they were in a rather silly position, I carefully dug them up, replanted them and watered them in.

So far, so good. The only problem is, there is a weed, I don’t know it’s name, that has very similar leaves. It could be I’ve just wasted my time by carefully transplanting 3 weeds! To be honest, I do have form for this. I once transplanted and nurtured what I thought was a lavatera, which turned out to be some rampant triffid that would take over the world given half a chance.

Another time I carefully lifted what I thought were impatiens seedlings around the base of a summer pot, only to find they were hairy bittercress! Only time will tell if it’s third time lucky.

Flower Bed 2

Cloudybutnice — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:47:50 +0000

Today I weeded flower bed 2. Not a big job you might say, but big enough. It’s always been a bit of a problem bed (but not the worst) due to the fact that it’s infested with a very pervasive grass which has long, strong, white roots, and if only half an inch is left in the ground it will re-grow, and then you’re back to square one.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve tried to eradicate this grass, but it always gets the better of me. To my horror I found a new weed in there today as well. I don’t know what it is and I’m assuming it came in with the manure last Autumn but I’m going to have to keep my eye on it.

I’ve also started to put the things from the conservatory outside to harden off. I’m just itching to get them planted outside.

Frosts, Bulbs and More Digging

Cloudybutnice — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:03:35 +0000

Last night there was quite a sharp frost, the first one in what seems like ages. Thankfully all my new little plants and seedlings are tucked up warm in the conservatory. Well ‘warmish’ at least, as it isn’t heated. They all seem to be doing very well.

I had a glance at the flower seeds I sowed the other day that are still on top of the central heating boiler, and I do believe there are a couple of lupins germinating already.

In the garden the little Narcissus ‘Tete-a-tete’ are beginning to flower, and the bigger daffodils are full of buds. Some helebors, given to us by a neighbour last year are beginning to look interested, so all in all things in the garden are good.

I had another go at digging some veg beds, and managed to get two and a half done. The half is down to the fact there are some garlics, sping onions and carrots from last year still growing away quite happily.

I’ll grant you the carrots have seen better days, but I managed to find enough good ones to have for our tea. Can’t be bad.

Whilst I was working some geese flew over, and last night I think I saw the barn owl. Then there were 9 long-tailed tits on the bird nuts yesterday, I think that’s a record for those little guys.

Hedge Trimmer News

Cloudybutnice — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:50:02 +0000

The telescopic hedge trimmer finally arrived yesterday, better late than never. Just like the strimmer, it’s battery needed 15 hours of charging, so we weren’t able to try it out until today.

What a disappointment. Advertised as being able to easily cut through branches up to 10/16ths thick (to me that is just over 1/2″) in practice the thing jammed at the sight of anything thicker than a matchstick. A very stop start affair.

We probably need to give it another chance, but early impressions are not good. Any machine that doesn’t do the job you bought it for is a real pain in the neck.

This morning I weeded flower bed number one, and a lot better it looks too. I was pleased to see that a lot of the hardy perennials that I grew from seed last year are beginning to show signs of life after their winter rest.

I also pruned the spirea in flower bed number 2. This little plant of un-known parentage is one of my favourites. Prune it once around now and it’s as good as gold for the rest of the year.

It’s new leaves are a lovely red colour which makes it look like it has little lights on the end of it’s branches. Sweet. If only all plants were so reliable and biddable.