Wednesday 31 December 2014

Frosty New Year

The mornings have been frosty where we are, the garden twinkling and still.

The grass frilled and crisp...

Hydrangea flower heads are encrusted...

And mussel shells frosted.

Ornamental grass looks spaghetti like...

and the teens are over excited (again!). 

And what makes it even better? It isn't my garden so I can appreciate the beauty without worrying about the damage to plants. 

It's the perfect end to another good year. Happy New Year everyone, thank you for sharing our progress through 2014 and we look forward to sharing the next one with you. 2015 will be a good one, plants will grow, flowers will flower and fruits will fruit. They may not be the ones we want, or where we want, but the cycle will roll on and the effect will be glorious (planned or not!).
Happy New Year and best wishes for 2015! xx




Tuesday 16 December 2014

Pruning with an agenda!

This weekend was a pruning weekend. Overgrown shrubs, trailing climbers and misshapen bushes - all licked into shape in the space of an afternoon. Why did I choose a weekend so close to Christmas, when the shopping frenzy is reaching it's peak, the preparation for guests is already overdue and we have two teen birthdays two days away to be unprepared for? 
My mind was focussed (or some might argue diverted off track) by the need for festive decorations and my love of the Christmas wreath.

So an afternoon of pruning left me with this...


and this.


So I looked out the willow bases that I made last year...


wrangled some prunings...


and came up with this for the front door...


and this this for the back!


I love a wreath, and I love even more that I grew the materials used!

The greenery I used was Rosemary, Senecio, Ivy, Euonymous (gold and silver), Griselinia and Berberis.

Sadly there is still a massive amount clearing and sorting to do in the garden, it wasn't even dented by my efforts and looks no better. My front and back doors do though!


Friday 12 December 2014

Feeling seedy?

Dashing through the garden today intent on another Christmas induced panic shopping spree, I just about noticed some lovely seediness.

Spotty pompoms of Japanese Anemone...


 that burst into puffs of snowy fluff!


Twiggy brown Libertia seed heads.


Oriental looking pagodas of Hosta seeds...


and the spikiest of Acanthus seed heads.


Now the question is do I want all these plants seeding all over the garden? The Hosta seeds never seems to germinate, and Acanthus is good for filling a shady spot but doesn't grow strongly in my garden. The Japanese Anemones do grow and these are the dark pink, less rampant ones so I would like some more of those. Libertia seedlings I heave out by the arm load every spring so I would quite less of those, not that there is anything I can do about any of this. 

As usual things will grow when and wherever they want, usually in the most inappropriate place, despite my efforts to encourage or prevent them.

Which is a roundabout way of justifying the complete lack of gardening action there is in my garden at the moment! 

Now, back to the panic shopping - I NEED a snowflake biscuit cutter NOW!




Sunday 30 November 2014

Ahhh the smell of the self righteous!

This time of year gardeners are never short of a bottomless to-do list, and I am no exception. So a fine November afternoon looked good for a bit of list busting. However last week there was a bit of recycling related uproar from Him Indoors. After a particularly long day he was attempting to put out the glass and plastic recycling which is stored in my potting shed and fell foul of my organisational deficiency (there was so much stuff in the way he couldn't even get to it!).

So today I put on my tidying head and tackled the shed. And an hour or two later it is clear and looks positively spacious. The frost tender pots are in and there is still floor space...


(this does beg the question - what was all that junk???).

The Canna Lily that was sprawling in a sack whilst it died back and dried out is now potted up.


Having an ordered and tidy shed set me on the path of neatness so I cleaned and oiled some of my tools, with the result that my shed is now tidy and has the smell of the self righteous gardener - that of WD40!


Are they unplanted bulbs in the trug in the background, I hear you ask? Indeed they are, my new trug has had bulbs awaiting attention in it since it arrived a month ago, but now look at it.


Not content with cleaning and polishing, I also finished planting my bulbs! They are all finally in the ground and it is still November - hurrah, that's a first for me! What an afternoon, I feel like I have more than earned my cup of tea and biscuit and Him Indoors...


Well, he can not only see the recycling bins, he can extract them without negotiating dormant plants, buckets and 42,000 small plastic pots (approx number, I stopped counting after 12ish!)




Saturday 22 November 2014

Autumn Colours in the garden

There are some amazing colours in my garden at the moment and in a bright moment in between the showers (or massive downpours) I dashed out to record them so I could share them.

The birds favourite - berries


Seedheads, already full of promise for next year.


Beautiful browns and textures


The stars of autumn - leaves - but they are disappearing fast.


Moments after I came back indoors the rain was falling again. 

Autumn is always beautiful to look at but often not so good to be out in!



Thursday 20 November 2014

Regrets - I've got a few!

Last week we ventured to the Trevena Cross Nursery on a research trip for one of our current gardening projects. We were searching out hardy but tropical looking plants but got somewhat diverted (surprise surprise!). As with every visit to a good nursery we saw lots of lovely plants, including the ones we were looking for, but there were a couple that I hadn't seen before that I loved.

Persicaria virginiana with gorgeous leaf markings and graceful, long sprays of tiny red flowers that created a delicate lacework effect above the leaves. Flowering now, it was beautiful and this picture does not do it justice.


A variegated Acanthus - such glorious, glossy leaves, stunning colour and gorgeous, rumpled texture.


And the regrets I referred to in my title? I didn't buy either of them - what was I thinking? I was distracted by the bargain bin (we all love a bargain) and I came away with a lovely Geum to add to the one I am so pleased with, a Ceratostigma and a handful of stocking fillers from the gift shop.

Not a bad haul and both plants are very nice but I can't help but remember the two plants that really took my fancy and wish that I hadn't been quite so restrained - and it's not often I can say that!!




Thursday 6 November 2014

Vegetable of the year!

The Borlotti Bean

This was the first year that I tried Borlotti Beans and they have been a huge success. Mine are climbing bean Borlotto Lingua di Fuoco (Firetongue) and were from Thompson and Morgan. The seeds germinated brilliantly and grew strongly (a bit too strongly if I'm being honest, the cherry tree next to the veg bed is adorned with red pods too), and the harvest is impressive.


The pods start out green and as they mature they turn streaky red. At about this stage we were eating them like runner beans, sliced and delicious.



Once they got to this colour, the pods were a little tough and the beans were swelling so I shelled the beans and we ate them fresh (like flageolet beans).


I ate most of the fresh beans above like sweets!

Now the leaves are dying, the pods are dry and purply, and the beans are creamy and streaked with red. It's time to dry them for the winter.


To dry the beans for storage the recommendation is to pick the pods and dry out whole until the beans rattle in the pods, then shell them and continue to dry the beans.


 I have started to pick my pods as they are unlikely to dry out any more on the vine - it's too damp and autumnal now and it would be disappointing if they rotted. However I am having to harvest in stages because there are so many of them and we might disappear under a sea of red pods!


Apparently they should be hard enough to bite or press your nail into and leave no mark (that's hard!) then you can store them in jars indefinitely.
Or alternatively you can freeze them from fresh, then they only need 10 mins cooking.

Now to look for some recipes!

This was by far my most rewarding and successful vegetable this year. It survived the drought with minimal watering and performed very well. The french beans were good too, but the courgettes were awful, the lettuces abysmal, my one spring onion was very lonely and my carrots non existent. My beetroot was ok and my potatoes were passable but the Borlottis have saved my gardeners' pride and will hopefully last through the winter.

If you have any suggestions for recipes for my harvest please share them, I find the best recipes always come from personal recommendations.




Tuesday 4 November 2014

Planting for spring

Last week was half term, the weather was mild, although damp, and the ground warm - perfect gardening weather and how much was I out in the garden? Not at all!
Typical really, visitors, teens, days out and eating/drinking too much took over and nothing got done. I am, however, now the proud owner of a lovely trug, courtesy of my Mother-in-Law. I'm less proud of the pile of unplanted bulbs that are reposing within it.


A couple of weeks ago I had a splurge and planted some white Honesty seedlings from Sarah Raven, a couple of Echium seedlings from Jayne and some of the bulbs I have rashly purchased, planting them mainly in pots.

Now I have a pot of Lily Pink Perfection, a new venture for me having never grown Lilies before, these are threatening to grow to 48-72 inches - I'm already scared! I have my Lily beetle goggles ready, and intend to be vigilant and ruthless (except when I forget, or get distracted, or the if plants get foot/basketballed before they get above the parapet!)


I also planted a large pot of successional bulbs; starting in spring with Muscari, Latifolium and Azureum, followed by Tulip Virichic, then Ixiolirion in the summer and some Schizostylis, also now known as Hesperantha (like it's not hard enough to remember plant names without them changing them) for autumn. I'll interplant with some annuals in the spring, but I'm hoping for low maintenance, season long interest (ha - in my dreams!)

Muscari Latifolium                                      Muscari Azureum


Schizostylis or Hesperantha coccinea

So there is still the shady bed by the front gate to be planted with more white Anemone Blanda, early Eranthus Hyemalis, scented Trevithian Daffodils and Forget-me-Nots, and I have to try and remember where I planned to put the rest of the Muscari I bought and the two lots of Alliums. They weren't impulse buys, honest, there was a plan - I just can't quite remember what it was!

Anemone                                                             Eranthus


And that's just the bulb planting, the list of cutting planting, clearing and cutting back makes me feel slightly queasy so I shall ignore it for now, I generally find that is a good strategy for dealing with overwhelming tasks in the garden. And if you ignore them long enough at least some of the work has died, rotted down on its' own or been eaten by snails so the workload is lighter than you thought!

(The flower pictures in this post are all stock images as I haven't grown any of these yet, with thanks )




Tuesday 14 October 2014

Another Sunday outing

This weekend we went for another autumn walk to clear our heads of homework, emails and report writing and this weekend we chose a beach walk so Autumn's advancing was less pronounced.

I wasn't expecting to get a post out of it at all as we wandered along Porthcurnick Beach on the Roseland Peninsular, most of my time was spent looking at the shells and sea weed which were particularly impressive there. 
Once I had exhausted my 'ways to pimp your shell' hunt, (here are the best two)


we wandered up to have a look at the lovely Hidden Hut Cafe, which overlooks the beach, as we thought we might bring our next group of visitors here. 


Now, just looking at a Cafe never goes well and we ended up staying for delicious Roskilly ice creams and hot chocolate obviously, but what was particularly lovely about the cafe were the little flower arrangements dotted around. Simple, fresh and obviously picked from a much loved garden, they were charming.


With late Tagetes and sprays of berries...


colourful foliage and Japanese Anemones...



...in pretty glass vases.



Enamel jugs with Cosmos, Rudbeckia and Larkspur (my current favourites).


...an impressive array of squashes...


...and the most up market dog bowl ever!

The Hidden Hut is open until the end of October and then weekends only until Christmas.
Apparently they do Soup Sundays and Feast Nights too, so a return trip is very likely.