Hurrah!

Huge excitement as I went to empty the kitchen scraps pot into the compost bin this morning!

Now this may not look like grounds for huge celebration and back slapping but this is my clump of Snake Head Fritillaries. Planted last year in the green (after copious numbers have been planted over the years as dry bulbs) they are back. However I will try not to get too ahead of myself - there is a long way to go before the lovely flowers appear and all sorts of things could happen (particularly weather related). 

Talking of which, why on earth did I plant them so close to the path to the compost bin? Large footed individuals stomping around in the evening could easily squash them. I think I will be moving them after they have flowered, and then I can add to them too. Oooo, I can feel a shopping spree coming on!

Weekend work...

In between the showers and wind this weekend I actually managed to get out and about in the garden. I was spurred on by a trip to the Truro Farmers Market (this was mainly trying to shelter from the rain) where I found some lovely Iris reticulata. I have some gorgeous Iris reticulata already, but they are a different colour and are not out yet. This is what they looked like last year.

And these are the ones that I had to buy on Saturday...

They are such a gorgeous colour, are so velvety and have such a delightful rumple to their petals that I couldn't resist! I'm only cross that I didn't buy more.

For more information about these colourful, compact and early flowering Iris go to RHS plant finder.

So, flushed with my purchase I ventured out into the garden to try and decide where they should go and, as the rain had cleared up, had a rush of activity - finally planting my garlic and cutting back some bedraggled shrubs and perennials. Needless to say the new Iris didn't get planted due to the usual indecisiveness!

Then, whilst sitting in front of the fire on Saturday evening, I ordered some snowdrops to plant in the green. I got mine from Sarah Raven - 25 single Galanthus nivalis, to arrive sometime in early March. I have planted numerous Snowdrop bulbs in the past and had no luck, but in the green will be much better and I'm looking forward to my own Snowdrops next year.
These are from Jayne's garden and as you can see they are surviving the storms well and look beautifully perky.

So, a very successful Saturday. Sunday on the other hand... not so much! The weather was awful, stormy, windy and chilly, not the best weather for garden birds which was unfortunate as we had decided to take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch some time on Sunday.
 We repeatedly settled to watch for our chosen hour, only to give up 15-20 mins in having seen not one solitary bird! Our garden was a bird desert! Not even the Jackdaws who chase off the smaller birds turned up, and the lone Wood Pigeon who turns up to inspect (and eat) anything remotely edible stayed away too. I'm sure the RSPB allow for weather conditions, but it was rather depressing for us. Usually we see all manner of different Tits, Finches, Thrushes and Blackbirds, but on Sunday we managed 4 Blue Tits, 1 Sparrow, 1 Dunnock, 1 Robin and 2 Chaffinches and their visits were very fleeting. Oh well, today they are all back, rampaging around the bird feeders and consuming bird food like they have never seen it before!

Tomorrows to do list:
1. Buy bird food!
2. Go back to Farmers Market to check for more Iris
3...

03 Winter Honeysuckle

Scent in the garden at this time of year is at a bit of a premium (like like many things) and the Winter Honeysuckle or Lonicera fragrantissima is a deciduous (or sometimes semi evergreen) shrub which has very fragrant pale cream flowers at this time of year. 

 The flowers occur in pairs all along the arching branches, have long elegant yellow anthers, and are very popular with bees and insects - the hardy types that are around at the moment! This year has been so mild so far that there are still a lot of leaves on this bush, although they are looking a bit ragged, and the tangle of shiny red/brown stems is the perfect foil for the delicate blooms.

Winter Honeysuckle can be quite sprawling and become unruly if neglected, so a prune in the spring after flowering is a good idea. The important thing to remember is that next years flowers will appear on this years new wood, so don't cut it all off. Prune some branches back almost to the ground to encourage growth from the base and trim the rest back just to be neat and tidy. You can also train Winter Honeysuckle to cover a wall or fence.

This lovely shrub is hardy, happy in full sun or partial shade (full sun is best for abundant flowering), and fairly undemanding. Just remember to plant it somewhere that you pass in January/February. If you put it at the back of a bed at the bottom of the garden then you are likely to miss the flowers and the lovely scent. But planted by the front gate, outside the back door, or by the path to the compost bin it will brighten up even the gloomiest January.

It's a mystery!

So when clearing a bed in her garden this weekend Jayne found this little item in the undergrowth - it's a stem and a ball of greenery. So the question is what do you think it is?

We worked it out, but can you?

Any ideas?

Well, it's a Poppy seed head full of seeds that have all germinated in situ!

The seed head obviously never split to release the seeds, and the warm, damp conditions have encouraged a fantastic germination rate. 

How amazing is that! We are going to keep our eye on it and see what happens next. Will it become a huge clump of Poppies, or will it exhaust itself and shrivel up?

We'll keep you informed.

02 Mahonia

The second in my 'Flowering in my garden today' series is Mahonia, and thankfully my camera is sorted out (operator malfunction/stupidity!) so I can now take a reasonable picture or two.

 My Mahonia (I think it's a Winter Sun but I bought it in a sale without a plant marker so can't be sure) has been flowering since well before Christmas and as you can see is getting towards the end of its season, but still looks lovely, and in these days of endless rain the bright yellow spires reflect beautifully in the glossy, dark (and very wet) leaves!

The great explosions of flower spikes give real excitement at this time of year and the tall, architectural and evergreen branches add structure to the garden all year round. When the flowers are over  they are replaced by blue black berries which are popular with the birds (you can see the new green berries just starting to form in the picture above). I have read that the berries are 'partially edible' but I am very unconvinced by anything with that description. Sounds to me like a 'won't kill you, but tastes disgusting' moment, so I recommend you don't deprive the birds!

It is as well to mix Mahonia with other things, too much of it can look a little municipal but there is a reason it is beloved of the Parks Deparment. It is robust, hardy and very easy to manage (apart from the spiky leaves), a truly low maintenance plant. It likes partial shade to full shade (which is always handy), and if it gets too tall you can cut it back after flowering and it will shoot again. Thankfully it is frost hardy (except for very tender new growth) as most of the excitement takes place during the part of the year most prone to freezing weather!

Mahonia - a hard working, low maintenance garden star!

Shining through the rain!

I was tramping through Truro today, head down, umbrella up, pretty much oblivious to everything, when something caught the corner of my eye. I turned and saw a lovely Oriental Quince or Chaenomeles, a sprawling tangle of twigs festooned with pinky red baubles, some of which were bursting open to reveal bright yellow stamens. 

A joyous jumble of colourful dots against bare and wintery bark (most of the green you can see is Ivy scrambling through it)

I have always had mixed feelings about Chaenomeles. I had one in my garden in London that I spent my life trying to prune and neaten, as it was too big for the spot it was in. I got royally scratched by its nasty thorns and irritated by my lack of success! Eventually the suckers, thorns and lack of flowers, probably caused by pruning at the wrong time of year, got too much for me and we dug it out (that wasn't an easy job either). 

But I must say mine never looked like this!

Left alone (this one was in a municipal bed by the side of a road - not constantly, or even regularly tended) and in a space large enough to give it its head and the result is gorgeous.

They are very hardy and will grow almost anywhere, they are bushy and like sun/partial shade, come in a range of pinks and reds and produce fruit. However they do need space and during the late spring/summer they are not wildly interesting. But if you are looking for a riot of twigs and an energetic burst of colour when everything else is wet, dreary and dull, then this is your plant. 

It certainly made me smile!

Perhaps it's time to rethink my stance on the Chaenomeles!

01 Winter Jasmine

And wouldn't you know it, just as you commit to doing something stuff happens to mess it up for you! I was there with my first 'Flowering in my garden today' entry when my camera went weird and set itself on Auto landscape, so won't focus on anything closer than about 10ft!


Now Winter Jasmine or Jasminum nudiflorum (the nudiflorum means that it flowers on bare stems - the leaves only appear once the flowers are over) is a splash of colour indeed, but from 10ft away it's not so impressive. So these shots are taken on my phone - not ideal but better than nothing.

This Jasmine is well travelled - it was a gift from my Nan when my husband and I moved into our first home in London in 1997. She was unimpressed by it (I chose it) and castigated it as a stick, but the following January she admitted that it was worth the wait. It was in a pot next to the front door, a perfect position for enjoying the cascade of little starry flowers. 

When we moved down to Cornwall 'Nan's stick' came with us and was planted in the ground as close to the front door as possible. Jasmines are hardy plants, suited to sun/partial shade and this one has survived where other plants might have faded. It is doing fine, but is a little too overshadowed by a Vibernum and has never taken off as I would like. I think I shall do some Vibernum pruning, give it a little more space/light and a good feed over the spring/summer and hopefully it will take off a little more enthusiastically.

Despite a battering by the wind and rain it still has lots of buds and will be flowering for the rest of the month at least, then the pretty trifoliate leaves will appear like a curtain swooping down across the wall up which it is trained.

This cheery little flower is a beautiful precursor of the larger and more showy offerings of Daffodils etc that are just just around the corner. It is the suggestion of Spring to come.

January, the month of...

In an idle moment, waiting for the rain to stop, I looked back over my posts at this time last year to see what I was up to a whole year ago. Surprise, surprise I was talking New Years Resolutions, that minefield of failure and disappointment. I do it every year - I never learn - and how did I do this year?

Well:

1. I did manage to avoid Poinsettias completely this christmas - tick!

2. I did manage to get all my spring bulbs planted on time this year - until I was given some more for Christmas - so now I have some more waiting to be planted! - tick that turned into cross!

3. Impulse buying of plants - well obviously I haven't managed to avoid that. Where is the fun in planning everything and then sticking to the plan? What was I thinking? On the other hand I have managed to avoid a the graveyard of unsuitable/abandoned plants that I had once - cross with an element of tick!

4. My seed planting (and cutting taking) has improved no end - big tick!

5. I did plan my veg garden better - and we did eat all our produce. Didn't manage the year long successional thing but had things to eat from June to now, so respectable for only the second year of my veg bed - tick!

6. Shed discipline - as I predicted didn't happen - big cross!

So all in all not a bad success rate, and the failures were predictable (and indeed predicted)

I am avoiding the whole resolution thing this year - I can't take the pressure. The one thing I am going to try is to increase the year round colour and interest in my garden. I'm not making any promises though - that would be resolution-ish. To this end I though I would try and post something providing colour in my garden each week. This will build up a list of 52 plants as a starting point that I can build on. (It's possible that I might have had this idea previously and didn't carry it through but I know you won't hold that against me!)

So, look out for number 1 this weekend (now I have to find something - eek!)

A Daisy! year in pictures

2013 is the first full year of the Daisy! blog and I got to thinking about what we've seen over the year. There have been great trips, fantastic plants and lots of tea and chat. So while the weather is trapping us indoors, and the seed catalogues rendering me unable to make a sensible decision, I though I would put together a review in pictures. One for each month is the aim - so 12 shots to sum up the year. Here goes!

January - Hamamelis mollis brightening up Jayne's garden. My garden is still a bit devoid of colour this time of year - must try harder!

February - My lovely new Hellebores bought on the first trip to Bosvigo Garden for Hellebore Day - and they're coming out again now! Looking forward to this years trip, I'm expecting to come away with even more!

March - my latest attempt at beautiful SnakesheadFritillaries, planting in the green. I'm waiting to see if they reappear!

April - The beginning of the NGS year for me and a visit to Polgwynne, Feock where the spring flowers were late but stunning.

May - the Iris of Florence and a fantastic trip around the gardens of the area with my lovely Mum. A stunning and inspirational highlight of my gardening year.

June - the tropical planting on a trip to the Minack Theatre, Cornwall. The start of a great summer!

July - and trip 2 of 4 to lovely Bosvigo Gardens - a gorgeous sunny spot (I wish it was mine!)

August - my favourite Echinacea looking glorious at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal in Cheshire on a summer trip North.

September - the month for the best raspberries on Jayne's allotment, delicious! It was a good year for fruit and vegetables with everything except my Florence Fennel doing well.

October - a blustery, stormy trip to London with stunning autumnal colours vivid against the storm clouds.

November - the coast of Cornwall is a constantly varying landscape that inspires all year round, and never more so than in it's bare, stripped back, winter garb.

December - and the plants we've nurtured all year come inside and decorate the house for the festive season. The wealth of greenery available is stunning.

So there it is, the year in 12 pictures. So much has been missed out and there is so much still to do - going back through posts serves as a reminder of what we planned and achieved and also what we planned and forgot about. Time to stop looking back and look forward now. Thank you for following us so far and do stay with us and let us know what you think, this year should be even better.

Now, first job of 2014 - plant garlic - only 3 months late!!

Happy New Year

Well that was quite a busy fortnight, what with Christmas festivities, coughs, colds, bad weather and lots of family and friends, it all passed in a bit of a blur! But now it's time to relax - so here is my idea of the perfect New Years Day afternoon. Fab reading matter, homemade cookies and a cup (or 2) of tea in front of the fire. 

Others may be glued to the football, or watching old movies (sleeping in front of them more like), and the really foolhardy may be out walking, but I shall sit and plan my next garden move.

I can feel another wish list starting - the first of 2014!

So far it goes - 1. Sarcococca (Christmas Box) - It just smells so lovely at this time of year.  2….

A Very Happy and Healthy New Year to all of you 

and thank you for sharing our garden successes and tribulations. There will undoubtedly be more of both, but some new things this year too, so watch this space!