Endings and new beginnings

Well, hello. It has been almost 2 years to the day that the world stopped. I left my job at Heale gardens just before Christmas 2019 and in March 2020, the Covid 19 pandemic hit and boy did we not have a CLUE!

The following two years were filled with sitting still indoors (a lot) and home schooling my sons, with occasional gardening here and there, as Covid permitted... They went into the pandemic 14 and 11 and have come out the other side 16 and 13, have changed greatly and will never be the same. Yet we all went through it didn't we? We have all changed.

I joke that the boys wanted me ideally to be sitting in the downstairs cupboard during this time. Always on hand if the printer didn't work, a zoom call was frozen, hunger prevailed or they needed to do their PE outside the back door. And yet I remained still whilst they were learning this new life. My eldest Louis did his GCSE's without actually sitting an exam and my youngest Sammy negotiated endless zooms of 15 subjects as he began his journey at Grammar school. I managed some work, my Tuesday garden remained and I could get to the flower field at times. Mainly though, I didn't earn money, I didn't get outside and I felt like I had lost myself somewhere along the way.

The boys were emotionally intelligent enough to know that I was going to be the one to find this situation the hardest. I'm best outdoors in all weathers these days and this was going to be a long haul.

Here I am in March 2022 and I am privileged to remain working in my Tuesday garden and still at the flower field with Susie at Littleford farm. I am also now a Gardener at Reddish house in Broadchalke. A gem of a garden with connections to fashion and art via Cecil Beaton, who lived there for several years. In a strange connection to my own world, my old boss Chris Moore (fashion photographer and a great inspiration to me) was once Cecil's assistant as he began his career.

Of course, this connection isn't a coincidence on its own. My HG, Michael Maltby, left Heale Gardens and began working at Reddish just last Autumn. A big move for him after 20 odd years at Heale but he intended to cut his hours and spend more time working gently, using his great knowledge to consult on the gardens and take them in a new direction.

I was incredibly privileged to be championed by Michael and be invited to commit to 2 days working alongside him. The plan to assist him in the running of the kitchen garden and wider areas. I began in January 2022. We clicked again immediately and set about planning seeds for cut flowers and veg. It was a pure joy to be alongside him again; we don't need many words, we just know each other. In fact we made some plant supports hardly saying a word, with Michael holding out his palm ready for me to give him string, like a surgeon's assistant.

Unexpectedly, Michael became seriously ill just last month in early February and is now being cared for in our local hospice. I haven't worked with him now since the 10th of February and now know he will never return to the garden. It is an unbelievably heart breaking situation for Michael and his family. I am so saddened and am still processing it all. The gardens at Reddish have Michael's touch everywhere, in just 6 short months he worked all over the garden. Every rose he pruned... I can see it was him that tied the string. His writing on labels. His border fork with blue handle that we shared for 5 years. I still use his bar to make holes for the willow supports, and see how worn it is from years of his loving use. 

I am spurred on by the fact that Michael wanted me in this garden. Michael brought me here, to this place and time, he nurtured me (as he did so many others). He is my dear friend, he is my Head Gardener, he is my teacher and my mentor. Not many Michael Maltbys come along in a lifetime and I am determined to carry on his skilled work. He will always be with me, every cut I make, it is Michael who taught me.

I have managed to sow seed for veg and cut flower, mulch borders, prune, weed, sweep, water, care and nurture and I am ready to continue with Michael in my heart and in my mind.

September

I cannot believe I haven't written on here since MAY!

SO much has happened in the gardens I work in and time just flies during the Summer months. I have also handed in my notice at Heale gardens. Not an easy decision to make, after all Heale was where it all began. My allotment alongside my WRAGS and RHS training and this is where I am today.

I will continue to get my gardening fix in my Tuesday garden (soon to become Tues and Fri) and also in a new venture for me; a cut flower garden which happily requires some of my input to help it on its way. What a way to spend your days? Growing cut flowers and making folks happy in the process!

I am excited about the future but sad to leave my amazing, creative, inspiring, HG Michael Maltby, who will continue to care for Heale garden as he has done since circa 2002. Michael has implemented so much of the garden as we see it today and has dedicated his time to making sure it is tip top to visitors who can not only enjoy what they see today but be informed as to what the gardens were like in the past.

Today, Michael and I had an outing to another special private garden in Hampshire; Malverleys. We were lucky enough to be allowed access to explore the gardens which are new (past 9 years work) and have been developed by Mat Reese. We were a little overwhelmed with the plant variety and work that is ongoing in the gardens. Of course, my favourite part was the veg garden, set within walls complete with a beautiful greenhouse. My kinda heaven!

It is always good to get out and see other gardens. A vital part of learning. Not forgetting a time to meet fellow Gardeners and learn about their job and how they do it. Important stuff!

Malverleys has plans for the future. Perhaps you can grab your own piece of it from a proposed  nursery or maybe one day it will open for all? Watch this space......

Month of May

It's all getting a bit like a jungle out there at the moment. The month of May. Sunshine and warmth suddenly kicks off growing in earnest and EVERYTHING needs doing right now!

This week I have been doing extra hours and it has been hot work. Much planting to do. In my Tuesday garden, my client likes to plant Dahlias in her borders and mix and match it up with Verbena, ornamental grasses and Crocosmia. There is really no point in rushing this part of the year. Months have been spent nurturing, over wintering, sowing, hardening off. Now is the time to give enough space to the plant, depth, a good watering and settling in. The plant will after all give you months of joy.

At Heale the veg garden is calling on all of me as I only work two days and it must all get done. I have been planting plants we have sown from seed months earlier. Ornamental Gourds mixed up with Ipomoea. Dill and Gladioli. Module sown Beetroot (colours vary), Rocket and Agretti.

Now Agretti is a new one on me. Apparently difficult to germinate successfully and requiring full sun once you have got that far. I sowed the seed in March and have only a handful of 10cm high seedlings to show for it. So surely it cannot wait any longer and requires planting out? I have gone for it! Watch this space.

Many tasks to finish in the veg garden and sprinkling is an ongoing one. It does all get done. Like Magic!

Around the garden it is all kicking off. Long meadow grasses full of our bulbs, which we planted on our freezing cold knees in the Autumn. Magnolias in bud and/or flowering their socks off. The Laburnum has a constant hum of bees about it, mixed in with Wisteria along the Pergola in the veg garden.

Many visitors are reporting that the gardens look good. They love the relaxed feel (which we tell them is a result of not enough time but happily it sits well with the river setting!) and the variety of plants on offer.

Onwards into the season. A gorgeous time of year to really get out and stretch your wings.

New season

Heale garden is once more open to the public and we are seeing visitors drifting through the garden, enjoying the early blossom of Magnolia and bulbs such as Scilla and Fritileria (on their way!).

For me, I am always energised by the moving forward of the veg garden. I have sown most veg that I can for March. We are preparing supports for sweet peas and have been collecting pea sticks for the Broadies and Peas to cling to. Radishes will soon go out and Parsnips have been direct sown, Gladiator F1. Gladiator are reportedly less likely to develop canker which can ruin a crop. Seeing as you wait months for a Parsnip to mature, I like the sound of one that will be good after that long wait free of disease! Growing is not for the impatient! What better than homemade Parsnip soup topped with almonds in the Winter?

Mixed salad leaves are coming up in modules, looking tantalisingly fresh and tasty already in their micro form. This is a good time to sow annual cut flowers too. We collect seed as we can such as Tithonia, Daucus Carota and Antirhhinum. The Sweet Peas are in the cold frames, one set sown in January, the next in February and I just hope we will have enough and avoid rodents or slugs which can dessimate seedlings.

I am very happy with this time of year, so much hope is held amongst the leaves unfurling and the buds about to burst.

The new year

I realise I haven't been on here for a while. Today was a snow day which made me realise how much I just love being out doors whatever the weather. I grew up in the country but left for London at 18. When I came back to the country in my thirties and began gardening, I really began to NEED the outdoors. Today was just perfect, silent falling snow, empty garden, beauty all around.

So, you might ask, what does a Gardener DO in the snow? Well, HG leads the way and shows me exactly what you can do. Leaf blowing plants to remove snow is great fun. The snow makes the plant heavy and could potentially break limbs or stems so it is a worthwhile task. You could of course just use a rake but when you can pretend you are exploding things in the air why wouldn't you go for the machine?!

We have also been sowing in the warm greenhouse, with snow coming down outside, could it get any better for a lover of plants on a Winters day? This week we have started sowing Sweet peas for the single cordons and some other annuals too. I love the process.

The veg garden still has Kale and Leeks but they must soon go to make way for preparing the ground for 2019 plantings. Digging is well underway and we are now almost half no dig so simply composting and covering takes less time. I will however miss digging if we go all out, no dig! It is a lovely job to do and cyclical so you feel where you are in the season.

In my Tuesday garden it has been weeks of Rose pruning which I really love to do. I love the challenge of taming the beast. As I do quite I lot, I have also gained in confidence and reckon I could tackle most roses now except one on a roof 20 feet up! Not my most comfortable thing to do, heights.

Soon the pruning will be complete and we will be well under way for the new season.

Snowdrop week begins at Heale in one weeks time so if this is your thing and you are itching to get out and about you can check the Heale website for dates and times. We have a lovely Nursery run by Ian who will be on hand to buy from too. Ian is knowledgable and very approachable so do say Hi!

Low light, shorter days, garden love

I have been loving the low light of late Autumn recently and the quiet it brings as we slow down the gardening year. The onset of Winter allows time to reflect.

I worked largely alone one day this week and was only distracted by the beating of Swans overhead or the moment when I would occasionally tune in to the babbling river beyond the vegetable garden. When you have the time to be quiet it is amazing how heightened your senses become, particularly when in nature. The Robin chirping somewhere nearby, the rustle of a leaf as a Pheasant flaps away, Frogs squirming as you move the soil around them.

I have been in both my working gardens this week and have mirrored jobs in each. Lifting Dahlias is a ritual I enjoy very much (although it doesn't seem enough time in-between lifting and planting again!). Time to look at each name, remember their look and smell, how tall they grew, whether they were good cut flowers or grew prolifically on a very short stem. We store the tubers (carefully labelled) in trays, initially upside down to drain any water from the stems and then as they dry return them upright for the Winter.

Now is the time to be pruning many plants in the gardens too. Of course Wisteria which can be done any time from now until March really, a Winter prune to 1 or 2 buds. A tight shape and time to consider the structure of the plant, saving and training new stems, or removing leggy or old wood. Pruning roses begins now, removing old wood, tying in new if a climber or rambler. Preventing wind rock if a shrub. I absolutely LOVE to prune and so I find this kind of work a joy (I should point out if it is not chucking in down with a Northerly freezing cold wind in my face).

Now is the perfect time also to plant bulbs, we managed over a 1300 on Thursday this week. Rippling ribbons of bulbs through long grass and borders.

The ebb and flow of the gardening year. It changes each time yet remains constant in many ways. You can rely on nature to need your input but only when SHE tells you she is ready, like my Sedums (sorry something else now Hylotelephium) who last week were dying gracefully with yellowing leaves and strong purple heads only to today look slushy and weak with new rosettes forming at the base. Hurry up and cut us back they say! We are ready for the new.

Autumnal change

We have been very busy at Heale with a variety of projects on the go, aswell as keeping on top of the apple pruning and preening the Veg Garden.

We have had an old Poplar tree and stump removed which, at a guess, deposited a couple of tonnes of sawdust in the Japanese garden. This tree had been pollarded years ago but it was time for it to go. It was one of the original planting from the late 1800's/ early 1900's so it was sad to see it go. The noise made by the surgeons dropping huge chunks down was quite intense! It took over a day of solid work to bring it down.

We lost an old Medlar too and whilst they were at it they took old dead wood out of our 100 or so year old Cercidophylum which has improved the tree no end. Visually it is better but of course hopefully the tree will fare better now it has had a cut. Fingers crossed. It is trying.

The Veg garden continues to provide all manner of Veg we have grown from seed including Beets and Carrots of different colour, Spinach, Chard, Salads, Courgette, Beans, Cucamelons......time to crop the Gourds and Squashes this week before the frosts come. Important to crop these with a good stalk attached so as the fruit can harden off and store for a while as and when you want to use them. We have an unusual stripy looking Squash in a Butternut shape: Honeyboat.

HG noticed the Quince trees were hanging a bit too low for the tree to be happy this week so we cropped a couple of trays to help the tree out. Branches lifted, weight off! What a pretty fruit Quince can be. I like the furry exterior and the way a leaf generally comes with the fruit as you crop it making it extremely photogenic!

We have been busy pruning out the flowering stalks of our Blackberries which we train onto the exterior and interior of our fruit cage. I love this job, it is very satisfying seeing a mess turn to beauty again. Rubus fruticosus 'Oregon Thornless' which bears large black juicy berries (even afte a heatwave but we seemed to have cropped and pruned in super speedy early time this year as a result).

Much to do. All the while nature is moving around us. We have started to see Mole hills again. We have Solitary Bees all over the lawn near the VG pond doing their thing. White fly all over some of my crops ( aaaaggghhh!) and birds of prey, Peacocks, Sheep, Frogs and Toads.

Great time to be in the garden. Cooler mornings, warm blue sky days. Much easier to work in and beautiful to boot. It has been a gloriously hot Summer season but too hot to work in. Wonderful when swimming in the sea! but the garden has struggled and we have been on watering duty three times a week (household pots) and everyday we can and have time for in the VG with sprinklers being moved around. Never enough time and a constant thought especially when planting out new crops with a weekend in view.

We made it though and now onto Autumn.

How did you all get on?