New beginnings

My gardening week was mixed this week. The weather at times I thought too awful to continue but continue I did and managed to tidy a big bed in a clients garden and to achieve quite a lot in my two days at Heale.

Upon arrival at Heale, the gardens veg and flower seeds were waiting for me. I LOVE this time! Lots of beautifully packaged seeds from different suppliers. Tuckers are my particular favourite. The seeds come in a clear bag enabling you to see them. They also have a card inside which can be used as an information card during production. All the essential info is there, when to sow, variety, depth to plant etc. but you can also add your own field notes whilst growing. Thoughtful design.

A few new veggies to try;

Squash 'Uchiki Kuri', an orange teardrop shaped squash. High in vitamins A and C, it is said to have a Chestnut flavour. Another Squash which is familiar but I have never grown. A fun one for kids, Turks Turban due to its strange growing shape, like the first squash is erupting with a smaller one on top.

We will be growing lots of Greens, Brassicas like purple Broccoli and Calabrese, along with Beans. One of which has red striped pods and can be left to grow on and be shelled later. Looking forward to seeing this one in full flow.

At Heale the veg garden is of a 'Potager' style so flowers grow amongst the produce. We will be growing some climbers such as Clitoria, the Butterfly Pea, a vine with vivid deep blue flowers and Ipomoea.

We carried on preparing the soil too in the veg garden. Not much more to do and I find it rather relaxing. I must be mad! Double digging: a spits depth trench, compost in, forked though and cultivated, dig another trench. There is definitely a way to do it and it can become quite meditative.

Amongst the veg are cut flower plots too and we continued to almost (!) plant the last of our bulbs. HG had prepared the most ingenious netted bag, filled with 400 Tulips and secured with cable ties. The idea being it is easier to remove the whole lot of Tulips when they have given their all later in the season with the added bonus of potentially deterring rodents from digging them up (we are guessing they might be put off gnawing through chicken wire).  So, you just dig a trench, one spits depth and place your bag in and cover.  Leave a piece of string or similar attached to the wires and you will find it easier to pull up the net afterwards. Voila!

Aconites are showing, Daffodils, Cyclamen and Heale has a beautiful Cornus 'Officinalis' which just jumps out at you. Very dainty but Yellow and it really brightens up a dull day.
The garden is coming alive once more. We have many Snowdrops. I managed to photograph just one this week but it is a beauty. Galanthus elwesii 'J. Haydn''. 

Out in the cold

Finally, this week we experienced frost and cold, what we need. The Dahlias at Heale are happily entombed in frozen compost layering and we took some precautions to save some other plants too.

HG and I wrapped up some Figs and some Geraniums to try and protect them from the colder frosty weather (and potential snow laying on the foliage). HG also showed me how to use Yew as insulation. Very clever and a beautiful rustic, natural way of using plants to look after other plants. We used the Yew on a Melianthus major which would suffer if the foliage is hit by hard frost. We placed the Yew branches upright in and amongst the stems and gave the Plant a 'skirt' to protect its roots. Fantastic craft garden skills in action thanks to HG!

Surprisingly time consuming this business so to all those who wonder what we get up to over Winter, these jobs took a good few hours alone!

Onto other work and the Hybrid Musk Rose border contains many shrubs (55 according to HG) and each one needs a lot of attention to prune it well. Frosty fingers and hours later, we had pruned and weeded and turned the soil. How gorgeous the border looks now and every cut we took of the stems left a swelling bud. You just have to remind yourself of every single Rose that will be produced from every single bud you come across. Ground work which we can appreciate further down the line when the fluffy flowers fill the border.

We had more bulbs to lift (a part of the garden that is being re-designed) and more bulbs to plant, Saxatilis and Persian Pearl. 1,000 bulbs in the ground in under an hour. Phew!

More pruning required at Heale, more Wisterias to do and Vines, and more digging to get under way. Lots to do and all varied, this and that, every part of the garden. Love it!

In other gardens this week, I continued to prune Vines and cut back a big border, cutting down Japanese Anemones, removing the over zealous Forget me not and catching the missed leaves of the flowering Hellebores. Patient, steady work which is not a sprint but a marathon. Slow and steady.

I managed to plan my veg in another garden, preparing ground for the next season, composting Rhubarb, Peonies along the way. I even used straw from the Christmas crib to mulch the Strawberries! Now that is what you call recycling!

and we're off again

The first gardening week of 2016 and despite having zero energy, it has been great. It is such a wrench leaving home having had time off and somehow harder being out in all sorts than going into a desk job. Yet, I have enjoyed frost, rain, wind, sunshine and tranquility.

At Heale we have been getting ready in the veg garden despite a vast amount of rain most days (or during the night) and working off of boards to start our digging. It has to be done, yes the ground is wet but we work carefully so as not to trample all over it. HG has done loads and I came in to play my part but I cannot dig as much as he can! I love my long handled spade though. I can keep going a lot longer with that thing, a wonderful tool for the veg gardener. In fact, I worked the soil at my plot today with an 'ordinary' spade and my goodness, that is hard work. Terrible on the back.

We have only Leeks left in the ground at Heale but I do have to remind myself that it is January! We will be sowing again for the next season very soon and we need to stop at some point to prepare.

When it really rains and is too wet, there are plenty of jobs to be done. Wisteria pruning is always a great job to do when you have a spare bit of time and we worked with a very old Sinensis plant at Heale this week. Much dead to remove as well as new shoots, very different to working on a newly planted Wisteria. The branches are covered in the most beautiful moss and lichen. That plant has seen a lot of action.This one is grown as a standard, arms wriggling out to reach the air. There are others at Heale, trained on pergolas and walls and one which HG is training to grow horizontally towards a seated area. So clever, a creative pursuit which takes a lot of patience if you want to wait and see the final outcome!

Much is happening ( a bit too early for most folk) since we have experienced warmer weather than usual for December/January. Snowdrops are up, Aconites, the Akebia still has lots of leaf, the Chaenomeles (spellchecker wanted to say Chamomile) in full bud and rose buds swelling ready to go again.

We started to think about seeds again for the veg garden. Round and round we go!

I made it to MY special garden this week too, my allotment, Bugs and my robot top (a name from my boys when they were small and it has stuck) and had helpers in the form of a 7 and 10 year old and hubby giving me a hand. What a treat!

Goodbye 2015 Heale on the last day of the year