Winter work and this and that

I have had a poorly little boy all week and still managed to work in 3 gardens. Each one so different and requiring me to change my 'Gardening head' each time!

My Tuesday garden is spic and span, ready to see its first visitors of 2016 next week. The lawns have been mown, every Hellebore leaf removed to leave stunning flowers emerging. Edges immaculate and not a weed in sight. My client is on top of it all and this week I planted her first Broad beans out, along with Spinach and lettuce, undercover. It takes a while for me to remember what I am doing with veg spacing and things as the Winter brings a lull from such work!

I actually started to look out Gardening Apps (of which there are a few) which may be a thing of my future. So much info at the touch of a button on my phone. If you can get any reception of course! A problem for the Gardener who tends to be working in the middle of nowhere.

Another garden with a tiny veg patch required some digging and preparation for their choice of veg, feeding only one or two people, the scale is small.

Then onto Heale later in the week. We began our year of sowing, as we did last year, with Lathyrus odoratus, our Single Cordon Sweet peas. A lovely ritual which kicks off the growing season. Much larger scale, 13 different varieties! Including 'Fragrantissima', 'Erewhon', 'King Size Navy Blue'. Blues and Purples with one small packet of white. Sweet pea is THE flower for me, always has been my absolute fave and so the thought of growing and cropping hundreds of the beauties is just fantastic! I can smell them now.......

Almost finished the digging in the veg garden at Heale. Only one bed to go, which is currently housing the last of our Leeks. The soil was great one day but the next day it had rained and began to get rather claggy and harder to work with. Wearing four layers never helps with movement either. Bring on the Spring.

HG was working in some big borders whilst I was digging. When I had finished I could help and in the corner on the wall was a huge, neglected Fig, Ficus carica, which needed some love in the form of renovation pruning. The branches so overgrown, we found a nest in amongst them. HG showed me the way. I do feel so overwhelmed with jobs like this but once you start and make some decisions to remove old and tangled wood, you get underway and all becomes clear. SO much growth on this one, that even if you chopped more than you intended, it will certainly not die. The aim being, as it always is in pruning, to cut out the dead and diseased and allow for air to circulate. We spur pruned to one or two buds but left some lovely new whippy growth, where appropriate.


What difference! More work to be done next week.

Heale will open to the public on 17th February 2016, primarily for the Snowdrop walk. They truly are a delight and nestle amongst Aconites in a woodland walk along the river. Visit the website for details : http://healegarden.co.uk

In my own gardening world, I visited an independent Garden centre who sell Seed Potatoes loose and what a revelation that is to me! I normally buy varieties I don't REALLY want in large quantity as that is my only choice. Here I think they had around 40 different types, all labelled with cooking information, leaving you to mix and match and buy less of a variety with more choice. I just loved it. Whilst I was like a kid in a sweet shop with the potatoes, my youngest chose whatever seed he wanted for our allotment.

He chose some great stuff, including Turks Turban Squash and some Borlotti Beans he fancied the look of. Brussels Sprouts made the cut (mainly for their fart power) and he wants to grow Chillies for Daddy to cook with. Job done.

It must be super tough fighting your corner as an indie Garden Centre out there during Winter. The biggies filling up their nursery stands with colour and large displays. Whilst this centre didn't have everything for my gardening needs, I would so rather buy some things from them and support them, than do a one stop shop in a large corporate where I am told what to buy. Alongside the loose Potatoes, were loose Broad beans, YES beans. I could choose varieties and the amount that I required. Well done them!  http://www.courtensgardencentre.co.uk

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

Christmas time, Mistletoe....... (Cliff Richard comes to mind, I'll stop there)

Many people talk to me about this time of year and tell me how they can't bear the short dark days, they long for Spring and focus on how it always seems to be constantly raining and/or windy/muddy/cold/generally pants. Now, I am not going to suggest I don't agree with some of this BUT I also LOVE the wind and being blown about. I LOVE the sun setting and rising whist I am most definitely awake and I rather like dashing in from the rain (sometimes).

Being out and about this time of year is actually quite a treat in the fresh air and when you wake up in the morning feeling like a sack of potatoes, a bit of gardening outdoors can really sort you out.

These last few weeks have of course been focussed on the build up to Christmas. Lots of jobs involving tidying, leaf blowing, cutting back, pruning, dead heading, clearing old leaves and replacing straw for the Strawberries. Getting ready to start again. In addition, we get involved in the lovely build up stuff, the collection of Ivy and Holly and putting the Christmas tree up.

Despite the bare bones of the garden being on show, there are lots of plants giving fragrance right now, Daphne (Jacqueline Postill/Acutiloba), Chimonanthus. Structure and beauty can be found like the huge beautiful yellowy orange hips on Rosa Meg, which is as big as a soft fruit like an Apricot, truly gorgeous. 

There is much to do in the coming weeks, digging in the veg garden, planting more bulbs, more pruning, weeding, edging, transplanting, not to mention preparing for Snowdrops. 

Lots of wildlife to be seen too, even though the garden is entering dormancy, the weather has been so mild. We have seen Herons, Kingfishers (not me - never seen one!- but HG assures me), Mice, Moles, Bees on the Daphne and of course our regular friends in the garden at Heale, Papadum the Peacock, chickens, Dogs and our Kittens, Fennel and Bo. Never a dull day to be had.

Darker days

My gardening day has been noticeably shorter this week in terms of light. The light starts to go around 3 ish and gently potters off to full darkness around 4pm or so, the Tawny owl hooting to remind us that it is almost night time.

I have been cutting back a big border for a client and transplanting big Salvias from borders to pots for over wintering.

At Heale I spent my days doing lots of jobs. Transplanting Hornbeam hedging and re-planting to a new location. Not finishing the job until the ground had been re turfed and squished down. Tools of the trade include HG's home made (and very useful) Tamper, to flatten the turfs into their new home.

We also spent a morning planting more bulbs, around a 1,000 more, Camassia 'Cusickii' and 'Semiplena', Scilla peruviana and Allium 'Purple Sensation'. Some with a planter, some with a trowel. Should be good.

 Still a bit of cropping of veggies to do. A real pleasure to be handling crops after what seems like an age since we were in full veg flow. The veg garden is bare bones now we have reached December and pretty soon I will be itching to get back in there and get things going.

 The Wisteria in the garden all require their Winter prune and we had a bit of time left to work on the biggest one in the garden this week. Always slowly and methodically. Great job.

This Wisteria is by the most beautiful tall, orangey/brown Miscanthus which stand guard over the river at this time of year and the light was just stunning as it disappeared for another day.