Prunus

At Heale and around and about this week it has been impossible to ignore the Prunus genus.

Heale have some crackers which are in bloom right now and are also beginning to cover the ground beneath them with a delicate flurry of petals. Soooooo beautiful. Magical really. Like the first dusting of snow.

My favourite in the gardens at Heale is the Prunus 'Shirotae' for many reasons. For its positioning in the garden, as you enter into the veg garden, there she is arching over either side of a bench, shining at you. It is known as 'Mount Fuji'. Of course, it is obvious, the pure white blooms, the flat crown spreading horizontally. I am lucky enough to have seen Mount Fuji and this tree makes me think of that time whenever I see it covered in blossom. Even before the blossom, its buds come, they cover the branches and all that promise awaits.

Also in the veg garden is Prunus 'Tai-haku', which is also known as the Great White Cherry. Heale has a fine specimen filling the top corner of the veg garden. As the blossom comes out so does a delightfully coloured foliage, bronze and red, unfurling into Spring.

Heale also has a delicate beauty flowering now in the Japanese garden rather appropriately: Prunus incisa 'Kojo-no-mai'. It is quite small and compact and has gorgeous little pink blossom which shines out at you from across the river.

I didn't stop to think that the Prunus genus includes Almond, Apricot, Peach and Plum. All with either pink or white blossoms. I think we always just think of the Cherry tree. 

(Of course it makes sense now)

The humble pink Cherry tree is one of my first memories of a tree and probably one of my fondest. The only tree in my Nanna's small back garden to her bungalow. She was a great Gardener and in truth has probably informed me in many ways whilst I was small and beyond. That tree managed to survive 3 children (my Father and siblings) and 9 Grand children (me included). It had a swing on it, we climbed it, we bashed it for cherries, we picked blossom, we snapped branches, we jumped on it's roots! I still remember collecting Cherry stones in a tub, endless hours grubbing about in the grass.

I have yet to own a Cherry tree but if I could, I would, and that blossom would be more than worth the wait.

April showers

It is all kicking off in the gardens right now. Really warm one minute and yet a frost last night. Raining all day and dry the next with blue sky. It always messes with my tiny brain! Is it Spring, are we out of Winter yet. Yes? No? hurry up!

I have been busy in my Tuesday garden getting the kitchen garden up to scratch for planting. A small scale, therefore we can be a bit more spontaneous than in a large garden. Things change, we can decide at the last minute where things go. If it doesn't work, we pull it out and plant something else. Weeds are now growing which is a sure sign that seeds will germinate, so it is safe to try direct sowing. I sowed some Carrot and Radish.

At Heale, a much larger scale, things need a little more planning. All our hard work digging through the Winter months, means we are ready to go when the weather turns. We have been sowing more Broad beans, red flowered, which comes from a green bean. I have never seen this colour bean before, beautiful.

We have planted all our Potatoes, a different variety each week, staggered. Salads and herbs are out, Radishes are almost ready, much more in production, seed stage, pricking out stage, potting on and hardening off.

It is a chaotic time and HG (@michaelmaltby30) is really measured in his process of ensuring everything runs smoothly. Every morning the greenhouse temperatures are monitored and as the day unfolds, we have to check they are not too hot/cold and that the seedlings haven't dried out if the sun has shown its face!

In the wider garden, beyond the confines of the veg garden, Spring has sprung. Blossom is bursting from its bud. Magnolias are out (Felix Jury pictured), Tulips, Amelanchiers are just about ready in the Japanese garden and Hostas are sending their thick spikes up through the soil (I always think they are rather like something form the Dinosaur times).

Clematis armandii (above) is showing off it's huge scented flowers and shiny large shiny leaves against the brick wall of the veg garden.

We planted out the Sweet peas last week, our single cordons, over 80 plants. I love Sweet pea planting day, my favourite plant. the promise of these sweet blooms is too much for me. They are such a fabulous flower. to know that I will spend an hour a week with these beauties, pinching out an picking, once they get going is such a joy.

The rains came one day and we had time out to sow, pot on, prick out and sort the prop. When the days are fine, being in the garden is all you have time for but when the rain comes you can actually get all those jobs done that pile up.

We divided some Hostas and potted them on into new soil with feed. HG showed me how you can wash off all the existing soil so you can really see what you are working with. Then you can decide how to divide and which part of the plant will make a good division. Hostas are tough as boots! We took the time to get some potted plants out into their positions in the garden. Lots of Hostas in pots surround the house front door and look glorious and lush when in full flow.

Escape to the city of Amsterdam

What a week it has been, overload for the senses. I managed to get away with my family for Easter and we chose Amsterdam, as a small easily navigated city. I have been before but not with children but what a great city and totally child friendly (avoiding red lights and drugs of course!).

We discovered the city on bikes and passed some fantastic looking allotments called Nemoland. Behind the big gates I could see little chalets with each plot, some with a hammock! An office type building at the entrance and a real sense of community. The allotments take up much of the Wetserpark, at the top of a very trendy road in the Jordaan. You cycle through busy tiny streets towards an industrial sight of a large chimney puffing out smoke/steam (?). The park used to house an old gas works and now those incredibly creative youths have gone and made it a really cool cultural site with art cinema, cafe's and fashion hubs.

We also made it to the Hortus Botanicus, one of the oldest Botanical gardens in the world c.1600, built for doctors to grow medicinal herbs. My children enjoyed the glasshouses, especially with the cactuses and the butterfly house. It was interesting to see this small green space amongst a bustling city. Outside the gates, hop on a tram and you are in the centre of town in minutes.

Along the canals, the famous Singel in particular, the flower markets throng with tourists and those wanting to buy famous Dutch bulbs. My son liked the look of the enormous Buddha Palm Seeds for sale. A bit of a whopper for our tiny garden!

I didn't make it to Amstelveen to the Heem park and the weather wasn't good enough to invest time and money in Keukenhof with two boys but we crammed in an awful lot into 4 days.

Back to work at Heale and I missed Storm Katie and the damage she had caused over the weekend. One Malus has been damaged and lots of twigs around but not too bad. I had fine weather for my days at work and was able to begin planting out some veg, purple Potatoes (much better for you according to various sources) 

http://news.psu.edu/story/367072/2015/08/26/research/colorful-potatoes-may-pack-powerful-cancer-prevention-punch, Salads, Radish. Such a great start to the growing year. 

Now is the time to be sowing and pricking out and we sow all our veg AND flowers from seed, so that is a lot to be getting on with. I pricked out Zinnia, Lupin, Cosmos, Lettuce.

To end a very busy week, I got to my allotment with my family, planting our own veg and mucking about in the sun.

Just a joy to be out there, lots to come, full of promise.

Time to nurture

Seed sowing time and a Gardener needs their inner Mamma/Papa coming through every step of the way. One false move and it can all be over. Too much heat/too little. Too much water/too little. Glass on/glass off. In the cold frame or not? the days can be really warm in March and the nights still below zero. This week at Heale, we lost power to the greenhouses for about half an hour and the temp dropped 5 degrees (not much but in a frosty morning quite a lot!). HG is on the case but with no Gardener in at the weekend, it is a testing time. Still we have lots on the go. Salads, Celeriac, Peas, Sweet peas, Brassicas, Leeks. We did some flower sowing this week, lots to come, Cobea, Clitoria, Zinnia, Cosmos, Ipomoea and more.

One sunny blue sky day this week, I was reminded why we all stick to Gardening and what pulls us through the long Winter. We had a warm bright day, Daffodils arching their necks to the sun, birds flitting about my head, Swans on the river and soil *just* warm enough to get planting. We got our first Broad beans in and made some Hazel supports for them. 

We are pretty much ready to go in the veg garden. We spent time mucking the wigwams, which will provide support for climbing flowers and possibly some extra Runners (along side our productive Bean plot). I can picture it all now.

In the bigger picture the garden is undergoing some changes and HG has been busy preparing a new seated area. The Japanese tea house has been released from its Winter shutters and has come back to life. It is such a treat to see it peeking out of the trees from the Veg Garden. The weather has been strange though this year and wandering through past some of the early Magnolias, the buds have been damaged. They came too early and got frosted which is so upsetting because they are such beautiful blooms when they are at their best.

I got to explore the wider picture last week. A quad bike trip into the fields and woods high above the valley. We went collecting Pea sticks and supports. Certainly gives you some perspective. Returning into the garden down the drive, you realize how small it is really and if the Leeks don't work perfectly, well there is always next year ;)

Veg prep and hedging

My week in gardens this week involved a variety of tasks. Always the unexpected, which is why I love being outdoors.

When I arrived at my Tuesday garden, over 100 Yew plants were in front of me. Myself and three others set to planting up a new hedge in the rain and sticky mud! Heavy and relentless work but great plants and instant hedging. Worth the result. Much more to do, each hole needed to be dug through old hedging roots and stones so it was slow going.

At Heale, both days involved an awful lot of Bamboo canes! Much preparation was done in the veg garden and it is looking good. We erected the 8 foot canes for our single corden Sweet peas. The soil has been double dug, the canes tied up and all that is left is to plant out early April and get the plants past the Slugs, Mice, Voles, anything that might fancy eating the tenders shoots. That is the time I dislike the most. Willing tiny seedlings and tender young plants on trying to avoid every possible problem along the way. Not to mention THE WEATHER!

We also marked out where we want to plant our Runner beans, French Beans, Dwarf beans, Peas, Broad beans, Cucumbers, Tomatoes and Cucamelons.

We dig a 1 foot deep pit for compost for each Cucumber/Tom/Courgette plant and this saves double digging the entire bed over. Nobody needs to be digging for no reason! Certainly my back tells me that often.

Th Cucamelons we tried to save seem to have rotted. A bit like a Dahlia tuber, we decided to dig up the plant from last year and store in just moist compost. When we went to check on the beauties they appeared to have shriveled up and left all their moisture in the soil. We will have to start again.

The weather was fairly kind this week, into March now and we had cold air, bit of rain, warm sunshine, hail, wind but man that warm sunshine seems to make up for a lot of Winter. What a lovely feeling, when the cloud pulls away and you get SUN! the joy.......

Country life is still keeping me on my toes. The Geese in the field with our Kune Kune pigs are feeling feisty and come at you like mad men in the morning. I am still startled and in awe of the Barn Owl that comes by early in the morning. So graceful. Sheep cross my path as I drive into work and look at my car as if to say "who are you?", not what my commute would involve in London town. I never thought I would get used to driving a quad bike around but somehow it all seems terribly normal now. Looking forward to the season.

The wait just got a bit longer......

......for anyone who likes to visit Heale gardens in the Woodford Valley. The garden would usually open for displays of Snowdrops, drifting through the woods, alongside the river. We have had our lovely Snowdrops, as usual, but they came rather too early and with rather too much wet weather. Still, we are preparing for an opening in March. If you are local to Wiltshire and want to visit, please visit the http://healegarden.co.uk website, as times are subject to change.

Last week I helped HG to get some borders in the veg garden tidied up. Lots to cut back, Japanese Anemones, old Allium heads nestled amongst new Allium shoots, Digitalis, Clematis and Wisteria. The days were cold and I am finding the 'michelin man' layers of clothing a bore now! I can barely move!

We also planted the last of our bulbs (for now!), Ranunculus, which don't really look like bulbs at all. They look like crazy sea creatures. Once soaked they fatten up and swell to look like fat fingers. These will be white and we planted double rows, so they should look fab.

Our Lathyrus sown last week are coming up nicely. Doesn't take long in the warm greenhouse. HG ramped up the temp to get them going and reminded me that keeping a watering can of water in the hot greenhouse reduces the shock to the seedlings when they are thirsty. Top tip! HG is a master of detail.

I also spent time pruning roses in my Tuesday garden. My client has quite a few climbing up walls and fences. She likes to prune them quite hard, taking out most of the old and leaving a few new shoots to tie in. They will be wonderful. The Roses I pruned for her a while back have beautiful shoots ready to roll, oh the potential, that's what keeps us going. She has many, many pots around and about and the time had come to split some of them and refresh with new soil and food. Some of the pots seemed surgically attached to the plants inside but after much huffing and puffing, they broke free from each other......Agapanthus seems to create a solid wall of root.

Half term this week and I have planned to visit the allotment, weather permitting. My youngest has been given some Lentil seeds to grow so we shall add them to the (ever growing) pile of seeds to try out!

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