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?

Horti thoughts

I have been quiet on the blog of late. I have been busy with my gardens and my boys and as we have had a heatwave, have been spending my spare time watering my garden and trying to keep a float.

I have also felt of late, a little bit stuck in my gardening ways. I sometimes wonder what it is all about. I work and work (and sometimes eat some of my rewards) and what comes of it? Well, I get tired and know the weeds will be back the next week and the dead heading will need doing and the veg plan will need some input again very soon (even though I feel like this years rotation is only just coming to fruition). I hear news that my veg have been eaten by Voles and should have a solution to hand and asked again if I have dead headed the Sweet peas (yes I have I do it instinctively every time I pass the pots which is several times a day but they grow and die at an alarming rate so look like I haven't. Same with Cosmos).

I recently found a book on my shelf from back in 2014, when I was just starting my Horticultural adventure. How to Grow a Gardener features input from a group of us Horti's about our journeys in gardening. I sat down and read mine avidly. How far I have come! I hardly think I have moved on at all. Reading my entry, I realize all of the work has made me so much more confident and knowledgeable without even noticing. I worked on my own, without instruction in the veg garden this week in two gardens. I didn't need any advice. I didn't cut anything back that wanted to be left alone instead. I produced veg from my earlier sowings. I managed to succession sow to avoid a huge food gap. I primped, preened, cropped where needed, left behind to grow, tied in and answered a slew of questions that came at me from excitable visitors which ranged from History of the house, which airport is nearby, how do you grow a gourd from seed, what supports do you buy for the Brassicas and what boots do you wear and do you work here or are you 'just' a Volunteer? (I'll have you know there is never a 'just' with Volunteers, their work is hugely valued and appreciated. Who else would weed in the rain for free getting muddy but those amazing Volunteers?).

We sometimes need to stop and take stock. We are coming to the end of what seems like a very long season and I am very happy with where we are. Four years in as a professional Gardener and I feel happy with what I have achieved. Sure, some crops don't perform, some are awesome and some miss the boat to be perfect (a week too early to crop, miss it by a week and they are over).

That is NATURE and I love it. I think we all need to slow down a bit, lower our expectations of PERFECT and ENJOY Horticulture a bit more. Who wants a perfectly straight Cucumber or identikit Potatoes. There are plenty of well known Supermarkets for that.

I know which I prefer.