Blooming wrong

Most of the tulips have now been planted; but it was a rather unsatisfying day's gardening.  On the one hand, it was good to get most of the half-hardies under cover, and the tulips planted in the pots in their place, and the last of the autumn leaves were cleared from the lawn (still lots on the veg beds, though!).  The autumn tulip orders, on the other hand, have left something to be desired.  In the past couple of years I've had tulips bursting into flower and sometimes revealing themselves to be the wrong variety; this year the problem has arisen even before they were planted.  The orders came in while we were away, and the parcels were put in the greenhouse as I had requested; I must admit I delayed unpacking and examining them (too much else to do after our travels), but when I opened the first package there was a definite problem.  I had ordered, from the usually reliable Bloms, one bag each of two tulip varieties and one variety of crocus; instead, the package contained two tulip varieties I'd never heard of, and no crocuses.  The company apologised and sent the correct tulips immediately, but still no crocuses (I settled for a credit note; it was rather too late to be planting crocuses anyway).  The other package, from Sarah Raven's bulb supplier (where I've had problems with wrong varieties in the past), seemed ok from a quick inspection, but when I went to plant some of them the other day I noticed that there was a mistake there too: a colour-coordinated pack of three different tulips was actually one pack of one tulip and two of a second (and no third variety).  It was rather too late to go back to the company and complain; I substituted another variety of a similar colour to the missing one, though the shape will be different and I suspect it will flower too early to blend with the others.  The doubled-up tulip is the lovely 'Havran', a favourite of mine with two or more blackcurrant-black flowers on a bluish-green stem, an elegant plant, but I wasn't looking for quite so much black in my plantings (I've also got 'Black Parrot' this year).  Ah well; maybe time to check out some other bulb suppliers who might have better-organised packing sheds.

That wasn't the end of the day's woes.  I then went to plant some variegated London Pride (Saxifraga x urbium) on the top of the bulb pots - partly to provide some interest over winter and partly to discourage the birds from poking around in the pots and disturbing the compost.  The London Pride was in the top of another pot and I'd already used a little of it; but when I lifted some more, it came up without roots.  Uh oh, I've been here before ..... the sure sign of vine weevil grubs in the compost.  I found some of the little nuisances earlier in the autumn when I went to repot some Geranium renardii; the pot had been invaded by a viola and some miniature sisyrinchium, and both of those were flourishing, but the geranium had been attacked (not fatally, fortunately).  The grubs are obviously picky eaters.  I also know that there will be vine weevil in the big pot on the patio, which is currently occupied by some heuchera (a favourite target of vine weevil) which is not looking in good shape (I've salvaged some bits of that and potted them on, so the plant isn't completely lost).  I wasn't expecting the little blighters in the saxifrage pot, however.  The compost was rather wet (I must remember to raise up the base of winter pots by putting 'pot feet' under them - there was little space for excess moisture to run away), so I put it temporarily in an old compost sack to keep the grubs from contaminating anything else.  Since then on dry days I've been putting a little of the compost, well spread out, under the fat ball feeder, where the local robin has been gratefully disposing of the grubs and any other minilife that he finds in there; it's a win-win situation for both of us.

A quick sighting of a male blackcap, taking a bath in the pond, the other day.  It's late in the year for a blackcap round here; they usually migrate south for the winter, but it's a bit late for this one to be heading off, so maybe he'll hang around.

Time, flies

It has been a good (if that’s the right word) year for flying insects.  The fly-catching birds – house martins and the like – seem to have had good pickings over the fields, and others besides us have noted that there have been a lot of wasps in late summer and, as autumn drew on, harlequin ladybirds trying to get into houses.  Since October we’ve had large numbers of houseflies appearing daily at the dining room windows (indoors) and we can’t work out where they’re coming from.  We usually have a good number coming into the upstairs rooms from the loft, but if anything there seem to be fewer upstairs this year; it’s definitely a downstairs problem.  They’re coming in for warmth and then trying to get outside into the light.  We did see a cloud of flies one day around one of the chimney stacks, so they might be getting in that way, but I haven’t seen them coming into the dining room from that direction.  Another definite possibility is that they’re squeezing in round the edges of the windows, which don’t fit all that well in places, but again I haven’t seen much sign of that.  They just seem to appear as if from nowhere, by the dozen.  Perhaps they’re creeping in round the skirting boards and making a dash for the windows when they see I’m not looking?  I’ve given up opening the windows and trying to shoo them out; it’s time for more drastic action.  I’ve been picking them up with the hand-held vacuum and emptying it outside, preferably as far away from the house as possible to discourage them from finding their way back.  It probably gives them a headache, but I’m not in a mood to be too particular.

The weather has been up and down over the past few weeks, with some frosty nights, some heavy rain, strong winds in the last few days, and occasional mild spells.  A couple of weeks ago we had a dusting of snow, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t forecast; it started to lie lightly but disappeared within a couple of hours.  Fortunately I had just bubblewrapped the greenhouse and dusted down the heater, which has been set low, just to keep the temperature above freezing.

Not forecast!

After a few more days away, there’s still a lot to be done around the garden.  I still haven’t managed to sweep up all the fallen leaves, and not all the tulips are planted yet.  There are still some dahlias and other half-hardies in the pots, and they need to be dug out before the tulips can go in.  Today I pulled up the borage, which I had left because I’d seen a couple of late bumblebees checking out the remains of the flowers for sustenance; the flowers are well past now and the bees ought to be tucked up until the warmer weather.  The phlox stems have been cut down to half-height, leaving some cover for overwintering insects but removing the unsightly dead tops which were spoiling the look of the Viburnum davidii right alongside; it’s a pleasantly shapely shrub, particularly at this time of year when shape and texture in the garden are all-important, and the phlox stems were doing nothing for its appearance.

Winter jasmine

The leaves have now fallen, except for the buddleia and Lonicera purpusii which are always slow to drop, but there are still some berries around.  A pair of mistle thrushes are enjoying the berries on the Sorbus ‘Joseph Rock’ and defending them noisily against all incomers (ie the fieldfares); the redwings have made considerable inroads into the holly berries (but some stems have been cut for Christmas and are in a bucket of water in the summerhouse).  There are still several big apples on the cooking-apple tree, looking like outsize Christmas decorations, and the birds are enjoying them; a green woodpecker was there the other day.  The winter-flowering shrubs are getting into their stride, and the winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) provided a good vaseful which has lasted for over two weeks now; it was originally paired with some stems of autumn leaves which have now fallen, but the flowers make a good display by themselves.

The catch-up

Autumn colours

After a few weeks away, there's a lot to catch up on in the garden.  We returned to a garden full of fallen leaves; the weather had been fairly normal for October/early November, but there had been some wind and some frost which had taken their toll of the remaining deciduous foliage.  The leafmould bins are full and there are still a lot of leaves to sweep up, and still some to fall; the ash trees have shed everything, but some of the shrubs are still showing good colour.  The frost had blackened the dahlia foliage, a precondition for digging them up.  Most of them have now been lifted and are drying off in the greenhouse but there are still a few in the pots outdoors; they were planted up with other half-hardies such as argyranthemums and osteospermums, which will need to be potted on.  The dahlias mostly seem to have made good-sized tubers, and they look quite healthy too (for the moment; we'll see how they survive the winter!).  Two of the hedychiums had been moved back into the greenhouse before we left, in the hope that their flower buds would open; they seem to have started to open but then the plants apparently thought better of it and stopped (probably too cold - the max-min thermometer showed that the temperature had dropped to 2C at one point).  The third hedychium, which shared a pot with a couple of (tender, and now dead) tithonias and an osteospermum, has now been brought into the greenhouse; it's looking a bit sorry for itself, but I know from experience that this year's stems won't do anything next year in any case, so they can be cut off and I expect the one little new shoot, which seems healthy, will keep the plant going over winter.

The pond, which nearly dried out in the summer, is full again - there has been plenty of rain, with some sunny days too.  And we had a quite spectacular hailstorm one day.

The tulip bulbs are still to be planted, but there's still time for that; the half-hardies have to be cleared out of the pots first.  The sweet pea seeds were sown today, only half of what I normally sow; I always have more than I have (sunny) room for, and it would make more sense to sow some now and some in early spring, to spread the flowering period.  More broad bean seeds have been sown, to plug a few gaps in the bed, and I'll sow some pots of herbs and salad leaves for the greenhouse.  I ought to take some cuttings of the half-hardies too; and at some point I need to bubble-wrap the greenhouse.

I haven't finished trimming the long hedge, either, but this week is going to be a bit on the chilly side for that.  Plenty to get on with!

Nerines and panicum

Predictably there isn't much to cut for the house, but some winter jasmine has provided one vase, and nerines with the last of the Panicum 'Frosted Explosion' another.  The nerines have done better this year; I fed them in the summer and cut back the wisteria to give them more light, and that seems to have done the trick, generating eleven flowerheads (last year there were only four or five).  The Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn' is in flower, too, so that can also be pressed into service when the nerines fade.


Another change in the garden is the return of the birds.  Before we left, they were mostly showing not much more than polite interest in the food put out for them, and were turning up in very small numbers, but in the last week or so we've had 20-odd species in and around the garden, and all offerings are being gratefully received.  The redwings and fieldfares are here (time to cut some holly for Christmas, before the redwings eat all the berries), along with several blackbirds which may well be migrants; we've had various tits, pheasants, partridges, chaff- and goldfinches and a female bullfinch showed up one day.  And of course the robins are being very territorial - though it's only a few weeks before they will start pairing up again!

Ins and outs

A lovely autumn day, a little mist over the fields in the morning, then sunny and warm enough for lunch outside on the bench.  Not for very long, though, because there's too much to do; it's time for old plants, and leafmould and compost, to come out and new ones to go in.

It started yesterday, with the first big sweep-up of fallen leaves.  This meant that last year's leafmould had to come out of the wire containers so that the new stuff could go in - which is always very satisfying.  Some of the old leafmould went down as mulch around the leeks, and over the garlic that was planted a couple of days ago in the patch where the runner beans had been taken out.  In theory the beans should have fixed some nitrogen in the soil, but I think I read somewhere that actually not much nitrogen remains available to the next crop, so plenty of old compost went in around the garlic, especially the elephant garlic (I'm still in competition with a neighbour on that).  That particular bed has a patch of poor soil in it; it's one of the old 'L' shaped beds that I'd been meaning to square off, and I finally managed this, but the newly created corner has a lot of grit from the old path in it.  I've tried to compensate with some of the soil originally dug out when creating the Hill, and I'm hoping that the added compost and leafmould mulch will do the trick.

Today's job was digging out the compost bins.  The bin that had been cooking over the summer had done really well; usually there's a lot of twiggy stuff, leathery avocado skins, egg shells and other things that take longer to break down in there, but the summer heat had obviously kept the temperature high and there wasn't anything like as much as usual to transfer to the new pile.  That meant that I was able to use some of the new compost to prepare the broad bean bed.  The broad bean crop has been erratic over the past couple of years, with both poor germination (despite using fresh seed) and poor growth, so I've gone back to my old practice of sowing the overwintering beans in the cold frame (in toilet roll half-tubes) in readiness for planting out once they've germinated.  About half have done so already, and they will go into the ground in a couple of days once the soil has settled after my digging.

So there's plenty of space in the compost bins for the other plants that have been taken out: the courgettes (which still had a few tiny fruits on them but mildew was taking over and the plants wouldn't have lasted much longer - anyway I have as many courgettes as I can use!), aubergines and tomatoes.  I've picked all the remaining green tomatoes and am hoping that some will ripen indoors.

A visit to the garden centre last week had me rummaging in the end-of-season 50p seed packet box; treasures found there included a packet of phacelia seed, which I've sown in this summer's garlic bed as a winter green manure.  Pleased to see the first signs of germination today; I hope the sunshine will encourage it!

All the dahlia flowers were picked for the Harvest Supper tables, but a few more are coming through, especially those of the Bishop's Children (they've been slow to do much, but they're starting to produce bright, cheerful flowers).  The nerines, which I've tried to give more light to this year (keeping the wisteria leaves off them), have produced a few flowers which are just starting to open, and Penstemon 'Garnet' (syn 'Andenken an Friedrich Hahn') is making a good showing.  Elsewhere the Sedum 'Autumn Joy' (which isn't called Sedum any more, but I can't remember its new name) is doing well, if floppily, and the Choisya ternata is also in flower.  With the first autumn tints and the bright red apples, the garden is looking a little brighter than it does most autumns!

First nerines

Penstemon 'Garnet'

Borage and dahlias 'Bishop's Children' series

After Ali, autumn

Storm Ali was indeed wet and windy, but Storm Bronagh, hot on its heels, passed us by and, since then, we've had mostly bright days and chilly nights, and no further rain.  It's some of the nicest autumn weather we've had for a long time.

Autumn colours are starting, autumn fruits are ripening:

Amelanchier leaves turning

This year's giant apple - 698g (just over 1.5lbs)

Still more giant apples to come! ...

... and a lot of little eaters too

There are still a few solitary butterflies appearing (red admiral, comma, brimstone), and a big dragonfly came past the other day.  A green woodpecker has been visiting the big apple tree, a mistle thrush has been noisily staking its claim to the ash tree and a willow warbler put in a brief appearance a week or so ago; there has been some territorial activity among the robins but otherwise the bird population is largely occupied elsewhere.  There's plenty of fruit and insects around for them.

The rain has encouraged the late flowers (and some of the weeds too).  Dahlias and tithonias made a colourful vaseful for the house:

Plan B

So it's the morning of the Garden Society Show, and we're carefully unwrapping the three small but lovely Discovery apples that had been cocooned, still on the tree, in fleece to protect them from insect damage.  (It has been a good year for insects, especially flies and wasps.)  Disaster.  The first wrapping was full of ants, which had nibbled the apple; the second was full of earwigs.  With those two gone, the state of the third was neither here nor there; we needed three well-matched apples of the same variety.  Plan B was to pick fruit from the big cooking-apple tree instead.  The ripest of these, just starting to blush nicely, were also those with the most blemishes, so it had to be three that were still green.  They were indeed big and beautiful, though without the 'eat me' appeal of the Discoveries.  And, to our amazement, they not only won the class but also the 'Best Fruit and Vegetable' prize.  Even more amazing was that the runner-up exhibit was my three little yellow courgettes, despite being the smallest in that class.

Today's harvest

Since then we've had a week away in warmer climes, and, despite picking the courgettes of any usable size on all the plants before we left, have returned to several much larger beasts including a couple of offensive weapons-size ones.  In the past I've had my doubts about 'Orelia', the yellow one, which seemed to be a weak grower and with fruits prone to rotting off at the tip, but this year it's done very well.  I wonder if the drier weather has prevented the rotting off.  At any rate, the plants have produced well this year, and one of my pre-trip jobs was to make a batch of ratatouille using some of them with some of our aubergines ('Ophelia', which ripened first) and tomatoes.  Since our return I've decided it's time to start also picking the 'Bonica' aubergines and 'Apache' chillies, as well as a whole lot of our newly-ripened red (and a few stripy orange) tomatoes.

Display of local produce, Maribor, Slovenia

The markets in Slovenia had fine displays of local fruit, veg and flowers, and I've returned with renewed appetite (literally and figuratively) for harvesting, storing and using our produce.  I'm prone to letting seedlings sit too long waiting to be potted on or pricked out, and to letting plants go over without having used them to the full; I have a cold frame full of seedlings which I'm reluctant to put into the ground (because of the slugs) or into the greenhouse (because of the greenfly), and outdoors my full-grown lettuces have bolted in my absence.  So, starting as I mean to go on, I've already picked a big fistful of parsley and chopped it ready for the freezer, and will be potting on my lettuce seedlings asap.  And making more ratatouille.

Dried flowers in Ljubljana market

 
The apples this year are small (except for our usual giant cookers), but plentiful and, ants and earwigs apart, good quality.  We also have our biggest ever pear crop ripening nicely.

Apples and pear cordons

Autumn is approaching fast; the plum tree, which I managed to prune before we went away, is dropping its leaves and the late flowerers such as the dahlias are getting into their stride.  One overwintered dahlia tuber which I had labelled 'Bishop of Auckland' is not; I had started having doubts as soon as the leaves appeared, green not purple, and indeed it is 'Ambition' (this is good as I currently only have one other tuber of this variety).  It also looks like one of the hedychiums is going to produce a couple of flowers at last; the heat of the summer would have been to its liking, but it probably likes more moisture than I had been providing.

'Ambition' not 'Bishop of Auckland'!

Autumn leaves under the plum tree

Another sign of autumn is that the Met Office has just announced the first named storm of the new season: Storm Ali, with rain and gales, is due later this week.  We've just had the tail end of Hurricane Helene pass by, which has brought down some of the big apples and some firewood from the ash trees, and it rather looks as though, in all, it's a wet and windy week.  Time to get those apples into store.

Although there still aren't as many flowers in the garden as I would like, the dahlias and my seed-grown asters are providing this week's indoor colour:

Aster 'Milady'

Dahlias 'Ambition', 'Sam Hopkins', 'Bishop of Auckland'

August - summer or autumn?

Cyclamen hederifolium

I've always tended to think of August as summer; but in recent years I've been more aware of its being summer on the slide.  (This has more to do with my perception than any change in the climate.)  It's the time of year when temperatures often start to drop a little, green leaves start to lose their greenness and early morning dews show up spiders' webs.  I haven't seen any of the latter yet, but the weather has turned much fresher and showery, and it can only be a matter of days until the webs show up.  At least the rain has got everything growing again; the lawn is amazingly green after all the heat we've had.  Two sure signs of autumn coming on - blackberries fruiting in the rough area behind the fruit patch, and the Cyclamen hederifolium starting to flower.

Blackberries

Another sign of autumn coming on is that the birds are starting to be less demanding about food.  There is still the one little sparrow fledgling being fed, and a couple of young pigeons were on the lawn the other day, but crumbs put out on the patio are taking longer to disappear in the mornings.  There are still plenty of birds about, particularly tits, dunnocks and sparrows, and some robins and finches; the neighbours have planted a lot of Verbena bonariensis, which has been attracting bullfinches (a bit of a colour clash) who then come to us for a drink.  We've also had a young green woodpecker poking around the lawn; we seem to see one most years, usually only for a few days.

Dahlia 'Cafe au lait'

The dahlias are finally starting to flower: the 'Sam Hopkins' is very fine, but the showstopper is 'Cafe au Lait' which has produced a flower a good 6in across (that's 15cm for my metric readers).  Unfortunately it's a bit pockmarked with holes, so won't be putting in an appearance at the Garden Society Show.  There are also a few asters starting to bloom, and also the phygelius, which has responded well to being repotted (as has a sucker removed from it and potted separately).  It doesn't look as though any of the hedychiums are going to oblige this year; perhaps I should have left them in the greenhouse, although it has been warm enough for them outside.  A surprise bloomer is also in a patio pot; in spring I found a few corms in the greenhouse, removed from a pot last year, and planted them into a small pot with a label saying 'crocuses'.  Once they started pushing up leaves it became obvious that, whatever they were, it wasn't crocuses, and they were in too small a pot; potted on into something of a more suitable size, they grew on well and turned into Gladiolus nanus 'Nymph', and very attractive too.

Dahlia 'Sam Hopkins'

Not crocus! ...

... but Gladiolus nanus 'Nymph'

Bean 'Moonlight'

On the edibles side, the runner/French bean cross 'Moonlight' is producing well, as are the courgettes and tomatoes.  My six aubergine plants have one fruit each and are showing little interest in producing any more; I should really have potted them on into bigger pots.  The red peppers are also tiny; my fault for allowing the first sowing to dry out and sowing the second lot late, and not potting them on.  Note for next year!

I'm particularly pleased that my little fig plant has produced a tiny fruit; if it overwinters successfully, we might have our first fig next year!

A figlet (look closely ....)

Pros and cons of drought

After the rain mentioned in the last post, we had a further 12 dry days - mostly warm, with some cool nights, but nothing like as hot as it had been.  This weekend we've had more serious rain, today especially.  It's amazing how quickly the lawn has turned back to green, at least where the grass is growing; the moss is remaining a barren greyish-brown.  While the grass wasn't growing, it was relatively easy to see the runners of the creeping buttercup and the nasty little creeping potentilla that has world-domination ambitions, and to pull those up; even if the plants are still there, at least they won't be increasing as much as they usually do.  I also rather randomly pulled up some of the self-heal that grows in the lawn - but really I have more productive things to do than try to hand-weed a lawn.

Recent jobs have included pruning the cordons and the wisteria, and picking plums (more of them, and of better quality, than we had expected).  But mostly it has been weeding, as usual.  The recent rain loosened the soil a little, making it much easier to fork the weeds out and pick over the soil to remove root fragments (a necessity where couch grass and vetch have been growing).  The clearing of the area along the terrace edge is progressing inch by inch; the remaining seedling dahlia plants have gone in there, a case of better late than never - if nothing else, it saves me trying to keep their pots watered. 

Dahlia 'Ambition' with Panicum

A couple of the ailing plants that seemed to have responded well to being repotted have in fact died; not only my Euonymus microphylla but also the Alchemilla alpina and one of my veronicas.  The other veronica is surviving with its roots down through its pot into the gravel, so I will have to be careful when I get round to digging it up.  On the other hand my little sage cuttings have started to romp away.  I'm also pleased with Cosmos 'Xanthos' and Panicum 'Frosted Explosion', both of which I grew from seed, the former as a pot filler (lovely soft yellow) and the latter for cutting; the Panicum has been filling out vases of dahlia blooms among other things.

It would be nice if some of the weeds would succumb to the drought, although I'm not holding my breath.  One weed that does look as though it's going to succumb, though not to drought, is a largish ash sapling that seeded into the big berberis by the drive.  I've been wondering how to get it out for some time, but this year I've noticed that the branch tips are bare - a sign of ash dieback.  It's on the way out.  Sadly so is the big ash in the field at the bottom of the garden; it is definitely showing similar signs.

It's not only the plums that have done well this year; there's a good crop of blackberries in the hedge across the road, which I'm raiding daily.  They're very early this year.  The shallots have done well, and the garlic fairly well (but small); the leek seedlings are also much fatter than usual.  These were all in the same bed, and although I watered them very occasionally I can't say that they have been pampered, so I'm very pleased with them.  The courgettes continue to fruit nicely.  But the other veg have been disappointing; few beans, unless the runners get going soon, and potatoes are small.  I really need to beef up the soil in the veg garden this autumn; it's very thin and hungry.

It isn't a good year for butterflies, however.  I've been counting for the Big Butterfly Count, and the results have been disappointing.  There are good numbers of whites - and I've seen at least two green-veined whites - and a few gatekeepers and meadow browns, and the occasional common blue; but only one each of red admiral, peacock, comma, small tortoiseshell and painted lady, which is sad.  I did see a small copper a few weeks ago, and a hummingbird hawkmoth has also been on the buddleja, but the total numbers have been poor.

The power of life and death

Dried-up pond

Summer has continued to be still mostly hot, still mostly dry (a couple of light showers apart), until yesterday.  We had 27C in the shade the other day, the greenhouse topped 35C, and other parts of the country have had temperatures in the 30s; none as hot as temperatures recorded in recent years, but a much longer spell of sun, heat and dry than we've had for a very long time.  The pond pretty much dried up - I really ought to take advantage of this and clear it out, but that means standing in the sun for longer than I want to (that's my excuse anyway).  Then yesterday evening the rain started, with strong wind, and gave the garden a much-needed soaking; the pond is starting to fill up again.  Today has been cooler and fresher, but the forecast is for warmer temperatures again later in the week.

The weather has made me bite another problem bullet, however: the number of plants sitting around in pots waiting for a home.  Some of these have been around for an embarrassingly long time, in very old compost, and the dry weather has not been good to them, nor to those eking out an existence in too-small pots.  A number of these have been hanging around in the area behind the garage, rather out of sight and out of mind; I don't venture round there as often as I should, so I tend not to notice their signs of distress.  Some had succumbed, and others weren't in a good state; the need to keep watering the survivors finally forced me to make some life and death decisions.  The dead ones were easy (straight to the compost bin).  Some others weren't really needed; a good few had been cuttings taken as insurance against losing a favourite plant but no longer required, or things potted up for the Plant Sale and not sold, and the sickly ones also went to the compost.  Some of those behind the garage have put their roots down into the gravel and are surviving (just, in some cases) on that, so they have been left for the moment.  Of the remainder, those that I decided to keep have been repotted, in some cases grouped into big pots where I hope the volume of compost will give them enough moisture to keep them going.  I've also made a resolution to pay more attention to the area behind the garage; I will try to remember to include that area in my walks round the garden, so that I spot signs of distress in time!  As it is, I think I've lost my Euonymus microphylla, which is looking very brown, even after repotting - a timely lesson.

Mixed mini-evergreens in a big pot ...

... and the tiny survivors went into these two pots

Carnations, Sweet William and parsley flowers

Yellow sedum

There is not a lot of colour in the garden at the moment.  The achillea (I think it's the classic 'Gold Plate') is looking good, as is Lilium henryi, there's plenty of oregano and the buddleja is just starting to flower, but Crocosmia 'Lucifer' is fading almost as soon as the flowers open, the Big Yellow Thing is going over and the sweet william are finished.  There are some carnations, which are looking better now that I've deadheaded them, and a sedum (don't know the variety) with yellow flowers that isn't bothered by the lack of water.  The phlox hasn't flowered yet, and there has only been one dahlia flower ('Ambition') so far; they were potted on rather late.  Indoor vases of sweet william and the carnations were boosted by parsley flowers, of which I have plenty; I always leave them to flower and seed as they're great for filling out arrangements.

The lack of colour is largely my fault for not having planted many late summer flowerers.  Every year I note the need to put in some late colour, but by this time of the year the weeds are always taking over and there's never anywhere 'clean' to put them.  This year I do have a potential spot, in front of the new terrace where I'm gradually digging out the weeds; last week I finally managed to remove a stubborn clump of Alchemilla mollis mixed with the blue Centaurea montana (plus couch grass, vetch and other nasties, all tangled up together), which has opened up a few more possibilities.  The soil has really been too dry for much planting, though, and anyway I always prefer to plant a new bed with annuals and other ephemeral planting for its first year, to allow perennial weeds to show before anything more permanent goes in.  I do have a wish-list of summer flowerers to populate it with in due course!

Courgettes (and a lettuce) on The Hill

I've been diligently saving as much 'grey' water from the kitchen as I can, and now that the raspberries are over (a great crop this year) it has been going under the apple cordons, which I think aren't going to produce very large apples.  Some of the 'Discovery' fruit are already turning red - far too early! and whether it's ripeness or sunburn I couldn't say.  A little water has gone on the leek seedlings (the shallots and garlic are now lifted) and on the courgettes on 'The Hill' which are starting to fruit, but interestingly the latter have stood up to the drought remarkably well, perhaps because they're in part shade.  The Hill itself is drying out underneath, with big cracks appearing in the sides, so I should be able to pour some of the spare soil in there to fill out the gaps.  The plums are ripening fast, and today's gales have brought quite a few down; it's a small crop but the fruit are a good size.  I have been watering the tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and chillies in the greenhouse; there are some nice little aubergines coming along, and the first tomatoes have been harvested.  Although the greenhouse has been hot, the watering has kept the soil under my diy growbags nicely moist, and I wasn't surprised to find a frog sheltering in there one warm day.

Tomatoes ('Harzfeuer')

Aubergine ('Ophelia')

I've been more diligent with the greenhouse crops this year, and it seems to be paying off.  I wasn't happy with the growbags I used last year, so the tomatoes have gone into old compost bags, upright and half-filled with (bought) compost; the aubergines have been potted into larger pots than those I've used in the past and stood in a sunny spot on the staging.  I've also been trying to remember to give them all a dose of comfrey tea every week, and I'm happy with the results so far.

Another priority for water has been the various birdbaths, which are greatly appreciated by the avian population.  There's still at least one little sparrow being fed, but the last blackbirds seem to be independent and there are a couple of young robins fending for themselves around the patio.  A pair of bullfinches have been down and a family of goldfinches appears from time to time.  And Lefty, our lame pigeon, has been feeding a couple of youngsters, and treating himself to a nice sit down in the shade when his offspring leave him alone.

Hay while the sun shines

I see I haven't said much about the weather for a while, not since the chilly spell in mid-May.  Things soon warmed up - a few days in the Lake District in May was one of the warmest visits we've had - and from the last week of June or so they warmed up very considerably; despite a few rainy spells, it has been mostly a dry spring and early summer.  The past couple of weeks have been warm and dry, with a stiff breeze at times to dry things up even more, and at the moment there's no end in sight to this.  The farmers have quite literally made hay while the sun shines, and parts of the garden are turning to hay too; the lawn is quite crisp in places.  Keeping the pots watered is a priority.  I have a number of plants in small pots which dry out very easily, and, quite apart from not having much suitably prepared ground in which to put them, it's difficult to dig at the moment because it's rock-hard; they're taking turns to be plunged into bowls of water. 

We have no hosepipe ban (yet), not that I use a hose much at all; but we're trying to conserve water use, and to save 'grey' water where we can.  There isn't much in the veg plot that needs watering at the moment; the broad beans (not a success this year) are almost completely past, the first lot of lettuces were bolting anyway and the potatoes, garlic and shallots will soon be ready for digging up, and it's only the 'hill' (which is bearing up well) and the runner/French beans that need occasional watering.  Washing-up water is going under the raspberry canes, which are starting to fruit.  There are still quite a lot of green gooseberries, but there are always far more than I can use and the blackbirds are very grateful for them; the red ones were protected from the birds and have been picked, likewise the blackcurrants.  For the latter, I used a couple of fabric sleeves that are designed to protect cherry branches from the birds - they even come with little plastic cherries on the end of the draw-cords that seal the ends - and they were quite successful, although some of the leaves scorched underneath (a minor problem).  Other plants in the ground are having to find their own water unless they're really looking stressed (the Lysimachia clethroides has been looking a bit limp, but it's a potential thug anyway, so that's not necessarily a totally bad thing!).

The tomato plants - 7 of them this year - are all planted on into old plastic sacks of compost, an alternative to grow-bags as I wasn't really satisfied with the ones I used last year.  So far they're looking good and fruiting satisfactorily.  The 6 aubergines are starting to flower and have also just gone into bigger pots on the staging.  They and the tomatoes (and the little chilli and pepper plants) are being watered daily.

The heat isn't conducive to much heavy work in the garden, and I've been taking the opportunity to sit in the shade and clear the winter/spring bulbs out of their pots, which should have been done some time ago so that I could get the summer plants in.  As I had thought, many of the daffodils in pots didn't survive the spring cold; 'Tete-a-tete' and 'Elka' were fine (although they were in smaller pots that were easier to protect), and 'Elka' seems to have proliferated greatly, but the bigger varieties had just rotted.  'Baby Moon', I have discovered, is a glasshouse variety anyway; fortunately they were planted in a non-frostproof pot, so I had put them under cover when the freezing weather was forecast!  We seem not to have lost the other plants in pots (the fern that had been looking sad has recovered well), with the exception of the big purple phormium, which was always going to be a bit of a risk and which is definitely finished.

Rose 'Mme Hardy' and Buddleja alternifolia

Over the past weeks we've been enjoying bowlfuls of cut roses, as well as appreciating the show they make in the garden.  I had been considering getting rid of 'Mme Hardy', which always goes horribly brown as the flowers go over, but when newly in flower it made a fine show with Buddleja alternifolia (another plant I had considered removing, but maybe I'll just curb its enthusiasm a bit instead).  There are also some sweet William in bloom, and the Allium christophii have been impressive too.

Allium christophii

The peony ('Sarah Bernhardt') has also been providing some cut flowers; and the big philadelphus ('Virginal'), which I keep threatening to dig out, managed a few sprays as well.

Philadelphus 'Virginal'

Peony 'Sarah Bernhardt'

In this heat I've been ensuring that the birds and other wildlife have plenty of water, especially as the pond level is dropping extremely low; it hasn't been full since winter, and now a lot of the liner is showing.  Is it significant that there were a lot - I counted 9 - of dragonfly larva skins on the pond plants the other day?  The quality of what little water there is must be pretty poor, and presumably they felt the need to get themselves out of there and fly off to find better water in which to lay eggs.  Almost the reverse of rats deserting the sinking ship!  And one day we had a grass snake slither across the patio; it must have been looking for some water as well.

Dragonfly larva skins

There are more butterflies around now: a small tortoiseshell, a red admiral, a couple of ringlets, plenty of small whites, a female orangetip and something that was either a meadow brown or a small heath.  Most striking have been a few scarlet tiger moths that were here over several days; one was found dead on the lawn, which made for an easy photograph! - the scarlet parts aren't always visible when the moth is at rest.

Scarlet tiger moth (deceased)

Scarlet tiger moth (alive and resting)

The birds are coming to the end of their breeding season.  A thrush had been singing daily in the big ash tree but has fallen silent in the last few days, and the blackbirds have stopped singing too.  There are still some little sparrows being fed, but other young birds appear to be independent now.  Time for the parent birds to have a rest in the sunshine.

Gonna build a mountain ....

"Gonna build a mountain, Gonna build it high, I don't know how I'm gonna do it, Only know I'm gonna try".  Actually - despite the words of the song - I had no problem about knowing how to do it because there are plenty of instructions out there on the Internet, and it wasn't difficult to do.  Instead of a mountain, in all honesty it's really just a rather small mound - and the idea, I think, is that it will get smaller over time.

This is Hugelkultur, literally 'hill cultivation', and it's a central European practice, popular among permaculturalists, for creating a bed with lots of organic matter and microorganisms in it.  The attraction for me was that it's a great way of making use of unwanted branches, of which I've generated quite a lot by cutting back overgrown shrubs recently.  Basically, you build a heap with old wood at the base which breaks down gradually over a few years and turns into lovely crumbly, rich soil with a lot of the microlife that is so important for good cultivation.  As it breaks down it ought to generate some heat to help boost whatever is growing on top.

The first problem was where to site it.  My original idea was to put it up against the wall at the end of the vegetable garden, until I realised that next-door's cat would treat it as a convenient stepladder back to her own garden.  Too close to the big ash tree at the side wouldn't be a good idea either; trees don't respond well to having soil piled up over their roots (although, because of the different levels between the neighbouring garden where the tree is growing and our plot, the tree must already be dealing with that problem).  In the end I went for one of the square middle beds in the veg plot (ok, the only one of the middle beds that is actually completely usable, the rest still being at least partly overgrown), which is roughly the right size (1m square is the ideal).  The actual construction has taken place gradually over the past few months, and is now in place and planted.

First, I dug out soil to a depth of 15-20cm.  This generated quite a lot of bags of soil (which I still haven't dealt with!) but was easier than I expected. Then I put in the biggest branches.  You're supposed to start with logs, but nearly all of what I had available was much smaller than that; the biggest piece was the big holly branch that came down in last year's gales.  There were also a few other largish branches sitting in odd corners of the garden waiting to be dealt with; some of these were already rotting nicely, so I hope they will start the pile off on the right track.  The rest came from cutting down an elder tree and the cutting back of a large viburnum.  With hindsight, I probably ought to have backfilled this layer with some of the soil as there were quite a lot of gaps between the branches and I suspect the heap will fall in a bit as it breaks down.

Next came smaller branches, twigs, old buddleja canes, prunings, dead leaves, old cut-down stems from last year's perennials and general brushwood (photo shows this layer still in progress):

The next layer is supposed to be upturned turves, but my grass has far too many perennial weeds in for me to want to risk that.  This doesn't sound like the sort of structure in which I will want to be digging out weeds.  I think the idea is that this layer stops the soil from leaching through to the bottom layer, so I used last year's rotting grass clippings, which make a good dense cover.

Then some garden compost.  The rotting wood will take nitrogen out of the heap, so there needs to be something to give sustenance to the plants growing on the top:

And finally a good layer of soil (from the stuff originally dug out of the bottom).  I worried that this would just slide off, but it stayed put better than I expected.

Then: what to plant on it?  The site isn't the sunniest spot, though it does get some sun.  There's no point planting anything that requires rich soil, at least for a year or two, because of the nitrogen problem.  Permaculturalists suggest potatoes, but I really can't imagine how you would dig into this heap without it falling apart!  In the end I've put some courgette plants on there, and they're already starting to flower, which looks promising; and, whether because of the layer of Slug Gone round the plants or because the soil is too dry for molluscs, there's no slug or snail damage so far.  Or maybe they don't like heights?  A lettuce has now been added and I think I'll put some more saladings and maybe some annual flowers on there too.

Much of the wood at the bottom of the heap was generated by having to deal with the viburnums that were snow-damaged in the winter, and by cutting down the main stems of a big elder tree that had self-seeded in the shrubs at the side of the house.  There is still work to be done here; once the choisya has finished flowering, it too is in line for the chop, and one of the osmanthuses needs the same treatment.  These have all grown too big, with lots of evergreen foliage on the end of long woody branches, which should have been pruned back into shape long ago; in the event they were pulled down and broken by the snow before Christmas.  The viburnum at the side of the house has been cut down to a much smaller, more manageable size (and will be pruned ruthlessly from now on!); I also found that one of the branches had layered itself and I've dug that up (rather roughly, but it seems to be surviving so far) and potted it on as I have plans for it.  There is now a lot more light in that border and there's going to be much more planting space for ground-level plants, though just at the moment the area looks a bit like a lumber yard as there are still piles of smaller branches and twigs around (material for another Mountain in due course??!).  There's also a big pile of soil and grit left over from some hard landscaping work here, and that needs weeding and spreading around to level things out.  In due course there will be opportunities for more varied planting, with bulbs and perennials between the shrubs, and I'm working out what might work in there.  Much of what is growing in this part of the garden is white- or light-flowered, so that it shows up in the dim light under the holly tree, and I think I'll keep that theme, but that still gives a lot of choice.  Watch this space!