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| First hellebore flowers! |
Some days spent working in the garden don’t seem to result in very
much. You go round
the plot, doing a bit of cutting back here, a spot of weeding there, a few
seeds sown somewhere else and maybe another little job too, and at the end of
the day nothing much seems to have been achieved. But most days last week were dry and not too
cold, and I managed several tasks that have been hanging over me for some time,
and getting them done makes me feel satisfied that I’ve actually achieved something in the garden.
In my last post I mentioned that I’d put some sweet pea
seeds to soak. They were duly sown in
pots in the cold frame, with a good sprinkling of chilli powder to deter any
mice that might get in there. (Note to
self: add more chilli powder to the supermarket shopping list!)
The old herb bed, which had been mostly cleared in the
autumn, was top of the list for some work.
When the self-sown oregano was removed, I found a Stipa tenuissima plant
that had sown itself there; I used to have one in the bottom bed but I think I’ve
lost it, so I was glad to find its offspring and let it stay. Otherwise the bed contains the rose ‘Gertrude
Jekyll’ and some chives that needed cleaning up (some nasty creeping grass and
creeping potentilla had got in there), and I managed to weed the row of chives
along the path edge (still some on the other side needing to be tackled). This bed is an ideal home for some tulips; apart
from a few random survivors planted in odd corners, all my tulips in recent
years have been in containers, and I wanted a few more permanent flowers. I had kept last year’s potful of T. ‘Ballerina’,
which is a bit more perennial than some, and I rather belatedly heaved them out
of their pot and into the ground. They
already had some shoots, although I’m not sure these looked mature enough to
flower this year. ‘Ballerina’ is a bit
of a risk, in colour terms; it’s orange, and Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ is pink. I’m counting on timing preventing too much of
a clash; ‘Ballerina’ should have exited stage left before ‘Gertrude’ makes her
entrance. If there’s an overlap, it
ought to be brief. I also planted a red
tulip, T. ‘Pieter de Leur’, in the bed, and marked the location of all the
tulips with a layer of wood ash, so that I'll know where to avoid when I
put in further plants alongside! They do now have
the company of the anthemis which I moved from the ‘patio bed’ where it was too
close, and too similar in colour, to the leucanthemum. That has left a temporary hole in the patio bed
planting, but the other plants will soon fill that.
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| Anthemis - and ash on the tulips! |
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| The hole where the anthemis was |
I also had some ‘World Friendship’ tulips, which I managed to add to the two old bulbs that I planted last year, along the terrace edge; they got a place-marker layer of wood ash too, although I don’t expect to be doing too much digging round there for a while.
On the subject of bulbs, I pulled up the (badly frosted) lobelia
plants in the brown plastic tubs, and found that the miniature daffodils
underneath were budding nicely; I hope the loss of the insulation provided by
the lobelia won’t affect them too much.
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| Mini daffs shooting nicely |
Thinking of bulbs in pots reminded me that I’d been meaning to repot the lilies (Lilium regale, mostly) that were sitting in too-small pots on the patio; they’re now housed in rather more spacious containers.
And before I left the patio, I got up a ladder and pruned
the wisteria! Another major job done.
Down in the veg patch, there were also things to do. The two little alpine strawberry beds were looking
in need of renovation; the plants start to fade after about three years, and it’s
best to replace them. Fortunately they
seed themselves gently about the place, and there are usually replacements on
hand. I pulled up the old plants on one
bed, put in some younger ones (thereby also weeding some of the veg bed paths) and
mulched well with old compost saved from last year’s dahlia pots. I’ll do the other bed when I can find the
time. Two rows of shallots were planted
and covered with fleece to protect them from the birds, who seem to have been
busy reorganising the garlic bulbs, which are coming up but not in the neat
rows in which I planted them!
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| Renovated strawberry bed |
The apple cordons have their annual prune in July, but I also like to go over them in winter, when the lack of leaves means I can see more clearly what needs to be removed. I also decided to take steps to halt the onward march of the lily-of-the-valley, which is encroaching on the apples; so a good layer of cardboard was laid over that end of the lily-of-the-valley patch, with some organic matter (old grass clippings and a little old compost) on top and black plastic over that, well weighted down. The latter is a necessary precaution, especially as the forecast was for more gales over the weekend; the gales did indeed materialise, although not as severe as further north, and the plastic is still in place!
