Backwards and forwards

Home-made Christmas wreath hanging on the gate

Nearly the end of 2024. 

Looking back, it’s been a soggy old year, with a lot of wet, much wind and only a few, all-too-brief, warm spells.  There have been successes in the garden, such as the new flower bed by the patio (although some editing is needed there), and some good crops in the veg plot (including eating apples, the store of which is only now running out); but some less successful things too, such as the salad and bean crops succumbing to slug damage (and autumn plantings succumbing to the mice), and the failure of seed-collecting because of the wet. 

Time now to look forward.  There’s the old herb bed, nearly all cleared and offering opportunities for more planting. The tulip bulbs are mostly planted to provide colour next spring – and, for the record (since I usually forget): the biggest patio pot contains ‘Prinses Irene’, ‘Doll’s Minuet’ and ‘Havran’, while the slightly smaller one has ‘Lady van Eyck’, ‘Mystic van Eyck’ and ‘Paul Scherer’.  Both have several forget-me-not plants, moved from the veg plot edges, bedded in on top, both as complementary planting and to discourage the squirrel from digging up the bulbs.  Other tulip bulbs (‘World Friendship’ and ‘Pieter de Leur’) are still to be planted, while I decide whether to put them in more pots or in the ground.  All I need to allow me to get on with things is some better weather; December has been mild, apart from a couple of light grass frosts overnight, but damp, and nearly all the past week has been foggy as well.  The forecast is for a very wet and windy New Year, followed by colder days and frosty nights. 

And two promising signs for 2025: Lefty, our elderly lame woodpigeon, who has been coming daily for his breakfast on the patio, has been tolerating the company of another pigeon; we assume it’s a female and that he’s contemplating mating next year.  And the first snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii) are already out.  Happy New Year! 

December snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii)

Midwinter flowers

There isn’t much colour in the garden in mid-winter, but it’s not a completely flower-free zone.  The mild (mostly wet and windy) weather has helped, of course, and having a few winter stalwarts in the planting also ensures some blooms. 

Mahonia 'Winter Sun'

Of the winter shrubs, the most floriferous is the Mahonia ‘Winter Sun’.  It’s much better than the later-flowering Mahonia aquifolium, which I inherited (from the previous owners) in the rubble-filled area round the gas tank.  I’d love to dig that out, but it’s impossible to get a spade or fork in there.  I’m thinking of letting it flower in the spring, and then cutting it down as far as possible.  But that’s another story.  ‘Winter Sun’ does what it says on the tin, and it’s an excellent garden plant for this time of year.  The winter jasmine and both the Viburnum tinus are also in flower, and the winter honeysuckle (Lonicera purpusii) is starting to put out little blooms, though there is a pair of male bullfinches that love to peck at it.

Self-sown primula flowering in December

There are fewer perennials in flower, but a couple of primulas in the little patch of border outside the front wall are doing quite well, and there are plenty of berries on the Iris foetidissima plants that appear around the place.  I took the leaves off the hellebores back in November, as they were suffering from hellebore leaf spot and didn’t look good; the new flowers are already in bud underneath, promising some colour in early spring.

Replanted window-box

Another job already done is to replant the window-box for winter.  Back in late spring I heaved out the whole contents – two rosemarys, a little gold-leaved euonymus plant, some crocus and ‘Tete-a-tete’ daffodil bulbs – compost and all, and left them over summer in a similar-sized plastic trough in a corner.  Now it was time to heave them back again, and top-dress with some fresh compost.  We’ll see if it works!  The rosemarys are a bit leggy, but already in bud so I don’t want to cut them back.  The plants that were in there for the summer were either expendable annuals, now composted, or potted up and put in the greenhouse to overwinter (a fuchsia and a couple of osteospermums).  A variegated ivy that spent the summer in the windowbox has been put back in place for winter.  For now, everything seems happy enough!

Out front

The front garden doesn’t get as much attention from me as it ought.  It’s a bit ‘out of sight and out of  mind’; in daylight hours we tend to spend our time in the back of the house, enjoying the view down the main part of the garden, only migrating to the front rooms after dark, when there isn’t much to see.

Vinca major

But today I ventured out to make some inroads into the Vinca major in the front garden wall.  This is one of the very few plants surviving from before we moved here, thirty-odd years ago.  It wasn’t the greatest planting idea on the part of our predecessors; while Vinca minor is a pretty little plant, its big brother Vinca major is a well-known thug.  The evergreen leaves are handsome and the purplish-blue flowers attractive, but its tendency to send out long arching stems that root at the tip make it a less than desirable garden plant.  Its ability to flower off and on pretty much all year is welcome, especially in December, but overall it’s not a plant to covet.  And in honesty, I haven’t been good at keeping it in check.  It originated in the front border, but has made its way through and under the dry-stone wall out into the grass verge in front of the house, where of course I can’t normally see it.

The last few days have been very windy and rather wet – Storm Darragh.  Not good gardening weather.  We pay the council for a green waste bin, but it has sat empty these past ten days, and I’m minded to fill it as much as possible before its next collection-day, on Friday.  In such circumstances I tend to cast around the garden for high-volume, easy-to-gather material that allows me to fill the bin quickly, and pulling up vinca stems fits the bill nicely.  I’m not sure that it will make a noticeable difference to the front verge – there’s a lot of the stuff – but it’s a start. 

While checking over the front garden (a biggish branch of the holly tree was brought down by the storm – no damage done, fortunately), I noticed that Camellia ‘Donation’ has a good number of fat flower buds on it, just waiting for spring.  Both it and the other camellia (less floriferous-looking) seem to have enjoyed the new compost added to their pots, as their leaves look healthy and glossy, though the effect is spoiled by the grass and other weeds on the compost surface; I washed the top-dressing gravel and put it back, but clearly some weed seeds had survived.  More weeding needed.

Camellia 'Donation' - in bud

Despite the wet and the wind, the temperatures this month have been above zero, sometimes considerably so, which probably explains the camellia buds (the wet summer would also have helped); nearby, Fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’ is rather optimistically producing new flower buds, and the lawn is growing green and shaggy.  The two tubs of miniature daffodils, which were top-dressed with compost from a failed sowing of lobelia and where the lobelia subsequently germinated and flowered very well, still has a good layer of lobelia with some flowers.  Not for much longer, I suspect, although the forecast isn’t showing much change in the weather.

Lobelia - still flowering in December

The hazel catkins put on a fine display on a sunny day!

First snow

 

Well, so much for my forecast, in the last post, of a little frost and maybe some sleet.  We woke up to a good inch (2.5cm) of wet snow, with temperatures that didn’t lift much above freezing for three days.  Then the wind changed to the south, temperatures rose to mid-teens and Storm Bert came in, with heavy rain (which cleared the snow) and high winds.  At the moment the forecast for the coming week is more typically Novemberish, with single-figure temperatures (but above freezing) and a mix of sun and rain.

The little red chrysanthemum has shrugged off the cold, but the more delicate flowers are falling fast.  The dahlias have been knocked back, and about time too; I need to take them out of their pots so that the tulip bulbs can go in there.  A few of the other more tender things in pots ought to be moved to the cold frame; that’s another job for this week.  

There’s not much to cut for the house at the moment, not until it’s time for the Christmas holly and ivy – but there were a few last decent flower spikes on the yellow antirrhinum in the greenhouse, which is blooming regardless of the fact that temperatures in there had dropped to zero, and they’re brightening up the porch.

One last rose

One last rose, or probably the last, on Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’; there’s also a bud that may or may not come to anything, and a few fading flowers on the R. ‘Blush Noisette’ in the front garden, but this looks like the year’s last presentable rose bloom.  (Although the blackspot on the leaves is definitely not presentable.)

The first proper cold snap of the winter is forecast for this week; although the ever-excitable media have been chattering about an Arctic blast, this far south we should get away with a few days of frosty nights and maybe a short burst of sleet, and then back to more normal November temperatures.  The past week has been mostly dry and often sunny, and there might be a little more of that to come.  But the coming frost is likely to hit the remaining autumn flowers in the garden.

The remains of the window box display

There are only a few of those autumn flowers left anyway, apart from the roses.  There’s the window box, looking rather sad now but still with a very few fuchsia, lobelia and salvia blooms; it will soon be time to replant this for the winter, with the small euonymus and rosemary plants and the Tete-a-tete daffodils, padded out with some ivy and anything else evergreen that I can find.  Perhaps some snowdrops, of which I have plenty in the garden?

Fuchsia 'Hawkshead'

The Fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’ is holding up, but the cold will make the flowers drop.  The nerines are pretty much over in any case (only nine flower stems this year, must feed them more carefully).  There are a few final rudbeckia flowers and two or three penstemon blooms; and a single red chrysanthemum flower.  I repotted the chrysanthemum this year and had hoped for a better show; perhaps it’s one of those flowers that is more successful from new cuttings?  Not that there’s much chance of taking cuttings from such a small plant.  Still, the original was a garden centre rescue job that I nursed back to life, and it wasn’t expensive; maybe time to replace it.

A little red chrysanthemum

One of my Welsh poppy plants (Meconopsis cambrica) is doing well, however.  I originally sowed these using seed from pods picked in the Lake District and they spread themselves around the garden with gay abandon, not always in desirable places; this plant is really in the wrong place, but it’s making a welcome statement as the garden winds down towards winter, so let’s not complain.

Meconopsis cambrica

Other flowers at the moment are the winter stalwarts, gearing up for the colder months: the winter jasmine, Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ and Viburnum tinus ‘Gwenllian’, and most of all Mahonia ‘Winter Beauty’, which lives up to its name every year.  Nothing on the winter honeysuckle so far; I’ve probably hacked it around too much. 

Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum)

Viburnum 'Gwenllian'

Welcome home

 

Village bonfire event

Back home after a couple of weeks away.  It’s definitely November; the Halloween / Bonfire weekend stayed dry, but this week the weather is mild, foggy and damp.  Anyone who had planned to set off their fireworks on the traditional 5^th wouldn’t have been able to see much.

Whether it’s the weather or just the winter closing in, the birdlife in the garden is noticeably more active and more diverse than when we left.  Some, like us, have come home for the winter: the Scandi-avians – fieldfares and redwings – have arrived, of course, and the number of blackbirds around makes me suspect that several of them are migrants too.  The woodpigeons seem to be flocking rather than fighting for territory as they were doing during the autumn breeding season, and the finches (including a male greenfinch and male bullfinch) are hanging out together as well.  There are the usual sparrows, dunnocks, robins and tits, and a goldcrest was checking out the patio area today; and less desirably, there are magpies, starlings and woodpeckers (great-spots, although a green woodpecker had been in the garden before we left).  We didn’t manage to pick all the eating apples before we went away, and the blackbirds have been feasting on the remains, as well as on the cooking apples left on the table under the dining room window.  There are very few holly berries left on the tree, and I suspect that the redwings have been having a party.

In the vegetable garden, the summer broccoli has done well but has now flowered; I need to protect the purple sprouting plants from the pigeons for the winter, as they’ve grown tall and pushed away the netting that had been covering them.  My ploy of coating the broad bean seeds in chilli to deter the rodents seems to have worked, as it looks as though at least some have germinated, but of course the chilli didn’t protect the new shoots, which have been broken off (by mice or birds, I’m not sure).  No signs of life from the peas, and I haven’t checked the garlic yet.

In the greenhouse, most of the tomatoes have belatedly ripened or are on the way to ripening, and the big ‘Alicante’ tomatoes, which I picked before we left and put in the kitchen to ripen, are mostly looking good.  No green tomato chutney after all.

First frost

A mostly dry end to last week continued over the weekend, and let me do some gardening (after a week of wet weather).  Thursday night was clear, and we had frost on Friday morning – nothing too severe, just a light frosting across the lawn.  The clear skies late on Thursday gave us a sighting of the Northern Lights; unfortunately my attempts at photographing them resulted in nothing more impressive than a slight reddening against a black sky!  All those visits to Norway, and my first sighting was back here in Gloucestershire ….

Peas sown under fleece

The last courgette plant had ground to a halt, and the frost wasn’t going to help matters, so I sent it to the compost bin.  But gardening goes on and moves forward, so other jobs included planting out garlic cloves (from this year’s rather poor crop) and sowing broad beans and – a first for me – some peas to overwinter.  I read somewhere that, with protection, peas can survive the cold, and cultivar ‘Douce Provence’ was recommended; I bought a packet and thought I’d give it a go.  Old gardeners used to sow four times as many seeds as they needed – ‘One for the mouse, one for the crow, One to rot and one to grow’ – and, having lost a lot of peas and beans to the mouse in the past, I tried another recommendation, which was to coat the seeds in chilli powder before sowing.  Rodents don't like the taste, apparently.  We’ll see if that works!  The garlic and peas have been covered in fleece as protection from disturbance by birds as much as against the cold; a new roll of fleece is in readiness for when (if!) the beans germinate.

On the subject of peas, during the wet weather I packaged up the peas that had been drying in the greenhouse - some of both 'Early Onward' and 'Alderman'.  If the mouse gets any of those in the spring, there will be plenty more to replace them with!

The autumn sweet peas have also been sown, in pots in the cold frame; the seeds are a little old, so I haven’t raised my hopes too high.