Christmas foliage and a small harvest of veg

We popped down to the allotment yesterday, not to do any allotment work, but to cut some conifer branches for when I make Christmas wreaths in a few days time. There's a conifer hedge down one side of the plot which I really don't like as it takes a lot of light off the plot. We've hacked a lot of it back and tried to reduce the height but the branches are too thick to be able to cut it down easily. It comes in useful at Christmas though when I want some evergreen foliage. The  branches are also useful for hanging the bird feeders on.

I decided to pull up the remaining cabbages which were looking a bit slimy, but were big enough for the two of us even after removing lots of outer leaves.  I don't usually have much luck growing Brussels sprouts so I was delighted to see that there were some decent looking sprouts growing. They are a bit small yet but I picked some of the bigger ones.  There was only a small handful, but again enough for two of us and some kale too.

The plot is looking quite dreary at the moment, there are some jobs which need doing but they can wait until after Christmas. We filled up the bird feeders and left with plenty of veg to keep us going for a few days.

On our way out of the allotment site I cut some red dogwood stems and some branches of an unknown shrub which was full of red berries--possibly cotoneaster, all useful for Christmas wreaths and very colourful.

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Making progress

 

We've had some really back breaking work to do on plot 8 in the last couple of weeks. The conifer tree which was causing us some concern finally came down with help from Richard and one or two allotment neighbours.  The only damage was in the pond where an iris stalk got a bit bent but it seems to have recovered now. Just in the nick of  time I removed my precious marsh marigold and the duck which we had found in the mud at the bottom of the old pond.

So with that problem sorted it was back to work on filling in the old pond with rubble and clearing the area of weeds

It took a lot of rubble to fill it.

You can now start to see where the new growhouse is going to be. This area will soon be filled with gravel. This time last last year this area was full of weeds. There's lots more still to be done but it's beginning to look much better.

Lots of mud, a wobbly tree and a disgruntled pigeon

marsh marigold

Our new wildlife pond is starting to look good. I have planted a marsh marigold an iris and a white forget me not. I just love the marsh marigold, it seems to have more flowers  every time we visit the plot and it's such a lovely bright, cheerful yellow.  We can't plant up the boggy area around the pond  yet as there are lots of weeds to be cleared away and it's quite a messy job which will take some time too. It's a job which has to take second place to other allotment work.  So in the meantime I have been looking around my garden to see what  moisture loving plants I have which can be divided, potted up and then planted when we have finished clearing and preparing the ground.  I have astilbe, hostas, rodgersia, teasels and more irises.
I have to resist the temptation to go to the garden centre and buy more, I must wait until I can see properly how much planting space there is. I really can't wait to get started on the bog garden and get our wildlife area sorted.

the pond planted up 

Richard has been clearing the old pond and redirecting the drainage pipes so that they go alongside the fence, that's another very messy, muddy job. We now have a muddy hole where the pond used to be which needs filling in. When this area is sorted we want to gravel it and put up a greenhouse or small polytunnel.

the old pond is now a muddy hole

We encountered problems over the weekend with the high winds.  With all the weeding and digging we have obviously disturbed the roots of a conifer tree which is next to the fence bordering ours and the next plot and noticed that the root ball was lifting every time there was a big gust of wind.  The only thing stopping the tree from falling over was the fence.  Another job now is to cut the tree down, but to add to our problems, when Richard started cutting out some of the branches, he discovered a pigeon sitting on a nest at the top of the tree looking down at him! We hope the pigeon isn't too upset, although we're not sure if it really was the pigeon's nest or whether it was just sitting there for a rest or maybe it was eyeing up the purple sprouting brocolli plants in the bed adjacent to the pond. They've already been attacked by pigeons. The nest doesn't look big enough for a pigeon so we are going to watch for a while before any more tree cutting is done.

 the wobbly conifer partly cut down

Phyllis's garden

I've been working on a problem bit of the garden recently. This little area of the garden was for years regarded by our cat Phyllis as her spot. That was one problem, the other was the dry shade. The dryness was caused by a massive conifer taking the moisture from the soil.. The result was that there were a few plants which struggled to grow there and for most of the time the border looked dull and lifeless with a lot of gaps where nothing would grow. Whenever I tried to plant any new plants Phyllis would look most offended and either lie on them or poo around them.

Well sadly, Phyllis is no longer with us and I shed many tears at the time but I decided that I needed to brighten up this little spot in the garden. The first step was to get rid of the conifer and we did this earlier this year.

I thought long and hard about planting schemes, poured over gardening books and magazines, visited garden centres and nurseries and still remained undecided about what to plant. The area has sun for the early part of the day and the plants which seem to do best are those which flower in the spring and early summer. After that time it becomes a fairly dark looking area. I wanted some plants which would look good during the summer as well as the spring, even if they were foliage rather than flowers.

At first I was going to dig everything up and start again, but some of the plants were doing quite well and I always like to leave  plants which are happy to grow as long as they don't take over. Some plants I've just moved around to better positions, others I have been able to split up and spread around more.

At the back of the border are Solomon's Seal and Centaurea (perennial cornflower). In the middle are some Marguerite daisies and a  blue hardy Geranium. There is also some yellow Lysimachia punctata which seems fairly happy. Aquilegia self seeds itself around as does Honesty. These were all in the original border and were growing quite well. In the spring are Snowdrops, Tete a Tete daffodils and Grape Hyacinth.

When we were having the conifer cut down I dug up some Brunnera and Heuchera which would have got trampled on by the tree man.  I managed to split them into several plants and I've now replanted these at the front of the border. There are 2 varieties of Brunnera, a plain leaved one and  'Jack Frost' which has silvery leaves. The Heuchera is a purple leaved variety. Further back I have planted Tellima and pink Astrantia and a Polemonium (Jacob's ladder). Two new recently acquired plants are a lovely purpley blue Lathyrus and a yellow leaved grass, called Millum Effusum Aureum. I managed to split the grass into 3 plants when I took it out of the pot. The label says it likes shade so I have high hopes for it.  At the base of the stump of the conifer is Gallium Ordoratum (sweet woodruff) which has white flowers and looks lovely when it is in flower but is inclined to take over so needs to be kept in check.

The finished result doesn't look too bad.  And I'm pleased that most of the plants I've put in this new border are from cuttings taken from my own garden.

I'm now looking forward to the plants filling out and hoping that it will be a much more interesting and colourful border. Phyllis may not be around now to give us her opinion of the border but we still think of it as her garden.