Getting back into the garden

We've had a few sunny days this week, it has been cold, but not too cold to go out in the garden to do a bit of work. There's been such awful weather the last few weeks where it hasn't been fit to go outside, so I've been keen to get out, if only for a bit of pottering round and a breath of fresh air.

There's always something to do in the garden, if it's only sweeping paths or tidying the shed. I have started clearing the leaves off the borders. They have got quite soggy and were hiding bulbs underneath. 

They were probably providing homes for slugs too. Some of the dead plant stalks which I leave standing over winter for the wildlife are ready for clearing away. I'll gradually clear those in the next few weeks. Last week's storm didn't do much damage in this area, but the grasses in the garden took quite a battering resulting in grass debris all over the place.

Looking round the garden I could see signs of new growth. The snowdrops are flowering now. I love seeing them, the first flowers of the year in the garden. 

Also flowering now are cyclamen, showing patches of pink in shady areas beneath the birch tree in the back garden and under shrubs in the front.

 Daffodils and crocuses are emerging to flower in a few weeks time. The Hamamelis (witch hazel) has copper coloured flowers which I have to walk down the garden to see. It doesn't show up well from a distance. 

January is such a long dreary month and to see signs of life in the garden gives me so much to look forward to.

Through the Garden Gate--October 2024

Throughout October we have so much enjoyed seeing the changes in the garden. We have seen the leaves change colour on the trees, not just in our garden but in neighbouring gardens. The rowan is a particularly good tree for autumn colour. The leaves go red and the berries are yellow. The birds have had a great time eating the berries. The garden is dying down but there is still interest amongst the borders.

Walking round I can see more than I can looking out the windows. The hardy fuchsia is very colourful it seems to be a bit later flowering this year, its red and purple  flowers brightening up a dark spot in the front garden.

The Liquidamber tree is the star of the back garden,  its leaves turning a beautiful dark red and orange.

The grasses provide some bright spots and structural interest. I should have been out with my camera more as some grasses and plants took on lovely bronze tints before they turned straw coloured. I missed taking the photos, but to name a few, there was a lovely Miscanthus grass which looked amazing with the morning sun on it, Rodgersia and Hostas too. Still hanging on with a few flowers are hardy geraniums, roses, Japanese anemones,white lysimachia.

It was my birthday last weekend and my daughter and I went to RHS Harlow Carr. It's only a few weeks since I last went and how it has changed since then with the most breathtaking colours. We had a walk through the arboretum, we love a woodland walk especially in the autumn. There were interesting seed pods, plenty of fungi and of course carpets of golden leaves. We went in the bird hide and were lucky enough to see a woodpecker on one of the feeders.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea ' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post.

Back to work on the allotment

We had a break from allotment work in December and with bad weather at the beginning of January it was a few weeks before we could get back to doing some work. When we eventually had some dry enough weather to be able to get down to the plot we wondered what state it would be in, there had been some very heavy rain and storms. So we were pleasantly surprised to find there was no storm damage and no water running down the paths as there often is after heavy rain.

Richard has a project on now to edge all the beds with wood to stop the soil from spilling out all over the paths. He has managed to do two of the big beds in the last couple of weeks and they are looking much better.

We have five compost bins on the plot, three of them are used in rotation to make compost--one to put all the compostable materials in throughout the year, at the end of the year it is then left to compost down for a year, then the third year it is ready to use as compost.  The other two bins are used for manure when we can get hold of any. Usually one contains fresh manure and the other has manure which is rotted down and can be used to mulch the beds. So we started off a new compost bin with grass cuttings and kitchen peelings brought from home as well as some plant material from the allotment.

We also have a bin for leaves to make leaf mould and one of the first jobs I started on recently was sweeping up leaves from the paths which had fallen from a big sycamore tree at the top of the plot. What a mess they were.  Once I'd cleared the leaves the paths seemed a bit slippy, they get like this in the winter time with mud and moss. I scraped off the mud and swept up then swilled the paths. So I'm hoping they are a bit safer to walk on now.

I was pleased to see that there were some brussels sprouts ready to be picked, there was kale and there were leeks although I would like the leeks to be bigger.

I had cleared most of the beds of dead plants in the autumn but there were still a couple which needed sorting out. I cut back the dead stems in the asparagus bed, weeded and then mulched the bed with manure. I cleared the sweetcorn which didn't ripen in time and dug up the rest of the beetroots and parsnips.

The rhubarb is growing really well and I'm sure it won't be long before we can start pulling some of the stems. One thing I will be doing soon is to give it a mulch with manure.

So the plot is looking quite tidy now and we're ready to get started on the new growing season. Its too early to be planting anything in the ground yet though  but there's lots of planning to do in the meantime and I'll soon be starting to sow seeds undercover.

Through the garden gate in January

There's not a lot you can do in the garden in January and being such a long, dull, dark and dreary month, if you like to be out gardening it can be quite depressing.

But I find signs of hope as I wander around. The snowdrops are peeping through the soil now, so I know it won't be long before they are in flower. Walking around the garden I can also see the crocus and daffodils poking through the soil. Soon there will be little clumps of colour, it's something to look forward to.

I like to plant up pots of bulbs as well as having them in the garden borders. So I went off to the garden centre recently and bought little pots of snowdrops and  crocus to plant up. They will go on the garden table or potting benches.

I did some tidying up in the woodland garden last week.  It gets full of leaves from the lime tree, and although they do provide a good mulch,there are lots of little bulbs in the ground which get hidden. So I cleared the leaves away from the areas where the bulbs are coming through so that we will get a good display in a few weeks. There's also a hellebore plant which has big buds on now and will be in flower soon. I cut off the leaves to expose the flower buds. Hellebores are quite hardy and can manage without the protection of their big leaves which hide the flowers.

Around the garden borders there are still a lot of leaves, debris, dead plants and seedheads. I will gradually clear these over the next few weeks to get ready for spring.

Richard has been doing repairs to paths and fences over the last week or two. In the woodland garden he made a new fence panel to replace one which had blown down and fallen to pieces in the bad weather.  The wooden path through the woodland area was rotting  and he has repaired that too. Another path through the garden down to the drive was breaking up, so he has redone that with gravel. It looks really good and is much easier to walk on now.

So although January may seem like a month where there is not much to do in the garden, we have been keeping ourselves busy. What about you?

This monthly post is  linking to 'Through the garden gate' on Sarah's blog Down by the Sea

Through the garden gate--November

November has been quite a month for changing weather. There has been snow, heavy rain, gales, frosty mornings and sunshine too. 

The garden is slowing down now and taking on a different look. There is still plenty of colour about but not from the flowers, they are gone over now. I love the colours as everything starts to fade and turn to yellow and brown, the straw coloured plant stems and blackened flower heads. On the sunny days  there is a lovely golden, mellow look to the garden.

Some might think the garden looks untidy, but I love it like it is. It all takes on another sort of beauty especially on those frosty mornings we have been having in the last week.

The leaves are falling everywhere--over the borders, blowing across the lawn, covering the paths and drive, behind the shed and tucked in amongst plant pots. They have all fallen now from the lime tree which hangs over the drive. The oak tree is still clinging on to its golden leaves and probably will do until after Christmas. 

As the garden slows down, then so can I. It's a time to have a rest from back breaking gardening and take things easy.  I enjoy going outside on sunny days to sweep up leaves or tidy up a bit in the borders, but there's no rush, there's all the winter months to get the borders cleared. 

  
The wildlife will benefit from the messiness. As I wander around the garden I often wonder what creatures are hiding underneath  the piles of leaves left to rot in a corner or the seedheads and broken hollow stems in the borders. I know there are some forms of wildlife about as Holly the cat regularly leaves them for me outside the back door!

As usual I have joined with Sarah at Down by the Sea for her monthly Through the Garden Gate slot

Through the garden gate--October

 

October is a lovely month in the garden with so many autumn colours around. The leaves are falling onto the paths and need sweeping up regularly. That will keep us busy for a few weeks yet. There is a Rhus shrub just outside our front window which turns the most beautiful orange/yellow colour in the autumn before it's leaves finally fall.

 

The hostas also turn a lovely yellow colour before they die back. The cotoneaster horizontalis growing against the house wall in the back garden is full of berries now and the birds are loving them.

 I don't do much clearing up in autumn, I have found that leaving the interesting seed heads from plants which have finished flowering and any foliage with good colour gives the  garden a lot of colour and interest for a while.

I have been making up some autumn containers with cyclamen and evergreens for outside the front and back doors. They are looking very good and will keep well through the winter. The pinks and purples go so well with heucheras and many of the small evergreen shrubs which are sold at this time of year in garden centres especially for autumn pots.

October is one of my favourite months, not just because of the lovely colours but also because my birthday is near the end of the month. My potting bench outside the shed which Richard had made  years ago from an old kitchen table was rotting and in need of replacing. I decided I would like a new one for my birthday and after looking at several online, Richard decided he could do better and would make me another one, this time from new wood. I am very pleased with the finished result. I don't think I could have found a better one anywhere else and my potting area is looking much better now. It's all ready for me to work at, but I feel it's too nice to mess up with compost!

 

 Today I am linking with Sarah at Down by the Sea for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post.

Falling leaves

The leaves are falling fast now from the big sycamore tree at the top of the allotment and every time we go there are even more.  It's time to start sweeping them up to put in the leaf bin. It's an ongoing job at the moment as soon as we  have swept up one lot of leaves there is another layer of them covering the beds and paths. But they are too good not to save, they make such wonderful compost.

Richard spent a few days recently weeding the leaf composting  area which hasn't been emptied in the two years we have had the allotment. The weeds were mainly bindweed coming from the allotment next door, which is a sadly neglected plot and I get very cross about all the weeds which come through onto our plot.  He weeded the leaf mould,cleared as many weeds as he could which were poking through the fence from the next door plot and then  fixed an old door against the fence to try to suppress them. All these bits of wood which we save come in useful eventually!

We have recently been given two of the plastic type of compost bins. At the time I was a bit doubtful that they would be of any use and even wondered where to keep them as we have a good sized composting area already on the plot. But when you have an allotment you don't like to refuse anything which is free and could be of some use. I am pleased to say that we have now found a use for them as storage bins for the rotted down leaf mould. The leaf mould has turned into a  lovely, crumbly compost and is ready to put on the beds as a mulch over the winter.  Leaf mould is wonderful stuff and so easy to make. Now that the rotted down stuff is out of the bin we can now start collecting leaves again to make a new leaf pile.