Through the Garden gate-November

Gardening work starts to slow down in November, not just because there's no work to do --there is always work to do in the garden, but because the weather and preparations for Christmas usually slow me down.

I've pottered about a bit cutting some messy plants back. I tidied up the stumpery/woodland garden and bought some bark chippings to spread over this area. I never seem to have enough chippings no matter how much I put down, I always feel I need a couple more bags.  It looks better now though.

The rest of the garden looks ok. There are plenty of grasses which give some colour and there are still some yellow berries on the Rowan. In the winter light they sometimes look like little yellow fairy lights.

In the front garden there's a little area under the adjoining neighbours wall between the lilac and the weigela which is quite damp and shady and which I've been wanting to do something with, but not sure what. Richard dug out some of the turf in the summer as it was in such a mess. Since then the weeds grew and it began to look really messy.  When we had the painters in to do the front wall of the house we moved some pots of hostas from around the front door out of their way and put them under the wall. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much they brightened up this little area. So in my autumn  tidying up  session, I weeded here, put some bark chippings down and put the hosta pots back. They don't look much at the moment but I'm hoping that when they start to grow again next year they will really brighten up this dark, dreary area.

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

Autumn at RHS Harlow Carr

I've not blogged for ages, lack of time, energy and inspiration being the reasons. I've composed many  blogs in my head whilst out and about, only to forget about them later. This week though I decided to make a bigger effort. I was inspired.

Saturday is my birthday and I was thinking about treats of the going for a day out type. I don't know if it is because my birthday is in October that I so love autumn, the colours, falling leaves, smells of garden bonfires etc. So I decided that we would do an Autumn visit to RHS Harlow Carr, we haven't been since Spring.  There were lots of changes going on, new paths and borders being made which meant that we couldn't walk along some areas.  We didn't mind this as we could still see all the gardens and it was interesting to learn of the plans.

We always check out the kitchen garden first to see how it compares to our allotment. On this visit though I started to wonder why I bother growing vegetables.  There were broad beans and peas--mine have long since finished and I never have any success with growing a late crop of peas. The leeks were a good size, mine are thin and won't be ready to pull for months. Celeriac--I have given up trying to grow it.  The cabbages looked very healthy, much better than mine.  My husband pointed out that the vegetables are better looked after than ours because there are always staff looking after the garden.  We visit our allotment  about two or three times a week in the summer, less often at this time of year. The kitchen garden at Harlow Carr is also very open, no overhanging trees casting shade like our allotment.

We moved on to the greenhouse where there was an amazing display of pumpkins and chillies. There is a really big pumpkin bed in the kitchen garden and they always have a lovely display of them in the greenhouse in the autumn. I don't grow pumpkins on my allotment because I don't have a lot of space. Chillies, well I do try, but this year they haven't done well.

It was time to move on and stop feeling bad about my growing failures, so we had a coffee in the summer house. This is always a good place to stop for a rest.

Nearby in the Alpine House there was plenty of colour from the many fascinating plants. Outside the alpine house was an interesting poster display celebrating 'Dig for Victory'.

We had lunch at the café near the woods, sitting outside watching the birds which get fed well on crumbs from people's sandwiches and cakes. Next stop was the old bath house which had a local artists'  Christmas crafts display.

As we had come to revel in the Autumn colours we headed off into the woods, stopping first to examine some of the sculptures which were part of a sculpture trail.  I like the squirrel.

We spotted a newly developed area at the edge of the woods which was a stumpery and fernery.  I'm always interested to see a stumpery as I have started one in my own garden.

This was a good one, there were little areas with stumps and ferns and other woodland plants and it would be easy for people to get ideas for their own gardens.  I was pleased to see some of the plants which I have used in my little woodland area at home--ferns, hellebores, hardy geraniums, pulmonarias. I must be doing the right thing. I noticed also that the stumps and logs were arranged to look like they were growing out of the woodland bed.  Mine at home have just been plonked down--I can easily rectify that.

Over towards the arboretum we stopped at the bird hide, but there wasn't a bird in sight. Perhaps they were all down at the cafe. The arboretum is a lovely place and as expected there was plenty of lovely colours.  There is a little area through a gate which has been designated a silent space where you can sit and be quiet and still.

Coming out of the arboretum and woods we walked along the streamside for a while.  Here we saw some work being done to improve the streamside.

Harlow Carr suffers a lot from flooding and there are plans to improve other areas of the gardens too. We saw more of the sculpture trail along the streamside. Some of the sculptures were of plants and were very realistic. From a distance I was wondering what sort of plants they were!

It was soon time to go home and we hadn't been around the whole of the gardens. Another day, another season perhaps.

Our new garden project 5--creating a woodland and stumpery

Once the seating area in our new garden was completed, the next phase in our garden project was to do something with the bottom left hand corner of the garden.  This is the bit just below the seating area. We spent quite some time thinking what to do here. The silver birch tree had been planted near to the fence and the rest of the space was just grass. Should we leave it grassed or should we have a planting area?

A bit of digging revealed that right down in the bottom corner was just stones. We had come across this problem when we had done the other side of the garden and had turned that corner into a bird feeding area. I didn't need another bird feeding area, so I decided that I would plant a few shrubs just below the seating area and the silver birch tree and put some logs and tree stumps in the stony corner where it was impossible to plant anything. This would create a little woodland stumpery and wildlife area.  I have seen stumperies when we have visited open gardens and often thought I would like to build one.

        

We had a few tree stumps down at the allotment which we brought back to the garden and arranged in the corner. I obtained another stump from our local builders merchants where we buy a lot of the materials for our garden project. I spotted the stump amongst a pile of logs and asked if it was for sale.  They very kindly said I could have it for free. So that made me very happy.

Over the winter I planted a few shrubs-- a yellow stemmed dogwood, a contorted Hazel a witch hazel and a choiysia.

In the spring I planted crocus, mini daffodils, snowdrops and hellebores. There are some ferns around the tree stumps. In the bottom corner where the stony ground is I had to leave the ferns in pots but I was able to plant others in the ground away from the stones.

In a previous blog post I wrote about bringing plants from my old garden and I had a lovely time planting up the stumpery with foxgloves, aquilegia, pulmonaria, tellima, to name a few. To finish off the soil was covered with a layer of bark chippings which gives a nice woodland look. I am going to put a few stepping stones down to avoid having to keep walking on the soil as it is quite a big bed. 

  

I'm quite pleased with this little garden area, it should look good once the plants are more established and hopefully will attract the wildlife.