Through the Garden Gate--February 2024

The days are lengthening now which means more gardening time, but not when it's been raining as much as it has  in February. We wonder if it will ever stop, will we get some sunny weather soon?

There have been a few dry days when I've dashed out to get some work done. There's often a decision to make  "shall we go to the allotment? or stay home and do the garden?". It's which ever needs the most work doing. The damp, cold weather isn't good for me, it gets into my bones, but I try to keep going for the exercise. 

So in the garden I've started tidying up the beds. February is when I cut down the grasses. They were all very straw like, some of them still good looking but the new growth was appearing at the base so the old stems had to be cut back. 

The taller grasses had quite thick stems and could just be snapped off. I thought it would be easier than using the secateurs, but I'm not sure. Either way was hard on my arthritic hands. Last weekend I cut back the dead perennial plants foliage. The garden is looking a bit flat now with lots of the dead grass stems still lying around. They soon blow away or the birds take them for nest building. 

I can see now that the garden is slowly waking up as new shoots start to appear. The snowdrops have mostly all gone over but new spots of colour can be seen. Coming into flower now are crocuses, tete a tete daffodils, primroses and pulmonaria. 

The Hellebores have been in flower for a few weeks and are looking lovely. Hellebores 'Anna's Red' is a dark red and standing quite tall. It has big flowers but not many of them, whilst the other hellebores are low clumps of paler, smaller flowers. 

The patio is bright with pots of daffodils and the tulips pots should make a good show, that will be quite a while yet, but it's something to look forward to.

Well that was February in the garden, I'm hoping for some good weather in March, there will be much to do.

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

Stormy weather and winter jobs

 It's quiet on the allotments at the moment, we hardly ever see anyone else down there. Not surprising, with all the storms and snow we've had in the last few weeks it's not been fit to do any work. We've managed to do a few short sessions since the start of the year, taking advantage of the odd fine weather day. Fortunately in the autumn we got most beds cleared and mulched and the greenhouses cleaned out.

I don't do any planting in the ground yet and I don't usually start sowing seeds in warmth until early March. It's surprising though how many other jobs we find need doing. This time of year is a good time to tackle repairs and  maintenance jobs. The high winds blew over some of the fencing so that needed fixing back in place, the compost bins need  repairs to some rotting wood, and the heavy rain upset our drainage system. 

An old land drain runs down onto our allotment from the plot above and when we took the plot on years ago Richard put a drain in place to divert the water down, into the pond, onto the lane outside and into the woods. It works well most of the time but after any really heavy rain the drain overflows and needs clearing of silt.  Well we've had our share of heavy rain in the last few weeks and last week after more rain there was water running down the paths and it had also got into the shed. So Richard has had quite a job on trying to sort out the blocked drain. This week he thinks it's sorted at last but we are left with a very muddy mess.

One job I didn't get done in the autumn was pruning the fruit bushes and that's what I have been doing recently. It's taking me longer than I thought to get it done. I have to work at a slow pace because  the pruning aggravates my arthritic hands and bending and shoveling compost hurts my back. After I've pruned the fruit I've been giving them a sprinkling of chicken manure pellets and a mulch of home made compost. Nearly done now, just have the blueberries to do. Those I mulch with the shredded branches of our Christmas tree for the acidity. The rhubarb is growing fast, it's pink shoots seem to increase so quickly. Every time we visit the plot it seems to have grown much bigger.

Finding the shed floor covered in water I had to sweep it out, but it reminded me that the shed needs it's annual clean out. It needs a fine day to do this so I can move the contents of the shed outside before I can give it a good clean out. This is my least favourite job as I never know what wildlife I will find once I start. For the time being I can put that job off, but I really want to get it done soon so I can have a clean start to the growing season. What we need is some drier weather then we can really get a move on.

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Through the Garden Gate--January 2024

The garden in January can be a dull place.  We have had our share of storms in the last few weeks and also snow. So the garden is looking a bit battered. The grasses have been blown about and straw coloured stalks are all over the place. Tall stems of flowers with seed heads have fallen over. Leaves blown onto the beds have gone soggy. So generally the garden is not just dull but messy too. 

I have done some tidying up on the few fine days we've had.  We are encouraged now not to be too tidy in the garden and not to cut back in the autumn but leave dead plants over the winter for the wildlife. This is what I do. But come January I am always longing to get out and do something. So my work is to have a light tidy up, clearing soggy leaves and plants. Any stalks and seed heads I gather into piles and leave at the back of the border so the wildlife can still get at it. I can easily clear it away in a couple of months time.

Clearing the beds of the leaves helps to reveal any spring flowering bulbs which are coming through. I always forget where they are planted so it's always a nice surprise to find them. I now have a good show of snowdrops which are the first signs of spring in our garden and are so welcome at this dull time of year. I can also see signs of crocuses and dwarf daffodils. Other new shoots are there in the beds giving me much to look forward to especially when I can't remember what plants they are. The tulips I planted in pots for the patio in the autumn are coming through as are smaller pots of daffodils and crocuses.

The witch hazel in the woodland/wildlife bed seems to be getting better established and this year there has been more colour from it. This bed is a colourful little winter corner with the witch hazel, yellow stems of dogwood, the white bark of the birch and creamy catkins on the twisted hazel. Snowdrops and cyclamen are planted under the trees and shrubs. Underneath the witch hazel when I'd cleared away some leaves I found that  the Hellebores have pink buds soon to open.

So it's encouraging to go round the garden even on the bad days, to get signs of what's to come in only a few weeks. 

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

 

Through the Garden Gate December 2023

What a stormy month December has been! The garden is looking very battered by all the wind and rain with debris scattered about all over the place. It needs a good tidy up but I can't see that happening for a while yet.  

Not much gardening gets done in December, I do like to see this time of year as a time of rest from the garden. It's such a busy time getting ready for Christmas. At the beginning of December our church put on a Christmas tree display, with the different groups within the church decorating a tree to show the work they do. Our church isn't very big but we managed to fit eight trees around the building. Here are a couple of them.

The following weekend we went to visit our daughter Sarah in Bedfordshire and her church also had a Christmas tree festival. This church was bigger than ours and there was plenty to look at. 

Most of my December garden work has been foraging for evergreen foliage and making up Christmas wreaths for the front and side doors to the house as well as arrangements for indoors.

 I potted up the three white hellebores which I bought from RHS  Harlow Carr last month and put one on the garden patio table, one at the side door and the other at the front door.  These will keep going for quite a while through the winter.

Now as we move into the new year I'm starting to think about what changes I might make to the garden. There are some plants which have taken over and  need moving to make more space. There's always something new you can do in the garden. 

Looking round the garden this week I have noticed snowdrops coming through and cyclamen are already flowering in the woodland beds. There is a lot to look forward to. 

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and I wish you much good health and happiness in 2024.

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

Through the Garden Gate--November 2023

November seems to have flown by so much that I nearly forgot about my end of month blog. We've had a lot of rain and not many good days to get out and do any gardening. As it was so wet and I couldn't get out I took a photo of the garden viewed from the house. It is still colourful so I haven't done any cutting back, even the seed heads look good. 

Early in the month I managed to get some tidying done, paths swept and cleared of moss and weeds. I bought tulip bulbs and planted them in pots. I went for orange and purple colours this time, I'm hoping they go well together. This week I started cutting foliage in preparation for making Christmas wreaths. I'll be making two, one for the front of the house and the other for the side door, any foliage left will be used in the house in vases. 

This week we visited RHS Harlow Carr. It was a beautiful day but very cold. It takes us just over an hour to get there and because of the shorter days now we didn't have a lot of time to walk around and fit lunch in as well. But it was still a lovely change to get out in the sunshine. The colours are still good especially the stems of the dogwoods which look great next to the white bark of the birch trees. 

They were getting the garden ready for Christmas, can you see the big baubles in the tree below?

We like to walk along the streamside, there is a lot of  improvement work being done which we hope will be finished next time we go.

I liked the pink seed heads on these grasses.

I managed to spend some of my birthday gardening vouchers in the shop before we left. I bought three white hellebores which are flowering now and I will plant them in pots for Christmas displays. 

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

Through the Garden Gate--October 2023

October is one of my favourite months, not just because it's my birthday month but I just love Autumn and the changes to the garden and countryside. Last weekend we went to visit our daughter who lives in Bedfordshire. It was my birthday weekend and we hadn't seen them for ages. I got garden vouchers from them, so I can look forward to a day out soon to somewhere garden related to spend them, probably RHS Harlow Carr. We had a shopping trip to Hitchin where more things were bought and we had a lovely lunch. 

Back home on Sunday I was struck by how the garden seemed to have changed in just a few days. Autumn had definitely arrived.  Leaves had fallen and there seemed to be much more autumn colour. Where we live there are grass verges outside the houses with trees, mostly flowering cherry type which go a lovely colour at this time of year.

In the garden the grasses are now taking over from flowers. This one is Hakonechloa. It's not a tall grass, so it's good for the front of the border, under trees or by a path. It forms a clump and has lovely arching leaves. It changes colour from yellow to a lovely russet colour in the autumn and then through the winter it goes more straw like. 

This one is a Miscanthus but I've lost the label so I don't know its full name. It's beautiful at this time of year. It grows lovely dark pink flower heads which later go fluffy as they open up. I picked some recently to go in a flower arrangement and they lasted well without dropping bits.

The Fatsia  produces really unusual flowers at this time of year.

I let the hostas show their autumn colours before I cut them back for the winter.

The Liquidamber tree starts to change colour in late summer.  It gives us plenty of interest as the leaves change and they are always late to fall.

Early on in October I potted up loads of Hyacinth bulbs for forcing. Hopefully some will be ready by Christmas. Our local garden centre has been full of cyclamens in beautiful shades of pink. I can never resist buying some for autumn container arrangements.

I am linking this blogpost to Sarah's blog at 'Down By the Sea' for her monthly 

'Through the Garden Gate' post

Through the Garden Gate--September 2023

September is a month of changes as schoolchildren go back after a long summer holiday. In our family the grandchildren are growing up and becoming more independent. The eldest grandchild started her second year at Leeds university, another began his first year at Lincoln. Then one is doing A levels this time and the youngest doing her GCSEs. There are changes going on in the garden too as Autumn has now arrived. It's a season that I love and I have been watching the changes to the garden daily. At the beginning of the month summer returned briefly with a really hot spell of weather, but since then there has been some very rainy, windy weather. Leaves are blowing about on the lawn keeping Holly the cat amused and giving her plenty to play with.

The Michaelmas daisies started flowering, giving a lovely splash of colour next to the Rudbekias and Gaura in the raised bed border. The sedums give interest throughout the year, but at this time when they are in flower I love the deep pink flat flower heads. 

Other flowers are still struggling on giving little spots of colour here and there, but now it's the turn of the foliage from shrubs and trees. The Rowan is starting to change colour, it's clusters of yellow berries seem to sparkle. Last year the crab apple tree produced masses of fruit but this year we have to search for the odd cluster. I don't know why that is.

 The raised bed border has become a bit overgrown in the last couple of years and I've kept meaning to sort it out, but not known quite what to do with it. The bed looks good in late spring, then gets overgrown and lacks colour later on in the summer. After much thought I worked  out that I need to dig some plants up to plant elsewhere in the garden and space others out more. Then next year I will get some new late summer flowering  perennials to plant. So on a fine day when I was feeling full of energy I climbed into it and dug up a Solidago (Golden Rod) plant which had got quite big for it's space and I had never really liked it there. I split it up and have found a couple of spaces in the front garden where I can replant it. The bed still looks a bit of a mess but at least I now have a plan of what to do with it. I also need some better weather so I can carry on with the work.

In the front garden, the Hydrangea flowers are  changing colour to shades of deep pink and almost purple on some of them. I am going to dry some of them as they are useful for winter flower arrangements.

At the beginning of September we had a few days away in Northumberland, visiting Holy Island, Bamburgh and Alnwick Gardens.  We've been to Northumberland before but never to the Alnwick Gardens so I was quite looking forward to seeing them. There are some spectacular water features, the main one greets you as you enter the garden, with water cascading down a massive structure of steps and plumes of water spurting up every half hour to give an amazing display. 

We had probably visited at the wrong time of year to see the ornamental garden at its best but it was still quite colourful in places. 

One garden area which we enjoyed, although quite a number of the plants had gone over, was the Poison Garden. Normally you can't enter this garden without a guide but we were allowed in and told not to touch or eat any plants. There were guides there who would tell you about the plants. It was interesting to identify quite a number of plants which we wouldn't have thought were dangerous, but were told how they could affect you if used in the wrong way. 

I'm hoping we will get to visit one or two more gardens before the end of the year, most likely RHS Harlow Carr as we love to see it in Autumn and also RHS Bridgewater.

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