A hint of colour to ease me into Spring

Despite a dull Saturday afternoon, mostly spent watching rugby (not dull!), I managed to find some inspiring colour in the garden today - not bad for the second week of March!

 

In the same week!

It’s hard to believe that these two pictures were taken either end of the same week!  Spiders are amazing aren’t they – I wonder if they are aware how beautiful their webs become when frost covers them?  And then for the week to turn into the glorious blue sky we had showing life to come in the Magnolia stellata

     

Veg seeds are pushing up fast, my tomato seeds, Moneymaker, have turned into long-leggy supermodels waiting patiently on the windowsill, thankfully the Chilli’s Anaheim are not through just yet as space is hard to find.

Outside the salad leaves, radish and lettuce (Valdor) have all germinated well – so no more frost thank you!  In the greenhouse the peas I sowed for shoots are all through, they will be on their way to my salad bowl soon.

I struggle to have favourite plants, in fact I can’t think of any I don’t like – but there is something really special about the early entertainers such as these really bright and cheerful crocus.  Talking of early show-stoppers – are Snowdrops the last flower of Winter or the first flower of Spring?

Happy Days

The days are getting longer, the nights are staying lighter, the soil is warming, the bees are buzzing. Seed sowing is going on at a lick now

Spot the bee!

Following two years of trying to get an allotment project off the ground (no pun!) here on camp - we have the green light and it is all systems go, the fencing is going up sometime this week ..... allegedly....I shall nip along tomorrow to check on progress.

I have much waiting in the wings - Jerusalem Artichokes, garlic, shallots, rhubarb - for bed space and nowhere to put them yet.  We can't start marking out the plots until the fence has finished.

The grand plan

August 2011 - end of month

At the beginning of the month I asked for more rain please – now I have to put in a request for a little less please, upside, the grass is looking very lush and green instead of a parched wasteland, downside, slugs and snails are out and playing in the puddles – there really is no pleasing us gardeners is there!

Following the completion of the patio, work has briefly moved to the front garden where we have a rather useless little strip of ground running alongside the front of the house, which is 2ft deep x 24ft wide and is east facing so gets all

Sunflower - full of promise of sunny days to come

the morning sun.  I have laid weed suppressant membrane down and covered that with a rather lovely plum coloured slate, I plan to place stainless coloured (possibly) pots on this and go formal with the planting – I think, I may change my mind!  The joys of gardening, it is ever-changing.  Ideas on formal planting in post really would be appreciated.

I brought a lovely chunk of Phyllostachys nigra with me to this garden, sadly it has died – but this was, I am ashamed to say, down to my neglect because I had moved it to a safe place to keep it out of the sun and totally forgot about it.  I doubt I shall replace it here as the garden is very windy and it would be constantly fighting against the elements.

A new, very tall, obelisk has been erected in the garden for a climbing rose – but I fear I may need permission from Air Traffic Control for this!  The rose I have planted to scramble up it is called Highfield Harcomp which is a beautiful pale yellow rose with a delicious perfume; I have ‘high’ (sorry!) hopes for this one.

Ornamental Millet 'Purple Baron' and ladybird

Other planting that has taken place is Ornamental Millet ‘Purple Baron’ which is sitting next to Dahlia ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ and with Crocosmia ‘Jenny’ making for a lovely planting scheme – the ladybird is a daily lunch visitor on the ‘Purple Baron’, whilst the bees are happy munching on a beautiful bright sunflower.

Nicotiana Sylvestris has started to show its face, this is planted just underneath our sitting room window, so fingers crossed for some hot summer nights so we can enjoy the heady aroma.

A geranium in one of the hanging baskets has come out in two delightful shades of perfect pinkness, underneath which is a pink Dahlia Shadowplay that is surrounded by Gaura Lilipop Pink.

My next project is to use all the turf sods, from the patio excavation, in a raised-bed corner area that I will front with railway sleepers – and then to get my greenhouse re-erected before we get hit by frosts – eek frosts, surely not yet!!

August 2011

Rain – we really need rain please!  It has been very hot and dry here for a few weeks now.

I am, sadly, losing my battle to keep some of the plants alive that I brought with me in pots – the conditions here are so very different to what they were in Benson, which is just 50 miles west of Henlow.  What a weather-diverse country we live in!

The area that will become my patio

My main project this last two weeks has been to get a patio laid, which will then allow the borders to evolve and flow better once the hard-landscaping has been carried out.  My under-gardener had to go away for twelve days, so it was down to me to dig up all the turf, which I had to do using a hand-held turf edger tool as a machine would not get through our very small quarter which has no back entrance to the garden – all gardening goodies have to come through the kitchen.

I planned to set to and do a couple of rows each day, having had my pals calculate the time-scale for me, gardening I know about, maths I don’t!  So, last Saturday saw me don my iPod and set to – by Sunday I had finished, I felt so proud of myself.

On under-gardener’s return we had the slabs delivered, which due to the location of our married quarter from the road meant that we had to carry slabs and sand approx 90meters, which we achieved in just over one hour.  Then I was able to leave the under-gardener, who had just been promoted to Chief of Landscaping, to slab-laying, whilst I set to with plant attention.

Having laid the (almost) last slab, we decided we wanted to extend it slightly, so there is a little more work to be done next weekend – but it was finished, on Sunday, sufficiently to allow us to crack a glass of bubbly – perfect end to a hard day.

I’m a bit short of nice flowering plants just at the moment which I can now start to rectify, thankfully.  The Lotus is looking really bright in one of my hanging baskets, as is the tomatoes ‘Tumbling Tom’ which I planted up in a wall-hanging ‘hay style’ trough.  I set three plants into this trough, but on reflection two would have been better, I have to water them twice-daily and keep trimming the leaves to ensure good air-flow, although I’m quite confident the crop is going to be well worth it.

My neighbour has the most amazing Hollyhock, it is such a dark purple that you would believe it to be black – it appears to have been self-sown, from a passing bird maybe, as it wasn’t planted by the neighbour – who has kindly said I can take it.  I have my bucket and spade ready for collection!

The poppy seed head is always a thing of beauty, making these flowers excellent value for money.

Cleo and Verbena bonariensis - both beautiful

Cleo decided she looked really pretty against the Verbena bonariensis and Cass decided my pot of Stipa arundinacea looked much better against a black back-drop.

Cass in the grass

July 2011

Having lived with our current garden for eight weeks now, I have decided there is nothing I don’t like about it – apart from the bindweed and even that is a pretty ‘weed’ when in (if allowed to) flower.

The pretty orange rose that you have seen before

This is the first military garden that I have had, in 16 years, that has been worked by a previous owner, albeit a couple of owners ago I would guess.  Whilst I have been left with a couple of stunning roses (names unknown) I have had to get rid of the lilies, which were just coming into flower, as I have two beautiful cats that follow me around the garden and I don’t want the vet bill that would follow them munching on the lilies.

Measuring has taken place ready to lay a patio, this is going to be hard work as the ‘lawn’ is uneven and very hard, a turf cutter is needed but sadly we do not have access to the back garden other than through the kitchen – so it will be elbow grease, sweat and sore hands for us.  We have been questioned by our neighbour as to why on earth we would want to go to such extremes as putting in a patio when we know we will be posted out at some point.  I haven’t shown them the plan for paths, arches and a pond yet for fear they will think me very odd indeed!

Veg sowing was underway at a very fast rate over the last couple of weekends to try to ensure some crops are available this year, I am trying out the square-foot method in large raised tubs.  Currently showing up are dwarf French beans, salad leaves of all types, salad onions, Kohl Rabi, Raab, beetroots and lots of Pak Choi – I hope this last one won’t bolt as it really doesn’t like it too hot.

Hanging basket Toms

I have opted for plant-bought Tumbling Tom tomatoes and strawberries in wall-fixed hay baskets, the baskets have been placed on a very sunny wall so fingers crossed for some delicious red fruits.

The blueberry bushes are showing promise with masses of fruits having set, this despite being bunged into a removal truck and left in the dark over night, then trundled up country, dumped in the back garden and pretty much left to it whilst I unpacked the house.  It is showing some signs of sulking with a few leaves browning early, I’m wondering if this is because it didn’t get as much water as it would have liked.

We have been experiencing temperatures of 32 for the last couple of days, which has made me re-evaluate some of the plants that I brought with me from our last garden, some are really struggling here due to the very sunny aspect – I shall have to be more selective, to quote Roy Lancaster ‘Right plant, right place’.

The orange rose, left by a previous occupier, is stunning – in the morning it looks as though someone has put a 40 watt bulb inside each bloom, it is almost too bright to capture on camera, I don’t know the name of it so if anyone recognises it please let me know.  I am going to try and take cuttings of this one as it is so beautiful; I would like it running through the garden a bit more.

Centura Black Knight and pink Candytuft

Also looking lovely is the dark purple of the Centura Black Knight and pink Candytuft and the Sisyrinchium straitum ‘Aunt May’ which has now been renamed to Phaiophelps nigricans.

Sisyrinchium straitum ‘Aunt May’

New planting that has gone in is a combination of Miscanthus sinensis Flamingo with Verbena bonariensis to give us a slight screening of a corner and Nicotiana sylvestris with Potentilla Fireball, which should, hopefully, give a nice white/orange corner.

June 2011

With all boxes now unpacked and items within found a home, I can put the move from Benson to Henlow behind me now and set to in the garden with a clean conscience and renewed passion.

The weather has been so warm that I have high hopes of the BBQ summer, from last year, turning up this year – so I set to cleaning all patio furniture and placing it in several locations in the new garden to see where to actually build the patio.

One I inherited - Aquilegia

Apparently there was a very large conifer in my garden before my move in, all I found was a huge stump – it would appear the grounds-men decided that I wouldn’t want it and removed it!  I am now left with a large area of ‘dead’ ground having, as yet, no idea what to do with it.  AS I have put a shed in front of it, it will most likely be turned into a ‘working area’, which means a place to hide my pots and compost, I shall then hide this with a trellis and some planting, of which I have yet to decide on.  Exciting times!

I have put some raised beds into an existing border which runs directly from the back door, having filled these with a mix of multi-purpose compost, top soil and some of the garden soil, I am currently planting them up with salad leaves, radish, spring onions and a variety of herbs – being just outside the back door makes for excellent access should it turn out to be a wet summer.  Surely not!

Azalea I bought this to remind me of my beautiful cat Charlie

Some plants that have come through the move looking good are a beautiful orange Azelea and my Flag Iris – whilst some of the inherited plants are looking

Flag Iris

lovely too, a couple of Aquilegia – one a lovely bright yellow and the other pink and yellow – thank you previous owners!  Also from the inherited plants is a brilliant rose which is a deep orange in bud opening to a lovely yellow – the scent is heavenly. I wonder how the previous owners knew my colours of choice are yellow, orange and pinks and purples!

No perfume - but what a stunner this is

At the front of the house is a huge Euonymus fortunei, another bright yellow offering!  I’m undecided as to what to do with it as yet – whether to trim it into a tidy shape or to move it to the back garden, as currently the back consists of the 60’s style lawn and thin border all around the edge.

The current plan, on the table, for the new garden is to cut an island area coming out of the border, thereby softening the view and building in some interest that you have to walk around, sink a pond (hubby isn’t aware of this yet!), add my metal arches to get height into the middle of the garden, add trellis all around the 4foot fence for climbers.  Oh and then there is my allotment to set to work on.  Happy days