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

May 2011

It was with heavy heart that we moved out of Benson last week, whilst it was a wind-tunnel and brought the usual clay soil issues to be dealt with, it is always very hard to undo the garden that you have made in such a short space of time.  I have left much more than I normally would in a military garden, sadly some plants just look like they wanted to stay – I really hope the next occupants are gardeners otherwise I may get a hefty bill in the post!

The removal men took one look at all the plants that I had potted up from my Benson garden and asked for a cup of tea, some biscuits and a sit down!

Cardoon lording it over the low planting

My (left behind) Cardoon, planted through a mass of lavender, was full of promise of bright colours to attract pollinating insects, together with the lilac that is about to break open and add to the honey bar for the bees, one of which was seen happily munching on the comfrey flowers whilst waiting for the explosion of nectar. I shall have to use my imagination as to how this will all look.

Whilst I was moving sheds, tools, compost and other essential equipment to my new allotment I managed to secure a heavy dose of sun-stroke, in spite of wearing a hat and using sun cream!

The weather was really hot, rather too hot for a three-hour stint of moving heavy garden items 200 yards from truck to allotment, however in amongst off-loading I managed to get two raised beds filled with my home-made compost and then covered them with weed suppressant material to ensure the moisture stays in the lovely compost until I can get back to them. I have courgettes, peas and beans all at early growth stages to get into these beds hopefully next week.

Kerris double

There is some wonderful colour in the garden/pots just now - Kerria, both single and double, blend beautifully with the Heuchera and Alchemilla mollis, the pot of tulips, pansies and wallflowers, that were planted up last autumn, have given me instant colour outside my new front door.

Heuchera and Alchemilla mollis

My aim now is to get a design together for my new garden, this time it will be given over mainly to flowers as I have an allotment for main veg and fruit growing, I will, however, use wall troughs at home to grow salad leaves, radish and some herbs – whilst the garden may be small there are walls to be put to good growing use, no space will be wasted.

How beautiful is this Tulip!

I have been approached by an RAF Officer, based at our new camp, to assist with the development of a potential allotment site on camp, whilst it is early days in the project; I am so excited by the thought of what could unfold, ideas for the development are coming thick and fast from my forum pals – what stars they are.

Pilks basking in the sun

Following in Dad's footsteps

I'm told my garden training started at age 18 months (approx) where I would be found waddling amongst the rows of peas whilst Dad  set to with the digging - I developed a love of eating veg at a very early age, that's not to say I didn't like chocolate as well, but sadly Dad wasn't able to grow that!

The gardening passion left me whilst I was growing through my teenage years, there seemed to be other interests that needed my attention - such as clothes, music and boys.  Once safely into adulthood my passion returned - thankfully.

Due to lack of garden space, most of my early gardening was to grow flowers, herbs and veg in pots, this is an excellent way of gaining confidence and knowledge - it appears to be more controllable and less daunting then a large patch that may need a major over-haul.

My first major challenge came in the form of an acre of land attached to my cottage in Stenalees, St. Austell, Cornwall - this was more an acre of bracken and boy was it scary!  We managed to get half of it cultivated before life's circumstances meant that we had to move away from there.  I would love to go back and ask if I could have a look around!

In 1993 I married the present Mr. W who was (still is at time of writing) serving with the Royal Air Force - this meant from here on in my gardening was going to be transient.  Oh and how!