Mr Blue Sky

I'm loving this settled high front - OK.... could do with some rain (dare I say it) some day soon but, for the time being, this is wonderful. I walked to work today with the dog, worth it for the view alone.

Finished clearing the four main perennial beds - my right hand just doesn't even want to type - hundreds of creeping buttercup forcefully extracted from our heavy clay - of course they'll come back, especially with me using our own compost to mulch the beds as it's full of weeds no matter how strict we try to be.

First queen bee of the season - landed on my pink jumper - it was so big and noisy that I was able to follow it from one end of the garden to the other, where it landed on a crocus in the orchard to feed. I can't wait for their return...the garden seems so quiet without them.

The flower field got its first grass cut of the season - suddenly seems so tidy and lush - ironically this part of the garden has the lushest sward whereas the ornamental main garden has pretty poor grass.

Tomorrow I really need to finish sorting the tunnel - I haven't even started sowing seeds although I suppose it's early enough - the good weather lulls us into a false sense of spring - dear only knows what's around the corner weather wise - let's hope for a good year!

Spoke Too Soon

Of course I had to rave about the weather - what a difference a day makes....the beast from the east has hit the Island big time. The coldest I've been all winter - full thermal skiwear and I'm still foundered. Am sitting now, at 10pm still in full thermals, still haven't warmed up. A wee glass of Pinot Noir should set me right - what with the kids being off school and all that, sort of feels like the hols.

Anyway, today we had a semi makeover in the shady garden - we want less grass more bed - the grass never looks good - too mossy. The circular bed which I posted about last month is in the centre but all around the edge is too green - all foliage. So today we lined it out with hosepipe, turned over the turf, laid grit and then our own compost.

I'm skint as a flint so the plants with have to come from other parts of the garden - self sowers and perennials that need dividing. I would like to keep the north side (facing south) white or at least pale - will plant 3 pale fuschia & 1 spiraea from B&Q - in 2 litre pots reduced from £6 to £1.50 - lucky me that they don't teach their staff that a deciduous shrub is resting in winter, not dead. Also have white lupin, oriental poppy, phlox, catmint (all white) that need moved, and then the usual thugs - white toadflax, hesperis, foxglove & ladys mantle. Bob's your uncle - will post the finished result - I promise (I owe a lot of finished results to this blog - they better work - no pressure then).

And The Heat Goes On

What a day...I stripped down to my jumper - no woolly hat, no coat, no scarf. Not even a breath of a breeze, the birds were singing, just waiting for the bees now, haven't yet spotted any queens but hopefully will do soon - they love the pussy willow.

Of course, as I write this, it's now down to zero because of the still, clear skies but give me a settled high any day to the normal wet and windy Islandmagee weather. 

Finished the veg beds, cleared, weeded and topped up with our own compost (which will be full of weeds but easy enough to hoe with the veg in straight lines). I'm going to cover them with clear plastic to warm the soil up and this should help germinate the weedlings in the compost that I can then weed out. I often wonder though - can the worms breathe? Must googly it and see.

Also pruned the far apple trees which should have been done earlier - here's hoping they'll perform better this year after last year's woeful yield - mind you, it was an awful year.

Moved more self sown bits and pieces to the newly cleared bank on the lane - foxgloves, aquilegia, feverfew, quaking grass & centranthus & some primoses that needed dividing. It faces north so here's hoping  it will fill out nicely.

Then spent the end of the afternoon in the cottage garden - what a challenge - it really needs a complete revamp - was first planted in 1998 so the thugs have taken over and a lot of plants need renewing - just not enough hours in the day.

Under the willow arch - bulbs appearing everywhere - the anticipation.

What Spiffing Weather!

 What O! Tickety Boo! Can't believe I'm watching the last episode of Blandings - the best thing on TV in a long time - simply capital! 

Glorious weather for this time of year - have managed to clear all 8 raised annual beds in two days at the end of last week. 

Today me & the lovely hubbie cleared 6 of the eight veg beds. Have frozen a mountain of kale (having already fried heaps with bacon, onion and spuds for tea). The lovely hubbie has made a bucket load of parsnip soup. We still have to tackle the jerusalem artichokes and that'll be last year's harvest gone - must try harder to fill the "hungry gap".

Tomorrow, I intend to sow some peas, rocket and lettuce in the tunnel - should have pea shoots & leaves to eat pretty soon.  

The weather's to be good all week - yippee!

If you fancy growing some veg - you should check out the wonderful Nicky Kyle Gardening fantastic advice for growing your own veg - organically of course!

Remember to companion plant - alongside your veg, you need to grow chives, poached egg plants, calendula, foxgloves, nasturtiums - for a number of reasons but mostly to attract beneficial insects. Plus it makes the veg garden look pretty!

The veg garden two years ago with rather too many companion plants!

Last year's brassica bed in June - full of promise!

Happy Gardening! x

Beginner's Bunch

While the weather is still pretty woeful, now is the time to finish planning your cut flower garden for this year. 

If you've never grown any cut flowers, why not give it a go? I will suggest some easy plants to get you going.

Perennial plants are the ones that will come back each year. At the back, you could have the tall, airy verbena bonariense, with some catmint and linaria (toadflax) in the middle and lady's mantle (alchemilla mollis) and dianthus at the front. These are all pretty easy and most will self sow to give you more free plants to bulk up your stock.

Easy annuals - that you have to sow from seed each year, include cornflowers, cosmos, scabious, cerinthe & clary sage - all easy to sow and maintain - the one thing you have to remember with annuals is that you have to keeping cutting them or they will run to seed and that will be the end of your plentiful supply of beautiful cut flowers.

The lovely cerinthe - the bees love it too!

Herbs will supply you with some useful, beautifully scented foliage.- especially applemint & lemon balm.

If you would like to learn more, I'm running some workshops on growing your own cut flowers.

6^th April - 2.00-5.00pm         or        14^th September - 2.00-5.00pm        

Grow Your Own Cut Flowers   £35.00

Come and take a guided tour of our garden, including the “Cut Flower Field” where you will be shown how to create and maintain your own cut flower patch, to provide you with beautiful, scented blooms to adorn your home. We will provide you with a wealth of knowledge on which plants grow best in our Northern Irish climate, which give the best scent and vase life, together with details of which varieties produce the most flowers per plant. The course includes, to take home, an informative fact sheet, seeds and plant plugs to get you started.

13^th April - 10.00am-4.00pm (Includes lunch)

Grow and Arrange Your Own Cut Flowers            £70.00

This course covers how to grow your own cut flowers as described above, followed by an afternoon learning how to make beautiful floral arrangements, finishing with a hand tied bouquet which you will then take home with you. 

February In The Garden

Shortest month of the year, possible coldest month of the year with the easterly, beasterly wind - hits us hard in Islandmagee - nothing between us and Scotland to soften its blow.

Yet I love this month, you can really see the nights stretching...we'll be sick of hearing this I suppose until summer solstice, same old, same old but still we say it. Here's hoping for a dry spell so that we can work the beds....I haven't even started to clear them except for the orchard & shady garden (being wildlife friendly is a great excuse for leaving everything til the last minute but I think it helps the plants too - all the dead top growth acts like an insulator.

In the "ornamental" garden, once the beds are cleared, this is a great time to look around and see where you could underplant with early bulbs - half of our Tete a Tete & February Gold daffs are already flowering and the dwarf iris are a lovely burst of blue / purple, I especially like Harmony and the plummy George - quite cheap too. With crocus, tommasinus are the best, especially Whitewell Purple which is a stronger colour and great for naturalising in grass - they don't mind our heavy wet clay at all and come back year after year. Of course the snowdrops are great and aren't fussy about our soil but they are best planted in the "green" after flowering. But all other bulbs can be bought in the autumn and, if you're not sure where to put them, why not plant them in old plastic pots, in clumps of say..5 or 7 and then plant them carefully now, while they're in bud - this has worked fine for me and gives instant impact.

At last, we have finished weaving in the willow arch but it has sort of gone from us, the wet summers have led to 12/14ft of growth each year! 

Iris histroides George, a lovely plummy colour.

Hedge Your Bets

To lay or not to lay......

Finished laying the hedge today - it had been neglected for so long - it looked past redemption so we thought we have nothing to lose - let's lay it! To find out more, dig this website - I think ours is "Yorkshire" in style - makes me feel not so bad - basically it should have been done years ago so it's pretty much been taken down to nothing and we're hoping it will regenerate from the thick stumps and trunks left behind. Mind you, we've plenty of sticks for the woodburning stove that we haven't yet bought - plan ahead - season your wood for at least a year etc etc.The down side... as I write this, my fingers are throbbing - nothing so bad as a half dozen haw"thorn" skelf (what is the plural of skelf?) in each finger.

Anyhow, it's really opened up that whole area of the garden - it's on the  east side of the garden so doesn't really affect light levels but it has meant that now have room to plant more shrubs in a cosy west facing part of the garden (in front of the hedge). There are rambling roses along the hedge but we've filled the gaps with new bare root shrubs....

Deutzia Pride of Rochester, Philadelphus Virginal, Abelia, three different flowering currants, 5 spindle berry, physocarpus, sea buckthorn.  Elsewhere, we planted alnus Imperialis, hazel, elder, spiraea and a few more conifers. I jus wish I could fast forward their growth by about five years - I have no patience when it comes to trees.