Hoophouse Happiness

I love my polytunnel at the minute, or hoophouse as I would call it if I were across the pond. Not the actual structure which has been blattered, twisted & punctured what with all the gales, but the interior - has never been more organised & tidy. 10,000 labels, 3 Sharpy markers, pots & trays to hand and most importantly of course, lots of bonnie wee plants:

Autumn sown annuals - snapdragons, ammi majus, orlaya grandiflora, nigella Mulberry Rose.
Last year sown perennials - lupins, verbascums, veronica longifolia, echinops, primulas.
Also tree lupins & hydrangeas from cuttings.

In the border there is applemint, feverfew, senecio, hesperis, muscari, narcissus, sweet william, wallflowers & ranunculus - all for Mother's Day (fingers crossed).

Today I received this year's new arrivals - iris lousiana Heather Stream, lilium henryii, delphiniums Blue Jay & Blue Fountain, scabious Clive Greaves, campanula pyramidalis, phlox Katje, thalictrum Delavayi, chasmanthe floribunda Saturnus (new to us), & echinacea Hot Summer - all for the ornamental garden. Also some dahlias & peonies for the cut flower field. All were potted on and set aside in the tunnel to hopefully bulk up before hardening off and planting out.

It was a beautiful day today, it would have been lovely to work outside but the new plants couldn't wait and with both ends of the tunnel fully open and the ipod, (with my trusty solar powered dock) on shuffle, it was a little piece of paradise.

Hope Springs

It has been such a mild winter to date that a lot of our garden plants haven't stopped growing and some of the perennials are making bonny clumps of fresh green growth, the problem being that, by the law of averages, we are bound to be in for a rotten spell of freezing weather. Here's hoping that the easterly winds will be kind to us.

Today, we managed to clear the prairie bed of weeds and cut back the perennials. This border was made only last year but with copious amounts of garden compost used, the plants are supersized - crocosmias, kniphofias, heleniums, rudbeckias & geums are all thriving. As are the weeds of course - buttercup buttercup.....I will be pulling them out in my sleep. Although the perk of using our own organic garden compost is the free plants - toadflax, aquilegia, poppies & foxgloves as big as cabbages.

Some of the grasses are establishing better than others - the panicum virgatum - both Heavy Metal & Prairie Sky are doing well, others will hopefully thrive this summer.

Elsewhere, in the "front" garden, we have cleared the overgrown shrubs (planted 17 years ago) - pyracantha, cotoneaster & brachyglottis, which has left room for new plants!! Physocarpus Darts Gold & rosa Graham Thomas moved from elsewhere. The yellow flower on the right is Canary Bird, a wonderful early flowering rose.

Geranium oxonianum Rebecca Moss had outgrown her allotted space in this border (around the corner from this photo!) so we have moved some pieces to other parts of the garden, including shady areas which should work well - will keep you posted!

Garden News

The long term weather forecast: Rain and gales, with a side order of more rain and gales.

The garden is saturated and as I type this, the most severe gales are howling outside, I'm dreading checking the tunnel in the morning as the entire frame has twisted ever so slightly, just enough to prevent the doors closing properly.

At least today was just perfect - sunny with no wind - amazing!

The blue and white bed in the cottage garden has been re-edged, dug over to remove every single piece of achillea ptarmica The Pearl and filled with a mountain load of old horse manure. All other existing plants were dug up and taken to the polytunnel, which is like quarantine...no exit until every single tiny piece of white root removed. The safe plants have been divided and replanted: white phlox, lupin, penstemon and blue campanula persicifolia, pulsatilla, aquilegia, delphinium, veronicastrum & geraniums Rozanne, Gravetye, Summer Skies & Johnson's Blue. Snowdrops and muscari have also been returned and we have ordered some more delphinium.

I will also move, from the cut flower field, the anchusa Dropmore and some veronica longifolia Pacific Ocean together with a handful of self sown cerinthe and autumn sown echium Blue Bedder. It may look too neat in the first season as it has lost the exuberance that comes from years of self sown thugs filling every possible gap but hey ho, it had to be done.

The bed in early June last year, growth was rather behind with the terribly cold spring but you can see to the right of the picture a large area of achillea ptarmica The Pearl fighting with lysimachia clethroides (both not yet in flower). Looking at this picture, we need more white flowers in early summer and more blue in late summer - has given me something else to google!

Hot Stuff

I've been feeling rather sorry for myself, have had a rotten virus for three weeks now, hence no writing. At least it's the right time of year to be sick, garden wise, but I am itching to get stuck in - so much to do - and the weather's to be rotten this week but I suppose that's what winter's all about.

In the cottage garden, two beds have been completely cleared and new edges laid.

Firstly, the hot bed where the daylilies had outgrown their allotted spaces and showed more foliage than flower. The bed is on the left in the picture, taken in June. The centranthus is not really "hot" enough so we have replanted it elsewhere.

The dreaded lysimachia ciliata Firecracker had taken over many years ago and, for the past few winters, we have tried to eradicate it by removing every piece of visible root but of course it came back with a vengence each summer. So this was the ideal opportunity to remove every plant and dig the bed over, thoroughly removing every piece of root and then going through the roots of any perennials we were planting back in the bed. 

The keepers have been planted back in the bed: anthemis (not sure which variety but a lovely shade of yellow), crocosmia Emily McKenzie, helenium Waltraut & Moorheim Beauty, lychnis chalcedonia, oriental poppy (red), geum Red Dragon, potentilla Gibson's Scarlet, heuchera Marmalade & Palace Purple.

The wish list for extras is ever changing...the bed's not that big so space is at a premium - the plants will have to earn their keep. I still need some colourful edgers and some verticals for the middle of the bed. All suggestions gratefully received!

The Humble Bumble

A new start to the year and the best part is planning ahead, dreaming of a beautiful garden come summertime which absolutely has to include bumblebees. Their busy buzzing from dawn til dusk makes it all worthwhile. The garden would seem derelict without them.Their amassed tumultuous tone on certain plants can seem deafening but surely hypnotic to the human soul. I believe that we have a primeval appreciation of our thriving depending on their surviving.

“Remove the bee from the earth and at the same stroke you remove at least one hundred thousand plants that will not survive.”

This quotation has been attributed to Einstein although it appears that there is no evidence to confirm a direct link. An interesting article is available here.

From the queens that first emerge in spring, to the many workers that display an endless energy from flower to flower, to the harmless males that lazily feed themselves, chase the ladies and then bed down, at dusk on a suitable east facing flower to sleep for the night, they can hang on to the flower by their jaw, or rest within a bowl shaped bloom, ready to feed themselves on the convenient nectar at dawn.

 I cannot truly imagine gardening without them.

Anyway, ramble no more. Here's for the gardening bit. There are many varieties of plants that will attract bumblebees to your garden but here are a few low maintenance, easy to source plants that will guarantee a garden full of bumblebees...plant them...and they will come.

Sedum Autumn Joy

Allium sphaerocephalon

Helenium Moorheim Beauty

Linaria Canon Went

Cosmos Versailles

Common oregano

Veronica longifolia

Happy gardening!

Highlights Of The Year

What a year...it has flown by and yet I'm really looking forward to getting back out into the garden full time, after the hectic festive season and the house refurb.

Back to normal, to a routine, that's what I like. I lost my "get up & go" for a while there but I'm feeling really positive about 2014 - things can only get better.


A few photos of highlights of 2013. Happy new year & happy gardening for 2014! xx

Merry & Bright

Christmas Fairs done and dusted, two wreath making workshops completed - tree up, house almost decorated.

I've been playing around with my new camera but the manual is not very instructive, that's my excuse anyway.

Am completely and utterly addicted to pinterest, the trouble being that you spend your entire free time looking at nice pictures and tutorials as opposed to getting off your b end and actually creating something.

I'm living in a virtual world and I think it's starting to fry my brain.

Laters.......