Autumn Bed Update

Progress...the new autumn bed has been revamped and replanted - I can't wait and yet I wait with trepidation - will it work? The lovely thing is that, if it doesn't work (design wise), the bees and butterflies will still love it and we can reuse the plants elsewhere.

Despite the woeful weather, I'm feeling rather upbeat, Things are slow but little bits of plants are popping up everywhere.......pulmonarias, erythroniums, newly planted late flowering narcissus, epimediums, lathryus vernus, fritillaries, muscari. 

Back to the autumn bed, I've tried to keep it simple. Fewer plant varieties in bigger blocks - here are a few of them:

Veronica spicata Red Fox
Liatris Kobold
Monarda Beauty of Cobham
Achillea Cerise Queen
Lupin The Page
Iris Dear Delight
Molinia Variegata
Pennisetum Hameln

The bed is not easy to design, as it's an S shape, simply because the old autumn bed, which started a kidney shape was extended to an elongated S. A few gatecrashers are there including dahlia Blue Bayou, hydrangea Magical Amethyst and fuschia Mrs Popple. There are also a few anthemis, astilbes, persicarias, salvia nemorosa and sanguisorbas.....watch this space!!

A pic from last summer, in its first year, of a small section showing lupin The Page, anthemis and echium Blue Bedder.

And the list goes on

I've made yet another list, as you do......so much to accomplish before April when we open the garden. With the best will in the world, my list's not shifting, as in when I look at my list on the laptop each night, I'm not able to tick off any tasks, yet my days are filled with "must do" garden jobs.

Last week, we planted more bare root trees in the front fields, in an attempt to soften the wind which whistles up the stable yard and blatters the autumn beds - alder and field maple. As I've said before, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is now (old chinese proverb) and I'm hoping they will grow pretty quickly. A hornbeam hedge has been planted behind the cottage garden as the fence is already 18 years old - hopefully in about 7 years time, the fence can come down and the hedge will provide the shelter from the westerly winds. A hedge beats a fence every time...cheaper, less maintenance, wildlife friendly, longer lifespan.

We have also added species roses to the boundary hedges to add colour and provide more food for wildlife (100 so far).  

My bareroot plants have all arrived for the new autumn bed..........for another blog post - gosh I need to get them planted. But also lots of potting on needed, in the tunnel, of autumn sown perennials:

Lupins The Page, Chandelier and Gallery Yellow
Achillea Cerise Queen
Veronica longifolia Pacific Ocean
Verbascum phoenicum
Everlasting sweetpea
Catananche caerula alba
Aquilegia Dragonfly Mixed
Thalictrum aquilegifolium

and others that I can't remember.

It's bitterly cold and folk say "It's still only March" but I would love to work without my salopettes, thermals and furry hat......oh the freedom of it! Roll on an idyllic spring!

A queen bee on muscari last Tuesday 

   Hellebore at the bottom of the orchard.

Know Your Onions

We've been planting more alliums in the garden...they should have been in before now but Christmas kind of got in the way, then I had a pesky virus, then the weather wasn't great...excuses, excuses.....I am the world's greatest procrastinator....a horrid word for a horrid habit, it runs in the family and I'm afraid I've passed it on to my poor son. Procrastinating is not a good thing to do in the garden, as time, and nature, wait for no man...seed sowing, bulb planting, perennial splitting all have to be done at the right time but hey ho, they're in now and hopefully won't be the worse for it.

We had started to plant Purple Sensation in the prairie last year among the crocosmia as this border is all foliage no flower until mid summer. The allium foliage can look a little messy after flowering which the crocosmia foliage will help to hide.  I hadn't realised that the geum Blazing Sunset would flower so perpetually and this produced a pleasant clash of colours, à la Great Dixter. We didn't have enough to reach the end of the bed so they have been continued and bulked up a little. Hopefully they will bulk up themselves in a few years.

We have also planted allium caeruleum azureum in the cottage garden - a lovely clear blue compact head on a tallish stem (2 ft), from siberia so pretty robust and should clump up nicely.

In the cutting field, we have plenty of allium sphaerocephalon which continually increase in numbers but to the point of being useful as opposed to thuggish. Reaching a decent height of almost a metre, they flower for quite a while in midsummer and are very much on trend at the moment, fitting well with prairie style planting.

Finally, my favourite allium - roseum, the rosy garlic - a perfect size for a handtied bouquet, flowers forever (and lasts forever in a vase), with a sweet honey smell and the bees love it...perfect!

The origin of "know your onions"? Check it out here!

Purple Sensation in the prairie border.

Allium sphaerocephalon

Allium roseum

Purple Sensation

Pootling in Paradise

A beautiful winter's day....after a week's break from the garden, due to both the weather and a rotten cold, I headed back out today with my trusty helpers. This was the first day since last week that we weren't frozen - very unusual for our wee peninsula. Mind you, the garden doesn't seem too bothered, everything's growing on merrily.

Today, we removed the old hybrid teas from in front of the blue seat, they just didn't do well enough but the nepeta Walkers Low that we had planted around them, had romped away. So today we lifted and divided them (three year old plants) and added peony Sarah Bernhardt and white phlox to the centre of each small bed. To add spring interest, I have dotted through forget-me-nots that had self sown in the autumn bed. Yikes! Forgot to take a photo - here's one from last year - I just love the nepeta...slugproof, wildlife friendly, beautiful scent, wonderful cut flower, blooms from May till October....need I say more?

By the way, we all need to pootle more apparently....happy days!

Hedgerow Habits

 Two years ago, almost to the day, we decided to lay our old overgrown hawthorn hedge. The hedge was at the edge of the garden then, with the pony's paddock beyond but we have since planted the pony's field with native trees, a row of hydrangeas and a prairie border.

Anyway, we were quite brutal with the hedge and yet it has worked wonders and sprouted fresh growth along the old wood. There were some roses planted within the garden on the west side of the hedge a few years previous....Rambling Rector, American Pillar, Cerise Bouquet, Canary Bird and a few others (albas and gallicas) that have lost their label. We are adding a few more this year - Ethel, Stanwell Perpetual,  perhaps Sir Cedric Morris although he seems rather rampant and the hedge is yet to grow to a decent height.

We will also move a few other existing roses that are in the wrong place - Ghislaine de Feligonde, Nevada, Creme dela Creme. 

I have also popped in a few buddleias, some slipped from ones in the garden and some bought, then planted a few ribes and deutzias..........I've decided to name the length of the hedgerow "The Butterfly Walk"........seems rather pretentious, yet when asked by the lovely Cherrie McIlwaine (for Gardeners' Corner) what were my garden plans for the year ahead, I heard myself declare, rather foolhardily "I'm going to create a butterfly walk with..." and I blurted out every butterfly friendly plant I could think of......yes the buddleias and deutzias were already planted but a few shrubs do not a butterfly walk make. I will need to add more, so that set me to thinking (yay more plants!) and I have decided to let the actual bank behind the roses go wild, like a wild hedgerow verge - our verges are lovely in Islandmagee...lots of cow parsley, wild carrot and Alexanders. And I will add centranthus ruber which self sows everywhere, hieracum (Foxes & Cubs) which we have autumn sown from our own seed (have 75 plugs in the polytunnel), also geranium pyrenaicum and dianthus carthusianorum which we grew from seed last year. I must get some honeysuckle....Auntie Jo has already planted a few clematis montana Wee Willie Winkie which she grew from cuttings.

Isn't the anticipation almost as exhilarating as the end result?! Us gardeners have such vivid imaginations! Roll on summer!!

American Pillar.....two more have been added along the bank from cuttings. I will keep you posted on the progress!

Back in The Saddle

Happy New Year to all and sundry.

Christmas passed by at such a frenzied pace, I'm only now recovering. And I kind of lost my gardening mojo.......lots of workshops and wreaths which was wonderful but the garden & polytunnel were certainly neglected.

It's hard to believe but just a few days with my hands back in the soil (between the woeful weather) and I'm feeling my inner joie de vivre.

The raised annual cut flower beds have been cleared and I've started clearing the perennial beds.

So much still to do before spring...there are roses to be moved and pruned, perennials to be split, a pond to be dug and planted, beds to be cleared, a butterfly walk to be finished, paths to be renewed, fences to be painted. DO you remember the Mr Lazy book? Who were his imposters....Mr Busy and Mr Bustle...well, I could do with them!

That said, do you think if (the old cliche) you won the lottery tomorrow, you would really want to pay someone else to do it all for you.  I think that half the fun/drive/addiction is the fact that you have such a sense of achievement from being at the centre of it all and I do truly think that working outdoors with plants and soil, gives you the best buzz in the world!

Along the road needs strimmed, cleared and planted.....stop now Cherry....get to bed.

A pic to keep us all going 'til Spring.

The Merry Wreathmakers

We have been having a wonderful time of it. Lots of lovely girls arriving at the barn for our wreath workshops and I'm amazed at their creations, truly.

We don't make it easy for them - no ready made fir wreath rings that only need a few bits and pieces stuck on. No sir, we start from scratch and, at first, it can seem rather daunting. But then, piece by piece, it starts to make sense and take shape.

And I love to see the girls' sense of achievement when they've finished - they've learnt something new and sometimes, they don't quite believe that they have created something so beautiful themselves at the first attempt!