I cannot believe that after all the rain we have had in the past three years and now "they" are threatening a hose pipe ban in parts of the country.  We have four water barrels around but they do not produce enough water for a garden this size and of course with a thatched roof we do not have the ability to catch water that way.  I see that they are big adverts in the gardening mags advocating these huge water containers that are stored under ground.  If things get too bad the under gardener has said we will open up the well and install a pump to bring up water that way.  In fact with the bills going up and up with might just do that anyway.

Well, it is all over for another year and this time the sun shone and shone.  In fact it was a bit too hot but that is gardeners for you, never satisfied!  170 people came through the gate and when you consider that England were playing in the World Cup we were delighted to see so many people here.  We had decided that we would have a football free zone, and it worked, many people were trying to avoid the beautiful game.

I am sitting here a bit like a Zombie.  Our first opening went well and we are all but on track to open on Sunday for the National Garden Scheme.  We have put the opening date back by one week this year and would you believe it last Sunday with sun shon all day and next Sunday is looking a bit unsure.  I am checking all the weather stations twice a day ( at least) and hoping that it will get better by the big day.  The list of things to do does not appear to be getting shorter but with good luck and a fair wind we will be ready on time.  Fingers crossed. 

We are all but ready for our first opening.  It is a private visit for a flower arranging club.  The garden starts to come into its own the week of Chelsey Flower Show and goes on "performing" till the end of October.  This year we have five private openings and one day for the NGS.  I think by the end of that we shall be on our knees!

Not long now to our first opening.  Tomorrow in fact.  We appear to have caught up with ourselves and things are looking OK.  It is a private opening of about 25 visitors and I have the under gardener primed to serve tea.  Poor man, this is not what he thought his retirement would be. 

The under gardener always thinks that other peoples gardens are better or better kept than ours.  He always thinks other peoples cars are cleaner than his.  You get my drift.  We went to visit another garden this week that had been mentioned in the papers and along with some good friends we made a day of it.  It was a most interesting garden but SO untidy.  I think he may have a re-think on how well or not we are doing on presentation. 

One day I think we are on target and the next I am in a panic, and that is how it is today.  We have our first opening is just about a week and whilst that would appear to be a long time it is not.  We have rain forecast here and that should slow things up and if it starts to rain will it ever stop?  PANIC 

There is a large holly tree in the garden.  When we arrived at Holmcroft it was almost down to the ground and made mowing the lawn a very prickly business.  The under gardener clipped it till it was about five feet from the ground but it continued to hamper the growth of the beach hedge we put in.  In fact the shade it cast caused some parts of the hedge not to attain its full richness of the copper co lour it should be.  Well I just thought that I would tidy it up a bit more on Thursday when help arrived in the shape of the under gardener and a chain saw and now it is a fraction of the tree it was.  Two hours later light was flooding in.  The only problem was the mountains of holly that needed to be processed and that took for ever.  Still, done now, thank goodness.  

The six lilac trees that are around the garden appear to do very little for about 47 weeks of the year but by the end of May the wait has been well worth it and the garden is filled with the most wonderful fragrance.  Alliums, clematis, peony and wisteria are all doing their thing and look just wonderful.  We really could open this garden at this time of year but the help we need from the villagers and the farmer who's field we "borrow" for parking makes it impossible to open more than just the once.  The under gardener would also find the strain a bit too much! 

A week ago today our contractors started work on the steps up what had been the camomile bank.  Now finished and partly planted up we are totally delighted.  It has been very hard work when they left . The "tiding" up was up to us.  The main problem with this bank, which is south facing but slopes towards the cottage, is that half of it the soil is quite light and the other half is almost total clay.  Very, very solid clay.  I have just spent the afternoon digging it up and working barrow after barrow of compost into it in and attempt to lighten the soil.  I know that I will have to carry on with this for many seasons to come if I am to transform the soil and the right hand side of the bank and of course this now leaves me with the question.  What to plant. 

The camomile bank was a good idea but it has never worked as well as we had hoped, indeed instead of getting more and more established it has been a bigger and bigger problem each year with the plants refusing to cover the ground and give the effect we had wanted.  The large conifers that were on the edge of the bank have been removed as they were passing their sell by date and now we are having steps put into the bank and then completely re-planting the area (which plants are still to be decided)  The steps have been all most complete in one day and just a few finishing touches now to be done.  You will find pictures on the website.

Cupid has joined us here at Holmcroft.  I was told that there should be something in every garden that makes you smile and we hope that Cupid will fit the bill.  I found him in a small village just down the road and the sum asked from him has been donated to charity.  He was purchased in January and has spent the past few months in the garage but now has been put in his new home in the woodland garden.  We think he looks good, the dog is not so sure! 

At last!  In the last few days it has finally felt like spring.  The seeds are growing well in the greenhouse, the new tree is in place the first cut of the lawn has been completed and the path in the woodland is well under way.  According to Metcheck the sun is set to shine now right into May.  I suppose by that time we shall be crying out for rain, but not too loudly.  The last time I wished for rain it did not stop for three months.  

With the pergola now finished we have turned our attention to the re-planting of conifers that had been removed (see website).  I spent quite some time digging a large hole to plant the newly purchase Thuja occidentalis 'Yellow Ribbon'.  It is already a good size plant and will immediately make an impression. This is always the problem when you take something away like that the space it leaves a large hole which takes some filling.  I suppose to others it does not look strange but when you are use to seeing something day after day it looks very strange when it is gone.

We have lost a tree.   It was a great sadness but now has come the time to re-plant and today is the day.  I have spent hours researching what will make impact, not grow too large, not give too dense a shade and not be too expensive.  I am taking the under gardener and his cheque book out and hopefully the gap will be filled very soon.  

For the second morning running there was not that chill in the air that makes you shiver to moment to step outside. The under gardener has been busy scarifying the lawns and now there is soft rain falling on them and already they are starting to look better.  I say this with some trepidation but I think that Spring may really be on its way. 

There are buds on so many things but nothing is moving.  This I have to say has been to our advantage this year as we have been re-building the pergola that runs up the side of the drive from the gravel garden up towards the kitchen garden.  At the moment the new poles are in place but now we need to replace the chains that hand between the poles.  I was horrified to find that the chains cost more that the large wooden poles!  The plants that were growing up the original pergola are swaying in the breeze a bit at the moment but as they are dormant I hope that not damage will be done and we are all but ready to complete the job and then I can get them tied back in. 

The under gardener has been building a new half pergola.  It is to replace the one which was put up when we arrived.  That was put into ground with the help of spigots.  The new one is being concreted into the ground and will look much better, however it has meant that the plants that were planted up the original pergola have had to be severely cut back.  Shame but in the long run it will look better.  Must take the camera out tomorrow and get posterity sorted. 

Is it spring?  It has been warm today and I have been moving snowdrops but last night we had another sharp frost.  When will it ever end.  I remember that we were told that this was going to be a warm and wet winter after a bar -b-Que summer.  Well that didn't work!  I am waking early and have begun to "itch" in the morning to get back into the swing of things in the garden.  I feel as though I have been waiting months to get going.  Sowing seeds has only just started and they like everything Else will be slow in getting going this year.  Well I suppose there is nothing for it but to dig in and wait it out if you will excuse the expressions!

By this time last year I had sown most of my seeds. Not this year.  Last Feb it turned very cold and the seeds which had started to put in an appearance were brought into the house and spent over a week on the dining room table.  Much to the amusement of the under gardener.  This year I have waited a bit long and with the weather being as it has been this has been no bad thing.  I am always impatient to get going on the seeds but with the exception of the sweet peas I am sitting on my hands for a bit yet!

I hate, hate, hate treating the garden furniture.  However I have to report that the under gardener and I have now completed the job. I feel rather pleased with myself.  The cold and the wet have made it rather difficult to be in the garden but we have used this opportunity to get ahead with those jobs that hang over you at this time of year.  It is all about trying to get ahead with things before everything starts racing out of the ground. 

I was at a talk by one of the top guys from David Austin Roses.  He said that he pruned his roses during the Christmas holidays.  I have left it a little longer and have just finished the job.  Every year I have a tussle with myself as how severely I prune them.  I check the books and look at the diagrams and still I cannot believe that if I cut them back that hard I will live to regret it.  I don't of course I only regret not cutting them back harder!  Getting that close to plants this time of year never ceases to amaze me as to how much movement there is despite being so cold at the moment.  Spring is just around the corner and there are signs of it all around the garden.  I found myself humming the Christmas song "It the most wonderful time of the year" you see to me that is not so much then as now! 

Would you credit it, more snow. I just got the Wisteria sorted out and gave it a heavy mulch and by the time I had finished I looked like a snowman!  Retreating into the garage I spent the rest of the afternoon rubbing down the garden furniture whilst the under gardener worked on the mowers.  Needed, I know, but both were not the most stimulating jobs.  Will someone please get rid of this snow. 

I could not believe just how fast the snow went and almost overnight birds were singing and snowdrops were pushing their way through the leaves and buds every where. Perfect - then - more snow.  This is too much.  Had a good day in the garden yesterday and filled with plans I got up this morning to find everything white. AGAIN!!!! 

 

As I cannot get into the garden, the greenhouse is tidy and there is too much snow to move the car out of the garage so that I can tidy up in there and start to paint the garden furniture I shall content myself with working on a new look web site.  I do hope you like it. 

I am beginning to feel like a caged animal.  Both the dog and I spend a good deal of time looking out of the kitchen window at the snow and wishing it gone.  It is hard to believe that there are snowdrops under all of that just waiting to make an appearance.  We are not that far into January, however our open day is all ready racing towards us and I need to be out there.  This afternoon I shall content myself with another tidy in the greenhouse.  Why is it that a greenhouse is always like a sock draw, the moment that you tidy it it is untidy again.  Better wrap up! 

I won a bag of red tulips and they are still sitting in the greenhouse!  I think now I would ...   more »

Well that will be that!  Another Christmas gone and the snow is here.  The main problem with snow at this point of the year is that it can hang around for a very long time.  We have not had such cold temperatures here before.  I thought that I had gone over the top with wrapping up the tree fern but now I am glad that I did.  I think I will add a little extra wrapping to it tomorrow.  The dog thinks this is just wonderful but I am now beginning to feel like a caged animal.  If I am not able to go and dig something soon I may well go loco. 

With Christmas just around the corner it has been imposable to get into the garden to do anything serious as it is frozen solid and looks to stay that way for some time to come.  I am comforting myself with the thought of all the catalogues that will start to appear soon so at least I can start planning for next year.

I have watched it all summer with growing agitation.  We have had a specialist look at it and do some work, however after a conversation with the under gardener that was very similar to the dead parrot sketch in Monty Python he, the under gardener, admitted that it was in fact dead. When we first came to the cottage this tree was in its full glory so to see it now a skeleton just pains me.  We had Roy Lancaster here last year and he asked if we were having any problems with the Acacia and as I said "no" it struck me that it had been dropping a lot of leaves.  Well now it is, like that parrot, no more!  Now I shall have to get it taken down, the stump taken out and then replant.  The only trouble with that is the question of weather I shall live long enough to see another tree grown that to that size.