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.  

I have just got back from our village Gardening Club.  This evening we had a talk on Clematis.  I found this most inspiring and spent most of the talk mentally walking around the garden and adding new plants for the spring.  We have quite a few all ready, however I now have ideas about adding two or three more for next year.  I asked about propagating the plants and think that I shall have a go at this next year too.  For me the only down side to the lovely plant is having to leave the tatty stuff on the plant till next spring.  At this time of year I do like a good tidy up and this is one plant that has to be left.  The temptation is very strong to just hack them back but knowing just how disastrous this will be to next years flowers I manage to control myself, just. 

I have been turning out the compost bins.  That which is ready to go is being placed onto the garden as I work my way around each of the beds in turn.  As quickly as I have been taking the leaf bind to pieces and using the now ready material the under gardener has been filling it up again!  The colours in the garden are still quite spectacular and with the very good weather we have been having progress has been quite good.  I cannot escape the feeling however that any time now we are going to wake up and find it has turned VERY cold and then reality will really kick in.

I am feeling very pleased with myself and very tired.  Having spent a short holiday with family in Spain I have come back rearing to go and put the garden "to bed" for the winter.  First off that means clearing out, cleaning everything and then re-assembling the whole greenhouse.  It is not my favourite job by a long way but now it is done I am feeling pleased.  I always find a ruthless streak at this time of year and some plants that I might have been nursing through the past few months are suddenly beyond the pale and are thrown onto the compost to make way for more encouraging prospects.  I have been teasing Phlomis seedlings out of the gravel in the past few weeks and have potted them up and they are doing very well.  I have collect seeds from this plant to try sowing them in the conventional way next spring.  I must say that the gravel garden is the most enormous source of plants that have self set themselves, I sometimes wonder why I bother with the more conventional methods. 

The chamomile bank had been a big disappointment for the last two years and the under gardener and I have decided to admit defeat and change the whole thing during the winter.  The fir trees to the one side are to be removed as they have got just too bit and then a set of steps is to be positioned into the bank giving another way to and from the terrace.  We are considering new railway sleepers to make the steps and then planting at each side ( yet to be decided ) however taking all of this out and having a big change round should add a new dimension to the garden for next year and as projects go should not be too difficult or too expensive, hopefully! 

The little trees that we planted on the road side of the bank garden are making good progress.  I hope by the time we open next June they will be quite obviously a hedge in the making.  The bank itself continues to prove very difficult to work on.  It has come a long way but the angle continues to prove a challenge and when it comes to the ground elder, well, does anyone know where I can get any napalm from. 

I said that I would never do it but I have.  I vowed that I would never have glasses hanging round my neck but I have.  I swore I would not go round the garden with glasses dangling in front of me but I do.    Well it is that or cut things off in the wrong place!!  It started with the snowdrops, that is when I had to put glasses on to see which kind I was dealing with and then it has been downhill all the way and now my Tesco cheep and cheer full glasses swing away as I potter round the garden.  But, know this, I had NOT having the slippers with the zips up the front. 

It is at this time of the year that the hanging baskets look very sad and I cannot wait to change them, and that is exactly what I have done.  A bit early I know but all the mistakes I thought that I had made in the one basket became VERY evident so they all had to go.  There is something quite cathartic about stripping them out and re-planting just the two at the front of the cottage.  Pansies of course and grasses but they do make a Cherie show for most of the winter.

I think it is safe to say that we are having and Indian Summer.  I do enjoy this time of year despite the garden is now being prepared to wind down for the winter.  I have been stripping out quite a few of the beds and re-planting with new plants to extend our "catalogue" (how grand can you get) of plants that we have.  At our NGS day It was commented that I do a good deal of repeat planting.  I do but this is because cost is an issue and I have started with plants that quickly bulk up and I can lift and devide and so fill the large amount of new borders we have created.  Now I hope to be in a position to remove some of those plants and add new and extra interest into the garden.  I can feel some retail theropy coming on so I must be off!!  

It is that time of year.  The greenhouse needs a good clean out.  It is one of the jobs I put off and off.  It takes a whole day to move everything out, clean the windows and then put everything back in.  I just love the job when it is finished but how I hate cleaning all those windows.  Of course now soon is this job finished then it will be time to bobble wrap it ready for the cold weather!  I have all ready cleaned and tidied up the holding pens at the side of the greenhouse with the plants that will be kept over winter for next year either for our garden club plant sale or our NGS day and they will soon be joined by others as I get to work lifting and dividing plants as soon as we get to October.  I just love the cyclical nature of gardening, there is something very comforting about it and I just LOVE plants for free! 

We get through a good deal of potting compost and for some time now the under gardener has been saying that we could put our own compost thought the chipper/shredder machine and turn it into fine compost.  Well we gave it a good yesterday and the results were nothing short of spectacular.  To say I am thrilled is an understatement as this will save a good deal of money each year with which I can now buy plants!!!!!!!  

I have spent today with the under gardener and good friends looking at other peoples gardens.  This both inspires me but also impresses on me just how much I have yet to learn.  I have got past the feeling that I should come back to the cottage and rip out everything and start again but it does make me restless to start making improvement not least in adding new plants.  I was asked on our NGS day about the amount of repeat planting that I do.  Well it is simply down to the fact that I have filled the garden with plants that I have found easy to propagate and now that the boarders are looking reasonable I shall start to remove many of the repeated plants and replace them with more unusual verities.  One of the things I enjoy about visiting gardens is the ability to buy plants that one has seen growing and that is exactly what has happened today.  With the sun due to shine tomorrow I shall be out that at the crack of sparrows to add my new plants to the garden.

There has been some discussion in the pages of the RHS magazine on washing, or not washing pots.  Now like some of the contributors I too have felt guilty on the odd occasion I have reached for a pot, noted that it was not clean but used it anyway.  I notice a trend now not to wash but I am old fashioned enough to like to use clean pots.  It gives me a warm glow when all the newly washed pots are stacked up ready for use.  Sad, I know.  I did notice in a recent Gardener’s World Carol Kline reached for an used an unwashed pot.  Something just grated within me, so I guess I shall just keep on washing.

I cannot believe that it is so long since I have been on this blog.  In my defence I have to tell you that the under gardener is a committed blogger, and frankly there are days when I think he should be committed!  Well it is time for News at Ten so I have just 30 minutes till he will be wanting the computer back so here goes.  I have spent the afternoon stripping the first of the beds out a little as things are getting a bit over grown and now is a good time to do some fine tuning whilst still having plenty to look at in the garden.  I have found a supplies of perennials just up the road and she is selling off her plants for just a pound each so I have been indulging, again.  I think I shall be back there next week. Well there is always room for a few new plants.  They are like handbags, a woman can never have too many. 

We have bought a new granite bowl to put into the garden.  It is VERY heavy and we both are suffering the effects of lifting it into place.  I should have know we were going to be in trouble when I saw the two young men at the reclamation yard struggling with it.  I do talks every now and again and the latest help pay for the bowl but the under gardener had to chip in a bit.  I would have put a picture up on the site but it just has not stopped raining for a week and I and  everything Else is getting a bit soggy. 

Every year I forget and every year I am glad I forget just how beautifully the spring is, as by forgetting I am in for a wonderful surprise each year.  The trees are so heavily laden with blossom this year it is quite spectacular.  The grass that only a few short weeks ago looked positively grey is now green and lush and the plants so long dormant are now bursting through the ground at a terrific speed.  That reminds me I must now go and put in a lot of plant supports. 

It is another Bank Holiday and the sun is not going to shine.  I think we might go and visit another NGS garden to get inspiration for our own.  I am waiting for the hedging plants I have bought for the edge of the bank where it meats the road, 120 plants to be exact and that is going to be quite a job getting them in and when such a job is around the corner I find a visit to another garden is just the kick up the behind I need to ignite the enthusiasm for a job I am not relay looking forward to. 

Well the under gardener has finished the new trellis in the terrace garden and it is looking very good.  I spent a good deal of time painting it though and it is a mind numbing job.  This had to be carried out in the garage as it has been very cold and very windy here.  The wind is the main reason for the trellis being put up as this part of the garden get hit by summer winds and all the plants start leaning towards the centre of the garden and I spent a good deal of time hauling them back.  I am hopeful that the trellis will break up the wind and let the plants stand tall for the summer.  Now what shall I buy to plant up the trellis?