Changes, changes...

OK, so I know I haven’t blogged about anything for a shamefully long time, but we’ve had a lot going on in our little corner of North London over the last few months…me and my other half got married and then we went to Bali on honeymoon for three weeks (bliss!). I graduated from uni (studying for my BA in evenings after work), and our cousins moved in a few doors down from us. So, we’ve been busy bees indeed.

However, the event that changed our gardening lives most dramatically happened the day we returned from honeymoon. We received a letter from the council evicting us from our allotment, accusing us of trespassing on their land and gave us 21 days to vacate or they would issue court proceedings. We tried to fight them, especially seeing as our TP1 form shows the land clearly marked as “Allotment Gardens” but I’m sad to say that we have lost the fight. And so we spent last weekend frantically removing all of our raised beds, polytunnel and greenhouse and transplanting the winter veg. Everything that was made of wood was burnt in an enormous bonfire and all the metal was traded in. All we have left is the skeleton of a polytunnel and a greenhouse in bits.

Needless to say, the whole experience was frustrating and very sad. Taking down three years’ worth of hard work is enough to break anyone’s heart. However, at least it proved one thing to us – that we are gardeners through and through. The thought of not being able to grow our own fruit and veg was unimaginable to us. And so hubby agreed that we could dig up the lawn in the back garden and create a new allotment!

So, I am currently re-designing the whole of the back garden to incorporate the greenhouse, compost heaps and the raised beds (no room for the polytunnel unfortunately). I’m sure the garden won’t supply us with as much produce as we’re used to, but at least we can still grow some things. I’m hoping it will be slightly easier to maintain too, and hopefully won’t be quite as untidy as I can dedicate more time to a smaller area (perhaps wishful thinking, but we’ll see!)

The downside of this master plan is that I will lose a lot of my flower borders, which I spent so long designing and planting up last year. Still, I’m hoping that good planning will mean that I can still retain a proportion of ornamental flower beds alongside the productive veg. I suppose I am looking at something of a kitchen garden design. Something productive, but that looks good too.

The whole experience has taught us that you can’t ever let them grind you down! Gardening ahead with more determination than ever!

Goji berry

I have recently acquired a Goji berry shrub. I unexpectedly came across it in the shop at Kew Gardens. It was sitting amongst the other plants on the stand. It looked at me, I looked at it. And before you know it, Mr Goji Berry was the newest addition to the berry collection in the back garden.

Having never grown one before, I decided to do some research on the little fella. Goji berries are originally from China, but have been present in the UK since the 1600s, under their pseudonym Wolfberry - kind of like a secret agent of the berry world. They are quite leggy shrubs which produce long, oval-shaped red berries from their second year. These red berries have been dubbed a “superfood” apparently ranking in the same league as blueberries (which is handy seeing as Mr Goji Berry’s neighbour is in fact a blueberry bush – that’s how organised we are in this garden).

My Goji berry shrub is still in a pot, but I think they are happier when set free in the ground to do their own thing. I am contemplating planting mine out in the side border, where it can grow in amongst the geraniums and the apple tree. I think the red berries will look nice in amongst the flowers in the border. Apparently, they can grow to 8–10ft high, oops I didn’t realise that when I bought him! A good pruning (in spring) can keep them in check though, as long as they are allowed to grow to about 3-4ft high and 3-4ft wide, a good crop can be harvested. Keep in mind while pruning that fruit are produced on last year’s wood.

Goji berry shrubs are not particularly fussy when it comes to growing conditions: they don’t mind a bit of light shade during the day (although grow them in full sun if you want bumper crops). In their first year, Goji berry shrubs do need winter protection, so it’s best to keep them in a pot for their first winter so they can be brought into the greenhouse. However, once they are mature, they are hardy little things – they can cope with temperatures of down to -26C. They are drought tolerant too which is handy. In fact, they don’t like sitting in water at all, and they will not be happy planted in a heavy, water-logged soil; they like a well-drained, even sandy, soil.   

One last tip is to pick the fruit by shaking the branches and catching the fruit in a tub (easier said than done!) because the fruit turn black when you touch them.

Many thanks to http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=581, http://www.victoriananursery.co.uk/soft_fruits/goji_berry/ and http://www.thompson-morgan.com/fruit/fruit-plants/other-berry-plants/goji-berry/aww3720TM for the above information. 

Planning

I have come to the realisation in recent weeks that planning is an element of gardening that I have been severely lacking over the past year. I seem to have bungled my way through this year’s planting by guesswork. This has resulted in a number of consequences:

My Osteopermum have ended up hiding at the back of the border behind a tall Penstemon. The Osteopermum is flowering its heart out, and is a very striking colour – bright white with blue and dazzling orange centres – but we can’t appreciate them because they are hiding at the back.

The Heucheras got a lot bigger than I imagined and have dwarfed the cornflowers at the front of the border – in hindsight they should have been planted further towards the back.

Thirdly, I have completely lost my lavender bushes somewhere in amongst the Penstemon, Heucheras, Buddlejia and violas. A job I have planned for the weekend is to don my exploring kit, go in search of them and lift them out to live in pots where they should be a lot happier.

Fourthly, there is a definite absence of the colourful displays I had imagined in my head when planting up the border. I completely failed to consider flowering times when I planted any of the plants and so we have ended up with a rather unimpressive, nay dull, display so far this year. I have a feeling it will explode into colour in the next month and then fade away all at the same time. 

And lastly, I have developed a nasty habit of leaving jobs half-done. I am fairly convinced that this is down to not having any real structure to the way I work in the garden. The border is one example of this slack work ethic: I started to clear the border and plant it up with new plants but then stopped half-way through to work on the front garden. A family of mice have now moved in to the un-cleared area of the border (which the cats are taking a huge interest in) and now I feel terrible about heaving the mice out of their new home. So the border remains unfinished and unkempt looking. While the front garden (also unfinished) has half a chopped hedge in it and currently looks like no-one’s lived there for three years (in fact, I got home last night to find that someone had posted a little scrap of paper through our door which had a phone number on it and a message to call the number for rubbish clearance. Oh the shame!)

I have therefore decided that a small revolution needs to take place in my gardening diary. There needs to be structure and plans…and lists. I think a diagram or two may not go amiss either. Design is not my strong point, I’m the first to admit, but I have a feeling that if I don’t make some sort of effort to gardening slightly more intelligently and with more forethought, I might end up with a garden that is mildly boring and unimpressive, not to mention fit for the rubbish tip.

A visit to Myddleton House

Last weekend, we visited Myddleton House in Enfield. We had a fantastic time - it is a beautiful garden full of history.

Myddleton House was the residence of E A Bowles in the 20th century and his legacy lives on through the immaculate gardens. The visitors centre at the entrance to the gardens has a great exhibition about Bowles, who is the most interesting of characters. They also have some very old ostrich statues and the remains of the original carthouse floor, both very well preserved.

The garden is 8 acres in all and you walk through it in a circular fashion, first taking a look at the conservatory (which had fruiting lemons in it when we were there and they smelled divine):

You then walk onto a path winding round to the pond, which is full of carp and water lillies:

The borders were filled with the most beautiful poppies, some red hot pokers and great clouds of frothy white flowers which looked like Gypsophilia:

The few Agapanthus I spotted were stunning:

However, for me, the Kitchen Garden was the highlight of the day. It was so very neat and ordered – so unlike our allotment! We chatted briefly to the Senior Kitchen Gardener who told us that they try to plant only the varieties that would have been around in Bowles’ lifetime and before. It’s such a wonderful thing to deal with heritage varieties – something I will certainly be doing more frequently. Having recently graduated in History, growing heritage plants seems to me to be respecting and preserving the history of plants through the ages.

I was really impressed with some of the original ideas that the kitchen gardeners had set up. One was the bird deterrent round the sweetcorn. Genius idea to fashion a "bird" out of a small stick with feathers glued on hung from bits of bamboo by a length of string:

We also spotted this sturdy looking trellis which had some sort of vine clambering up it:

Really good design and I'm thinking this might take the weight of squashes or melons.

Myddleton House gardens are beautiful, immaculately kept and keeping the heritage varieties alive. It is a dynamic garden which blends new ideas with old traditions and respects the history of the wonderful character of Bowles. And I was very surprised that it has free entry! What more can you ask for...

Aquatic plants for part-shade

As I'm sure most people do, I have a few spots in my garden that are slightly more challenging to plant than others. One such area is a border that runs underneath a length of leylandii and has a very clay soil which retains water. This results in a border which is in part-shade and is water-logged for most of the year.

Last autumn, I planted snowdrops and lily of valley there but the bulbs soon rotted, leaving an ominous bare patch. This bare patch has been sitting there staring at me for the last few months, stubbornly resisting any attempts by weeds and grass to germinate there. Every time I looked out of the kitchen window it stared back in at me, with its blank stare. I decided it was time I did something about this awkward patch so I donned my coat and hat and took up the challenge.

Off I went to Wildwoods Water Gardens Centre to find me some aquatic plants. It was quite tricky to find plants that wouldn't mind part-shade but I did come away with some beauties: Marsh St John's Wort, Water Violet, Lychnis flos-cucli "Terrys Pink" and "White Robin" and Athyrim niponicum "Metallicum" pictum (or a silvery coloured fern). I also bought a Ligularia to sit with its roots in the damp bit, but I'm hoping it will be tall enough to be in full sun for the majority of the day.

They are all planted out now and are enjoying the torrential rain we've been having here.For the moment, they are keeping the squished Hosta company (the one that Jake the Peg keeps battering) but not for long as I've decided that Mr Battered Hosta needs to move house closer to the fence and out of the way of clumsy paws.

 I have also put my pot of Sweet Peas "Wiltshire Ripple" here as it gets the morning sun and stays nice and sheltered - a great relief during the high winds and rain over the last few weeks.

 Aerial shot of the newly planted-up damp, shady bit

 Lychnis flos-cucli "Terrys Pink" in foreground, Water Violet in shallow pond in background

Smell

Monty Don's article about scented roses and the general focus on the importance of scent in the Gardener's World magazine this month really got me thinking. How many of my plants did I choose on the basis of their smell? The only truly "smelly" plant I have is the shrub outside my front door which was given to me by a friend, I think it is a Lonicera fragrantissima and it smells divine.

I have a Jasmine next to the back door, but it is suffering at the moment and hasn't flowered for the last two or three years. My Honeysuckle is right at the back of the garden so you can only get a whiff if the wind is blowing in the right direction.

The realisation that I do not have enough "smelly" plants in my garden has made me think that I am missing out on part of the enjoyment of gardening and I am quite baffled that this hasn't struck me before. I have now decided to make a new mid-year resolution: to make more effort to garden with scent in mind and to fill the borders with lovely smells.

Here is a good article on the GW website which is about scent and memory: http://www.gardenersworld.com/blogs/plants/scented-plants-and-memory/3438.html

Mission: Save the Hosta from the 3-legged cat

I know the title sounds completely bizarre, but it's exactly what I've been attempting to do for the last month. I have a 3-legged cat called "Jake the peg" who absolutely loves our water feature in the woodland garden. In fact, he loves any water: he tries to get in the bath and the shower continually, sits out in the rain for hours and drinks from the waste pipe when I've finished washing up (yuck!) I think he must have been a fish or a duck in a previous life.

Jake's love of the water feature has spelled disaster for my lovely Hosta. I decided to plant my new Hosta next to the water feature when I was planting up the woodland garden last autumn, thinking to myself that it would look beautiful all opened out with the water flowing beautifully behind it. These dreams were dashed twofold: once by the hosepipe ban; and again by Jake's enthusiasm for the water feature.

My poor little Hosta has been repeatedly sat on, squashed and batted by clumsy paws for the last few weeks and has barely had time to emerge from the ground, while his brothers safely nestled at the back near the fence are doing brilliantly.

First I tried to cover it over with half a plastic drinks bottle (a method I use a lot in the allotment with baby courgettes and beans - they love the humidity and protection) but unfortunately Jake thought nothing of swatting the plastic aside to get a better angle to the water.

Now, I have tried instead to construct a sort of protective barrier from bits of cane I had lying around. Actually these were from some placemats we brought from Ikea - you know the ones that are like lots of lengths of really thin bamboo strung together? When they got old and raggedy instead of throwing them away we just unraveled them and now I use the handy canes for propping up young sweet peas or cornflowers - or in this case, keeping bouncy cats off my plants.

I hope this works, otherwise I'll have to get rid of the cat....

The sunshine after the rain

Last weekend, we had a spell of fantastic sunshine which lighted the garden up after all the recent rain. The effect on the tulips underneath the cherry tree was quite brilliant:

They looked really dramatic in the light - completely beautiful and graceful, just how tulips should be. I am so glad that this batch are real stunners, seeing as I the tulips I planted in pots this year were such a disappointment (apart from the variety Purple Prince, which did give a pretty good display on balance).

The woodland garden is starting to shape up nicely too, with forget-me-nots and aquilegas being the star players at the moment. Shame that our water feature is looking a bit scruffy though. I attempted to cover the white plastic with an old black t-shirt, but the birds have been ripping bits off and using it as nesting material! It's a lovely reason for the scruffiness, but nevertheless the plastic is ugly. I plan to plant up the whole area surrounding the water with aquatic plants, so hopefully that will cover the plastic up...

The clematis are doing really well in their new home next to Cem's pergola and the flowers are stunning:

And what a lovely surprise to find that my Lily of the Valley is now flowering. And it smells wonderful.

If you have five minutes to spare, check out this blog post on the Telegraph called "Gardening in the rain" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/9257461/Gardening-in-the-rain-advice-and-tips.html. It has some brilliant advice - but it'll take more than a few drizzly days to keep us out the garden! However, they do make a good point about seeds rotting in the ground - something I've had happen an awful lot this year. I have now got most seeds germinating indoors (including peppers, peas and sweetcorn) and I'm worried that by the time the weather warms up, it might be too late to plant them out...we'll have to see what the next few weeks brings.

Tales from the polytunnel

Just recently the polytunnel really burst into life. I've been digging and planting in there since February, but it's only now that things have really got going. If anything, it's a little late this year. We've had very cold nights here which has hindered growth and virtually put a stop to germination of anything sowed directly outside. It was so cold last night that there was a layer of ice on our garden table this morning - yes ice! We have also been having bouts of hailstones throughout the last few days. The weather seems to have gotten confused and thinks we're going back into winter.

Nevertheless, the plants in the polytunnel are quite happy, and they keep snug and warm at night. At the moment, we've got broad beans really coming into fruit now:

A good supply of lettuce coming through, which is loving the cold, damp weather - it really gives it a fresh crunchiness that it doesn't get when the atmosphere is too warm:

And beetroot and spinach on their way:

Our Pinto beans haven't yet really got going, but the Berlotti beans are looking very strong and healthy:

The greenhouse is getting pretty full too. Really I need to plant out all my little seedlings (particularly the cauliflowers) but it's just still too cold at night yet. I hope this weather warms up soon otherwise I'm going to run out of room!

The greeness of it all

Cem and I took the opportunity, over the bank holiday weekend, to go for a quick walk in the nearby woods. It's a beautiful place and we enjoy going there a lot, but especially so at this time of year. It can't be particularly well known because we often don't see a soul there.

When we were strolling along the path yesterday we were struck by the greeness of it all - it was absoutely beautiful. My photos just don't do it justice - try as you might, you just can't capture all the varied, subtle shades of green in a photograph.

I also spotted someone's home...not sure who lives here, but I'm very jealous! I wish had a woodland like this on my doorstep.

A little bit of garden history

When we bought our house three years ago, the previous owners left behind a tired, neglected garden. It was, granted, full of trees and shrubs that seemed to be thriving; but a closer look at the soil revealed no worms or bugs. The borders had been mostly taken over with ivy, and the leylandii had started to get scraggly and had a slightly menacing look in their eye. It was obvious that no-one had cared for the garden for some time.

The allotment at the back of the garden was extremely overgrown. It was all brambles and nettles; the grass was as tall as us!

When we moved in, we decided to undertake a huge overhall of the whole garden and allotment. The allotment was seen to first, with the reasoning that it had to feed us and therefore had greater priority.

In the first year we cleared the site and made the first of our raised beds. My sister kindly donated some autumn-fruiting raspberries and a clump of comfrey (both of which have performed amazingly every year and I will never be without either again).

The second year saw the exciting delivery of the polytunnel, which was great fun to put up and, even if it is slightly wonky, it does a fantastic job. A polytunnel is a great piece of kit to add to a garden - it has lengthened our growing season considerably, and besides I love the smell of a polytunnel. It has an irresistible damp earthy smell.

This is our third year and we are really now beginning to see our hard work pay off. We're able to just maintain our allotment now, with no more radical building and re-designing.

At the end of last year I decided to start working on the garden. This was something new to me completely - to garden for beauty rather than for eating. There's a lot more to consider: colours, architectural features, texture, flowering times etc but I think I'm slowly getting the hang of it. So far, I have cleaned up the back border (which was previously full of a twisted mass of ivy and old shrubs, not to mention the huge concrete post that needed extracting); I have created a woodland garden underneath the laylandii and a cherry tree garden in the far corner. It's is all coming together slowly but surely.

And so last weekend I found myself clearing the side border of the garden. I hadn't yet attempted to tackle this border and it was full of old strawberry plants, brambles and grass, but it all needed to come out. The two cats looked on intently as I disturbed all the lizards that were sheltering in there. I haven't finished by any means, but it does look an awful lot better already. I've started to feed the soil with our compost from the allotment too, as I'm finding that there is very little life in the soil (as with the back border). I have sown some annuals from seed and I already have some cuttings that are ready to go out too, so planting it up will be no problem.

I also took the opportunity to plant our two clematis at either side of Cem's pergola and they are looking mighty handsome already!

Seeds and cuttings - a 'better' way to create a garden?

Cem and I have decided to make a much more concerted effort to grow our garden from cuttings and seeds in the future. It is so easy to nip out to the garden centre and buy a few ready-grown plants, but I'm beginning to realise that you just don't get the same effect. Raising your own plants from seeds and cuttings is so much more personal than buying plants in. There's something wonderful about the whole process, and it certainly creates a deep relationship between gardener and plant. And so I have spent some time this past week busily taking cuttings and sowing seeds.

In a previous post, I said I was going to try my hand at taking some basal cuttings of Veronica "Red Fox". I have now done this and said cuttings are now sitting in a pot of compost in the greenhouse (and I hope are putting their energy into pushing down healthy new roots). I have already had some success with my penstemon cuttings (I have the variety "Laura"). I usually have a success rate of 1 out of 5, which I don't think is particularly great but it seems to be my average.

I had a great time last weekend generally pottering about with seeds and pots and compost in the shed. I've sowed some varieties of grass which I have never tried before: Pennisetum "Fountain grass" and Lagurus ovatus "Bunny Tails", both of which should make lovely architectural features in the borders. I also sowed Delphiniums to flower next year, these are a white variety "Galahad" (which I bought just because of the name!)

I sowed some Cornflowers just about a week ago and am completely astonished that I have had 100% germination rate and the seedlings are already about 1cm high. Apparently, they like to germinate in cool conditions, and it seems to be unseasonably cold in my greenhouse this year (perhaps due to the leylandii that our neighbour helpfully planted in her garden. These trees are a complete menace and now the majority of our veg patch is in shade until mid-summer, humph).


Well, I'll be out there again this evening, I've still got veg seeds to sow: peas, pinto and berlotti beans and spinach. As well as cucumbers, butternut squash and courgettes indoors.

Blue skies and tulips

Today is the first day I've woken up to a blue sky - bliss. Don't get me wrong, I like the rain...enjoy it even. And it certainly saves me from having to keep traipsing around the veg patch with heavy watering cans. But I also like the way it changes the garden. As you're watching the rain start to fall, the colours change - become deeper almost. And it gives everything a sheen.

I swear that everything in the garden is four times as green as it was yesterday. The box hedge at the front of our house is positively lime green, and the back border has exploded into life. In particular the alliums seem to be doing well. I am trying out a new variety this year: Nectaroscordum siculum (Mediterranean bells) and so far they are looking good. The fat flower pods are bursting at the seams waiting to open, although I'm sure it's a bit too early for them yet. I've also had a second flush of tulips...the ones I planted in the ground last autumn. They have flowered beautifully underneath the cherry tree and are looking elegant, colourful and poised - just the way they should be. The tulips I planted in pots (pictured above) were not so elegant and apparently many people have had poor tulip displays this year. If you've encountered the same problem and would like to know more, there has been some discussion on the The Guardian's gardening blog on 18th April 2012 where it has been suggested that it could have been lack of watering earlier in the spring - certainly a possibility for mine, as I failed to keep up any kind of regular watering regime throughout February and March.

If you haven't already bought it, this month's Gardener's World magazine is now out on sale and it has a rather handy 2-for-1 garden entry card and a booklet of many open gardens around the UK. I've already circled half a dozen that I want to go and see...now all I have to do is convince Cem to go.

Clematis conundrums

Recently, Cem made a pergola to replace a broken archway that surrounded the gate leading through to our veg patch. He managed to get hold of some free wood and spent the Easter weekend sawing and nailing and painting. I'm very impressed with the result!

We decided that we should plant up our new feature with some Clematis and so we both went to our local garden centre to buy a couple of plants. This was a rare treat for me - Cem is a great believer in doing the garden for free and so usually trips to garden centres are relatively rare. Notwithstanding Cem's sound philosophy (it is one I stand by as much as I can) I'm afraid I cannot resist the lure of the garden centre and often end up wandering around gawping at all the plants and usually end up buying at least one (the eagle-eyed among you will notice that sneaky Campanula in the bottom left-hand corner - this was one such guilty purchase). Anyway, I digress. We went to choose a Clematis together.

I had no idea just how many different types of clematis there were to choose from. They were all so pretty and each one very different. After much debate, we settled on two Clematis Bourbon. They are beautiful plants with big burgundy flowers. Hopefully they'll be happy in this sheltered and sunny spot.

I have to say that I've never had any success with clematis (and I've owned quite a few) Recently, I saw a feature on Gardeners' World and I think I have found out why. Unbeknown to me, clematis like a very rich soil and lots of watering. I've always grown my clematis in pots and admittedly never taken the time to enrich the compost. Those poor clematis probably starved to death! This time, I'm going to plant them out in the ground and give them plently of well-rotted horse manure. Long may the clematis thrive!

Seeds, basal cuttings and bluebells

Yesterday I spent a lovely afternoon pottering around the garden. There's a lot to do at this time of year and so I had plenty to keep me busy. I found an old packet of seeds that I forgot I had, they are a mix of woodland wildflowers that will thrive in shade (great for our little woodland garden) by Mr Fothergills. Although the packet recommended to broadcast sow the seed direct outside, I decided to instead sow them in a tray in the greehouse, mainly so that I could choose where to plant each seedling when they are ready to go out. When you have only a small garden, you need some element of control of where to put individual plants, otherwise it can just look overwhelming and a touch messy!

As well as sowing seeds, this is the time of year when basal cuttings are taken and I am eagerly waiting for some of my plants to grow tall enough for me to do this. One of the first I will take a cutting from is my Veronica "Red fox", a beautiful plant with fluffy pinkish-red spikes in summer. I only brought one plant last year with the intention of making a few cuttings now to increase my stock and have a patch of three, or possibly even five if I am lucky with my cuttings.

I also planted out some Hollyhocks yesterday, which I brought from a garden centre about 10 days ago. As I was planting one of them, I realised that there was a baby Hollyhock growing alongside the adult plant, so I gently pulled them apart and hey presto! I got two plants for the price of one. I will definitely be looking out for that next time I'm buying Hollyhocks. I had no idea they were so easy to divide.

Another exciting development this week is the gradual opening of the bluebells in the garden. You can almost see them opening before your eyes. Watching the bold blue flowers unfurling in the sunshine is a pure joy. They reminded me that Kew Gardens must have a stunning display now. We visted Kew at the end of March so we were too early for the bluebells, but we could see all the green foliage in a great green carpet - the flowers themselves must be quite a sight now.

New beginnings

I am writing my first blog entry from the warmth and shelter of my office after an evening's gardening in the rain. The weather has been overcast and rainy all day, but the plants have had a good drink. Everything seems to growing at a rate of knots at this time of year, and a good watering helps the process along nicely.

April is a lovely time of year in the garden - a time of new beginnings. After pottering about in the garden this evening, I came into the office and looked through some photos I took just 6 weeks ago and the difference in the garden is astonishing. There's new growth appearing all over the place.

When the rain stopped for a few brief seconds today, I managed to get a snap of one new shoot that I'm particularly excited about:

It's a Lily of the Valley that I planted next to the brick footpath. There are a few shoots of it coming up throughout the garden, but this one is the biggest so far. I can't wait to see the flowers emerge later in the year. These fresh new shoots are so green and full of promise. Exciting times!