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.