State of the Garden

Monty Don

2010-12-31T04:57:00.000-08:00

Hurrah. Monty Don will be returning to the BBC's Gardener's World, since I love colour in gardens, and Monty's into colour too. However, since he had to retire before for health reasons (heart) and the previous Lead Presenter, Geoff Hamilton died of a heart attack, I do hope the BBC's schedule take this into account and demand less stress and rushing around for him this time round. http://blog.gardenersworld.com/2010/12/13/monty-don/

20th July, 2010 Jasmine goes wild

2010-07-27T12:59:00.000-07:00

Last autumn I was over zealous in pruning the jasmine - result it's gone bonkers. And it's climbed up the birch tree too. I've been convalescing from a hip replacement op for the last few weeks so no climbing ladders for me and I can't rescue the tree.
No bending and so no weeding either. Bliss. For once, I've been able to just sit and enjoy the garden, and forbidden to do any work

absorbing the sun and luxuriating in the wafts of jasmine scent on occasional breeze.
'What is this life if full of care we have no time to sit and stare?' (W.H. Davies)

July 2010 Thinking up

2010-07-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

Since most of the main garden is in shade once the trees are in leaf (end May/June onwards), after a few years of mud instead of a lawn, I had that area paved. With no flowers in the borders, pots have had to do but nowI have been thinking up. The idea is a trellis for the plants to grow up and along the top in search of light.

2006 The trellis half up

2008 May

2nd year of the Clematis Montana. It heads due south so is doing best behind the trellis!

2009 I plant a second C.M. the near end of the trellis and hope it will head south and join the other one.

June 2010. At last, what looks like one Clematis Montana along the top of the trellis.

Guiltless peonies

2010-06-27T03:13:00.000-07:00

However, as they are rescued from mud and insects, I can feel guiltless for picking flowers from the garden for once and just wallow in their sweet scent filling the room.

Midsummer Peonies

2010-06-26T01:59:00.000-07:00

Midsummer's Day (21st June)
23rd June

So it goes.

June, 2010 Vuvuzelas

2010-06-17T02:37:00.002-07:00

Try as hard as I can to avoid the World Cup, it's impossible not to be aware of the vuvuzelas.
I have my own vuvuzela tree - buzzing with bees.

Sept, 2009 Agapanthus

2010-06-17T02:34:00.005-07:00

At last a bit of sun - agapanthus. We're lucky to have enough sun for agapanthus as I think it thrives in South Africa. I first saw agapanthus in the South of France - rows and rows of it. I have memories of the Mediterranean as I walk past. I like the way the French have a border of nothing but one plant but in my small garden, I'd miss variety so it's the cottage garden medley for me.

Aug 2009 Moveable lilies

2010-06-17T02:34:00.003-07:00

A solution to the shady main garden - white lilies in pots that can be movedthere when the burning noon sun gets too much for them. (I give them morning sun in the patio half so they don't mope.)

July, 2009 Window boxes

2010-06-17T02:34:00.001-07:00

To window-box or not? Since we have so little sun in the main 'garden', but plenty against the back wall of our house and small patio area, it's a pity to waste the window ledges (3).

The Hub claims the water seeps out the bottom and rots the window-frames so we'll have to fork out to have them repainted too often.

So compromise: I've bought pots that have an inner well so that the water does not leak out.

I also argue that I will forgoe hanging baskets as Hub agrees with Sir Roy Strong (former Director of the V and A) that they are naff. Makes the Hub feel like he's in a pub garden.

My vulgarity is confined to the window-boxes instead: nothing like a nice bit of loud colours, and stripey petals.

June 2009 Nelly Moser

2010-06-17T02:33:00.001-07:00

Nelly Moser clematis placed to catch the only sun this side of the garden. Behind is what I think of as my woodland garden (all 18 feet of it) - neighbours' trees, and a brick wall cause perpetual shade so I have given it over to snowdrops followed by primroses and bluebells, and a summer of traditional English geraniums with their tiny pink flower - all thrive in the shade.

March 2009

2010-06-17T02:32:00.001-07:00

Hellebore brightening up the dreich days. Green-tinged, sometimes yellowish at different stages. The first year I have seen them so white. I have placed them outside the kitchen (back) door so I can see them whilst glancing up from the washing-up.

January /Feb, 2009 Snow and snowdrops

2009-02-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

I once bought some snowdrop bulbs which failed to thrive. Since then, I have read that you must buy them 'in the green' and had success. Most of these we inherited though and they spread year by year, about a foot a year. I've even transplanted some to the other side of the garden under the silver birch and they've taken. I'm hoping they'll spread out there too.

The beauty of them is that they have plenty of low light under the bare branches of the acer , and on the other, the traditional geraniums have died down so there's plenty of light for the snowdrops too. Later in the spring when these flourish, their leaves keep the snowdrops shaded from too hot sun.

I cannot see them from the house so they tempt me down the kitchen path to turn the L-shape into the garden. I might not be spurred to go outside otherwise! They gladden my heart every year.

Starlings in November Skies

2009-02-21T09:44:00.000-08:00

A flock of starlings gather over the derelict West Pier in Brighton. Photographer: Mike Hewitt/Getty

It seems the awe-inspiring sight of starlings swirling in winter skies from November on is yet another endangered thing. How depressing. Numbers are declining. Nobody knows why. Use of chemicals in agriculture?
But more mysterious and uplifting - no one knows why they make the patterns they do. I feel a poem coming on.
See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/04/wildlife-conservation-starlings

October, 2008

2009-02-21T09:35:00.000-08:00

Every year, we only see the splendid colours of the acer for a short time - even as short as a day. So when on the day we returned from holiday, gales forecast, rushed out and took photo. Just as well. See second photo the day after the gale.

September, 2008

2009-02-21T09:21:00.001-08:00

What a sad little photo. Here was I planning to sit with cuppa, the scent of sweet peas filling the air. Instead no show. Of sun, or flowers. Despite one or two days of sun, it seems there is to be no Indian Summer. Global Warming? No, says Weather specialist at the Sci Cafe at the Filmhouse bar last Monday, the Hub reports back. Just normal patterns. Some good years. Some bad.

And a pesky squirrel has been digging up my cyclamen. Searching for bulbs no doubt. Well, there aren't any there but it doesn't stop him/her. Gave up planting crocuses (croci?)there after devastation every autumn. We finally clocked the culprit. Son J even has it on video. So I am presuming it's a squirrel again. Unless the local ASBOs get a weird kick out of rooting around inside front garden pots.

But very pleased with a romantic little vista through leaves at the bottom of my garden, through an archway of clematis montana and the silver birch in foreground. 'Through leaves' was a family saying - started by my mother's painter friend, Valerie Mackenzie. Mum and V would use the phrase to describe anything romantic and atmospheric. Glimmering of white at the bottom of the garden, especially at dusk when the hydrangea shine like ghosts. Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst Castle inspired. OK so it's only a spot by the garden shed. We can have our dreams.

August, 2008

2009-02-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

Droukit and drownded.

At least the lilies seem to like the cold and wet.

June/July, 2008

2009-02-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

June

Queen of the Night.Black in nature. Does it exist (in flora)? This looks burgandy to me.

What I love about tulips. So uptight and then Bleeah!

9th June: Clematis Mrs Bateman, bought at Ingliston Show last year. I usually just buy at local garden centres but thought I'd buy something a bit rarer as it was Ingliston. It grows up the trellis arch - glimmering at the bottom of the garden..

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This peony sulked in the shade and I moved it to a sunnier spot two years ago but it still failed to bloom. This year, however, there were 16 magnificent blooms. And they say peonies can't be moved. Having been uprooted from Wales and all my friends there and taking a few years to settle into Edinburgh, I empathize! Blooming now too, of course.

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22nd June: day after Summer Solstice. Not brilliantly sunny but at least it didn't rain. We gave a 128th combined birthday party for us 3 and invited a small group of friends. This year a Big One. Son J's 18th. You can guesstimate the Hub and mine!

And it was sunnyish. And we were able to use our patio garden. And the garden looked lovely.