GARDENER'S WORD

Now that I know the clear plastic polytunnel is doing its job and hasn't blown away into another garden, I have invested in a small fleece covered one under which I have rows of seeds: lettuce, radish, spinach and beetroot.  Alfie my Ragdoll cat, of course, had to investigate.  I sowed the seeds in lovely straight rows then found he had got inside the fleecy tunnel and in a panic was running back and forth, trying to get back out.  Great, thanks, good job Alfie! I want to get rid of the lawn and have vegetables and fruit growing instead along with herbaceous perennial plants but it cannot be done all at once.    I've only just started with help from a friend now and then, but it is really hard work with clay and rock and grass, and so it just gets done a bit at a time as the weather permits.  Meanwhile, the plants to be planted are happily waiting in pots. It's much easier for me to cope with tubs and baskets and polytunnels.  Alth...

I confess to being a fair-weather gardener and until it gets a bit warmer, my garden will be left to cope alone.  Indoors I have some young Tumbling Tom tomatoes growing away until it is warm enough to put them outdoors.  I also have some pelargonium cuttings which I took a week ago and look very promising with no sign of wilting or dying.  David Austin rose, Wild Eve, growing in my garden 2011 Flowers are in abundance in the shops right now and my favourites, roses, getting cheaper.  Yesterday I treated myself to two bunches of creamy white roses which are a lot less fattening to look at than Easter eggs are to eat.  Come summer, or sooner, I hope to be able to bring in roses from the garden.  The varieties I grow, the David Austin roses (Wild Eve, William Morris, Generous Gardener, and Princess Alexander of Kent) are all far more fragrant than any I have ever bought which have been raised in hothouses.  I also grow Hybrid Teas and F...

What a difference a day makes!  What a bigger difference a week makes!  Was it only a week or a couple of weeks ago that the UK was enjoying the temperatures and sunshine that we would more expect in June.  Now we have taken a giant step backwards to what feels like January.  Maybe by this time next week all will be sunny again.  But will our spring flowers, and the young shoots of the roses and herbaceous plants that were fooled into thinking it was summer already, survive the weight of the snow?  Time will tell.  This morning... This afternoon: decided it wise to knock the snow off the flowers and the bird feeder...  Although it looks to be thawing, it is still snowing.  Stop it.  Stop it.  A few days ago... http://gardeners-word.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/polytunnel-for-spring-frosts.html

Way back at the beginning of the 80s, I moved into a house with a relatively large garden area but it was like a bombsite with fallen trees, broken panes of glass, and even a buried bathroom suite!  It took me two long years to turn it into anything like a garden and it would have taken it much longer for the trees to mature.  I thought I would share some of my photos... The garden was on a bit of a slope, with two levels, and it changed all the time.  Initially, I had a big lawn that ran from top to bottom, surrounded by borders.  This bench was very lovely, teak, but then it also lacked something.  So, I dug a hole and put in a fish pond which I had to protect against herons with net...  I've always loved roses, and still grow them... But my real passion is for trees.  For this garden, I sought out relatively small trees such as silver birch (betula pendula); acer griseum (paperbark maple); prunus serrula;  and several ...

Orchids can be really fussy but once you find them a nice spot and they get settled in, they will happily just keep on flowering.  When you pay something like £12-15 for a plant and then it dies on you, it seems like such a waste of money.  But when you pay the same amount of money for a plant that flowers non-stop for months on end, well, that's a bargain right? Flowered non-stop for 13 months off one stem! I'm speaking of the phalaenopsis epiphytic type of orchid (commonly known as Moth Orchid) as I have grown no other kind.  I had 12 at one point and then I moved house.  It didn't matter where I placed them after that, they died on me.  Now, I cannot help but wonder if they died because they didn't like their new positions in the new home or if they died because they simply did not like being moved.  I have moved home yet again (bit of a gypsy, I know) and while I haven't bought an orchid since the last of the twelve died, I am now determin...

It's a tricky business but if you want climbing roses to have roses all over, rather than just at the very top, you have to remember to tie down the main branches (see photo) which forces the rose to produce side shoots.  It is from the side shoots that the flowers are formed.  It's not my favourite job, but well worth it - I hope.  This is iceberg.  I am training it along the fence and below the loganberries so that if I have to spray it later for pests, I won't be spraying my loganberries at the same time.  At least, that's the plan. The loganberry was growing in a large container until this year when I decided it really had to be planted in the soil.  It was growing so fast.  It isn't thorny and if I have a bit of patience and let the fruits really ripen, they are just as juicy and as sweet as the thornless raspberries (Polka) that I grow.  I transplanted the loganberry a month ago and it looks very happy in its new home (below). ...

I have never been one for planting bulbs, mostly because I always fear I will forget where they are and go and stick a fork through them.  Last autumn, October, as shown on a post in this blog , I planted various tulips, yellow hyacinths, iris, crocuses and narcissus.  Some of the bulbs have been a bit of a disappointment with some not growing at all, but over all, I am pretty pleased with them.  When they are through flowering, I shall be planting them among the roses where they will not be disturbed by anything other than my cat, Alfie, walking all over them! I am still waiting for the narcissus to open and the peaches and cream tulips.  The tulips I chose are all quite short in the stem - about 8-12". Crocuses Yellow Hyacinths Tulip: Fur Elise closed Tulip: Dreamboat closed Tulip: Fur Elise open Tulip: Dreamboat open

Spring is here at last and it has arrived in style.  It felt like June last week when temperatures were up in the 20s, but already the weather has changed and, despite the sunshine, the cold wind is reminding us that it has only just turned April.  Here, on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire, you have to watch out for sudden frosts and biting winds at least until late May.  This time though, I am fighting back.  I invested £20 in a little polytunnel.  It looks a lot larger than I thought it would look but it is full already.  I have put all my freshly repotted strawberry plants inside it, along with my herbs.  The herbs have all overwintered in a mini-greenhouse which had a fleece lining under the outer plastic cover but the polytunnel only has the plastic so yesterday evening, as temperatures dropped, I put fleece over the strawberries and herbs for added protection.  Even though I have only had the polytunnel a week, already the...