GARDENER'S WORD

The weather in the UK right now is causing hundreds of families such misery as their homes are flooded when rivers burst their banks, flood protection measures fail, and the rain keeps on coming.  Here, high up on the Pennines, my home is at least safe from flooding and until the snow comes my roses keep on blooming.   I brought some indoors because, even though I don't know if they will last longer than they would outside, I can certainly enjoy them more where I can see them all the time.  They look a bit weather battered and a bit ragged but still retain an element of beauty in my eyes.  White Iceberg and yellow Arthur Bell White Iceberg and yellow Arthur Bell I wanted to take a photograph of the various small birds that are dining around the bird-feeder which I have suspended from my washing line.  They are happy when my cat, Alfie the resident Ragdoll, is not safe indoors.  The small birds tend to scatter not only husks b...

There is a saying which goes 'The older the moon, the brighter it shines'.   I thought of that yesterday when I was looking at the Marks and Spencers cut roses which I bought a week ago ( see earlier post ).  As the roses have aged they have not dropped their petals but changed shape and still, in their old way, look rather beautiful as they gracefully age.   Meanwhile, out in the garden, my roses continue to bloom.  Some are doing better than they have, even, in summer and I have no idea why.  For example, the Iceberg bush rose has more blooms on it now than all summer and so has David Austin's Princess Alexandra of Kent .  Of course, this terrible weather that we are having is doing all it can to destroy them.  The wind is trying to knock the heads off the roses, and the fencing panels from their posts.  In the south of England they have serious flooding.  I cannot help but wonder what the follow few months are going to br...

Another sunny autumn day today and I took advantage of it and visited Oakwell Hall, Birstall.  The Hall dates back to 1583 and was built by John Batt and is now furnished as it was for the Batt family in the 1690s.  Oakwell Hall is set amid beautiful West Yorkshire countryside and was a source of inspiration in Charlotte Bronte's novel 'Shirley'  in which she renamed it 'Fieldhead'.  Unfortunately, the gardens were not at their best at this time of year and it was decidedly cold but the paths and lawns were beautiful with golden leaves and the sky was blue with the Leeds/Bradford airport traffic leaving trails of white across the sky.  What I loved best about Oakwell Hall itself was the multi-coloured glass in the hall's windows which, unfortunately, does not show up so well in my photographs.  Click on the images for a closer look.      Click on the image for a closer look at the coloured glass.  So pret...

I bought some roses a couple of days ago and mentioned them in an earlier post  four days ago.  It still amazes me, the beauty of roses as the buds unfold.  While they looked pretty in bud, there is nothing so fine as a rose in full bloom and even at that point just before petal fall.  I think when the roses are finished in the garden, there is nothing better than to buy cut roses and have them in your home.  Mind you, my garden roses are anything but finished and David Austin's Wild Eve is just as beautiful as she has been all summer long.   M&S cut roses - 16 November 2012   M&S cut roses - 12 November 2012 Meanwhile, in the November chilliness of my back garden, Wild Eve is blooming brightly on a north facing fence.  Can you ask for more? Wild Eve blooming - 16 November 2012

  Yesterday, for the first time, I visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which is on the Bretton Estate between Huddersfield and Wakefield, in West Yorkshire.  They had an exhibition of the work of Jean Miró but, for me, the excitement of the day was the outside sculptures which dot across the vast park and, above all, the trees which have been growing there for decades.  They, the trees, take my breath away.  It was a super day, as it turned out.  It started misty and miserable and then, in the early afternoon, out came the sunshine, blue skies and all.  The trees across the sculpture park, which extends as far as the eye can see, glittered metallically like living sculptures with their golds, bronzes, and silvers.  I wasn't allowed to take photos of Jean Miró's sculptures (and, being honest here, they weren't my cup of tea.  Give me Michelangelo's La Pieta any day) but I did take a few snaps of the sculptures outside. ...

While there are still roses growing in my garden, they are not always suitable for cutting; stems too short, or a bud developing next to an already opening flower which needs to be given a chance to bloom.  The weather is miserable today particularly when compared with the lovely, mild, sunny day we had yesterday.  It's enough to throw anyone back into the doldrums.  So, as Marks and Spencers had two bunches of 8 short-stemmed roses for £5, I treated myself to four bunches of complementary colours - 32 beautiful rosebuds - which I put in two small clear glass vases.  I actually don't like long stemmed roses in vases and I cut these even shorter.  I always cut the stems at a sharp angle to facilitate them taking up plenty of water and every two or three days I trim even more off the stems so that bacteria in the water doesn't clog up the bottom of the stems and make the blooms die of dehydration.  That's the theory, anyway.  M&S roses When t...

Although there is a chill in the air and still plenty of rain around, it's a pleasure to see that the roses in my garden are still hanging in, still producing buds which actually, mostly, reach the opening stage.  I don't think there is a single rose bush or climber - and I have about 25 in all - that is not in bud.  Is it any wonder that I love roses so much?  They give so much and ask so little. Wild Eve on a north facing fence, 10 November 2012. The David Austin rose, Wild Eve, is happy enough growing on a north facing fence, hugging up with the honeysuckle that grows right next to it.  Of course, now that it has managed to get it's head into a better light coming from the south, it is bound to do better.   On the left of the above image, you can see the jasmine is coming along.  That too has reached the top of the fence and although there were few flowers this year, I am hopefuly about that doing well next year.  It's a good thing to be ...

Although we are now having below zero temperatures at night, and more wind and rain than anyone could want, at least the sun smiles upon us now and then.   This is a picture taken on my mobile phone from my back garden early this morning.  I think the sun lasted about 10 minutes before it disappeared for the day.  Thanks a bunch, sun.  Come out, come out, wherever you are! I am happy to say that most of the gardening has been done in readiness for winter.  I've planted the roses that were in pots and dug up the 'Fascination' dahlias and put them in the shed to dry out a bit before I store them in a cool place for the winter.  It was such a shame to dig them up as there were still flowers and plenty of buds, but the leaves were showing signs of being frost bitten and I wanted to get it all done before the soil gets hard with the cold.  The tubers from each plant came up so easily, protected in a ball of beautiful soil, without breaking.  ...

Last night, when the Guy Fawkes' Night bonfires were lit and the rockets going off, was the first night below zero that I am aware of this autumn here in West Yorkshire, high on the Pennines.  My car windows were frozen, the grass was beautifully covered with a hoar of frost and the dahlias have been nipped.  Soon the leaves will turn black.  I cut a lot of the dahlia flowers and brought them in this morning, putting them in a vase, as I believe that they will last longer than if I leave them outside.  It will soon be time to dig them up and store them overwinter .  The lawn needs cutting as it is a little shaggy but it is saturated with all the rain we have been having lately, and wormcasts make cutting it problematic.  Cutting it will flatten the casts and there is no way I can sweep them away as they are just soggy piles of mud.  The problem with wormcasts is that they create small patches of soil on a lawn which can easi...