GARDENER'S WORD

There is no doubt about it that rainwater invigorates plants.  You can give them tap water but it will never have the same result, in my opinion, as nitrogen carrying rain.  For the last couple of days it has rained and although I am not particularly thrilled about it, and my Ragdoll cat, Alfie, even less so, the garden is just lapping it up.  The hanging baskets are sparkling and have plumped up in the rain.  By that, I mean it is always as though the plants are sitting up and paying attention, flowers raising their faces for a wash.  Four hanging baskets in a row.  Beyond, you can see I am trying to train a climbing rose ( Compassion ) over a gateway. A couple of weeks ago I found a big bag of lawn seed in the back of a kitchen cupboard while I was rummaging to try and find a tin of paint, and I just sprinkled the seed all over the lawn at the first drop of rainfall.  Now the lawn grass is denser and little bare patches seem to be filling out...

Once upon a time I would plant begonias in my hanging baskets and containers and then, after they had died right back to nothing, throw the plant out with the rest.  Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water!  Although I have gardened for more years than I would care to admit to the World Wide Web, it had never occurred to me that tuberous begonias can be overwintered and planted the next year.  How foolish is that?   It's just a case of retrieving the tuber .   In June 2011, I had an orange and red bicoloured begonia in a hanging basket  and then, in winter, threw the contents of the basket onto the garden.   While I have no compost bin, I chop and turn everything except perennial weeds, woody material and diseased material back into my soil to improve and feed it.  Anyway, imagine my surprise the following year, summer 2012, when I see a little orange and red begonia surviving in my garden border  among the ro...

I noticed that the geraniums down by the garbage bin are flowering.  Not the nicest spot in the garden for them to grow as they are growing in relatively poor soil (it's quite rocky a few inches down) and quite shady, being a north facing border, but they are just so undemanding.  They throw out pretty leaves and then flowers and when that is done you can just cut the leaves off and a new, fresh, lot of leaves will shoot up.  A friend gave me my geraniums.  I won't say cuttings - she grabbed them by the stalks and dragged them out of her garden and shoved them in a plastic bag!  When I got home, some had roots on and others did not and I didn't know which were blue and which were pink so I planted what I had all together.  The pink ones with the smaller flowers have, funnily enough, been more successful.  That might be because they were lucky enough to still have roots on.  However, I noticed today that the blue geranium is poking through the...

Although we are having a nice day today on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire, and it is dry, the forceful wind is sucking the water out of my hanging baskets and other containers.  I've just watered my four hanging baskets on the east facing wall and now that the plants are fully established and more demanding with regard to feeding and watering, I have to keep a close watch on them.   I always think that when you allow a plant to get to the point of collapse through lack of water, you've done irreparable damage to its future progress.  Of course, I made a 'school girl' error when planted up my new coconut fibre baskets back at the beginning of May.  Quite stupidly, it did not occur to me to put inside some sort of waterproof lining that would retain water until the moment I have finished doing the job.  Now they dry out so easily and also, when I water them, the water can just pour out through the bottom which is a bad thing because...

There are always plants that seem to thrive for us, often when they will not thrive for others, and sometimes there are plants that friends and neighbours can grow but we cannot.   One plant, a begonia, that has exceeded expectations was bought originally as a small plant in a small pot and I put it in a trough under my kitchen window last year.  It is trailing Begonia 'Illumination' .  In winter, when the top growth of the plant had died right back, I removed the tuber and overwintered it indoors.   It had grown to about 3in across!   This year I wanted the begonia to stand alone in the middle of my marble garden table, as a centrepiece.   I was not thinking about how much it can trail and the flowers started to rest on the table.  I needed something to elevate it.  The only thing I had at hand is another pot like the one in which I already had it.  I turned the second pot upside down and used it as a base....

For some time now, years, a bare corner of my home, near to a window, has been crying out for a plant of some sort.  In the corner is a heavy coffee table of Indian Sheesham, or rosewood, with a big pot on top - like a witches cauldron.  No comments, please.   I believe the pot originated in Africa but I brought over with me from the Caribbean.  I would like a plant to grow there but what plant will survive the heat - I like my home very warm, and the light is not very bright.  I atried growing a beautiful little palm there, imagining it one day reaching from witches cauldron to ceiling but my cat like to play with it and I got tired of sweeping up compost off the cream carpet, and the leaves started to look decidedly ragged, then yellow, then they started to drop off.  Today I bought something a bit more robust and, hopefully, less tempting to the cat which is older now and a little bit less unruly.  The plant I bought is...

I've been a bit concerned about whether or not my Prunus avium Stella Gisela 5 will be getting enough water or not.  It's a tricky thing when plants grow outdoors in tubs that can be a bit temperamental, trying to decide whether they need watering or not.  I can well believe it when I read that the majority of plant nurturers kill off their plants with too much water in a panic not to give them too little.  Roots need to breath oxygen too, just like us.  I generally can tell if a pot needs watering by the weight of it (or pushing my finger into the growing medium) but there is no way I can lift that heavy terracotta pot now it is filled with planting compost and a small tree and the situation has been further complicated by my covering the surface of the pot with a deep layer of bark as a mulch.  So, I have bought a PH and Moisture Meter by Gardman.   Of course, it is going to come in useful for other plants too regarding moisture content and PH ...

For the last couple of days we have had so much rain that everything in the garden looks green and lush with dashes of colour from the seemingly everlasting winter-flowering violas , and, at last, the rosebuds that are beginning to open.  I seem to have been waiting forever for them.  The Arthur Bell floribundas, the yellow roses that I grow in a row at the front of my home, were the first to burst out in full bloom and that could well be because they get more sunny hours there.  This time last year, 22 June 2012, a day of windy weather smashed some of my roses so badly that I learned that lesson fast and now have my climbers tied in firmly to the fence.   In the back garden, it seems that the climbing Iceberg is going to be the first to bloom but every other rose I possess is doing well and despite the greenfly and blackspot attacks (controlled by spraying with RoseClear Ultra and FungusClear Ultra)  every rose looks healthy including the ...

I was really pleased with one of my garden purchases the other day.  I bought a Clematis alpina 'Constance' from the Royal Horticultural Society garden centre at Harlow Carr and I want it to grow up the side and, if possible, across the top of a window at the back of my house.  The problem with that window is that it faces east (partial shade) and also anything that grows close to the house has to tolerate being in a pot on the patio.  Now, I know that there are dozens or possibly hundreds of clematis that I could have chosen from but I wanted one with an interesting leaf shape and one that wasn't too vigorous; so I went for clematis alpina.  Alpinas are spring-flowerers with quite pretty leaf shapes and Constance, which is deciduous, has a semi-double deep-pink flower and makes fluffy seed heads afterwards.  It has earned the Royal Horticultural Society 'AGM' - Award of Garden Merit.  This means that it is pretty reliable when grown as recommended....

It's been yet another fabulous day far too hot for much gardening.  I've watered a few plants, tied in the tomatoes in the Growhouse - they are growing very well, and checked the roses for greenfly; giving any greenfly a not-too-gentle squeeze.  While pottering, I noticed how beautiful a pink aquilegia and the pink Dicentra formosa Luxuriant look together.  Harmonious combinations, such as these two pinks, can often be a matter of accident or pure good luck but I will keep this in mind for the future.  Incidentally, they both have beautiful leaf shapes, as you can see.  I realise that both the aquilegia and dicentra in the below image are a little bit aged now, but I thought I would share all the same, so you can see for yourself.   Below there are other aquilegias that have self-seeded and grow together.  Shades and tints of blue and pink. I mentioned a white aquilegia in an earlier post, which has an amazing number of quite perfect ...

I'm not sure why they call one of my sempervivums 'Jet Stream' but it's a lovely plum colour with a silvery edging; and like the other sempervivums that I bought lately, it has little offspring growing at its base.  As I mentioned in a previous post, this attribute is often referred to as 'hens and chicks'.  The 'chicks can be easily detached and planted separately which is fortunate because I read that the 'hen' dies after flowering.  Sempervivum 'Jet Spring'  requires the same growing conditions as sempervivum 'Lilac Time' , sempervivum 'Blood Tip'  and sempervivum 'Pekinese' which I mentioned in earlier posts.    The label describes 'Jet Stream' thus: Small, many leaved rosettes of dark purplish red with silver cilia.  Cream flowers with pink tips (in summer).  Well drained soil.  Sun. Sempervivum 'Jet Stream' The weather today has been dry and mild and after my trip to the local garden cen...

I went down to the garden centre for a bag of horticultural grit this morning and came back with grit and a hosta.  I really should go blinkered.   They had a stand with various kinds of hosta: plain pale green and plain dark green; and variegated with combinations of light green and cream; and cream and yellowish green, and this one, hosta 'Brim Cup'.   I had to have it: Hosta 'Brim Cup'   Of course, many gardeners will know that hostas are slug magnets.  Hostas are lucky if they get a chance to throw out leaves, never mind have perfect leaves.  I plan to grow mine in a pot, like a statement, (I keep having ideas for 'statements' as if I had a garden large enough for such grand ideas!).  In a pot it will be raised above the ground and surrounded by sharp grit that, hopefully, will deter slugs.  Hostas are clump-forming hardy herbaceous perennials so although it dies back in autumn and looks rather miserable...

For the last couple of days we have been having plenty of rainfall and the plants in the garden look bright and happier for it.  It's almost idyllic as the soil was desperate for a good, nitrogen-bringing rainfall, and the sunshine that we are getting inbetween is just the icing on the cake, so to speak.  Of course, rain and sunshine are perfect conditions for other things to thrive, I believe, such as botrytis mould and I suspect that if I hadn't sprayed for greenfly that they would be a big problem right now.  As mentioned in earlier posts, I have bought a selection of sempervivums to plant in a terracotta pot but before I can plant them I need to go to the garden centre and get a suitable medium for them to grow in.  I have the horticultural grit that will be spread on top of the container, around the plants, but I need some kind of gritty soil for underneath.  I was, originally, going to plant them in garden soil with stones at the bottom of the tub but...

I bought a Prunus avium 'Stella', Gisela 5, a sweet fruiting cherry tree , a few weeks ago and am so delighted to see cherries growing.  As much as I want a cherry tree, I want it just as much for the beauty of a small tree in my garden as well as the white flowers and the red fruits.  But I have been faced with the quandary of: if to prune, how to prune, what to prune, where to prune, and when to prune.  While there are lots of internet pages giving advice on pruning a cherry tree, many only seem to deal with building up a shape and others seem to give conflicting advice.   I found one website of a cherry tree supplier that said that if its reader wanted to know how to prune cherries there was lots of information on the internet.  How unhelpful!   Prunus avium Stella, Gisela 5 - 15 June 2013 Prunus avium Stella, Gisela 5 - 15 June 2013  Prunus avium Stella, Gisela 5 - 18 July 2013 See this la...

While I am creating posts about the range of Sempervivum which I have just bought to grow outdoors in a terracotta pot in my garden, it made me think of the shallow dish of succulents I grew many years ago in a home of mine that had a conservatory.  While some might not think them very exciting, I thought they looked splendid on the table in the corner and they never gave a minute's trouble.  Every year or so I would repot the dish with 'cuttings' when the plants outgrew their space.  Most propagate so easily.  I'd just break a piece off when the dish was starting to get a bit full, stick the base of the piece into the grit and leave it until it formed a root.    I'm sorry that I cannot remember all the names of the plants above.  The one in the centre of the dish is a Partridge Aloe: Aloe variegata, which is so slow growing I never had to replace it.  The dark one on the right might be a Jade Plant: Crassula ovata.  I think the on...

As I mentioned in my previous posts about Sempervivum 'Lilac Time' and a plant which I think is a kind of Sempervivum calcareum, I decided last week that I want to grow alpines in a terracotta pot.  Individual sempervivums can be difficult to identify; you can recognise the group quite easily but the varieties within that group can be more difficult.  'Blood Tip', for example, is not totally dissimilar to  the Sempervivum calcareum  that I bought first, unlabelled but there are some which are so close in resemblance that I don't know how experts can identify them.   I am only a novice and finding it quite bewildering, although interesting, at the moment.  Note in the bottom photo that there are several baby plants developing at the base.   Sempervivum 'Blood Tip' Sempervivum 'Blood Tip' I understand that it can be a while until sempervivums get around to flowering but that doesn't matter, I like them for t...

I decided last week that I want to grow alpines in a terracotta pot.  I know that they look good in a rockery or a wall, but I have neither of those; and I know that they look good in a sink but a sink is too low for my liking and I think the terracotta frost-proof pot I have chosen by Yorkshire Flower Pots will look good.  In fact, at the RHS Centre in Harlow Carr today I got two for the price of one.  I have bought sempervivums for my display.   I love the things, the succulent leaves, the way they flower beautifully, and the way they propagate themselves so readily.  'Sempervivum' means always alive and they just get on with it.  I've never killed one off yet.  They are very hardy indeed.  All they require is  very well draining, dryish soil - they won't thank you for watery conditions - in a sunny situation and horticultural grit around their bases.   Sempervivums belong to the Crassulaceae family and 'Lilac Tim...

For quite a while now, a year or two, I've had a birdfeeder suspended from my washing line at the top of the garden.  Birds like to feed close to trees as it is a place for them to escape should they come under attack from predators, like Ragdoll cats .  While I love to think that I am helping to sustain wildlife like the  goldfinches , blue tits , greenfinches , and all the other lovely birds that visit my garden, I have hated the way the birds scatter seeds everywhere which then germinate and cause problems in my pots, tubs, and even borders.  Mostly it is ryegrass and sunflower seed that I end up having to pull up.  As I have vertigo, I have to avoid bending as much as possible in my garden.   Anyway, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I bought a tray that screws underneath the birdfeeder and catches any seed or chaff that the birds might drop.  One smart, opportunist collared dove, has decided that the tray is a perch from which it ...

I like to have white flowers in my garden for two reasons: they look fresh and pretty, and they show up at dusk when all other colours have faded to grey.  A couple of years ago I planted a couple of white aquilegias but they didn't have much by way of flower.  In fact, I think one died.   Someone mentioned that they, white aquilegias, don't seem to do as well as coloured ones and I didn't expect to see anything at all this year but I have been pleasantly surprised.  This is Aquilegia Biedermeier which is in my south facing border although it is in partial shade.  Can you possibly get more flowers on one small plant than this?  I must have done something right. Aquilegia Biedermeier - white Aquilegia Biedermeier - white

While at the garden centre the other day, in my 'alpine' frame of mind, I discovered this, a beautiful Sisyrinchium 'Sapphire'.   While I have grown many alpines in the past, mostly, I admit, the ones that many people are familiar with, I had never seen this before.   Sisyrinchium 'Sapphire' (photo added 2014) This is what the label has to say: Exquisite star shaped sapphire blue flowers with yellow eyes bloom over lance shaped emerald green foliage in late spring and early summer.  This lovely 'blue-eyed grass' is perfect for bringing a sparkle to rockeries and alpine troughs and sinks.  It looks fabulous in pebble and gravel gardens or try planting in containers.   Height: 20cm (8in) x Spread: 15cm (6in); Position: Full sun in moist but well drained soil.   I am growing mine in a terracotta pot surrounded by alpine gravel. 

I see that I have a battle on my hands this summer.  I've already sprayed the roses against the greenfly that were trying to suck the life out of them - I'd hoped that the hoverflies and other greenfly hunters would do the job but I expect there is a limit to their appetite and the size of their little stomachs.  Yet, despite only recently spraying, there are signs of aphid invasion yet again.   Compassion and Iceberg climbers are both the most problematic and they both suffer from blackspot too.  The greenfly, at the moment, are just appearing in little outbreaks on the soft pink new growths here and there.  I am treating them by giving them an affectionate and gentle squeeze which doesn't harm the plant but the insects feel quite crushed about it.   Greenfly, aphids, on Compassion climbing rose, June 2013 Blackspot is rife and causing a lot of ugly leaf fall.  Compassion , Iceberg , Golden Showers , Champagne Moment , and Carefree Days ...

For the first time in my life, as far as I am aware, I have seen a blue tit.  It was just dining at my bird feeder when I burst outside with an ice lolly on this lovely summer day, planning to enjoy some sunshine on the swing, and I frightened it off.  Isn't that just bl**dy typical! http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/b/bluetit/index.aspx   I hope it comes back.  I'm so cross with myself for frightening it away. 

I don't know what set me off but I suddenly decided I wanted alpines in my garden.  Perhaps it was all the rock I keep finding every time I stick a fork or a trowel into my soil.  At a depth of just a few inches, sometimes I'm lucky and it's several inches, I usually find some sandstone and I think it's a legacy from years gone by when, perhaps, the area where I live was farmland.  I suspect that there might have been a dry-stone sandstone wall and it was levelled by builders and an amount, not much, of soil spread over the top.  Anyway, that is what I have to deal with when gardening and it has slowed down my garden progress somewhat.   I used to grow alpines years ago when I had a big garden with small dry-stone walls.  To liven up the walls I would stick alpines into the cracks and crevices in the wall and the plants would just get on with it.  Rarely did one die, often did they manage to reproduce themselves somewhere else along the wall;...

Some months ago I visited the Royal Armoury in Leeds where I took pictures of owls and other wild birds.  Those birds actually come from the falconry at the Thorp Perrow Arboretum.  We paid to enter the Arboretum and the entrance fee also covered visiting the falconry.   I know this is a gardening website but I wanted to share some of the photographs of the birds with you.  While the falcons and hawks are impressive, it is always the extraordinary beauty of the owls which draws me.  Eagle status at Thorp Perrow arboretum   Crested Cara Cara - Caracara Plancus   This little bird didn't have identification   European Eagle Owl - Bubo bubo Snowy Owl - Nyctea Scandiaca Steppe Eagle - Aquila nepalensis  European Eagle Owl - Bubo bubo Indian Eagle Owl - Bubo bengalensis