GARDENER'S WORD

All hail was let loose on my garden today.  The weather is so mercurial lately that I don't know what to expect from one hour to the next.  It started off dull and raining this morning, then the sun came out, and just as I was about to stick some washing in the machine and was contemplating getting the hoe out of the shed to do a bit of border tidying, down it came.  Mind you, I was only contemplating doing these things and hadn't actually realised it had start to hail until my Ragdoll cat, Alfie, burst through the kitchen door like his tail was on fire.  When I looked out, small pellets of hail, about the size of a pea, were pelting down.  It was quite beautiful, really.  Hail on my garden - 24 March 2015 Looks like Perlite, doesn't it? Hailstones in a garden container  Hail zooming like bullets past the garden shed

What a gloriously sunny day we are having today on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire.  While it was a cold start, things heated up by early this afternoon and I was able to sit on my hammock/swing and read for a while.  There isn't much by the way of colour in my garden right now although the primroses and crocuses are doing a great job of cheering up the garden.  I've grown the crocuses in a square container which I covered over with mesh during winter to keep the squirrels at bay.  Squirrels like eating crocus corms very much and will dig them up.  Crocuses growing in a tub Crocus stamens Crocus stamens - macro I forgot to mention that the Irises are out too and giving dashes of blue in a small border as well as in two pots at the front of the house.  They are really lovely. Unfortunately, sunshine, birds, an ever-present prowling Ragdoll cat, and jobs that need doing, are always a distraction when I want to be lazy.  So I d...

I cut my small back garden lawn this morning; first cut of the year.  There are bright green patches of moss which will be dealt with in a week or two.  I popped down to the garden centre and bought a box of Evergreen's Complete 4 in 1.  Although some think it too harsh, it does the job I want it to do.  It gets rid of weeds and moss, feeds and strengthens the lawn  You have to be careful not to go mad with it though (apply too much) because, if you do, it will burn and blacken it along with destroying the weeds.  I want my lawn to look as good as it did when at its best last year and in years before that, like my lawn looked in 2011 .  Lawn 2014 I also pruned the Arthur Bell floribunda roses  and sprayed them with a systemic rose fungicide by Bayer .  I was so disappointed last year to find they were full of black spot.  Arthur Bell has been such a fantastic rose, so strong and healthy for several years but now they s...

Spring has arrived today.  Of course, it could always leave today as well.  So, I've taken advantage of it and I know I shall be stiff as a board this evening.  That's the problem when a really good day arrives, so much to do before it starts raining again.  My garden, which is often so lovely in summer, looks a mess over the winter.  That's because I refuse to garden in the freezing cold, and wind, and rain, when there are books to read, movies to watch, cat-napping with my Ragdoll cat, Alfie, enjoying the warmth of my home.  I began by digging out two roses.  I think the roots went down to Australia!  It was a killer getting them out.   I'm was sick of them getting blackspot and what have you, and sticking me with their thorns.  There are plenty other plants to enjoy that are less ruthless, and I've still got the climbing roses Wild Eve, Generous Gardener, and New Dawn adorning my fences.  I pruned the climbing roses a l...

It has snowed again.  How dare it!  Here am I, waiting for spring to arrive.  By 'spring' I mean the sort of spring that has sunshine and bright light, and days that are warm enough for a summer-gardener like me to enjoy pottering around.  As I look out of the window at the snowy disorganisation, I think of all the chores that imminently need to be done (much of it pruning, lawn-border trimming, raking lawn free of moss, etc) and it's nerve racking.  I did, however, the day before yesterday, have chance to plant out a small pot of 'Spencer Mixed' sweet peas that I bought at the RHS Garden Centre in Harlow Carr.  You would think they wouldn't fare so well having several plants in one small spot but once in the garden the roots find their own way and last year's pot of sweet peas did wonderfully well despite the competition of a clematis.  I actually bought three pots of 'Spencer Mixed' sweet peas and only remembered that I hadn't har...

Many of my garden plants are waking up after winter, coming out of hibernation now that we are approaching spring.  Primulas are in flower in my north-facing border but some of the flowers are looking rather bedraggled (close up) after the recent bouts of snow and freezing temperatures that we have had here on the Pennine Mountains in the last few weeks, not to mention lashing rain and howling wind which is loosening the trellis on the top of my fences.  Although I thought that last year's display of snowdrops 'Galanthus 'Woronowii' which I have planted in a pot so that I don't go and dig them up (they don't like to be disturbed), was pretty dismal, this year is no better.  Even so, the two flowers that are up right now are cheerful, bright, and a very, very, welcome sight.  Snowdrop 'Galanthus 'Woronowii' (macro)