GARDENER'S WORD

I heard some time ago that we gardeners might as well throw old tulip bulbs away and buy fresh ones each year because they are never as good in following years.  I decided to put that to the test, so last autumn I packed, I do mean packed!, a free-standing garden trough with old tulips bulbs of all sizes and types and this is the result.  The grass-like plant at the front, in its own container, is chives.  Tulips in a free-standing trough, April 2017

I remember a while ago hearing some climatologist or other saying that, with our present climate change, we can expect more rain, more flooding, wider variations in temperatures, and stronger winds.  I think they were right.  While I get no flooding where I am high on the Pennines of West Yorkshire, we certainly get the wind.  I was shocked when, well before Storm Doris was expected to be knocking on my garden fencing, powerful gusts of wind were blasting and shaking my 5ft featherlap fencing.  On January 2017, a 4x3in fencing post snapped at the base and three fencing panels came down.  So, I had to have a major rethink about my garden.  After all, if the panels kept coming down every time there was a strong wind (which is often, high on the Pennines), it was going to cause a lot of damage to plants where they fell.  So, in March I had the lot replaced with concrete posts, gravel boards, and double wood panels with allow light and air ...

Yesterday and today have been glorious with temperatures in the high teens here on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire.  As spring is the busiest time of the year in my garden, I had to get to it.  Yesterday was a killer, when I dug up a jasmine and climbing rose ( Jasmine officinale and Generous Gardener ).  It was a terrible shame, criminal really, but I've had my 6ft wooden fences replaced with 5ft concrete post and wood panel fencing (which allows light and air through) and the jasmine and rose would have been far too vigorous to be supported on such a low fence.  The rose had to go anyway because it made the mistake of taking a piece out of my hand while I was removing the jasmine!  I have a permanent balance problem which makes gardening hazardous enough, scary sometimes, often painful!, without keeping plants that make gardening even more treacherous.  I have vague plans for the spaces that they occupied but that'll come...

As time goes on, gardening gets harder and harder and spring can be a killer when so much needs doing at once. Little by little is the way.  So, today has been the day for repotting and propagating the trailing pelargoniums which I grow in corner baskets in the front porch of my home.  They have survived all winter outdoors but are straggling and struggling and in great need of attention (see below).  The corner baskets are lined with black bin liner plastic to help prevent the plants from drying out.  I always line my baskets baskets this way if all they have between the compost and the outside world is something so porous as coconut fibre.   I removed the trailing pelargoniums (just one to each container), pruned them back to invigorate them, removing dead stems and leaves, refilled the baskets with fresh compost and replanted.  From the trimmings I took four cuttings (the same way propagating my other pelargoniums ), in the hope that they take....