GARDENER'S WORD

It's November 25, 2017 and for anyone who might think that snow has come quite early this year I can tell you that not only did snow arrive on the Pennines of West Yorkshire on 9 November 2016, but a large amount of snow descended around 18 November 2016 too.  I got quite a surprise when I looked out of my window yesterday evening, into the darkness, and thought I was imagining the white stuff reflected back at me in the light from the kitchen window.  My snowy West Yorkshire garden - November 25, 2017 Above, in my unheated garden room, the temperature has dropped to 2.2 degrees.  However, the lower thermometer reading shows that so far the temperature within has not dropped to, or below, freezing.  I have my pelargoniums , the Jade Plant (Crassula Ovata), and my little bay tree (Laurus Nobilis)  in there (for now) but they are covered with garden fleece.  It's all very experimental and I am hoping that no harm with come to those plants....

I like to buy cut flowers, roses in particular, rather than cut them in my garden.  Left growing on the plant they seem to last so much longer and right now, mid November, Wild Eve is still showing off a little on my north-facing garden fence.  So, today, while mooching around Marks and Spencers, I saw and bought a lovely bunch of 15 apricot-coloured roses.  They look really beautiful in my living room and enough for two vases.  Apricot rose from Marks and Spencers Although I've grown a lot of different roses in my time (not so much nowadays) I cannot recall ever growing an apricot colour.  The nearest I got to that was Just Joey , a hybrid tea rose. old photo of Just Joey, a hybrid tea rose I believe Just Joey was named after the wife of the Managing Director of Cants of Colchester, Joey Pawsey.  I can still remember the lovely fragrance that Just Joey had even though I have not grown it for more than 20 years.  Just Joey is highly reco...

Although it's been a while since I last had a flower on my garden's buddleias (I grow Buddleia Davidii Nanho Blue and Buddleia Davidii Empire Blue ), the Nanho Blue has some beautiful silver and quite hairy leaves on the tips of its branches.  I wonder if they will last throughout winter as the shrub's large green leaves are being shed.  It looks really pretty but, alas, the shrub will need pruning in spring to stop it getting over large and keep it in shape.  Right now it is in a container but I think I ought to find a way to plant it in the garden next year. Buddleia Davidii 'Nanho Blue' silver leaves Buddleias can tolerate hard pruning and it just encourages them to make more flowers.  Davidii flower on present year's growth, hence spring pruning.  My Empire Blue does not have these silvery leaves.  Buddleia Davidii Empire Blue

I was mooching around Skipton in North Yorkshire today with a friend.  It was bitterly cold and much of the time we were indoors having warming coffee and fruit-bread toast.  We looked around charity shops, and inside a sheltered arcade. It was there where I discovered a small stall that I had never seen before, where various kinds of wood carvings were being sold.  I had to have this one, this interesting face of wood which looks like a Sikh to me with his moustache, beard, and turban.  I thought at first that it must be resin but no, it's carved from a big branch of wood.  Inexpensive too.   Tree Man (Sikh) wood carving I was told that although the outer surface was varnished that the rough other side was not and that it must not be varnished as the wood must be allowed to breathe.  This was information for external use but my tree Sikh will sit (or hang, there is a loop at the back) quite happily and protected within the safety of my...

Good grief, it's cold out there today.  I went outside into my little garden and removed the last of the hosta leaves which had died back and shrivelled up.  My hands were freezing.  I noticed, while removing the hosta leaves, that there were tiny 'spears' of next year's leaves just poking up ever-so-slightly out of the surface gravel.  I quickly covered them up.  It's not time for them to be so brave, winter is coming and this weekend we have been forecast some wintery conditions here in the north of England, although they are speaking of rain and wind (bit like summer really) and low temperatures, not snow.  It is time for the tuberous begonias to be protected and overwintered before I forget and damage is done.  I've grown the begonias in individual pots this summer and have allowed the stems and leaves to die back somewhat as I understand that the leaves feed the tubers (just as daffodil leaves feed the bulbs).  Most of th...

As mentioned in my previous post about the metal wind-spinners at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) garden centre in Harlow Carr, it was gloriously sunny this morning and while I didn't visit the actual RHS gardens, I did take a couple of photos from where I was standing in the garden centre.  It looks really beautiful at this time of year, especially in the sunshine, with the trees in all their tones of orange and red, and the tall grasses in the borders are really effective.  RHS gardens, Harlow Carr, North Yorkshire, 10 November 2017  RHS gardens, Harlow Carr, North Yorkshire, 10 November 2017

Today I drove over to one of my favourite places, Bettys and the RHS garden centre at Harlow Carr in North Yorkshire.  I had brunch at Bettys then a mooch around the RHS shop, the RHS greenhouse, and then their garden centre.  They have these wonderful free-standing metal wind-spinners on display now.  They cost a bit (one was £195) but they are large and very eye-catching in the sunlight.  See video below.  Not sure that they would stand up to the winds I get in my garden; they'd need setting in concrete or they could spin off, up, and away.  Metal Wind Spinners at RHS garden centre, Harlow Carr - November 2017 Below is my brief iPhone video of the RHS metal wind-spinners in action which I've uploaded to YouTube.  Aren't they great?  (I know, I know, I know, I should have held my phone horizontally!  I've had to rotate the clip via Windows Movie Maker) 

Over all the UK has had some pretty awful weather in recent weeks but the last day or two is making up for it, in my garden at least.  The garden room is reaching 20+ degrees celsius in the sunshine, and I've had a very small but very welcome crop of autumn raspberries from my Polka canes.  As previous posts explain, I grow Polka raspberries as a double cropper so that I get fruit in summer and autumn.  What fruit I get in autumn depends upon the weather and the recent storms did give the canes a good old thrashing.  Still, a bit of sunshine like we have been having lately and the small green raspberries plump up, redden, and ripen.  They taste great.  Polka raspberry The hanging baskets are still in flower although the plants are looking a little battered and soon decreasing temperatures will put an end to them.  Meanwhile, I'm enjoying seeing them.  Also the penstemons are still flowering.  All those years I thought penstemons w...