GARDENER'S WORD - IDEAS AND TIPS

I often see television programmes about people with a lot of money looking for some wonderful new property to purchase with plenty of land and a fabulous view.  But not everyone has enough money to buy such a property.  To have a lovely view, you can get away with a small garden, a small balcony, even just a window box and some hanging baskets.  All you need is a bit of inspiration and some imagination.  Of course, if you have a little (or big) garden, all the better. Garden view through east facing kitchen window, late afternoon   In the above image the window, over the sink, is framed by trailing fuchsias (Swingtime and Southgate) in hanging baskets and centre is a yellow double-stemmed Phalaenopsis orchid.  There is an outside window box that you can just see, planted with yellow, orange, and apricot-coloured tuberous begonias.  Even someone with no garden at all might be able to provide that.  Note that the fuchsias and t...

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...

I don't know about you, but when I look out of my home's windows, I don't want to look through the glass to see a miserable view.  Unless you live in a high rise apartment with no window box and no way to hang anything, I don't see any reason not to look out on window boxes and hanging baskets which jolly up the view.  Even if you live in a high rise apartment, you can always have the baskets and boxes on the inside if the light is right!   I'm really fortunately to have a decent view of trees and lawn from the front of my home, and to be able to look out on my garden at the back.  Earlier this year I decided to plant fuchsias in my hanging baskets after years of planting the baskets with a mixture of various suitable plants but the fuchsias have won me over.  I love the way they are framing the window below the green-striped awning.  They have been flowering for weeks, months, on end and I think the only thing that is going to stop them is a...

After several days with sunshine and rain, mostly rain, my garden was looking very lush, and sparkling bright, and inviting this morning in the lovely sunshine.  While there are lots of jobs that need doing, I've taken the swing cushions out of the shed and put them on the hammock swing to let them air out as I have the intention of spending some time this afternoon lolling around with a good book.  I'm just starting to read The Rainmaker by John Grisham.  First though, there are jobs demanding attention.  If I am to cope with my garden, handicapped and challenged as I am by constant vertigo and an ever tilting world—which can be funny at times but mostly it's not—I cannot afford to just sit back and do jobs when I feel like it.  Mostly I never feel like it but the demands of the garden keep me going.  I didn't feel like it today either but the frequent downpours of rain on the front lawn over the last week are rapidly pushing the...

I mentioned in a previous post how I was saying goodbye to problematic roses but there seem to be a million jobs that have come at me all at once this autumn.  Where to start?  For one thing, it was a mistake to let a strawberry plant that had managed, somehow, to appear among the roses.  It provided two delicious strawberries and so I left it.  While I had my back turned, its runners managed to run and root among roses, amid herbaceous plants, and made their way to the lawn.  I had a devil of a job pulling them out.  Strawberries are not on my agenda for next year.  I need an easier life in the garden and am semi-decided on going for small shrubs and herbaceous perennials.  I want ground cover to supress weeds.  One rose that is doing so beautifully that it is quite safe, for now, is Wild Eve in the north-facing border.  She's flowering even now and her next-door neighbour, New Dawn, will also remain.  They have both remained trou...

I realise it's a month since I posted anything about my garden.  The truth is, I've reached a crossroads with it, a quandary.  I have a permanent case of vertigo, as some might already know, and it's quite hard enough gardening without having to constantly battle with the weather and fight pests and diseases.  While I love roses with a passion and can manage pruning if I am careful, I do find having to deal with millions of aphids a, well, pest (no exaggeration - there can be hundreds of the little red or green suckers on just one rose bud). They even attacked my stalwart row of trouble-free  yellow Arthur Bell roses this year and that's a first although I could not, yet, bring myself to remove Arthur Bell which is too beautiful for words and maybe the attack was a one off.  I live in hope!  Aphids on a rose Aphids leave a sticky residue to which spores of mildew fungus can find a home.  Then there is the dastardly rust disease and ...

I don't know about you, but I always dead head my roses regularly, removing old flowering heads before they get the chance to make hips and thus allowing the plant's energy to go into any remaining buds.  While dead-heading, I take the opportunity to lightly prune my rose bushes into shape once the first flush of flowers on any particular stem is over and there are no more buds left.  I think that all my rose bushes, and climbers, are repeat flowerers so I do it as soon as possible rather than leaving it until new buds start to form.  This way, I encourage strong new growths to be formed from lower down that will stand the roses in good stead over winter. However, this is not something that I do to climbers .  As you can see from the photographs taken today of the row of Arthur Bell roses that I have at the front of my home, a bit of pruning back over the last couple of weeks or so has stimulated the roses into producing new, very healt...

I've mentioned the Arthur Bell yellow floribunda rose more than once in my posts, I know, but I cannot stress how wonderful a rose it is.  Floribunda means it has abundant flowers.  If you have room for one, I recommend you try it.  I cannot recall it ever having greenfly or blackspot or any other rose pest or disease and it has a beautiful fragrance.  The only problem my Arthur Bell roses have is that I grow them in an area which is open to the elements.  The wind where I live in West Yorkshire has been so awful these last few days and is hammering them.  A couple of days ago the wind ripped a large stem off one of them taking with it several small buds and a few larger ones.  I saved what I could, discarding the tiny buds that were too undeveloped to ever open, and put the pruned stems with the fatter rose buds into a vase.  They have opened up so beautifully.  Look how glossy and healthy the leaves are too.  I think nex...