GARDENER'S WORD - IDEAS AND TIPS

Every year I tell myself I will give myself less work to do in the garden, and every spring I get the fever and start propagating and potting things up, like hanging baskets, troughs, etc.  It's like a disease.  And every autumn I pay for it.  It's the beginning of November now and the temperature is decreasing , the breeze is getting stronger and icier, and the leaves are falling fast.  The leaves on my trailing fuchsias, Swingtime and Southgate , were turning yellow and that was the warning sign for me to get the more tender plants protected before frost gets to them first.  Just as I did last November, I cut back the fuchsias and put them into a mini-greenhouse .  I tell you, it's really hard cutting back plants which are covered with beautiful flowers, but it has to be done if I want them to survive to flower for months next year.  Mini-greenhouses packed with tender plants - Nov 2015 I bought a load of plant trolleys earlier in the year ...

I know, I'm way behind in the jobs that need to be doing in the garden.  Don't blame me, blame the weather.  I'm a fair-weather gardener and so it shall always be, as it always was.  Today the sun is shining, white clouds are drifting across the sky, there is just a hint of a breeze, the temperature is comfortably mild.  Perfect for slaving away in the garden.  Except for all the hard work waiting to be done in the garden, spring is my favourite time of year; all those mild months to come, fresh shoots, green leaves.  Lovely.  I needed a few days like this in April but, alas, the weather was rubbish.  Have you noticed though, in gardening as in many things, that one job creates another?  It's a killer.  Because of my balance problem I have to stop every ten minutes or so for the world to stop spinning.  I planted the Syringa vulgaris 'Mme Lemoine' that I bought a short while ago (I'll post more about that later) but to do that ...

After weeks of mild temperatures and flood-causing rain here in West Yorkshire, we have been warned that colder weather is approaching.  My garden plants don't know what time of year it is, with temperatures occasionally in double figures.  Although leaves have fallen off many of the climbing plants, many of the penstemons are still lush and green and there is the odd rose in bloom.  Next week though sub-zero temperatures are forecast and my thoughts have turned to those more tender plants stored in my two mini-greenhouses.  One has two covers on it; a clear one and a strong clear and green outer one.  I've been out today and put a second jacket on the other mini-greenhouse.  Mini-greenhouses with plants for overwintering Inside, under protection, there are still leaves on the flat Italian parsley, the marjoram, thyme, and other small herbs are clearly not dormant, and the fuchsias in the four hanging baskets which were cut back and de-leafed, have l...

I took this photograph, using my iPhone 5s, while strolling around the Royal Horticultural Society greenhouse at Harlow Carr nearly two weeks before Christmas.  It's now January 1, 2016 with the old year behind and the promise of spring ahead.  Spring, my favourite time of year.  Imagine!  Imagine being able to grow to juicy fruition oranges, and lemons, and limes too, in your very own conservatory, picking the acid fruits when all outside is frosty and white as it was today.  Citrus orange, RHS Harlow Carr, 16 Dec 2015 Happy New Year - 2016!

It's a few weeks since I last posted on this gardening blog.  It seems to have done little else for days on end but either rain, blow a gale, or blow a gale and rain.  We even had snow the other day but it lasted a brief time, thankfully.  The temperature, considering we are now into the last month of 2015, is relatively mild which is no doubt the reason why my clematis, Dr Ruppel, is still in full flower in December .  December!  I kid you not! There are still raspberries on the Polka raspberry canes but I am leaving them for the birds and squirrels .  The birds give me so much joy and very shortly I will be making my annual Christmas fat-cakes for them.  I've never seen so many goldfinches at one time gathering around the seed-feeder.  I do wish I could get better photographs to show you but I have to take them through glass from indoors and it's not the ideal situation even for my camera, which is a far better camera than I am a phot...

Finally, I have cut back hard the trailing fuchsias, Swingtime and Southgate, that have decorated four hanging baskets all summer long.  I hated to do it as there were still plenty of flowers and buds on the plants but the leaves were starting to fall and you just cannot trust the weather anywhere nowadays, including high up on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire where I live.  I'm never sure what is the best way for me to overwinter fuchsias as I have no room for them indoors, and I don't have a regular greenhouse.  Still, last year I put the whole baskets with cut down fuchsias in a Gardman mini-growhouse (I call them mini-greenhouses) and most, if not all, of the plants survived.  This year I have done the same.  Gardman mini-growhouse, flaps open to air plants on sunny day November 2015 Southgate and Swingtime fuchsias are half-hardy which means they will tolerate temperatures down to 0 degrees centigrade and 32 degrees fahrenheit....

It's a while since I last posted.  Almost a month.  Little is happening now in the garden except preparations for winter.  I'm no winter gardener, I'm afraid.  I've bought two new mini-greenhouses (my old one was collapsing with age) and put them side by side at the top of the garden, facing south.  The lovely red pelargoniums have now been removed from the trough at the front of my home, under the living room window, cut down and potted into large pots.  For the moment, they are out of the wind in a mini-greenhouse which has been left open for the time being.  The Italian parsley (a biennial, said to be hardy) is in there too, as well as some pots of herbs, like lemon thyme - just to get them out of the way of my feet on the top patio for now.  The front trough has now been replanted with tulips for next spring and on top of them some little viola plants (like the ones I grew in a pot last year, shown below) which I am sincerely hoping will...

I've been buying plants from Gordon Rigg's garden centre in Walsden, West Yorkshire, for a long, long, time but I had not realised that the business had been started 70 years ago, 24 August 1945.  When I visited last month it was wonderful to see that the present owners had put together an interesting display for their customers, celebrating the occasion.  Gordon Rigg (1919-2004), the founder of Calderbank Nurseries (now Gordon Rigg's) It all began on 24 August 1945 when Gordon Rigg paid to H. Jackson of 2 Beswick Street, Walsden, the grand sum of £150 (which seems a small sum today but when you think how long ago it was, and what the average paypacket might have been, it was no small amount) for a shed, two cabins, tools, and 2 greenhouse boiler pipes, etc.  The business was to be called Calderbank Nurseries and at some point was changed to Gordon Rigg's.  Gordon Rigg's website About Gordon Rigg  (external website)    Gordo...

Although spring is my favourite time of year because we have months ahead before winter arrives again, it is not my favourite time of year as far as gardening is concerned.  There is so much, too much, to do, and so little time in which to do it.  You have to make hay while the sun shines.  I was sitting on my swing yesterday, enjoying some of our rare sunshine, sipping coffee and contemplating reading a book when I remembered that I needed to sort out the hanging baskets of fuchsias.  Last year four baskets adorned the back wall of my home and they were magnificent.  When late autumn came, I cut back the plants and put them into the mini-greenhouse to overwinter.  Fuchsias go dormant but when spring came they didn't all show signs of life.  So, yesterday, I split up the baskets and took out those fuchsias which were obviously dead (a snip of the secateurs will soon tell you if there is green life hiding inside the brown stems.  Several of th...

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 know that we are in winter now and that the shortest day is only just behind us, but the spring bulbs in my outdoor pots and troughs are poking through the compost and encouraging me to 'nil desperandum' when the snow (which has just gone) and the gale force wind and rain which are now howling and lashing are doing their best to push me into the doldrums.  Under the front window, in a long trough, I have planted tulip and iris bulbs saved from last year and I cannot wait to see them in flower once again.  I particularly love Iris Reticulata 'Harmony'.  Iris reticulata 'Harmony'   I was lazy last year when winter was approaching.  I haven't protected many of the perennials and the Japanese acers that I knew that I should have protected.  There just seems to always be too much to do nowadays so I have left them to thrive or not survive.  I'm surprised to see that the penstemons are full of luscious green growth and show no sign a...

At the Royal Horticultural Society garden centre in Harlow Carr today, inside the large greenhouse annexed to the shop, they had counters full of colourful cyclamen and poinsettias. While I have never been particularly enraptured by poinsettias, I do love cyclamen.  Out of kindness, I don't buy them.  I used to, many moons ago, but I have never bought a cyclamen yet that I have not swiftly killed off.  There must be a trick to keeping them alive but it is one that I have never learned.  Cyclamen 'Metis' Cyclamen.Org FAQ (external link). I understand that it is an art to get poinsettias to flower just at the right time for Christmas.  It's all to do with keeping them in the dark for a period of time, or something.  Actually, it's the colourful bracts, not the insignificant flowers, that attract all the attention.  These shrubs used to grow in gardens when I lived in the Caribbean and people would grow them next to a shrub that would flower whi...

I know I am English and rumour has it that we are supposed to talk about the weather all the time, well it's true and I offer no apologies.  While we aren't suffering the deadly volumes of snow that the people of Buffalo, New York, are suffering, we've had days of miserable grey skies, fog, and rain.  My garden is covered with soggy, rotting, leaves and the slugs are having a field day.  I swear they are like Gremlins in the movie of the same name, and multiply at a crazy speed when wet.  Today, rain has held off and we've even had a little bit of blue in the sky and weak sunshine.  I took advantage.  I've taken down the hanging baskets filled with Swingtime and Southgate fuchsias which have been fantastic for months on end.  As soon as we get serious frost, it could quite easily kill them.  To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how tender or robust these two types of trailing species are.  Sadly, they were still flowering and it seemed li...

I seem to be behind in my autumnal chores this year.  When the weather has been fine, I haven't felt like doing it.  When it's been miserable, I have been raring to go, but won't.  For one thing, if anything will set my back off, it's cold weather.  Does that sound like a good excuse for being lazy?  I think so.  Today is mild though.  It's cool, but fine.  After dilly dallying for a few hours this morning, I started on the jobs.  The first job was to treat the marble table.  It's a must, and something that cannot be put off too long.  If the table is wet, and the temperature drops below freezing, the marble can crack.  First of all I hosed off the grit and leaves, then applied a specialist marble cleaner .  The cleaner, and the protective liquid is very expensive but both those bottles are enough to last for years for my marble table which is 43" dia.  While the table top is drying, which it has to before I...

At the RHS Gardens in Harlow Carr, near Harrogate, they have this huge Alpine House where they grow a fabulous range of flowering alpines set on top of a kind of sandstone wall or rockery.  They look really beautiful and every time I have visited, something is in bloom.  But I think this must be a very special time of year because when I visited yesterday, the place was alive with colour. Cleverly the staff grow many of the plants in pots so that they can move them around for the best display, and replace them at will.  It's a lovely place to be, so warm and light.  If only I could take my sunbed along. Alpine House at RHS Gardens, Harlow Carr - 11 March 2014   Alpine House at RHS Gardens, Harlow Carr - 11 March 2014   Alpine House at RHS Gardens, Harlow Carr - 11 March 2014        

I met with a friend from the Huddersfield area yesterday and we went to a local park.  It's a lovely place with a paddling pool, huge herbaceous borders, a bandstand, a bowling green, and a whole lot more.  What I loved the most was the huge 'greenhouse' or 'conservatory' which has been turned into one of the eating areas of the café there.  I understand that, at one time, the conservatory just housed tropical plants and there were koi carp in a pond, but the fish are gone and the pond is now covered with a strong metal frame to prevent the younger and more inquisitive visitors from falling in.  The floor is tiled and with that and the high ceiling, sound resonates somewhat and little voices can be quite ear-penetrating at times!  In the café shop they sell lots of different types of cakes and various kinds of meals can be ordered.  I think the local Kirklees authority have made good use of the park and the conservatory which still houses a n...

I love the way the garden looks in early morning sunshine, before the sunlight gets too strong and leaches the colours out of everything.  It's the same as when dusk approaches, when shadows create more definition and colours are brighter just before they start turning to grey as light fades; and then the white flowers come into play, standing out as they reflect the last of the light.  I took a couple of photographs this morning of my little garden and although I haven't captured all the rose bushes (just Prima Ballerina , Carefree Days , and the climbing Iceberg ) which are mostly hidden from view behind the hanging basket, I think it's looking quite pretty out there.    My garden in early morning light 8 July 2013  The lawn is vastly improved since I threw down plenty of lawn seed two or three weeks ago when it was warm and rainy although I'm not happy at the clover which is trying to take over.  Clover in lawns can be so difficult to e...

Last week I took possession of a Tomato Growbag Growhouse by Gardman and while it is serving its purpose and the reinforced cover seems strong, there are what I consider to be design faults.  1. I don't know what purpose the two metal mesh trays that are placed (loosely)at the base of the Growhouse are supposed to serve.  They don't cover the width of the base and so there is a wide space not covered by mesh trays which bow under the weight of a Growbag and pots so the metal actually touches the ground. They don't seem to particularly strengthen the base of the Growhouse when in position either, I don't think. 2. While there are two hooks attached to the plastic cover at the back, from which you can secure the Growhouse to a fence or something, I am totally unconvinced that they would last in situations where it can get very windy. As you can see below, I have secured my Growhouse to my fence using twine. 3. There are three reinforced holes in th...