GARDENER'S WORD - IDEAS AND TIPS

Last Saturday, 21 October 2017, Storm Brian followed Storm Ophelia and left my garden unscathed, thankfully.  It mashed the few Polka raspberries that were on the cane, but that's no great loss.  Not so lucky for many, especially in Wales and on the west coast of the UK where the sea crashed onto land adding to devastation caused by wind and flooding.  Stormy weather often brings interesting skies here on the Pennines of West Yorkshire and I had to take a photo of this yesterday morning.  I used my Canon EOS for this one and the image has not been edited in any way whatsoever.  Glorious colour, I think, against a conifer and trees (now devoid of leaves).  Also the birds were out in force.  No doubt glad to have survived and singing their little heads off!   See image below.  It always amazes me how, in high winds, tiny birds managed to sit on the bird feeders and eat.  Why don't they blow away? Sunrise on 23 October 2017, over ne...

I always find it difficult to cut my garden's roses to bring indoors.  For one thing, my roses ( Wild Eve and New Dawn ) don't always have stems suitable for cutting and making a nice display in a vase.  For another thing, the flowers last an awful lot longer when left in the garden unless a storm comes along and even then they often just go with the flow and weather the weather.  Today, mooching in a Marks and Spencers store, I bought yellow and red long-stemmed roses, half price, with a sell by today's date.  I am hoping they will last as long as the dark red ones which I bought over two weeks ago for half price.  There's a trick to making them last...  Yellow and Red roses from Marks and Spencer ...Every few days, I cut an inch of so off the bottom of the stems of my cut flowers (any cut flowers).  Cutting the stem at a very sharp angle exposes a larger area for water to be draw up to the flower's head.  I use flower food which often...

There's definitely a chill in the air this morning, foggy too, and for me that's a reminder that frosty nights and days are on the way.  Winter!  Under my living room window I grow a trough of pelargoniums (often called geraniums) which I plant each spring.  Pelargoniums originally come from South Africa, I understand, and they are not fully hardy.  Certainly they are not hardy enough to cope with the harsh winter sub-zero weather that we can get here on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire.  They don't like to be frozen or waterlogged.  They like sunshine and warmth (a bit like me really).  So, the other day I gently dug them out of the trough and planted them into pots and placed them under the shelter of my garden room's overhanging roof.  They'll be happy enough there for a little while longer, facing south-west, and when the weather becomes harsh (and I expect it will) I can pop them inside the unheated garden ro...

As the year winds down into winter, so do I.  I'm no winter gardener (I hibernate) and there is so much that needs doing while the weather is still mild.  As lots of gardening work all at once can be rather overfacing (not getting any younger, you know) I have to do it little by little and what does not get done, well, does not get done!  The weather has been strange across the UK; episodes of sun giving relief, downpours of rain causing flooding, and winds that create havoc for many on the roads and elsewhere.  While we in the UK are doing better than many poor souls across the world right now, coping with wars and disasters, we did get downgraded Hurricane Ophelia swinging east across the Atlantic a couple of days ago.  She devastated areas of Ireland, then followed that by smashing into the UK's west coast causing loss of life (3 people) in Wales.  When storm Ophelia arrived where I live, high on the Pennines of West Yorkshire, the wind was sti...

In the early spring of 2016 I bought and tried to grow a Crassula ovata  sometimes known as a Jade or Money Tree/Plant.  I failed miserably.  So did the plant.  It was not happy in my home and I never could work out whether I was not watering it enough, watering it too much, if it was too hot, too cold, not enough light, whatever.  It kept drooping and after a long while of pandering to it, I chucked it onto the garden and chopped it into the soil.  Done with that!  This year, in July, I bought another (after all, in a previous garden in the 1980s , I had grown a magnificent one in the conservatory) and by that time I had my new but unheated garden room built and wondered if a Crassula ovata might fare better there.  It has.  It has almost doubled its number of leaves since buying it.  Crassula ovata - 01 October 2017 The label says: Crassula ovata (Money Plant) prefers a light position with temperatures of betw...

I drove over to the RHS at Harlow Carr today and had a mooch around their shop and garden centre, like I often do.  They had some lovely plants for sale but my garden is packed out with perennials and I didn't dare buy more.  They had some (what I think are) chrysanthemums in pots which are the same type as a plant which I grow in my garden.  Annoyingly, seriously annoyingly, I couldn't find any record of my plant mentioned in my blog or even the label.  Possibly somewhere hidden amid all the penstemons and what have you, there is a stray a label.  Mine, which I grow in the sunny garden border, grows in a delightfully compact bouquet-shape.  I hope to divide it at some point in the next year or two and have more of them.  Compact chrysanthemum plant in my sunny garden border - Sept 2017 Chrysanthemums in my garden - Sept 2017 I seem to have a fondness for bluish-pink and purple flowers.  Below, pot grown chrysanthemums ...

Autumn is upon us with chillier nights and mornings.  I've emptied and taken into the garden room the Smart solar-powered pitcher cascade which is not frost proof.  There are lots of things that need doing to wind up the garden for winter but I am taking it slowly, step at a time.  Today I picked more alpine strawberries.  They really are beautiful little berries.  When ripe they have such an intense, almost perfumed flavour, that I really love.  Getting to them before slugs is the challenge so I have placed my plant, which I grow in a largish pot, onto a plant trolley to keep them higher off the ground - dangling in mid air, the berries have more of a chance.  The birds seem to ignore them.  Good.  The berries are best picked when fully red and eaten straight away - lovely with breakfast cereal.   The alpine strawberry plant is fully hardy and here on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire, I get flowers and fruit from late spr...

Last year I planted Buddleja davidii 'Empire Blue' and didn't take a photograph of its flowers.  Perhaps I bought it when it was not in flower.  Anyway, this year, despite there having been many flowers, I almost forgot.  Flowering has almost finished now but yesterday I remembered when it was raining and blowing a gale.  I managed to take a fairly decent shot of one of the remaining purple flowers, and a not so great photograph to try and indicate to you the rather ethereal growing habit of this delightful shrub.  The leaves are a grey green and pointy on slender branches and they sway around beautifully in the breeze.   Buddleja davidii 'Empire Blue'  This summer I have been carefully deadheading the flowers on buddleias  to promote more flowers.  Davidii are summer flowering buddleias and it is best to prune them back in early spring as they flower on growth made that same year.  If you prune them too early, like now...

A friend from Devon came up to visit me in here in West Yorkshire this week and wanted to see the charming old parsonage where the Bronte family lived in the 19th century.  Many people will know about the Brontes: about Charlotte who wrote Jane Eyre, and Emily who penned Wuthering Heights, and less well known Anne who wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.  Shockingly, perhaps, I had never been there, inside the parsonage.  So we went and the rooms were smaller than expected and in many ways quite modern.  Dare I say it?  Yes I dare.  I was more interested in the gardens, and I took some photographs with my iPhone from the shelter of the house, seeing as how it was raining cats and dogs.  I've added a couple of links for those who wish to see more about the house and the family. Statue of Bronte sisters taken from an inside window - Sept 2017 Bronte Family (Wiki link) The Brontes and Haworth (Bronte.org.uk) I can just imagine them strolling arou...

Although the internet states that it is officially autumn in the UK on 22 September 2017, the weather doesn't seem to know it.  Now I'm wondering what this winter will bring.   No, now hang on, wait a minute, because... Rainbow in West Yorkshire - image dated 01 Sept 2017 ...the UK Meteorological office (external link) kindly informs us that meteorological autumn begins on 1 September.  And astronomical autumn begins on 22 September.  We've had an on and off decent summer and the change to autumnal weather has been gradual, commencing with a nip in the air in the morning and sunshine diminishing as clouds take over during the day.  Before the rain came about three days ago, a rainbow appeared in the relatively near distance and since then it has rained spasmodically.  In a nutshell, it's miserable.  I like to keep a kind of record of the weather on my blog - when it freezes, when it's sunny, when it snows, and so on - b...

Once upon a time, I had plans to have a rose garden and when I moved into my present home, I had many in my garden.  I wanted them rambling and climbing along the fences.  I wanted them putting on a glorious display in the garden beds.  I wanted them to fill my garden with fragrance and colour.  Of course, we all know that what we want isn't always what we get.  Now that the air is cleaner the roses, which once flourished free of disease like rust and blackspot, succumb to those nuisances and chemical spraying became necessary.  Now, I don't like to have to spray my garden with chemicals.  For one thing, I don't like it, the pollinating insects don't like it, and I don't want my pet Ragdoll cat, Alfie, being affected by such chemicals.  On top of that, the fact that I have a very tricky balance problem meant that I kept getting impaled on rose thorns when gravity grabbed me.  So, I had to get rid of most of my roses.  Now I just hav...

Wood Pigeons have quite a bad reputation for causing damage to plants and crops and they aren't very popular with farmers and gardeners, but they aren't always a nuisance.  While I have had problems in the past with a particular wood pigeon that liked to wade in the wild birds' water tray and then poop in it (they simply have no manners!), lately a couple of Wood Pigeons and Collared Doves have served a useful purpose as animated Hoovers.  They pick up all the sunflower seeds and bits of sunflower seeds which the small birds like goldfinches, greenfinches, and blue tits , drop from the bird-feeding station. Wood Pigeon picking up scraps dropped by the smaller birds above I regularly blast the area with the hose pipe and clean the bird feeders to help prevent the spread of disease.  Always try to give wild birds fresh water to drink along with the food. Collared Dove ready to drink 

I didn't prune back my Syringa Red Pixie, a petite lilac with lovely flowers which I first planted in 2014, after it had flowered in early summer.  It has rewarded me yet again with producing a second flush of flowers which have opened this week.  It's such a pretty little shrub which gives such fragrance when in flower.  You might like to try growing it yourself.  I know the description states that the flowers are red but when open they are a deep pink, as you can see.  It's strange though.  When I first bought it the flowers didn't appear quite as spikey as they do now.  While I was busy taking photographs in my garden, the resident Ragdoll cat, Alfie, snoozed in the sun. Syringa Red Pixie - second flush of flowers - 25 August 2017 Syringa Red Pixie - second flush of flowers - 25 August 2017 Alfie, the resident Ragdoll cat.  Alfie, the resident Ragdoll cat - 25 August 2017

I like the busy, natural look in a garden, with plants supporting one another, shutting out the weeds (I rarely see weeds in my garden), but I also like some kind of order too.  Since having the garden room built , the top patio, where the old shed used to sit, has felt cramped and very wrong.  Although a small shed of 4 x 3 ft was erected in place of the old 6 x 3 shed, there was little room for the hammock swing which took up more room than I had realised.  The base of it covered a very large area and the cushions filled the new shed.  As I wasn't really using it since the garden room was built, it sadly had to go.  The hammock-swing has been moved around a bit over the years (see images below) but it has been taken to a friend's garden and I am sure that she and her grandchildren will make good use it.  The next step is to decide what to do about the new patio space.  I may remove the raspberry canes and plant something that can be enjoyed all year ...

Today was the day for pruning back my honeysuckle which, if allowed, takes liberties.  Flowering was over and it was starting to form those lovely red berries but I had to sacrifice them (hopefully not all of them) for the sake of having plenty of flowers next year (a joy for me, the neighbours, and more importantly for pollinating insects).  With my trusty secateurs and hanging onto the fence with one hand to maintain my balance, I cut back the climber by approximately one-third or so—probably moreso.  Honeysuckle: Lonicera periclymenum 'Scentsation' forming berries   Although the honeysuckle that I grow, Lonicera periclymenum 'Scentsation'  (RHS link), is not a rampant honeysuckle compared to some, I do have to keep it under control.  That's especially so now that my old 6ft (182cm) fencing has been replaced with 5ft (152cm) fencing that allows light and air to pass through .  The honeysuckle is trying to find its way over onto the sun...

I think we all see moss in our lawns from time to time (if not all the time) and sometimes on house roofs.  But, you know, it's easy to think of it as just a nuisance when it starts to take over a lawn but really, up close, it can be quite beautiful. Personally, I like to see clumps of moss growing in parts of my garden, in the shade, in the same way that I like to see terracotta pots looking aged with moss and algae.  Now and then I get clumps of moss falling off my home's roof.  I find it on the patio by the kitchen door, little balls of it, like miniature green hedgehogs. Macro photograph of moss, 2015  What made me think of moss is that it likes damp conditions and it rained all day yesterday, and so far the weather isn't looking all that great today.  Someone on the weather news yesterday said it was more like autumn than August, and I think they are right.  Try growing moss on top of a pot or cultivate it in your garden.  It lo...