GARDENER'S WORD - IDEAS AND TIPS

Last year I decided that the beautiful Japanese maple, Acer palmatum 'Katsura', growing in my garden was causing a lot of shade underneath and was stopping other plants from growing there. Further, it was encroaching on the dwarf apple tree in front of it.  I contacted a friend who has a large and beautiful estate in the south of England with many Japanese maples and was encouraged to 'go at it!' with shears or whatever and turn it into a tree rather than a large shrub.  It was August 2024 and I decided to 'go at it' with pruners and a Japanese Niwaki saw. Now it is a fabulous multi-stemmed tree which forms a canopy and allows underplanting.  You can see where most of the pruning has been done in the below image. April 2025 May 2025 To make the most out of limited space, growing multi-stemmed trees is a perfect solution if you want to have trees in your small garden. I have two dwarf apple trees, two Japanese maples (the other is Jordan), as well as a hydrangea ...

For a number of years I used a tall bird feeding station for hanging bird feeders but I've moved them elsewhere as I wanted to use the station for hanging plants. I shortened the station and have only hung four lightweight plastic pots containing trailing pelargoniums/geraniums which can stand dry conditions and therefore don't need to be heavy with moisture (like hostas, for example); the bird feeding station would not stand seriously heavy weight. The station is set into a circular base which keeps it stable.  The pots (and the dustbin ) are painted with chalk paint, decorated with rub-on transfers, and protected against sunshine and rain with UV protective lacquer.  I got the trailing pelargoniums/geraniums through the post and they were a little slow to get growing but they are doing well now with flower buds forming. The bird feeding station is by Tom Chambers, as is the base I chose which is suitable for patios. 

Nothing like decorating things to cheer up winter months indoors. I decided to chalk paint the pots and stick some rub-on transfers on them to make them cheery. For this one I used  Annie Sloan chalk paint and 'Flamingo Pink Small Transfer' ReDesign by Prima. The pot was protected both inside and out with Annie Sloan lacquer , two coats of gloss lacquer and a final coat of matt lacquer. 

One of my most recent garden projects was the dustbin. After painting every pot and tub that I wanted to paint, I ran out of ideas - until my eyes caught sight of the dustbin. It certainly does cheer up that little corner of no plants.  It's painted with custom colours of Annie Sloan chalk paint and coated with Annie Sloan lacquer (matt on top of gloss). The 'Lavender Bush' rub-on transfers are by Re-Design by Prima, as are 'Dreamy Florals' on the dustbin lid.

It has been over three years since I posted anything on my blog. Of course, most of us will remember how a little thing like a virus outbreak in late 2019 early 2020 caused  such a big impact on everyone's lives for one reason or another. Anyway, I plan to get back into blogging and share some things that I painted for my garden to keep me occupied for some of that time. There is so much to catch up on. As I decorated  many pots and tubs of all shapes and sizes I will need to share them in several posts.  I use Annie Sloan chalk paint , although there are several other brands on the market. Annie invented the product back in the 90s and it is a breeze to use. I used two coats of chalk paint on each one and often mixed my own colours.  As the projects were for outdoors, I finished off by using Annie Sloan's lacquer. As I like a dull finish but because gloss lacquer is the tougher of the two, I used two coats of gloss ending with one coat of matt. That should protect t...

We have had beautiful sun here in West Yorkshire for the last two days. I've taken down the hanging baskets that I left over winter and hope to have rescued three fuchsias that did have some sign of life. In one of the baskets, I found moss growing. It's such a beautiful plant and I can understand why moss gardens are popular in Japan as well as other places, I expect. I removed the moss and laid it on a pot of very moist compost. I hope it thrives. If it doesn't, I have enough around the edges of my lawn to try again. 

Another job done, I've pruned Hydrangea paniculata 'White Lady'. I want to force it to branch so that there will be lots of white flowers this summer. The flowers are produced at the ends of the branches and each year has put on a delightful display from when the buds form to when the flowers begin to fade and become papery in autumn. This shrub attracts pollinators, like bees, butterflies, & hoverflies. Ideally, the plan is, that it will be a small tree. The dustbin men broke it in half when it was very young by throwing bags on it! So, I've had to adapt the plant accordingly.

One job done. Spring is in the air here in West Yorkshire, the garden is waking up and although England is still in the virus lockdown, at least I can do as I please in my own garden. I've hard pruned Buddleia Davidii Nanho Blue, which I grow in a giant container, down to about 2ft (60cm). It is surprisingly vigorous and before long will be displaying long branches, hopefully with lots of flowers. It attracts butterflies like the Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae), as well as other pollinators like bees and the lovely, harmless, hoverflies.

At this time of year my little garden starts to look a total mess. The neighbouring ash trees are shedding leaves over everything - lawn, path, plants - and as fast as I try to tidy, down they come and they keep on coming until the trees are bare. Then there are other jobs to do. Now my precious little James Grieve apple tree is down to one apple, I have removed the 'shepherd's crooks' (steel fencing pins) 👇 that I put around it in summer to support the weight of the branches; it has been a good crop this year.  Dwarf James Grieve apple tree - branches supported with Shepherd's Crooks The Shepherd's Crooks which I bought off Amazon have been invaluable; I also use them for my Wild Eve roses. 👇 Wild Eve rose supported with Shepherd's Crooks I've pulled the courgette plants, Courgette Buckingham F1, out of their tubs as the fruits (yes, courgettes are fruit because they develop seeds, unlike vegetables) were starting to rot before developing (possibly due to...

I posted about the problem of seeds getting into an animal's skin in July a couple of years ago ( Seeds penetrating animal skin ) and this year the seed problem arrived later. Alfie, the resident Ragdoll cat, has been coming in with various kinds of seeds working their way through his thick fur. The seeds really are a nuisance and it's necessary to watch out for them as they can be serious if roots form and they penetrate the skin of an animal's body, ears, between their toes, and particularly their eyes.  Seeds penetrating a cat's paws Isn't nature clever though, the way the seeds are all pointing towards his skin. The picture above shows them on my cat's paw. Seeds removed from animal fur All the seeds in the brush above were removed, at one time, from around my cat's neck and paw.  Grass seeds burrowing into an animal's skin Seed burrowing into an animal's face The weed, Galium aparine (commonly known as sticky willy, and the RHS calls them 'C...

Aside from the Covid-19 turning the whole world topsy turvy since December 2019, my West Yorkshire garden has been unpredictable. I'm referring to the success and lack of success of seed grown fruit and vegetables. I thought we might have supermarket shortages but, thankfully, we have not. The weather too has been mercurial with long spells of heavy rain, and then long spells of sunshine. What a year!  But August has brought gardening happiness and despite failures of the lettuce seeds (never germinated) and the Tumbling Tom tomato seeds (accidentally killed them off), I have a little kind of bounty going on now.  Sugarsnap peas 12 August 2020 I grew the Sugarsnaps in a single pot, up a few canes, strung together with twine. I should have planted more seeds but hindsight and all that. It's too late now to plant more, I think. One success, I think, maybe, is the tomatoes grown from a supermarket tomato, Arlinta. Just one tomato at a fraction of the cost of the packet of Tom see...

It's been many weeks since I last posted anything about my garden. The Covid-19 pandemic caused many changes in many lives since it began around December 2019, and my life was also affected, of course. I wasn't able to go and mooch around the garden centres like I so often do in spring and summer, and so I don't have the lovely hanging baskets that I usually have on my east-facing wall. Not only that virus, we have had mercurial weather with it being sunny and glorious during the period when the UK was in lockdown and then rainy day upon rainy day when lockdown was eased and people wanted to get out. Anyway, today we have glorious sunshine and my garden has thrived where many people have not. The apples on the dwarf James Grieve apple tree are fat and promising.  James Grieve apples on dwarf tree Bear in mind, when looking at the photograph of the James Grieve apples on the dwarf tree, that the tree is less than 4ft (120cm) high. It has over 2 dozen apples on it. If I tell ...