Monthly Archives: November 2011

November 22nd 2011

22 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Autumn plants, Greenhouse, Vegetable gardening

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What a damp, bedraggled looking garden, but still with a few flowers in bloom. Cornflowers and cosmos still flowering, as well as a climbing rose and various primula. The cotoneasters (C. franchettii) are looking bright and cheerful and the mahonia is a welcome source of scent for us and nectar for the bees. In this garden the viburnums are rather irregular in their habit and they are just in bud. They were attacked by viburnum beetle last spring but seem to have recovered remarkably well. They are some sort of Viburnum tinus, possibly ‘Gwenllian’. They are now large bushes and have really dark, glossy leaves.

In the vegetable garden

 This mild weather is giving my rather belatedly planted out leeks some good growing time. I have tried growing broccoli several times now and this year is as unsuccessful as the other times. I planted autumn broccoli and have tall, healthy looking plants but with no sign of any tender side shoots. They have been hosts to a large number of white fly but I am not sure that they have caused any damage. Broccoli will definitely be off the planting schedule from now onwards although I will leave these until spring to see what happens. Carrots, on the other hand, have been surprisingly successful. The second crop is now being harvested and they are very good. I have planted a small area with field beans as a green manure and they are looking very healthy.  Whether I will ever notice that they have enriched the soil in that area is another question.

The greenhouse

This is a cold greenhouse. The tomatoes and cucumber have finished and I must take them out and tidy the place up a bit. Some hardy annuals sown in the autumn have appeared and are looking strong – cerinthe and larkspur. I will be sowing sweet peas in the near future. Usually I have taken in the tarragon before now and must do it before the frosts arrive. I will also move the lemon verbena in case that can be saved for next year.

Next year

This is when I start planning for next year and for the first time we have no large changes to make to the garden. Getting the beds we already have up to a better standard is the plan. For the last couple of years I have had one small annuals bed (annuals planted onsite) and it has been interesting work but I think for next year I will make this a mixed bed and have more perennials.

Annuals bed July 2011

 My aim is to get as many herbs into the garden as possible but planted in a variety of locations including the rock bed and a number of perennial beds in different situations. More of herbs next time.

This week in the garden – 5th November 2011

05 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by in Gardening, Pond

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Although we have had some desperately needed rain this week there has been ample opportunity to get into the garden and the rain has made the heavy clay much easier to work.

At present I am working on the ‘east border’ next to a large row of hedgerow trees – ash and field maple. This area is in the shade for much of the day in summer and autumn and it is essentially dry shade. There are some very difficult weeds here, mainly tormentil, which certainly lives up to its name, but also a lot of ivy and invasive grass.

Some of the plants are doing well but are smothered in weeds, e.g. sedum, golden marjoram, lysimachia. Sweet cicely is also happy here. So I will probably dig everything out and put back anything that I can rescue from weed roots. I am edging part of the border against the path with a very pretty Bergenia ‘Overture’ – beautiful magenta flowers. I used not to like bergenia but in a large garden where effective groundcover is required it is a really useful plant. This year another bergenia has flowered well from August until now, although it usually flowers in April.

I have bought and planted a couple of geranium macrorrhizum and a heuchera. I have also bought a number of crocus Chrysanthus ‘Cream Beauty’ some Narcissus cyclamineus ‘Reggae’ and Erythronium ‘Pagoda’ that will go into the back of the border around a newly planted hazel cutting. Since this will not nearly cover the area I will be infilling with as many divided hardy geraniums as  I can muster and moving pulmonaria seedlings from anywhere I can but mostly from here.

Another bed was a mess of convolvulus and jack by the hedge but the bergenia and pulmonaria have provided fantastic ground cover very quickly.

Last weekend we cleared out the larger of our ponds. Usually one of us falls in but this year we seemed to manage ok. We were clearing out stratiotes and glyceria – I wish we had never introduced the latter. The water lily, which is really too large for this pond, can wait another year before we lift it out and, I hope, get one that is a more suitable size.

Plant of the month – October

The prize has to go to this rambling rose. Its performance is usually poor, being highly susceptible to mildew, and the flowers are often dried up looking but in October, following a severe cutting back, it has been very pretty. It is looking even better now.