Green is the colour

I know a lady who hates yellow flowers and another who loathes white ones.  Me? Well, I have no hang-ups about colour. I am cheap and cheerful, easy to please and content to mix and match colours with scant regard to tone, hue or matters of ‘good taste’ - whatever that is. I like bold and brassy, cool and sophisticated and I don’t mind mixing the two.  Life is a struggle against pain, there are too many long, grey winter days and in any case, more than one notable gardener has said that since nature does not create a colour scheme in the wild, why should we?  Nothing clashes and colour literally brightens us all up. 

The colour we often take for granted is of course green. This is probably because it is forms the very structure of our gardens and the power of it is that it blends in, is easy on the eye and has a very calming effect. It is not until we visit a green-free zone in a town or city that we feel a strong sense that something is missing.  

At flower shows there are often gardens where the only interest is a mixture of different shades of green in different textures.  I do ‘get it’ and quite like to see such creativity but it has never been ‘our thing’ at Springfield.  I started with a hot border, a cool border etc but over time the poppies seeds fly off and mix it all up and I am happy if the plants are happy.  

For me it is the pops of colour fizzing in front of a green backdrop that excites me.  There is one exception however (does that prove the rule?) and that is my small collection of hostas. They demonstrate perfectly how infinitely varied the colour green is and how our perceptions of green can be altered.

This hosta is outside our back door in a big pot and it is a delight every year.  In spring it awakes from its winter slumbers and erupts into tightly furled cigar shaped shoots and within a few weeks these open out to reveal acid lime green and deep green leaves which are glossy and corrugated in texture.  It is a joy to behold when I go out to the dustbin I cannot resist touching it.   It lights up the passage way leading to our garden. 

Of course as the season progresses we may see the results of a slug or two nibbling the edges of the leaves but keeping a hosta in a pot topped up with coarse gravel, minimises the invasion.  Sometimes I even put copper tape around the top of the pot and sprinkle over a few organic slug pellets, but not always. I also find that the thicker and glossier the leaves, the less the slugs attack them.  I assume the leaves are too tough for their little teeth.

The pots of hostas by our garden shed do well in the semi-shade but hostas seem to do well anywhere in our garden. I split them all this year and Doc dotted clumps around the garden.  That is the beauty of a perennial.  You buy a plant, grow it on and within a couple of seasons you can dig it up, cut it into sections resulting in free plants to plant out or give away .  

I am told that you can have too much of a good thing.  Number One Daughter bought a house from a hosta collector and yes, you’ve guessed it, the garden is full of them.  Needless to say, I can take a few off her hands.  She is all ‘hostered’ out….!

Droning on

The fact that the use of technology is accelerating faster than it takes to send an email is an understatement.  Doc and I like to think we are nifty when it comes to computers, email, digital photography etc and our ipad is so well used that the cover is wearing out.  However, Ashley, our neighbours’ teenage son has been showing us that we don't know nothin’ yet!

Ashley has a drone that takes pictures and he called round the other week and politely asked us if we would like some aerial shots of the house and garden.  We jumped at the chance, well who wouldn’t?  ‘Shall we take the washing in from the line?’ we asked him.  ‘Oh no, you don’t need to do that,’ he said.  ‘I can edit that out later.’  Heck.  It crossed my mind to ask him if he could neaten up the borders and add a few ornamental trees to create more of a wow factor but decided that maybe we might be accused of mis-representing the garden.

The drone an impressive piece of kit.  It is no bigger than a frisbee and very stable when airborne.  Ashley is well practised with the controls and he can zoom it around smoothly and quickly.  After a few circuits of the garden, he nipped over the garden wall and in no time at all, we had a couple of really good pictures. The drone also takes video too which Ashley adds a soundtrack to.

Doc wondered about asking Ashley if he could do a survey of the roof of the house.  Old houses are so high it is very difficult to find out if there are any slates loose.  Technology is great, what’s not to like?  Thanks Ashley!   

Farewell

Funeral Flowers?

Doc chopped down our beautiful column ornamental cherry tree this morning.  He said that wielding the axe felt even more savage because the tree was just coming into flower.  He came in from the garden, carrying an armful of branches bursting with pink blooms.  We put the branches in a vase and now the hall is filled with a delicate fragrance.  

There is a lesson to be learned from this sadness.  If you plant a tree you are investing in the future and planting something that will take a long time to mature.  All the more reason to think carefully what you plant and where you plant it.  Think how big it will grow, what the spread will be and how it fits into the landscape of the garden.  It is not a decision to be taken lightly. 

Our cherry tree was simply outgrowing its space and planted so close to the boundary and high hedge beyond, it was straining to get to the light and bending instead of growing upright.  It did not look right at all. It had to go.

We shall of course plant another tree, but somewhere else.  There are so many moderately sized ornamental trees.  We have a fruiting espalier cherry tree in the vegetable garden but I would like to replace the ornamental cherry tree.  We will probably never see a new specimen reach its maturity, but that is a good gardener's lot.  We will leave something good behind.

I spotted some fritillaries underneath the new damson tree in the orchard, nestling alongside some grape hyacinths.  They helped lift our spirits.  I am glad today has something positive in it.

The Trug gets an airing

The hungry gap of late winter/early spring is over.  Doc lifted down the Trugs from the top of the cupboards in the utility room and we are making the most of the first harvests of the season.

We have had brilliant parsley which has brightened up our cooking over the last month or so.  It over-wintered successfully both in the greenhouse and in a raised bed outside.  However, it is now well and truly upstaged by the asparagus, which is poking through the soil triumphantly.  

Last year, the asparagus crop was disappointing and plagued with asparagus beetle.  However, with due diligence (repeatedly squashing the little critters) and a judicious spreading of manure as soon as the spears had finished cropping, we have seen greater success this season.   We have enjoyed two meals so far (poached eggs, hollandaise sauce and asparagus) and there are loads more spears to come.  The price of such a delicacy is smelly wee (the side effect of eating asparagus!) but who cares? 

The second star of the trug is forced rhubarb.  We only have one forcer and have now decided that we need another one so that next year we can enjoy more of these pink, luscious, sweet stems.  I have lightly poached the rhubarb with stem ginger and only a scattering of sugar.  Doc made Birds custard and we could have easily eaten two bowlfuls each.  

The rest of the rhubarb crowns are growing well and we will soon be cropping those too. But we will have to leave the forced crown to rest for the remainder of the season because forcing saps the plant’s strength.  Each year we choose a different crown to force.

In the greenhouse, I sowed plastic ‘grape’ containers with cut-and-come-again salad leaves and they are now producing fresh, tender leaves.  We now have a carton on the kitchen table with some scissors.  The snippings liven up salads and sandwiches.  We love the peppery salad mixes the best.

This is just the start of the fruit and vegetable season. With radish seedlings emerging from the soil and strawberry plants starting to flower, there is lots more to come.  Doc planted out the mangetout plants and they are already scrambling up the obelisks.  This year we remembered to put holly branches around them to deter the pesky mice and bold pheasants.

There are flowers on one or two of the tomato plants in the greenhouse.  I don’t know whether to remove them and allow the plants to grow bigger or leave them and see how early the fruits develop.  Decisions, decisions!  I shall nibble another lettuce leaf and think about it.

Gardening is such fun

We gardeners share so many delights in our gardens: beautiful flowers, delicious produce, peace and tranquility, vibrant colour and sweet scents…..However, we also share the not-so inspiring aspects of our chosen passion.  

Doc has recently spent a lot of time and energy experiencing (yet again) the hard, manual graft of so-called gardening.  He continuing the re-landscaping of several areas of the garden including hard pruning a border - though this is an understatement.  It is his second massacre event and Doc would feel more at home on a building site or in the Amazon jungle.  

The paths between the raised beds in the vegetable garden are laid with bark to prevent weed growth and in theory this is easier to manage than grass or gravel.  However, the bark is popular with birds and disappears over time. What do they do with it, I wonder? What is left eventually turns into compost and despite having a membrane underneath, it becomes home to weeds. This year Doc and I agreed that the bark would have to be topped up. 

Doc would have loved to buy a few bags of bark chips from the garden centre and get the job done easily and quickly.  However, Springfield is much more challenging. Firstly, it needs enough bark to empty a forest and secondly, the bark has to be barrowed from the driveway at the front of the house, down to the vegetable garden, which is inconveniently on a hill and feels further away with each barrow load.

Barkgate

It took Doc 3 hours with 2 pit stops at the back door for some elderflower cordial and biscuits.  What we thought was more-than-enough bark is about half of what is required to finish the job.  The paths are more like bottomless pits than walkways.  2 more expensive bags the size of the one above will have to be ordered so we are hoping it lasts 5 years.  Or better still, could it not possibly ‘see us out?’

A Drop in the Ocean of Bark

Doc was ready for a break but there was still work to do. After the bark debacle he disappeared into the long border along the fence and emerged a couple of days later, during a rain storm.  He had to climb from behind a wall of debris and then barrow it to the bonfire area.  Reluctantly, he reserved some of the larger branches which he will take the axe to to feed our log burner one of these cold winters.  (Well, we have to offset the cost of the bark, don’t we?)

When Doc has recovered he will be able to appreciate the result of his labours. He will see that the long border is actually a lot wider than we originally thought, with lots of potential.  There are some prize specimens such as the lovely variegated holly which has layered itself in a couple of spaces and these young plants will make nice presents for the family.  The rhododendrons, amanchlier, azaleas and pieris japonica are already breathing a sigh of relief and will soon sprout again, filled with renewed vigour.  In a couple of years they will provide that area of the garden with colour and interest. The juniper tree, however, adds nothing to the new picture and will have to be felled.  We will plug the gap with something more manageable and attractive.

Indiana Jones in the Garden

Damson seedling is now a tree but the Juniper behind it has to go....

More scope with the Holly haircut - don't put the saw away Doc!

In the meantime there are 2 large bags of Cotswold stone chips to be barrowed, paving to be laid, and a whole day spent burning a small forest.  Oh, and not forgetting the bark when it arrives! Doc is doing a wonderful job and I am so lucky that he is strong, willing and able.  My disability holds me back and all I can do is cheer him on from the sidelines.  I must go and put a couple of bottles of beer in the fridge for him and make sure he has double pasta rations for supper.   

The show goes on and on........

The spring flowers are spectacular this year and I love them so much I would be happy if they bloomed all season.  Or perhaps, their fleeting visits is all part of the magic?

The primroses are vibrant this year and some of the clumps are very tightly packed with flowers. I split quite a few varieties last summer and dotted them around the garden and they soon bulk up. I don’t have a favourite colour - lemon, pink or violet - they are all stunning.  I love the cottage garden look they bring to the garden.

Bonuses amongst the spring flowers include the red and mauve hyacinths.  They started life in pots in the house and a friend suggested I plant the bulbs outdoors when they had finished flowering after Christmas.  She said they would eventually revert to bluebells.  Well, we do have lots and lots of bluebells which join us later in the spring but currently the hyacinths are attracting our attention and show no signs of 'reversion'. They are growing very well and I wish I could get close enough to test if they still have a fragrance.

Tulips are a firm favourite when it comes to spring and early summer impact.  Gardeners are advised that these short-lived bulbs should be layered in pots for the best effect.  We are also told to regard them more like an annual. Tulips don’t like the wet so they will often rot if left in a border over the winter.  But take a look at these little stars!  They are breaking all the rules and thriving on it.  

These dainty red tulips underneath the large beech tree, have lived in light shade for years and years. They were here 12 years ago and show no signs of rotting off.  More importantly, it is useful to note that the area of the garden where they have set up home is congested and hardly every touched. (A lesson in neglect, I think.) The hellebores do their thing, the tulips nudge amongst them, then white and pink Solomon’s Seal take centre stage and by the middle of the autumn the beech leaves and beech nuts fall and cover over the whole area.  Everything appears to be growing happily, no one plant has its nose pushed out.  Why are some things in the garden so difficult and some things so easy?

I dare not disturb the harmony under the beech tree, apart from some clearing some of debris now and then.  Some things are left well alone!