Hunkered down for the winter

We did intend to get out and dig for England over the autumn. I got help for the some of the hard digging and created a new bed at the back of the garden. We could have lots of climbing roses there, I thought. We set off in earnest to the fancy garden centre and before long we had a trolley loaded with bulbs of all sorts, as well as the sedum  have been looking for. At the till, we realised that that we had nearly 200 bulbs of narcissi and tulips, but no  coherent planting scheme. That plus a time-starved week ahead and we decided to we put all the  bulbs back on the shelves with a plan to return the next weekend when we knew which bulbs we needed. Next weekend never came and eventually we missed yet another November with no new bulbs. A right disgrace. Anyway, I can at least share that Spring-Summer 2012 is going to see lots of tulips of the Parrot variety, not in our garden though, but most certainly in a lot of gardens up and down the country. 

The last new addition to our garden were six beautiful sedum with pink blossoms. We just about managed to plant them between days of blustery weather and very wet soil. Sedum are winter hardy and provide a carpet of ground cover, just what we need to fill up the gaps in our front bed. We did pick three bare root roses from David Austin, but they too remained potted over the winter - cannot be a good thing, but hopefully not a crime. 

On a more cheerful note, the warmer than usual November meant that the oriental poppies continued to grow and both plants appear to have established well.

We also bought some cyclamen at the garden centre at a deeply discounted price and the label said it would not last the week. A little TLC, a large pot, indoor placement and a whole month later, the cyclamen are thriving and bringing fabulous colour against the bleak hues of winter. 

Earlier on we had a sunflower bloom from a seed past its expiry date, well, a year or so past its expiry date. Should try my luck with the other seeds next year.

Last night we brought our geraniums indoors at 1.00 am, just before the next major frost. They continued their display well into December, probably confused by the warmer winter as the poppies were.





















Signing off for the year now, with a lot of promises and
plans for the next year.  Hope the birds will be fine over the winter.

Dahlia Triplet

Had to share these iconic giant dahlias! Not from our garden, but from a garden not too far away, currently gracing our kitchen!

ps: Use the skirting board in the picture as a reference to estimate the size of the florets! 

The most rewarding of 'em all

We lined our geranium pots along the path to our back garden when we brought them out of the conservatory in spring. Gave them a good prune and they promptly re-energised to yield a beautiful display. A friend who often travels to Switzerland remarked that it reminded her of Swiss Chalets with blooms spilling out of window boxes against the dark brown timber of the chalets. Very flattering, but it sort of does, doesn't it?

The geranium amaze me with how little they need by way of care and how spectacular they are. One of those great species in nature that take so little and give so much in return. No complaints against the more demanding types, it takes all sorts to fill this world!  

A beautiful display also from the crocusmia who have this casual air of elegance about them. The bulbs planted in the shade of the ceanothus have paler blooms compared to those that get more sun. Or they may just might be different varieties, who knows! The foliage is elegant too, long sword-shaped leaves with a dark green centre and paler towards the edges.

The crocusmia are special in our garden as they were the very first bulbs we planted after we dug out the flower beds. They have taken a few years to establish but the wait has been well rewarding. 

Talking of rewards reminds me of the hollyhocks. We bought two small potted plants less than 10 cm high in March this year and planted them in our front beds. Less than six months later, we have been rewarded by spires that over 7 feet high with buds and blooms along the length. The hollyhocks are now the defining feature of the front beds, bringing great sculptural value with the wine-coloured flowers, height and textured leaves.  

The Hollyhocks stand straight and tall
like captains in command. 

If they could walk, I'm sure they'd march like soldiers, 

to a band.
From 'A Day in My Garden' by Elizabeth Gest

A post on rewarding plants would be incomplete without mention of ceanothus, which has grown into a whopping big tree, now flush with lilac blooms!

A very becoming Begonia

Following on the joy of discovering that our red begonia had survived the winter, here is a picture for posterity.

Re-potting Rhodo

Rhodo, our pink rhododendron has had a rough start with us. First we planted him in the wrong soil. It was a year before placed him into a large pot with the ericaceous compost that acid-loving plants like. There would be be annual blooms which encouraged us into believing we had done right by him, but the blooms would wilt rather soon. And there seemed to be very few new leaves and new ones were very small. At one point I was counting the leaves to check if there was anything new at all.

Feeling like we had really let down this plant, we offered to re-home Rhodo to our friends' garden where it could be better cared for. However, our friends advised us to get a larger pot, water it more regularly as the soil seemed dry and to feed it. So we bought a beautiful, large, wooden barrel for a pot and a large carton of rhododendron food that weekend.

The pot was filled with more ericaceous compost, mixed with the food and ready for Rhodo. Re-potting made us realise that the original root ball had not grown at all, which was alarming in itself. How did this plant survive this long? That probably explained the small leaves and short-lived blooms, the plant was conserving all its energy just to stay alive.

A few weeks of being better fed and watered in the larger pot, and it still seemed like Rhodo's roots were still knotted tightly and the whole plant could be lifted out of this pot so easily. This time we were advised to tease out the roots so the original soil  would be shaken off and the roots would be free to grow again. Forking the root ball revealed dry and coppery roots, dreadlocked. Decided to soak the root ball in a bucket of water for a few hours so that the stubborn soil would relent.

Rhodo has now been re-potted for the nth time with some more food and hopefully this time it will all come together and he will thrive.

Saving Seeds

Have started to save seeds from our plants this year. So far we have alliums, aquilegia, sweet peas and iris (generously given to us by a friend). We should soon have hollyhocks too.

A slice of Provence

I remember the first time we visited France in 2003. We had a copy of Lonely Planet France, with a cover picture of the lavender fields of Provence. We visited in October and though we travelled to Provence, the lavender season was long gone and there was not a glimpse of the vista we had in our mind's eye. Since then lavender has had a special place for us. The two cultivars we have in our garden are the popular English Lavender 'Hidcote' and a French lavender. The bushes have grown fuller this year, spilling over across the entire breadth of the bed.

The lush growth has meant there is little room left for the hydrangea that is struggling to make its presence felt amidst the lavender overflow. Relieved that we decided to move the buddleja, initially planted less than a few feet away from the lavender. We relocated the buddleja to the south of the garden and it has established well this year producing dense purple panicles.

The last few weeks of summer have been really hectic and there has been little time to tend to the garden or write about it. Some evenings, I would just about manage to tip a jug of water into the pots and hanging baskets, saying a silent apology to the other plants - they will just have to send their roots out in search of water. So I rejoiced when the weekend brought a fairly long spell rain and the beds got a nice, long soak-in.

Oh Sweet Pea

Spring makes way for summer and it is the turn of a whole new generation of plants to keep us enthralled.

The best surprise of all was to find the gorgeous red begonia emerge from hibernation. When this plant withered away last year, I wondered whether it was a natural process of over wintering or whether we had left it out on the patio too long and the harsh frost had got to it before we could bring it indoors. Instinct kept me from emptying the pot to house another plant. But the pot remained neglected all the same, propped against a wall near the compost bin. Sheer joy, when nine months later, I find tiny little leaves coming up for some water and fresh air.  The leaves are bigger this week and looks like we will have those beautiful blooms again.

The roses this year have been celebrating something pretty important as they make a spectacular appearance. I helped wire them to the supports and dead heading has been tough to keep up with. The floor of the rose bed is carpeted with petals. I had sprinkled a few leftover wild flower seeds from the rake 'n shake box and they have taken root and are in bloom as well. The bees sure are happy to have them wild flowers around.

The veg that we planted has made great progress and this morning we had very elegant courgette flowers. The beans are doing well too and so are the tomatoes. The carrots  have been less of a survival story and we will be lucky to get one carrot this year.

The strawberries looked fabulous a couple of weeks ago and our neglect meant that they dried up in the high temperatures in recent days. But they have been  rather forgiving and after a drink, have soldiered on.

The other joyful surprise has been utterly exquisite sweet pea in our hanging baskets. Grateful for the beauty these plants bring to our lives.

There are some signs of life from the sedum seeds and hopefully we will have a few robust plants for our front garden. The hostas this year have had very vigorous growth and there are some flowers in bloom there too. Other summer entries are the achillea which looks close to bloom in a range of pastels, the hydrangea which is competing with the lavender for room to grow and the buddleia cones.

There have been a few casualties too, but nothing that a little nurture and nature cannot fix. Clematis is growing well, though I fear for the dry leaves, are they just due to the heat or this clematis wilt? There is blackspot on the roses. And shiny red lily beetles have made a meal of our lilies and stripped them of leaves. The peach tree is full of leaves and a small little peach, with very limited traces of peach leaf curl still evident. The crabtree is now shooting out branches laden with purple berries. One branch in particular leans over the bird bath and the berries seem to make a Ribena of sorts for the birds that want a drink! I did move the branch further away eventually.

After pottering about in the garden we love to come up to the bedroom window and survey our backyard and it is looks like a happy place for all its residents.

Getting gardens buzzing

It is Chelsea week and we were glued to the telly each night on the look out for ideas and new plants for our garden.

This year the RHS launched a new program to attract more bees and insects into our gardens, called Good for Pollinators, and garden centres up and down the country will have this label on plants that do the job. Really pleased to hear this because our garden attracts loads of bees and insects and we have consciously planted varieties that are good for wildlife, also focusing on colours that insects and bees recognise, such as blues, purples and yellows. Look forward to the arrival of the Red Admirals when the buddleia is in bloom.

Of French Beans and Papaver magic

It has been so hard to keep pace with the garden this week. We have a corner of our garden that is planted with roses and practically overnight, they are full of roses and buds ready to bloom.

We also had high drama from the French Beans. The seedlings grew a few inches high and were expecting to be replanted into a larger space and, more importantly, be provided supports to climb on. When the bean shoots do not find the support they are looking for, they abandon leaf production and send out long tendrils in search of something to climb on to. Now, these pots were on a window sill with nothing but glass on one side. So, looks like the seedlings had a conference one night and decided to support each other. The next time I peeked in to see how they were doing, pairs of shoots had coiled around each other and formed two spires each almost three feet high. The protest worked! I decided I had to give these guys some support immediately and took the pots outside and placed them at the base of the cane tepee frame we had used last year that still stood in the garden. The beans were duly pacified and behaved well till the weekend when we had some time to plant them in the soil all good and proper. Who knew French Beans could throw tantrums like this!

We also have had to abandon plans to have a formal veg bed, partly due to our laziness and partly due to a paucity of creative ideas on where to create it. We will use spaces in our flower beds to plant veg. So the courgettes went in next to the beans along with stakes. In another bed, we potted some of the prolific mint to give away to friends and created space for six small tomato plants. In the same bed, we also carved out a neat little area near the lavender for the carrots. Relieved to have got these into the ground giving them a better chance of growth and survival.

Went on a shopping binge at a Garden Centre recently and Mr Macaron who gravitates towards species exotic was trying to convince me that we should load our trolley with this plant which has flowers the size of saucers and was so irresistible to bees that the bees came along with the pot to the trolley. Turns out they are hardy and will tolerate our alkaline soil, so I had no excuse not to have them. Soon our trolley was filled with two large Papavers and three Papaver Gnomes, which as you guessed, is the smaller version of the same. I have to admit that the Papaver is most expressive flower I have seen in recent times - one of Nature's Grand Designs.

The rest of our trolley included anthemis, salvia (which harks back to my childhood days, when we had an assortment of salvia in our garden), lily-of-the-valley, digitalis, agapanthus and seeds of sedum.

So we had lots more planting to do. We also inaugurated our barbecue, though I did worry whether all the heat and smoke would scare away wildlife that our garden attracts in small measure. There are blue tits who are regular visitors to the bird feeders. Spotted a beautiful ladybird while removing weeds the other day. And we watched in fascination as a collared dove picked up bread crumbs from the bird table, carried it to the bird bath in its beak and dunked it in water to soften it. Quite like how we dunk biscuits in our tea!

There is more to do, but we are exhausted! The lawn was mowed too, I noticed. Hoping that all the new plants will take to their new home and settle in nicely with their neighbours.

Over the summer, we have plans to create a little bench somewhere, clear out the overgrowth along the south wall and plant more roses in the rose corner.

Green Bed et al

We always look forward to the viburnum display in spring - spectacular though short-lived. The viburnum stands tall in what we call our Green Bed - where most of the planting is green or white. We have an old Christmas tree in here along with lupins, ferns, fatsia and hostas. The soil here remains rather moist from all the shade and the plants seem to happily co-exist. 

Elsewhere, alliums, aquilegia and wiegela bring a touch of purple and pink. I love aquilegia, has beautiful foliage as well as well as delicately formed flowers, and like the mint, it seems to have self-propogated. 

We were away recently, driving down the coast in the Abruzzo region of Italy, when we pulled our car in front of the home of an Italian mama gardening in her front yard. She came over to the fence and told us it was okay to park our car there while we hopped to the beach across the road. Before we drove away, Mr Macaron asked if we could have her picture. Here she is, her pitch fork in hand! Bless her!  

We simply cannot postpone the dig for the veggie bed any longer. The beans and courgettes have outgrown their little pots and desperately seek space and stakes. The hanging baskets look set to bloom shortly too. And the potted rhododendron, which has remain inert for ages, has gorgeous little pink buds. More on all this next week! 

Mint Treasure

Mint really does self-propogate, as this picture demonstrates. A dear friend gave us a plant from her garden last year, advising us to plant it in a pot if we did not want it to take over the whole bed! At the time I wanted all our plants to do just that and provide some ground cover. The dried up bit in the centre of this picture is last year's mint and this spring, we have had lush new growth all around it, nicely filling up space! I will have to take some out into pots and pass them on to friends this year though, before its neighbours, rosemary and thyme, protest.

Talking Tulips

Weekend's a scorcher

There is such a thing as too much sun. Ask the carnations that got parched. Hope the drink this morning will have saved it. The saplings and seedlings loved the heat I reckon. Suddenly we have lots of little plants looking all grown up.

Sowed seeds of Giant Sunflower in a pot. Saved some seeds from the African Marigold we had last year. They will need to go in the ground this weekend as well.  

Meanwhile, Mr Macaron is reading the instruction manual for the coal barbecue that will find a place in our garden - can't wait to have all sorts of everything on the coals soon.

In some distressing news, the cruel peach leaf curl has struck again. Pinched away all the infected leaves, which were many, many. The leaves seem to have lost their strength and just come away so easily. The leaves need to be removed but removing so many of them risks depriving the tree of its ability to grow. Hope a spray of the Bordeaux Mix will stem the infection. Very painful. 

The Darling Buds of April

Can't quite remember what took me to the garden this morning. Else, I would have missed seeing this gorgeous allium bud break through. That's what spring is all about, isn't it? Things popping up everywhere, blink and you miss it.

The viburnum buds have grown larger, still pale green  and in a few days they will be an incandescent white.
The lilies and strawberries are growing with a renewed vigour. And so are those muscari (grape hyacinth) bulbs planted just a couple of months ago. I had discarded a few bulbs by scattering them on the ground (as opposed to binning them as they seemed to be in a rather rotted state). Huge surprise to see rather healthy shoots and flowers from a couple of those bulbs, bulbs still on the surface of the soil with a few white root fibres anchoring them to the ground. How little it takes to support life - rather humbling to see how this universe works.

The crab apple blossom has arrived

Growing our Five-A-Day

We have finally decided to have a veggie bed this year. But first, how not to grow veg!

Two summers ago, we got some free seeds along with a gardening magazine and promptly sowed them in three seed trays. Suddenly we had to plant nearly forty seedlings  of basil, tomato and peppers. There was no space in the flower beds so I decided to pick up wooden crates from the open market and plant the seedlings in them. The crates just a few inches deep so the roots did not have enough room to grow and anchor the plants well. The basil grew limp. We got one under-developed pepper. The tomato plants literally shot out of the crates.They needed staking and I bought rather feeble stakes from the local garden centre. Soon the stakes were falling and the tomato plants along with them. There were an abundance of green tomatoes that were small and did not ripen, totally not the Gardener's Delight promised on the sachet. I eventually harvested them all for a green tomato salad. The crates remained an eye sore in the garden, the plants going gangly over winter and a certain Mr Macaron pleased at all at my half-witted attempt at veggie gardening. 


The next year, having learnt that just a few seeds would do the trick, I went about trying my hand at French Beans, Courgette and Salad and planted the seedlings in the gaps within our flower beds. The Salad leaves were devoured by slugs and snails, who also helped themselves to the tender courgette plants. But the French Beans thrived, we got loads of juicy beans, tastier than their Tesco counterparts I might add, and the proof of concept was established! 


This year, it was time to dedicate space in our garden to grow veg. Mr Macaron a wee sceptical that our garden is too small. My idea was to dig up a sunny part of the lawn for the veg bed of course. I had to remind him that Michelle Obama had the White House lawn dug up for a veg bed! Surely we can too. So now it's been agreed that we will dig up the lawn to create a bed and grow our own veg! Sowed a few seeds each of tomato, carrots, kale, french beans and courgettes. It should take two to three weeks for the seedlings to emerge, which gives us enough time to dig out the bed, backbreaking work given the unyielding clay soil we have. Once the bed is ready, lettuce and herbs can go directly in.

Talking of which, Mr Macaron mowed the lawn today and though it looks nice and tidy now, sad to see many of the yellow dandelions go. Followed by generous treat of compost for all the plants. The clematis that I thought we might have lost to clematis wilt last year are growing shoots. We created a new wire-frame against the fence to support them on their climb. The geranium troughs were brought out to the garden from the conservatory to make room for the veg seed trays. The tulips have come up with a dazzling display this year - you can see some of them here.


A lovely friend dropped by this evening and brought a pot of white carnations for us - delighted at the new addition to our garden! 

Happy Mother's Day

An earth-bouquet for our dear Mums!

In advance, Happy Mother's Day!

Made up our hanging baskets this year - with saplings of trailing geranium and sweet peas. That was rather easy - have I missed a trick? We'll see!

Woke up this morning wondering whether the slugs had made a meal of our achillea. Looks like all the frilly leaves are intact. Found a few slugs nested comfortably under the achillea pots earlier in the week and tipped them over the wall onto an unused road behind our backyard. We think this is a sort of win-win method to remove slugs. If they can climb over the walls to reach our plants again, then they have probably earned the treat!

We are in need of a bird bath to replace the earlier one. Temporarily, decided to place a bucket near the bird feeders with a couple of bricks propped in the water to form a ramp for birds that want a drink. A couple of days later there were a cluster of snail eggs in the water, that probably made the journey into the bucket along with the bricks. Intrigued and alarmed at the same time, left them to see what happens. Now there are fewer eggs. Snacked on by a pigeon that stopped by I imagine.     

Four days of sunshine

Great time to be out in the garden
Tulips, Anemone and Alliums in gear for a gorgeous display 
Several cherry blossoms in our neighbourhood - in the prettiest spectrum from the palest pink to dusky mauve.   

Received a generous gift of a pair of Oriental Poppies from a friend at church, so that prompted a trip to the garden centre for a few more flowering plants. Been messing about in the garden since. Dead-headed the escallonia and the ceanothus. Emptied the rest of the Rake & Shake summer flowering seeds on the Rose Bed.  Re-potted ten little strawberry plants into two large pots with generous spades of fresh compost - they look rather cramped already. Topped-up the achillea patch with four new saplings - spotted them in our garden centre for the first time. The achillea in our garden are from our visit to Hampton Court Flower Show three years ago and they  have survived quite well so far - despite an accidental spray of pesticide they didn't quite care for along the way. 


So pleased that the bulbs planted in Feb this year, well past their use-by date and in various stages of decay, have taken root. Shoots of grape hyacinth are now emerging at the base of the peach tree and a couple below the eucalyptus. 


Also remembered the Bordeaux Mix, to protect our peach tree from the dreaded peach leaf curl. The label on the bottle says 'Don't let diluted mix stand'. Well, ours has been standing for the last couple of years. Time for a fresh mix then. And a generous spray. Can count loads of flowers on the peach tree. Think someone said each flower becomes a fruit - which means lots of delicious peaches this summer. 


Grateful that most of our garden has survived the harsh winter. Got to plant the Oriental Poppies and a couple of crimson Hollyhocks later today.  And Mr Macaron will need to mow the lawn over the weekend.