Snowing on a Sunday

I say Sunday, but it has been snowing around here for almost a week with sub-zero temperatures. This morning I peeked down to our front yard from the bedroom window and captured this picture of our low-level hedge of box, the evergreen waxed leaves showing under the dollop of snow, overlooked by the  cherry blossom.

We have been away from home for a while and a clear up of winter garden debris is well overdue. I could only manage to tend to the front yard which tends to attract litter from the adjacent road. Besides the remnants of last season's growth, I removed stubs of train tickets, ice lolly packets, Jaffa cake wrappers and other assorted bits of plastic and paper. My fingers had gone too numb to remove a few dandelions that had taken root over the uncharacteristically warm December days. Later.

On an earlier weekend, I gave the garage door and front door a fresh coat of paint in mail-box red. A second coat is needed but that will have to wait till the days get warmer. The fresh paint is part of an attempt to improve kerbside optics - that, along with plants in the front yard which seem to have established well over the last couple of years. Our miscanthus has self-propogated quite widely and we see little shoots scattered all across the front yard. Will need to replant them where we want them, closer to spring, I suppose.

Later in the afternoon, with the snowfall incessant, our backyard looked good enough to eat. Think gingerbread house iced with brandy butter, meringues topped with whipped cream and lavender dusted with icing sugar.

Of woeful neglect and lots of rain

This summer has been so busy for us that we have sadly neglected our garden and hence this blog too. In that time, our garden has just grown wild and not in a particularly good way. For the last four weekends all we have done is try to make amends and catch up with nature.

We started with fierce dead heading, filling the compost bin with spent mops of buddleia, alliums, hypdrangea, roses, geraniums and lavender. Was such a shame to bin armloads of such fragrant stalks but was reminded that I am too pressed for time to even think of pot pourri or anything similar.

Meanwhile, on the much-blogged-about back bed, a ferocious form of climbing weed had taken control of the walls, the shed and even the climbers we planted a few months ago. It was an arduous task pulling them out and all I could do was the lop them just below soil surface in most cases, knowing full well that they would make a nasty comeback. After we removed the army of weeds we had to install the trellis along the wall for the honeysuckle and passion flower climbers to grow on to. 

In another bed, clematis had run amok and had also been attacked by clematis wilt. Again, they were let down by our lack of care, with the climbing support provided, rather inneffective. So I just pared them down to ground level and decided to be better prepared next year.

At the end of each weekend, we would have very little to show for results but for some turned earth and clear space, but we had to plough on, quite literally.

I think I may have rescued a few crocusmia bulbs that had come unearthed and an anthurium that was struggling to survive. The anthurium had been planted four years ago, along with three others of its kind. They were crowded out by other plants in that bed, such as the fatssia and the viburnum, and eventually only one survived. Similar tale with the crocusmia, in the shade of the ceanothus. Pleased to have given both a better chance of survival by replanting them in pots. I also found some dahlia tubers in a packet in the shed, that had started to sprout. Potted them too. Several months late. Better in the soil than in the shed.

Another tedious task has been to pinch out aquilegia saplings from practically everywhere. As much as I am grateful for self-propogating plants, I do have to say, No Thanks, to this one.

Feel somewhat redeemed after four weekends of desperate claw-back maintennance work in the garden. There are some more tasks to be done. More next weekend.

On a more uplifting note, we have the most beautiful sedum bloom, pictured here in the midst of another downpour, and the cyclamen had started to make its appearance in a very fashionable pink - just what we need as the autumn takes hold.

Oriental poppies, not so flamboyant at night

Noticed that as the evening falls, the oriental poppy (papaver orientale) in our garden pull its petals over its seed pod in the centre in a manner that says it is ready to huddle up for the night. 


Certain types of plants, the poppy included, have a mechanism called nyctinasty, that allows them to open during the day and close at night. Scientists know how this occurs, but are not entirely sure why. Flowers and plants have their own circadian rhythm that allows this opening and closing. Experiments have shown how flowers and plants can open and close in complete darkness with change in light, temperature or other external stimulus.


There are a couple of theories that surround this. One is that flowers close at night to conserve energy for pollination during the day, when insects are most active. The other is that a flower closes its petals to protect its pollen from getting wet from dew. Dry, sticky pollen is more easily transferred to and by insects, improving the plant's reproduction prospects. The latter theory must definitely resonate with our poppies given the wet summer we have had so far!

Whole lot of planting going on

The weekend saw us plant trough loads of summer bulbs and root cuttings. Some of the bulbs and tubers (irises, dahlias) were not winter hardy so we planted them in pots so they can be overwintered.

The remaining needed soaking for 3-4 hours, and after a good soak, we planted them within various gaps in the borders. Delphiniums in blue, mauve and white between the lavender. More delphiniums along with purple african lilies and pale pink primula alongside the fatsia and behind the ferns. Multi-coloured lupin in the shade of the ceanothus along with white coneflowers. A yellow rudbeckia squeezed in between the clematis. Four crimson aquilegia in the new border along the back wall. Also sharing space with the aquilegia are some pink coneflowers. The pink astrantia made it to the front border near the oriental poppies.

Egg shells and tea leaves

For those of us who are unable to have a compost heap (and there are few compelling reasons for this, including laziness), I would recommend the shortcut of saving the egg shells and used tea leaves from your weekly consumption.

My grandma used to crush eggshells into her potted roses and I started to do the same last year. Eggshells are rich in calcium, add valuable nutrients to the soil and improve drainage. Strewn around the base of young plants, the sharp edges of broken egg shells also serve as a deterrent for slugs.

Recently, during a spring clean of my kitchen I found an old ceramic teapot that has a glued-up handle making it rather unsuitable for tea, but certainly could serve as a decorative storage for used tea bags in our pantry. Tea leaves break down to provide humus for the soil and they contain trace minerals that are good for plants.

Over the weekend, my tea pot and the egg-shell container were brimming, so I emptied the crushed egg shells around our roses and tore up the tea bags around the base of our peach tree. It is important to crush egg shells as finely as possible so that it breaks down more easily into the soil. Tea bags should be torn as most tea bags in the UK are not made of degradable material.

This weekend was the definite signal that spring is here. There are daffodils everywhere you look around the country and our garden is kicking into gear as well, with blooms of hyacinth and buds of cherry blossom and peach.

We planted three young climbers against the back wall, two yellow honeysuckle and a passion flower, supported by little tepee shaped stakes which should be adequate till we can create a trellis.

Have made first step towards growing our own veg. Sowed seeds for French beans, courgettes, basil, tomatoes, carrot and kale, and a few sunflower seeds too, and have left them to work their magic in little pots on a warm window sill.

To prune, or not to prune

Come Feb-March and I am always left wondering which plants I am meant to prune. I recently came across this rather useful phrase that goes, 'If it flowers after June, then Prune', courtesy Monty Don. The rationale being that these plants flower on new growth and if you don't prune them most of their energy is spent on growing the plant rather than flowering. Also explains why the cherry blossom which flowers in April does not care for a prune! Armed with this piece of wisdom and our secateurs I set off into our garden last weekend. The buddleja went down several notches and the clematis got a bit of a trim too.

Found tender, bronze miscanthus shoots in the front bed so I transferred them to the new bed at the back garden. If they grow anything like the grasses in front they will provide quite a feature. Meanwhile, Mr Macaron gave the barbecue a good scrub down, brought out the geraniums in the troughs and put up the hanging baskets. Felt rather pleased with our efforts and the garden looked cared for after the self-maintennance spell over the winter.

Shopping at a new food market this weekend, we found a packet of bulbs that seemed just the sight for our front bed. Our front bed lies adjacent to our red door and red garage shutter and we wanted to have blooms and foliage in colours that would complement it. So we needed little persuading to buy a pack that said 'bulbs in red mix' and Sunday afternoon saw us planting thirty anemone bulbs and fifteen each of crocusmia and gladioli. The packet says 'summer flowering', not sure if that means summer of 2012 though!

The front bed now has one cherry blossom, two rows of miscanthus, box hedging, a couple of oriental poppies, couple of red roses, heucheras, holly hocks, alpine plants and lots of sedum overlooked by a hanging basket of geranium and sweet peas. Quite the planting scheme if there ever was one!

The packs also came with red dahlia tubers, a species we have had no success with previously. Held back from planting it along with the other bulbs. Plus, there's only so much red our neighbours can take from the front bed!

Wrapped up the Sunday afternoon after a top-up for the bird feeders and spray of Bordeaux mixture for the peach buds. If we are spared the blight of peach leaf curl this year, we should have lots of Peregrine peaches this summer.

Winter colour

Snow, what about the birds

Wonder what happens to the little ground-feeding birds when the ground is carpeted by over six  inches of snow. Any bare space is prime real estate, I read, and finding food is the key challenge for survival.

We had placed around a dozen suet balls in the bird feeders in mid-January. This morning we saw a couple of robins and tits at the bird table, stopping by for the high energy food and a spot of shelter.

Time to place some more food out there.

Sun in the sky you know how I feel

It is still winter, but in a good way!

Still hunkered down, mostly. But did step out to the garden for a bit, to top up the bird food and for some tidying up around the beds.

Trusty hand Bruce came over to help with planting the roses I mentioned in the last post. Planted three bare root roses in ice cold soil, topped with a layer of frost. Lopped off the dried holly hocks stems and dried stems on the sedum.

New sprouts of sedum have grown from the base of the old stems, cute as buttons at this stage.

The warmer days have persuaded the tulips and daffodils bulbs to come up early too, but they will slow down when the weather gets colder come February.

We absolutely have to have the garden looking its best this year, through every season. Have been tipped off that Hunter's Farm is the place to go for some bargains. I saw this flower planted in large troughs in one of the public squares last October and noticed that it has remained in bloom throughout the winter. Definitely the kind of hardy colour we want in our garden. Turns out this is Polyanthus Primula, or the good ol' Primrose, and it is right on top of my shopping list, along with winter jasmine and  honey suckle.

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!