Tag Archives: Gardening

Up the Garden Path 4

by thehistoryinterpreter

Having acquired some plants more than a fortnight ago, rain and a bad back stopped play, so I am only just getting round to planting them. I did go to a willow weaving course to make bird feeders. This was great fun but I am not convinced by the scale of some of the feeders that resulted. Unless you have fat balls the size of footballs, or ostriches visiting the garden, I  foresee a problem. They will find a place nonetheless.

Before utilising said feeders, there was a plan to move the bird table. This was inherited and had been screwed to the wall that retains the raised bed. This is a good move, as a free standing bird table wouldn’t be standing for long when the Atlantic gales set in. Unfortunately, it was positioned so that the window frame blocked my view when sat comfortably on my settee. Not to worry, we can unscrew it and move it further along. Simples. Or not, as it turned out. Unscrewing was easily accomplished but the upright had been seriously chewed by insects. As of this moment, the bird table is lying on the ground awaiting repair and re-erection. We have put up two bird boxes that have seen better days. There isn’t much scope for birdbox positioning here  but I can hope.

I have joined the RHS and they have an app (it is probably an app) where you can add your garden plants and they you get ‘helpful’ reminders about all the million and one jobs that you should be doing each month. Gratifying that I can tick off ‘cut back winter jasmine’.

Yesterday was a glorious day so time to make more progress. The previous owners had put up a wire fence in front of the actual fence, which I think goes all the way along, we can’t get to the bit behind the ‘tin’ shed yet to check. This is all very well and great for growing climbers but it has been there for years, so some of the plants have grown round it and in a few cases the fence is firmly embedded in stems that have grown through it. This adds a whole new dimension to tackling the shrubbery. Nonetheless tackle it we did and another trailer load of winter jasmine is ready to go to the tip. Still not half way though.

Things are about to get serious as operation shed has begun. With all the rain, I discovered that the tiny wooden, gutterless shed, which is very close to the house, was causing rain to run off on to the house wall. With the amount of rain we get, this is not a good thing, so shed removal, which was always on the cards, has moved up to the top of the priority list. So far, the wooden shed has been emptied ready for removal. The next step will be to move the ‘tin’ shed to take its place but a little further from the wall. This will free up the sunniest part of the garden and I can hopefully create a flower bed. This is particularly necessary as I seem to have purchased quite a few plants that like full sun. Not sure how they will go in a garden that is really not sunny but as my mum would say, they will have two chances.

I have also, whisper it quietly, broached the topic of reinstating some lawn. This was not universally well-received and I have had to undertake the cutting of said lawn. As it will only be about 4×2 metres I can cope. In the first garden I owned, we cut a lawn that size with shears for three years. Mind you I was nearly forty five years younger then. I am still tempted by a wild flower lawn that won’t need cutting at all but not sure that that isn’t a bridge too far and dubious about its success in the shade.

We’ve started the great shrubbery clearance at the shadiest end, so some of my purchases remain in pots until we reach the end where the sun does venture occasionally. I have planted some foxgloves and cyclamen and risked a lupin and a clematis. I’ve repurposed one of the willow ‘bird feeders’ as an obelisk for the clematis. A honeysuckle and campanula that I brought with me have also been transferred from pot to ground. Next step will be to call in the professionals to turn some of the paving in to lawn.

Up the Garden Path 3

by thehistoryinterpreter

A drizzly Sunday morning, what better than a gardening update? This week has seen a couple of days when it was neither raining nor cold and windy, so we’ve begun to excavate the raised bed that runs the full width of the garden. At present the garden is distinctly lacking in flower planting potential so it was important to dispense with things that were no longer capable of meaningful life. Three or four large dead shrubs were destined for the chain saw and much as I like winter jasmine, I really can’t have it taking up 30% of my growing space, so that is being drastically reduced. I have been personfully assisted by my partner in crime who has sustained a minor injury during a battle with a large dead bush when chain sawing. Fortunately, he didn’t chain saw himself, so he still has the full complement of fingers. My nose did also have an unfortunate encounter with a springy dead hydrangea branch but no one said gardening was not a hazardous activity, Two trailer loads have departed for the recycling centre and we are about a third of the way along the raised bed, with still the bed down the side, which is even more overgrown, to tackle. I am really cross that my ‘before’ photos didn’t include one that really shows the state of the raised bed but never mind. I’ve included the best of the before pictures below.

There have been more discoveries, including what my RHS app tells me is a quince blossoming away like mad. I am very excited by that. There is honeysuckle, which I do want, climbing all over unidentified definitely dead stuff, which I don’t; untangling the two won’t be easy. There is now space to plant some of the things on my ‘plants I want list’. Sadly, I am not sure that all of the things on the wanted list are going to fit but I am going to do my best. I did purchase half a dozen primulas this week. Two have been planted in a hedgehog (one of the many ornaments inherited from the previous owner – along with the elephant also pictured). The others are in a concrete planter – one of four left behind. I was going to move this to the front garden but it needs someone stronger than me on one end, as it is ridiculously heavy.

After a great deal of measuring, remeasuring and false starts, the plan I was attempting to draw is sort of done, not helped by the lack of right angles in the garden, nor me failing to realise at first that the bungalow is not set parallel to the back fence. At the very least the edges join up now. You can also totally ignore the dimensions in my previous post, where I was clearly so overwhelmed by too much gardening to be able to add up. The plot behind the house is now officially 22 feet deep and 60 feet wide, so twice the size I was claiming – 146 square yards or 120 square metres ish. You do still have to allow for the fact that the conservatory takes up a fair bit of space, compensated for by the weird shaped gap between the garage and the bungalow. Apart from a three foot deep bed long the 60 foot side and down one of the short sides, every last bit is currently paved.

Now I am excited to try to purchase some of the plants on my list to fill the spaces we’ve made. Plenty of fork wielding needed first as the soil is compacted and full of winter jasmine root. A few brave bulbs have been revealed, so I am waiting to see what they are.

Up the Garden Path 2

by thehistoryinterpreter

To be honest, it hasn’t really been the weather for fair-weather gardeners like me, or indeed any sort of gardener but yesterday the sun came out and the temperature was in double figures, so I ventured forth. The previous owner of my garden had left me numerous pots containing plants in various stages of liveliness and an eclectic selection of garden ornaments. I decided to triage these into ‘will keep’, ‘will humanely dispose of’ and ‘not sure yet’. Plant wise, there are more exciting finds as the year moves on; today’s included hellebores and miniature daffodils.

We began to trim back the winter jasmine, which is rapidly taking over the one flower bed. Other tasks for the afternoon were to deal with my many troughs of geranium cuttings which have been keeping warm in the summer house. Obviously not warm enough as about half are dead, or covered in what Mr Google tells me is powdery mildew. Sick plants were removed and what remained were rationalised into fewer troughs.

Next came the task of measuring the garden, in preparation for trying to draw up a plan. I decided to go for feet and inches, rather than anything metric as I still have to ‘translate’ metric measurements in my head. This was a test of my mathematical skills as my trusty assistant kept calling out the measurements in feet and inches, rather than just inches, which us what I wanted. Good job I know my twelve times table. The whole measuring thing was definitely not easy as I can’t actually reach some of my boundaries due to shrubbery and the many sheds. Added to that, the plot isn’t even remotely rectangular. Not only are there some funny angles created by the perimeter fencing but the garage and sheds are also not all set square. I have a load of scribbles and numbers but whether I will stand any chance of making it into a coherent drawing whose edges join up remains to be seen.

For those who are interested, very roughly, the plot is 35 feet wide by 22 feet deep, minus the space taken up by the conservatory and plus the extra space along the side between the bungalow and the house. One pretty much counteracts the other space wise. Note for some of my overseas readers, in the UK, a bungalow is a single story dwelling not a shack. If my maths is right, I have about 70 square yards, not, of course, at all the same as 70 yards squared! For those of you in foreign, about 58 square metres, which, unbelievably because it seems really tiny to me, is classed as a medium sized garden by the RSPB (Royal Society for Protection of Birds) when you submit your results for their great garden bird watch. By UK standards, particularly with a newer built property (mine was built in 2000), small gardens are the norm. On the subject of birds, I was concerned that this would be one thing I’d lack when I moved but I’ve seen eleven different varieties of bird in the garden (or viewed from the garden on neighbouring roofs or trees) so far in February, a similar number to the old garden, although very different regular visitors. Not bad considering the property had been empty for a fair while before I moved in, so, despite the bird table that was left behind, I doubt the birds had been fed here for over a year. The bird bath, another legacy from the previous owner, is very popular and that will definitely be staying.

This is a long-term project. Don’t expect swift progress!

Up the Garden Path 1

by thehistoryinterpreter

I can’t pretend other than that one of the downsides of the new house is the conglomeration of concrete and sheds that constitute the ‘garden’. In estate agent speak, it is more of a courtyard than a garden, or perhaps we just term it that valuable commodity ‘outside space’. Having left behind what I felt was an attractive cottage garden, a wildlife haven, I was aware that this was a compromise but assured myself that it could be improved. Having gone through some seriously stressful battles with the technology associated with the job I must not mention last year, I steeled myself not to walk away by promising that I would earmark the earnings to be the maximum budget for improvements to the new garden. A lesser known fact about me as that I did complete a garden design course a few years ago, so I am eager to get out the tape measure and graph paper. Caveat – I am not an avid gardener, I like to potter but gardening needs to be your main hobby and it isn’t mine. I do love to be surrounded by plants though, so a garden is a must have. Now the post-plague exhaustion is abating, I can make a start. An added advantage is that, at least today, it is a little warmer and not raining, mind you that’s not set to last.

I thought you might enjoy following along with the garden make-over journey. Here are some pictures of what I am dealing with. A long overgrown shrubbery, an eclectic selection of garden ornaments provided by the previous owner, a lot of concrete, three sheds, a summerhouse in need of tlc and a garage, all set on a very tiny east-facing plot. On the plus side it isn’t overlooked.

You are in at the beginning, as all I have done so far is add a stone seat in a random place (it won’t stay there it is just where the removal men dumped it) and twenty or so pots to those already here; mine mostly contain Mistress Agnes’ herbs. Oh and I’ve planted one white lilac that I bought before Christmas and felt would be happier in the ground.

I have a list of ‘must have’ plants, the challenge will be where to put them. I am also adverse to pulling up existing plants in any great number, although a couple do look seriously deceased and I am aware that I may need to see the seasons round to know what is here already. There does seem to be colour for all seasons, with winter jasmine and three camellias, two of which are coming in to flower. Annoyingly, the sunniest corner of the garden, let’s be honest here, the only bit of garden that gets any sun at all this time of year, is currently occupied by the unsightly tin shed. I am reliably informed it is plastic not tin but it looks like tin and helps me distinguish it from the wooden shed and the blatantly obviously plastic shed. Not wishing to have to sit on the shed roof, the current thinking is that the wooden shed will be humanely disposed of and the ‘tin’ shed moved to take its place. Still not sure how two of us move a six foot square ‘tin’ shed but my unwilling partner in crime is of the opinion that it may come apart. The jury is out on whether or not it will go back together again – watch this space. This could rival the flat-pack furniture building scenario. The other debate is to reinstate some grass, or not to reinstate some grass. I am a fan of grass, both for the smell and the wildlife potential but grass has to be mown. Fine now but going forward this may mean I need help with the garden sooner that I would with a grassless plot. Does this matter? Probably not; decisions decisions.