plants « The History Interpreter

It has been a while since we’ve been up the garden path and to be honest, the garden has been a bit neglected over the summer. It has mostly been about a great deal of watering and thanks to the new wooden barrel, large capacity, water butt, I didn’t run out of water, although it came pretty close. I do worry slightly that it still smells as if I am watering things with neat whisky though. A lovely friend came and kept things alive when I was away in May, aided by me moving pots to the shady part of the garden and standing them in children’s paddling pools and the like. It turns out that I have about fifty things in pots, or rather things in fifty pots, which may be a little OTT even for a garden with very few flower beds.

A lot of time has been spent trying to weed the gravel, in which eleventy billion violets self-seeded. A few other things self-seeded as well but I allowed the marigolds and oriental poppies to stay while they flowered and there’s still a random foxglove. The patio, which makes up the majority of the garden, is another story. Anything that will grow in the cracks has and I don’t want to repoint it as otherwise there’s nowhere for the heavy rain to go. It looks, to be frank, a total mess. I do have a lethal looking implement ‘not suitable for use by under sixteens’, that is supposed to be ace for weeding gaps between paving slabs but is actually pretty useless. Much as I am not keen on the idea, I fear it will have to be weed killer. Now all I need is a dry spell to apply it, which isn’t looking like any time soon.

The large tree in a pot that was rescued and I was using to fill the one tiny gap where I am overlooked decided to die and is now no more, although the two bare twigs about nine inches long that I got from the Woodland Trust are flourishing, as is the lemon tree, which actually has lemons on, not that they look like being edible. Last year my new apple tree had one solitary apple, this year there are several, they are still a bit small, so I am hoping they get to harvestable size. A new apple tree in a pot has three apples, although the pear looks a bit sadly.

Definitely not all success stories. The Josephine Bruce rose an the new wisteria started off looking supper healthy then suddenly looked windburned, even though they are in the most sheltered bit of the garden. The rose now looks seriously poorly; too much whisky perhaps? I will prune heavily and hope for better things next year, a flower would be a start.

I guess having seventeen different plants in flower in September isn’t bad for a tiny garden, even though it does look a bit bare and drab in general. More work is needed! Some pictures of the last three months of flowers to cheer you up if it is wet, windy and decidedly wintery with you too.

It has been a while since the last gardening update but that probably reflects the time of year and the fact that I was away for the whole of September. As I hadn’t asked anyone to water the garden while I was away, with much of the garden being in pots, I was wondering what would survive a month of neglect. Every pot was moved to the shadiest part of the garden and stood in an old paddling pool and other similar, water-filled receptacles, as my fingers remained firmly crossed. I think I must have done too good a rain dance, as Devon was deluged in September, which was good for my plants, as everything survived but less good for my local friends and neighbours. By contrast, I had lovely weather in the north.

I have now almost seen the seasons round in this garden and the winter jasmine is starting to bloom again. The robin has returned to the garden and I have had solitary glimpses of a great tit and a wren. The potato crop has been harvested. ‘Minimal’ is the word that springs to mind. The geraniums have been moved into the summerhouse for the winter and the garden chair has been dismantled and squeezed into the shed.

The three large chrysanthemums in pots, that I mentioned last time, have flowered. They were sold as being white, yellow and rust coloured. I guess one out of three isn’t bad, as I have rust, paler orange and dusky pink. They are past their best now but have been glorious. A piece broke off the rust coloured one and we shoved it in a pot. It has rooted and is now flowering! I also have yellow and white chrysanthemums in a hanging basket. Other additions include a Capsicum, a Hosta and a Michaelmas daisy, which I brought back from holiday, along with some rue. The Michaelmas daisy isn’t looking too healthy but maybe it will revive.

There’s been some more moving. One of the many sheds is an unsightly plastic affair that houses the bins. It was on view from the conservatory, so we moved it to the other side of the tarmacked area. It is now on view from the converted garage room but you win some you lose some. Fortunately, this was a great deal less effort than other shed moving escapades. In the place where it once stood is a new plant trough. This was bought especially for a climbing Josephine Bruce rose. In truth, I am not generally a great roses fan, well only the chocolate sort but I particularly wanted this as it was my father’s favourite flower and it climbed all over an arch in my childhood garden. I had been told that it was also the rose in my mother’s wedding bouquet but it seems that it wasn’t bred and introduced until three years after they married, so maybe it was just a similar rose and they thought it was the same. Said rose arrived in the post as a ‘bare root’ specimen. This basically means that it has to be planted straight away. ‘Straight away’ turned out to be the coldest day of the year, when much of Devon was under several inches of snow. Fortunately my little corner had escaped with just rain, although it was pretty jolly chilly and not ideal for any kind of gardening. Now I just have to work out how to keep it alive.

Up until a few weeks ago, my garden was 100% not overlooked. Then an over the back neighbour dug up a large buddleia, giving me just a tiny corner view of their conservatory and vice versa. Just at this time, the fisherman of my acquaintance acquired an eight foot high evergreen tree thing, species unknown, in a pot, that was surplus to someone else’s requirements. ‘We could stand it in that corner’, he says. Not really my choice of plant but I thought it might serve a purpose at least for now. I particularly wanted to keep it in the pot, partly because it may be a temporary acquisition and also to stop it growing much more. The corner in question in on the raised bed. We then had to get a very heavy, eight foot high tree up on to a two foot high raised bed. Undaunted, scaffold boards were arranged to provide a slope up to the raised bed. The plan was to lay the tree down and roll the pot along and up the boards. The trouble was that the pot was not cylindrical but was noticeably wider at the top than the bottom. This, of course, means that, when rolled, it went round in circles and not in a straight line. By dint of ‘roll a little, straighten, repeat’ the tree was elevated into position. It doesn’t completely block the gap left by the buddleia but it helps. I am a fair weather gardener so it may be spring before the next gardening update.