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Monday, April 26, 2010

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The All Seasons Gardener at 7:40 AM 0 Comments

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Sunday, April 25, 2010

Clearing a pond in spring

What a horrible, thankless, nasty task pond-clearing is! We did almost get somebody to come and do it for us, but when we talked to him he said he would catch all the fish and put them in a holding tank but that other pond life ‘had to take its chances’. We know that the frogs hang on until the last possible minute, croaking and kicking in the mud at the bottom of the pond, and then all make a break for it at once, but in different directions, which is hilarious to watch. But the newts …

The newts would run a real risk of being sucked up into his super-pump. Even if he did manage to catch them, he only used one holding tank and that could be difficult for the newts. So we decided that we would go ahead and hand bail the pond as we have in previous years, even though we weren’t sure if we had any newts to worry about.

Good thing we did! There were ten newts, including two males in their mating colours, and we were able to get them into different buckets/tanks because male newts will fight in spring.

That's the feet of OH, stood beside the pond holding his baling bucket with pride, by the way. Or possibly holding his bucket with one hand and his nose with the other, as it got pretty whiffy at the bottom there!

Oh yes, the mud at the bottom of the pond was as bad and smelly as your worst imagination – it was grim! But now the fish and newts are restored to a fresh clean home (they have to stay out for 48 hours while the neutraliser removes the chlorine and other nasties from the re-filled pond) and we have divided and replanted our marigolds, arums, lilies and pond-grasses as well as removing 90% of the water lilies and investing in a couple of new ornamental marginal plants.

Thank heaven we only have to do it every three years!

Labels: garden pond, newts, pond clearing, pond fish, pond plants, pond wildlife

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:08 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Wordless Wednesday - Forget Me Not

Labels: forget me not, mignonette, spring flowers

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:25 AM 2 Comments

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Wordless Wednesday - Katsura bud-break

Labels: bud break, katsura tree, spring shrubs

The All Seasons Gardener at 7:54 AM 1 Comments

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Monday, April 12, 2010

April Garden Photograph

So here it is. The lawn looks atrocious because it’s still got all its sand and feed and other gubbins on it to try and get it to grow well. I still maintain that we should returf but OH says that we persevere. Hmph. He is in charge of ‘lawn issues’ so what he says goes.

You can now see the pond! OH is still busy dividing pond plants and we’ve given a fair few pond marigolds, variegated grasses and iris away – once the plants are all repotted it’s going to the be the horrible job of catching the fish, clearing the sludge from the bottom of the liner, refilling the pond, letting the chemical balance adjust and the returning the fish to their home. I really loathe this job.Then we're going to go and buy new waterlilies - I want yellow ones.

You can see the pulmonaria (lungwort) showing up as a purple patch behind the pond (it’s actually as much pink as purple when you get up close), and the ribes (flowering currant) is making a splash of pink in the border on the left of the picture, but there are no bluebells at all yet and this time last year they were actually starting to go over! Everything is amazingly slow to flower this spring.

The greenhouse is full of … well, everything really! Outside, hardening off, we have leeks and Brussels sprouts, asters and wallflowers sown from seed for next year, sunflowers and cabbages. Sown outside in trays for transplanting we have nasturtiums and marigolds – the first crop of marigolds were destroyed in a single night by a slug army: they ate all the slug pellets and all the marigolds too!

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:48 AM 0 Comments

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Friday, April 9, 2010

Border rethink and bed review

Well, I said I’d have to think it out again and having met the most marvellous seed swapper this week, I’ve really been forced to think about what I’m going to do with my eyesore beds. It’s not that the idea of herbs used to create cosmetics was a bad one … more that I came home with about forty packets of seeds that aren’t of that nature, all of which I want to find a home for.

So … here’s the new idea. A red, black and white bed. Well, two beds really, as the set up is a raised bed above a ground level one. As seed I’ve got:

• Bright red Montbretia – obviously that’s a longer than usual job to grow from seed, but if it’s a true pillarbox red it would be worth it, I think.
• Variegated Honesty – that’s variegated leaves and white flowers.
• Cosmos Versailles Tetra a red/burgundy annual
• Bronze fennel
• Dwarf sunflowers
• Giant red millet and tasselled black millet
• Black cornflowers.

And already in the garden I have:

• Snowdrops and white hellebores
• Black hellebores
• Ophiopogon Planiscapus Nigrescens (aka black grass).


Now clearly I’d need some more reds and quite a few more perennials but it sounds rather exciting I think. Anybody else got any ideas what I should add?

Labels: coloured borders, garden design, montbretia, south facing beds

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:50 AM 2 Comments

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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Wordless Wednesday - Camellia

Labels: camellia, wordless wednesday

The All Seasons Gardener at 7:30 AM 2 Comments

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