Garden Centre

Thursday, December 31, 2009

More snow and more garden winter plants

This is such a rare occurrence in my part of the world that I’m going to have to beg you to excuse me while I share another picture of snow. It was taken two days after the previous one and, astonishingly for South East England, it shows not just the same snowfall as the picture of winter jasmine, but a subsequent light snow shower that also settled!

I was a little concerned about many local trees and shrubs as a lot of people here have never ‘winterised’ their plants as we just don’t get heavy laying snow, so I can see already that some of the more tender plants in neighbouring gardens have suffered badly, and the weight of the snow with quite a lot of strong winds, tending to easterly gales, has snapped a few overly long branches on some shrubs, notably the hydrangeas that people hadn’t pruned back for winter and a neighbour has probably lost a pieris japonica that was elderly and had damage to its central stem – now the snow and ice damage appears to have split the main stem of the plant wide open.

But most trees have coped really well, possibly because any big trees that were going to fall did so over a decade ago when we had the ‘Great Storm’. And it’s been a revelation to see how some of our berrying trees actually look with snow on them – it really brings out their true beauty.

Labels: garden in snow, hydrangeas, pieris, winter plants

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:02 AM 1 Comments

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Gardens in Snow

It’s rare for snow to fall in Sussex, UK, and even rarer for it to settle, especially on the twinned city of Brighton and Hove, but this week has been that rarity and it’s fascinating to see how snow changes the shape and contours of a garden – no doubt Scandinavian and North American readers are wondering what all the fuss is about, as they spend several weeks or even months looking at snowy vistas every year, but me this is a quite unusual perspective.

One flower that literally stood out was the winter jasmine. I’ve raved about it before, and will do again, but this was the first year that I actually got to see the flowers against a blanket of snow: in previous years, although snow has fallen, it’s never stayed around for more than a couple of hours, so observing how the blossoms coped with sub-zero temperatures and then with the thaw, was very instructive. In fact the flowers never browned at all, which surprised me, as I’d thought that on the day the snow melted they might develop brown edges. And the plant coped well with the weight of snow, being trained up a trellis and (relatively) well-pruned. I did notice some local winter jasmine that were growing over low walls that did seem to be getting a little pressed down under the snow, but today they all look fine again.

So winter jasmine is an excellent performer in snow, and I’m glad to have finally had the chance to find this out!

Labels: garden in snow, winter colour, winter flowers, winter jasmine

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:32 AM 2 Comments

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

December has little to offer florally

I’ve been looking around other people’s blogs and am miserably happy to confirm that my bloomless garden is not a singular event – everybody is struggling to find anything to smile at, plantwise, this December. The mahonia is a winter stalwart, but even it is a little rain-sloshed this year.

The virburnam is perhaps my favourite winter flower, gently fragranced and subtly coloured in snow-white with faint blushes of the lightest possible pink, it gleams from the bottom of the garden like a kind reminder that the spring will soon arrive. And alongside my holly bush, which has plenty of red berries this year, it offers a winter colour contrast that is more than welcome in these long dark days.

Labels: mahonia, virburnam, winter colour

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:37 AM 0 Comments

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Monday, December 14, 2009

December projects

This time last year I was blithering on about this: ‘At this time of year you sometimes have to search pretty hard to find things to admire in the garden. Of course, the canny gardener will have planted for that catch-all phrase ‘year round interest’ but sometimes objects of interest can be far and few between.’

Well well well. You’d definitely have to look far to find something of interest in my front garden this December – unless skips interest you, that is. Because we are having a transformation.

Our 1930s frontage has always been a bit of a problem – part wildlife garden, part burglar deterrent, generally something of a mess. We’re taking out almost everything (keeping the crab-apple tree and the palm tree, which is evidence of the fact that we are neither ruthless enough, nor imbued with the spirit of landscape gardening) and trying to start again with a lower maintenance and more attractive, but still wild-life supporting front garden. Wish us luck!

Labels: front gardens, garden landscaping

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:18 AM 0 Comments

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Monday, December 7, 2009

Christmas gifts for gardeners

Okay, the one thing I didn’t want for Christmas was something I just got: a Hippeastrum in a pot!

To be fair, there probably are a lot of other things I didn’t want, but once I saw this arrive, on the arm of a somewhat unintelligent relative, it moved to the top of the list. Why do people buy gardeners house-plants? Not only is my house entirely free of indoor plants, so that I can spend as much time outdoors as possible, I have two three-month-old kittens on the premises: can you imagine how long this elegantly top-heavy bulb is going to last under their less than tender attentions?

But once you’ve got it, you’ve got it, so I shall have to somehow cope with it. I’m going to try and keep it kitten-safe over Christmas and then follow the Royal Horticultural Society’s advice which is basically:

When flowering is over to grow the bulb on applying a balanced liquid fertiliser weekly and putting the pot in the greenhouse during the summer months, but protecting it from strong sunshine. It needs to be watered regularly, apparently.

Then in late September, you withhold watering and let the plant gradually dry out. in a cool place, such as a greenhouse or garage (light is not necessary), for one to two months before starting them back into growth by bringing them indoors into the light and resuming watering and feeding. And then I shall give the damn thing, lovely as it is, to somebody else for Christmas!

Hippeastrum courtesy of Tatters at Flickr (mine isn't this far advanced, so not worth photographing!)

Labels: hippeastrum, houseplants

The All Seasons Gardener at 2:58 AM 2 Comments

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Thursday, December 3, 2009

December garden tasks

Even though I spoke too soon in my last post, and it’s rained steadily just about ever since, I have a lot to do this month:

December is probably the optimum time to move evergreens and large shrubs that have outgrown their current position – I’ve got a hydrangea that needs relocating, and because I’m replanting it elsewhere, rather than getting rid of it, I have to find a way to get it out of the ground with as big a root-ball as possible, transplant it, and then cut it back and stake it on both sides so that it doesn’t develop root rock. The main problem is going to be digging a big enough hole in the new location without having it turn into a mini pond – there’s so much standing water in the garden that I’m sure it will all drain into the hole and rot the roots, even with grit in the base to offer drainage.

In the greenhouse there’s not so much to do, just watering plants sparingly to ensure they don’t become waterlogged and thus prone to rotting. I have half a dozen potted up bowls of bulbs to move into the cold greenhouse to encourage them to be in flower by Christmas, as I shall be giving them as gifts.

Then there’s my least favourite tasks – deciduous leaves offer shelter to slugs and snails, so they need to be lifted and bagged. As well as providing a haven for such nasty beasties, they can harbour rot and fungus and allow it to survive the winter by insulating it around the base of shrubs, trees and wooden structures.

Labels: december garden tasks, december greenhouse

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:14 AM 0 Comments

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