Garden Centre

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Winter’s end garden beauty

Sometimes it’s not the new growth in a winter garden that creates the most loveliness but that which is fading and dying and vanishing away.

I’m really not a fan of hydrangeas – probably because I grew up on the Isle of Wight where they, along with rhododendrons – were everywhere, in massive and unmanageable profusion as a result of their enthusiastic planting by the Victorian’s, who tended to summer on the island and to like their big shrubs and fern gardens and grottoes. Familiarity seems to have bred contempt in me!

However, this one hydrangea does survive in my border, just so that it can produce this incredible display in January and February – I cut it back in March as I’m not at all fussed about getting a good early display of flowers, what I like this the fragile intricacy of its winter disintegration.

And the **** pond pump has packed in again this morning! It seems that the gurge is fine, but we need a new connector … so I’m ringing the distributor and asking them to send one – recorded delivery this time!

Labels: hydrangeas, winter interest

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:27 AM 3 Comments

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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 0 Comments

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Thursday, November 13, 2008

Gardening failures

We all have them, don’t we? Although it seems that they are something nobody likes to talk about: like stress incontinence and affairs outside marriage!

A recent survey claims that people don’t just buy Marks and Spencers food and pass it off as their own dinner party creation, they also buy similarly ‘expert’ plants and con their friends that they grew them. I do know one lady who can’t produce blue hydrangeas in her garden because the soil is alkaline. On the rare occasions when she is visited by her overbearing mother-in-law, she actually goes out and buys a blue hydrangea plant and sticks it in her shrubbery – there’s a space left just for it. So why does it have to be a blue hydrangea, I asked her? And the answer was that she personally hated hydrangeas in any colour, but her mother-in-law loved the blue ones and couldn’t grow them either, so she thought the investment was worthwhile to make the other woman green with (blue) envy. And as she’s given away all the hydrangea bushes as soon as mother-in-law leaves, and I’ve got two of them, I have to say that her failure is my success!

But the bulk of our failures result from having big plans and small skills. We invest in orchids or cactus or tender alpines or rampantly invasive water plants ‘because they look lovely’ and then, when we don’t put in the time necessary to maintain them, the result is failure.

But however bad we are at what WE do, this picture should make us all feel better. Somebody put that ladder up there to prune that Virginia Creeper, once upon a time … at least we’re not that bad!

Labels: alpines, cactus, hydrangeas, orchids, virginia creeper

The All Seasons Gardener at 7:57 AM 0 Comments

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Sunday, November 9, 2008

Mulching autumn beds

There are several tasks that should be done in November, no matter how little we like the idea.

Where you have empty flowerbeds, you need to mulch them for winter, because even the best and flattest of beds can experience soil erosion in the wind and become compacted under the pressure of rainwater and snow. Mulching prevents both these things happening and also adds organic matter to the soil.

It’s also time to terminate the adventurous weeds that have germinated as a result of autumn rains because getting them out with a hoe right now is fifty times easier than trying to hand weed them out in spring when the are out-competing the plants you want to preserve.

Cut back your peonies all the way to the ground (even if they are having a last flush of flowers) – especially if you live in a frosty area and then mulch their crowns so frost can't get in and kill the plant. It's also good to prune late summer and autumn-flowering shrubs like Buddleia and hydrangea now, because if you don’t get round to them you’re going to have to wait until late February to cut them back. Roses should be taken back to around two feet so that winter winds can’t whip their stems and cause damage.

And my least favourite November task: pulling up the snapdragons and nasturtiums that have begun to die back, because it’s the final admission that winter is really here!

Labels: autumn mulching, autumn shrubs, hydrangeas, peony, roses

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:53 AM 0 Comments

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Friday, February 29, 2008

Garden plants: Hydrangeas

As Mother’s Day approaches, there are more and more displays of astonishing loveliness like this appearing outside flower shops and garden centres. Hydrangeas, like these, are forced into an unnaturally early bloom by placing them in temperatures below 65°F for six weeks to bring out the flower buds, then the leaves are stripped from the plant to force growth, and the plants are put into complete darkness between 33° and 40° for another six weeks! It does sound a bit like plant cruelty, doesn’t it?

And one real problem with receiving such glorious flowers as a gift is that hydrangeas are not keen to flower again after such treatment. To get them back into the flowering habit, you can prune the shoots back after flowering so that just two nodes (pairs of leaves) remain on each shoot. Then repot in a mixture of garden soil and compost and grow in dappled sun. Their natural condition is woodland, so it’s good to try and recreate that environment, where they are protected from strong winds by trees, and receive sunlight arriving through the overhead canopy.

Pruning isn't essential, especially in young plants, but once you see a lessening of the flowering, or the plant gets too big for its space, you can undertake some cutting back in spring as new shoots appear, removing one-third of the older, less productive stems at ground level and cutting back flowering stems to a strong pair of buds to maintain shape. Left unpruned, hydrangeas will continue to bloom but the size of the flower-heads will be reduced by the overcrowded stems. There’s one exception to this rule: Hydrangea paniculata needs to be cut back completely each spring.

Labels: caring for forced plants, hydrangeas, pruning hydrangeas

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:16 AM 2 Comments

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