Garden Centre

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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Wednesday, April 8, 2009

April Garden Showers

Not the lovely baby-shower type showers but the chilly, hearty, English summer type showers. And – for Pete’s sake, give me a break – showers accompanied by slugs!

I suppose it could be worse, it could be showers OF slugs, but really! On the very first night that I put my seedling alpine strawberries out to harden off, in trays, with clear plastic covers that I thought fit rather snugly, they had not only the showers but the slugs to contend with. To be fair, there was no choice, the greenhouse is full, the cold-frame is full, there was nowhere else for the baby plants to go, but how the Dickens did the slugs get into the seed trays?
I discovered the answer at about 11 am, while I was still trying to find enough level spaces in the garden to set out all the seedlings that need hardening off: ie leeks, nasturtiums, sunflowers, celeriac and native trees.

The answer, of course, is that just as it’s the time of year for baby plants, so it is the time of year for baby slugs. I found a slug under a piece of gravel. This was rather like ‘miniature world’ – usually you find a slug under a stone but the scaled down version is miniscule slug under miniscule pebble. I was heartless and threw both gravel and slug into the pond, where the big lazy goldfish will find the slug floating and have a happy snack. But as it was as thin as string, I do understand how it, and its evil siblings, got under the plastic lid.

For tonight I shall sprinkle salt over the table they are spending the night on, as well as using some of the slug pellets that I loathe, even if they are supposedly wildlife friendly, but I need to find a better long-term answer than this.

What’s good in the garden in April?

Today what looks wonderful is my later-flowering Mahonia – the early one has gone over: it’s at it’s best in February, but the later one is scenting the whole area beautifully. The hellebores are fading and the bluebells are just not quite there yet, so the Mahonia has the garden largely to itself for a few days. Not that anybody is complaining, mind you. At this time of year, the sight of any flower is still a surprise and when that flower has a heady scent as well as a glorious appearance, it's actually rather nice to enjoy it in its solitary splendour. Between heavy showers.

Labels: alpine strawberries, assembling a greenhouse, coldframe, garden slugs, mahonia, seedlings

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:40 AM 0 Comments

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

March Garden Tasks

This is the time to start feeding and repotting houseplants, which is something that can be carried out whatever the weather outside is doing.

If you have container-grown citrus trees, report them now, before the warmer weather causes them to start growth, but don’t feed them for another month or so so that their roots reach out into the soil and fill the pot.

This is also a good time to prune your roses, cutting out dead, diseased or damaged stems. And if you have early flowering mahonias, cut back one or two of the flowering shoots from really large plants after flowering to bring on replacement shoots from the base. You have a choice of cutting them right down to ground level or staggering the height to give a more varied shape. And you can also cut back dogwoods, willows and hardy fuchsias by the end of this month too.

Assuming, like me, you have recently come in for a deluge of rain, or even snow, try to avoid walking on the wet soil in the garden – if necessary lay down some old planks to walk on, especially to protect the lawn.

And of course, you’re already germinating the warm season vegetable and flower seeds you want to grow, aren’t you? This can be done on a garden windowsill or in a greenhouse.

Labels: David Austin roses, fuchsia, houseplants, lawn care, mahonia

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:06 AM 0 Comments

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Thursday, January 15, 2009

What's in flower in the All Seasons garden?

Well, there's the mahonia I’ve already talked about, and the first snowdrops have appeared too, along with a solitary violet, which I was too soft-hearted to pick, but I hope it’s going to be joined by a few cousins because I love the smell of early violets.

Today was the first day for a hellebore to flower in my garden. Every year I’m caught out by their appearance, they seem to go from not being around to full flower without bothering with anything in between. And once again they really are spectacular. The pure white one is always the first to appear, followed by the dusky pink and green, and last of all the aubergine coloured one will bloom.

There’s just one problem this year: and it’s a very strange problem indeed. This hellebore has appeared, and I have no damn idea what it is! I don’t remember planting it, and I certainly don’t remember ordering it. So I wonder if it’s a hybrid between two existing varieties that live in the garden, or just the result of a seed that’s got carried into the garden at some point. I don’t mind which is true – I’m very happy to find a new beauty in the garden, but I am a bit perplexed …

Final point – to see hellebores at their best, cut the flowers right off the stem and float them in a bowl of water to see the beautifully subtle colour and form at its best. Very decadent.

Labels: hellebores, mahonia, snowdrops, violets

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:43 AM 0 Comments

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

December flowering shrubs: Mahonia

It blooms in winter, provides berries you can turn into jam, offers architectural foliage, and loves the dry shade. Mahonia is quite possibly the shrub that every garden needs.

My Mahonia easily makes nine feet tall in its utterly dry and mainly shaded north facing corner of the garden. And now, in December, it towers over the bare shrubs around it, giving off a sunburst of bright yellow which tempts me out into the garden, where I’m rewarded by its strong Lily of the Valley fragrance.

The only time I get blackbirds in my garden is December, when they come to pick the stamens out of the Mahonia flower, because they love to eat them, but their depredations seem to do little harm to the flower spikes.

The blue-black berries can be gathered in spring, if you don’t mind getting a few scratches from its spiky leaves which are green in summer and red-ting but remain on the plant all year round. The berries make a great, somewhat tangy, dark jam. And finally the mature bark has a snakeskin appearance which is most attractive.

Mahonia courtesy of DH Wright

Labels: december flowering shrubs, mahonia

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:12 AM 0 Comments

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Saturday, January 5, 2008

Blatant beauty

Okay, after all that subtlety of my last post, here’s the absolute antithesis of subtle – my new mahonia. I bought this statuesque plant two years ago, when it was a measly two feet tall. It’s now peering over the top of an eight foot wall, and, for the first time, has blossomed.

I do have one little quibble about it – mahonia smells so wonderful that having the flowers eight and a half feet in the air is a bit of a waste; perhaps the crows and seagulls are getting the benefit, but I’m not!

On the plus side, the colour is astonishing, it’s like having a personal sun shining out of the darkest and mankiest corner of the garden, and for next year I have a plan (don’t tell himself – I’m not supposed to be buying any more plants) to invest in a cornus so that the bright red winter stems can make a crimson hem around the bottom of this golden flowering giant.

I should, perhaps, cut some of the blossom for the house, but I find it difficult to cut mahonia, for two reasons – the practical one is that mahonia (aka Oregon Grape) is very prickly and the stems are like wire, you need really sharp snippers and good gloves and the sentimental one is that it seems so cruel to cut any part of the plant when it’s being so brave in the garden.

Labels: mahonia, winter colour, winter interest

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:06 AM 0 Comments

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