Garden Centre

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Rain tasks

Things not to do when rain is forecast:

Hang out the washing
Plant out tiny tender edelweiss seedlings
Fill up the pond from the hosepipe
Leave your wheelbarrow out, right side up

Things to do when rain is forecast:

Set out thirsty plants for a quick drink
Check the downpipe is in the water butt
Cover up delicate and water sensitive plants and possessions
Take in the washing!

Guess which lot I did?

Yup, my wheelbarrow is swimming in three inches of water, the container of wildlife friendly slug pellets had its lid off and is now bluish soup, and my watch is fogged with water because I took it off to prune something and left it on the lawn.

But never mind! The garden needed the rain and during the second cloudburst I sheltered under the apple tree and gazed at the fatsia, which looked rather menacing and strange in the stormy light. Fatsia is an odd plant, but I like it, especially in the rain.

Labels: fatsia, june tasks, rain

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:20 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

After the Rain

While November probably brings the wettest, darkest and most horrible days of the gardening year, as in the famous poem by Walter de la Mere (no not the one by Thomas Hood, although that’s famous too)

There is wind where the rose was,
Cold rain where sweet grass was,
And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.

October can offer some nasty surprises too. Yesterday’s rain beat everything in the garden flat – the bamboo is lying down, which is not a huge surprise, but the photinia is flat too, and that is unexpected! Of course, a lot of the garden plants that have suffered were previously at least partially under the canopy of the monstrous apple tree that we cut back at the end of summer, so this has been their first real exposure to strong weather without a protective umbrella.

Fortunately we’d cut back the plants on the pond margin, or they’d all have either toppled over and bent over and spread vegetable matter across the water surface – that’s not a problem in summer when insects, fish and other forms of biological action will destroy plant detritus very fast, but in winter those fragments of leaf and seed will just sink, becoming rotten and contributing harmful gases to the pond, which can build up fast if the pond freezes over. Our timing was just about right for that, at least.

So this may be the last summery picture – my brave nasturtiums shaking off the rain.

Labels: autumn colour, autumn storms, bamboo, garden ponds, photinia, rain

The All Seasons Gardener at 12:09 AM 0 Comments

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