Category: Garden

Everything is still very damp here!

I’ve been pretty much housebound for the last week, but have managed a couple of expeditions up the garden, to pull a few carrots and put veg peelings in the compost bin. I’m surprised at how backward everything here is, compared to the past few years.

When I cut a couple of forsythia branches to bring in on New Years Day, they were all in very tight bud, though in previous years some of the flowers have been actually open. The clematis cirrhosa v. balearica has only just shown decent-sized buds, and I normally reckon on a flush of flowers well before Christmas.

Daffodils – both in the front garden and in pots outside the French windows – are just starting to poke their leaves an inch or so out of the soil, so it doesn’t look as though I’ll have the flowers in the last week of January which I had last year. Only the iberis sempervirens – perennial candytuft – seems to be on the normal schedule, with the first flowers opening just before Christmas, and gradually working itself up towards being a wonderful white froth of flowers against the dark green leaves.

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Looking out of the French window, I can see the first shoots of daffodils appearing in one of the pots – no sign yet in the front garden, when I went out in the rain to bring the bin back in after the rubbish collection.

Also outside the French window is a potted camellia, which I have my fingers crossed for! Last year, all the buds fell off. This year, although the buds have a bit of browning at the edges, I’m hoping for flowers …

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Some three weeks ago I decided to deal with the yucca in the brass pot in the front room – it had nearly reached the ceiling.

All the books say that you can simply saw the trunk off, halfway up, and it will strike out again. If you like, you can replant the top end and it will strike roots. I must say, I was extremely doubtful!

Anyway, I went ahead. The remains of the trunk were re-potted and put outside, and the top was potted in a fairly free-draining mix.

Today, there are the first signs of life in the old trunk. yippee!

My first real chance to get into the garden after last week’s gales and the following heavy rains.

The most urgent job was to sort out the raspberries, which had got flattened. Hardly surprising, as they are now rather over eight feet tall (these are “Joan Squire”: I wish I knew another variety that tastes good, bears prolifically when subject to a 2-crop-a-year pruning regime, but were slightly shorter!). A few berries just starting to go orange, so should be picking a bowlful early next week.

The Black Russian tomatoes, which had outgrown their stakes, have half their top third folded over by wind. I doubt the few tomatoes on the damaged bits will ripen – if there’s no sign of them doing so in the next couple of days, I’ll pick, stew, and freeze them as green tomatoes, to be added to the mix when I make green tomato chutney at the end of the season. The other two varieties have escaped damage.

In the flower garden, the gladioli suffered, so I’ve cut them off and now have them in a vase on the coffee table. Most other things seem to have survived OK.

Another batch of spinach beet has run to seed, and been pulled up. The kale has suffered insect damage – hopefully it will sort itself out! Courgettes continue, as do runner beans and chard. I’ve just planted out – about six weeks too late – the final batch of leeks, so fingers crossed for them!

The strawberries are starting another bout of flowering – sadly, the fruit will probably ripen while I’m away on the Broads in the first week of September. In the bathroom, the “peter pepper” chilli has produced four fruit, despite having been persistently covered in aphids.

The washing line runs over the lawn, so I’m waiting for washing to dry before doing the mowing and strimming. And I must have a final go at the pond pump, though I fear that it’s completely dead. I’ve had a lot of trouble with baby water-snails getting through the filter and jamming the pump solid, so I think it’s finally expired. £70 for a replacement pump/filter/UV unit, sadly, and a fair bit of grovelling about to route the electrical cable safely. The “wildflower bank” behind the pond has been flattened by storms, but I’ll leave it for another three weeks so that any possible seeds can ripen and be shed. Hopefully, the assorted plug plants and seeds I’ve put in there over the past couple of years will manage to establish themselves.

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