|
GARDEN BLOG
|
This
garden blog is about the vegetable and flower garden, garden
plants, landscaping, gardening ideas, battles with garden pests
and everything nature does to thwart you. |
JANUARY 2012
WELCOME INVADERS
The first flowers to appear each year in our garden came to us originally by water. These snowdrops, presumably from a garden up-stream, pop up in a small riverside paddock which used to be flooded regularly. After the very welcome flood prevention scheme was constructed to protect Bruton, the paddock is no longer regularly submerged, but the snowdrops remain and proliferate to cheer us up in the dark January days. Last year I passed some on to a local friend, so I hope they are coming up for her too. It is nice to think of these plants continuing on their travels, this time by human rather than watery agency.
GETTING ON WITH IT
It’s January, so it must be rose pruning time. Let’s see: I’ll need a safety ladder, secateurs, loppers, a pruning saw, leather gloves, and endless stamina and patience. Many of our roses do not seem to have had much of a dormant season, but need to be pruned back anyway before their growth really gets going in the spring.
In a spirit of strictest honesty in this Garden Diary, I must disclose that pruning has only just started.
 I am currently tackling a climbing rose, Parkdirektor Riggers, which gives a firecracker red display on one of our pergolas with both its flowers and hips. I wonder whether it was named after a lanky red-headed German park-keeper? An hour or so of wrestling with its long thorny branches is just the thing on a sunny winter afternoon - if you’re a masochist, that is.
 I THINK YOU’LL FIND THIS IS MY GLOVE NOW
One of the things that I have been doing other than getting on with the rose pruning is acquiring a gardening hindrance in the form of Betsy, a 10 week old chocolate Labrador puppy. Not only is she a distraction from the serious business of farming and gardening, but when I do get out there she makes every effort to stop me working. Even ten minutes of light weeding is an unrealistic goal. Ah well, at least she’s photogenic, and her naughtiness is surpassed by her charm and affectionate nature.
|
|
DECEMBER 2011
KEEPING LAST YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
I write this tucked up inside next to a cosy wood stove, watching the first snow flurry of the year fall on the garden. This time last year we had been at war with the white stuff for some time, and were caught on the hop with planting the spring bedding, which didn’t finally go out until early January. This time resolutions were made that it would all be in during November - and it was in by the 17th. Phew. Until quite recently I have been gardening without a coat on, which is a far cry from last season’s dogged planting in much chillier conditions. The penstemons and some of the climbing roses, in particular, do not seem to be aware that it is December. Rather like a teenager refusing to acknowledge that it is raining and walking to school without a coat on, they are just flowering on regardless.
Once the spring planting is done, as a gardener and garden diarist I am twiddling my green thumbs about what to do and write about next. It could be pruning the roses, but given the relatively mild conditions their growth is not yet dormant. Best to wait.
DO GARDENERS HIBERNATE?
I have had plenty of non-gardening tasks this winter, as we have also taken on the running of the farm on Alison and Brian’s retirement. My husband Greg and I have moved into the main farmhouse with our children, and Mum and Dad have moved into the cottage where we previously lived: all this whilst continuing to run our various businesses and looking after our 200 sheep. Juggling all of these existing and new responsibilities is exciting, exhilarating and terrifying in roughly equal proportions.
A RARE TRIUMPH
During these shorter days the inside tasks seem to multiply and the time spent outside is short and sweet.
 One successful innovation this year has been in the vegetable garden. Last winter our leeks were ravaged by the dreaded leek moth, which renders them slimy and disgusting (although my children would assure you that leeks are already slimy and disgusting). This terror of the vegetable patch, once present, lingers on in soil and vegetable debris in its pupal stage and will attack plantings in subsequent years. It has the Latin name of Acrolepiopsis assectella, which takes almost as long to learn to pronounce as the pupae last in the soil.
We have side-stepped the leek moth this season by planting another patch in a different part of the farm, which has so far escaped their attention. Our own delicious leeks are available on demand once again. The drawback of their new siting is that it is a lot further away from the kitchen, so you have to really want to eat leeks to go and get one. Hopefully the effort will be made on Christmas morning and we, or at least the adults, will be enjoying them as part of our family lunch.
|
|
NOVEMBER
2011
EIGHT YEARS OF GARDENING TALES FROM
ALISON
It’s garden diary writing time and the usual panic – what can I write about? It’s not that nothing was done in the garden, far from it. Did some weeding. Tied up a few plants. Sowed some seeds and they came up. Not exactly riveting stuff. If I’m lucky the dog does something cute, or a garden visitor makes a barmy or disconcerting comment. My all-time favourite visitor remark still has the power to inflame. She said: “Aren’t you lucky not to have any weeds in your garden.” Lucky? Lucky? Nothing to do with luck. On a different garden open day I was bent low weeding in a flowerbed when a voice just behind me said: ”I suppose you want me to tickle your tummy.” I shot upright to see the visitor with the cat, who was in her Look At Me pose, on her back with her legs in the air. A question asked by two boys just before a wedding here credited me with more than usual gardening prowess. They were standing by the coconut shy set up to amuse wedding guests. As I trundled past with a barrow of weeds they asked me if I’d grown the coconuts.
This is the last time I shall fret about what to write for the local
paper and the website garden blog, as I’m passing the garden on into the capable gardening-gloved hands of my daughter, Elaine. We’re swapping houses on 1 December, when she will move into the farmhouse with husband Greg and the three children and we will move into the smaller cottage next door. It will be a relief to pass on the responsibility for this labour intensive garden, where we need a fine display of flowers every week for the weddings – no peaks and troughs. Maybe in future I will be able to sit down in the garden and enjoy it, without seeing jobs everywhere, gulping down my tea and knuckling down. Elaine is happy to continue with the garden diary, and her first stories are here. Goodbye
from Alison & Brian.
AND THE START OF A NEW CHAPTER WITH ELAINE
And hullo from me, Elaine, the successor to the Garden Diarist. I shall do my best to fill Alison's shoes in this, as in other areas. She is a hard act to follow!
I have been following her example and setting the next generation to work in the garden. My eldest son had an extra week off school at half-term and was promptly assigned numerous gardening tasks, including dredging up excess water plants from the pond. He declined the use of waders with disdain, then found the deep bit with both wellied feet in turn. He was distracted from his chilled and soggy feet by the plentiful wildlife turned up by his explorations. This year's frogs and a small newt were duly examined before being returned to a suitably weed cluttered habitat.
It was lovely to have him as company in the garden while I worked on getting the spring planting done. This comprises a thousand tulips, umpteen wallflowers, and a regiment of forget-me-nots, all of which are proportionally allocated between the beds and planted out according to carefully placed sticks. This is the theory, anyway. In practice I sometimes set about planting and then my mind will wander....new plans for the garden next year....Christmas shopping lists....what to have for supper.…
 Consequently, not once, but twice this year I realised on getting to the end of planting up a bed that I had forgotten to plant out one of the plant types, and had to uproot what I'd planted and replace it. Yes, I forgot the forget-me-nots.
This forgetting may have been my sub-conscious gardening self trying to wriggle out of the whole forget-me-not planting process, which is not an easy one. At the risk of sounding like the advertisement for a certain supermarket, the Gants Mill forget-me-nots are not those tiddly efforts available at garden centres. These forget-me-nots are self sown seedlings rescued and grown on over the summer in the veg patch to nearly a foot across. More a shrub now than a plant, when dug up together with their rootball they fit only two or three to a wheel barrow, and weigh 10 or 12 pounds each. "I've had babies lighter than this!" I mutter as I heave another monster out of the barrow.
|
|
OCTOBER
HAPPY TO BE NUDE
Obeying Monty Don I cut all the leaves off our polytunnel tomatoes in mid September. Would they ripen or sulk? Despite being unable to photosynthesise, they have indeed ripened steadily and in mid October we are still trying to keep up with them. Picked and eaten for lunch still warm from the sun, their flavour is one of the great joys of life. Soon enough we will have to go back to shop-bought winter tomatoes, which resemble home-grown only in that they are wet inside and coloured red.
HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW
The flowerbeds were a glorious mass of colour and the weather hot and sunny when we started chopping everything down. As usual Bramble kept close to the secateur operator checking for froglets. One family member reckons gardening with her is like cooking helped by a toddler. All the dahlias were dug up and labelled (guess how the Practical One and I shared out these two jobs).
After a day to dry off, the tubers were stored in the dungeon under the mill.
 The beds are being dug over to make a space for a thousand tulips and hundreds of wallflowers and forget-me-nots waiting in the veggie garden. The delphiniums have been cut down and tidied up. Liquid slug killer was poured over to deal with the underground little devils, then the crowns were covered in sharp sand to repel overland invaders.
HAVING A BALL
At the end of our wedding season we hold a charity ball in the marquee, which means I must make flower arrangements for each of the fifteen tables. To keep costs low I saved fifteen yellow margerine pots, thinking I would use yellow paint to cover up the wording on the outside. Would you believe it took six coats of emulsion to cover up the dark blue lettering of Utterly Butterly? I made the first arrangement with four dark red Virginia creeper leaves on the outside hiding the margerine pot, then a dahlia at each corner and one on top, plus odd bits of greenery. I was then able to enlist the help of other family members young and old to do the rest in the same way. The Practical One called it Flower Arranging by Numbers.
|
|
SEPTEMBER
2011
IN THEIR PRIME, AND BEYOND
You sow seeds with the best of intentions. They grow and you watch their progress eagerly and with pride. They fruit and reach the peak of perfection just when you take your eye off the ball. This is a
 familiar scenario with courgettes, but we’ve never grown a giant cucumber before. It weighed in at four pounds, looking as if it could torpedo a battleship. The climbing beans too got away from us, despite planting fewer and staggering planting. There’ll be a lot of dried bean casseroles this winter.
VORSPRUNG DURCH TECHNIK
A visitor enquired the name of the scarlet climbing rose which covers a pergola and flowers from June to October non-stop. I told her “Parkdirektor Riggers”. She replied: “The Germans certainly know how to produce disease resistant varieties. It’s the same with their washing machines.”
NAKED AS NATURE NEVER INTENDED
Monty Don told viewers it was time to strip all the leaves off the tomatoes, to give the fruit a better chance of ripening. He claimed the plants would be fine, so the deed was done. They do look very odd. I walked along the nine varieties of tomato plants I had grown, eating one of each. I was fed up with tomatoes before the end of the taste test, but it was clear I should continue to grow old favourites Gardeners’ Delight, Moneymaker, and Ferline, plus Supersweet 100. I had spent a whopping £5+ on a grafted tomato plant. It grew a little taller than the rest, but you can buy a lot of tomatoes for £5, and it was a poor investment.
THE SCRUMPING LAMB
We have a second vegetable patch next to the mill, bordered by a sheep field. There is a prolific Sunset apple tree in it. The big lambs have found their way in to get at the windfall apples, and to trample the leeks. The Practical One kept repairing the fence, adding sheep hurdles to increase the fortifications, but one young blighter kept penetrating the defences. After a series of barricade failures the Practical One came in with a gleam in his eye, announcing he had solved the problem. He’d moved the lamb to another field.
|
|
AUGUST 2011
CONTINUING FROG MENACE
I hoped that by now I could go back to the old routine of gardening with my faithful dog lying nearby relaxing in the sun. Weeding and pruning is supposed to help you unwind, but now it involves constant vigilance, shouting and discipline. The flowerbeds are home to many tiny frogs and Bramble lies at the edge of the lawn with her nose flat down between plants, hoping to detect hopping movements. She knows she isn’t allowed on the flowerbeds, but will inch closer in among the plants until they get bent. There is then a lot of yelling and the chastened dog will behave for a short time until frog lust overcomes her better judgement. It’s a shame to shut her in the house, but I am not fond of opening her mouth to extract a glistening lively froglet. They are not too pleased either.
READING BETWEEN THE LINES
The picture in the plant catalogue had tempted me before – lovely rosy pink foxtail lily spikes. After many years of watching plants die or misbehave, I thought it best to make some enquiries. The first surprises were the flowers on Google Images, which were off-white rather than rosy pink. The second surprise was in a gardening article on a newspaper website which likened them to “shooting stars that dominate for the briefest of moments”. The catalogue had stated that they flower in June and July, which implies an adequate flowering season. OK – so instead of pink flowers for a reasonable time, you get off-white flowers for a very short time. Once again, thank you to the internet for saving me a lot of trouble.
GLORIOUS IN THE MORNING
There are not many clear bright blues in the garden: delphiniums, some salvias and veronicas, gentians, agapanthus and bedding lobelias. The most stunning iridescent blue is Morning Glory. I have grown it on an obelisk with another climber, orange Mina Lobata.
 Most years I plant it out too early. Even when the frosts have finished it hates cold nights in early June. This year it has romped away and produces amazing flowers, even on grey wet mornings. With its twining habit and heart-shaped leaves it looks very similar to another altogether
more downmarket climber. I’m glad it is now in flower, so visitors will
stop asking about the convolvulus.
NOT MY LOVELY BUNCH
On this wedding day I had to stop working in the garden by midday, so I weeded and pruned all morning. Not only would the garden fill with wedding guests (who don’t expect to see thistles) but we were open the following day for the National Gardens Scheme (who are even less impressed by thistles). The bride and groom had arranged games for the guests, including a coconut shy. Two boys had come early with people decorating the marquee, and were thrilled to find the stack of coconuts. They realised I was the gardener and stopped me as I trundled past with a barrow of weeds. They must have been impressed by my gardening prowess, as they asked me if I had grown the coconuts. Alas, I’m not that proficient.
|
|
JULY 2011
LADY’S MANTLE BOUNCES BACK
Gardeners watch Alchemilla Mollis with increasing anxiety for the first signs of browning in its fine froth of lime yellow flowers. Any hesitation in cutting them all off and your garden is filled with seedlings. We use it as edging for a little bed, which the Practical One has now cut down. As he progressed round the bed cutting all the lush damp foliage to the ground he realised that little frogs were keeping ahead of him. Reaching the last section there was quite a concentration of them, which complicated the pruning no end. The dog had to be shut inside as they hopped off to safety. Within a week the Alchemilla was covered with a good sprinkling of little leaves.
 TRY HARDER, COUNTESS
When choosing a clematis for an arch, it pays to read the label. Will it cover the arch neatly without producing a lumpy topknot or, worse, leave a gap at the top? My aim was to have the row of four arches all in flower at once with good do-ers. Mauve Perle d’Azur and purple Jackmanii produce a reliable mass of flowers, but the top shoots when they meet must not be allowed to stick up. Pink Comptesse de Bouchaud is supposed to grow to 10 feet, but still does not quite meet in the middle, giving the arch the appearance of male pattern baldness. Next year I shall drench her in fertiliser to make her go the extra foot.
FLOWERS FOR NEXT SPRING
When you pull the old wallflowers out, that’s the time to sow the seeds for next year. Growing since early June in tiny fibre pots, the seedlings were big enough to plant out
six weeks later. The Practical One was consulted about what narrow strips in the veggie patch were free. Peas and broad beans were thrown out and potatoes dug up to clear a space. Thankfully the tender seedlings were planted out at the start of a spell of cool wet weather.
OFF TO HAMPTON COURT
The weather forecast for our day at Hampton Court show was sunshine and showers. In other words, be prepared for everything. Caught in a downpour on my way from the shelter of the flower marquee to the rose marquee, my trousers were splashed up to the knee, and felt very cold and clammy afterwards. Despite this, it’s the best of all the shows, in a superb site. We went with friends, one of whom used to work on a plant stand at shows, and had some good tales to tell. She related how a visitor assured a friend that the stand was selling a Gonorrhoea, and to make it quite clear, pointed to a Gunnera. Another old gentleman asked about a plant variety and was told it was Achillea Belle Epoque. He looked puzzled, and exclaimed, “That’s a funny name – Belly Pork.”
|
|
JUNE 2011
RISE AND FALL
The clump of three fat seedlings were a surprise when they came up in the polytunnel. Nothing had been planted there but they were obviously vigorous plants. I left them out of curiosity, feeling a bit like the mother of Jack and the Beanstalk. They grew fast in the same spot, so I thinned them to one plant, and stood back. It was 18” high before I recognised it – it was a sunflower. The only possible source of seeds was from last year’s flower heads, dried in the greenhouse 15 yards away. A mouse or squirrel must have carried the seeds all that way before indulging in some freelance horticulture. Growing under the sloping side of the polytunnel, the sunflower soon hit the roof. It was a fine plant, so I started on the misguided task of creating a bend in the stalk with a cat’s cradle of string supports. Finally recognising the futility of this, in exasperation I yanked the sunflower out of the ground it and flung it on the compost heap. Should have done that at the start.
BURNING HEARTACHE
The Oriental Poppy on the stand at the Bath & West Show could be seen from afar - a clear, warm, mid to deep candy pink, called Burning Heart. It was a Must Have moment, but I fought it. I had no room for it, and the colour would kill all the other pinks in the garden. I walked all round the show, not buying it. What strength of character! Time to go back to the car, and I wavered. Such an unusual colour – never seen it before – probably won’t again – only £5 – bound to regret it – go on! Reader, I bought it. A few days after planting, the single bud flowered and clashed appallingly with the
pink clematis behind it. I had to dig it up again, then wandered the garden searching hopelessly for a new place with the uprooted impossible poppy in my hand. I had feared I would have regrets about this plant and I did. I regretted buying it.
THE CRAZY SUMMER OF 2011
I know when stuff flowers in the garden. I tell bridal couples what will be out on their big day. This year the May tulips came and went in April; the roses are weeks early; the July day lilies have been in flower since late May; the mid-July clematis are coming out in mid-June. Thank goodness for the dahlias, kept dormant in store during the hot spring, and not potted up until early April. They should provide a good display in late summer when everything else finishes a month early. I have managed to propagate a few precious ones, not by taking cuttings in the approved way, but by letting the parent plant grow until it needed pinching out, then potting up the pinched-out bits. It’s always satisfying to get something for nothing.
FISHY LAMENT
The party of 8 year olds were learning about the wild life in the river here, such as caddis fly larva and crayfish. The Practical One was just talking about otters coming to catch fish by night when one of the children found a fish skeleton with just the head and tail on. They were fascinated and wanted to take it back to school, but (strangely) this was vetoed by the teachers. The Practical One hastily tossed the fish skeleton into the nettles but this did not go down well with the children, who thought it should have a proper funeral. To de-fuse the situation the Practical One suggested that just one child say a few words. Here is what was said: “This fish has been a very good fish, just living in the river by itself. Now it has provided a nice meal for the otters, so we hope it has gone to fishy heaven.”
|
|
MAY
2011
SEVEN DAYS BEHIND
Gardeners really shouldn’t go on holiday. We had chosen the mid-May date with care. The spring garden should have been coasting to a close with late flowering tulips giving their final performance and the tops of the wallflowers still colourful. After a week we came back relaxed and unwound to find the warm spell in early spring had finished them all off early. The beds were a mass of stalks and seedheads. We had two days before the next wedding to transform the most visible beds with potted up dahlias and tender plants from the polytunnel. So much for relaxed and unwound. In the lull between the flowering peaks of the spring garden and the post-frost summer garden we rely on clematis, irises and oriental poppies for colour. The huge flowers of the oriental poppies are stunning and make us forgive the appalling behaviour of the plant itself. They need support while small or they grow up and fall over putting a right-angled bend into the flower stalks - not a good look. They take up a lot of room, then when cut to the ground after flowering, leave a large gap in the bed, which has to be filled by annuals.
CONTAINER PLANTING – A WELLY GOOD IDEA
You can always tell a farmer’s wedding from the decorations. It could be milk churns overspilling with flowers. At our last wedding the tables were all named after breeds of cattle. At the end of each row of chairs facing the wedding gazebo was a green wellington boot filled with petunias. The bride told me her mother had drilled drainage holes in them before filling them with soil and planting up. I said I hoped they were all old leaky wellies but she told me her father’s new ones had been included by mistake.
WHERE TO ALIGHT?
You never know if a garden sculpture is going to be a victim or an aggressor. When choosing the right spot to display it the first priority is artistic – will the site show it off to best advantage? The second consideration is whether it will blind, crush, trip or maim anyone, particularly children. A visitor with a champagne glass, canapé and varifocals can blunder into sticking out bits. The third consideration is whether the children of parents distracted by champagne glasses and canapés will be tempted to kick rounded shapes or tinker with delicate constructions. When Fiona Campbell brought her lovely steel and wire dragonfly to be displayed in the garden, the only site to tick all three boxes was on the island in the pond. While gazing at the sculpture glinting in the sun I saw a real dragonfly checking it out and flying off. I can imagine it telling its friends: “You wouldn’t believe the size of this bloke I saw…”
|
|
APRIL
2011
 TULIPS ALREADY?
The poor old catalogue compilers can only do their best. They confidently state a tulip variety flowers in May, but know deep down that anything can happen with funny weather conditions. They were certainly funny this year – appalling winter cold then a very warm dry spring. All the little beggars burst into flower weeks early, throwing tulip festivals all round the country into confusion. In our own garden the display is fantastic, but there is no-one to see it until weddings start at the end of the month. Of the thousand tulips planted, the red, yellow and orange ones are teamed with same-coloured wallflowers and white forget-me-nots. The pink and purple tulips are interplanted with wallflowers in these colours plus cream, and deep blue forget-me-nots.
DAHLIAS - ON YOUR MARKS
We give a lot of thought to devising the most labour-intensive possible way of gardening. Our aim is to get the garden in full flower from late April to the end of September and this means
 plenty of work. Some folks leave dahlias in the ground. (Hope they come up for you this year.) Ours spend half the year in the garden, then are dug up and stored. The tulips and wallflowers spend the other half year in their place in the flowerbeds. On 1 April I start potting up the tubers, so they can be planted out after the frosts. Despite our efforts to protect them this winter, the tubers were in the worst condition I’ve ever seen, with a few cherished varieties lost. I have filled the cold frames and much of the polytunnel with dahlia pots. There is also plenty of weeding to do in the garden where Button, the new cat, always takes a close interest, sometimes a bit too close.
WINTER LOSSES
Caught out by the bitter winter I had to spend good money replacing penstemons a year ago. The lesson learned, I have overwintered cuttings in the polytunnel. The dead plants have been pulled out; the labels with their cheery pictures of interesting pretty varieties have been slung in the bin. The cuttings are now planted out, and with great glee I worked out how much money I would have spent buying so many strong plants in a garden centre. Surely we won’t get such a vicious winter again for a bit?
FLATTERING MATERNITY WEAR
Lambing was finally over. The last stragglers had produced their lambs and the Practical One could move on to the next seasonal tasks. While checking the supposedly barren ewes in the shed he found another lamb. When asked why he did not know, he pointed out that the mark from the scanner had worn off, and as further explanation added, “She was very woolly.”
|
|
MARCH
2011
BLANKET BAN
There was something wriggling on the end of the rake. I was trying to strain out blanket weed from the pond without disturbing the frogspawn and looked carefully at each rake-full before dumping it in the wheelbarrow. The blanket weed was squirming about and I had clearly trapped a frog between layers of weed. It swam away quickly when returned to the pond and I increased my vigilance with subsequent scoopings. The barrow filled up with weed, the pile subsiding as the water drained out to the sides. Then in this puddle at the side of the barrow a frog popped his head out, looked at me and dived back underwater into the weed. It had clearly made the mistake of failing to wriggle when scooped out. His rescue involved fetching another barrow and rubber gloves, and transferring small handfuls of weed to the next barrow. I ended up with a cross frog swimming around in the barrow. He was cross? What about me? Ten minutes out of precious gardening time to sort out a blooming frog.
VARIETIES ARE THE SPICE OF LIFE
You’d think the owner of a fantastic climbing rose al over one side of the house would know its name. Maybe it was planted before they moved in. They gave me two possible names, so I had a 50% chance of picking the right one. I checked with book and website pictures before buying four for our pergola. “Climbing Lady Hillingdon” sounded so promising – a class act with plenty of vigour. It turned out that they had loose, floppy, short-lived flowers, and refused to send out new shoots from the base. They were a waste of space for years and have now been flung out. To avoid rose sickness in the soil I decided to re-plant with clematis. Years of beautiful displays in the future depended on choosing the right variety. The choice was between making a striking impact by buying three extra “Clematis Henryi” to match the lovely single white one already on the pergola, or add variety and maybe extend the flowering season by getting three different whites. Deciding on the “Wow!” factor rather than the sensible option, I sped off to the garden centre as soon as the new season’s clematis came in. Alas, no Henryi, but three lovely whites I already knew. My inner toddler jumped up and down, stamped and shouted “But I want to buy NOW!” Into the trolley went the three different whites, as I wondered sheepishly if this is how professional garden designers operate.
MOTHER’S VOICE
What parent would rush off home at dinnertime without checking that the youngsters come too? Ewes certainly do. They go out in the field in the daytime with their new lambs and come in at night to the sheep shed. The other day three lambs had clearly not got the measure of their feckless mothers, as they failed to notice their mothers rushing off down to the yard as soon as the Practical One opened the field gate. The Practical One, faced with fetching three clueless lambs hurtling round a large field, did his famous ewe call impression – a very deep throated “Burrrr”. Ignoring the fact that he looked nothing like a sheep, the lambs came running up to him, then caught sight of their real mothers in the distance and all ended happily.
|
|
FEBRUARY 2011
A DESTRUCTIVE FORCE
What the Prime Minister needed was Bramble, not some namby-pamby cat. Unfortunately her interest extends
to any small moving things. She has just checked out the rocks at the side of the stream for creepy crawlies. Not only did she shift all the carefully arranged rocks, but scrabbled so hard she ripped the supposedly indestructible butyl rubber pond liner. It was a nasty, wet and cold repair job in the depths of winter, and was therefore delegated to the Practical One.
KANGA-EWE
Curious to see the high-jumper in action, the Practical One put meal in the trough and watched the sheep penned in the shed. The ewe backed off, then came forward, repeating this getting lower each time, then with a flying leap she sailed over the gate, ran to the trough and began stuffing her face. Certainly not ideal behaviour for an expectant mother. The ewes have been scanned and are now grouped according to how much they are fed, as overweight ewes have problems when lambing. Those
 carrying several lambs get more than the singles. The high-jumper is expecting only one lamb, but had been grouped with the better feeders as she was a bit underweight. Due to her gate-vaulting she has attended both the medium and high calorie feed times and has rounded out nicely. Sadly she is in the wrong profession. Instead of being selected to train for the Olympics, she has been shut in a high-gated shed with the low calorie single mothers – the sheep equivalent of a health farm.
NO FISHING HERE
Google and the reference books were unanimous: this plant deeply resents being moved. The two clumps of dierama had looked gorgeous with their long flower stems arching out over the pond. ‘Angels’ Fishing Rods’ is a fitting name. One clump also arched out right across a path, blocking off a bridge. Visitors had to barge through the flower stems, or just give up and go the long way round. It had to move, and now has the usual two choices: live or die. If the latter, I hope it has the grace to do it promptly rather than sulking for a couple of seasons first.
 SAME CHOICE FOR THE CHOISYA
Google and the reference books disagreed on this one. “Can be pruned hard.” “ Do not cut back into bare wood.” With a big out-of-control bush encroaching on the lawn, it was no time to be risk averse. A friend claimed hers survived a similar fierce attack, so let’s hope the choisya responds to tough love.
DANGER TIME IN THE POLYTUNNEL
All through the ice age in December my cuttings snuggled toastily in the covered heated propagating bench in the polytunnel. By mid-February the tops of the white marguerites were crowding each other and the roots were coming out of the pots. Potted on, these tender fledglings must live in the main polytunnel during the next few weeks of winter weather. At the end of May they will replace the tulips in the boxes round the wedding gazebo, and will flower all summer. The polytunnel gives little protection from night-time temperatures, so I cover the pots with fleece on cold nights, draped over link stakes. A series of mild nights had been no problem, then at 10.30 one rainy night I heard
the weatherman saying the skies would clear and there would be a frost. Warm and dozy and ready for bed, I had to put on the Practical One’s head torch and stumble out in the rain to the polytunnel to tuck the marguerites up for the night in their fleece. Blooming gardening…
|
|
|
Back
to top
|
|
