Category Archives: garden plans

May Day morning

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P1210840Every morning I take a quick tour of the garden — quick because the garden’s very small, and also because I am usually against the clock with a school run, dog run and my run (10k three days away!), to do before my working day can start.

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P1210842Every day the garden looks a little different. Sometimes the changes are startling — the geraniums have grown by how much!? — and sometimes so slight that I am the only one who notices them. Yesterday morning’s visit revealed the latter sort of change. And try as I might, I found it impossible to take a photograph that captured the thrill I felt on spotting the gently rumpled appearance of the patch where I sowed my chard seeds.

The disturbance on the soil’s surface can mean only one thing: the tiny seeds are waking up and delicious stalks of the aptly named ‘Bright Lights’ are on their way. But really, from any distance further than a nose-length, the hessian sack in which they are growing still looks like nothing more than a patch of empty soil.

So the following photos, taken yesterday morning, May Day, will have to do instead.

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P1210852I’m very excited about these seedlings with their straight, stout stems. They are  Velvet Queen, one of two varieties of sunflower that I’m experimenting with. I’ll thin them out and put them into individual pots until I know exactly where they are to grow. Not sure how they will take the disturbance, but I’ve been caught out by the weather, lack of pots and the fact that work needs to be done around the boundaries of the garden.

at last…

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P1210770…spring has sprung!

P1210766Things are finally happening in the garden: the Amelanchier is now in bloom, the first of the tulips is up — a hanger-on from last year, and the only one in the pot to put in a repeat performance (I thought it worth leaving them by way of an experiment).

P1210759The little clump of violets — which were a freebie, left in a bag attached to a neighbour’s railings — has bulked up and is twice the size it was last year. I am hoping that it will form a mat around the base of the rose, William Lobb, with which it shares bed.

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P1210748And in the pop-up green house the rocket and sweet pea seedlings are racing away, with runner beans, climbing courgettes (more of which in a later post), cobea scandens (alba and purple varieties), and coriander not far behind.

I’m sorry posts have been rather thin on the ground. I’ve been tied up with the project I mentioned in an earlier post, and on top of that the Bristol 10K is looming. I have become a slave to running and the 5th of May feels very, very close. The time I had in mind for the race (there is no escaping the fact that it is a race, it seems) is, I fear, woefully optimistic. As with the climbing courgettes, more on running anon.

taking stock

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P1210209Amazing what a dose of even fairly weak sunshine can do for one’s spirits.

P1210205Every year I spend much of January and February trying not to look at the garden. When I do, I am filled with despair: I simply can’t believe that it will ever look nice again. Back in October I dug up almost everything at the bottom of the garden to make way for new raised beds and a pond, and this section looks particularly bleak at the moment.

P1210223But Sunday’s sunshine tempted me outside. The novelty of feeling the warmth of the sun on my back and being able to wear only one jumper rather than three, meant that I spent most of Sunday afternoon pottering in the garden — my first proper session in the garden.

It looked pretty desolate, but it was good to face up to the ravages of winter and my total neglect. And after an hour or two of methodical pruning, cutting, raking and mulching, most   of the garden had sprung back into focus.

My thoughts had snapped into focus as well, and I now have a plan for those empty beds.

P1210194For now, I’ve cordoned off the area with chicken wire to protect the few remaining plants from the rampaging dog, and to be honest it looks worse than it did before. But in a week or two things should start shaping up.

In the pop-up green house, I was delighted to see that the first of my sweet peas are emerging and tiny little dots of green on black, damp soil tell me that my rocket and
cut-and-come-again lettuces are on their way too.

P1210237By five o’clock it was chilly again, so I kicked off my boots and finished these mittens (ravelled here). And despite today’s sunshine, it was cold enough to wear them.

veg street

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veg streetHaving spent the last week with my head in her new book, Veg Street, Grow Your Own Community, I rang Naomi Schillinger this morning in order to check a few things before writing this review. It was meant to be a quick call, just five minutes or so, but forty minutes later when I rang off, I realised that a quick chat is a vain hope once two gardeners, or obsessives of any kind, for that matter, get going. There is always more to discuss.

Naomi is fabulously enthusiastic about gardening, and our not-so-little chat was illuminating in many ways. Not least on the question of how she managed to get so many people in her community, many of whom were strangers to her as well as to each other, to start growing vegetables en masse. But, having spoken to Naomi, although I remain impressed that over 100 households are now involved in her scheme, I’m no longer surprised: her energy and her passion for growing vegetables is infectious. Every neighbourhood could do with a Naomi. Sadly that isn’t possible, but her book is certainly the next best thing to having Naomi at your side.

The book (and the community scheme) is the result of Naomi’s decision to turn her sunny front garden over to growing vegetables having been defeated by the shade in her back garden. And as anyone who has ever spent time pottering in a front garden will know, before long passers by will stop for a chat and a little update on what you’re growing. Naomi’s success with runner beans, leeks and lettuces attracted just this sort of attention, and neighbours began to follow her lead. Fast forward four years to last summer, and the front gardens of Naomi’s neighbourhood were brimming with beans, courgettes, potatoes and sweet corn, along with all the usual front garden fare.

Although Veg Street is, at its heart, the story of Naomi’s neighbourhood gardening scheme (and she’s generous when it comes to information on how to set up something similar), the book is by no means limited to community gardening. In fact the emphasis is really on gardening in small spaces: from front gardens to balconies, grow bags to window boxes.

Organised month by month, with seasonal task lists, detailed directions on planting and propagating, as well as regular ‘simple but brilliant’ ideas (the paddling pool plant watering system is particularly inspired), Veg Street manages to be both down to earth and inspiring. I’d recommend the book to anyone who has ever wanted to grow fruit and vegetables, but has either felt overwhelmed by the prospect, or simply frustrated by lack of space. The list of edible flowers in particular, is fantastic: I had no idea that you could eat hollyhock flowers or daylilies.

wigwamIt’s safe to say that Veg Street has reignited my interest in growing vegetables. After last year’s dismal weather, I’d rather given up on the idea of trying to grow anything to eat in my garden. In the picture above you can see what became known to me as the wigwam of doom — erected last spring in a moment of heady optimism, it remained bare throughout the summer as successive bean seedlings were devoured by slugs.

But Naomi has convinced me to try again, and on her recommendation, I raced out to Wilkinson’s last week and bagged a mini greenhouse. At the weekend I filled it with trays of seeds. And inspired by Naomi’s success with growing potatoes in containers, I’ve ear-marked an old metal dustbin for just this purpose. I shall keep you posted on my progress. And until then I’d suggest that you track down a copy of Naomi’s book and pay a visit to her blog, Out of My Shed (she’s running a giveaway, hurry, hurry, hurry!)

fallow*

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anemoneIn January, I embarked on an interesting project with two friends, which will run until July. It’s strange to have a formal structure to my week after so many years in which my work has come in fits and starts with lengthy lulls between the deadlines. I can’t write about it in great detail because, although it’s not a secret or particularly special, the project isn’t entirely mine, so it wouldn’t feel right to air it here until we’ve finished. Enough to say that it’s rewarding and painful in equal measure, and doesn’t leave me with much spare time. Something has had to give, and I’m afraid it’s been the blog.

But this post is by no means “over and out!”, more an explanation of the fallow state of my corner of the internet.

P1190966I began writing here, nearly three years ago, in order to record the life of my small city garden. Naturally enough, as with most other blogs I read, its remit quickly expanded; but the garden was always there in one form or another —  a bunch of flowers, a newly planted bed, rose petal jam. But in January the garden was asleep and so it felt like an appropriate moment to take time out from blogging regularly.

P1190968Actually, the garden wasn’t entirely asleep: these Anemone de Caen, which I planted in an old wine crate last spring, have been flowering, one or two at a time, since late October.

Over the last week other things have started to emerge and the usual gloom I feel about the garden at this time of year is lifting. My mood was given a further boost by the arrival of a really wonderful and incredibly inspiring book: Veg Street Grow Your Own Community by Naomi Schillinger, whose blog Out of my Shed is one that I have long admired. I’m off to read it now, over a cup of coffee and, as the sun is out, I might even venture into the garden with pen and paper and make a few plans.

I will post a proper review of the book later in the week, but for now I’ll just say that I cannot recommend her blog highly enough, and I feel sure that I’ll be saying the same about her book.

* Hoping that, as with farm land left to lie fallow, there will be increased productivity later in the year!

yeo valley organic garden

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So the soil arrived late on Monday afternoon, on the third attempt. The sack is currently upside down in the road, and I am hoping that it won’t rain too heavily between now and Saturday, which is when I’ll be able to start shifting it down to the garden. I couldn’t bear it if it was all washed away down the hill by a river of rainwater. Mustn’t think about it. Better to think about how the bottom of the garden will look when the soil is in and I have replanted everything I had to dig up to make way for the new beds and pond.

And with that in mind, I’ve been looking through the photographs I took three weeks ago when I visited The Yeo Valley Organic Garden (links to their site here and here) on their last open day of this year (next year’s season is a little longer, with visits from April 25th to October 29th). The two image above are from the cutting garden which I imagine is all but over now, though the beds filled with dahlias and cleome were still looking strong.

Although I love seeing gardens in high summer, I find I learn more from visits made when gardens are just waking up or heading into decline – spring and late autumn. It’s easier to spot the plants that might help hold my garden together during the lean months when most of the stars of summer are dormant or dying.

At Yeo Valley Organic Garden I was particularly struck by the huge drifts of echinops and verbena bonariensis, which were threaded through with lower growing grasses such as stipa tenuissima and ribbons of sedum and echinacea.

              Now all I have to do is work out how to make it work on a far tinier plot…

I’d really love to visit this garden again during the winter; I imagine that it will still look stunning. It’s a shame that this isn’t an option, though I expect low visitor numbers at that time of year make it impractical. I must add that as well as the gravel garden and the cutting garden there is a large meadow, which looked completely magical even on an overcast day, a formal garden – the bronze garden – with a large pond, and much else besides. Oh and a lovely, lovely restaurant selling the most delicious cakes.

local colour

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Every year I am completely bowled over by the colours of autumn, and this year is no exception. Yesterday, as I walked from Montpelier to Cotham, I was struck by the beauty of two plants in particular: Boston Ivy and Virginia Creeper.

Both plants are very vigorous and can be difficult to keep under control. However, their natural tendency to drape themselves artfully around architectural details or hang from windows and walls like bunting, makes up for their unruly behaviour.

I have some Virginia creeper growing at the bottom of the garden, which I wrote about here, and I plan to tempt it along a stretch of fence which runs above our new pond.

And talking of the pond, this was supposed to be a post about the changes we’ve made to the bottom of the garden, but progress has stalled due to a failed attempt to deliver  a ton of top soil. As I write this I am waiting for the arrival of a smaller truck. Hmmm. Ten minutes to go until the three hour ‘delivery window’ is up, and it’s not looking good.

out of bounds

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Exciting things are happening at the bottom of the garden. We are not allowed outside.

Or rather, I am but Sybil is most definitely not. Trenches are being dug, large sleepers are being lugged around and paving slabs are stacked a little too conveniently against a neighbour’s wall. Sybil cannot be trusted. Given half a chance she will either a) hop over the wall, b) get squashed or c) dig to Australia. Or all three, but in a slightly different order.

She’s grounded for the week and feeling tragic. I am busy tweaking planting plans.

benign neglect

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The garden has been getting along very well without me. It looks a little crazy here and there, but I rather like it like that. And anyway, in just eight weeks’ time, the tree at the bottom will be cut down (!) and the whole of that section of the garden will be redesigned.

There is no real incentive to keep on top of everything else with major earthworks looming. That’s my excuse anyway. And besides, up until recently, it has been too wet to work on the garden, and now it’s far too hot. And as you can see from the photograph above, my plan to have runner beans growing in the middle of the herbaceous planting completely failed – the slugs got to my seedlings twice and I’m afraid I gave up. Instead I have two empty wigwams, sad reminders of what might have been. Elsewhere the roses have gone slightly bonkers, stems stretching several feet in the air with nothing to cling to – I think I might leave them that way and see what happens. Actually that’s a lie, I’d like to think that I would do that, but really I will probably consult a rose book and then decide what to do.

But there have been some successes. My original plan for the garden – which is now just over a year old – was to be able to have some form of cutting garden. A rather grand idea for a plot as small as mine (45ft x 18 or so), and obviously a cutting garden in the true sense would be completely inappropriate, but what I wanted was lots of colour, and enough of everything so that I could happily pick a vase a day, if I wanted to, without leaving sad gaps. And by using lots of billowy geraniums it’s been surprisingly easy.

But my star plant at the moment, currently filling the kitchen with the scent of honey, is not one that I had actually chosen in order to pick its flowers: Buddleja davidii “Black Knight”. An unexpected choice for the vase, I admit, but it looks gorgeous with the bronze fennel flowers – the bunch is bulked out with some sedum, verbena bonariensis and my allium Sphaerocephalon, bought on a whim from Peter Nyssen because they were so incredibly cheap (£1.50 for 25 – I’ll be planting more this autumn).

And finally, whilst picking my Buddleja stems I found a plant I thought I’d lost – the lovely Clematis Madame Julia Correvon, she’s made it up the back fence, behind the buddleja and up through the tangle of my neighbour’s jasmine.

parrots

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The parrot tulips are looking weird and wonderful as they emerge, and, as with all the other tulips I planted, I have no idea what any of them are. Why didn’t I just make a note or, better still, stick a little label in the ground when I planted the damn things? But having spent half and hour or so on the Peter Nyssen website, I think the flowers above, and in the second photo down below, are Rococo while this next one is probably Fantasy.

I can see that one batch at the bottom of the garden has been destroyed by the dog, and I have a horrible feeling that they must be Black Parrot which I was really looking forward to seeing. It seems that I planted them along one of Sybil’s little routes and all the flowers were slightly damaged as they emerged. While we were away last week and the dog in kennels, they made some progress, and I returned to find that their heads were finally clear of their slightly ragged leaves. But that was before Sybil had been released from mutlins. Now that she’s home and back to her old tricks, they’re nothing more than a mushy green carpet in the mud. I’ve salvaged one or two flower heads and put them in wine glasses on the window sill, ever hopeful that they will do that magical thing that tulips do and stretch up and out when the flowers finally open. We’ll see.

It was interesting looking around the Nyssen website this morning, as I can now see various tulips I overlooked – Cairo, in particular – and I now realise that ordering both Barcelona and Don Quichotte and planting them together was a bit of a mistake: both are almost identical before they open, and they appear at the same time. Once picked and in the vase it’s easier to work out which is which, and I think the pink explosion in background of my last post is probably Barcelona whilst the flower below is Don Quichotte.