6th July 2015

I've been clipping topiary morning, noon and night. I don't mind at all - in fact, I love it. 

I love the smell of the first cut. Every plant smells different when it is clipped. Yew smells sweet, box smells at once sharp and musky and lonicera smells.....planty. 

I love the artistry and the chance to express myself in a way that is different entirely to any other sculptural practice or horticultural practice (not that I've ever tried bonsai ~ I'm not sure I fancy bonsai ~ it seems a little odd).

I love dangling precariously, higher than the ladder will go - one foot on the highest rung, the other kicked behind me in some strange clumpy-booted ballet move. 

I love standing back and trying to be objective about the 'cutting edge' (ha ha, groan) decisions I have made with my shears. 

.......and I love my shears. 

They are new, they are precious and they are treated like royalty......although I am not sure that the Queen is sprayed liberally with WD40 before being put to bed......hang on, have I just stumbled upon her secret?

I have just finished my own home topiary. Mature lonicera nitida hedges have been seriously attacked. 

I couldn't make up my mind about the ultimate, finished look ('finished' will probably be in at least 3 years) so the 3 sections of hedge will have 3 different aesthetics. 

The 1st hedge is formal. A hint of a buttress, smoothly clipped, straight sides and a level top crowned with (what will eventually be) pom poms.....or snails or curled up cats or Axl Rose in bust form.....

The 2nd hedge has a quirkier (for want of a better word) concept. I want it to look like a row of terraced houses but each house has a different architectural design. I want the end result to look a little like Diagon Alley.....and if you don't know of the alley to which I refer.....poor, poor you. 

The 3rd hedge lends itself nicely to cloud hedging. - I hope that in a couple of years it will look billowing and tranquil not like I just attacked it with careless abandon. 

I have told my husband that if any of the 3 hedges look awful in a year I will change them. 

And therein lies the beauty of topiary - you can change it. It is like living play dough. 

We've passed the halfway point ~ 27th June 2015

The most frantic section of the gardening year is over......in theory. 

Most plants - annuals, vegetables, tomatoes, dahlias etc - are in their permanent summer season positions and growing healthily. 

Topiary has been clipped. 

Harvesting has begun. 

Many flowers are looking their best. 

The hard work now involves maintaining flowers, colour, structure, health and vitality all the way through until the first frosts strike us in (hopefully) late Autumn or early winter. 

I will be deadheading, watering, staking, tying in, weeding, feeding, nurturing, harvesting, edging, coaxing and pest-controlling for the foreseeable future. I will try to take a few minutes here and there to stop, look around me and feel happiness and satisfaction.....before I scurry off to repeat the tasks listed above! Shampoo, rinse, repeat......

Under control ~ Spring 2015

Everything appears to be under control! Who would have thought it! Spring has been kind so far but one can never rule out late May frosts. 

A late May frost at this stage in fruit, vegetable and annual flower production would be more than a little frustrating so I keep an almost obsessive watch on the weather forecasts. 

Any predicted frosts in the near future would involve me scurrying around to protect all the young plants that have recently been placed outside in order to 'harden off' (acclimatise to the weather conditions that they will have to experience over the course of a British summer ~ and we all know that a British summer can throw anything at you!). I either return them indoors or arrange a temporary cover for them. Horticultural fleece, cloches or similar. 

I will then leap into my car and repeat the process at the other gardens that I tend. Much scurrying!

No late frosts please weather people. The weeds are coming thick and fast and climbers need tying in before they look floppy or scruffy so I simply haven't the time! 

Other mid Spring tasks include assembling plant supports for the rapidly growing perennials. This is one of my favourite jobs. I enjoy weaving the supports (see a previous blogpost) and I greatly look forward to putting them all in place. They look smart, lend an organised air to a border plus one knows that very shortly they will be providing much needed support to peonies, foxtail lilies, delphiniums - and then further on in the summer - taller Salvias and penstemons. 

Job satisfaction☀️

Willow weaving......of sorts....in a rudimentary fashion

Every year in March I coppice one willow tree. This one willow tree produces the most vividly coloured stems.

I sort the stems into different lengths in the potting shed......

 ....... and then it's a race against time to use it all up before it is too brittle to bend. 

So, over the course of the next month or so you will find me weaving frantically to produce structures that will have various uses in the garden.

This year so far I have made two hazel and willow wigwams for runner beans and other climbing legumes......

.....and about 500 million (that's what it feels like!) circular plant supports. These supports are designed to sit above a growing herbaceous plant in Spring ~ think open top stool. The willow circle sits on 3 or 4 bamboo cane legs, which are plunged into the ground around the plant. As the herbaceous plant grows upwards in Spring it passes through the circular top piece. Come late Spring or Summer, when the plant is really going for it and producing loads of flowers (hopefully), the circle of willow will provide support to stop it flopping over should the flowers or the rain showers prove too heavy.

Here are the 500 million plant supports in storage. I will be putting them in place in over the coming weeks. - I am aiming for 750 million. (In reality ~ as aposed to my little fantasy gardening world ~ there are probably 25 or so). 

Willow is wonderful to work with. It is gloriously bendy when first harvested. With practice I hope to be able to weave much more impressive structures.

Last year I managed a couple of spheres. This one has been outside for nearly a year and is still looking fairly smart. It looked great with wild flowers growing up though it during summer 2014. 

More than anything willow is just so wonderfully pretty when it is newly harvested, brutally manipulated and set against the bluest of blue skies. 

Or freshly mulched soil

It is well worth having a go. I highly recommend an RHS short course. Go on, look it up at www.rhs.org.uk. You will never look at a willow tree in the same light again.........you will be staring at it, probably with head askance, pondering all the gloriously practical things you will be bending the stems into. 

24th March 2015

It has been a really, really pretty day

Happy gardener. 

A different view on this whole blogging malarkey

A recent visit to Bletchley Park - home to the Enigma code breakers during WW2 - has inspired me to rethink my blogposts. 

My Grandmother was one of the women who worked at Bletchley Park but she shared very, very little of her experience there with us, her family, and this has been more than a bit frustrating. We managed to find out where she worked (Block E if you're interested - communications - she would have been listening to information on headphones, typing what she heard and passing it on) but we know absolutely nothing about her day-to-day life. 

One of the Turing bombes used to decipher German codes during WW2 ^

From now on I will be writing my blogposts with two aims in mind:

1 ~ To show existing and potential clients that I have sound horticultural knowledge and acres of practical experience

2 ~ To speak to my (hopefully!) future grandchildren - to show them that their old Grandma was once (before babies, mortgages and other such responsibilities) an intrepid traveller with a strong desire to be precisely where every other tourist most definitely wasn't ~ plus being the owner of a stomach of steel.......that last bit is a lie; South Western Chinese food nearly polished me off (mainly because it was so delicious, I kept going back for more).

I kept detailed diaries throughout my times working for the great and the good of South West England....I wonder if there are any publishable nuggets.....?.....hmmmm.....I feel a novel coming on........

Spring 2015: so far so good

I could describe all of the horticultural tasks that I have undertaken so far this spring but instead I will bombard you with photos. It's prettier! 

Tending to the houseplants. 

Watching the Pelargoniums come out of their winter dormancy. 

Getting far too excited when spring bulbs break the soil surface. These are the Fritillaria imperialis 'William Rex' that arrived really late. They're doing their stuff.....eeeeeeeeeee!!!

More stunning spring bulbs around every corner!

Huge amounts of spring pruning. Whatsinmywheelbarrow? Hydrangea and Buddleja prunings. 

Colourful willow prunings. 

Here's a good photo to illustrate how to prune a Hydrangea macrophylla. Simply prune the old flower heads off, cutting back to a nice big pair of fat, green buds. 

I have already sown lots and lots of seeds and when the get to this stage they need pricking out into separate modules or pots. In this photo there are lupin, Coreopsis and Nicotiana seedlings all fighting for space. 

I have started weaving plant supports and wigwams in preparation for when the growing season kicks off in a month or so. 

I have sown onions outside......

......and garlic.......

.......and potatoes.

Summer and Autumn flowering clematis has been cut back.......

......and now I'm off for a sit down. Not for long though - it's all happening and it's beautiful.