Sale time

This little lot has just cost me £10 - 20 plants at 50 pence each from Wyvale, Swindon. Delphiniums, ten coreopsis in different colours, a county ground cover rose rose (Lancashire, I'll be in trouble), pittospermum, tamarix, pelargonium, oleander, barbed wire bush, and cuphea. Not to mention a few other things half price, including an actinidia kolomikta.All at peak flowering, and all perennial so will stay around for a few years yet. Why pay more?
By the way, can you see the cat?

Talking points

A lot of people asked what this plant above is - one even asked why I had put foam rubber on top of a stick. It is of course the seedhead from last year's bulrushes, which the birds, especially goldfinches, use for nest-building.

One commented on the amsonia, above, as the most unusual plant in the village. Another plantaholic. Unfortunately a second one did not survive the winter.

A tiny hosta, hosta venusta, sitting next to a fivepenny piece. (That reminds me of a 1960s folk group). No flowers yet.

And finally, a little girl was looking for a fairy flag. She beautifully translated the elvish writing on this himalayan prayer flag. If the family are reading this, let me know where the idea came from and went to!

The rambling rose Rambling Rector is just beginning to come into flower. It will be stunning on Wednesday next. The white foxgloves in the foreground have been stunning. and this problem bed is showing promise.
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Bhutanese Buddhist prayer flags give height to the back. The really need to have thick bamboo poles 20 foot high, but I managed 15 foot by fixing together two 8 foot poles. The yellow is mine, from my birth year, and represents earth. Very appropriate. Its usually on my knees. The year of the rat. Jean's is red for fire, the year of the pig. In the foreground is a bridge over the bog garden, finished yesterday. We have six natural springs in the garden.
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The purple weigela has produced an interesting sport. I have tried to root it for two years, without great success. These shoots look more robust and I will try again, but will also try a dry layering on the branch.
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This viola in the viola display is named Nelly after my mother, who is a customer of Victorian Violas, Chelsea medal winners in Lincoln, who named new crosses after various customers, . It is a robust plant with pastel colouration. We also have from the same company Isobel, our niece's name.
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Finally these bamboo cane tops we found in Spetchley Gardens Plant Fair. This dormouse is fantastic, and we have a merecat, butterfly, owl and bear.

Garden Opening 12 June

Brilliant hot day today with about 80 visitors. Here are the hostas on display. Most we have had for several years, but were not in flower. On Tuesday we found half price hostas in flower at Wyvale Gard Centre. Two in flower just finished off the display. There is some slug/snail damage, but not much. The plands are on gravel in pots, and pots have been sprayed with WD40. Snails hate it.

Next to the hostas are alpines in pots, Jean's passion. Space in the alpine bed ran out long ago. Here are the pots, with violas behind which gives a colourful display.

A scarecrow theme ran through the village. We put up a Himalayan tea picker theme, using Buddhist prayer flags bought recently from Bhutan, a shalwar shamez we bought at a bazaar in Lahore, and an umbrella from China. We saw this scene in Bhutan many times. The bushes are lonicera nitida, trimmed to resemble tea trees. The hat was bought in Bali (we think...)  On the post is a tin of Darjeeling tea, and on the bush a box of Napal tea sent to me by a Nepalese student. The flags are blue (water), white (air), red (fire), green (vegetation), yellow (earth). The prayer is for an integrated understanding.

Pieris

A nice shot from six weeks ago. Our alkaline soil cannot grow  acid lovers so this Pieris tree is a treat in our village. It grows in an ericacious bed from which lime is kept out of the top 18 inches. These gorgeous leaves start in April. There are three Pieris in the bed in total.

Garden Opening minus 2

Last opening time (2008) the rose Paul's Himalayan Musk  was glorious (see pictures below). This time, same weekend, not a flower. Two days of sun should do it so Wednesday perhaps. Too late. Still we say we are tidy for one weekend every two years and we are not far off, if tidy is interpreted vaguely. A last minute effort with lawnmower and strimmer should make a difference. This year, there is a scarecrow theme - see later post. The picture above is one the punters won't see - the crab apple which flowered a month ago. Now the flowers are white Wisteria sinensis, who was first discovered (I am reading) by John Fortune in Ning-po, China, around 1840, and the rambling rose Rambling Rector. Thw wiateria is on the way out, the rose just starting. I will take a photo tomorrow.

Pocket Handkerchief Tree

The Davidia discovered by Pere David in China (or Pocket Handkerchief Tree) produced its bracts in May for the first time (although we noticed a few two years ago). Situated near the road, it looked spectacular from the road. Trimmings root easily as hardwood cuttings (use them as plant supports and you will have a baby tree next year. Expect bracts in 15 years.

Garden open June 12-13 2010

Working hard to get ready for the open weekend...

March 19th

This is when beds are dug over, noxious weeds removed, to get us ready for planting. A lovely sight. This is the bed we optimistically call Hidcote. To the right, Sweet Williams have survived the winter.


The spring flowers are doing well, daffodils a bit slow but primroses and anemones are doing well. And almost Easter and the snowdrops still looking wonderful. These ones are galanthus flore plene (the double flowered form).

Wildlife

Small birds took a hammering in the heavy frosts - a sudden disappearance of tits, sparrows, wrens etc. The frogs have failed to arrive in the pond this year - for the first year since we arrived here in 1983. Normally there are hundreds, starting around March 10th but for several years spawn has not been maturing. Maybe it is the late winter. Spotted the first brimstone butterflies a few days ago.

Garden waste recycling.

I helped a neighbour this morning put brambles into a green recycling poly bag. The thorns of course punctured the bag and only a small pile filled the sack. Another neighbour has ten sacks outside his gate. Whoever thought up the green bag garden recycling scheme was not a gardener. Whatever fits in a green bag would go on my compost heaps (I have 6) and whatever won't go on my heaps will not go in little green sacks, like branches of trees. I shred what I can, but...
At my mother's house in Lincolnshire, houses who need them are given a large green bin just like the black refuse bins. A friend in Leicestershire gets the same, but in brown. Then you can chop branches up to go in and not have to resort to a garden bonfire.
It is important to recycle not only to reduce smoke (though to be fair barbecues are more persistent smoke/smell producers) but to return organic matter to to impoverished soil. Bonfires reduce soil's goodness to ash, which grows nothing. A plant is made of the goodness taken out of the soil, and this needs to be returned. Councils can compost in bulk what individuals cannot handle.
So, councils, instead of littering the green compost we buy from you with bits of green polythene, consider a proper garden waste collection system to reuse this valuable resource.

Slugs and snails.

The gardens were infested with slugs and snails. If you walked on a wet night you could hear the scrunch on trampled shells. So 10 years ago I went out on damp nights with a torch and bagged all I could see. At first I captured many hundreds, until numbers finally dropped to single figures. Numbers have been manageable since. I now bag them when I see them. If you release them back to the wild, for the thrushes, find a wilderness rather than cause someone else a problem. I occasionally use Doff 'Slug Attack' white pellets (child and pet friendly) sprinkled thinly to protect new plants, which works. I have found that hostas planted in clay pots sprayed with WD40 works wonderfully as slugs and snails will not climb up (but beware overhanging foliage). The new treatment is to use garlic - either or both to plant garlic cloves in your bed of susceptible plants; and to boil a few cloves in 2 pts of water, bottle the water and add a half cup to a 2 gallon watering can to water any plants in danger. Google slug + garlic and you will see it has been researched. Slugs and snails seem to smell plants they enjoy, but cannot through the garlic. Garlic deters slugs, and may also prevent them thriving and be the basis of future organic treatments. Good luck.

Wildlife

Star of the open weekend was the pond with a colony of newts (not Great Crested). Also dragonflies and other smaller mayflies are common. Click on both pictures for best effect.

Phygelius and penstemon

This phygelius, Winchester Fanfare, is one of our few happy phygelius plants, growing in a small pot with roots going through into clay. I might try treating others like this - it seems to contain it too. The penstemon ovatus is a survivor from a penstemon collection which has not been overjoyed with our soil. More on penstemon's later.

The next phase

This is the stage 2 project - two natural springs provide boggy conditions beyond the little veg patch. Now overgrown, it is hiding the greenhouse (Hartley Botanic, 17x12 foot, my wife's 60th birthday present) about which more later. The bog is full of yellow iris, hemerocallis and bullrush, with a couple of Gunnera manicata, one 25 years old but still quite small in spite of having its feet in water.

Paul's Himalayan Musk

The star of recent weeks is the rambling rose Paul's Hamalayan Musk, climing through and old apple tree, the last survivor of an apple orchard. So this tree flowers twice and produces cooking apples.

Rambling Rector

The rose Rambling Rector grows on an Agriframe tunnel but has escaped into a flowering malus, as has a white wisteria, so the tree flowers three times in different months. The rose Salmon Leap is growing through the canopy.

The garden at a glance

The garden is about three quarters of an acre, with varied conditions and soils. The best is loam, the worst solid clay. Situated on a hill, it is terraced which provides the opportunity to create rooms on different levels. It is not kept 'tidy' because it is a habitat for friendly wildlife, with seed heads and not a few good looking wild flowers, including a rarely seen white form of Herb Robert (geranium robertianum). A weekend bird-count came to 40 species. We collect plants so use soil space to the full. I am retiring from full-time work, which has provided time to get started. Here are pictures of the back and the front.